The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley Page A

afraid I don't have the slightest notion," he
    said, then held up a finger. "Wait, I seem to remember
    that she stopped by my office to tell me that she had
    tickets at the ACT for the next night." He started to
    explain the initials, then stopped. "I'm afraid I don't
    remember what they were doing. It has been quite
    some time, you understand."
    "Too long," I admitted for the tenth time.
    "Do you mind if I inquire into your motives in this
    matter?"
    "Her mother asked me to look for her," I said.
    "Do you do this for a living? Or are you a member of
    the family?"
    "Both," I said. "I'm a cousin on her mother's side
    and a licensed private investigator."
    "Would you be insulted if I asked for some identification?"
    "Nope," I said, and took out my photostat.
    "I would have thought, from your accent," he said as
    he handed it back, "that you were from the Texas or
    Oklahoma branch of the family."
    "Texas," I said. "But they let us live just about
    anywhere we want to nowadays."
    "I see," he said. "Has there been some new information about Betty Sue that prompted her mother to hire you?"
    "Nope," I said. "I was just handy. Down here on
    another case. And both Mrs. Flowers' sons are dead
    now, and she just thought she'd like to see her baby girl
    again."
    "I don't imagine she's a baby anymore," he said,
    smiling at his own joke. "But if I were you I would get
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    in touch with her father. For reasons I don't quite
    understand-perhaps because he withheld his affection
    from her-Betty Sue had an unhealthy fixation on him.
    I would think she would have been in touch with him.
    Yes, I would look for the father," he said, then leaned
    back in his chair, sipped his drink, and sighed heavily,
    like a detective who had just broken a big, sadly
    corrupt case in an existential movie.
    My temper and my mouth had always gotten me in
    trouble. And occasionally prevented me from picking
    up the information I needed. I wanted to tell Gleeson
    to stuff his stupid advice. I also wanted to tell him to
    stuff his Time magazine analysis, and to explain what
    fixation meant, but instead of carping, I kept my mouth
    shut, my temper in hand.
    "I never had a chance to meet Betty Sue when she
    was growing up," I said, changing directions. "What
    sort of girl was she?"
    "One in a million," he answered, quickly but softly,
    then paused abruptly as if he had confessed to something. I knew I had him now.
    "Why?"
    "Why?" he whispered. "When I first saw her, she
    was playing in a grade school production of Cinderella,
    which I had to attend for reasons I don't even want to
    think about now. A simply dreadful production, even
    for grade school, and Betty Sue had been wasted in the
    fairy godmother role, but let me tell you, my friend,
    when that little girl, that mere child, was onstage, all
    the other children seemed like creatures of a lesser
    race. She had the best natural stage presence I had ever
    seen. Offstage, she wasn't anything special, a pleasantlooking child, no more, but onstage she was in charge.
    Such presence. Such a r,tatural sense of character, too. "
    He paused to chuckle. "Her fairy godmother was a
    queen, her gifts bestowed grandly on her inferiors. And
    even then, she had a frighteningly sexual presence. You
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    could almost hear the middle-aged libidos in the
    audience whimpering to be unleashed.
    "After the production, I went backstage to talk to
    her," he continued, "and found her staring with such
    awful longing eyes at the little girl who had played
    Cinderella that I gave her a lecture then and there
    about how good she had been. I'm afraid I quite lost
    control for a bit. When I finished, she looked up at me
    and said , 'It's just a prettier dress than mine, that's all. I
    wouldn't be Cinderella, anyway. I wouldn't stand for
    it.' She was nine, my friend, nine years old.
    "After that, of course, I took her in hand, and
    whenever possible I arranged my high school and Little
    Theatre productions with a role for her in mind. I