“Better and better.” He hesitated. “Then you leave. It’s harder for me to protect you on this other — this of the spying. There has been another denunciation, you see.”
“Windly again?”
“No, a woman. Don’t ask me who. I did not take the complaint. But I’m told it was a woman. Tall...perhaps orange-haired according to a clerk who may have seen her chatting with my lieutenant.”
***
Alva turned at the sound of the door opening, then closing. Sitting naked again at her easel, she said, “Word from Bishop?” She was very casual in her nudity...comfortable. She had one foot on the uppermost rung of her painter’s stool, the other on the floor...her knees slightly apart. She was wearing big woolen socks, but that was all. She’d stoked up a big crackling fire.
“No more word is to come from old Bish’, not ever,” Hector said. “Sorry honey — sorry if it has any effect on your future in terms of that gallery in France.”
“What are you saying, Hector?”
“Bishop was murdered a bit ago. It looks like a robbery. His throat was slashed.”
“Robbery?”
“So the police say.”
“You sound unconvinced.”
“Don’t I?”
“There is no such thing as an exact synonym or an unmixed motive.”— Katherine Anne Porter
RIFTS
25
Hem sent a truck around to pick them up at Alva’s loft. They were to dine at Botín’s.
Hector asked that they first be taken to the Hotel Florida. He left Alva in the hotel bar with a drink and promised to rejoin her in a few minutes.
She arched an eyebrow. “Where are you going?”
“To see if I can find a friend.”
Hector checked with the front desk and was told Dos Passos was still in room 89, but he had just requested a porter.
Hector found Dos’ room and rapped his knuckles on the door in a playful rhythm.
Dos called, “Friend or Hemingway?”
“The former,” Hector said.
“Former friend?”
“You’ll have to tell me,” Hector said. “I still like you fine.”
Dos opened the door a crack. Through the gap, Hector could see Dos’ luggage on the bed, opened.
“You’re packing?”
“That’s right,” Dos said. He opened the door wider for Hector to pass through and then closed it behind him. Dos was fairly tall in stocking feet, but Hector towered over him.
Dos said, “You heard?”
“Yeah. I’m damned sorry, buddy. It’s terrible.”
“How long have you known what happened, Hector?”
“It’s not like that, Dos. I heard after you. Hem came by Alva’s after he broke the news to you. Guess he wanted to put his own face on it. Guess he wanted get his version out first.”
Hector planted his ass on the bureau’s corner. Dos pushed aside a suitcase and took a seat at the foot of the bed. There was a deep rumble from the direction of the front. “Guess the Republic is finally shelling back,” Dos said.
“For all the good that will do.”
Dos shrugged. “It wasn’t news, not really, of course — about José, I mean. I figured José was dead and had been for some time. It was Hem’s tone in telling me that set me off. He managed to be at once condescending and imperious. Too knowing.”
“He’ll get over it,” Hector said.
“Doubtful. Hem nurses his grudges. And he did it in public...at a party. And I’ll never get over it. We’re quits. He’s been tiresome for a long while. He used to be such an intense listener and learner. Now he pulls on the white whiskers and issues pronouncements. Demands to be believed. That air of superiority was all over Death in the Afternoon, and it’s all over Green Hills, too. And all his shots at the critics — he was begging for a backlash from them. If you lob grenades at critics, you have to expect retaliation.”
“Unless you hit ’em square,” Hector said, with a crooked smile. “With the grenades, I mean.”
Dos said, “Katy calls Hem the Mahatma, now. She’s known Hem longer than any of us, since they were kids, really. She sees drastic changes in him. She thinks about another ten years and he’ll be — her term, not mine — ‘imminently nettable.’ Really thinks Hem’ll be in a mental institution.”
“That’s a happy thought.”
“Hem’s very forgiving of the communists.”
“They didn’t kill his old good friend,” Hector said.
“What about you, Hec? You’ve been here in Spain a few days...close to the ground. Got yourself arrested and out of it, like José evidently couldn’t. Hem told me, ‘You’re either with us, or against us.’ You’ve met some players from both factions. You taking sides yet?”
“Not even leaning,” Hector said. “In fact, I’m getting out of Dodge. Come morning, this shithole country won’t see me for my dust.” Hector pointed at his friend’s bags. “What about you? Heading home? I hope so...this ‘war’ isn’t for shit. I think it’s really being run by Stalin.”
“I’m just moving across town,” Dos said. “At least for a few more days. Need to get some distance on the Mahatma and his sycophants. And you’re right, maybe, about the wrongness and futility of all this. Like I told Hemingway, what’s the use of fighting a war for civil liberties if you destroy civil liberties in the process? Like José: arrested by God knows who for God knows what and shot without a trial. Now I need to get a death certificate for José. For his wife and kids, I mean. That’s the only way they can ever collect on his life insurance policy. So this isn’t over for me. Fuck Hemingway. And fuck Martha fucking Gellhorn.” Dos shook his head. “What are you really here for, Hec? Not just to say goodbye, right? Got an audience with the great man?”
“Little of both,” Hector said. “Wanted to see how you’re doing...and there is a dinner tonight. So far as the social event goes, I’m there for the just desserts.”
“Serving them I suppose. I know you well enough to know not to ask for more.”
Hector winked. “Wise course in this dusty land of dread and fear, my brother...this fucked up country full of snitches and spies.”
“So what’s your next stop, Hector?”
“Paris. Then home. Found a new house on Puget Sound. Whidbey Island.” Hector stood and put out a hand. Dos shook it firmly. “You come by the new island, you and Katy,” Hector said. “We’ll go fishing for the kind of fish you don’t have to club to death, or to machine gun.”
“That sounds real good. Watch yourself, Hec.” Dos thought about it, then said, “Hem’s done with all of us I think — all us old guard, I mean. Hem’s committed to moving on to the next phase of his life, and old friends aren’t going to be asked along for the ride. You’re about the only one left, and I don’t think there are any rewards for being last man standing in this match. He’ll find an excuse to cut you out, too. He’ll find one, or else he’ll manufacture one.”
“No saying I won’t do it first,” Hector said. “Not intentionally, of course...it’s just you can’t tell what might set Hem off these days.”
***
As he approached the bar, Hector saw that Hem was sitting with Alva. He heard her say, “It’s yummy.”
“Well, they’re even better back home,” Hem said. “There you can have them with mint, as they’re supposed to be made.” He picked up her drink and sipped some. “Only about 80 percent there,” Hem said. “And it really needs to be made with Bacardi rum.” Hem saw that Hector had arrived and smiled at him. “Hey, Lasso. Just been introducing Alva to the miracle of the mojito. Or as close as they come to one in these parts.”
Hector waved off the bartender and said, “No, nothing for me.”
Hem frowned. “Still trying to change your way of living? This late in life?”
“No, I’m pacing myself, because I’m still pissing blood from that kidney punch,” Hector said. “I drink much of anything stronger than mineral water, I feel like I’m being knifed
in the back.”
Hem sipped his drink; Hector thought he smelled Scotch. Hem asked, “How’s Dos coping?”
Hector said, “Do you really care?”
“Up to a point, sure,” Hem said. “But not enough to go to the source. That door is closed and barricaded.”
“That door’s barricaded on both sides, then. Damn shame. At least there’ll be more room down below on Pilar. It wasn’t what you said, you know. Dos had already reconciled himself to the fact that Robles was likely dead. It was the way you confirmed his suspicions. The way you said it.”
Hem sipped his cocktail. “Everyone is a critic.”
Hector shook his head and spun his chair around. He straddled the chair, his arms crossed atop its back. “You thought anymore about your future, Hem?”
“I have.”
“Does that future find you in Key West?”
“Not Key West. Not sure where yet, but not there.”
“All right then.”
Hem said, “Alva tells me you’re headed west and trying to drag her along.”
Hector shot her a look.
“That wasn’t my word, Hector,” she said. “I didn’t use ‘drag.’”
“Puget Sound,” Hector said. “FDR and company hasn’t fucked up those environs yet.”
“And you’re going farther and farther from the action,” Hem said. “Farther from the fight. Was a time, a man was supposed to ride to the sound of the cannons, not away from them.”
Hector took a breath, thought about it, then decided to go ahead with it. Hem was on poorly chosen ground, needling him over military service. Hector decided to remind him of that fact. First he looked at Alva, searching her face. She looked away. Hector’s blue eyes narrowed. Hector carefully chose his words, placing the emphasis on just the rights ones. He saw his one true sentence in his mind’s eye — as it would look typed on his Underwood; underlined to indicate the italics:
“I have fought in war.”
Hector said his one true sentence aloud.
Hem actually flinched, clearly feeling every word and all the other ones that Hector’s five, carefully chosen, stated words implied. Hector’s one true sentence, stretched out to a paragraph with its between-the-lines sentences made explicit would have gone more along the lines of:
“I have fought in war. I fought in Mexico with Black Jack Pershing, Hem. I fought in the trenches of Europe, and I did it as an armed combatant. I was wounded in battle. I wasn’t injured and then given disingenuous medals for being blown up passing out chocolates in a place I had no right or authorization to be. You know — the way you sustained your war injuries in Italy ... the unnecessary wounds that have been twisted by Scribner’s publicity department to make you look like a soldier in arms. I have killed men in Mexico and I have killed men in France and Italy. In Cuba and Canada, and points in between. I will kill one tonight, here, in Spain. So far as I know, Hem, you have never killed another man. You have never fired on another man, or been fired upon by one — not with intent.”
That was all unsaid, but Hem got the message as clearly as if it had been said aloud by Hector.
Alva, on the other hand, did not grasp the dynamic or the dangerous subtext. Sensing an alliance with Hem that might somehow sway Hector to some undefined end, she said, “Some things are worth fighting for, Hector. Some things are worth dying or even killing for.”
“That’s right,” Hector said evenly. “And I’ve done all of those things but the dying, Alva. And that one I expect I’ll get around to, particularly if I stay in this goddamn country much longer. And I expect to kill again, and quite soon, as you well know.”
So now Hem would know that Alva knew what was on for the night. Hector didn’t care anymore. Fuck him. Or Hem. Fuck Alva. Fuck them both.
Alva said, “I’m sorry, Hector. I didn’t mean to anger you,” she said. “I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just that you have these skills — martial and otherwise. To remain passive in this fight? To do nothing at this time? I can’t grasp that.”
Hector shrugged. “We fight the battles we can win. I ain’t playin’ crusader rabbit for a lost cause. I invest my capital more wisely than that. I don’t do the Don Quixote number.”
“But to stand back...to watch this all unfold and do nothing?” Alva just didn’t know how to let it go, Hector thought. She said, “Do you know the line by Donne, Hector? Do you know it, Hem?”
Both writers shrugged. Hector said, “I’m not one for poetry, much. ’Specially those great dead white writers we’re all supposed to dote on. I might read some Robert Service...a little Yeats when St. Patrick’s Day rolls around and I feel like getting all wet about Ireland, but that’s it.”
Alva sipped her mojito and said, “Donne wrote, ‘No man is an Iland, intire of its selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, part of the maine...any man’s death diminishes me.”
“Sentimental bullshit,” Hector said. “Donne’s a joke.”
Hem was watching her with his brown eyes. “I do recall that passage, now,” he said.
Hector lifted Alva’s glass. The rim of her glass was stained with lipstick. She’d dressed and primped for dinner — the first time he’d really seen her wear make-up and assume airs. He missed his lusty bohemian with her careless, gamine hair and unvarnished nails. He tapped glasses with a wary Hem and said, “Here’s to diminishing ourselves this evening.” He sipped the mojito and made a face. “This is no mojito.”
“It’s sweetened with honey,” Hem said. “You know I can’t abide sugar.”
“But you weren’t the one that was going to drink that drink, Papa.” It was the first time that Hector had used the nickname Hem had generated for himself. Hector wasn’t sure why he kept provoking Hem this way — trying to beat Hem to the punch in instigating what Dos had predicted was an inevitable rift between Hector and Ernest? Maybe...
Hem smiled. Hector almost shivered, knowing him well enough to know the smile was full of menace. Hem reached over and took the glass from Hector’s hand. “It wasn’t made for you, either, Hector.” They stared at one another.
Hem blinked first. “No, not like this, Hector. Not now. We have something to do tonight, remember? Rache.”
“Rachel,” Alva said softly.
“No, he means r-a-c-h-e,” Hector said, not looking at her. “It’s the German for ‘revenge.’”
***
Hem had invited his new cronies for pre-dinner drinks at Chicote’s. The cronies invited cronies who invited their friends and so on. The result was a sodden clot of suck-ups and sycophants and hangers-on who tried to cadge drinks and bum cigarettes or get their ashes hauled by camp followers who were themselves drunk enough to engage in discounts or to barter for more drinks and smokes.
Hector thought he glimpsed George Orwell, his head bowed, moving to get the hell out of the place now that Hem and company had arrived in force.
It was deafening with the overlapping, drunken conversations. Two gypsy singers were practically screaming to have their cante jondo heard over the buzz of voices. In another corner, some drunken communists were singing a sloppy but enthusiastic version of the “International.”
Alva had been pulled away for conversation with an intense, hawk-faced man with slicked-back dark hair, a pencil-thin moustache and very prominent ears...some presumed painter Hector thought might be Salvador Dali.
For his part, Hector drifted away to a table close by the door...drawn to a small band of charismatic men and women who claimed to be attached to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Hector sat chatting with one of them — an older woman named Roslyn. Her strawberry-blond hair was streaked with gray. She had lived for many years in Alaska before eventually finding her way to Spain. She spoke of Alaska and of having met Kafka and Houdini.
After about an hour of chatting with her, Hem and Alva found Hector. Hem said, “Our reservations, Hector — we have to get to Botín’s.”
“All critics should be assassinated.”— Man Ray
BANDERILLAS DE FUEGO
26
Theirs was a party of eight: Hem, Martha, several members of the crew of The Spanish Earth, Hector and Alva...and Quentin Windly.
While Martha and Alva went with the film crew to claim their table, Hem and Hector hung back at the truck. Hem pulled a rucksack from under the back seat of the truck. Hem said, “Mausers...a Mannlicher. What’s your pleasure tonight?”
Hector thought of Dos Passos and his aside about Hem and the critics. He said, “Got any grenades?”
Hem smiled crookedly. “Going to give as bloody as his victims got, huh, Lasso?” He rooted around the bag to show Hector. “Just three — ‘Potato Smashers,’” he said, pulling one from the bag to give Hector a better glimpse. The grenade’s nickname said it all — a square container of explosives with a stick for a handle. “They’re of German-manufacture,” Hem said.
“Fuse length?”
“Five seconds, give or take.”
“Just want to make sure there isn’t time for the bastard to catch it and pitch it back.”
“How do you want to do this, Hector?”
“You’ve indicated Quentin’s a poseur...talks a big game but avoids the front. Certainly isn’t fighting for either side.”
Hem nodded. “Certainly isn’t. He sucks up to both sides and plays a wheel because of his family’s investments on either side of the war. Covering their asses, you know. He trades on their largesse. I’ve tried to get him to ride along for some filming expeditions, but he demurs. Cocksucker’s a coward.”
“So I figure we shame him into a reckless drive up nearer to the front,” Hector said. “Play drunken louts and go at his manhood, do it in a merciless way, if we have to. Get him up there by the front and then....”
Hem winked. “Then the unlucky Wind gets hit by a fascist shell.”
“Fascist?”
“Sure, you keep insisting you’ve got no politics,” Hem said. “So I get to construct this narrative. Wind gets shelled by Franco. The Republic can use the money the Windlys will invest to avenge their dead son.”
Toros & Torsos (The Hector Lassiter Series) Page 17