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“It’s a Bob Wills number, ain’t it?” he said.
“I don’t know, Troyce,” she replied.
“‘Cimarron,’ that’s what it is,” he said.
“I got to go to the restroom. I really don’t feel good.”
But Troyce had spent a lifetime reading lies in other people’s faces. “Did that actor upset you? Tell me the truth. I’m not gonna hurt him. You got my word. But tell me what’s going on here.”
“I got the headspins, that’s all. I don’t know what it is.”
She got up unsteadily from the table and walked between the dance floor and the groups of people drinking at the bar. The actor was facing the bar, talking to his friends. When he saw her approach, he stepped away from them into her path. “Decide to join us?” he said.
“Tell the guy playing the bottle-neck guitar that Troyce Nix is here. Tell him to get his ass out the back door,” Candace said.
“That’s J. D. Gribble. He’s a quiet, gentle guy. I think you’ve got him mistaken for somebody else.”
“I don’t know his name. If you like your friend, take him somewhere else, you hear me?” she said.
“What’d he do?”
“You asked if Troyce was in an accident. The accident was the guy up there on the bandstand.”
The actor raised his eyebrows and set his drink on the bar. His cheeks were slightly sunken, his jaw well defined, his eyes clear as he looked at her. “I’d like to help,” he said. “But it’s not my business.”
She walked away, not surprised by the actor’s unwillingness to involve himself in the plight of another, but oddly depressed just the same. When she returned from the restroom, the actor was still looking at her. “I did it,” he said.
“Did what?”
“What you said. I did it. But I don’t think J.D. could hear me over the noise. He was toking on a jay earlier. I tried. What’s your last name?”
“Why?”
“You’re fucking beautiful is why.”
“It’s my tattoos and the pits in my skin that turn men on,” she replied.
When she sat back down with Troyce, he was looking at her strangely. “Were you talking with that actor again?”
“He said I was beautiful.”
“He’s got good judgment.”
“My stomach’s not right. I’d like to go back to the motel,” she said.
“You’re jerking me around about something. I just don’t know what it is,” he replied.
“You ever hear of Looney Larry Lewis?”
“No.”
“He was a black roller-derby star in Miami. He told me I was the only girl he ever met who was as crazy as he was. He meant it as a compliment. I can’t finish my food.”
Troyce put down his knife and fork and sat back in his chair. He wiped his mouth with a paper towel and dropped the towel on the table. “I’ll get a box,” he said.
CLETE PURCEL CALLED me on his cell phone just after nine P.M. I had not seen him all day. Since he had become involved with Special Agent Rosecrans, which in Clete’s case meant in the sack and in trouble, I had seen less and less of him.
“I’m in the parking lot of a joint on the two-lane in East Missoula. I could use some backup,” he said.
