by Jay Bennett
“Why?”
“I’ll hold it from now on in.”
They were standing in the driving rain, just outside the house. A clap of thunder shook the sky. Eddie waited till it subsided. Then he repeated, “Why, Al?”
“Because you wouldn’t be holding it if it wasn’t for me.”
Laura stood silently watching them. Her wet hair straggled down over her small face. Her dress clung to her body.
“You getting some ideas, Al?” Eddie said.
“It’s still fifty-fifty. But I’d like to hold it.” The glitter was back in Al’s eyes.
“The money’s in your blood,” Eddie said.
“You mean there’s blood on the money.” The rain ran down Al’s lean jaw. “Give it over, Eddie.”
“Let’s get inside,” Laura said. “I’m soaked and it’s cold out here.”
“Take a bottle out of the car. You’ll get warm quick enough,” Al said. His eyes were fixed on Eddie.
“Let’s go in,” Laura said, and there was fear in her voice.
“Take a bottle,” Al snapped, and he turned fierecely to her.
Laura shrank away from him.
“Easy with her,” Eddie warned. “She’s been through a lot today. We all have.”
“I’m easy,” Al said.
He watched her hurry back to the car. She slipped in the mud and almost fell, then got her balance again. Al suddenly laughed, a low, broken laugh. The rain ran down over his face, over the glittering eyes.
The thunder slammed against the sky.
“Well, Eddie?”
“It’s in your blood,” Eddie said. “Starting to break you apart.”
“Eddie! I want it, Eddie!”
“You feel better holding the satchel, okay with me,” Eddie finally said.
Eddie handed it over to him. Al grabbed it with a hungry, ferocious gesture. Like an animal springing on prey. “I feel better already,” he said.
They killed a bottle among them. But there was no gaiety, no warmth. Al sat by himself, the bag in his hand.
We’ve gotten away from Ferer, Eddie thought to himself. For a while we’re in the clear.
But have we gotten away from ourselves?
They left the house and drove on through the stormy night to Marathon. There they got the boat.
They went through the wind and the rain and the blackness, till they found the little island that only God and Al knew about.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It’s going to end bad, Eddie said to himself.
It’s going to end in blood. Soon.
I can feel it coming.
The full moon lit the night like an outsized street lamp. Eddie sat against the trunk of one of the palm trees that dotted the tiny island, and he looked out into the vast and star-swept night. The ocean was quiet and bright with light. Its waters lapped at the rim of the narrow sandy beach with an insistent rhythm.
Behind him, set back among the trees, was the deserted shack they had taken over. Its former occupant had long since gone, leaving behind some old, now rusted, utensils.
The light of the shack gleamed through the trees like a tiny, wavering star.
The night was hot and close, without a stir of air. The leafy fans of the trees hung motionless and pale. Eddie slapped at a mosquito, and the sound cracked through the silence like a shot.
Then all was still again.
“He’s still drinking,” Laura said, coming toward him.
“You’re drinking too,” he said quietly.
“So?”
“So nothing.”
She sat down on the sand beside him, her dress pulling up over her knees. Flashes of heat lightning suddenly flared out in the sky and then vanished.
“We just had a time.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Just telling you.”
“You’re drunk, or you wouldn’t be telling me.”
“So I’m drunk.”
She played with the sand, scooping it up in her small hand and letting it sift through her fingers to fall in a little sparkling shower. He glanced at her face with its somber eyes and pouting Hps. Her mass of hair shone in the moonlight.
“He never takes his eyes off the satchel. Even when he was holding me I knew his eyes were on the satchel.”
“And your eyes, Laura?”
She laughed harshly and flung the sand down. “I look but he’s got it. That’s a big difference, Eddie.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
Her face twisted bitterly. She kicked with her bare foot at t^e sand. A tiny stream of perspiration trickled down her cheek.
“He talks of Rio. Says we’re going to meet up with a boat off Key West and that’ll take us down. How the hell are we going to get in to Rio?”
“He’s got friends. Al’s got friends all over.”
“You mean for himself.”
She leaned over and he saw that she was wearing nothing but the thin dress.
“For himself, Eddie. All the plans are for himself.”
“I don’t give a damn one way or another,” Eddie said.
“You’re a fool. It was you who found the money and it’s going to end up all in his lap.”
He pushed her back from him. “Then I’m a fool.”
“You don’t have to be rough with me.”
“Just don’t lean all over me.”
“You didn’t say that back at the motel, did you? Then I didn’t lean close enough for you.”
He started to get up. She put her hand to his knee, the defiant look gone.
“Eddie, don’t get sore at me.”
“I’m not sore at you, Laura.” He sat down again. “Too much to drink. It’s starting to throw me.”
She let her moist hand rest on his knee, and this time he didn’t move away. “He’ll give me a few hundred bucks and then kick me out.”
Eddie looked away toward the arc of the sky. He saw the jagged flare of the heat lightning again. It throbbed through him.
“I don’t know what he’s got in mind, Laura. All I know is that he wants to get the hell out of the country. And he thinks that once he’s out, the hoods will let up.”
He shook his head. “They’ll follow us clear into hell. This guy Ferer will never let up. Never, Laura.”
“You still think of her,” Laura said suddenly.
He didn’t say anything. Laura bent over close to him, and this time he could see the full roundness of her breasts and the outlines of the dark nipples.
“You’re in love with her, Eddie.”
The words and her body suddenly overwhelmed him. He grabbed her to him and kissed her hard on the lips. “I’m in love with nobody.”
She clung fiercely to him, her nails cutting into his back. “Take me with you, Eddie.”
His hand went to the hem of her dress.
“We’ll make a great team, Eddie. A great team.”
“Sure, Laura.”
His fingers touched beneath, and her nails dug deeper into his flesh. “I’ll find a way to get the money from him.”
“Sure, Laura.”
Her lips opened. She gasped, “Eddie, I’ll get it from him. I will.”
“Sure, Laura.”
She was about to speak again, but now he was on top of her. She grabbed him to her with violence, desperately seeking to merge his body with hers. She began to moan, wordlessly.
Beyond them the light wavered through the trees.
It was just before the final bursting instant that Eddie heard the harsh, drunken laugh. It cut between him and Laura, making his body cold and rigid; Laura’s fingers clutched him once more before they fell away from his flesh.
The laugh cut through him again. Eddie swung fiercely to his feet.
“You’re a great performer, Eddie,” Al said. “A real tiger.”
He stood looking up at Eddie and his face was twisted, like it was going to laugh and cry all at the same time. In one of his thick hands was the blue satchel.
The other han
d dangled loosely at his side. “Great performer.”
Above them the stars hung still in the sky, like hard diamonds. Laura still lay on the sparkling sand, her fingers grabbing at the hem of her dress and holding it down over her knees, her green eyes defiant, yet fearful.
“You look like a virgin,” Al said. He suddenly spat down into her face, laughed and turned to Eddie.
“Couldn’t you do better?”
“Take it easy, Al,” Eddie said. Laura rubbed her face and got up to a sitting position. Her eyes flashed. “You sonofabitch.”
Al kicked sand at her, laughed and turned back to Eddie. His gun bulged in his pants pocket. The sky suddenly lit up with a break of heat lightning. Al tapped Eddie on his chest. “What’s the matter with Mia? Didn’t she give you enough the last time you saw her?”
Eddie felt his muscles tense. “Al.”
“One night used to hold you for a week. It doesn’t any more, Eddie. You’re changing, kid.”
He laughed and looked away from them and out over the sheen of the water, out far into the night. His face taut yet sad, the lips thinned into a fine line, he seemed to have forgotten them. Laura got to her feet and slowly moved closer to Eddie.
“You were nothing but a whore,” Al said, still looking out at the ocean. “A psycho. And you’re going to end up the same way. You’ll go whoring in an asylum. I’ve come to hate your guts. They stink to me.”
“You go to hell,” Laura said.
He grinned mirthlessly. The dark eyes gleamed. “I’m there already. It’s a good feeling to see your best friend on top of your best girl.”
“Don’t give us that,” Laura said bitterly. “All that matters to you is the money in that bag.”
It was then, when Al laughed, that Eddie felt his blood run cold. The laugh was toneless, metallic, disjointed.
He’s gone over the line, Eddie thought. Then, he added bitterly, we’ve all gone over the line.
Eddie felt Laura’s hand fearfully touch his. Al’s eyes glittered. “It’s the pretty face that does it, eh Eddie?”
Al’s voice fell to a whisper. His hand took the gun out of the pocket. The moonlight ran along its harsh barrel.
Eddie saw Laura go white.
“The pretty face. I used to think it was the greatest, Eddie. They’re always the greatest. Like Mia’s face to you, the greatest. Mia. That whore, Mia.”
“Laura, get the hell out of here,” Eddie said.
“Stay,” Al laughed. The laughter crackled in the silent air.
“Get to the shack.”
“It won’t help her, you bum. There’s no hiding place. Not for her any more, Eddie.” He laughed again, his face becoming savage. “A whore’s face. You big bum, they’re all whore’s faces. You big punched-out asshead. Mia. Mia. Mia.”
The cruel chant rippled out wildly and threaded through the night. The sweat rolled down his distorted face. He punched Eddie in the chest again and again with the butt of the gun.
“Asshead. Asshead. Sucker asshead. Mia was never with them. What do you think of that? I played you for an asshead. But she’s a whore. Like all of them, you asshead.”
The laughter became guttural, like the staccato bark of a wild beast. “You were never any good. Just a stumblebum. I led you around like a pig with a ring in its nose. Anything I told you you believed. Asshead. I told you Mia was with them and you took it all in. You got two fists and a big nothing for a brain.”
“Al.”
“Al. Al. Al. Al killed the cab driver. Ai did it. Beat his brains in and dumped him in the river. He was an ass-head like you. Five bills wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more. I gave him more. Over his bastard head. More. More. More. Over his head with a jack handle. He wanted more. The whole world wants more. Whores. All of them. The world is full of whores.”
He turned savagely to Laura. “Like this one.”
Eddie lunged at him, but Al ducked away and hit Laura hard across the cheekbone with the barrel of the gun. Laura screamed and fell to the sand, her hands clawing at her face. The blood streamed down over her fingers.
“Whore’s face!”
“Al!” Eddie shouted.
He lunged again and this time hit him hard on the jaw, with all of his strength. Al staggered back, the gun and bag falling to the beach. His eyes looked dazedly at Eddie. Eddie hit him again, hard in the pit of the stomach, and then a jarring blow to the forehead.
Al grunted and fell to his knees. But the dazed look was no longer in his black eyes. They were now steady and fierce, as if Eddie’s blows had suddenly set a fire raging within him.
“I just wanted to break her face, Eddie. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s the end,” Eddie shouted. “The bastard end.”
“Just to break up the whore’s face. Once and forever.”
He ducked under Eddie’s thrust and butted hard in the groin. Eddie gasped in pain and fell backward onto the sand. Al pounced heavily upon him, his fingers digging for Eddie’s eyes. Eddie swung his face away and savagely broke the hold.
They wrestled over the sand and down to the water. Laura was moaning and holding her face.
The bag of money lay up the beach forgotten by all of them. It glimmered on the sand, quiet and alone.
Al struggled free from Eddie’s grasp and backed off further into the water, till it came up to his waist. His face was white and wet and bloody. Beyond him loomed the dark stretch of the ocean.
The heat lightning suddenly ripped across the sky, lighting up the two figures with a garish flame. Laura began screaming in pain.
“The end,” Eddie suddenly shouted, his voice echoing bitterly over the water. “The end. The end.”
And while he was shouting he was hitting at Al, releasing all of his pent-up bitterness and despair. All of his horror and hurt. All of his fury.
“Edd . . . deeee!”
The voice came to him as from a great distance.
“Edd . . . deeee!”
Then he realized it was coming from the battered face that was Al. He suddenly stopped and looked at it. Al slipped limply into the water.
Eddie stood an instant, dazedly, then bent down and dragged him out of the water onto the beach. He let him slip out of his grasp to the sand. Al lay, face in the sand, gasping for air.
The night was suddenly silent and still. Eddie felt a great weariness spread over him. His knees began to buckle.
“Get away from him, Eddie.”
He whirled and stared at Laura. She was leaning against the base of the palm tree, the blood dripping from her face, and in her hand was the gun. At her feet was the satchel.
It was open and some of the money lay spread about her, stained with her blood.
“Laura.”
He saw her steady the gun with her hand. “Laura!”
He started toward her with a rush, but she shot past him, twice. The bullets ripped into Al’s body. He gave a great groan and stiffened. His face pushed itself flat into the sand. She fired again and again, the last bullets hitting only the water.
She kept pulling the trigger, even after the gun was empty. When she realized it she looked down at the gun, her face wild and grotesque. Her mass of hair glowed in the moonlight. Her eyes grew very bright, and the following instant the light went dead in them. They stared out to the cold horizon, and closed.
She slid forward.
He got her to the little hospital in Marathon. She opened her eyes once. Seeing the faces about her she weakly motioned them close to her.
“I killed Al Walker,” she whispered. “Eddie . . . is . . . clear.”
Her eyes sought him. Her lips tried to frame his name. But she died. Al’s blow had fractured her skull.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
He stood in the white sunlight, staring ahead of him, a big towering man with a small blue satchel in his hand.
“Doran.”
Eddie didn’t even turn. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.
“I go
t your message. I’m here.”
“Yeah,” Eddie breathed out.
He turned and faced the tall slender figure. The Panama hat gleamed in the sun, the brown eyes beneath the brim were sad and grim.
“It’s all yours,” Eddie said. “It’s all there. Not a penny missing. We used our own money. We didn’t even dip into this. So it’s all there, just as if I never found it.”
Ferer took the bag, his fingers closing firmly over its handle. “But you did find it.”
Eddie smiled bitterly and said nothing. The Marathon street was bare of figures. It stretched emptily past the motionless buildings and out to the shimmering silence. The fierce eternal sun blazed down on the two men.
“It’s over now,” Ferer said.
“It’s over.”
Eddie was about to walk away when the thought came to him. The thought that had been with him a long time.
“Ferer.”
“Yes?”
“Who told you about the bank?”
“Walker’s woman.”
“Laura?”
“She tried to make a deal with me. But by that time it was too late for deals.”
“So it. was Laura,” Eddie said in a toneless voice.
He bit his lip and turned away from the man. Ferer touched him sharply upon the arm. “We get the lives we deserve, Doran. And the deaths.”
“She lost all the way. All the Way.”
“Did you love her?”
“No.”
“Mia Alvarez?”
“Let’s drop it all. It’s over.”
Ferer gazed long at the big man. Then he said. “Goodbye, Doran.”
“Build me a statue,” Eddie said and he walked away from him.
When he got to the little bus station, he went in and stood there before the grimy ticket window.
“Give me a ticket.”
“Where to, mister?”
“Anywhere.”
“Where’s anywhere?”
“Make it New York.”
After he paid for his ticket he had only twenty dollars left in his wallet. He went outside and sat down on the empty tree-shaded bench, staring ahead of him. The shadows of the still leaves flecked his broad face. Once he turned and gazed down the long ribbon of the road searching for the bus that was coming from Key West.
He saw nothing but the glare of the empty road and the hard blue of the sky.