“Want to go to a party?” Will said to him as he came up.
“When?”
“Whenever,” said the blonde in the blue top. She tried to locate Martin’s face, gave up and gazed back in the general direction of the southern bungalows.
There a party was still in progress, as it had been since last Wednesday, when Will and Martin had arrived. The other party, the one on the north side, had apparently been suspended for a few hours, though just now as Martin watched a penny rocket streaked into the sky from the bathroom window, leaving an almost invisible trail of powder-blue smoke in the air above the water. The skyrocket exploded with a faint report like a distant rifle and began spiraling back to earth. Martin heard hoarse laughter and the sudden cranking-up of stereo speakers inside the sliding doors. So the party there was also nearly in full swing again, or had never let up. Perhaps it was all one big party, with his cabin sandwiched like a Christian Science reading room between two pirate radio stations. He remembered the occasional half-dressed teenager staggering around the firepit and across his porch last night, grunting about more beer and did he know where those nurses were staying? Martin had sat outside till he fell asleep, seeing them piss their kidneys out on the steaming stones by the footpath.
“Bummer,” said the girl seriously. Martin noticed that she was lugging around an empty twelve-ounce bottle. She upended it and a few slippery drops hit the rocks. “You guys wouldn’t know where the Dos Equis’s stashed, wouldjou?”
“No es problema, my dear,” said Will, steering her toward the patio.
Martin followed. Halfway there the girl wobbled around and hurled the bottle as high as she could away from the shoreline. Unfortunately, her aim was not very good. Martin had to duck. He heard it whistle end-over-end over his head and shatter on the flat rocks. Will caught her under the arms and staggered her inside. Next door, a Paul Simon song was playing on the tape deck.
By the time Martin got there she was on her way out, cradling a bottle of Bohemia. Again she tried to find his eyes, gave up and began picking her way across the rocks.
“Take it slow,” yelled Will. “Hey, sure you don’t want to lie down for a while?”
Martin grinned at him and walked past into the high-beamed living room. The fireplace was not lighted, nor was the wall heater, but a faint but unmistakable odor of gas lingered in the corners.
“We better stock up on Dos Equis from now on,” said Will.
“Is that her favorite?”
“She doesn’t care. But we shelled out a deposit on the case of Bohemia. Dos Equis is no return.”
Martin stood staring out at the island in the bay. The fishing boats were moving closer to shore. Now he could barely make out the details of the nearest one. He squinted. It wasn’t a fishing boat at all, he realized. It was much larger than he had imagined, some kind of oil tanker, perhaps. “Guess what, Will? We’re going to have to start locking the doors.”
“Why? Afraid the putas are gonna OD on Spanish fly and jump our bones in the middle of the night?”
“You wish,” said Martin. He sniffed around the heater, then followed the scent to the kitchen and the stove. “The gas pilots,” he said. “It’s the draft. You—we’re—always going in and out. The big door’s open all the time.”
“Got a match, man?” Will took out a bent cigarette, straightened it and crumpled the pack. The table was littered with empty packs of cheap Mexican cigarettes, Negritos and Faros mostly. Martin wondered how his friend could smoke such garbage. He took out his Zippo. Will struck it with an exaggerated shaking of his hands, but it was out of fluid. He stooped over the gas stove and winked at Martin. He turned the knob. The burner lit. He inhaled, coughed and reached for the tequila. He poured himself a tall one mixed with grapefruit juice. “Mmm. Good for the throat, but it still burns a little.”
“Your system runs on alcohol, Willy. You know that, don’t you?”
“Don’t all machines?”
“Myself, I could go for some eggs right now. How about you? What’ve we got left?” Martin went to the sink. It was full of floating dishes. “Hey, what the hell is it with the maid? We did remember to leave her a tip yesterday. Didn’t we?”
“One of us must have.”
That was it, then. That was why she had skipped them, and then snubbed him this morning. That had to be it. Didn’t it?
The tape deck next door was now blaring a golden oldie by Steely Dan. Martin slid the glass door closed. Then he snagged his trousers from the back of a chair and put them on over his trunks. Started to put them on. They did not feel right. He patted his back pocket.
Will slid the door back open halfway. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Look at it this way. Leave it like this and the gas’ll just blow on outside. Relax, man. That’s what you came down here for, isn’t it? After what happened, you need ...”
Martin checked the chair. On the table were a deck of playing cards from a Mission Bay savings and loan, the backs of which were imprinted with instructions about conserving energy, a Mexican wrestling magazine with a cover picture of the masked hero, El Santo, in the ring against a hooded character in red jumpsuit and horns, and an old mineral water bottle full of cigarette butts. On the floor, lying deflated between the table legs, was his wallet.
“There’s another reason, I’m afraid.” Martin twisted open the empty wallet and showed it to his friend.
“Who in the hell ...?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t the maid. Look at this place.” Outside, a small local boy came trudging through the patios. He was carrying a leather case half as big as he was. He hesitated at the cabin on the south side, as three teenaged American boys, their hair layered identically and parted in the middle, called their girls out into the sun. “It must have happened during the night.”
“Christ!” said Will. He slapped the tabletop. He reached for his own wallet. It was intact. “There. I was over there partying all night, remember? They must’ve passed by every place where anybody was still up.”
The small boy opened his case and the American girls began poring excitedly over a display of Indian jewelry, rings and belt buckles and necklaces of bright tooled silver and turquoise. From a distance, an old man watched the boy and waited, nodding encouragement.
“You should have gone with me,” said Will. “I told you. Well, don’t you worry, Jack. I’ve got plenty here for both of us.”
“No, man. I can wire my agent or—”
“Look,” said Will, “I can even kite a check if I have to, to cover the rental till we get back. They’ll go for it. I’ve been coming here since I was a kid.”
I’ve got to get away from here, thought Martin. No, that isn’t right. Where else is there to go? I’ve come this far already just to get away. It’s hopeless. It always was. You can run, he told himself, but you can’t hide. Why didn’t I realize that?
“Here,” said Will. “Here’s twenty for now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’d better go see if the nurses got hit, too. Saw a bunch of people in a huddle down the beach a while ago.” He drained his glass. “Then I’ll make another beer run. The hell with it. We’re gonna party tonight, God damn it! You going by the office, Jack?”
“Sure.”
“Then you might as well report it to the old lady. I think she’s got a son or a nephew in the federales. Maybe they can do something about it.”
“Maybe,” said Martin, cracking open a beer. He could have told Will that it wouldn’t do any good. He stopped in at the office anyway. It didn’t.
He wandered on up the highway to Enrique’s Cafe. On the way he passed a squashed black cat, the empty skin of it in among the plants, the blood-red flowers and spotted adder’s tongues and succulents by the roadside. The huevos rancheros were runny but good. When he got back, Will’s four-wheel drive was still parked under the carport. He took the keys and made the beer run into town himself, police cars honking him out of the way to ma
ke left turns from right-hand lanes, zigzagging across the busy intersections of the city to avoid potholes. He bought a case of Dos Equis and, for forty cents more, a liter of soft, hot tortillas. As the afternoon wore on he found himself munching them, rolled with butter and later plain, even though he wasn’t really hungry.
That evening he sat alone on a bench by the rocks, hearing but not listening to a Beatles song (“Treat Me Like You Did the Night Before”), the smoke from his Delicado wafting on the breeze, blending with wood smoke from the chimneys and rising slowly to leave a smear like the Milky Way across the Pleiades. It’s time for me to leave this place, he thought. Not to run away, no, not this time; but to go back. And face the rest of it, my life, no matter how terrible things may have turned back home since I left.
Not Will, though; he should stay awhile longer if he likes. True, it was my idea; he only took the time off at my suggestion, setting it all up to make me comfortable; he knew I couldn’t take any more last week, the way things were up there. He’s my friend. Still, he was probably waiting for just such an excuse in order to get away himself.
So I’ll call or wire the agency for a plane ticket, give them a cock-and-bull story about losing everything—the truth, in other words. It was the truth, wasn’t it? I’ll say the trip was part of the assignment. I had to come down here to work on some new sketches for the book, to follow a lead about headstone rubbings in, let’s see, Guanajuato. Only I never made it that far. I stopped off for some local color. Charge it against my royalty statement ... I’ll talk to them tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow.
Meanwhile, there’s still tonight ...
But I should tell Will first.
He resumed walking. There was a fire on the breakwater by the Point. He went toward it. Will would be in one of the cabins, partying with a vengeance. Martin glanced in one window. A slide show was in progress, with shots that looked like the pockmarked surface of another planet taken from space. He pressed closer and saw that these pictures were really close-ups of the faces of newborn seals or sea lions. Not that one, he thought, and moved on.
One of the parties he came to was in the big cabin two doors north of his own. That one was being rented, he remembered, by the producer of a show in the late seventies called Starship Disco. Martin had never seen it.
An Elvis Costello tape shook the walls. A young card hustler held forth around the living room table. A warm beer was pushed into Martin’s hand by a girl. He popped the beer open and raised it, feeling his body stir as he considered her. Why not? But she could be my daughter, technically, he thought, couldn’t she? Then: what a disgusting point of view. Then: what am I doing to myself? Then it was too late; she was gone.
Will was not in the back rooms. The shelf in the hallway held three toppling books. Well well, he thought, there are readers down here, after all. Then he examined them—By Love Possessed by Cozzens, Invitation to Tea by Monica Lang (The People’s Book Club, Chicago, 1952), The Foundling by Francis Cardinal Spellman. They were covered with years of dust.
He ducked into the bathroom and shut the door, seeing the mirror and razor blade lying next to the sink, the roll of randomly perforated crepe paper toilet tissue. There was a knock on the door. He excused himself and went out, and found Will in the kitchen.
“Dos cervezas, Juan!” Will was shouting. “Whoa. I feel more like I do now than when I got here!” With some prodding, he grabbed two cold ones and followed Martin outside, rubbing his eyes.
He seemed relieved to sit down.
“So,” began Martin. “What did you find out? Did anyone else get popped last night?”
“Plenty! One, the nurses. Two, the bitch from San Diego. Three, the—where is it now? Ojai. Those people. The ...” He ran out of fingers. “Let’s see. Anyway, there’s plenty, let me tell you.”
The ships were now even nearer the shore. Martin saw their black hulls closing in over the waves.
“I was thinking,” he said. “Maybe it’s time to go. What would you say to that, man?”
“Nobody’s running scared. That’s not the way to play it. You should hear ’em talk. They’ll get his ass next time, whoever he is. Believe it. The kids, they didn’t get hit. But three of those other guys are rangers. Plus there’s the cop. See the one in there with the hat? He says he’s gonna lay a trap, cut the lights about three o’clock, everybody gets quiet, then bam! You better believe it. They’re mad as hell.”
“But why—”
“It’s the dock strike. It happens every year when there’s a layoff. The locals get hungry. They swoop down out of the hills like bats.”
Just then a flaming object shot straight through the open front door and fizzled out over the water. There was a hearty “All r-r-ight!” from a shadow on the porch, and then the patio was filled with pogoing bodies and clapping hands. The night blossomed with matches and fireworks, 1000-foot skyrockets, bottle rockets and volleys of Mexican cherry bombs, as the party moved outside and chose up sides for a firecracker war. Soon Martin could no longer hear himself think. He waited it out. Will was laughing.
Martin scanned the beach beneath the screaming lights. And noticed something nearby that did not belong. It was probably a weird configuration of kelp, but ... he got up and investigated.
It was only this: a child’s broken doll, wedged half-under the stones. What had he supposed it was? It had been washed in on the tide, or deliberately dismembered and its parts strewn at the waterline, he could not tell which. In the flickering explosions, its rusty eye sockets appeared to be streaked with tears.
A minute after it had begun, the firecracker war was over. They sat apart from the cheering and breaking bottles, watching the last shot of a Roman candle sizzle below the surface of the water like a green torpedo. There was scattered applause, and then a cry went up from another party house down the beach as a new round of fireworks was launched there. Feet slapped the sand, dodging rocks.
“Do you really believe that?”
“What?”
“About someone coming down from the hills,” said Martin. Like bats. He shuddered.
“Watch this,” said Will. He took his bottle and threw it into the air, snapping it so it flew directly at a palm tree thirty feet away. It smashed into the trunk at the ragged trim line.
Instantly the treetop began to tremble. There was a high rustling and a shaking and a scurrying. And a rattling of tiny claws. A jagged frond dropped spearlike to the beach.
“See that? It’s rats. The trees around here are full of ’em. You see how bushy it is on top? It never gets trimmed up there. Those rats are born, live and die in the trees. They never touch down.”
“But how? I mean, what do they eat if—?”
“Dates. Those are palm trees, remember? And each other, probably. You’ve never seen a dead one on the ground, have you?”
Martin admitted he hadn’t.
“Not that way with the bats, though. They have to come out at night. Maybe they even hit the rats. I never saw that. But they have mouths to feed, don’t they? There’s nothing much to eat up in the hills. It must be the same with the peasants. They have families. Wouldn’t you?”
“I hate to say this. But. You did lock up, didn’t you?”
Will laughed dryly. “Come on. I’ve got something for you. I think it’s time you met the nurses.”
Martin made a quick sidetrip to check the doors at their place, and they went on. They covered the length of the beach before Will found the porch he was looking for. Martin reached out to steady his friend, and almost fell himself. He was getting high. It was easy.
As they let themselves in, the beach glimmered at their backs with crushed abalone shells and scuttling hermit crabs. Beyond the oil tankers, the uncertain outline of the island loomed in the bay. It was called Dead Man’s Island, Will told him.
He woke with the sensation that his head was cracking open. Music or something like it in the other room, throbbing through the thin walls like the pounding of surf. Voices. An argum
ent of some kind. He brushed at the cobwebs. He had been lost in a nightmare of domination and forced acquiescence before people who meant to do him harm. It returned to him in fragments. What did it mean? He shook it off and rolled out of bed.
There was the floor he had pressed with his hand last night to stop the room from spinning. There was the nurse, tangled in the sheets next to him. He guessed she was the nurse. He couldn’t see her face.
He went into the bathroom. He took a long draught of water from the faucet before he came out. He raised his head and the room spun again. The light from the window hurt his eyes—actual physical pain. He couldn’t find his sock. He tottered into the other room.
A young man with blown-dry hair was playing the tape deck too loudly. The sound vibrated the bright air, which seemed thin and brittle, hammering it like beaten silver. There was the girl in the blue tank top, still seated next to the smoldering fireplace. An empty bottle of Damiana Liqueur was balanced against her thigh. Her eyes were closed and her face was stony. He wondered if she had slept that way, propped upright all night. On the table were several Parker Brothers-type games from stateside: Gambler, Creature Features, The Game of Life. A deck of Gaiety Brand nudie cards, with a picture on the box of a puppy pulling a bikini top out of a purse. Someone had been playing solitaire. Martin couldn’t remember.
There was a commotion outside.
“What’s that?” he said, shielding his eyes.
“Talking Heads,” said the young man. He showed Martin the tape box. “They’re pretty good. That lead guitar line is hard to play. It’s so repetitious.”
“No, I mean ...”
Martin scratched and went into the kitchen. It was unoccupied, except for a cricket chirping somewhere behind the refrigerator. Breakfast was in process; eggs were being scrambled in a blender the nurses had brought with them from home. Martin protected his eyes again and looked outside.
The Year's Best Horror Stories 10 Page 10