The Long escape Page 14

  I exploded.

  "Man, you're crazy! You have nothing to say about itl You're beaten! She'll know about the bigamy as soon as I turn in my report. And if you refuse to sign the papers she wants, she'll have a good reason to persecute you. You can't fight her!"

  "There is one way I can fight her."

  I didn't get it right away. He smiled at me until I did.

  I said, "You talk like a child."

  "Do you think I am childish because I realize that a dead man is beyond injury?"

  "I think you are foolish to talk of death when it is not necessary to die. You have too much to live for."

  "I have much to live for, yes. I think I realize it more because I lived without it for so long. I will not live without it again. So long as I can keep what I have, I want to go on living. When I lose what I have, then I have had enough of life. What you propose for me would cost me my wife's faith and happiness, which I value above everything."

  I got up and walked around the billiard table. If he had been any other man, I would have laughed in his face for trying to bluff me. I couldn't laugh at him. He meant every word of it.

  "You have said that if I were dead there would be no need to sign any papers," he went on. "You have affidavits that say I am dead. I am sure that with those you can satisfy your courts, if you choose to. If you choose to report that the affidavits are false and that I am alive, I will prove you wrong when it becomes necessary. It is very simple."

  There was a long, long time when neither of us said anything more. My own voice sounded strange when I spoke.

  "You expect me to lie to the people who hired me, to keep you from taking your own life?"

  "I expect nothing. And I did not say that I would take my own life. That would be a greater sin, in my wife's eyes, than anything else I might have done. I will not distress her further. I said only that I would prove you wrong if you report that I am alive."

  "I must report the truth. Beyond that . . ."

  "Then there is nothing more we need discuss." He stood up, motioning me courteously forward. "Shall wc go upstairs?"

  Doiia Maria, Terry and Fito were all waiting for us in the patio. They looked like three people expecting the lis^hts to dim when the current went on in the hot seat. Don Rodolfo—I still thought of him by that name— said something about dona Maria's fiebre and brought her a mantilla that hung over the back of a chair. His family watched me with scared eyes while he put the mantilla around his wife's shoulders.

  "Sefior Colby is leaving Chile soon," he said easily. "We have reached an understanding about his visit to the fundo. Fito, you will see that the charges against him are withdrawn."

  Fito didn't say anything, just stared at me-. The old man said, "Immediately."

  Fito left the patio without a word.

  1

  His movement broke up the death watch. Terry moved toward her mother. I muttered something about being in a hurry, thanked dona Maria for her hospitality, and shook her hand. Terry held out her hand automatically, so I shook that, too. Then I'll be damned if don Rodolfo didn't hold out his hand and wvish me buen viaje as if he meant it. I stumbled up the steps that led out of the patio. My head "vvas going round and round. I couldn't think straight.

  Terry's heels came clicking along behind me as I went through the hall. I couldn't get the front door open before she caught me.

  "Ahl," she said, putting her back against the door. "What happened? What are you going to do?"

  "Leave me alone."

  "W^hat are you going to do about my father?"

  "Leave me alone. Go away."

  "Please listen to me, Ahl. He is an old man. My mother ..."

  "Get away from that door!"

  I pulled her clear of the door so I could get it open.

  At least that's what I meant to do. It wasn't my idea to collect a last bribe before I sold her father down the river. But when I put my hand on her, she came into my arms, her own arms tight around my neck, her mouth on mine, clinging to me so strongly that I had

  to use both hands to break her grip. It was her last chance to buy me off, and she did her best. I was panting like a blown horse when I finally pushed her off, yanked the door open, and ran.

  Idaho and I got drunk that night. Strictly speaking, I got drunk while she hung around and kept an eye on me. I think she stuck to lemonade most of the evening, but the weather got too hazy for me to recollect the details. I remember that when I picked her up at her pension she wanted to know what had happened and what I was going to do about old man Ruano. After I told her that I didn't feel like talking about it, she stopped asking questions. I did a lot of drinking and forgot to eat. The last I remember, I was sitting on a bed trying to get my shoes off and hang on to a bottle at the same time. I forget whether I gave up the shoes or the bottle first.

  I It was my own bed, when I woke up in it next morning. Idaho was in the next room, fast asleep, one bare arm behind her head. She looked about sixteen.

  My heart went right down to where my shoes would have been if somebody hadn't taken them off for me. I must have made some kind of a noise, because she woke up.

  She was startled, at first. Then she smiled. I smiled, feeling my face crack like a slab of dried mud.

  "How do you feel?" she said.

  "Terrible." ^ I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I got a cigarette off the table by the side of the bed. It tasted like horsehair, but I smoked it doAvn to the last half inch and burned my fingers putting it out.

  "Idaho."

  "Yes?"

  "I'm sorry about this. I don't know how it happened. "

  "Sorry about what?"

  "Us. Here. I know I was drunk, but I didn't realize— I didn't think . . ."

  "I wasn't drunk, if that's what you mean. I knew what I was doing."

  "Oh."

  There we were in the same room but a million miles apart. I didn't know how to break it up. She turned to me suddenly.

  "Don't feel sorry for anything on my account, Al," she whispered. "Please."

  I held her for a minute. Then she pulled away.

  "Now I'm going to get dressed," she said cheerfully. "I don't suppose you are gentleman enough to look the other way when I get out of bed, are you?"

  I hated to but I did.

  Even feeling awful I knew it would be a treat just to watch her move while she gathered up her clothes and disappeared into the bathroom. I never saw a woman who was more worth gawping at.

  While she was in the bathroom, the phone rang. I didn't answer it. It stopped ringing after a while. A ie-w minutes later it rang again. I sat there, not thinking, just feeling my head throb, until somebody knocked at the door. I didn't move. Pretty soon a letter and a slip of paper came sliding under the door. The boy outside went away.

  I got up.

  The slip of paper was a telephone message. Senorita Ruano had called and was very anxious to get in touch with Senor Colby about a matter of extreme urgency. I tore it up.

  The letter was from Adams, marked Special Delivery, Ursfent, Please Forward. Inside "vvas a note that didn't say anything in particular except time is of the essence, and a passport photograph of Robert R. Parker, don Rodolfo minus the beard and with less white in his hair. But just as an indication of how thoroughly he had had me fooled, I knew that if I hadn't tumbled to him before the photograph arrived I jvould have thought he and his brother had a strong family resemblance. It

  goes to show that a sucker is always willing to co-operate when somebody else wants to sucker him.

  I wasn't as pretty to look at as Idaho was, so I decided to fix mysel[ up before she came out of the bathroom. She looked slick, her hair combed and her makeup where it belonged. I soaked myself in the tub for half an hour, shaved, brushed my teeth, ate a couple of aspirins, and felt better.

  Idaho was still there when I came out of the bathroom. I didn't want to put up with any wise looks from the kid who ran the elevator, so I let Idaho go downstairs first and fol
lowed her five minutes later. Nobody told me to kindly pack my bags and move.

  While we were eating breakfast, I asked her what her plans were.

  "I haven't any. I'm still working for you. Remember?"

  "The job is finished here. I'm going back to Mexico."

  "Oh." She fiddled with a spoon. "Well, I still owe you twenty-eight days on the first month's salary."

  "You don't think you can get another job here?"

  "Not in Chile. My work permiso was canceled when the bank fired me."

  "Want to go back to the States?"

  "I guess I'll have to."

  "You could stop over in Mexico until the twenty-eight days are worked out, if you like."

  "What would I be doing?"

  "Same things."

  "All right."

  After breakfast I sent her back to her pension to start packing, then went on to the Panagra office to see about plane tickets. I still had the reservation I had bought for a decoy before going to Antofagasta the second time, but the plane left early that same afternoon. I wouldn't be able to make it even if they could give me another ticket for Idaho, which they couldn't. But they had a couple of cancellations on the northbound flight the next morning.

  That left me the rest of the day to pick up Idaho's passport and get it and my own decorated with the red tape they wind around you whenever you are trying to leave any South American country. I broke all records. By nightfall, when I crawled back to the hotel, I was so dog-tired from hammering at dumb officials that I couldn't see straight, but I had the permisos, certificados and visas I needed to get us both out of Chile the next day. That and a good soft bed was all I wanted to think about. My conscience hurt because I was sneaking out without telling Lee the whole story, but he had no responsibility for me now. And I didn't feel like discussing the job with anybody.

  The desk clerk gave me half a dozen telephone

  messages with my key. They were all from lerry. 1 crumpled them up as I walked away from the desk, ' looking for a wastebasket.

  The nearest one was imder a writing table where a | big chair faced the elevators. Somebody was sitting in the big chair. I didn't see who it was until I reached the wastebasket.

  It was Terry. She looked terrible. There were lines in her face I hadn't noticed before.

  She said, "I have to talk to you, Ahl."

  "Did your father tell you what we talked about yesterday?"

  "Yes."

  "Then there isn't anything more to say. I'm sorry. I've been beating my brains out trying to think of the right thing to do, but I've got to do it myself. Arguing with you will just make it harder for both of us."

  "I didn't come to argue. I came to warn you."

  "Warn me?"

  "Against Fito."

  "What's he up to?"

  "Nothing that I am sure of. But he hasn't been home all day, and I know him so well. I'm afraid of what he might do."

  "What do you expect him to do—shoot at mc again?"

  "He could. He said he meant it only as a warning the first time. It would not be a warning i£ he did it again. He would kill you."

  "What good does he think that would do?"

  She made a hopeless, angry gesture.

  "He does not think sensibly, like a man. He is still a small boy who loves his father and mother and would do anything to prevent shame from coming to them. If my father goes back to California and is jailed for bigamy, it will break my mother's heart. Fito would kill you to prevent that."

  "Did your father say anything about going back to California?"

  She looked up from the ring she was twisting around her finger.

  "What else can he do? It would be much worse if he signed the papers here."

  For a minute I almost felt happy. If don Rodolfo had been bluffing me, and really meant to go back to California without a struggle, I was in the clear. There might be a broken heart on my conscience, but a broken heart isn't blood.

  The feeling: didn't last. I remembered his face when he told me how he would fight Dear Helen. He hadn't been bluffing with me. The bluff had been saved for his kids.

  I said, "All right, Terry. I'll look out for Fito. Thanks for coming to tell me."

  "I do not want my brother to be a murderer."

  "You don't think much of me, do you?"

  She didn't answer.

  I said, "You think I'm scum because I took your kisses without giving you what you expected to get for them. All right. It was a scummy thing to do. But I didn't desert a wife and children, or commit bigamy, or perjure myself, or have a man killed to fill an empty grave. Your father did those things. It's not my fault that he has to pay for them. I've got no more to do with it than the postman who brings him bad news in a letter. If I could help him, make it easier for him in any way, I'd do it. I don't enjoy hurting people. I have a job to do. Can't you get that through your head?"

  I was talking too loud before I finished. People turned to stare at us. Terry didn't say anything. She stood up and walked away. Her face was as white as a bone.

  I didn't sleep very well that night. In the morning I made five or six attempts to draft a cable to Adams. It wouldn't come out right. I couldn't call it back once it was on its way, and I kept seeing the old man's smile. I finally gave it up, kidding myself with the idea that I would have the answer by the time I reached Mexico.

  Fito was still on my mind. He was just crazy enough to

  take a shot at me right there in the hotel, without a thought for what would happen to him afterward, I went down to the desk about 6 a.m. —I used the stairs, taking a good look around the lobby before I stepped into the open—and paid my bill. My bags were all packed. The clerk said he'd have them delivered to the airport not later than nine o'clock, sin falta. From the hotel I went to Idaho's pension and stayed there until it was time to go to the airport.

  Fito had to be waiting for me there, if he really meant business. We were supposed to show up for baggage inspection the usual hour ahead of time, but I cut it fine. It was fifteen minutes before plane time when our taxi made the turn into the airport.

  I said to Idaho, "I'm expecting a little trouble in the next couple of minutes. I think I'll be able to talk myself out of it, but you never can tell. Here are the tickets and all the money I have. My bags came on ahead. Check them through customs for me, if you can. Whatever happens, get on the plane. Your ticket is good to Mexico City. The money will get you from there to New York and leave you some over."

  She turned pale. Before she could speak, I said, "It isn't as bad as it sounds. I'm just taking precautions. Give me a kiss, and don't wait for me when the taxi stops."

  She turned her face up. I kissed her. The taxi-driver

  put on his Ijiakcs, pulling around in a sharp circle that left us parked in front of the entrance to the waiting room.

  Idaho gave me no trouble. She left the taxi and went up tlic steps and through the door without looking back. I paid the driver, told him to hurry the lady's bags along, and followed Idaho.

  Fito was waiting for me just inside the door. He had his hand in his coat pocket. I turned cold all over, for a second, expecting to feel the slug in my ribs.

  "Colby!"

  I was looking straight ahead. I turned my head, surprised to see him.

  "Hello, Fito. What are you doing here?"

  "I want to talk with you."

  Even if I hadn't known that there was a gun in his pocket, I could have guessed it from his expression. He looked about twenty years older than he had the first time I saw him. Little bunches of muscle stood out over the corners of his mouth.

  I said, "Well, come along," as if it didn't matter, and kept mo ing. He had to folloAV or shoot me in the back. He didn't shoot.

  I knew I could take him, then. A man who has a gim but isn't ready and willing to use it at any minute is worse off than a man without a gun, because he has to

  be trying to make up his mind to pull the trigger while the guy without the gun, n
ot having to "worry about anything but his reflexes, simply hauls off and slaps the first guy silly. All I needed for Fito was a good place to lay him down.

  There was a door across the way marked CA-BALLEROS. A man came out of it just as I got there. Fito was a step behind me when I went through the door.

  I don't know just how I would have worked it had there been anyone in the washroom, but it was empty, unless somebody w^as using one of the toilet booths. I wasn't worried about anyone who couldn't see us. As I heard the whoosh from the compressed-air gadget that let the door close without slamming, I turned around to Fito with a big smile.

  "Say, I've got good news for you, Fito."

  There wasn't a man living who, in his position, could have pulled the trigger on me then without first listening to "what I had to say. I took his elbow in my left hand, pulled him around as if I were going to whisper something cozy in his ear—it moved the muzzle of the gun out of line with my belly, just in case—and hit him on the chin as he turned into the punch.

  He had a glass jaw. He went out like a candle in a high wind. I caught him before he fell, dragged him

  over to one of the booths, hooked the door open with my foot, sat him on the toilet, and took liis gun. Then I cracked him over the ear with the gun-butt in keep him quiet until the plane took off.

  The door of the booth had one of those locks that shows OCUPADO on a disc outside when the booth is in use. I locked the door behind me by turning the disc to OCUPADO with my finger. When I left the washroom, the loudspeaker was bellowing for Meester Colby, Meester Colby, your plane leaves in five meen-utes, Meester Colby. Idaho waited by the departure gate, looking like a ghost.

  Her color came back when she saw me. I waved to her as I hurried over to the ticket desk, where I got bawled out for holding things up. The plane took off four minutes late, all on account of me.

  w

  1 didn't wire Adams when we got back to Mexico City. I knew he would be eating his fingernails off over the two hundred and fifty thousand dollar deal on the fire, but I couldn't get what I had to say into a telegram. After I had tried it about twenty times, I decided that it would be easier to write a letter.