Neal took Wallace by the shoulders and spoke softly into his ear. “He’s not here, is he, Paul? I am, and the guys outside are, and you are. Now, I’m losing my patience with you.”
“He said he had friends who would find me and…” Wallace said in a hoarse whisper. He started to cry again.
“But we found you, Paul,” Neal said just as quietly. “And we’ll put that hood back over your head, and put you down on your knees, and it will be blackness for ever and ever.”
“It was about a month ago, that part was true.”
“Good…”
“At the Filly Ranch.”
“Where’s that?”
“Just off Highway 50, between Sparks and Fallon.”
Neal let him go and walked toward the door. He took two hundred-dollar bills-expense money-out of his wallet and let them drop to the floor.
“Sorry for all the trouble, Paul. Now, do you believe we could find you again if we wanted to?”
“Yessir.”
“Is there anyplace you can go now, out of state?”
“I have a sister in Arizona.”
“Go there. First thing in the morning.”
“Yessir.”
“Don’t even think about trying to warn Harley.”
“To hell with him.”
Not yet, Paul. Not until I find him.
Neal left the cabin, walked as fast as he could to the old Nova, and headed for the Filly Ranch.
It being the middle of the morning, the neon sign over the purple prefabricated building was turned off, but Neal could make out the design: a caricature cowboy with a lascivious smile and his tongue hanging out of his mouth about to “mount” a buxom lady with long hair, long legs, and a bit between her teeth.
Four trailers were parked around the place, some junker cars sat on blocks, a big butane tank shone silver in the sun behind the low, flat building. Neal Carey had never been on a ranch, but this sure as hell didn’t look like one, not even one he had seen in the movies.
He followed the path marked with white-painted stones up to the front door and rang the bell.
A short woman with curly red hair answered the door. She was wearing a high-collared western shirt, a studded denim jacket, and jeans. She had a matching turquoise necklace and bracelet on, pointy lizard cowboy boots, and the smile of a professional greeter.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Bobby. What’s your name?”
“Is this the Filly Ranch?” Neal asked her.
She caught the tone of puzzlement in his voice.
“What were you expecting, honey? Horses?”
“Sort of.”
She gave him an all-men-are-stupid-but-some-more-than-others look and said, “Listen carefully: horse, whores, horses. A female horse is a filly. We have female whores here. Get it?”
“I think so.”
“Well, do you want it?”
“How much?”
“Another romantic. Fifty dollars a ride. You want them to do tricks, it’s extra. We got a menu inside. Also air-conditioning. Also showers, which I would highly recommend to you.”
“I’ve been on the road awhile,” he explained.
“Ain’t we all.”
He followed her into a room called the corral and sat down on the orange vinyl cushion of a cheap, low sofa. The room was dark, low ceilinged, and close. A small bar ran across one side. Two nickel slot machines were shoved against the opposite wall. Various posters of horses were glued to the plaster. Lava lamps bubbled on glass coffee tables alongside an assortment of porn magazines. A potbellied cowboy with long black hair, a black hat, and sunglasses sat in a chair with his feet on a stool and a revolver in his lap. Neal made him for the bouncer.
“I’ll call the roundup,” Bobby said. She pushed a button on an intercom by the door.
“The what?” asked Neal.
“The roundup,” she repeated, sounding every bit as bored as she was, “is when we bring all the fillies into the corral so you can pick one out.”
Neal tried a hunch. “Do you have a girl named Doreen?”
“If you want one. I mean, honey, they’ll answer to any name you like, except that they do get a little spooked at ‘Mommy.’”
“I’m looking for a real Doreen.”
“A real Doreen. Well, we do have us a real Doreen. Now, how would you like her dressed? Real Doreen does your basic pink teddy and garter thing, or a kind of Annie Oakley with just the gunbelt and boots, or she does a real prim schoolmarm and makes you talk to the tune of the hickory switch, but that’s another twenty.”
Neal pulled out his wallet and handed her three twenties and a ten.
“My, my,” Bobby said.
Neal shrugged.
Bobby shook her head and spoke into the intercom. “Doreen, we have us a bad little cowboy out here who needs to stay after school with the teacher.”
She turned back to Neal.
“She won’t be but a minute,” she said. “Would you like a drink while you wait? First one’s on the house.”
“Scotch?”
“You got it.”
She poured him a drink, then reached under the bar and handed him a key, a towel, and a bar of soap.
“Trailer 3. Do yourself a favor, cowboy, shower before, this time. The schoolmarm don’t like dirty little boys.”
An unshowered Neal was sitting on the purple bedspread when Doreen opened the door and strode in. True to her billing she was carrying a switch, wore a long print dress, and had her light brown hair put up in a severe bun. She looked to be in her late twenties. She was tall and thin. She flashed her blue eyes at him in a determined, if unconvincing, display of feigned anger.
“Stand up when I come in the room!” she ordered.
“You can save the act, Doreen. I just want to talk.”
She sat down on the bed beside him. “I’m not going to tell you the story of my life, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”
At closer inspection, she was older than Neal had thought. Now he put her in her middle thirties and figured that she was developing this little specialty act to stretch out her working life by a couple of years.
“No,” Neal said. “I was hoping you could tell me something about my buddy Harley McCall.”
She leaned back and laughed.
“There is very little I couldn’t tell you about that son of a bitch,” she said. Her voice had turned hard and bitter. “But why should I?”
Neal knew right then that McCall had skipped out again.
“Why shouldn’t you, if he’s a son of a bitch?” he asked.
She looked him over.
“You’re no friend of Harley’s,” she said.
“Neither are you.”
“But that don’t make us friends.”
Neal got up from the bed and took his wallet from his pants pocket. He laid five hundred-dollar bills on the bed. “Maybe this does.”
Doreen looked at the money and gave a little snort. “After all,” she said, “I’m a whore. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Pretty much.”
“Well, you’re pretty much right.”
She scooped the bills up and stuffed them into the dress pocket.
“Harley stayed here awhile with the little boy,” she said. “That’s probably why you’re looking for him, right?”
Neal didn’t answer.
“Right,” she said. “He got a job as a bouncer on the night shift. Bobby put him and the boy up in one of the trailers in back as part of the deal. Harley and me hooked up about the second day he was here, I guess. He’s a good-looking son of a buck. I even switched over to day hours so I could baby-sit Cody nights. Fixed his meals, watched TV with him, tucked him in. It was kind of nice. I guess I had thoughts about becoming a real-life family, but it didn’t last.”
“What happened?”
“We had a black guy come in from one of the bases out around Fallon. He picked me out of the roundup. Harley got wind of it and went nuts. Got mean drunk and said things.”
“What things?”
“You want a lot for your money.”
“It’s a lot of money,” Neal answered.
“Said he just couldn’t even think about putting his thing where a nigger had put his, called me a no-good whore. I imagine he’s right. This is no kind of work for a white woman. Anyway, he packed up his stuff, put Cody in the pickup, and took off.”