He didn’t have to leave the hotel. When he got to the foot of the stairs he could turn to the right. He could go to the Sen’s room. He could squeeze the dough out of that skinny neck. He could knock it out of that weasel snout. He didn’t have to use a gun.
The lying, double-crossing, skunking Sen. How did he expect to make that stick? Sailor’s alibi was set. Set by the Sen himself and the Sen’s brain man, Zigler. How did the Sen expect to break it down without giving himself away?
The Sen could do it. He could make up a yarn that would sound as true as if it were true. That was the kind of brain the Sen had, twisting lies around it and making them true on his oily tongue. Mac wouldn’t believe that crap. Mac was too smart. Mac knew the Sen had done it himself. Mac could know if Sailor would talk. He ought to march right back up the staircase now and tell Mac the whole story, just like it happened. Mac would take care of him if he’d talk. And Mac would know who was telling the truth. Mac was too smart to believe the Sen’s lies.
If he would talk. He could put the Sen where he ought to be. In the hot seat. Where he couldn’t ever get at Iris Towers. If he’d talk. He was going to talk. He was going to tell Mac the whole thing, just what happened that night. It wouldn’t put him on a spot; he’d be state’s witness. The only witness. He and the Sen and the dead woman. No one else knew.
He’d talk just as soon as he got the money. He wasn’t going to give up that kind of money. He needed it; it belonged to him; he was going to have it. What was owed and what he deserved above it. Five thousand dollars. The most he’d ever had at one time. Peanuts. He should have asked ten. The dough wouldn’t do the Sen any good where he was going.
As soon as he got the money, he’d walk right back to McIntyre and spill. The Sen had crossed him; he deserved nothing better than the cross in return. He deserved a lot more than that. And he’d get it.
Sailor was at the foot of the stairs and he itched to turn right. Only trouble was if he did, and he and the Sen had it out he was mad enough to do something dangerous. That’s what Mac was warning him about. He mustn’t kill the Sen, even in self defense. He mustn’t do anything to make Mac believe he was a killer. Cool off first see the Sen tomorrow early, hard and sure of himself. He turned left, out of the hotel.
Out on the street The night cold closed around him. Cold enough for frost on the earth. And he had nowhere to go. No place to lay his head. But on the earth. He shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. There should be a warm room, a soft enough bed. He shouldn’t have to sleep in the dirt another night.
He didn’t have to. He could have a room at the old witch’s. He could have one of Mac’s beds. He could even yet go wake up the Sen and sleep with his elegance. He was returning to Pancho out of choice. Better an old blanket under the cold sky with the warmth of Pancho’s heart thrown in. With the safeness of a friend. He set out to the corner. In the deserted silence of the night his steps were loud, too loud. It was as if he were the only person left alive in an empty world, as if his clangor were disturbing the sleeping dead. He scudded across to the Plaza, wove through shadows to the red palings. Pancho’s face peered over, little anxious lines netting his brown eyes. His smile rubbed them out. “You are back. I hear you coming.”
Sailor went in through the gate. “Did you think I wouldn’t be?” he grinned. He went first, bunching his shoulders against the knife cold while Pancho wound the chain over the lock.
Pancho sighed, “I do not know. Who knows when a man goes if he will return? The good God has brought you back.” He didn’t lumber over to the gondola. He went to where the blankets were spread out. The serape, the best blanket were folded for Sailor. Pancho wrapped himself in the tattered one and lay himself upon the earth.
Sailor said. “I brought myself back. What were you worried about?” He wrapped himself in the serape, lay down beside the brigand. “I don’t need that other blanket. You take it.”
“It is for you, mi amigo.” Pancho pulled it over Sailor, as if he were a little kid who’d kicked off the covers. “My fat it keeps me warm,” he gurgled.
Sailor lit two cigarettes, handed one over. “Did you think somebody was going to take another crack at me?”
Pancho sighed deep in his fat belly. “I do not know but I am afraid when you leave tonight. It is not good to go looking for a man when there is anger like was in you then.” He sighed to his toes. “But the good God has taken care of you. When you leave me I say a small prayer that you will return unharmed.” His voice smiled in the darkness. “And you return safe to me.”
Sailor watched the thin blue swirl of smoke rise from his mouth. It was good to rest with the heavy woolen robes warming him, and the cigarette good under the cold stars. He mocked gently, “I wouldn’t expect you to go in for the holy stuff, Pancho. Not with all those knife scars you carry around.”
Pancho said, “When I was young, sometimes there is a little trouble. Not bad trouble because the good God, He takes care of me. Should I not now say gracias to Him that He takes care of me?”
“I don’t know.” Sailor let the smoke slowly out of his mouth. “I stopped praying a long time ago.”
But one does not stop praying,” Pancho stated.
“I stopped. It wasn’t getting me anything. It didn’t get my old lady anything and she was always praying. Nothing but work and more work and death. I don’t know what she was praying for but it didn’t get her anything.”
”Maybe she pray for you,” Pancho said slyly. “That the good God take care of you.”
Maybe she had at that. It would have been like her. Even to pray for the old man. She wouldn’t have prayed for herself. She never asked anything for herself. What had it got her? What it got anyone who didn’t look out for himself first.
“Now that she is gone to Heaven,” Pancho said comfortably, “maybe you better start praying the good God take care of you.”
Sailor laughed. “I’ll stick to my rod, thanks. I know what’ll take care of me.”
Pancho sighed down deep. “Then I will pray for you.”
Sailor laughed louder. It was funny. Everybody preaching at him. A cop and an old brigand. If the Sen started preaching, he’d bust a gut laughing. He snickered, “I sure never sized you up as a Holy Joe, Pancho.”
“Holy Joe, I do not think I know this,” Pancho said in dignity. That meant he was offended.
Sailor said quickly, “I don’t mean anything. You’re a good guy, Pancho. You’re my amigo.”
“I am not so good,” Pancho was comfortable again. “But it is good to be good. Maybe it does not fill the belly or warm the heart but it is good. It feels good.” He crunched on the earth turning his bulk over. “A man wishes to die in his bed, I think. Even if he has no bed, no more than a serape under the stars. It is more comfortable that way.” He propped his chin on his big fist. “It is in the Good Book, I think, if you live by the sword, that is the way you will die. It is not good to live by the gun, I think, Sailor.”
“It is if someone is gunning for you,” Sailor said flatly.
“But why? What have you done someone should wish to kill you? A young man like you?”
Sailor said out of his thought, “I haven’t done anything. Nothing but want things better than they were. I only wanted what others had—I didn’t want to be poor like my folks, like everyone around me. I wanted things better than that.”
“What is for you, will come to you.” Pancho’s sigh shimmered like the dark leaves overhead. “The way of the poor it is hard. It is better not to be poor. If you must be poor, it is better to thank God for it. Better than the gun in the pocket, I think.”
“Maybe no one ever kicked you in the teeth.”
“Ho, ho, ho,” Pancho laughed. Like that: Ho, ho, ho. “I have not been kicked around? A poor native not kicked around?”
”What do you do about it?”
“When I was young,” Pancho said solemnly, “with the hot blood, you understand, there are the knife scars which you h
ave seen. But now I grow old. I am at peace with everyone.”
“Even with the guys that kick you around?”
“Even with the gringo sonnama beetches,” Pancho said cheerfully. “When I am young I do not understand how it is a man may love his enemies. But now I know better. I think they are poor peoples like I am. The gringo sonnama beetches don’t know no better. Poor peoples.”
The Sen wasn’t any poor peoples. He was a stinking rich bastard who would welch out of a two-bit deal. Loving him was like loving the Devil. Even the Good Book didn’t tell you to love the Devil. Sailor said, “You’re a good man, Pancho. You’ve been good to me. When this deal of mine comes off, I’m going to pay you back.”
Pancho said, “With the Spanish peoples, there is no pay between friends. If this deal does not come off, my house is your house. I am your friend.”
Pancho was a good guy. He meant it. He’d take Sailor home with him and they’d hoe the bean plot or whatever you did with beans. No thanks. He wasn’t going to be trapped in this wilderness; the deal was coming off.
Sailor said, “Don’t worry. The deal is coming off. Tomorrow.” He yawned. “And I’ll buy you the biggest case of tequila in town.”
Pancho’s voice was beaming. “That is good, Sailor. Tequila too is good for a man’s soul, I think.”
III
Baile
1
On the third day there was shouting and squealing and whinneying and barking, laughing and crying and squealing and singing. Sound heralded the morning. The morning of the Fiesta children. When Sailor pushed open his eyes the children were seething in the Plaza. Children with painted cheeks and flower-decked hair, in glittering red-and-green skirts and long full Indian calico skirts, in velvet trousers and cheesecloth britches, children playing Navajo and Mestizo and Spanish senora, Mexican peon and Mexican charro and Spanish caballero; children everywhere laughing and crying and shrilling their voices into the sun.
Children in the streets striding horses and burros, children leading dogs and cars and ducks and lambs and tiny sisters, a child with a parrot perched on his shoulder, a child dragging a little red wagon in which rode one goldfish in a bowl. Children swarming over the walks and the curbs, climbing into the bandstand, running and pushing and swirling like dervishes. Only the red fence kept Sailor safe from them. The kids pressed against the palings, shouting, demanding Tio Vivo.
Old Onofre sat like a slab of wood on his campstool, his fiddle across his knees. Sat there as if he didn’t know the horde was threatening the gates. Ignacio smoked a twisted brown cigarette, his guitar at his feet. His face didn’t like kids anymore than Sailor did. Pancho wasn’t around.
Sailor flung off the blanket, shook himself out of the serape and pushed to his feet. The hard floor of the earthen bed left him, after two nights of it, full of kinks. His shoulder hurt. He settled his hat, pulled down his coat jacket. Wrinkled, dirty, unshaven, his tongue sour with last night’s garlic, stoned by the jeers in the mouths of the ragged Mex kids outside the gate. Without being able to translate their tongue. He muttered, “Shut up, you little bastards.” He didn’t need them to tell him he’d have to clean up before he could see anyone today. He’d have to have a clean shirt, clean linen. His suitcase was where he’d left it, in the check room at La Fonda. He was ashamed to go for it, ashamed to walk into the hotel looking like a derelict
He put a cigarette in his mouth, lit it. It tasted dead. There was no use asking Ignatz or the old man about Pancho; they wouldn’t know even if they could speak his language. He brushed off the dust from his trousers and stalked to the gate. If any of the kids gave him a dirty look he’d slap them down so fast they wouldn’t ever forget it.
His approach quieted them. In a fearful way. Their eyes, the battery of their unmoving eyes, lay on him as if they’d never seen a Gringo before. Flat black eyes, hundreds of them watched his hand unfasten the gate. Their silence heightened the whirl of noise in the streets outside the Plaza. Their silence was more menacing than any words they could have flung. He walked through the gate, banging it after him, fastening it. He got away from the kids quick; they let him pass. As soon as he had passed, their gibberish rattled again. He walked on fast. Kids weren’t hypocrites. When the copper showed up they were like statues, hostile-eyed, withheld breaths. The older folks cranked up smiles or words, but not the kids. The old folks pretended that Fiesta made all a oneness in the land, Indian, Mexican, Gringo. The kids didn’t hide their knowledge of the enemy among them. They were too smart
The raw sunlight hit his eyes as he left the green shade of the Plaza, left the squawking kids parading their pets, pushing and yelling and slamming their sticky hands against your only suit. Yesterday dozens; today hundreds of them. He didn’t know where to go next. He must pick up his suitcase. The thought of lugging it winced his shoulder. And after he picked it up what would he do with it? No Turkish baths in this two-bit-fifty-cent town. He walked down the street passing the hotel where he’d bummed a bath and shave yesterday. The same shirt sleeves were leaning on the cigar counter. He didn’t think it would work again, the guy had a snarl for a face this morning. Maybe he didn’t like kids either.
It wasn’t a good idea to try it again anyway. The guy might start wondering how the slick-looking fellow of yesterday morning had changed back into such a bum. He might wonder out loud. Sailor walked on and turned in at a cafe. Coffee would help him out.
It was a glossy place outside but inside it wasn’t more than any hashery. He sat at the counter, ordered. The food wasn’t good when it came, it was strictly hashery, but he ate it, drank a second cup of coffee. He felt better. He didn’t look any better. The mirror over the cigarette machine showed him that. He fed in coins for Philip Morris, lighted up and went out on the street The smoke didn’t taste so bad after the coffee.
He could go to Mac. But he couldn’t take his suitcase up to Mac’s room. Mac would find a way to have a look in it. Mac wouldn’t like the baby inside it. He’d get wondering. He’d get chilled up. Besides he didn’t want to talk to Mac. He was mad enough to spill. He’d better stay out of Mac’s reach until he had his gab with the Sen.
The Sen’s last chance. He was a boob to give the Sen a chance after last night. He was a boob, yes, but he needed that dough. His roll had sunk and there wasn’t anyone in Chicago to send him more. Ziggy in Mexico. Humpty and Lew, God alone knew where. The Sen right here. The Sen had to pay up. It wasn’t a question of what was due any longer; not the way it had been. It was getting to be a matter of need.
He walked aimless, on down the street past a men’s store, a little one; past a five-and-ten, drug store, grocery store, Penney’s, end of the block. He could buy a change of clothes; razor, tooth brush and stuff. But after he bought them, he had no place to use them. He turned around and walked back up the street, back to the squealing Plaza. Tio Vivo was spinning. On the circular bandstand a brass band had moved in; a little kid with a reedy voice and a cowboy hat sang into the mike. Kids were still swarming everywhere.
He walked to the corner, ducking the ones coming out of the corner drug store dripping ice cream cones and greasy popcorn. He crossed over to La Fonda, only because there weren’t kids there. He wouldn’t go in; he wouldn’t dare go in looking like this. If the Sen saw him now he wouldn’t pay up a thin dime. Not without real trouble. He cursed the big hotel, cursed every room in its terraced bulk. All those rooms and baths, and he couldn’t borrow one long enough to look like a human being. Long enough to get the scum off his teeth. He walked on by, muttering his helpless anger.
He felt the hand on his arm and his own right hand jammed his pocket before he looked down. It was a kid. A dirty little kid, a pipe-stem kid in colorless jeans and a torn shirt. He’d got away from the Plaza of kids and one came tagging him.
“Get the hell out of here,” Sailor said. He bumped off the thin brown hand.
The kid said, “Don José he wants to see you.” The kid’s black eyes were too big for his face.
“Who the hell is Don José What does he want with me?”
“Don José he wants to see you,” the kid parroted in his spic accent.
He was ready to tell the kid to tell Don ] José where to head in but it came to him in time. Don José was Pancho Villa; Don ] José was his friend. Maybe Don José had miracled a bathroom with a shower.
He made sure. There could be another Don Jose; somebody the Sen had dug up who could thrust a knife straight. “Where is he?”
The kid rattled. Don José was at Tio Vivo and the kid was going to get a free ride for running after Don José’s friend if he caught up with Sailor. . . . Sailor tossed a dime. “Have one on me,” he grunted.
“Gracias, Señor! Gracias.” You’d think he’d thrown the kid a grand. The thin dirty face flashed a quick smile before the kid’s bare brown feet cut out across to the Plaza.
Sailor cut across too. So he wouldn’t have to pass La Fonda again. There were clean people coming out of it. He knew Pancho hadn’t uncovered a bathroom. By his smell he knew Pancho didn’t bother about soap and water and a scrub brush for his teeth. But something must be up. Pancho wouldn’t have sent for him if something wasn’t up.
He had to wade through the anthill of kids to get to Pancho. Even then he wouldn’t have made it to the fence without stepping on a mess of them if Ignatz hadn’t noticed him and signaled Pancho. It must have been a signal. At least after the flip of greasy black hair, Pancho’s eyes searched over the heads and his warm anxious smile found Sailor.
Sailor had to stand there until Pancho finished winding up Tio Vivo. Like he was some kid’s old man. He looked around for Pila but she wasn’t there. Too early for the older gang.
As the merry-go-round began its unwinding, Pancho lumbered over to the palings. “Vaya, vaya ustedes!” he yelled at the kids. And something about mi amigo. He must have told the kids to let Sailor through. They weren’t willing but he could nudge his way forward.
Ride The Pink Horse Page 16