The Wounded and the Slain Read online

  Joyner took another drag at the hemp. He hauled it in very deep and held it and murmured, “Watch this.” Then again his arm was a blur and the knife vanished.

  “Where did it go?” Bevan asked.

  “It didn’t go far.”

  “But where is it?”

  “Here,” Joyner said. He did it faster than before. It was so fast that he didn’t seem to be moving his arm, just sitting there showing the knife in his hand

  Bevan shook his head slowly. “Beats me.”

  “I started young,” Joyner said. He repeated the action with the knife. It vanished and appeared and vanished again. Then the dreamy smile came back to his face and he sipped more smoke from the hemp.

  So there it is, Bevan thought. There you have it. Well, you were warned about this. Winnie told you. Only thing is, it was an understatement. He pulls out that knife faster than you can blink. But don’t get jittery. Please don’t get jittery.

  He heard the Jamaican saying, “Please sit down, Mr. Bevan. Make yourself comfortable.”

  He didn’t move. He was standing just a few feet away from the cot. For a moment he played with the idea of lunging at Joyner, and his arm tingled with the urge to swing, his right hand throbbing because he wanted it to be a fist crashing against the man’s jaw. His eyes were focused on the man’s face, narrowing the focus to the jaw, and then the precise target area, close to the chin, where his knuckles could hit the important vein that connected with the brain. But of course it wouldn’t happen that way. No matter how quickly he did it, the knife would be quicker.

  Joyner made a friendly and hospitable gesture toward one of the fruit boxes. Bevan went to the box and sat down on it. He crossed his legs and wrapped his folded hands around his knees. Through the green-blue curtain of smoke he saw the orange glow slanting across the smiling face of Joyner. The colors and shadows had a Gauguin touch; it was really like a portrait by Gauguin. Or perhaps a still life, he thought. That face doesn’t look human. The eyes are like camera lenses. An X-ray camera that sees inside my skull. It’s on the order of a one-sided conversation and I’m doing all the talking and explaining without making a sound. But of course there’s another way to look at it. Maybe it’s just that I’ve been whiffing too much of this smoke and it’s making me high. Better put a stop to that. Mustn’t let that happen. Mind over matter, and so forth. You can’t help breathing it in because there’s nothing else to breathe. But don’t let it get you. I think you can throw it off if you concentrate on the business at hand.

  He said, “You ready to listen?”

  Joyner nodded.

  “They picked up a man,” Bevan said. “They grabbed him early yesterday morning. They carted him off to a cell.”

  “I know that,” Joyner said. He sipped smoke from the stick of weed. “I knew it when I came to see you at the hotel.”

  Bevan looked down at the floor. He shook his head slowly.

  Then he heard Joyner laughing. It wasn’t much of a sound. It was a series of very soft grunts.

  He raised his head and looked at the Jamaican. He said, “Your timing was elegant. You played it satin-smooth.”

  “Is that a compliment?” Joyner murmured. “Sort of.”

  “I like to receive compliments,” Joyner said. “It puts an added flavor in the air.” “Listen, Nathan—”

  “At school in England I won many prizes. I was third in my class.”

  “That’s fine. But listen—”

  “And then I come back to Jamaica with my college degree and they offer me a job as office boy. I told them—”

  “Will you listen?” He said it through his teeth. “The man’s name is Eustace.” “Yes, I know.”

  “He has a wife and children.”

  “You needn’t tell me. I know all about Eustace.”

  “You know him well?”

  “I’ve known him all my life. We were raised in the same street.”

  “That ought to mean something.” “In connection with what?” “With helping him.”

  Joyner laughed again. This time it was louder.

  “If you don’t help him, he’s finished,” Bevan said.

  The Jamaican went on laughing. The laughter was high-pitched and went higher and became a cackling noise.

  “Like a hyena,” Bevan said.

  Joyner stopped laughing. For a moment there was nothing in his eyes.

  “You’re really like a hyena,” Bevan said. “You feed off the dying.”

  The Jamaican’s face glittered orange in the glow of the lamp. In his fingers the weed had burned down to a tiny stub. He raised the half-inch of weed to his tightly pursed lips and took a final drag. The smoke stayed inside him as he let the stub drop to the floor and carefully crushed it with his heel. Then the smoke was coming out in tiny clouds while he said, “Let’s talk about something else. Something pleasant. Like birds and flowers. You interested in birds and flowers?”

  “Only when they’re alive.”

  “Then let’s talk about—”

  “When they’re dead, it’s too late,” Bevan said. “The same applies to people.”

  “All right, we’ll try music. You like music?” “Not when it’s off key.”

  “Would you care to hear me sing? It won’t be off key. I can sing like—”

  “Like a concert artist,” Bevan said. “And you can dance with the best of them. Or do a tumbling act that would get rave notices.”

  Joyner nodded very slowly. “It happens to be a fact. I can do those things.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it is. It’s written in smoke.” He waved his hand through the smoke haze in front of his face. His hand felt weightless, going through the smoke. He said, “You’re really a top-flight performer. Almost the best, but not quite. Not tonight, anyway.”

  “Is that wishful thinking?”

  “It’s more than a wish,” Bevan said. “Tonight you’re coming in second.” “We’ll see.”

  “Yes, we’ll see.” And then he stood up. He was smiling at the Jamaican. He spoke very slowly and quietly. “Give it to me.”

  “Give you what?”

  “The evidence,” he said. “The broken bottle.”

  Joyner laughed without sound.

  “Item two,” Bevan said. “The blackjack.”

  “This is funny,” Joyner said. He went on with the soundless laughter.

  “Item three,” Bevan said. “The number-one witness. That’s you, Nathan.”

  “It’s really funny.”

  “When I walk out of here, you’re coming with me.” “You’re quite an entertainer. Keep it up, it’s very good.”

  “We’re going to police headquarters,” Bevan said.

  “Tell me more,” Joyner said. “More jokes.”

  “I said we’re going to police headquarters. You’re making a statement. We’re giving them the bottle and the blackjack to back it up.”

  The laughter remained soundless but Joyner’s shoulders were shaking. He was really amused. He said, “Can you actually see me doing that? It would be such a silly thing to do. They’d throw me in prison for blackmail.”

  “That isn’t my worry,” Bevan said. “My worry is Eustace.”

  “But why? What is Eustace to you? You don’t even know the man. You’ve never seen him.”

  “That’s true,” Bevan said. “But I owe him something. I owe him plenty. I won’t let him hang.”

  Joyner had stopped laughing. “You know, you’re not funny now. You’re a clown, but you’re not funny. Perhaps the word for it is lunacy.”

  “Yes, it’s lunacy,” Bevan said. He moved slowly toward the Jamaican, who sat motionless on the edge of the cot.

  “May I make a suggestion?” Joyner murmured. “Sure.” He was moving forward very slowly. “Don’t come any closer.” “Why not?” “You’ll die.”

  Bevan shrugged. He took another step toward the cot.

  “Please don’t come any closer,” Joyner said. Then again his arm was a blur and the knife appeared in his
hand. He held it alley-fighter style, his arm extended sideways, his fingers covering most of the blade so that what showed was less than two inches of glimmering steel.

  Bevan took a sideward step, then a forward step, and another sideward step. It was more like drifting. The blade was talking to him and telling him to stay back. He replied without sound, You can scare me but you can’t stop me.

  And then for some vague reason he thought of Fiftieth Street and Tenth Avenue, and he heard Lita saying, Ya doing this to make up for something? Or because ya feel obligated toward the residents of low-rent neighborhoods? He answered with a smile that was aimed at the blade, his eyes saying, It isn’t that, Lita. I’m sure it isn’t that.

  Then what is it? she persisted.

  He took three steps sideward and one step forward.

  He said to her, It’s along the line of getting initiated. Let’s call it the process of finding out the score. What I mean is…

  At that moment the Jamaican was getting up from the cot and standing waiting with his legs spread and his arms out very wide and the blade making tiny circles, like the tongue of a snake. It caught the glow of the lamp and flashed bright orange against the curtain of blue-green smoke.

  He went on talking to Lita. He said to her, What I mean is, there comes a time—it’s a moment in the form of a dividing line between minus and plus. So you make your own choice, and if it’s plus it’s for real; it’s getting off that fake horse on the merry-go-round going nowhere. I’m giving it a try, that’s all. I’m trying to be something, so that wherever you are, you can say to yourself that it wasn’t a waste of your heart and your life, that the price you paid was for a man, not a chunk of smoothly polished custom-tailored nothing.

  Is that bragging? he asked himself. I don’t think so. I think it’s more of a realization. And somehow a pleasant thought. Yes, it’s rather pleasant, and somehow I wish there were a way to get it across to a certain girl I know in Room 307 at the Laurel Rock Hotel. But of course there’s no way to communicate, since all the connections are broken.

  He took a forward step, then a sideward step, kept going to the side in a sort of floating dance with his body bent, his arms loose at his sides, his face showing a grin. He gave a slight shrug, a slight sigh, and lunged at the Jamaican.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Moonlight came down on the surface of the swimming pool, and the reflected glow floated up along the dark windows of the Laurel Rock. It shimmered silver-blue against the black ceiling in Room 307 and Cora wished it would go away. For hours she’d been trying to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes the silver-blue came through, a stream of far-off light and far-off music that gently urged her to stay awake. There’s no getting rid of it, she thought. It comes from the moon and the moon is an all-night program.

  And all the melodies are just one melody. It’s a ballad that goes on and on, it’s a river of sighs that flows without end.

  Because he’s gone. He finally did it. He just picked himself up and walked away.

  So it’s ended, I guess. But it’s more than a guess. I think it’s a realization. At any rate you realize there’s this other man, this Atkinson. Do you want this Atkinson? You know, of course, that this Atkinson is something worthwhile. Yes, he’s really something. Another thing is, he’s serious about you. He’s looking forward to a permanent arrangement. He’s certainly the serious-permanent type and he proved it today in the garden when I behaved so absurdly, when I started to run and then fell, and whatever it was that caused it, the fact is I was completely disorganized at that moment, and if he’d wanted to he could have taken advantage of that moment, but instead of trying anything, he was strictly big brother, using his hands only to lift me up and keep me on my feet and take me away from there, take me back to the hotel. What I think is, this Atkinson wants a lifetime contract. He wants me to take off this ring I’m wearing so he can give me another. But when that happens, it’ll be his privilege to…

  But you don’t want that. You know you don’t want that.

  She was out of the bed, going to the window. She stood at the window, looking down at the moonlit swimming pool. Then she gazed beyond the pool, across the garden and toward the stone wall and then the blackness beyond the wall.

  It wasn’t solid blackness. There were shadows and shapes, the silhouettes of sagging roofs and slanted walls. She was seeing the wooden shacks and tar-paper hovels, the slum dwellings. Here and there a lighted window showed the rutted paving of a narrow alley. She saw an overturned garbage can, or maybe it was a barrel; it was so far away she couldn’t be sure. Yet somehow there was the feeling that if she wanted to, she could reach out and touch it.

  Touch what? she asked herself. The garbage? the filth? You can’t stand filth. You were taught long ago that filth is a crime, a downright crime. As Mother always said, “There’s absolutely no excuse—”

  What brings this up? Why think of Mother now? She certainly has no connection with— Well, anyway, she was constantly lecturing against getting your hands dirty. If you came in with your dress soiled she carried on something awful. Then later the anti-dirt campaign included boys, and she hired that governess named Hilda who drilled it into you that boys were dirty, you mustn’t let them get near. But—what is all this? What’s the connection?

  She stood there at the window, staring past the stone wall that separated the Laurel Rock from the Kingston slums. Her eyes were riveted to the dark shapes of the slum dwellings and the dimly lit alleys.

  That’s where he is, she thought. He’s out there somewhere. In all that dirt.

  James, come away from there. You’ll get yourself all dirty.

  Then again her eyes were shut tightly and for an instant she saw the stern face of her mother. It became the stern face of the Swedish governess. Then there were the faces of the prim and stern ladies who taught at the private school and the dancing school, all these faces suddenly fading or merging to become one set of features belonging to a man. He was a big ugly man and I’m sure his name was—

  But you don’t remember his name. Of course you don’t remember his name. But I think it was—no, please don’t. Please don’t try to remember. Oh, God his name was Luke. After all these years you remember his name was Luke.

  He was the gardener. Mother had fired the other man when she learned he took naps in the bushes near the goldfish pond. She called the employment agency and they sent Luke. They said he was a good worker and diligent and really an excellent gardener.

  I couldn’t stand the sight of him. He was so big and fat and horribly ugly. His fingernails were black. I told myself not to look at him, but somehow I couldn’t stop looking at him. I’d sit at the window watching him while he worked out there in the garden.

  It was during Easter vacation and I was nine years old.

  I was there at the window and he knew I was watching him. Every now and then he’d crinkle up that ugly face of his and smile at me. He was digging a flower bed and his hands were muddy. His fat ugly face was shiny with sweat, and once he blew his nose without using a handkerchief and it made me sick in my stomach, but I couldn’t stop looking at him. “You filthy, dreadful thing,” I said, but of course he couldn’t hear through the window. He went on smiling at me and then he winked, and after that he beckoned with his finger, as though he were saying, Come on out here and I’ll give you something.

  No, I said. I’m afraid of you.

  He winked again. He was leaning on the shovel. His beckoning finger moved slowly, so slowly. Come on, he said. Come out here.

  It was warm in the house, but my teeth were chattering. Something lifted me up and away from the window and took me to the door and opened it for me and I went out there in the garden, where Luke was waiting, his eyes beady like a pig’s eyes, seeing the little girl who was nine years old, who wore a pale-green ribbon in her hair, a pale-green freshly starched dress, and if feeling has a color, my face felt pale green at that moment when he came close.

  Cora turned aw
ay from the window. She wasn’t thinking about what she was doing while she switched on the light and got into her clothes. It was all rapid and mechanical, like the actions of a very efficient worker on an assembly line. She went out of the room, down the corridor, descended the stairway to the lobby, and asked the desk clerk to phone for a taxi. In a few minutes she was climbing into the taxi and saying to the driver, “I don’t know what street it’s on. But it’s a house called Winnie’s Place.”

  “Barry Street,” the driver said. Then he turned and looked at her. “You sure about dis? You sure you want to go dere?”

  Her hand moved automatically, the gesture telling him to get started.

  The taxi moved slowly. Cora opened her purse and took out a five-dollar bill. She leaned forward and showed the money to the driver. “If you hurry it up,” she said, “you’ll benefit. I won’t ask for change.”

  The driver’s foot pressed hard on the gas pedal. The taxi screeched around a corner. Cora sat rigidly on the edge of the seat, her hands folded tightly in her lap. The driver was saying something but she didn’t hear. Her eyes were blank and not focused on anything. The sound that came from her was the clicking sound of her chattering teeth. The driver was asking if she had a chill; he couldn’t understand why she was shivering. He kept asking her about it but she didn’t hear.

  “You go in alone?” the driver asked. He was pulling up on the brake and reaching back to open the door for her. As she climbed out of the taxi she handed him the five-dollar bill and he said, “Perhaps if you require some aid—”

  “No,” she said. She had turned and was facing the one-story wooden house. She saw that the windows were lighted.

  “You wish me to wait?” the driver asked.

  “All right,” she said. She moved quickly to the doorstep and knocked on the door. She hit it hard with her fist and kept hitting it until it opened. She saw the face of the Jamaican woman who stood there looking her up and down. Then the woman stepped back, allowing her to enter.

  She went in. The woman closed the door. Cora said, “I’m looking for—”

  “I know,” Winnie said. “De white mon. De American tourist.”