Voyage into Violence

by Frances

  “H-mmm,” Pam North said. “I wonder—”

  They looked at her, and waited.

  “That’s just it,” Pam said. “I don’t know what to wonder. It’s very baffling.”

  The orchestra played again. The Norths and Weigands changed partners; they danced again. One of the dancers, with a blond girl from the ship—with the girl who spent so much time in the swimming pool, but seemingly attached to a small boy—was Jules Barron. He was very dark, very Spanish, and a most expert dancer. And Miss Springer, in a white dress which was really much too fluffy, danced with Adjutant Hammond Jones, who was in uniform, and perspiring freely and having not a little trouble with his feet.

  The orchestra quit playing, and this time with finality. The orchestra left its glass-roofed enclosure, and went elsewhere. Dancers drifted back to tables. The Norths and the Weigands filled glasses and sipped from them, and watched Miss Hilda Macklin come down the wide stairs into the patio, the maitre d’ accompanying her, and helping her look around. They hesitated; then Hilda, who wore the white dress she had worn the night Dorian was pushed, made a motion with her head, had it approved by the maitre d’, and went among tables to that at which her mother and Folsom were seated. Folsom stood up while Hilda sat down. She leaned toward Mrs. Macklin, and began to say something.

  “Everybody’s here,” Pam said, and then a waiter came and held out a folded paper to Bill Weigand and said, “Señor Weigand?” making the name sound strangely Spanish. Bill took the paper and unfolded it, and read and nodded his head. “You,” Pam said, “are acting like Sherlock. Always picking up things and looking superior.”

  “Not at all,” Bill said, and handed her the paper. She read it aloud. She read: “‘Both affirmative. Stein.’”

  “I have never,” Dorian Weigand said, “known you to be so aggravating. I’ll never take you cruising again.”

  “I asked the sergeant two questions,” Bill said. “Entirely obvious questions, under the circumstances. The answer is affirmative.” He regarded them. “There is nothing up my sleeve,” he said.

  Another band filed into the orchestra’s hooded space. It was North American. After they had listened a moment, Jerry said, to Pamela, “Come,” and led her away from the dance floor. She was docile, and they walked out among tables. There was no barrier, nothing to delimit the patio from what seemed to be a park surrounding the Castle Club. They walked among palm trees, and found a bench and sat on it. “Why, Jerry!” Pam said, after a time, and was told by Jerry that he, also, felt like eighteen again. They looked up at the imitation Morro Castle which loomed above them. After a further time, they left the bench and floated—it was a night for floating—to the tower. An area around the base of the tower was paved with flagstones. There was a door let into the tower and, by the door, a sign, in English and in Spanish. In English, it read: “An excellent view may be obtained from the observation platform.”

  “It does not,” Jerry said, “say of what.”

  He looked in. Electric lights followed a spiraling staircase. He looked at Pam.

  “No,” Pam said, and they went elsewhere. They went, again after a time—there was no hurry about anything; time stood still and, apparently, investigation stood with it—back to the table and found Dorian and Bill gone. Gone, too, from their table; were Folsom and Mrs. Macklin, and Mrs. Macklin’s thin, undecorated daughter. The music had quieted, and Pam and Jerry danced. When the dance ended, Dorian and Bill Weigand had still not reappeared, and now the Furstenbergs and Captain Cunningham also had vanished. They were not, had not been, on the dance floor. But Jules Barron stood at the edge of the dance floor, alone, looking around him.

  “The blonde that got away,” Pam said, of that, and then, “Where is everybody?” and, answering herself without hesitation, “In that gambling place,” and stood up. Jerry was just perceptibly slow in rising. “Oh,” Pam said, “just to look. And it’s perfectly legal in Cuba.”

  She led the way. From outside the gaming room, it appeared that “everybody” including Bill and Dorian Weigand had decided to look. The Weigands were standing near, but not at, a roulette table, and Captain Cunningham was with them. And not far away, Hilda Macklin stood, apparently, as so often, by herself. She was looking fixedly at her mother, and at J. R. Folsom, neither had come merely to watch. Mrs. Macklin put a neat stack of chips on even and another on red. “Messieurs et mesdames, faites vos jeux,” the croupier said, and spun the wheel, and the ball swirled in it. “Rien ne va plus,” the croupier said, in the ritual, and after a moment the ball stopped. “Fifteen, odd and black,” the croupier said, abandoning the ritualistic for the comprehensible. He then took Mrs. Macklin’s chips.

  Hilda Macklin looked around the room. Her eyes hesitated a moment, or seemed to hesitate, on Bill Weigand. She moved, then, toward her mother, but checked that movement. Mrs. Macklin opened her purse and looked into it and went to the bank’s counter and took out bills and came back with chips. Hilda did go to her then, and touched her shoulder and said something in a low voice. Mrs. Macklin’s shoulder moved resentfully, and Hilda took her hand from it and drew back and, again, looked around. There was, Pam North thought, anxiety in the girl’s thin face.

  Mrs. Macklin leaned over the table and peered at it. Then she quartered on 14, 15, 17 and 18 and put chips again on even, and, just as the wheel started, with a flurried movement, on the second column. “Rien ne va plus,” the croupier said, and the wheel stopped. “Four, even, black, first eighteen,” the croupier said, and Mrs. Macklin won on even and lost elsewhere. She piled chips with nervous fingers, and again Hilda touched her shoulder. Mrs. Macklin turned, then, with a quickness which shook loose—shook further loose—her improbably red hair. “Leave me alone,” Mrs. Macklin said. “You hear? Leave me alone.” Hilda drew back, and Mrs. Macklin leaned over the table, holding chips in long, anxious fingers.

  The Norths had joined Dorian and Bill and the captain, and found that they, also, were watching Mrs. Macklin—watching as, now, she wagered on odd and black, and put five chips on each. “I suppose,” Pam said, “that they are using real money?”

  “The lady,” Captain Cunningham said, “is using ten dollar chips.”

  “But didn’t—” Pam said.

  “Quite,” Captain Cunningham said, looking down at her.

  “—her daughter tell Mr. Furstenburg?”

  “Right,” Bill Weigand said. “She did indeed, Pam. According to Mr. Furstenberg.”

  “Then,” Pam said, and both men shrugged.

  “—thirteen, odd and black,” the croupier said, and his rake worked quickly over the board, and pushed chips to join Mrs. Macklin’s. Her nervous fingers stacked the chips, started to pull them toward her. Then, hurriedly—so that one stack was broken and a chip rolled and had to be retrieved—she pushed them back to odd and black. And from the other end of the table, beyond the wheel, a young, excited voice said, “Wow!” They looked at Mrs. Carl Buckley from Kansas, whose eyes were wide open and her mouth too. She was looking at Aaron Furstenberg, whose expression was unchanged, who looked neither triumphant nor surprised, and still by no means smug, as the croupier pushed three stacks of ten chips each toward him and added five. Mr. Furstenberg had wagered ten dollars on thirteen.

  “It seems,” Pam said, “like a very nice game.”

  “No,” Jerry said.

  They watched, over intervening heads and between them, while Mr. Furstenberg quartered on 13, 14, 16 and 17, and on three other sets; they listened while the croupier chanted, while the little ball rattled gayly in the spinning wheel. “Seventeen, odd and black,” the croupier said and now, at two to one, Mrs. Macklin had pleasant stacks of chips in front of her, and Mr. Furstenberg, at eight to one on his quartering, less his losses, also garnered. Mrs. Macklin clawed the chips toward her, and her tight-drawn face was flushed. Mr. Furstenberg’s manner was unchanged. Hilda Macklin turned abruptly and went out of the gaming room.

  Outside, under the crystal moon, among the many-co
lored palm trees, the Cuban orchestra was playing again. Music came through the open door. The spinning ball seemed to dance to mamba rhythm.

  But the room of roulette, of blackjack, of dice tables, slowly filled. The tinkle of chip on chip, the faint rattle of the little ball, the soft thud of dice against the backing cushion—and the encouraging yelps of the dice players—supplied the more entrancing music. A few of those playing were Cubans, for the most part Cuban men, some in the crisp white pleated nightshirts which, now, Captain Cunningham identified as guayaberas. But the Cubans were out-numbered by people from the Carib Queen. Around the roulette table, there were now no vacant places—and now a player, unlucky enough to leave for a replenishment of chips, returned bright-eyed and hopeful to find no space to get his money down; was sometimes, indeed, forced to cash in again and go out into the gay night and find what recompense he could in music and the soft gurgle of scotch from bottle.

  The Weigands and the Norths had circulated slowly from the immediate vicinity of the roulette table, being partly pushed and partly drawn by a growing realization that something rather special was going on at one of the crap tables. It was not that it was noisy there; it was, on the other hand, rather quieter than at the other tables where dice bounced. But there was a kind of tenseness in the hush around the table, and there was a slow, somehow impressed, drifting toward it. Close enough, they discovered that Respected Captain J. R. Folsom had the dice—and that, apparently, he had had them for some time. They were not bothering with chips at the crap table. Bank notes sufficed. In front of Mr. Folsom there were many bills, loosely piled. And Mr. Folsom’s normally ruddy face was oddly white.

  Folsom shoved out a sheaf of bills, apparently without counting them. He waited—he waited for some time. The bet was covered. He shook the dice in his hand, sent them tumbling down the table, bouncing from the backboard. They rolled, danced on their corners. They came up three and four, and Folsom, paler than before, drew bills toward him, then pushed them back. “Let it ride,” he said. It took longer this time. “Never saw anything like it,” a man next to Jerry North said. “Not since Army payday. Ten he makes it?”

  Jerry North shook his head. “I just,” he said, “bought a very expensive alligator.” The man looked at him, and drew away slightly. Mr. Folsom clicked the dice in his hand. This time he blew on them before he sent them dancing down the table. The dice bounced back. A four came up and the other dice pirouetted on its corners. It turned up deuce. The man who had never seen anything like it edged back to Jerry North, alligator or no alligator. “Ten he doesn’t,” the man offered. Jerry grinned again, shook his head again. “Ten he does,” Pamela North said, around Jerry, and the man said, “Done, lady.”

  Folsom blew on the dice and rolled again, and threw a four and a five. He threw again, and threw eight. He curled his fingers inside his right hand, as if to dry the palm, and blew again on the dice and took a deep breath and waited an instant and rolled them. They bounced back. He threw two treys and said, “Phew,” and pulled the money toward him. It appeared to be a great deal of money. He straightened bills between his hands, and looked at the dice. He picked them up and looked at them, and handed them—gently, as if they were precious and very fragile—to the man on his left. “They are all yours, brother,” Respected Captain J. R. Folsom said, with a touch of reverence in his voice, and backed away from the table with his hands full of money. He did not wait to see the man on his left throw double six—the fatal “boxcars”—and groan over his evil fate. Mr. Folsom did not, as he went through the crowded room, pushing money into pockets, his face slowly regaining its normal hue, seem to see anybody.

  “Here you are, lady,” the man who had never seen anything like it said, and held a ten dollar bill out to Pam North. “Oh,” Pam said, “did I win?” He merely looked at her. “Well,” Pam said, “it’s very nice of you,” and took the bill. “Alligators!” the man said, and went away. A good many left the dice table, now that Folsom’s run was over, and Pam and Jerry and Dorian—Bill had somehow disappeared in the crowd, as had Captain Cunningham—drifted with the others. They found Bill near the door. Dorian put an arm through his, said, “It’s better outdoors.” But Bill said, softly, “Wait,” and pulled her to the side, and turned his back on the door. Pam and Jerry stepped, with them, a few feet farther into the room.

  Jules Barron came into the room. He walked across it to the roulette table. Then he moved behind Mrs. Macklin and stood watching the play. He stood there while Mrs. Macklin, who had very few chips in front of her, risked them on even. The croupier said, “Five, red, odd,” and the rake gathered in Olivia Macklin’s chips.

  Her hair was in great disorder, now. Her tight-skinned face was tighter drawn and, as she turned, her black eyes seemed strangely sightless. She got up from the table and, opening her handbag as she went, walked toward the bank counter. She took out bills at the counter.

  And, as she left her place, Jules Barron moved quickly into it. A man who had been waiting longer said something they could not hear, and Barron shrugged, as if he did not understand.

  Hilda Macklin came to the door of the gaming room and looked into it—looked at the roulette table. Without any change in the expression of her thin face, her almost colorless face, she turned and went back into the foyer.

  “Wait,” Bill said. “Watch them.”

  They watched. Jules Barron put two chips on black and the wheel spun. But, instead of staring at the spinning wheel, as most did—as if they could stare it into conformity—Barron looked across the room toward Mrs. Macklin at the counter. “—and black,” the croupier said, and pushed two chips to join Barron’s two. Barron did not pick them up.

  Mrs. Macklin turned from the counter and walked back to the table. Her black eyes were, now, very sharp. Yet she walked to the place where she had played and did not, until she had reached it, stood behind Barron, seem to realize that her place was gone. When she did, she touched Barron on the shoulder, and said something.

  He did not turn. His shoulders moved only slightly, in a shrug. She tapped his shoulder, and then he moved his head in a quick, impatient gesture, and said something which they could not hear.

  “Rien ne va plus,” the croupier said, and the little ball bounced in the spinning wheel, and now Barron, like the others, seemed to have eyes for nothing else.

  “—and black,” the croupier said, and his rake moved over the table, and four more chips joined Barron’s four. This time he picked two of them up.

  Mrs. Macklin took both of his shoulders and pulled at them. “Young man!” she said, and her voice was high, now; now her voice carried above the other voices in the room. “Get up and—”

  The croupier made the faintest motion of his head. He said, “Messieurs et mesdames, faites vos jeux,” and seemed unperturbed as bets were placed.

  “My place,” Mrs. Macklin said, and her voice was very high and shrill. “Show you you—”

  “—and black,” the croupier said, as the wheel stopped.

  Barron reached out and took two more chips from the board. He stacked those that remained. He paid no attention to Mrs. Macklin, although still she pulled at his shoulders.

  A man in a white dinner jacket—a man with a young-old face and dark eyes which said nothing—came behind Mrs. Macklin. He touched her shoulder, very gently, with great politeness. He smiled, and the smile was pleasant. He said something in a low voice, and she turned and raised a sudden thin hand and plunged it into her disordered, improbable hair. The man’s lips moved, and the smile remained. But his hand tightened a little on her shoulder. Across the room, they could see it tighten.

  And they could see her body tense; could see the hand come down from her hair and, like the other, clench into a fist. The man’s smile did not change; his eyes did not change. He seemed unconscious of the tenseness of the tight-faced woman, although he looked down at her. His lips moved again, very slightly.

  Then, after an instant in which the tenseness of her body
seemed to increase, Mrs. Macklin shrugged her shoulders, very slightly. He moved aside and she walked back to the bank’s counter and stacked chips on it, and for the chips received bills—not many bills. The man in the white dinner jacket had walked behind her to the counter. Now, with the same smile, he stepped aside and bowed. Mrs. Olivia Macklin walked, very straight, toward the door. She did not seem to see the Norths and the Weigands near it. Like Folsom before her, she did not seem to see anybody. She went out of the gaming room.

  “All very smoothly done,” Jerry North said. “All very much under control.”

  “Oh,” Bill said. “Right. The government keeps an eye on things. Well—” But then he looked back at the roulette table. The wheel had stopped again.

  “—and red,” the croupier said, and his rake came out and Barron’s were among the chips garnered by the house. Barron watched them go and seemed without interest. He looked at the door through which Mrs. Macklin had gone. He stepped back, then, and nodded and smiled at the man who had waited longer. The man moved in. Barron walked to a dice table and stood looking at the play, but he made no offer to join it.

  “The daughter had him come?” Pam said.

  Bill hesitated for a moment. Then he said, “Yes. I think so. You might put it that way.”

  12

  They walked through the foyer and down the shallow stairs to the patio. The air was fresh, after the smoke of the gaming room, and the lights soft. And the show was on again. The girls, this time, wore long, much ruffled, white dresses (with no backs) and the men were in white, too—pleated white guayaberas, and white trousers and white shoes and white straw hats. They did an intricate samba—at least Pam, walking beside Bill Weigand, stopping with him on the bottom step to watch, thought it was a samba. It was very lively, certainly. It involved stamping. It was prettily gay under the spots; the dancers were in a pool of light with the tables and the people at them a low, dusky bank around the pool. From among the dancers, who parted to let her through, a dark girl danced—a girl incredibly slender yet softly shaped. She was not wearing a ruffled white dress; it was, at first glance, impossible to believe she was wearing anything at all, which would have been, Pam thought, perfectly appropriate. (It was not, on closer inspection, and by the narrowest of margins, true.)