It was still early—quite cool under the thick oak trees, acorns ripening on every twig—when he unlocked the porter’s entrance and let himself in the office.
The Old Man was on the phone; he waved to Robert and went on talking. Lamotta peered out to say: “You had a letter yesterday, Robert. Messenger brought it.” He took a square white envelope off the top of a filing cabinet. “Must be important. You got any big bets out?”
Robert tore open the envelope. Two lines, no signature: “I never want to see you again as long as I live.”
The Old Man finished his phone call. “Everything go all right in Houston?”
“I delivered it like you said.”
“No trouble?”
“No.”
“Take the day off,” the Old Man said. “You earned a rest.”
“Okay,” Robert said, and stuffed the letter in his pocket.
It was then a little before eight. He went directly to Nella’s house and rang the doorbell. While he waited, he scratched his chin gently. He hadn’t shaved on the train and his beard was beginning to itch in the heat.
The Negro maid opened the door, blinked at him, and slammed the door shut. He rang again, no one answered; only now and then the curtains moved.
He went home, shaved, and changed. And went back. Her mother stood directly in the door, voice shaking. “If you don’t leave, I’ll call my husband,” she said. “My husband will throw you out.”
Robert was pondering the difference in their sizes and wondering if that was possible when the door slammed again—so hard that he heard the knob fall off and go rattling along the floor inside.
“You’ve all gone crazy,” he said to the door panels. “What the hell is going on?”
He lit a cigarette and waited. He sat in the swing behind the bank of ferns, moving gently, imagining Nella sitting next to him. Finally he went down the front walk to his car.
He finished his cigarette there, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. The curtains didn’t even move. He started the motor, noted mechanically that the gas was low, and drove off to have it filled.
It was a brand-new Studebaker; he’d had it less than a week. The Old Man liked to keep changing cars; it made identification difficult. Some were registered to him; most were in different names. This Studebaker now was in Robert’s name. Not that that made any difference, Robert thought, it still isn’t mine.
“Fill it,” he said.
“This really is a car,” the boy said. “New, huh?”
Robert nodded. “Do the windshield, kid.”
“Got everything on it?”
“Yeah,” Robert said, “it’s got everything.”
“Pretty expensive.”
“Yeah,” Robert said, “pretty expensive. With some people money’s no object.” He mocked the Old Man’s remembered image. Him, he thought, him who held on to every cent that came through his fingers. Who rarely moved away from his desk or his phone. Who knew more angles and more ways to get things done …
Robert stopped right there, staring out through the shining clean windshield, not seeing anything, until the boy touched his shoulder. “Mister, you all right?”
“Yeah.” He began to chuckle. “Kid,” he said, “I have just been screwed, only I can’t see why. …”
The boy’s pimply thin face began to look worried. Robert handed him a couple of dollars for a tip, and when he drove off, the boy was still standing there, staring down at the bills.
Bet he gets rid of them quick, Robert thought, because he’s got to be thinking they’re counterfeit.
He drove by Nella’s house once more, not stopping. Her father’s car was parked in the driveway. So they’d called him after all. Was he sitting inside the door with a shotgun or was he providing a shoulder for Nella to weep on?
At the least, Robert thought, she could be crying. She could be that upset over losing him. …
He parked his car directly in front of the store, in the place always reserved for customers. He did not feel like waiting for the creaky elevator, so he ran the steps two at a time. Sweat poured off his body and his shirt turned sticky and wet across his chest.
At the top of the steps he paused long enough to pull off his coat.
“What’s chasing you?” Evelyn Malonson said. She was the Old Man’s secretary, a tall gray-haired woman with a beak nose.
“Where’s the Old Man?”
“Mercy, Robert,” she said, fluttering her hands vaguely across her dry flat chest.
I bet she doesn’t sweat, Robert thought suddenly, and I bet she doesn’t have tits, not any at all. … “Is he here?”
She smiled, thin gray lips sliding back across broad yellow teeth.
She’d eat her young, he thought, if she ever had any. …
“Come on, Molly—” he used her nickname to annoy her— “I’m in a hurry.”
The yellow teeth kept on grinning. “He said he was waiting for you to come back.”
The Old Man had his feet on the window sill as usual, and he was drinking a beer; the glass dripped frost in the heat.
“Help yourself.” The Old Man pointed to a cooler.
“I don’t want one.”
“Then sit down,” the Old Man said.
“Molly said you were waiting for me to come back.”
“Yep,” the Old Man said.
Robert took the letter from his pocket. “Did you see this?”
The Old Man looked shocked. “I do not meddle in your private affairs.”
“The hell you don’t,” Robert said, “but look at it anyway.”
The Old Man read seriously and carefully. “My sympathies,” he said and handed it back.
“What happened?” Robert said.
“The course of love is never easy.”
“Look,” Robert said, “my girl has just walked out on me and her letter makes no sense.”
“She sent back your presents too,” the Old Man said; “they’re out there.”
“I never gave her any presents.”
“A dresser set,” the Old Man listed, “not too good, like the ones I sell downstairs. Three or four scarves—pretty nice ones, you must have got them at Holmes. A jewelry box.”
“I’ll be damned.” There were half a dozen beers in the cooler. Robert helped himself to one.
“There is nothing so cooling as a beer on a hot morning.”
Robert drank steadily, saying nothing. He will tell me, he promised himself, and I will keep quiet.
“She is very angry, no doubt of that,” the Old Man said. “She is hurt and very angry.”
Robert held his bottle up to the light and studied the yellow liquid. Wait, wait. …
“Because she feels she has been betrayed.” It was surprising how softly the Old Man could speak when he wanted to. Softly and distinctly. Robert found himself straining and tensing, as if something surprising was about to happen, the walls fall down or a revolution start.
“Betrayed and deceived,” the Old Man said, “when she found out you were already married.”
Robert let the words drift through his ears and rattle around in his head. He sounded them to himself three or four times before he said: “I’ve never been married.”
“She saw the license.”
Robert put down his beer and went to sit on the corner of the Old Man’s desk. “I figure you’ll tell me,” he said, “when you get around to it.”
“She also saw the birth certificates of your two children.”
Robert studied his knuckles. “How old are my children?”
“Three and four,” the Old Man said. “They were born in Belle River, like you.”
Robert said: “You’re trying to make me lose my temper.”
The Old Man nodded; his heavy bald head moved up and down against the dusty glow of the window. “I’ve always had a hot temper myself. Took me years to control it as well as you do right now.”
“Don’t put me off.” Robert held out his hands and stared
at them.
“You’re saying the birth certificates and the marriage records are counterfeit?”
“I know god damn well they are.”
“Yes,” the Old Man said, “but very good ones.”
Abruptly Robert found himself laughing. All of a sudden everything was funny. “How much did it cost?”
“Quite a lot,” the Old Man said.
“Now tell me why.”
“She believed so quickly,” the Old Man said to the leaves outside the window. “She loved you as little as you loved her to get angry so easily with you.”
Robert shifted his seat on the desk. “She sure didn’t bother to ask me about it.”
“Bootleggers.” The Old Man smiled vaguely into the glare. “Everybody knows you can’t trust them.”
Robert leaned back on the desk and studied the corner of the ceiling. There were webs and large black spiders living up there. “You chase off my girl and I don’t even get angry. I think I’m crazy.”
“No,” the Old Man said.
“I meant it. I was really going to marry her.”
“I know that,” the Old Man said.
Seated on the corner of the desk, Robert swung himself back and forth. Thinking: Nella shouldn’t have given up so easily.
The Old Man was no longer looking out the window. He was staring directly at Robert, studying him carefully. Very carefully. Inch by inch.
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing at all.” The Old Man’s shoulders hunched forward a little; his intense scrutiny reached out and touched Robert’s shirt, brushed over his shoulders.
“Look,” Robert said, “I’ve never known you to do things without good reason. Now why the hell did you want to bust up my marriage?”
“Yes,” the Old Man said, his shoulders still hunched, his eyes still thoughtful.
“Okay, why?”
“Because,” the Old Man said softly, “I have two daughters and I want you for my son-in-law.”
Robert sat perfectly still, staring at the Old Man. Finally, he said, “I think I’ll go home.”
The Old Man merely nodded.
TWO DAYS later, Robert left for Havana. There was a problem with the liquor people there. The shipments were not moving as smoothly as usual, and, by the time they reached the Old Man’s boats in the Gulf, the cases were always short. “You see what’s going on,” the Old Man said. “See what you can do with it.” Robert took a train to Miami and a boat from there.
Robert’s business was done within two days—just a simple matter of money. That was always it. If Prohibition ever ended, Robert thought, a lot of people would be out of a lot of easy jobs. For the rest of the week he delayed, deliberately, not wanting to return to New Orleans. Most of the time he sat in Sloppy Joe’s under the slow fans and drank Daiquiris. One evening he went out to the big casinos. He did not gamble; he never did. For an hour or so he watched the wheels, and the dice and the cards—all the things that flickered and danced. He sat at the quiet empty bar, admiring the women who passed slowly back and forth, all sorts of women, all elaborately dressed. He decided that he preferred the Latins because they moved much more slowly—Americans dashed by, striding like men. He also decided that sitting at this bar in the cool and fragrant tropical night was much better than Sloppy Joe’s during the daytime. Finally he decided that he much preferred Scotch-and-soda to Daiquiris. Having made all these judgments, he was sitting quite contentedly, when a thin dark man in a white guayabera took the stool next to him. Robert turned slightly, raised his drink. The bartender brought a glass of water, ice-filled to the brim. Robert lifted his eyebrows.
“I don’t drink,” the man said.
“The house never does, I guess.”
The man smiled vaguely and politely. He had perfectly formed white teeth. “I hope you are not bored?”
His accent was not Spanish. Robert tried to identify it, could not. “I was enjoying myself.”
“You do not play.” It was more a statement than a question.
“No,” Robert said, “no, I don’t. I came to see the casinos because I’ve never been in Havana before. But I don’t play.”
The man sipped his ice water. “Will you accept chips from the house? We would be honored.”
“No, thanks,” Robert said. “I don’t want to play with anybody’s chips. But why me?”
“You are Señor Robert Caillet, I am right?”
Robert shrugged.
“You are here to do business for Señor Oliver, I am right?”
Robert shrugged again.
“We are happy to extend every courtesy to Señor Oliver’s friend and associate.”
Did the Old Man have money here too? Piece of a casino … outside the United States. Safe and secure. It would be like him. …
“I’m happy,” Robert said. “I’m fine. I’m going to have two more Scotches, or maybe three, and I’m going to watch the girls go by and then I’m going home early, because tomorrow I’ve got to look at a sugar plantation my boss wants to buy.”
The man took one more sip of his water and bowed very slightly. “If we can be of any assistance,” he said, “please to let me know.”
Robert saluted with his glass of Scotch.
Five minutes later, the girl joined him. She was beautiful, olive skin and blue-black hair: the house had noticed that his eye followed this type longer than any other. Fine. He’d be happy to drink and to admire her. …
He had his two Scotches. Then he had a third one. And then he told the girl good night and went home. Even as practiced as she was, she wasn’t quite able to hide the surprise on her face.
He did not want her, a woman the house was supplying. He could find his own; he didn’t need help.
“LOOK,” HE TOLD THE Old Man, “no more jokes. Let my girls alone.”
“When you have the right girl,” the Old Man said, “I will encourage you.”
“Yeah?” The Old Man seemed in high spirits and Robert was wary of that. “What was wrong with Nella?”
The Old Man sighed. “I’d hoped there’d be a girl in Cuba. …”
“There were lots of girls in Cuba, all whores. … What was wrong with Nella?”
“A silly-little Cajun girl.”
“I’m a Cajun,” Robert said.
“Yes,” the Old Man said. “Now, about Nella. She’ll have a husband within three months and a child in a year. Maybe this time she will find a dentist who can go into practice with her father.”
“Look,” Robert said, “why do I take this from you? Will you tell me why I take this from you?”
“Because,” the Old Man said, “you are young, but you have enough good sense to recognize what I am saying. Tomorrow I’ll need you to drive. I’m going to the races.”
At noon Robert had the Old Man’s Packard waiting. It was the one he’d taken Nella driving in the evening he proposed. “This is a great car,” he said.
“Expensive,” the Old Man said, “so it should be. … We’ll stop by my house first.”
They’d done that often before. The Old Man wanted to change his clothes or leave some papers at home. This time, he made no move to get out. “The horn,” he said to Robert.
Almost immediately a young girl came down the front steps, a black-haired girl, with large dark eyes and smooth olive skin. “My daughter Anna,” the Old Man said. “Let’s go now.”
Robert parked the car and followed them to their box. The Old Man was listening to tips from a gambler he knew, nodding as seriously as if he were paying attention. Anna was looking about, silently. When she saw him, she smiled. Her teeth were slightly irregular and widely spaced, making her look even younger.
“Robert,” the Old Man said, “show Anna the track. I’m busy here.”
So Robert took her through the grandstand, the clubhouse, the paddock, letting her stare and be amused, keeping her carefully away from the worst of the crowd, like a child.
After that, Robert waited suspiciously. The nex
t time they went to the track, almost a week later, Anna was not with them. Nor did the Old Man mention her again. He seemed to have gotten busy with something else.
ONE MORNING, almost a year later, Robert found the Old Man staring out the office window. “Get the car,” he said shortly.
Robert asked Miss Malonson: “What’s going on?” “Warehouse,” she said and went back to banging her typewriter.
The Old Man changed warehouses very often, to be safe, and he had been using this one for less than a week.
It was a shabby two-story corrugated-tin building on a weed-grown corner between a cemetery and a public park. It was actually the warehouse for a secondhand furniture store that the Old Man owned—moldy red plush sofas, iron bedsteads, platform rockers, lamps with painted shades. And in one far corner, the cases of liquor.
“Drive by,” the Old Man said. “I want to see.” They saw. The sheet-metal walls had not burned but the wooden supports had, so the walls fell outward, and the roof collapsed inward. There was a truck from the furniture store parked outside, and two men poked around in the smoldering debris. As Robert and the Old Man watched, they grabbed a twisted piece of metal, pulled it, dropped it, stood shaking their hands and cursing. Their voices sounded very faint in the early morning.
“All right,” the Old Man said, “I’ve seen enough.” On the way back Robert asked hesitantly, “Was there a lot of stuff in there?”
“Yes,” the Old Man said shortly. “And I don’t think this is all.”
TEN DAYS later, one of the Old Man’s boats exploded and burned in Chevalier Bay. It was fully loaded. The Old Man sent Robert on the seven-hour drive to Port Hébert, where the boat was usually kept.
“What do you want me to do?” Robert asked.
“Just look. And tell me.”
“You don’t think it was an accident?”
Lamotta, who stood holding the cash for Robert’s traveling money, sighed deeply. “Like the warehouse?”
“Fools,” the Old Man said. “I may have to hire help.”
Lamotta sighed again.
“I don’t like it any more than you do,” the Old Man said sharply. “Once you get these people in, it’s very hard to get rid of them again. … Maybe we won’t need to.”
The Condor Passes Page 11