They had been good for quite a while, but lately they’d been getting careless again. Now it didn’t seem to bother him so much though. He guessed he was worrying too much about how they’d do in New York. Or maybe just getting too damn old. In the Mexico City hotel he’d been talking to Niki one afternoon and Riki had come out of the bathroom wearing a big yellow towel knotted around her waist. Riki hadn’t seemed to be aware of herself, and you couldn’t blame the kid, because there is certainly nothing like a strip routine done for better than a year to make a shambles out of the modesty department. But Niki had remembered and told Riki to go put something on, and Phil had heard himself saying that it didn’t make any difference. But she went and put a robe on anyway.
Good kids, and once they’d had a chance, they began to show a natural instinct for timing. Hell of a job at first, because they kept throwing away the best lines, and chopping laughs right down the middle. Had to start right from the beginning. Teach them how to walk as if they were coming down the ramp at the Diamond Horseshoe. Teach them how to push the voice out from the diaphragm, push it out round and heavy enough to bounce off the far corners of the noisiest joint. Riki had a nice talent for the dumb-blonde routine, wide-eyed, mouth a button of shock and surprise. Niki could do the best with a suggestive leer. The Mexican customers as well as the tourists had eaten it up.
The routines would have to be cleaned up a bit. That wouldn’t be hard. He hoped they would photograph right for the TV cameras.
Might be able to do something with that knack of Niki’s to imitate people. They were singing again. One of them, he didn’t know which one, leaned forward from the back seat and handed the bottle to him.
Funny how they both started tapping the bottle at the same time. No harm yet. Always sober at showtime. Made you worry a little bit, though. Maybe something was nibbling on them. Something they hadn’t mentioned.
They seemed happy enough. Maybe a little wackier than usual, if anything. The drinking had started about the time that big bruiser had taken a shine to Riki. What was his name? Roberts. Robertson. Something like that. Skipped from Boston to play in the Mex league. A pitcher.
Hell of a thing if one of the twins should fall in love right now. Ruin everything. That night, a week ago, when he went by the room. It could have been one of them crying.
He took a second little knock at the bottle and handed it back. “Take it easier on the singing,” he said gruffly. “Don’t want you hoarse in Harlingen.”
“Are you a little hoarse in Harlingen?” Riki asked.
“Me, I’m a big sheep dog in Denver,” Niki replied.
“Yuk, yuk, yuk,” Phil said sourly.
“That’s his trouble. No sense of humor. Old Mother Decker.”
“Old Mother Phil. How about this? Old Mother Phil went up the hill, to get his poor girls a laugh. And when he got there… hmmm…”
“The hilltop was bare.”
“And so were the girls.”
“Hey, it’s got to rhyme, you,” Riki complained.
“So what rhymes with laugh?” Phil asked.
“Would giggle be better?” Niki asked.
“Try grin. Then you can use gin. Speaking of gin, Mother Decker, how about another kick?”
“Another knock and we all ride in the back seat. Want me to roll this wagon in this countryside?”
Niki stared out the window. She said in an awed tone, “The land that Charles Addams forgot.”
“Hey, write that down,” Phil said. “Put it in the ad-lib book. We’ll use it for snow blindness. You know. Empty joint. Cold crowd. ‘Is that a vulture sitting up there?’ Niki says, looking up, kinda, shading her eyes. We won’t use Addams. Maybe Boris Karloff. Something about him forgetting it or something.”
“Or a crack about the food in whatever joint it is. Too rough?” Riki asked.
“Too rough. Let’s work it around somehow. There’s a gag there someplace.”
The top of the car was up, as protection against the blistering sun. The back window was unzipped. A pair of red sandals followed by long lithe legs came sliding over into the front seat.
“Getting dull back there,” Niki said. “Girl back there thinks she looks like me.” She braced the red sandals against the glove-compartment door.
“Everything O.K. with you two?” Phil asked.
“We don’t make much money, but we have a lot of fun.”
Phil looked in the mirror. Riki had spread herself out on the back seat to take a nap. Niki, beside him, squinted straight ahead at the highway, no expression on her face. Both girls’ hair was tied back with red ribbon that matched the sandals.
“We’re going to kill them in New York.”
“Sure, Phil.”
“You got nerves about it?”
“Not a nerve in my head, lambie. Supremely confident, that’s me.”
He had to be satisfied with that. But he still didn’t feel quite right about the pair of them. Somewhere in the immediate past he had lost control somehow. There was something on their minds, something they hadn’t told him yet. He crossed mental fingers. Here he was with roughly two hundred and forty pounds of female talent, bursting with health and bounce. Enough to make a man suspicious. How lucky could you get? Too lucky, maybe. Hell, one little phone call to Sol and he could put the Triple Deckers into a Bourbon Street joint from now until Dewey turned Democrat. Maybe that would be the thing. Stick to small time. Forget how the pair would look on a Life cover.
The miles swept at them and were snatched under the droning tires. They topped a small rise. Phil pumped the brake and they eased to a stop behind a blue Cad. A long line of cars and trucks stretched down the hill to the river bank.
“This is the picnic grounds, ladies,” Phil said. “Here in this natural retreat, surrounded by the beauties of nature…”
“And house flies.”
“… you will drink in the mysteries of…”
“Who said drink?”
Niki and Riki piled out, stretching long cramped legs. They attracted, as usual, open-mouthed attention. When Phil had first taken them in tow, they hadn’t known how to handle themselves while being stared at. They had just been a pair of corn-fed beauties who happened to be twins. Now no one could doubt for a minute that they were in show business. They had the air and the walk, and as far as the stares were concerned, they might just as well have been absolutely alone. They’d never given up their cute trick of walking hand in hand, and Phil hadn’t made them stop it. They told him they were going exploring. He got out of the car and watched them going down the dusty road, hand in hand, heads shining in the slant of the late-afternoon sun. He decided he was very proud of them.
He saw them move to one side to get out of the way of a pickup truck that was backing up the hill. The truck backed all the way to the end of the line, then swung down through a shallow ditch and up to the front of a tired-looking little store.
A tall young guy in glasses came trotting out, glanced at the truck, and trotted over to Phil. “Are you a doctor?” he demanded.
“No, son. Sorry.”
The boy turned on his heel and ran back to the store. There was quite a crowd around, staring in the door. Phil walked over to see what was going on. The big fellow who had driven the truck had gone into the store. As Phil got closer he heard some crisp Spanish and the crowd got out of the way a bit. The big guy and the young fellow came out carrying a stretcher made of a couple of coats buttoned around bamboo poles. There was a gray-haired lady on the stretcher. Phil guessed that if she were awake and on her feet, she’d look like quality.
She certainly looked sick. Face like a washrag. Phil swallowed hard. That was the way Manny had looked when the ambulance came after him. And it made him remember that he was exactly Manny’s age. Forty-nine. The gals thought he was forty-two. Stop using the little brush and the bottle, and his hair would probably be the same color as the lady on the stretcher’s. Damn hard to be a comic, to think of the punch lines, to dress up t
he routines, when way down in your mind you kept thinking of death. The years go by so damn fast.
The crowd was very still. Kids watched, wide-eyed. A Mexican slowly took off his big straw hat and then made the sign of the cross. The two men eased the stretcher onto the truck. The boy scrambled in with blankets, awkwardly wedged them under her.
The big Mexican fellow looked around. He turned to Phil and the Texas drawl startled Phil considerably as he said, “If you could back that car of yours up, friend, I could drive out to where the ditch isn’t quite so steep.”
“Sure,” Phil said. “Sure thing.”
He went to the car and backed up, giving the truck plenty of room. There was a little girl in the truck now, too. A pretty little bit. Silver-colored hair and a trim little figure. Looked like somebody had given her a bust in the mouth not too long ago. But he couldn’t imagine anybody doing that. Probably she fell.
The big fellow tooled the truck through the ditch, creeping it along. When it turned down toward the ferry, Phil moved the Packard up to the back bumper of the Cad and turned it off. He pocketed the key as he got out. He stood, blinking in the sunlight, a small worried-looking man with clown lines around his big mouth, with simian forehead, wearing an absurdly unsuitable pair of maroon shorts with wide white bands down the side seams. His two girls were two dots of pale blue beyond the dust. Phil hiked up his maroon shorts and set off down the road. He had learned, early in life, how to case a house. This one was a crazy mixture. He hoped he’d never have to play to a house like this one. Some round, glint-eyed little Mexican businessmen. A mess of paisanos. A chunky American who looked like a pro athlete of some sort. Another American looking like a banker, sort of a sad-eyed guy. A big redhead with a yellow dress about to bust in front. Some farmery-looking guys. A big tourist family with a swarm of bratty kids. All of them piled up here, just as they’d come along the highway. Down at the head of the line he found a couple of sour-looking flits, one of them with a flattened nose. Recently done. He wondered why people had been getting pounded around here.
The ferry seemed to be stuck so that it couldn’t get close enough to shore. They were propping long heavy planks from the end of the ferry to the shore, blocking them up.
He stood in the road and stared at the ferry. Suddenly he heard a loud frightening roar behind him. He looked quickly back over his shoulder, and then made a wild sprawling leap for the side of the road. The front left fender of the big black sedan didn’t miss him by more than six inches as the horn blared insolently.
Phil sprawled in the dust. A sharp rock cut his scrawny bare knee. He got up, grunting with anger. He inspected the knee, and then marched down to where the black sedan had stopped. There were two identical sedans.
Phil marched to the driver of the first one. He didn’t stop to notice that the man was Mexican or that he was in uniform. Phil planted his feet and yelled, “You tryn a kill me, hah? You nuts or something?”
The driver didn’t even turn his head to look at Phil. Two men got out of the other side of the car and came around to him. Phil turned on them and said, “Tell your pointy-headed driver that I got a notion to…” His voice dwindled off as he noticed that both these men were Mexican, that they both had broad faces, broad shoulders, annoyed expressions, and guns on their hips.
“All I’m trying to say,” Phil said more gently, “is that it looked to me as though that jerk behind the wheel was…”
A big hand was placed flat against Phil’s chest. He went sharply backward and sat on the seat of his pants some six feet away. It was not only an indignity. It hurt like hell. He felt as though he had hit hard enough to fracture something. The hefty men turned their backs on him. Others got out—of the same type. He was ignored. They chatted. In the back seat of the lead sedan sat a massive man, white hat brim exactly level above sleepy eyes, ponderous belly resting on his thighs.
Riki and Niki helped him up, one on each side.
“Darling, he hurt you!”
“I don’t exactly feel kissed. What the hell’s going on?”
He saw some of them turn and stare at him, supported on either side by a tall blonde. They looked amused. His restless mind started to twist the situation into a possible visual gag. If anything could amuse those gorillas, it must have a slant.
He felt tenderly of his poorly padded posterior and arched his back. “Unhand me, gals. Those kids don’t play, do they? Hey, look at all those Mexicans coming around to goop at the big boy in the back seat. Who is he, anyhow? The Mexican Gary Cooper?”
The boards had been blocked and the first car of the two aboard the ferry began to inch its way gingerly down.
Phil noticed that all of the men seemed to be armed. He noticed the low numbers of the licenses on the black sedans. Light dawned.
“Gals,” he said firmly, “that guy is a politician. Remember the one who came into the club? Yessir. A local Mr. Big.”
Chapter Six
BILL DANTON, the lanky Texan, saw the two black sedans come roaring down the road, saw the horn blast the sparrowy little man in the red pants into the ditch, he had a sinking feeling that seemed to be centered around his heart.
He saw the little man object, saw him knocked down, saw the flamboyant twins pick him up. Then Bill moved to where he could look into the lead car, see the face of the man on the back seat. And he knew that there had been nothing wrong with his hunch. The fat sleepy man would no more wait a turn in line than he would try to fly like a zopilote, one of the big circling buzzards.
Bill drew back into the natural manner of any Mexican when confronted with a powerful and unscrupulous fellow citizen. He gave all of his attention to the cigarette he was smoking.
John Gerrold jumped down and came around to the front of the truck. His eyes looked a little wild. “What’s all this about? Why didn’t they stop at the end of the line? What are they doing down here?” His pale-haired wife appeared beside him. She too was looking anxiously at Bill.
“I think they get the next ride across, Gerrold. I don’t think there’s anything anybody can do about it.”
“What gives him the right? Who does he think he is?”
“He’s the head of a new political party in the northern provinces. His name is Atahualpa. That’s not his real name, of course. It’s the name of the last Inca king. He claims to have some Inca blood, though I never heard of any Incas in Mexico before. His party is based on some pretty rugged racial ideas. He’s nearly pure India, and ruthless as they come.”
“Are you trying to say we won’t get my mother across to the doctor on this trip?”
“I’ve been watching the river. It isn’t dropping so fast now. Maybe this round trip will only take fifteen minutes.”
John Gerrold turned on his heel and walked toward the group of men. Bill called to him sharply.
John Gerrold had to stop so that the first car that had come off the ferry could pass. The people in the car grinned and waved and shouted as it sped up the hill.
John Gerrold tried to edge by the circle of men, tried to get close to the lead sedan. He was grabbed and spun back. He poised and leaped at them, swinging his fists blindly.
Bill saw it happening, and he was powerless to stop it. He saw the short vicious chop of the barrel of a revolver. He heard the crisp sound as it met bone. John Gerrold stood quite still for a moment, turned half away, and went down onto his face. The bent glasses skittered a few feet in the dust. One lens was shattered.
His young wife ran to him, knelt beside him. The men moved away as though a bit embarrassed. She gently rolled John Gerrold over onto his back. Bill saw that Atahualpa had not even turned his head.
The girl looked toward Bill and cried out, “Can’t you do something?”
Bill was conscious that all the spectators had moved back. He felt that he was very much alone. There was the very real chance that Atahualpa would continue to gain power in the government, and he would make a very bad enemy of the Danton family. Obscure rules could be ap
plied. It was even possible that, should Atahualpa achieve real power, the citizenship of Bill’s father could be canceled on some technicality, that the wide rich lands of the Rancho Danton could be handed over, almost for nothing, to Atahualpa.
Logic said to lay low, make but the smallest of sounds. Bill was not the least naive about Mexican politics. Both he and his father were conscious, always, of the threat hanging over them—threat of a change of regime, a change of viewpoint toward norteamericanos that would make their life impossible.
But the girl’s fine eyes were on his, in helplessness and in appeal. And his father had said, many times, “When you have to do something right, boy, don’t stop to count how much money you got in your pants.”
Bill walked forward, conscious of Pepe, behind him, saying softly, “No, hombre! No.”
Atahualpa’s guard watched Bill’s approach with that mild curiosity of a pack of village dogs seeing a strange car coming down the village street. They shifted a little.
Bill stopped, raised his voice, and said, “Was Atahualpa responsible for that stupidity?”
Three of the guards moved lightly toward him, converging. Bill stood tense. When, from the corner of his eye, he caught the flick of the descending blow, he snapped his head away, felt the stir of the heated air against his cheek. The force of the blow spun the man off balance, and as he took a lurching awkward step, Bill struck down at him with a sweeping backhand blow of a big right fist. It hit the guard behind the ear, driving him down into the dust.
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