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been.
    "You'll see," she answered cryptically, "when you
    talk to folks. I'll let you find out for yourself."
    "Fair enough," I said. "Why did she run away?"
    After a few moments thought, Rosie said, "For a
    long time I blamed myself, but I don't now."
    "For what?"
    "I live in a trailer house behind here," she said, "and
    one time after I divorced Jimmy Joe, Betty Sue found
    me in bed with a man. She took it pretty hard, but I
    don't think that's why she run off anymore. And
    sometimes I used to think she run off because she
    thought she was too good to live behind a beer joint."
    "Did the two of you have a fight before she left?"
    "We didn't have fights," Rosie said proudly. "Nothin' to fight about. Betty Sue did as she pleased, ever since she was a little girl, and I let her 'cause she was
    such a good little girl."
    "Could she have been pregnant?"
    "She could have. But I don't think she would have
    run away Jor that," Rosie said. "But then, I don't
    know." Then, in a shamed voice, she added, "We
    weren't close. Not like I was to my momma. I had to
    run the place 'cause Jimmy Joe wouldn't, most of the
    time, and when he did, he'd give away more beer than
    he sold. Somebody had to make a living, to run things."
    Then she paused again. "I guess I still blame myself but
    I don't know what for anymore. Maybe I blame her
    29
    too, still. She always wanted more than we had. She
    never said anything-she was a sweet child-but I
    could tell she wanted more. I just never knew what it
    was she wanted more of. If you find her, maybe she'll
    be able to tell me."
    "If I find her," I said, then handed her a receipt for
    the eighty-seven dollars.
    "Is that enough?" Rosie asked. "I didn't get a chance
    to count it."
    "That's plenty."
    "You give me a bill if it's more, you hear," she
    commanded.
    "It's already too much," I said. "I'll talk to this
    Albert Griffith over in Petaluma and this Mr. Gleeson
    here, and see if I can get in touch with Peggy Bain, then
    I'll bring back your change. But I'm telling you up
    front, it's a waste of money."
    "Fair enough," she said, then glanced at the receipt
    again. "What's that name? Sughrue?"
    "Right."
    "My momma had some cousins back in Oklahoma,
    lived down around Altus, I think, name of Sughrue,"
    she asked. "You got any kin down that way?"
    "l got kin all over Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas,"
    I admitted.
    "Hell, we're probably cousins," she said, then stuck
    out her hand.
    "Could be," I said, then shook her finn, friendly
    hand.
    "Folks don't understand about kinfolks anymore,"
    she said.
    "World's too big for that," I said. "I guess I'd best
    head for town to see if my other client is still alive and
    kicking."
    "Want a road beer?"
    "Sure," I said, then went to the john to make room
    for it.
    30
    When I came back, she leaned over the bar to hand
    me the beer and said, "You're a drinking man yourself.
    ,
    "Not like I used to be."
    "How come?''
    "Woke up one morning in Elko, Nevada, emptying
    ashtrays and swabbing toilets."
    "But you didn't quit," she said.
    "Slowed down before I had to quit," I said. "Now I
    try to stay two drinks ahead of reality and three behind,
    a drunk." She smiled with some sort of superior
    knowledge, as if she knew that the idea of having to
    quit drinking scared me so badly that I couldn't even
    think about it. "Would you keep an eye on· Mr.
    Trahearne's Cadillac?" I asked.
    "Get the rotor," she said, "and I'll let Fireball sleep
    in it after I close nights." After I removed the rotor
    from the distributor and closed the hood, Rosie nodded
    at my Montana plates and asked, "Don't it get cold up
    there?"
    "When it does, I just drift south," I said.
    "Must be nice."
    "What's that?"
    "Goin' where you want to," she said softly. "I ain't
    been more'n ten miles from this damned place since I
    went to my momma's funeral down in Fresno eleven
    years ago."
    "Footloose and fancy-free ain't always all it's cracked
    up to be," I confessed.
    "Neither's stayin' home," she said, then