Read Online Bad Country: A Novel by CB McKenzie - Free Book Online

leaning against the sink having a glass of brandy in plain view. The room was neat but it had a stench of old grease, propane gas, wet pipes and dry rot.
    You drink? the woman asked.
    Not to speak of lately, said Rodeo.
    Your parents were both drunks. Your mother was a Bad Drunk. Katherine Rocha poured another shot of Christian Brothers into a jelly jar, tossed it back and set the jelly glass down. Buck and her deserved each other.
    The old woman looked at Rodeo then rubbed knuckles the size of golf balls into her eyesockets. She poured coffee from an antique percolator and spooned sugar and nondairy creamer into her coffee cup, stirred.
    I can hire you if I want to, can’t I? the woman asked.
    If you got three hundred dollars a day plus expenses you can, Mrs. Rocha. Even though Rodeo had given her the family and friends rate, she still coughed and put her hand over her mouth, clearly shocked by this number.
    I usually stay at Arizona Motel when I work in Tucson and that’s as cheap as it gets, said the PI. Plus three meals a day and gasoline. And if you want to get your money’s worth it would help to know a few things that I can’t get from the papers or off the Internet, Mrs. Rocha.
    Things like what?
    Like who Samuel hung out with. And why he was living here instead of with his parents.
    He lived with me because his parents kicked him out and he had no place else to live but with that girlfriend of his and I don’t think she wanted him around either.
    What girlfriend was that? Rodeo asked.
    Just some trashy girl, she said. Anglo, I guess. How can you tell these days? Rings in her nose and tattoos or whatever you call it all over her. Pink hair.
    You know who this girl was?
    I don’t know anything about her, said the woman. Except she came by here one time to pick him up when I wouldn’t let him have the car. But it’s my car. I paid for it.
    Where did this girl live or work or go to school?
    She was just nasty trash that kid brought around to bother me with, the grandmother said. I never trusted that kid. He was just as worthless as Alonzo.
    And Alonzo is your son? And Samuel’s father?
    Yeah. We know whose padre was that kid’s at least. Since they are both of no account.
    What do you mean by that, Mrs. Rocha?
    The old woman drank her coffee to keep her mouth shut. Rodeo proceeded.
    So Samuel was living with you because his parents kicked him out. Why did they kick him out, Mrs. Rocha?
    That kid was bad, she said. Her eyes got misty. But his mother had another child. A good child … The voice of the old woman trailed off. Rodeo waited, but no more words from her seemed forthcoming.
    I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Mrs. Rocha … said Rodeo. But you don’t seem all that cut up about your grandson, so I’m curious why you are even interested in me investigating Samuel’s death.
    Katherine Rocha stared at Rodeo. Her eyes were obsidian, almost unnaturally dark from iris to eyelid. Rodeo had to look away from the old woman’s gaze.
    You sound like Buck, she said. But you don’t look like him.
    Rodeo nodded because he did sound as his father did, exactly. Their voices were the same, father and son, though they were different men.
    Do you have children? the woman asked.
    No ma’am. I don’t. Rodeo said this with some hesitation, but the woman did not notice.
    Well, you’re lucky then, because I had nine children with my husband but not one of them pretty or smart or good in rodeo or Indian dancing or sports or school or married good … And then we had her, a perfect little child finally. That was the saddest day of my life …
    The woman stopped and took in a deep breath as if she had run out of oxygen, then put a fist on her breastbone as if to calm her heart. She pointed to her refrigerator, where there was Scotch-taped a studio photo in a cardboard frame of a little girl with obviously dyed blond hair and fake blue eyes staring in an animated way into the camera, her baby teeth like