Rough Country

finished, and he said to Virgil, “Goddamn. I kinda didn’t believe the story, but I’ll sign her up if I can.”
     
     
     
    THE FIRST SET LASTED forty minutes, ending with a quiet cheek-to-cheeker ballad, and then they climbed off the bandstand and Virgil saw Wendy heading straight for them. When she came up, they both stood and she asked Virgil, “This the guy?”
    “How’d you know?”
    “Daddy said you were bringing up some guy. . . .” And she said, as they sat down, and she slid in beside Virgil, “You’re Jud Windrow. I looked you up on your website.”
    “You got a nice act,” Windrow said. “Let me buy you something.”
    Chuck comped them another three beers and Windrow interviewed her about the band: who everybody was, how long they’d been playing together, how many country songs they could cover, what else they could play.
    Wendy told him about her mom dragging her around to polka fests and about singing in polka bands, and Windrow’s head was bobbing, and he was saying, “That’s good, that’s good, nothing is better than playing a lot, especially when you’re young.”
    “I was doing that—when Mom was taking me around, I was singing twice a week for two years,” Wendy said. “She was going to take me to Hollywood.”
    “What happened?” Virgil asked.
    “What happened was a guy named Hector Avila. They had an affair, and everything blew up and they took off. Went to bed one night with a mom and dad, and woke up with a dad and a note. Blew us off. Went to Arizona. Never even called to say good-bye.”
    “How old were you?” Windrow asked.
    “Nine,” she said. “It was like the end of the fuckin’ world. The Deuce cried for three days, and Dad wouldn’t talk to anybody. He went out and started the garden and worked in it day and night for two straight months and wouldn’t talk to anyone. I thought he was going to take us to an orphanage or something. Then, you know, it got better. Took time.”
    “Hard times make good singers,” Windrow said. Then, “You got a problem with your drummer.”
    Wendy winced. “I know. That can be fixed, if we can find somebody better.”
    “I got drummers,” Windrow said. “I know a female-person drummer from Normal, Illinois, who can drum your ass off, and she’s looking for a new band. The one she’s got ain’t going nowhere: they shot their bolt.”

    VIRGIL HADN’ TSEEN ZOE come in, but suddenly she was standing next to Wendy, and she said over Wendy’s head, to Virgil, “You’re so mean. I’ve been crying all afternoon.”
    “I’m sorry. I was too harsh. But I was pissed,” Virgil said.
    Zoe said to Wendy, “He says I’m still a suspect, because I’m in love with you and because I want to buy the Eagle Nest and McDill was sleeping with you and she might have bought the Eagle Nest out from under me, and . . .”
    She started to blubber, and Wendy patted her thigh and said to Virgil, “Asshole.”
    “Hey . . .”
    “You can solve the murder without being an asshole,” Wendy said.
    “That’s r-r-right,” Zoe said.
    Berni came up and said to Wendy, “Get your hand off her ass.” “Shut up,” Wendy said. “We got a problem here.”
    Zoe said to Berni, “If she wants to put her hand on my ass, she has my permission.”
    Berni backed up a step and Virgil said, “Aw Christ . . .”
    Wendy shouted, “No!”
    Berni was about to smack Zoe, and Zoe’s teeth were bared—she was ready to go, Virgil thought, as he tried to push past Wendy to get out of the booth. Wendy lurched forward and put herself between Zoe and Berni, and Virgil got out and put an arm around Zoe’s waist, and Chuck the bartender came running over and Windrow laughed out loud and cried out, “Rock ’n’ roll . . .”

    VIRGIL GOT ZOE out the door, kissed her on the forehead, and asked, “Are we made up now?”
    “No.”
    “I won’t call you a suspect again unless I’ve really got something on you,” Virgil said, which he thought was a reasonable compromise.
    “Thanks a lot, jerk,” she said.
    “Look: go home, take a Xanax, go to bed. It’ll be better in the morning.”
    “That’s right: take drugs. That’s everybody’s solution,” Zoe said. “Nobody takes responsibility for their feelings.”
    She rambled on for a while, and Virgil lost the thread, because he noticed a moth the size of a saucer flapping around one of the bar lights, and he’d always had an interest in moths. He kept nodding and watching the moth, in