Ride The Pink Horse

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  He followed the guy up the steep uncarpeted stairs to the floor above. The guy took a key out of his pocket and unlocked a door just off the head of the stairs. A dinky room with an unmade single bed, men’s neckties on the oak bureau, a couple of chairs with clothes flung on them. Nothing fancy but a room and it looked good. Sailor set down his bag easy on the dusty carpet. Not that he cared about stirring up the ancient dust; he didn’t want the bag’s weight to sound.

  The guy held out his hand for the five.

  “Sure,” Sailor said easy. He started to hand it over but he waited. “Look at this suit.” He eyed it himself in the mirror. It looked as if he’d slept in it for a week, in a sticky bus seat, on the ground with leaves and grass and dirt rolling in it. “I can’t talk business with a big shot looking like this.” He reached in his pocket and took out a one, handed both to the clerk. “You can get it pressed for me.”

  “It’s Sunday,” the guy said. But he shoved both bills in his pocket.

  “Sure, but this is a hotel.” Sailor eeled out of the coat jacket. He carried it to the bureau and emptied the left-hand pocket, a crumpled pink slip of paper, the Fiesta program; a mashed pack of Philip Morris, two cigarettes left; a paper folder of matches, Raton hotel. He slid the gun into his right hand while he fussed with the left-hand pocket. And he kept talking fast. “Hotels got tailors who’ll press suits on a Sunday. Wish I could get it cleaned, maybe he can spot it a little.” He slid the gun out and under the pink paper and he didn’t think the guy saw. He faced him again quick, his shoulders hiding what was cluttering the bureau, unhooked his belt and unbuttoned his pants. “You can send somebody out with it. It won’t take long. A guy’s got to make a good impression when he’s talking over a business deal.” He emptied the pants pockets, wadding the handkerchief around the bills so the guy couldn’t see the roll. Not that it was anything to bug the eyes out. Around seventy bucks wasn’t any fortune. But this buzzard looked as if he’d roll you for a ten spot. Or even a fiver.

  The guy said, “I’ll have to keep Alfie downstairs longer.”

  “Not much longer. Shouldn’t take long to press a suit. Sponge and press.” He went over and hung the dark suit on the guy’s big forearm. “You’re picking up some change the management won’t have to know about.” He winked. “Or Alfie?”

  “Okay,” the guy said.

  Sailor stood there on the ugly, dust-drenched rug, his hat on his head, his shirt tails hanging over his blue silk jockey shorts. Until the guy closed the door. He stood there until he heard the big feet slapping down the stairs. Then he moved fast. Turned the key in the lock and left it there. He took off his hat and sailed it at the bureau. It lit. “Jesus,” he breathed. A locked door, a shower, a can. All his own. Until the suit came back. He was playing in luck. He stripped off his dirty shirt and dirty shorts, wadded them together, took off his shoes and socks. To get clean again, to scrub. No wonder he’d been thinking about the old man and the old lady and him a kid. He hadn’t been this dirty since he was a kid.

  He didn’t stop to open his suitcase. He stopped only long enough to grab his gun and he headed for the bath. He parked the gun on the back of the can and he got under the shower, turned it on full force. It hit him like rain in the middle of Chicago summer. Like rain from Heaven. He just stood there for a while soaking it up, the way a tree soaked up the rain.

  Butch and Alfie were obliging. They’d left a big cake of pine soap on the wash basin. A bottle of Fitch in the medicine cabinet. He soaped and shampooed and soaped again. He washed away all the stench of the bus and Pancho’s serape and lying on the ground like a dog. He stepped out clean. He could have stayed another hour. If he’d been sure Butch hadn’t noticed the gun and might get tough if he didn’t hurry it up.

  He borrowed the best razor, shaved. Borrowed the face lotion and the hair tonic. The stuff must be Alfie’s, the day man wasn’t any sweet-smelling guy. He carried the gun with him as he whistled back to the bureau. He was clean in the mirror; he looked good. He even washed his pocket comb before combing his short curly black hair.

  He whistled as he unlocked the suitcase, threw back the lid. Clean socks, clean underwear, clean shirts. If he’d had any sense he’d have carried an extra suit along. But he’d been counting on a quick finish to the deal and he’d be in Mexico, having linens tailor made. He’d have brought an extra anyway if there’d been room. A suit wasn’t as important as the baby. It gleamed dully in the bottom of the suitcase. The sweetest tommy-gun a fellow ever owned. A little present from the Sen two years ago. His baby. He’d never used it; he was too important in the organization to handle artillery. That was for the mugs. But he wanted one and the Sen gave him what he wanted then. It might come in pretty handy now when he started in business for himself in Mexico. A tommy was handy on the Sen’s business in Chicago. He rubbed his hand over the stock and he grimaced. At himself. He was like a kid with a toy. But it was a sweet baby.

  He picked out pale green silk shorts, dark green hounds’ tooth socks; a white shirt and a foulard tie of the same green patterned in gray. He was a neat dresser; he’d learned from the Sen. Nothing loud; that was mug stuff. He could look as good as the Sen any day; better, he was young and not a bad-looking guy; the Sen was a little squirt with a weasel face. If Iris Towers bumped into him today she wouldn’t look down her nose.

  He put on his shorts, his socks and his shoes, polishing the shoes with his dirty laundry. He wadded the laundry in a corner of the suitcase. He was getting ready to lock up when there was a rap on the door.

  He froze. Called, “Whozit?”

  “Your suit, it is ready.”

  It wasn’t the day clerk; it was an accent. Count on Butch to send it up by a boy, another tip. And he’d take a cut. He said, “Okay,” and he slapped down the lid of the suitcase. He took a quarter from his small change on the bureau, pushed the automatic under a handkerchief, went over and opened the door.

  The kid was little and brown. He held the suit by the hanger. The suit looked swell.

  “Thanks,” Sailor said. He gave the kid the quarter, shoved the door shut in his face. He locked it. It was worth a quarter to finish dressing without the big clerk standing around watching.

  He looked swell when he was dressed. Looked and felt swell. He filled his pockets again, the gun in his right pocket resting easy there. It was a small automatic; it looked like a toy but it wasn’t any toy. It worked. He lit a cigarette, took a long drag, borrowed Alfie’s brush for his hat. A good hat shaped itself up again with brushing. Even if you’d been sleeping in it. This was a good one. Fifteen bucks from the same place the Sen bought his hats.

  He locked the suitcase, looked around. Everything the way it had been. Nothing of his left behind. The pink program. He folded it and stuck it in his pocket. Maybe he’d have a chance to read it yet, find out what was going on.

  He dragged the suitcase down the stairs to the desk. The big fellow was alone there, glomming. Sailor rang the key on the counter. “Thanks,” he said. “Sure was a life saver.”

  There was some respect in the guy now seeing Sailor the way he looked usually, the way he looked in Chicago. The guy said, “That’s all right. Want to leave the grip again?”

  “No, I’m taking it up to La Fonda.” Sailor said it casual, just to see more respect in the guy’s piggy eyes.

  “Let me have a couple of packs of Philip Morris.” While the guy was getting them out he asked, “Have any trouble with Alfie?” It wouldn’t be smart to play it too big here; he might need to ask another favor some day. He might have to come back to this town some day.

  The guy put the Philip Morrises on the counter and made change from the half dollar. “I sent him out on an errand,” he said. “I got tired of listening to how his wife used to treat him. Before he skipped out. If she was that bad, I don’t see why he stuck it twenty-two years. You ought to hear him. Twenty-two years in a doghouse like he tells it.”

  Sailor said, “Thanks, Butch. Be seeing you.” He
hoisted the suitcase and went out on the sidewalk. The Plaza was still quiet enough. Fiesta didn’t get started particularly early. It was only a half block and across to La Fonda; a good thing no more. The bag wasn’t any lighter than it had been yesterday.

  He was almost to the corner when the bells rang out again. Louder now, stronger now, and against their clangor he heard the tinkle of guitar and scrape of violin. He saw them up by the cathedral, the crowds on the church terrace; the people lining the streets. People on the streets as far down as La Fonda. As he readied the corner a brass band blared in a marching hymn. Band and tinkling and the cymbal crash of church bells, all sounding together in Sunday morning triumph. He crossed quickly and set down his bag as the parade rounded the corner. It wasn’t much of a parade but he stood on the curb gawking like the rest of the peasants. First the brass band, then maybe a dozen people, men and women, all dressed in dark velvet, wine and purple and black velvet with woven gold chains around their necks. Behind them the queen in her white lace with a crimson velvet cape around her shoulders and the gold crown on her head. The princesses in crimson velvet walked behind, all pretty, dark girls. At the tail end came the court musicians, guitars and violins.

  It was like a picture of Queen Isabella’s court when Columbus was asking for her jewels. Like a court of old Spain, here in a little village street in the bright hot sunshine, lords and ladies and the royal retinue marching up a little village street to the mass of brown gray cathedral on the terrace.

  The bells rang out and the band played and the court moved in slow regal dignity up the short block. Sailor goggled after them like everyone else, even moving up the street a way the better to gawk. The court stopped at the intersection and from around the corner came another procession. An archbishop in his crimson and white and gold, brown-robed friars following. The bells pealed louder as the archbishop’s procession ascended the stone steps, passed slowly up the walk and through the open doors of the cathedral. The royal retinue followed. And the people closed in behind them, poured into the church. The bells stopped and there was a great void of silence in the street. Until the street watchers who weren’t going to High Mass broke the void with their little sounds of talk and laugh and movement.

  Sailor turned and went in the hotel. He carried his suitcase over to the check room by the closed bar. There was a pretty girl there, black-eyed, black-haired, small-boned. She had a red flower in her hair, a red and green skirt sparkling with sequins, a sheer blouse heavily embroidered in red and green and blue flowers. She smiled, she had a fresh morning look to her.

  “Mind if I check this a while?” Sailor asked.

  She said, “Certainly,” and passed him a numbered check and another smile. Not a come-on smile, a nice clean one.

  He smiled back. “It’s pretty heavy. Too heavy for you. I’ll set it in.”

  She opened the counter gate and he put down the bag in the farthest corner where it would be out of the way. Where no one would be kicking it around wondering what made it so heavy. He said, “Thanks.”

  He walked over to the desk, his arms swinging free, sure of himself, swaggering a little. The old hag with the yellowed white hair was gone. The man behind the desk was just a part of the equipment, like in the Palmer House or Stevens. A gent you wouldn’t know if you met him on the street five minutes later.

  Sailor asked quickly, “Senator Douglass? Willis Douglass?”

  The clerk knew without looking. He gave the room number. Sailor turned around and picked up the house phone, letting the clerk see him pick it up, hear him ask the room number. The switchboard girl wouldn’t have needed earphones to get the number; she was sitting on the other side of the desk, only a square pillar between them. If this had been a big hotel with more than one house phone and them around a corner, out of sight, he wouldn’t have to go through this hocus-pocus. Heaven help the small-town peasants. Everything was made tough for them, inconvenient. You couldn’t have any secrets in a village.

  He could hear the ringing and he had a moment’s shock that maybe the Sen wouldn’t be in at nine-thirty on a Sunday morning. Maybe he’d be dressed up in his velvet panties marching to bells and band into the cathedral for more Fiesta. The Sen in the cathedral was a laugh. Sailor held his left hand tight around the instrument; his right hand, automatic, digging his right-hand pocket. It was another shock after the ringing when the Sen snarled, “Hello.”

  Sailor cupped his hand over the instrument, spoke silkily through it. “We are sending up a package, Senator Douglass.”

  He hung up without waiting to hear the Sen start cursing. He would imagine well enough the way the Sen would talk to a hotel clerk who dared wake the ex-senator of Illinois to bring up a package. The smile on Sailor’s lips felt good as he cut down the left-hand portal. The portal separated the dining rooms from the patio. There were a couple of people sitting in the patio this early. He wouldn’t mind sitting out there himself in a bright-covered swing. At a table under a striped umbrella with a cold beer bubbling. Later. Right now a little business. The smile twisted. He wouldn’t waste time standing in the corridor pounding on a door; the Sen would be up and waiting. The good old Sen!

  He didn’t know the whereabouts of the elevators, he only knew they weren’t in sight in the front lobby so they must be somewhere at the rear. There had to be at least one elevator or the Sen wouldn’t have a room on the fourth floor. The Sen wouldn’t be climbing any four flights to a room if there were a flock of Fiestas going on.

  He turned right where the portal angled into a wider one. Big couches and chairs here and a fireplace big enough to roast a sheep. This one has glass doors opening out to the patio too, and more big potted bushes in the corners. He didn’t see any elevators and he walked on to where the right portal met this one. There was a blue-smocked boy with a dark stupid face cleaning the ash trays on a table.

  “Where’s the elevators, Bub?” Sailor asked.

  The boy looked more stupid than ever pointing a brown finger. He didn’t say anything.

  Sailor followed the finger direction. He wasn’t sure the boob knew what he was after; maybe he thought Sailor was inquiring about the can. This didn’t look like elevators, it looked like a Spanish palace, dark beams and big rich chairs and on a dark polished table a brass bowl filled with little chrysanthemums. He looked in the open door-way of an immense sunken room, rich and somber, grand piano, red velvet chairs, a fireplace. Opposite the door tiled steps and a wrought-iron balustrade led upwards. He was wondering whether this was up when he saw the check girl leaning against the wall beyond.

  ”Hey there,” he began and then he saw it wasn’t the check girl. Another dark-haired, dark-eyed kid; another glittering Spanish costume. He went up to her. “I’m looking for the elevators,” he said and in saying he reached that turning and saw the elevator, just one.

  She didn’t say anything. She giggled soundlessly and stepped into the carved cage. He followed her. “Four,” he said. If there was trouble he’d sure played it dumb. She’d remember him. The city guy who was bungling around looking for elevators early on Fiesta Sunday. But there wasn’t going to be trouble. His hand rammed his right pocket and stayed there.

  The girl let him out on four and he waited for her to close the cage and start down before he moved. A carved and painted sign arrowed him in the right direction. His hand was easy in his pocket but it was there all right when he knocked at the door.

  It was opened and the lecture started, “I cannot understand why —” and then the Sen took in who it was. “It’s you,” he said.

  Sailor had his foot in the door. He grinned, “Sure, it’s me.” He pushed in past the Sen and left the Sen to close the door. The Sen was a sight, a scrawny turkey wrapped in a black-and-maroon satin striped bathrobe, too good-looking a robe for an old guy. His face sleep-soiled, his thin hair dripping, his mustache towsled.

  “You asked me to come, didn’t you?” Sailor crossed the room insolently, knocked a magazine and a newspaper off to
the floor and sat down in the best bright yellow chair. The Sen said nothing.

  “Not bad.” Sailor gave the room the eye slowly. It was a big room with twin beds, one of them made up neat with a yellow bedspread tufted in black. The other one was crumpled like the Sen. “I don’t have a room,” Sailor said. He eyed the good bed with meaning.

  The Sen got it. Got it and was needled. He was in good shape to talk business, good shape for Sailor. When the Sen was cold and collected, he was dangerous. He was hot enough now, too hot to talk.

  “Couldn’t get a room for love nor money,” Sailor said. He leaned back in the chair and pulled out the fresh pack of Philip Morris. He took his hand out of his right pocket long enough to open the pack and put a cigarette in his mouth. He was safe enough. The Sen wasn’t packing a gun in his striped bathrobe. Nothing but fists in those satin pockets. “Too bad I didn’t know you had an extra bed,” Sailor said, lighting the cigarette. “I’d have moved in.” He blew the match out with a swirl of smoke. “Guess I won’t be needing a room here tonight. I’ll be on my way.”

  The Sen had got words together by now. “What’s the idea of waking me up at this hour?” he demanded. He tried to be cold and haughty about it but it didn’t wash. He was too mad to do a good job.

  Sailor opened his eyes wide, like an innocent guy. “You told me to see you this morning,” he said. “Didn’t you?” he asked when the Sen said nothing.

  “I didn’t tell you to wake me up at the crack of dawn,” the Sen said out of thin lips. “I expected you to wait until a civilized hour.” He started over to Sailor and the right hand tightened in the right-hand pocket. Not too tight, just ready in case. “Give me a cigarette,” the Sen said.

  “Sure.” Sailor passed the pack, kept his hand out to get it back. Wouldn’t be the first time the Sen forgot to return a fresh pack of cigarettes. When he was young and wide-eyed and thought the Sen was really the sharpest guy that ever strayed off the North Shore reservation, he’d thought that was class. A guy that couldn’t be bothered with such trifles. Yeah, that’s what he’d thought. He hadn’t known how chinchy the Sen was then.