The Wounded and the Slain Page 16

  Chapter Fourteen

  Seven and three and seventeen. Keep the numbers in mind, he thought. But you’re getting dizzy again and you might forget. No you won’t do that. You can’t allow yourself to forget. It’s seven and three and seventeen. It’s seven blocks east on Barry Street and turn right into what she said was Morgan’s Alley. Then stay on the left-hand side and pass three intersections and the house number is seventeen. And will you please get a move on?

  He tried to walk faster but the wet clothes held him back. The dampness had penetrated his flesh and seeped into his bones, mixing with the fatigue that now told him it was a matter of stamina and he didn’t have that kind of stamina. The water-filled ditch had played him out. But then you slept, he thought. Well, yes, but you didn’t sleep long enough, and when you woke up you went for a walk that was more of a hike, trying to find Barry Street and Winnie’s Place.

  Come on, keep walking. That’s right. That’s fine. You’ll make it. Anyway, I think you’ll make it. You didn’t think you’d make it to Winnie’s Place but you got there, didn’t you? So you did it then and you can do it now. If only you’ll keep walking. That’s it. Sure, it’s easy. It’s a cinch. Oh, Christ, I’m so tired. So wet and tired and getting dizzy and dizzier….

  Oh, no, you won’t. You won’t sit down on that doorstep. It looks awfully tempting and it’s for free, but if you accept the invitation you’ll find it’s extremely expensive. It’ll be your head falling on your chest, your eyes closing while you fade away from everything. During which interval our friend Nathan fades away from Kingston with his fifteen hundred dirty dollars. And our chance to bat for Eustace fades away like a hand waving goodbye. So you won’t sit down on that doorstep. You’ll keep walking.

  Keep walking and remember it’s seven and three and seventeen. Or is it nineteen? No, it’s seventeen. You see? You can still think straight. But I wish you could walk straight. Just look at the way you’re walking. Your legs are moving like Sugar Ray’s on that summer night when he met Maxim, but it wasn’t Maxim getting him, it was July getting him in the twelfth round and he barely made it to his corner. It was a pity he couldn’t come out for the thirteenth. But what about you? You’ll be lucky if you can answer the bell for round one.

  It almost gets a laugh. I mean, you’re banged up before it even starts. It’s really silly to expect that you can do anything, the shape you’re in. A nine-year-old could tag you with a left and you’d go down. Like a wet sack.

  Really wet through. All that muddy water you took a bath in. And some of it you must have swallowed. Well, it was time you drank some water. But I can think of pleasanter ways to go on the wagon. All right, we’ll take up that matter at the next meeting. That is, if there’ll be a next meeting. The way things are going, we might be adjourning for the season. Or maybe for all future seasons, considering what she said about Nathan’s talent with a knife.

  I’m getting there, Eustace. Now we’ve made five and it’s two more blocks to go and then turn right and Did I hear something?

  You sure did, mister.

  He wanted to stop walking. He told himself it would be a mistake to stop walking, a serious mistake to turn and look around. The footsteps coming on made the kind of noise that told him they were trying not to make noise. There were two of them, maybe three of them. They must have been waiting in some doorway, waiting there for any damn fool to come walking along at this hour when all the lights were out, probably hoping it would be a drunken seaman with money in his pockets and no caution at all in his brain. Better yet, this target they had was a staggering mess that appeared half dead in the wet, muddy clothes.

  For a split moment he thought yearningly of years and years ago at Yale, when they gave him the blue sweater with the white Y because he could run the half mile in one minute fifty-four seconds flat. But you can’t run now, he thought. You can’t even try to run. You have no legs.

  Then what can you do?

  There isn’t a goddamn thing you can do and you know it. Now you have it checked, it’s three of them, and you can bet they’re properly equipped. It’s bullets or blades or something heavy that’ll bash your skull and now they’re coming in closer.

  But don’t get peeved about it. Don’t get irritated. Maybe we can play some pinochle, make some sort of bid that’ll hold them off for a moment. So then he thought of the Bank of Nova Scotia, where he’d cashed the travelers’ checks, and his hand went to the pocket where he kept his wallet. He did that very fast, pivoting hard in the same instant to face the three Jamaicans, who came in crouching low, two of them with bread knives and the third with an ice pick. They were young and wore rags and looked very hungry and malicious. But the sight of the wallet had them stalled and they straightened and stood motionless while he opened the wallet to show them the thick sheaf of bills inside. Then he tossed the wallet at their feet.

  The one with the ice pick was stopped and reaching for the wallet. The others made a double-flank maneuver that put Bevan in the middle. He told himself not to look at the knives or the ice pick. He was focusing on the wallet, seeing the bills coming out, the Jamaican making a quick count.

  “How much?” one of them said.

  “Considerable,” the counter said. “About sixty guineas.”

  “Dat not bad.”

  But the counter wasn’t satisfied. He pointed toward Bevan’s left arm, then pointed down toward the wrist that showed the gray suede strap and the white-gold case. Bevan took off the wrist watch and handed it to him. Immediately he lifted it to his ear and held it there and then he frowned and said, “It not go.”

  “It got wet,” Bevan said.

  “What else you have?” “Nothing.” “Display de honds.”

  He lifted his hands to display his fingers. There were no rings on his fingers. “Now de pockets.”

  He reversed his pockets, taking out a wet handkerchief and a water-ruined pack of cigarettes and a book of matches.

  “Now loosen de pants.”

  “What for?”

  “So I can look. I see if you wear money belt.”

  He lowered his pants and then his underpants and the three of them moved in close to see if he was carrying additional cash around his middle. They stayed in very close while he showed them there was nothing. And then, while he zipped up his trousers, they moved in even closer and he knew they meant to put him away. He thought, They want to be sure I won’t go to the police and give their descriptions. That’s part of it, and the other part is the malice. The general idea is they don’t care much for tourists. And that winds it up, I suppose. That makes it fundamental. They’re warriors and they’re dealing with the foe. It’s justice, in a way. It sort of balances the equation. They’ve been kicked around so much, and whenever they have a chance to kick back, they make the most of it. Can’t blame them for that.

  He didn’t know it, but he was smiling at them. It was a soft and somewhat sad smile, his head slanted just a little in a plaintive sort of way, his eyes saying, I don’t feel sorry for myself. It’s just a damn shame for Winnie’s brother.

  The ice pick was aimed at Bevan’s belly. But the hand that held the ice pick now trembled slightly, and the Jamaican took a backward step, frowning uncertainly at the others, who were also stepping back and lowering their bread knives. Then the three of them opened their mouths to say something and couldn’t say anything. Bevan stood motionless, the moonlight glowing on his face, bathing the smile he didn’t know was there. The one with the ice pick was saying, “Why you look at us like dat?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t know what the man meant.

  “As if you not afraid,” the Jamaican said. “As if us your friends.”

  He nodded slowly. “But if us kill you—” “You’re still my friends.”

  “Me not understand,” the Jamaican said. He had loosened his grip on the ice pick.

  “Me understand,” one of the others said. “Me know what de mon try now. He try be clever.”

  “Me disag
ree,” the one with the ice pick said. “Me tink he mean what he say. Me tink de mon say it from here,” and he hit his hand against his chest.

  “Den what us do wid him?”

  “Us let him go.”

  “And give him chance to—”

  “Us let him go.” The one with the ice pick spoke very quietly. “Me cannot slay a mon who looks at me like dat.”

  Then he beckoned to the others as he turned away. They hesitated for a moment and he beckoned again, saying, “Come on, come on,” as though he wanted to get away from there in a hurry, before he changed his mind. They were following him, the three of them now walking away from Bevan, who was shaking his head slowly because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  But there they go, he said to himself. And it isn’t as though you bluffed them or foxed them. You weren’t trying to be cute. Then what was it? What the hell was it? Well, whatever it was, it worked. So now let’s get moving again. It’s two blocks to Morgan’s Alley and then turn right and— I sure wish you knew what it was that got you out of that jam. He said it was the way you were looking at him. What did he mean? What did he read in your face? I think this is getting a little too mystical and we’d better bring it back to the practical terms of knowing it’s finished business. Let’s drop it and get on with our social plans for the evening. But what’s this? What’s happening to your legs? You’re walking straighter now. You’re walking faster.

  It wasn’t really rapid walking. But it was much faster than before. He moved steadily in a straight path along the moonlit paving of Barry Street, coming to the final intersection and turning right to enter Morgan’s Alley.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was an alley of hovels, mostly of splintered, rotted wood, some of them roofed with tar paper, and some put together with rusty sheet metal picked up on the docks. The people who lived in these dwellings paid no rent or real-estate taxes. The rental value was zero and it was useless to tax them; there was no way to assess this property.

  It was just a strip of dried mud and accumulated ashes and all sorts of rubbish, including the bones of cats devoured by mongrels. Or sometimes the cats were eaten by swarms of rats which came to this area looking for garbage and couldn’t find any because in the area there was an acute shortage of food and therefore all plates were scraped shining clean. Yet some of these citizens made money.

  They made it selling certain wares that couldn’t be displayed in an open marketplace. The old ones sold their powers of Obeah to whoever believed in this type of witchcraft and wished to hurt an enemy or erase him entirely. There were some who sold opium they’d obtained at bargain prices from seamen who’d sneaked it out of Asia. If it wasn’t opium it was hemp, and they had a way of treating it to make it extra-powerful, lifting the smoker very high above the earth, allowing him to soar up there with all the great ones, all the famous singers and dancers, all the champions and leaders. This special hemp they sold along Morgan’s Alley was a very pleasant habit when it was available. When it was not available, the loss of altitude was sudden, a sort of plunging, and so finally they had to take it all the way and jump off a pier. Or sometimes they ignited themselves with matches. Another popular method was wrapping a cloth very tightly around the head to cover the nose and mouth so one couldn’t breathe. It was the only thing to do when the hemp was not available to a user.

  But various other problems were easier to handle. For those who needed some special type of female, Morgan’s Alley met most of these requirements. It was not a matter of looks. The women were mostly sorry-looking specimens who’d been turned down by the pimps and madams of Barry Street. So they learned some unusual techniques that put them in the off-beam category. They learned these capers when they were young, and when they were older they were artists at it and had their steady customers, some of whom traveled thousands of miles for just one night in Morgan’s Alley. For instance, a certain Canadian lumberman worth millions, known throughout the Empire as a distinguished gentleman and sportsman. At forty-six he was built like a Rugby player, and he could have modeled for athletic supporters. And he had a fine-looking wife and four fine-looking girls, two of them married and with children. They all adored him. Twice each year he made the flight to Jamaica and registered at an exclusive hotel near Montego Bay. He put in a few days playing golf, doing some fishing, and then

  quietly hired a car and went off alone, his luggage consisting of a tattered bag filled with very old clothes. Arriving in Kingston, he’d wait until after midnight, then get dressed in the old clothes and come here to Morgan’s Alley, to the house where she had his letter and was waiting for him. She was past sixty and stood four-feet-nine and weighed eighty-three pounds. The first thing he’d do was give her the money. In American currency it was some fifty dollars. Then she told him to give her a manicure, and he obeyed. He polished her fingernails to exquisite brightness, then did the same to her toenails. She rewarded him with a kick in the face. Not a hard kick, really; not enough to cause a broken nose or mashed lips; just hard enough to cause his head to throb, to give him the dull pain he’d been deliciously anticipating for six months up there in Canada. And that was all. Without saying good night he’d open the door and walk out, and next day he’d be in the plane flying north. Of course, she didn’t know who he was, but that didn’t matter in the least. What mattered was the fifty dollars that she could live on for months. It never occurred to her that he’d be willing to pay many times that amount. She didn’t know he’d searched four continents to find the face and body that resembled the image in his mind. He’d found her nine years ago, and since then these twice-a-year trips to Morgan’s Alley were the most important functions of his life.

  In another hovel there was a young woman whose most dependable customer was an Australian named Hainesworth. He was first mate on a merchant vessel that sailed into Kingston Harbour at least five times a year. He was in his early forties and was slightly over six feet tall and weighed close to three hundred pounds. The young woman weighed around 110. He paid her the equivalent of ten dollars to walk out of the shack and then come back in and find him there, and then pretend to be terribly frightened while he grinned hungrily and moved toward her. Then she had to pretend to fight him off while he ripped at her clothes, threw her to the floor, the agreement being that she could fight any way she wanted to, with scratching or biting or whatever damage she cared to inflict. He was not permitted to hit back; not with his fists, anyway. The rules stipulated that he could grapple with her, try to subdue her with his weight, and naturally he always managed to do just that, so that when it finally happened it was as close to actual rape as it could possibly be. She was a good little actress and to a certain extent it wasn’t acting. She enjoyed trying to hold him off and hurting him while she did it. One night some years ago she’d scarred him for life, biting a rather large chunk of flesh from his chin. He’d bled something awful. But he hadn’t been angry with her. After all, it was part of the agreement.

  Tonight he was very angry with her. She hadn’t been there when he’d arrived. Now he waited there in the alley, scowling at the locked door, cursing her for being late, then worrying that maybe she wouldn’t show at all, and then cursing her again because she knew how much he needed this, he couldn’t do without it. He thought of all the long weeks at sea when he’d squirmed in his bunk, impatient for the day when the ship would reach Kingston, which meant Morgan’s Alley and the only solace for his three hundred pounds of flabby flesh and bulbous face, which females couldn’t bear to look at.

  Hainesworth lifted a sweating palm to his sweating face, rubbing trembling fingers across his trembling mouth. He took out a large pocket watch from his white duck trousers and looked at the dial, which showed five minutes past four. Then he looked up at the black sky, which would start to get light in a couple of hours. He sighed heavily, leaning against the doorway of the hovel, and then his mouth tightened and he cursed her again. But the oaths were no help. The oaths only increased the s
weating and the trembling. She won’t show, he thought, She’s gone off somewhere and she won’t show. A bloody, rotten way to treat me that’s been so fair and decent with her. All the pound notes she’s been getting. And that necklace I sent her from Melbourne. Another time from Melbourne it was a bracelet. And then from Tortola I do it up real fancy and air-mail a box of sweets along with the note that tells her I’ll arrive within a week. Well, you bloody well spoiled her, you did. Necklace and bracelet and box of sweets. You ought to break down the door.

  He stepped away from the splintered door of the hovel, aiming his bulk at it, bracing himself for the lunge that would send him crashing through the flimsy barrier. But then he changed his mind. The only thing he wanted in there was the female, and she wasn’t there. What you might as well do, he thought, is walk on down the alley to Hannah’s where you can sit down and have some ale and pay her an extra few shillings for another look at them pictures. But he’d already been in and out of Hannah’s several times tonight, and besides, he was tired of looking at Hannah’s collection of pictures, the pencil sketches made by her nephew who’d been to an art school but couldn’t sell his landscapes and therefore veered off to the type of art that is never displayed in licensed galleries. Hannah’s nephew had sold quite a few of these pictures before the authorities caught up with him, the judge giving him eighteen months. But Hannah had managed to salvage some of his work and she insisted these were the best of the lot, the price is only a shilling for a fifteen-minute rental, a special price of three shillings for an hour. And please do not offer to buy dese pictures, dey are not for sale. One time a mon he tries to steal dem and now I have two of his finger in a jar of vinegar. Look, I show you. I keep de jar as a reminder to each and all dat dese pictures are my property, and even though I am an old woman sick wid de rheumatism, I am capable of dealing wid any rascal who attempts to—