Whirligig

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  “I’m sure,” André said, wishing he hadn’t stopped in. He didn’t even feel like a drink. “Take care,” he said and walked out to the street. The old man inside looked hurt and then returned to polishing his glass, remembering the sun of Marbella.

  André paused on the curb, looking about, not seeing any of his friends or even acquaintances. One lousy day gone from Barcelona and everybody’s disappeared, he thought bitterly; one miserable day out of town and even all the bartenders have changed jobs. Incredible! Well, what now? Another bar? Or Manuela’s place? Manuela’s, he decided and started off in that direction. And after the whorehouse he would sign on a ship and get as far away from Paris and Barcelona and Kek and Sanchez and everyone else as he could. What a laugh, his thinking he could simply walk down the street and people would force information on him! Kek should have given him a job requiring muscle, or even skill with his hands, and it would have been done. But a job like this, requiring not only brains but subtlety as well, a talent for investigation? Like asking a rhinoceros to tie a shoelace!

  A clock struck in a nearby steeple as he entered the street that housed Manuela’s place of business. Two o’clock; he hoped someone would be awake. Two o’clock, which also meant it was four hours since he got off the plane, and he hadn’t accomplished a single thing. Nor did he expect to here. He sighed and climbed the worn steps of the familiar building, ringing the bell and entering without waiting for a response. The door was always open at Manuela’s.

  Manuela herself was coming down the steps in leisurely fashion, buttoning her blouse; he closed the door behind him, shutting out the bright sunlight. The lady of the house looked at him with a degree of surprise and turned to a small mirror on the wall, checking her appearance, speaking over her shoulder.

  “Hello, André—”

  “Hello …” He took off his cap and tortured it with his hands, looking around the dim hallway as if he had never seen it before. In fact, it was as familiar to him as his own room. Manuela leaned closer to the glass to compensate for the poor light.

  “You’re early,” she observed, looking over her image to his face in the mirror. She brought her attention back to her face, brushing a tendril of hair into place. Wetting a fingertip, she traced her eyebrows. “And Rosa isn’t here. She’s on—on vacation.”

  “I didn’t come for—” He took a deep breath, moving closer to the woman, staring at her in the glass. “Manuela, what do you hear about Sanchez?”

  “Luis Sanchez?” Manuela finished with the eyebrows and curled a strand of hair into a loop beside one ear. She checked herself once more and then turned to face the large man standing, waiting. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No, no. About Sanchez.…” He let the words trail into silence.

  “I know nothing about Sanchez. If it helps, I hear he’s out of town.” She considered him shrewdly. “What do you want with Sanchez? Did you want to borrow money?”

  The repetition of Sanchez’s unfair accusation, especially coming from one he had considered a friend, was enough to try a person’s temper. “I never borrowed a centavo from Luis Sanchez in my life! That’s just one of his—” He cut the statement short abruptly, suddenly remembering that Sanchez had not made his statement publicly. “No,” he said more quietly. “I’m—I’m looking for a job.”

  “Well, I hear he’s out of town, so you’ll have to wait.”

  “Did he—” André floundered. What had he been about to say? Did Sanchez do what? Did he mention a suitcase? It came to him how ridiculous he must appear to the woman. What a sad waste of time. “Nothing,” he said and turned to go.

  Manuela frowned. “You don’t want a girl?”

  “No.…” His hand was on the knob.

  “Are you sick?”

  He hesitated. “Yes,” he said and escaped. Manuela stared after him with a touch of pity in her large, dark, liquid eyes. It was awfully early for André to be drunk, and he looked as if he hadn’t been sleeping well lately either. Maybe she should have insisted on his having coffee and even loaned him a few pesetas to sober up on. Shaking her head, she went in to make breakfast.

  It wasn’t until she had the coffee on that she remembered she had a message for the big man. She glanced out the window, but André had already disappeared around the corner. Oh, well, someone else would get it to him.…

  André wandered back toward the quayside from force of habit. Yes, there seemed to be no doubt but that he couldn’t possibly return to Paris and face Kek after such an abysmal failure. What a shame, after having waited so long for permission! Ah, well, water over the dam. Nor, of course, could he remain here in Barcelona, where Kek was sure to hear he was about, especially now. No, there was nothing else for it; it would have to be a ship, preferably one that went—

  “André!”

  —to China, if ships still sailed there. He was sure any ship would sign him on, even at his age and even with his gray hair. One thing he could do was work, and any deck boss with half an eye could see that. Of course, there was the sad fact that he had never worked on ships before, having a tendency toward seasickness, but what could one do? One might, of course, go—

  “Hey! André!”

  —back to Lisbon, but the truth was he had lived there a long time and hadn’t done very well. But, then, he hadn’t done very well in his life. Well, that last statement wasn’t exactly true. In the old days, working with Kek, he had done very well indeed, but—

  “André!”

  —that was a long time ago, and anyway, once he had his job outlined for him, there was nobody better at executing it. It was getting the idea of what to do in the first place, that was the trouble. Although in this case, even if he had been told step by step what to do, he probably would have failed—

  A hand reached out, catching at his arm. A breathless voice spoke at his side.

  “Man, are you deaf, or what? I’ve been chasing you and calling you for two blocks.…”

  André brought his attention from his multiple problems, looking down at his companion. “Hello, Raul. What’s new?” It suddenly occurred to him that he had money in his pocket, not a normal situation, and that he had found a familiar face, no small thing that day. “Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.” He would toast the end of his quest before it began, but at least he wouldn’t be drinking alone.

  “Good!” Raul said heartily, never one to refuse. Turning down a small street, they left the dock area and entered a maze of narrow streets well trodden by them both in the past. The cobblestones were rough beneath their thin shoes, and the paved walk reflected the heat of the afternoon. Raul led the way to a familiar bar and sank into one of the small metal chairs before a marble-topped sidewalk table; André had more trouble adapting to the bent-wire contraption. Raul turned to call a waiter and then paused, looking over his shoulder with a touch of doubt. “Are you sure you have—”

  André laughed, his first genuine laugh in a long time. He reached into his pocket, bringing out a folded wad of notes, running a thumb over them. “I’m sure.”

  Raul frowned at the unexpected amount of money a moment, shrugged, and turned back to the hovering waiter. “A bottle of Fundador.”

  The waiter stared. “A bottle?”

  “A bottle,” André said grandly and waved the money.

  The waiter disappeared into the café on the double. Raul looked at the large man across from him. “I’ve got a message for you.”

  André frowned. Any message he was apt to receive undoubtedly dealt with an old debt, of which he had many outstanding. True, he had money in his pocket at the moment, but it was money given for expenses, money given for a purpose, not to be used wastefully, such as in paying old debts. In fact, now that the purpose had vanished, the money would have to be returned—or what was left, at least. He sighed. It seemed that in addition to having his mind occupied by his bankruptcy of ideas, he was to be distracted further with local problems.

  “What’s the message?”

&nbs
p; Raul paused as the waiter brought the bottle. He watched the cork being removed with all the suspicion of any connoisseur confronted with a fresh possibility of distillery error, watched the glasses being put down, and watched the waiter withdraw. He reached out, pouring two drinks, and raised his own.

  “Salud.”

  “Salud,” André repeated. He upended the glass, swallowing the contents in one gargantuan gulp, scarcely tasting it. The warmth of the brandy spread from his empty stomach through his body. “What’s the message?” Whatever it was, it had to be faced.

  Raul was not to be hurried, however; certainly not with an almost-full bottle of cognac on the table and an old friend with him who obviously had made a killing in one illegal form or another. He drank his drink, savoring it with extra pleasure for the reserve quantity warehoused in the bottle, and then reached over to André’s glass in order to refill both.

  “What’s the message?” André asked again.

  “Well,” Raul said, not pausing in his task, “I’m not even sure you’d be interested. Antonio Duarte wants to see you—apparently about a job, I guess—but if you’re so flush.…” He recorked the bottle and raised his glass again.

  “Antonio Duarte?” André frowned, his fingers reaching for his refilled glass automatically. A job? Or was that just an excuse, the bait to draw the unwary into a trap? He had, of course, never borrowed any money from Duarte any more than he had from Sanchez; in any event, Duarte was too big a man in the rackets to be approached for the loan of a few pesetas. Still, there were people who reported that Duarte, among other activities, also took on the job of collecting bad debts for a percentage—or rather, his boys did. On the other hand, it was very doubtful Duarte would handle the extremely small amounts involved in André’s paltry borrowings. Maybe it was a job? But he didn’t want a job, other than one on the ships. It seemed only honest to clear the air with Raul, at least. “I’m not looking for a job right now.”

  “I didn’t say it was a job for sure,” Raul said, quite willing to drag the conversation on as long as the bottle lasted. “I just said I thought it might be. All I know for sure is that the word is out that Duarte wants to see you. I don’t really know why.”

  André sighed. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another! Still, Duarte had a long arm—or his boys did—so possibly he’d best see the man before he started signing up on a vessel. Or possibly it would be better to sign up and forget Duarte. It was a difficult choice.

  “Where does one find this Duarte? I only know him by sight; I never dealt with him before.”

  “He’ll be at the Villarino Bar,” Raul told him. He hurriedly drank and reached for the bottle, pouring hastily.

  “When?”

  Raul sighed, a tragic sigh. “He’s there now,” he reported sadly and stared at all the lovely liquor remaining in the bottle. With a final sigh he replaced the cork and pushed it home. André came to his feet, smiling down in friendly fashion.

  “Don’t rush,” he said and laid money on the table. “That should handle the bottle and the waiter, too.” A thought came to him, a hunch; he had long since learned to respect his hunches. He bent down, lowering his voice. “As far as you know, I have no money. I’m broke. Understand?” He straightened up, smiling, but the smile did not extend to his steady eyes. “Just pretend today is like every other day.”

  Raul nodded in complete understanding. As he had suspected, the money was hotter than a phone booth in Morocco.

  “Don’t worry,” he said and sipped his drink this time, instead of bolting it. “And thanks for the drinks.” A thought came to him; he looked up. “André—”

  André paused in leaving. “Yes?”

  “Tell Duarte I’m the one who found you, will you?”

  André stared. Was there a reward out for him? A bounty? And would his friend, for whom he had just bought a bottle, be willing to profit from his capture? It was a strange world.

  “All right,” he said, with no intention of complying, and turned away, crossing the street. Better see Duarte at that; he had heard the man also controlled the hiring on the docks. One thing about seeing him, he thought somberly, at least it will postpone my having to make a decision as to where I go from here, if only for a few minutes.…

  Buy The Tricks of the Trade Now!

  About the Author

  Robert L. Fish, the youngest of three children, was born on August 21, 1912, in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended the local schools in Cleveland and went to Case University (now Case Western Reserve), from which he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. He married Mamie Kates, also from Cleveland, and together they have two daughters. Fish worked as a civil engineer, traveling and moving throughout the United States. In 1953 he was asked to set up a plastics factory in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He and his family moved to Brazil, where they remained for nine years. He played golf and bridge in the little spare time he had. One rainy weekend in the late 1950s, when the weather prohibited him from playing golf, he sat down and wrote a short story that he submitted to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. When the story was accepted, Fish continued to write short stories. In 1962 he returned to the United States; he took one year to write full time and then returned to engineering and writing. His first novel, The Fugitive, won an Edgar Award for Best First Mystery. When his health prevented him from pursuing both careers, Fish retired from engineering and spent his time writing. His published works include more than forty books and countless short stories. Mute Witness was made into a movie starring Steve McQueen.

  Fish died February 23, 1981, at his home in Connecticut. Each year at the annual Mystery Writers of America dinner, a memorial award is presented in his name for the best first short story. This is a fitting tribute, as Fish was always eager to assist young writers with their craft.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1970 by Robert L. Fish

  Cover design by Jason Gabbert

  ISBN: 978-1-4532-9350-8

  This 2015 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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