Ride the Pink Horse (20 page)

Mac wasn’t moving so fast. “You took care of the business records.”

“That was Zigler’s job.” Mac was probably going to impound the records. If he hadn’t already. They wouldn’t be pretty. Real estate covered too much in the Sen’s books.

“You could probably explain them pretty well. A confidential secretary.”

The ice cream arrived. And the coffee.

Sailor tried the coffee first. “What you after, Mac? A political stink?”

“I’m after the murderer of Senator Douglass’ wife,” Mac said calmly.

“But you don’t mind if you break the organization wide open.” It was his tum to heckle. “The Sen shouldn’t have opposed you in the elections.”

“The Sen offered me his support. Through an emissary. I turned it down.” Mac lifted an eyebrow. “You knew that?”

He hadn’t known. The Sen didn’t talk about his failures. All he’d known, all the gang had known, was that the organization was out to beat Mac’s bunch. And they hadn’t. Because the Sen’s mind even then was on Iris Towers?

“I don’t like men who corrupt and destroy. I don’t like crooks who get rich off the poor. I just don’t like them. The senator offered me a job when I was a young cop, Sailor. I turned it down.” His mouth was set. “Ask me why, Sailor? I’ll tell you without asking. I’d just fished one of his confidential secretaries out of the lake. After that he picked fellows like you. Those who already had a record. Those who could stomach it.”

“Why did he act like he didn’t know you today?”

“Maybe he’s forgotten. Maybe he prefers not to know me. I’ve stayed out of his way. But I knew that long ago that he wouldn’t let anything stand in his way. What were you doing at his house that night?”

Sailor said stubbornly, “Let me see him and I’ll tell you.” Mac picked up the check. Sailor reached out his hand. “It’s on me.”

“Not tonight. I invited you.”

It would help; he was low enough after his handouts. He’d buy Mac a better dinner in Mexico City. He said, “I won’t argue. My turn next.” He could excuse himself now but he’d be polite, wait Mac for the change.

Mac put a bill on the tray. His face was solemn. “You’re still determined to take the chance?”

“There’s no chance, Mac,” Sailor insisted. “Only I got to see him before I talk. I owe him that much.”

“You don’t owe him a damn thing, Sailor.”

He didn’t. Nothing good. But he owed the Sen plenty for these three days of bunking on the ground. Plenty for that slit under his shoulder. Plenty for making him wait for his just pay.

He urged, “Let me see him.” As if Mac could. As if Mac had the Sen shut up incommunicado. No Zigler to bust him loose with a habeas corpus.

Mac said flatly, “He doesn’t want to see you.”

“He tell you that?”

Mac smiled, “Let’s stop the dodging, Sailor. Give me a name, the name of a murderer, and I’ll get you to Senator Douglass quick. If you can’t see it any other way, take it your usual way. The way that’ll pay you off.”

But not in greenbacks. They left the dining room, wading through the crowd still hungering against the velvet rope. Sailor knew how to get away. “Let me think it over. You’ll be around?”

“I’ll be around.”

5

He went out of the hotel, into the cold night warmed by the excitement of Fiesta. He turned his back on it, walked away up the brief street. The dark bulk of the cathedral loomed there, implacable as Judgment Day. It didn’t bother him any. A long time till Judgment Day. He turned past it and circled the block. There could be a back door to the hotel.

If there was he didn’t see it. Walls and then the balconies of La Fonda tiering up to the high flat roof. He could climb to a balcony but it wasn’t a good idea. Not if someone were inside the room he tackled, someone who’d start yelling for a cop. He went on up the street passing under the canopy of the side door, and again he was smack against Fiesta.

You couldn’t escape it tonight. He walked right into it through it, drenched with it to the opposite street, to the museum. The Indians were no longer under the portal; their absence was somehow more frightening than the black, silent, watching eyes had been. The Indians knew these days must end. They had never believed in the dream. They had never been of it.

He boosted himself up to the ledge as soon as there was space and he sat there, marking time until nine o’clock. Just sitting and watching Fiesta dance by, listening to the musicians overplaying each other from the bandstand and the platform down below where the Mariachi sang and the scrape of Tio Vivo and the strolling guitarists. It would be too bad if a fellow’s life wasn’t any more than a merry-go-round, somebody cranking you up to whirl around in style, then letting you peter out into where you started from. That might have been the way it would be for him if he hadn’t got what he did on the Sen. Because the Sen was ending the organization; the Sen wasn’t carrying it with him into the world of Iris Towers and her wealth and influence. If Sailor hadn’t waited around that night, he’d be whistling for his supper. The way Humpty and Lew would be if they ever went back to Chi. Luck had been on his side and he was keeping it there. He’d be just as careful of the Sen as Mac would be. He wanted to deliver the Sen in a neat package to Mac as bad as Mac wanted him delivered. To pay the Sen not only for what he’d done but for what he would have done if he could have married Iris Towers.

He waited until nine and then he started back to the hotel. By now she’d be gone for sure, she and the rest of the Sen’s party. Off to dinner and the Baile. The only thing was to avoid Mac. He’d figured it out earlier. At the side door. He didn’t even have to enter the lobby.

Through the side door, pass the entrance to the Indian shop on the left; on the right, pass the steps leading down to the barber shop. Then the small flight of steps leading up to a corridor, Woman’s Rest Room, Beauty Shop, hotel rooms. The corridor ran parallel to the right-hand portal, you came out of it down another small flight of steps and you were by the elevator. You never went into the crowd in the lobby. It was that easy.

The elevator was deserted as usual. “Four,” Sailor said. The fourth-floor corridor was as deserted, a ghost walk. No sounds from any of the closed doors. Past the Sen’s closed door, past three more closed doors and this was the number of Iris Towers’ room. The room she’d originally had.

There wasn’t a sound inside. Empty of sound as the corridor where Sailor stood. He knocked, knocked again, kept knocking. The silence within deepened, the echoes of his left-hand knuckles on the door wavered in the emptiness. He couldn’t shout in to the Sen; he mustn’t attract attention. It could be someone was in a neighboring room. The overhead transom was dark, the Sen could be asleep. He could be lying there in the dark, scarcely breathing, knowing who was outside.

There was only one thing to do now. Go inside. The key was on his ring, the key that opened locked doors. A little present from the Sen, when the Sen needed him to open some stubborn doors. There was no risk in using it. If Iris Towers or any of the others were in there, they’d have answered his knocking.

The door opened noiselessly. He moved with its opening to stand in protective darkness against the wall. His foot kicked the door shut. The gun was in his hand. Its dull metallic gleam would show up even in the lightless room. That much light came from the night outside the windows.

He said, “All right, Sen. It’s me.” His words dropped into emptiness. Not even a rustle answered him, not the beat of a pulse.

His eyes were beginning to see in the dark. They saw the beds, smooth covers pulled over them. They saw the empty chairs, the empty corners of the room.

He walked swiftly to the bathroom, kicked open the door as he snapped the light. There was no one there. The door of the clothes closet was shut. Before he walked over, pulled it open, he knew what he would find. A closet full of woman’s clothes.

He began to curse the Sen under his breath. He didn’t bother to turn out the bath light. He left the room. He didn’t even remember the gun open in his hand until he’d used the key on the Sen’s own door. He didn’t put it out of sight; he slid in, cursing the Sen, cursing the Sen in the room that had once been the Sen’s, that was empty now, not even a cigarette butt remained of the Sen.

The Sen had skipped. Mac had kept Sailor entertained with dinner and fine talk while the Sen got away. Sailor shoved the gun in his pocket before leaving the room. He kept his hand on it. Mac had let the Sen go. Knowing he could pick him up, maybe a guy already waiting, to meet the Chief at the La Salle street station. Playing it smart; keeping the Sen safe, keeping him out of Sailor’s way. Figuring Sailor would talk any time now. Sailor would think the Sen had run out on him and he’d be mad enough to talk. Mac didn’t know about the five grand. Mac thought he was waiting for a payoff; he didn’t know how big the stakes were.

He’d go down and see Mac. He’d tell off Mac. But he wouldn’t talk. Not until he went back to Chicago and faced the Sen. Even that could be what Mac was after, get both of them back to Chi. Back to where Mac was boss. You never knew when you were playing Mac’s game. And how was Sailor going to get back to Chi? He hadn’t twenty bucks left. He’d have to let Mac buy the tickets. Travel with Mac, not under arrest, no. Just with a copper bodyguard.

He wasn’t alone in the elevator. But he didn’t see the faces with whom he rode downstairs. They were paper dolls someone had cut out and pasted there. They smelled like booze and they made a lot of noise. He left the elevator first and he started with angry determination towards the lobby. He had to stop a minute at the opening to the portal. Another bunch of noisy drunks were blocking the way. He wanted to flail through them and their silly faces but he waited. Waited and got the break.

The group of the elevator had moved in behind him. And a girl whined. “Why don’t we get Senator Douglass before we go? I want Willie to go with us.”

A man said, “I told you he’s already gone to the Baile. He and Iris left an hour ago.”

“Iris!” the girl cackled.

Sailor didn’t turn around. He had no idea who they were. He said, “Thanks,” under his breath.

He got out of the crowd and strode on to the lobby. It was a whirlpool of color and smell and sound. But he didn’t see the black hat with the bobbles. He took the time to look. He didn’t want to be followed now. He turned to leave the hotel by the side door when he realized he didn’t know where to go. There wouldn’t be a chance to pick up a cab quick, not on the last night of Fiesta. He stopped at the newsstand. “Where’s this Baile?”

The girl behind the counter didn’t smile but she looked him over as if she might if she wanted to. “It’s at the Armory.”

“Where’s that?”

“Out College. The street that runs into the back of the hotel.”

“Is it far?”

“No,” she said.

He bought a pack of cigarettes from her and left the hotel. Out the side entrance, down the street away from Fiesta into the darkness of College Street. A convent on one side, a filling station on the other. His hands dug into his pockets, right hand closed over ugly steel, left hand cramped in his left-hand pocket. He didn’t know what his left hand was shredding until he looked. Pink paper. The handbill the fancy clerk had given him. To tell him about Fiesta. If he’d read it, he’d have known the Sen wouldn’t miss the Baile. The Baile that was the golden crown of Fiesta. On up the street, up the hill. Little stores; dark houses, nobody staying home on the last night of Fiesta; another brick school with the cross over it. He walked on. An occasional car roared by. At the intersection a street lamp cast a little puddle of light. On. Nights were cold here, the stars were sharp and cold above the trees.

The narrow street twisted, the street lamps were small and spaced too far apart. Had he known how far the Armory was, he’d have waited for a cab. A rattletrap that passed for a cab in this dump. He walked on. He was alone on the long street, alone on the long, dark, strange street. The houses he passed were dark, soundless. He was alone as before in his bad dream. But he wasn’t lost. He knew where he was going. To meet the Sen. To the final meeting with the Sen.

The long street ended on top of a hill. It became a road there, a two-branched road. He didn’t know which was the way he should take. Under the white moon both led to empty space, to cold endless wastes of desert, blocked by the finality of mountains against the white-starred sky. He stood there and a car passed, behind it a few paces, another car. They veered to the right and he chose.

It was the right choice. A little further on and he could hear music and the jangle of laughter. The Armory didn’t look like an armory. It was another fancy Spanish ‘dobe building, pale in the moonlight. There were figures clumped outside, passing the bottle, twining together in the night. Figures gathered at the lighted doorway, peering into the ballroom. Slackmouthed, gangly boys with their dark Mex faces. No costumes on them, no dough to go inside to the Spanish Baile. They could look but they couldn’t touch. It was too long ago they’d been the conquerors; they were the conquered now. The Indians were better off; they didn’t want to look.

He went up to the door. The stale hot breath of the big room pushed into his face. It was so crowded you couldn’t see anyone inside, only the kaleidoscope of moving color under the muted lights. He’d never spot the Sen in this mob. That was why the Sen thought it was safe to sneak out to the Baile. He didn’t think Sailor could find him.

Sailor stepped inside. He wasn’t going to shell out dough to talk to the Sen. He didn’t have to argue it. There wasn’t anyone on the door. Too late for that. Midnight already. He began a slow circle around the outside of the floor. Looking for a little man with a big snout and thin hair, a little man in black velvet pants and a black velvet jacket to cover his black soul. Looking for the white skirts and silvery-gold hair of an ivory girl who shouldn’t be let come within miles of the rotten Sen.

Moving his feet snail-like, his eyes not moving, his hand not stirring, sure in his pocket. Watching the dancers swaying to the rattle of maracas, the scratch of gourds, the sultry frenzy of Latin music; watching the shape of bodies melting to oneness, breaking apart only to melt again. Listening for a voice in the muted thunder of too many voices.

When he saw her, he went rigid. As if he weren’t ready for the meeting. Or as if he’d come to act, not talk. She turned in the dance and she was with the Sen. Sailor was all right then. The muscles in his stomach weren’t clutching; they were tight. As if he and they were alone in the vast packed room, he cut across the floor, by instinct alone avoiding the dancers who flowed like tide about him. He would have lost them, one couple among so many, but his eyes never left her once they had found her. He would have lost them but the coldness of his anger was a lead wire stretching between him and them. When he came to them he knew what had solidified his anger so that it was no longer anger, but the ice of rage. She wasn’t white and beautiful; tonight she was what she was, her skirts dyed scarlet, her eyes blurred by her half-closed lids. He should have known before, the way she’d been with the rich muckers, the way she’d even looked at him once. He hadn’t known until he saw her tonight; she was the slattern, Jesusita, with a million dollars. It was the slattern’s slow eyes smiling into his now. It was her harlot’s mouth that saw him and thought him good. She hadn’t been clean for a long time. She was the rottenest part of this dream. The Sen turning, saw him too.

Sailor said, “Do you want to come outside or do you want it here?”

The Sen’s tongue flickered over his pale lips. His eyes drooped to Sailor’s rigid right-hand pocket, scuttled quickly up to Sailor’s face. To Sailor’s stone face.

“I’ll come outside.”

The Sen was a shell, about to break apart. He thought Sailor had come to rub him out. It was a good idea. Let him think so. The scarlet girl swayed against his arm. “Willis, where are you going?” But her eyes were on Sailor. And her mouth.

The Sen said, “I’ll be back in a minute.” He didn’t believe that. He was a yellow-bellied coward, his voice was dust and ashes.

“But, Willis—”

“I won’t be a minute, Iris. I’m sorry.” He couldn’t explain. He had no words to explain to her.

Sailor said harshly, “I don’t have all night.”

The Sen’s eyes flicked the right-hand pocket again. “Find Kemper. I’ll be back right away.”

He left her standing there, alone in the crowd. Annoyed at his leaving her, or annoyed at Sailor because he was leaving her, but she wouldn’t be alone or annoyed long. Her scarlet body would be cleaving to another man while the music languored and thudded, while the Sen paid off in the cold night. Paid what he owed.

Sailor said, “Just walk on out that door.” His hand in his pocket touched the Sen’s side. Guided him to the side door opposite. Past the couples screaming there, swaying hot bodies there. Guided him across the dark stubble, around to the rear of the building. Where it was quiet. Where they were alone.

The Sen quivered his nose towards the ballroom.

Sailor”s mouth twisted. “Don’t worry about her. All she wants is a man. Any man.”

The Sen didn’t say anything.