“Don’t get out,” she said.
I looked up to where two adjoining windows were lighted on the third floor.
“Is that it?” I asked her.
She gave a funny, breathless little laugh. “I room with a girl. Rents are high here, so it was cheaper to double up. But…just go away now, Nick. Don’t come back tomorrow. Go on east. I was right, you know. It isn’t safe to have you around.”
“Sherry—” I said.
She lifted her face to me, and I kissed her hard. I heard her say, “Good-by, Nick. Really good-by,” and the car door clicked and her heels sounded on the pavement. Otherwise there wasn’t a sound until a truck made a distant rumbling blocks away.
I watched her run up the steps to the apartment house door and get something out of her purse—the key. She stopped, turned around, and waved to me. After that, she was gone, and I started the motor and drove west. I didn’t pay much attention to where I was going.
But after a while I saw I was out in the desert, and a gray light was starting to come from behind me. Pretty soon I passed a roadside shack on the left; it had an EAT sign on top of it and a gas pump in front. So I knew where I was going.
It was not quite dawn when I eased the Chewy up the driveway to the De Anza place. There weren’t any lights visible in the U-shaped house. Around to the side, the garage doors were open, and the Buick was parked inside. I put the Chewy beside it, leaving the keys in the ignition. Then I got out and stretched, listening to my joints and muscles crack. I was dead tired physically, but my mind felt as if it had been washed in champagne. The cold, fresh air, clear and bright, tingled against my skin.
It was still too early to do anything. I walked around the house to the open side of the U, but there weren’t any lights in the inner windows either. I hadn’t expected to see any. I thought I remembered one of those canvas reclining chairs folded up near where the Countess had been sitting, and from what I’d seen of the Mexicans, I doubted if they’d put it away. They hadn’t. I unfolded it carefully, making as little noise as possible, and set it up where the sun would hit me as soon as it climbed over the roof. There weren’t any blankets or robes around, and the air was cold.
Then I walked back to where I could look down the slope. All the darkness had gone by now. The mountains, very far away, were just a hazy layer that could have been low clouds, but Joshua and cactus and yucca were so clear they seemed to have been stamped out against the background. Phoenix was behind me; I couldn’t see it. But I followed the driveway with my eyes, till it dipped out of sight, and then 1 looked to the left where I could pick up a section of the black road that went to Phoenix.
My mind went along it till I found Sherry.
At last I returned to the reclining chair and arranged myself comfortably in it. I was so tired that even the cold couldn’t keep me awake. I dropped into an uneasy doze that soon changed into deep sleep. Once I thought vaguely about the king snake, and told myself drowsily that it wouldn’t be moving around in the cold, and it was harmless anyway. Then I went deeper into sleep and had some dreams I didn’t particularly like, though I couldn’t remember them afterward, and I thought the sun was beating down on me and drying up my mouth and nostrils, and I was drinking beer with Sherry in a car somewhere, or maybe an airplane, but the beer splashed all over my face and it began to burn like fire.
Then the burning stopped. I woke up and stared blindly at Mrs. De Anza. She was standing between me and the sun, which was blazing hot on my legs and body. I blinked at her.
“You’ll get sunstroke,” she said, and turned away so the sun hit me again. I struggled to a sitting position, but it was too awkward in that canvas chair, so I stood up, weaving a little, drunk with sleep.
“If Nick wants to sleep out here or on the roof, that’s his business,” Mrs. De Anza said. She wasn’t talking to me. Looking beyond her, I saw the Mexican woman, Benita, standing silently in the background. “For God’s sake, get me some coffee. Nick, don’t say a word to me till after breakfast. You either, Nita. Get things under control first.” She made an impatient gesture and hurried away.
Benita shrugged. I tried to smile, but my face felt stiff.
“I got in late,” I said. “I didn’t want to wake anybody up.”
She didn’t say anything, but the jerk of her head told me to follow her. So I did, through a door, along a short corridor, and into a bathroom. “Clean up,” she told me. “Then come over to the kitchen. Good-by.” She hadn’t said a word, but the way she managed her arms and hands was a language. She went out, closing the door, and I turned on the cold water and splashed it over my face.
That cleared the dreams out of my head. I looked at myself in the mirror. “Jesus,” I said under my breath.
I went out looking for my rucksack. It still lay where I’d dropped it. I carried it into the bathroom, took out a razor and a tube of brushless shaving cream, and hoped the blade would still cut whiskers. My beard grows fast, and it’s black. I looked like a Hollywood heavy.
I turned on the water in the stall shower. There was nothing I could do about trimming my hair, but at least I could change my socks. I had another pair. They had holes in them but were clean. As for my clothes, all I could do was beat out the dust and pick a few burrs from the trouser legs.
Fifteen minutes later, feeling more respectable, I headed for the kitchen.
Benita was frying bacon. She twisted her head around when I came in and stared at me.
“Thanks,” I said. “I needed to clean up.”
My voice sounded different, smoother and lower, I noticed, surprised. And I felt a little uncomfortable standing there by the door. Why in hell—?
I knew why. I didn’t feel quite as independent. I wanted something now—and this time I knew what I wanted. The job Mrs. De Anza offered yesterday. It had become important, because of Sherry.
Once I realized that, I took a deep breath and explained to myself carefully that there were other jobs. I gave myself a brief, harsh pep talk. Benita interrupted me by pointing toward the inner door.
“No comprendo,” I told her.
Her face didn’t change. She kept on pointing.
“Oh,” I said, and, not being up to a heart-to-heart one-way conversation. I went out of the kitchen and followed the sound of clinking china to the living room. The perfume smell was still here. I didn’t mind it so much this morning. I noticed a lot more—a big, expensive radio-phonograph-television set, a grand piano with the lid lifted, shelves of books and record albums lining the walls, sunlight in bright patches on the heavy rugs and the Monterey furniture. Mrs. De Anza was sitting at a small table, drinking coffee. There was another place set opposite her, but no sign of the Count.
“Well, sit down,” she said impatiently.
“For me? Thanks.” I pulled the chair back and eased myself into it. Even after the shower, I felt stiff and creaky.
She made a weary motion toward the coffee pot, indicating that I might as well help myself. I did. It was strong and black and scalding hot.
“Cream or sugar? Ask Nita if you want ’em.”
“I take it Pittsburgh.”
“What?”
“Black.”
“All right,” she said. “Go ahead and drink it and don’t expect anything except breakfast. Nothing happens here in the morning. Nobody’s awake. You look so cheerful you make me sick.”
I drank coffee. “I ought to apologize,” I said. “I didn’t get back till…well, pretty late.”
“Who cares?” she asked.
“I got lost,” I said, Then I got so sleepy I pulled over and took five. Except it turned out to be five hours. I guess I was bushed.”
“You’re so smart,” she said. “Why didn’t you try the doors? We don’t lock ’em. You could have found a softer place to sleep than that canvas back-breaker.”
You don’t lock the doors at night?”
She shut her eyes wearily, tired of me, a
nd said, “I want some more coffee.”
I poured it. She didn’t thank me.
With her eyes still closed, she yawned widely, settled down in her chair, and said, “You want that job?”
“Yes,” I said.
“That’s good. Ever been in jail?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me then, a little startled.
“Well, you’ve never killed anybody, have you?”
“Yes.”
For the first time I had thrown her. She sat there, moving her mouth, frowning, not quite sure what to say next. I waited a second before I went on.
“During the war.”
“Oh.”
“The jail term was something else again. That was only ten days, for vagrancy.”
“Anybody can get locked up,” she said, giving me a flat stare. “I’ve been behind bars myself.”
“Real ones?”
She saw I didn’t believe her. I suppose she was trying to shock me a little, the way I’d surprised her, because she said:
“An insane asylum, Nick. In France, before the war.”
I didn’t know whether to believe her or not, so I just nodded. The Countess looked slightly disappointed. She tightened her mouth, looked past me, and shouted, “Come on, come on, Nita. I’m hungry.”
Benita didn’t hurry. She trudged across the room with her burden, a big, loaded tray, set it down on the table, and began to unload it. Mrs. De Anza started right in. She drained a big glass of orange juice and began tearing a brioche apart like a starving castaway.
I decided I’d better begin eating too, if I hoped to get any. So for a while neither of us said anything. It was a race to see who finished first. She won, but I was neater.
Afterward, my stomach felt full. I leaned back in the chair, sucking in a lungful of smoke, and looked around. The grand piano in the corner was probably out of tune, in this desert air—then I changed my mind, realizing that the house was air-conditioned. The De Anzas must have dough, I thought.
“Amuse yourself,” Mrs. De Anza said, starting to get up. “I’m going to cut my throat or something. Lovely morning, lovely morning.” Then she lifted her eyebrows and watched me stand up and circle the table. I pulled back her chair.
“Such good manners,” she said, getting up. “They’re wasted here. Or are they?”
She stood with her back to me, apparently thinking.
Then she came to life and walked away. Without looking around, she went under the archway and out of my sight. The last thing I saw was a loose strand of red hair waving carelessly behind her.
The cigarette I was holding burned my finger. I came to life with a jump.
“Who cares?” I said under my breath.
Chapter 5
“Where’s Rafael?” I asked Benita.
She shrugged.
I put down the breakfast tray, which I’d loaded with the empty dishes, on the kitchen table. The door into the patio was half open, but the screen door wasn’t, and a fly buzzed metallically against the mesh. I opened the screen six inches or so and used gestures, like Benita, to tell it to get out. It didn’t understand. It kept dodging and circling and ramming itself against the screen. You’d think that with so many eyes it would have seen the exit, but no. It wanted out, but it couldn’t find the way. Finally I pushed the door wider and it circled from the cool air of the kitchen into the heat of the patio and disappeared. I followed it. Benita, busy at the sink, didn’t pay any attention to me.
There was no sign of Rafael or the Countess. The morning sun had already begun to bake the parched red brick floor of the patio. I noticed I’d begun to feel drowsy, in spite of the coffee. There was a funny quality to the silence; it was a hot sort of stillness, and the muffled noises Benita was making were all muted, as though they came from a long distance. What I did hear was a steady humming, a sort of composite sound, so soft it was nearly inaudible. It might have been my ears. Probably it was.
Remembering the king snake, I looked down. All I saw were my shoes, streaked and dusty in the cracks in spite of the quick cleanup I’d given them with toilet paper. I lifted one foot and saw that the sole was still okay, but the heel was badly run-over.
I walked around the inside of the U, keeping in the shade of the gallery, and, since I didn’t meet anybody, I kept on going and went around the house toward the garage. I had some vague idea of looking over the cars to see what I could do for them. But beyond the garage roof there was a greasy column of black smoke rising transparently against the brilliant blue sky, so I kept on and found Rafael beside a big incinerator. He was wearing old clothes this morning, with neat little canvas sneakers that kept popping in and out like scared mice from beneath his trouser cuffs. He gave me a broad, happy grin.
“Hello, Nick Banning,” he said. “Nice day, huh?”
“Sure is. You got the Buick home okay, I notice.”
“Well, we got blowout. Pchs! You eat?”
I nodded, looking at the smoke that was coming out everywhere but the incinerator’s chimney. Rafael had a newspaper-wrapped parcel in his hand, and a wheelbarrow with a garbage can and a few big wastebaskets in it. He picked up a glass demijohn, poured kerosene—it smelled like kerosene—on his bundle, and threw it into the incinerator. It burst into flame, began gushing smoke, and Rafael hastily screwed the top back on the bottle and set it down.
“Smokes, no?” he asked me.
I stepped up on the wheelbarrow and looked at the incinerator chimney. A couple of pieces of window screen were laid flat on top of it, completely choked with soot. I reached over and lifted the screen warily by the corners. Sparks and smoke came up.
“See?” Rafael said. “Starting a fire that way is no good.”
I replaced the screen and came down. “No good,” I said. “Have you got any galvanized mesh around?”
He didn’t think so. There was a lot of stuff in the back of the garage, though. I went to look, and found a roll of what I wanted hooked on to a nail in the wall. It was wide-gauge galvanized screen, and there was enough of it. There weren’t any tin shears, but I found some wire-cutting pliers hiding behind a cobweb, and I went back to where Rafael was feeding the incinerator. I sat down on the edge of the wheelbarrow and began cutting the screen into a sort of Greek cross shape. Rafael watched approvingly.
“Easier throwing the garbage in back,” he said.
“Draws flies.”
Flies didn’t worry him. He shrugged, spilled more kerosene on another parcel, and got ready to toss it. “Hold on a minute,” I said, and got up. I pushed the barrow closer to the incinerator, climbed up on it again, and measured the chimney top with my hand. I’ve got an eight-inch span, and this didn’t have to be too accurate. “Okay,” I said, getting down and going to work on the mesh again.
Rafael threw the bundle in and watched it burn. “You staying?”
“Depends. Maybe it’s up to De Anza. I don’t know. What do you call a count, anyway?”
“Señor—Mr. De Anza. Just Meester. In Spain, Don Leopold. Here, Count not worth nothing.”
“Well, is it up to him whether I get the job?”
Rafael glanced at me sidewise.
“Sure, ask. No matter. If she want you, she say. That’s all. Hot today, no?” He spat into the incinerator.
“When does Mr. De Anza wake up?” I asked.
Rafael shrugged.
“What’s the matter with him, anyway?”
“Sick.”
“Does he stay in bed all the time?”
“No. One time before it happen. Last year. He never got up at all for two, three months.”
“How long has he been sick this time?”
“One, two months.”
“Is it T.B.? Doesn’t he have a doctor or anything?”
“Doctor?” Rafael said. “Is nothing for no doctor to fix. Maybe a doctor for the eyes, that’s all. His eyes get bad. But—look there.” Following his
pointing finger, I saw a three-inch lizard motionless on a rock, its crooked legs holding it in an uncomfortable position as though it had just stopped doing push-ups.
“Culebra,” I said. The name popped into my head.
Rafael laughed. “No, culebra is the snake. Cold blood, though—not much different. Sleep all day is one thing, but when you no sleep—just staying in the bed…I think Mr. De Anza is burn out.”
“I don’t get you.”
“That fella”—Rafael pointed at the lizard—“long time ago, he used to be damn big. Like in King Kong. Hot, wet country—you know how big alligators get? Here it is too dry. He is just a little fella now.”
The lizard raced away. Looking after it, the Mexican said, “Back in Spain, I think Mr. De Anza’s family is pretty damn big too.”
“I’ve heard the name. The De Anzas settled California, didn’t they?”
Rafael looked at me slyly.
“Maybe his name is not De Anza, Nick.”
“Then what is it?”
He shrugged.
“No sé.”
“Well, what did he leave Spain for?”
“Ah, Spain is not like the United States, Nick. Here, you get the poor people and the rich people and the people in between. In Spain, you get the rich people and the poor people and that’s all. The money, it don’t mean so much. The big thing is to get born in the right family. You know, la aristocracia. If an aristócrata don’t have no money, he is still the big shot. He don’t leave Spain for that.”
“Why does he, then?”
There was only one answer to that. I got it.
“Quién sabe?”
“Well,” I said, “what’s the matter with his face?”
“Nothing. He is like to have the soft white skin.” Rafael noticed his own brown hands. He wiggled his fingers and laughed. “I am dress up outside—nice clothes, Nick. I like the nice clothes. Then people look at the clothes and don’t see Rafael.” He emphasized the last syllable of his name; I figured he ought to know. “Everybody vain about something. Dress up somehow.”
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