The Wounded and the Slain Page 17

  Hainesworth chuckled softly, thinking of Hannah, whose age was seventy-three, whose weight was approximately the same because she took very little nourishment and it was said she seldom slept. For some moments he managed to amuse himself with the thought of Hannah, but then the thought took him again to the pictures, to one in particular, which showed a gorilla and a girl. It was an accurately scaled drawing and it was done in detail. The gorilla was immense and the girl was small and delicately formed, her slim legs kicking frenziedly as she writhed in the grasp of the hairy arms. Then in Hainesworth’s mind the picture moved and he saw it happening, except that now the gorilla wore a first mate’s cap and on his left arm there was an anchor tattooed. He heard a hissing sound that was his own breath indrawn between his teeth and somewhat spasmodically he put his hands in his trouser pockets. He wasn’t feeling for what was in the pockets and his hands went in deeper, his bulbous face twitching as he told himself to stop it. He managed to stop it, although the effort caused him to bite his lip, and when his hands came out of his pockets he was sagging against the doorway of the hovel. The decayed wood groaned under the pressure of his weight. The sound made a sort of counterpoint with the groan coming from very deep inside him. He thought, You’re in a bad way, chappie. It’s really bad and it’s getting worse by the minute. Well, this just won’t do, this waiting here. I think you’d better go back to the Seamen’s House and climb into bed until you feel better.

  But that won’t do, either. You know you wouldn’t be able to sleep. You’d bite the pillow to shreds, the way you did that time in Melbourne when you followed the woman for I don’t know how many city blocks, and finally she saw you and started to run, and you went back to your room and ruined the pillow, the stuffing spilling out over the place, the next day the landlady raised an awful row. So let’s not go back to the Seamen’s House. Let’s wait here a while. Just a little while longer. She’ll show. She’s bound to come along sooner or later. And when she does…

  He rubbed his sweating palms together and licked his lips, smiling wetly and then very widely as he heard the footsteps approaching.

  But it wasn’t the woman. In Hainesworth’s eyes it was a living zero covered with mud. The Australian gave a grunt of disappointment and disgust. He scowled at the straggler who was using the moonlight that poured along this side of the alley and put a blue-silver glow on the doorways. The man was squinting at the doors as though searching for an address. On some of the doors the numbers were marked with chalk, but there was no number on this door, and there were several neighboring dwellings also unnumbered.

  “Which one you want?” Hainesworth asked.

  “Seventeen.”

  “It’s down that way.”

  “I know it is. I’ve been counting the houses. But I lost count.”

  “This one’s twenty-nine,” Hainesworth said.

  “Thanks,” Bevan said, and he started to move on at once.

  The Australian walked toward him. “Who you looking for?”

  “A friend,” Bevan said. He kept moving.

  Hainesworth came up and walked along beside him and said, “What’s the hurry, chappy?”

  Bevan didn’t answer. He wasn’t looking at the big flabby Australian. He was counting the doorways.

  And then Hainesworth was standing in front of him, blocking his path and saying loudly, “Who lives in Seventeen?”

  “Winston Churchill.”

  “You think that’s funny, chappy?”

  “No,” Bevan said. He started to edge past the Australian, who moved with him and again blocked his path. He gave a little sigh and said, “I really can’t talk to you now. I’m in a hurry.”

  “For what?” Hainesworth had his arms folded. He was looking the straggler up and down, seeing the straw-colored hair and the gray eyes and telling himself that underneath all that mud it was a white man wearing fairly expensive clothes. A tourist, he decided. An American tourist. It might be interesting to chat with him a while. At any rate, it’s a way to pass the time while I’m waiting for my lady. But he doesn’t seem inclined to chat. He’s rather unsociable, I’d say. Shall we move aside and let him pass? He said he was in a hurry. But he’s smaller than you are, he’s considerably smaller. I think we’ll have some fun with this one.

  So then the Australian repeated the question but didn’t get an answer. He smiled at the American and said, “Why can’t you tell me? You afraid?”

  “No,” Bevan said. “Just tired. You’re making me tired, mister.”

  “Really?” Hainesworth tightened the smile, then let it fade, with his chest expanding as he said, “You know, chappy, I don’t think I care for that remark.”

  “Then I’ll take it back. I apologize.”

  “That’s better.”

  “Of course it is. But you know something? You’re a terrible bore, and I wish you’d get out of the way.”

  “Tell me something, chappy. Suppose I don’t?”

  “If you don’t,” Bevan said slowly, “you’re going to be very sorry.”

  Hainesworth laughed. It was harsh, derisive laughter, and he liked the sound of it, and he made it again, and louder.

  Bevan shoved him.

  It wasn’t much of a shove. It only pushed him back a step or two. But the laughter was choked in his throat and somehow he couldn’t breathe. He saw the smaller man moving toward him and he took another backward step and then another. He went on doing that as the smaller man walked toward him, coming very slowly. “Don’t,” he gasped. “Don’t!” seeing something in the smaller man’s eyes that told him his only move was to turn fast and make a run for it. As he pivoted, he lost his balance and fell sideways, landing with a thud in the dried mud of the alley. He gasped again and no words came out. He was trying to roll away and he couldn’t move. His eyes were shut tightly so he wouldn’t see it coming, the kick in the face or something worse. Something much worse, he told himself, feeling his fat belly quivering against the hard-packed mud of the alley.

  But nothing happened. He heard the footsteps going away and he rolled over and looked and saw the smaller man walking slowly through the darkness, the straw-colored hair glinting in the moonlight.

  Hainesworth lifted himself to his feet and moved off quickly in the opposite direction. He was telling himself he’d got off easily, he was very lucky. But as he came up to the doorway of the woman’s dwelling, he sagged and went to his knees and let out a grinding sob. You jellyfish, he said to himself. You yellow-bellied jellyfish. What were you scared of? It was just a man. And maybe that’s the point of it. You were dealing with a man. A real man. And you? You’re just a—

  But let’s drop it. Let’s think of something pleasant. Like knowing there’s another way to assert your maleness, a much easier way, and certainly much more enjoyable. Just tell yourself she’ll soon be here, and then…His glazed eyes looked down at his large hands, the sweat glimmering in his cupped palms, the fat fingers bent and clawing hungrily.

  Chapter Sixteen

  We’re too late, Bevan thought. He stood facing the dark windows and the locked door. There was no number on the door, but he knew for sure this was 17. He’d counted the other doorways very carefully and this had to be 17. But it might as well be zero, he told himself. There’s nobody home.

  He had knocked on the door and then he’d kicked it, and when there’d been no response he’d pressed his ear against the doorway, straining to hear the slightest sound from inside the hovel. There was no sound, and the stillness in the alley was like a message saying goodbye and signed “Nathan.”

  Yes, Bevan thought, he took the fifteen hundred dollars and skipped while the skipping was good. From here on in it’s better meals for Mr. Joyner, better clothes and finer barbershops and certainly a considerably finer residence.

  Well, we tried. We loused it up and then we tried to fix it. Is that a consoling thought? I don’t think so. It certainly doesn’t help Eustace. But then, there’s no way to help Eustace. Nothing you can do now. It
’s too late, that’s all. It’s too late because what it needed was Joyner and now there’s no Joyner and of course that’s your fault. If you’d come here earlier, or if—

  Let’s not start with the ifs. It’s bad enough without bringing in the ifs. Please limit yourself to the facts, the facts being that you came here to see Nathan and you knocked on the door and the door wouldn’t open. But what’s this coming out?

  It was smoke. It was a very thin ribbon of green-blue smoke seeping from the doorway. The moonlight made a cross current, the glow slanting across the path of the smoke that came out from the narrow gap between door and sill. It’s really smoke, he told himself. Something’s burning in there. Then he caught the aroma of it and at first he thought it was tobacco, but another whiff suggested it was more potent than tobacco. In the next instant he knew what it was. His mind went back to Fiftieth Street and Tenth Avenue, to a certain night in Hallihan’s when a party of joy-poppers had lit up their sticks and the bartender had said very quietly, “Not in here you don’t. You take that junk outside or I’ll call the law and you’ll do at least a year.”

  So it’s weed, Bevan thought. He’s in there smoking weed with the lights out, which means he’s been on it for a good many hours, fading into the pleasant semi-sleep that prevented him from hearing the knocking on the door. And then he came out of it to light up again. Maybe now we can let him know he has a visitor.

  He knocked on the door. He hit it very hard and then again, and he went on doing it until his knuckles hurt from the impact. For more than a minute nothing happened. Then he saw the glow from an orange-tinted bulb, a spreading stream of dim light playing on the windows. He heard the slow footsteps coming toward the door, saw the door opening, saw the weed-fogged eyes and the smiling mouth.

  The smoke was curling up from the handmade job that Joyner held delicately between thumb and forefinger, holding it close to his hps to get the fumes even when he wasn’t inhaling. His face was enveloped in the green-blue cloud.

  “Having a party?” Bevan murmured.

  Joyner nodded. He went on smiling. It seemed he didn’t recognize the visitor. For a brief moment his listless eyes met Bevan’s eyes, and then he gazed past Bevan as though Bevan weren’t there. He put the stick of hemp in his mouth and took a slow charge of smoke through his teeth, making a hissing sound as he sucked it in, his lips opened slightly, mixing it with just enough air to get the right blend. As it went in, as the blast hit him, he grimaced in the throes of unendurable delight.

  “Is it that good?” Bevan said.

  The Jamaican didn’t reply. He turned slowly and went inside the one-room hovel, leaving the door open. Bevan followed him in and closed the door.

  It was like a steam room. The fumes from countless sticks of hemp were rising to the ceiling and coming down and going up again. The smoke was so thick that he wondered seriously if there was enough oxygen to sustain life. He coughed a few times, then he hurried to the nearest window and opened it halfway.

  He heard Joyner saying, “What are you doing?”

  “We need some air in here.”

  “The air spoils it,” Joyner said. “Please close the window.”

  Bevan was leaning out the window and coughing out the fumes and trying to pull some fresh air into his lungs.

  “I wish you’d close the window,” Joyner said quietly and politely. “You’re letting all the birds out of the

  cage.” “Birds?”

  “The pretty birds,” Joyner said. “You can’t see them, but they’re here. They fly around so slowly, so graceful, and they’re such pleasant companions. I like them because they never chirp loudly, or chatter and argue like the sparrows. They just fly around and sing in a soft chorus, a selection of lullabies.”

  Bevan closed the window. He told himself there was no use in debating the point. It was a minor issue and he wasn’t here to debate minor issues. He thought, We’ll just have to get used to the fumes, that’s all.

  He turned and looked at Joyner, who sat on the edge of a narrow cot, his face glinting in the dim glow from the orange-tinted bulb. The bulb was set in an unshaded lamp on a small table near the cot. On the floor at the side of the cot there was a scattering of stubs from the sticks of weed. The sticks had been thoroughly smoked and the stubs were tiny. Bevan counted them for some moments and then lost count. He heard Joyner saying something about the birds again and then it became a meaningless mumble that had to do with flowers borrowed from a garden on the planet Venus and from there it was an inaudible murmur.

  Bevan was leaning against the wall near the window and glancing around the room. Instead of chairs there were a couple of fruit boxes. Instead of a carpet there were some old newspapers spread on the floor. On the other side of the room he saw a wooden contraption placed near a hole where the wall met the floor. He focused on it and saw it was a homemade rat trap. In the space between the rat trap and the edge of the cot there was a battered suitcase resting on its side and some of the contents had spilled out. There were a few shirts and socks and a pale-green short-sleeved sport shirt. That tells me something, he thought. That tells me he started to pack and then it occurred to him he could use a charge of hemp. He’s really a user and the immediate need for hemp was more important than taking off.

  So let’s say he went out and bought a stick or two and came back here and started to blast. It was fine while it lasted but it didn’t lift him high enough and he went out and bought some more. I guess he’d been without it for a long time, but then he got his hands on fifteen hundred dollars and he could buy all the hemp he wanted. Instead of merely taking off from Kingston, he took off from the planet and went up there to Venus with his friends the birds, who guide him toward that garden where he borrowed the flowers, which of course mean more weed. Look at him sitting there working on it. Look at him gaining altitude. Maybe it’ll make him easy to handle. Or harder to handle, considering the fact that it’s a stimulant and it leads them to believe they’re tops at doing anything at all. Well, anyway, let’s find out. Let’s see what Nathan has to offer.

  He moved toward the cot and said, “You know who I am?”

  Joyner gave him the dreary smile and didn’t say anything.

  “I’m the customer,” Bevan said. “I bought something from you this morning. It cost fifteen hundred dollars to buy it.”

  The Jamaican didn’t say anything. The dreamy smile was going away. And then his face showed no expression at all. He sat there looking at Bevan as though there were an information desk between them and he was waiting for the clerk to provide additional facts.

  Bevan took another step toward the cot. Now he was halfway across the room. He said to himself, Keep talking, and for Christ’s sake get him interested in what you’re saying. Get him off guard so that when you’re close enough you can haul off and—

  He said, “You recall the transaction? It was in the Laurel Rock, in the dining room. I was having a late breakfast and you came to my table.”

  “Yes, I remember,” Joyner said softly. He looked down at the half-smoked stick of weed in his fingers. “This smoke is not what you think it is. It doesn’t diminish the memory. On the contrary, it’s like a strip of microfilm, and when the strip is long enough I can memorize a dictionary.”

  Bevan gestured toward the weed. “What else does it do?”

  “It’s like a supercharger,” Joyner said. “The power potential is limitless. I recommend it to all athletes and soldiers and manual laborers.”

  He really believes that, Bevan thought.

  The Jamaican said, “It also gives the brain a boost. It should be used in universities and chemical laboratories and certainly in legislative assemblies.”

  “They ought to put it on the market.”

  “Yes, they ought to,” Joyner said. “But they won’t. It would put the distilleries out of business. Another thing, there’s no way to tax it or control the price. It grows everywhere.”

  “Like grass?”

  “It come
s up faster than grass,” Joyner said. “If they made it a legal commodity, we’d all be growing it and using it and thriving on it. We’d all be living again in the Garden of Eden.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “It certainly would,” Joyner said. “But of course it can never happen. We exist in a world of restrictions which could not allow it.”

  “You’re so right,” Bevan said. He took another step toward the cot.

  “Don’t do that,” Joyner murmured.

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t come any closer.”

  “Why not?” And he was smiling amiably and moving slowly toward the Jamaican and thinking, We’re almost there, just a few more steps…

  “Restrictions,” Joyner said. Then his arm was just a blur, it happened that fast. His hand was empty for a split second and in the same instant there was a knife in his hand.

  Bevan stood motionless. He heard a slight clicking noise and he saw a six-inch blade shooting out from the mother-of-pearl handle.

  “What’s that for?” he asked.

  “Security.”

  “But I only came here to talk.” “Then talk.”

  “Not with that thing pointed at my gizzard.” “Does it worry you?”

  “Sure it worries me. It scares the hell out of me. I wish you’d put it away.”

  “You mean make it vanish?”

  Bevan didn’t reply. He was looking at the glittering blade and thinking, I’ve never seen it done like that. I’ve seen it done in the movies and once at a circus sideshow and they did it very fast but not that fast.