Ride the Pink Horse (4 page)

He wasn’t going to be put off any longer. The Sen would pay up tomorrow. He’d pay up or— His head turning, Sailor’s eyes met the black stone eyes of Pila. Sweat broke under his arm pits. He didn’t know how long she’d been standing there beside him watching him; he didn’t even know if he’d been muttering out loud. The fear that sweated him wasn’t anything you could put a name on; it was formless, something old and deep. He’d had it once before and the memory of that occasion recurred now, recurred so sharply he could smell the cold washed corridors of the Art Institute. He’d been second-year High and for some reason the teacher had taken the class of mugs to the Institute.

There’d been the granite head of a woman in one corridor. He’d looked at it, it hadn’t affected him at all in that first look, just a hunk of stone, a square hunk of stone with lips and eyes chiseled on it. The teacher had herded them by and he’d scuffed along. What returned him to that stone head, he didn’t know to this day. But he’d looked backward and he’d returned. As if he were seeing a picture he could see himself, a skinny kid in a limp blue shirt and shabby gray pants standing there staring at an ugly hunk of stone. Until he was as cold as the stone head, he’d stood there. Until one of the guys was sent to drag him back to the class.

He’d known fear, real fear, for the first time in his life as he’d stood there. He’d thought he’d known it before. Fear of the old man’s drunken strap, fear of the old woman’s whining complaints, fear of the cop and the clap and the red eyes of the rats that came out of the wall at night. Fear of death and hell. Those were real fears but nothing like the naked fear that paralyzed him before the stone woman. Because with the other things he was himself, he could fight back, he had identity. Before her, his identity was lost, lost in the formless terrors older than time.

He had to say something, say anything fast to take that stone look from Pila’s face. He said, “Where are your friends?” His voice came out like an old husk.

“They have gone to the Federal Building.”

When she spoke he heard again the shrill, accented voices of Rosita and Irene. Heard them in other painted girls flouncing, giggling by. Pila’s accent was heavier but it was a part of her, it was the speech of this land. Her voice was sweet, gentle, almost a singsong. He knew for the first time that the stone woman was Indian. He knew Pila was Indian.

He said roughly, avoiding her face, “Why didn’t you go with them?”

“My father he would beat me.”

He looked quickly again at her but there was no emotion, nothing but black eyes in a square brown face. He said, “What for? What’s wrong with the Federal Building?”

“They lay with the boys.”

Again he avoided her face, her terrible eyes that saw everything and saw nothing. She didn’t move. He could see her scuffed black oxfords, cheap shoes, under the bedraggled hem of the limp flowered skirt. He realized now that she was very young.

“How old are you?” he asked.

She said, “Fourteen.” She stood there unmoving, her black eyes unmoving on his face. He couldn’t tell her to go away and leave him alone. He could but the words wouldn’t speak. She had fastened to him as if he were the one familiar thing in this waning scene. He, the stranger. He said, “Come on, I’ll buy you a pop.”

She didn’t say anything. She followed him, walking behind him, to the thatched stand. The old crone was washing up the dishes. “A pop,” he said.

He rang the dime on the counter while the old woman uncapped the bottle. She handed it to him. He pushed it to Pila. She didn’t ask why he wasn’t drinking, she lifted the bottle and tipped it up. She took it from her mouth, rested a minute, tipped it again. Behind the booth, within the park, the merry-go-round spun tiredly; the music was faint There were a half dozen children still riding this late, dark boys in faded overalls, a girl of about fourteen with eyes crossed together. Pila sucked from the bottle.

He said, “You’re Indian.”

She lowered the bottle. “I am Indian, yes. San Idlefonso.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came for the Fiesta.”

“Did you want to come?”

She laughed at that her whole face laughed at him. It was startling because he didn’t know she could laugh, that she was human. Some of the rigidness left his spine.

“I want nothing so much as to come,” she said. “Always I want to come to Fiesta.”

He saw it out of her eyes for the moment the brightness, the music and dancing, the good smell of red chile, and the chill of pink pop, the twirling merry-go-round, the laughter and the happiness, flowered skirts to cover old black shoes. He said, “Come on, I’ll give you a ride on the merry-go-round.”

She set down the bottle. She was reluctant. ‘Tio Vivo is for children. Only for the children. Rosie would not be caught dead riding on—”

He said harshly, “She’d be better off caught dead there than where she is. Who’s Rosie anyway?”

“She is my cousin. My uncle and her aunt are man and wife. I am sleeping at Rosita’s house for the Fiesta.” She seemed to think it was an honor.

He was angry without knowing the reason for it “I suppose she dressed you up in those clothes?”

“Yes. This last year was Rosie’s costume. She has loaned it to me this year.” She was pleased, proud as punch of the dragging, faded skirt; of the blouse where the reds and purples and greens had run together in the wash. “I have not before had the Fiesta costume.”

Remembering the Indian women, he said, “I should think you’d like your own costume better than this.” His gesture was back towards the Indian frieze.

Pila understood. She spoke with something of scorn, something of pride. “I do not wear Indian clothes. I go to the Indian School.”

They had reached the red palings and words were silent. Her eyes were following the turning horses. The eyes of a child; his eyes looking at a shiny new bike behind Field’s window, a bike for kids whose folks could buy them bikes at Field’s. He said, “Well, do you want to ride?”

She began to say, ‘Yes,” then she said, “I am too big.” She didn’t say it with any emotion, she accepted it

He shook his head out of that troubled anger. “The boss is a friend of mine. He’ll let you on if I say so.” He studied her face. “Haven’t you ever ridden on a merry-go-round?”

She said, “No.”

“Is this your first time at Fiesta?”

Again she said, “No. When I was little I came with my family.” Her head turned to the Old Museum and back to him.

“But you never had a ride?”

“No.”

The horses were moving, slowly, slowly moving, they swayed and were still. The girl with the crossed eyes slid from the green pony and stubbed awkwardly out of the enclosure. The dirty little boys set up a Spanish jabber. Pancho stood, arms akimbo, talking back at them. “Vaya!” he shouted. “Vaya.”

Pila said without disappointment “It is too late.”

“He’s a friend of mine,” Sailor repeated.

He waited until the boys were shooed away, threatening, scolding, swearing in spic. Kids like he was once, street kids, nothing to go home to. Pancho saw him standing there as he banged the gate. He lumbered over. The night air had dried the sweat of his shirt. He wiped his fat arm across his forehead. “You think I have no customers?” he winked.

“Yeah,” Sailor said. “You got a customer now.” He pushed Pila forward.

Pancho shook his head. ‘Tonight it is too late. Mariana. Tomorrow.”

‘Tomorrow is too late,” Sailor said. “Rosita will be around again tomorrow.” Pancho didn’t know what he was talking about But he knew the dollar that Sailor pulled out of his pocket.

“I am old and tired,” he began. ‘Tio Vivo is tired. Mariana—”

”One ride,” Sailor said.

Pancho shrugged. He took the dollar sadly, opened the gate.

“A full ride,” Sailor warned. Pila walked to the horses, put out her hand to one, to another. He saw beyond her the old withered man encasing his fiddle. He dug for another dollar. “With music. Gay music.” Sailor called to Pila. “Ride the pink one.”

He felt like a dope after saying it. What difference did it make to him what wooden horse an Indian kid rode? But the pink horse was the red bike in Field’s, the pink horse was the colored lights and the tink of music and the sweet, cold soda pop.

The music cavorted. Pancho’s muscles bulged at the spindlass. Pila sat astride the pink horse, and Tio Vivo began its breath-taking whirl. Sailor leaned on the pickets. He didn’t know why giving her a ride had been important. Whether he’d wanted to play the big shot. Whether it was the kid and the bright new bike, the bum with his nose pressed against the window looking at the clean silver blonde beyond reach. Whether it was placating an old and nameless terror. Pila wasn’t stone now; she was a little girl, her stiff dark hair blowing behind her like the mane of the pink wooden horse.

4

He’d never be rid of her now. She stood before him and she said, “Thank you.” As if he were a great white god.

Pancho came up behind her. “It was a good ride, no?”

“Yeah,” Sailor said. She didn’t say anything. Her black eyes were fathomless on Sailor. He tried to be jaunty. “Come around tomorrow and I’ll buy you another ride. And another pink pop.” He settled his hat and he strode off, to get away, not that he had any place to go.

He’d been too intent on springing the surprise of McIntyre on the Sen to remember he hadn’t a place to lay his head. All of his anger flared up again, refreshed, and with it the added fuel of remembering the Sen trotting off after Iris Towers, leaving him with an Indian girl in a tart’s hand-me-downs. He found himself in front of La Fonda and he strode inside bumping past the couples on their way out. If his money could buy a merry-go-round ride for an Indian, it was just as good for a beer at La Fonda.

There was still noise in the lobby and the patio, a scattering of couples, none of them sober. He walked over to the cocktail room. It was closed, the door locked. He hadn’t paid any attention to the time. He saw now it was past midnight. A dark youth in a blue smock was wet-mopping the floor. The revelers in the patio sang mournfully off key.

The clerk at the desk was a woman now, a woman with yellowed white hair and a dyspeptic mouth over her receding chin. He could ask the Sen’s room but she’d want to know why. She was the kind who’d call the hotel dick if he told her where to head in. He didn’t want any trouble. Not tonight. He was tired, so tired his head was turning around and around like Tio Vivo. He wanted a cold beer.

He was out of the hotel on the darkened street before he faced the truth. He could have called the Sen’s room, and with the number in his head, made his way there later. The way he’d planned it before he ran into McIntyre. What had stopped him this time was a girl with clean blue eyes. He was afraid she might be on the same floor with the Sen; he knew the scene the Sen would stage if he returned and found Sailor on his doorstep. He didn’t care what the Sen said to him alone, the things were now he could give it back with change. But he was ashamed to have her witness it, to have her eyes see him as a bum. A dame he’d never seen but once in his life, a dame that was as far away from his touch as the dim star way up there almost out of sight—he didn’t want to be a bum in her eyes.

He walked straight on down the street, past the hotel where his bag was stashed. His eyes slid through the plate-glass window. There was another guy behind the desk, a tough-looking bouncer. He wasn’t the kind who’d take to bums sleeping in the lobby. For that matter there weren’t any lobby chairs that he could see. Nothing but pinball machines. He walked on by. He turned and crossed at a drug store and walked on the far side of the Plaza. Dark shops, deserted walk. In the Plaza there were still stragglers. Sitting on the benches and on the circular low stone wall around a memorial slab. On the corner was a deserted garage and he cat-a-cornered across to the museum side again. But he didn’t turn under the portal of the Indians. Up this street, halfway up, he’d seen a neon sign, red and orange wiggles, spelling it out. Keen’s Bar. It wasn’t closed. He could hear the raucous noise this far away, the sardonic blare of a juke box, the muffled roar of men mixing with liquor, the shrill screams of women mixing with men and liquor.

He didn’t hesitate. He walked straight towards the sign. A dump. A dive. There was where he belonged. Not with the swells in their snotty hotel. He wasn’t that good yet. Not on the street with spies and squaws. He wasn’t that bad off. He opened the screen door of Keen’s and went in.

The pack around the bar was yelling over the juke. The air was fog blue with smoke. Every table jammed, the square of dance floor jammed. Everybody drinking, everybody screaming, the only silence a scowling spic waiter, scuttling through the narrow space between tables, a tray on his uplifted paw. There wasn’t a chance for a beer here.

Black rage shook him. He hadn’t a place to sleep, he hadn’t had food, he couldn’t even get a beer in this goddamn stinking lousy town. He was ready to turn and walk out when he saw wedged at a table against the wall, McIntyre. In the same silly hat, the red sash. Mac hadn’t seen him yet. Mac was watching the dance floor. Sailor knew then that the Sen was here. The Sen and Iris Towers. He took his stance in the room.

The waiter had pushed under elbows to the bar. By some trick he was coming out again balancing his loaded tray. Part of the load was a bottle of Pabst, a cold bottle, the drops of moisture still beading it

Sailor stuck out his hand and lifted off the bottle. The ape began to sputter out of his warped mouth. Sailor said, “Stow it.” He clinked a half dollar on the tray. “Crawl under and get another.” He put the bottle to his mouth and his eyes warned the ape what he could do if he didn’t like it. The burning ice was heaven in his throat, down his gullet, into his hollow stomach.

He walked off, the malevolent black eyes following him. He took another swig and bumped through the narrow space towards McIntyre. He was himself again. The noise, the smoke, the dirty glare was all part of the usual to him. Even McIntyre, alone, watching, waiting was part of it. He felt good. McIntyre wasn’t waiting for him. He shoved on until he reached the wall. Mac looked up at him. Not surprised to see him.

He said, “Hello, Mac. Enjoying yourself?”

Mac was alone at the table which might have been a table and might have been an ash stand with a wooden top put on it to take care of the Fiesta trade. Sailor reached out and swung an empty chair around to the table. Whoever it belonged to could fight it out later. “Mind if I sit down?” he asked and he sat down.

McIntyre had an almost empty glass in front of him.

“How about a drink?” Sailor asked. “Looks like you need a refresher.” He took another long drink of the beer, his hands rolling the cool bottle as if it were a woman’s body. “If we can get that ape over here.”

McIntyre said, “I’ll get him.” He came near to a smile. “He thinks I’m a cop.”

They could smell a cop, those in the half world where a cop meant trouble. You couldn’t fool them; they could smell.

Sailor laughed loud. “That’s a good one.” He drank again. “That’s a real one. I was just thinking the same thing myself.” He stopped laughing. He was soft spoken. “You wouldn’t be here on business, would you?”

His head tilted the way McIntyre’s did. He saw them across on the other side of the dance floor. The Sen; the big guy called Hubert; Ellie, whichever she was, the lace bitch or the baby-face blonde; the two big young guys and Iris Towers. An angel strayed into hell. Part of it but still clean, still aloof from it. Clean and white-starched. Even through the fog he could see the Sen’s red nose, red eyes, the way the Sen got from drink. The Sen wasn’t having a good time. He was brooding over his glass of Scotch. He had plenty to brood about.

McIntyre was talking. “You wouldn’t know anything about my business, would you?”

Sailor kept his eyes on the Sen. He laughed some more. “I wouldn’t know if it’s business or if you came for the Fiesta.”

McIntyre said, “Quite a Chicago contingent here for Fiesta. There’s Senator Douglass over there.”

“Yeah. I saw him. And Iris Towers.”

McIntyre sounded a little surprised. Or he would have sounded surprised if McIntyre could. “You know Iris Towers?”

Sailor laughed out loud. “I know who she is.” He tilted up the bottle, drained it. “You don’t think a mug like me would know Iris Towers, do you?” He jarred the bottle down on the table. He felt good and cool and warm all at once. His eyes felt bright. He said, “Can you get that ape to bring us a drink?”

McIntyre turned his head barwise. He lifted a finger. The waiter came over swinging his gorilla arms. When he saw Sailor at the table the hate was fresh in his eyes.

Sailor said, “I’m buying, Mac, what’ll it be?” If the spic ape had a knife under his dirty apron, it was good to be on first-name terms with Chicago Homicide. Sailor wasn’t looking for trouble with the locals.

McIntyre said, “The same. Bourbon and water.”

“Same for me. Pabst Blue Ribbon.”

McIntyre was eyeing the Sen’s table again. “Know the rest of the party?”

“Uh-uh.”

“That’s Hubert Amity,” McIntyre pointed out. “Amity Engines. Mrs. Amity’s the one in the lace mantilla.” The hard-faced bitch. Old man Amity had been one of the Sen’s heaviest backers when the Sen was in Washington. A guy with a face like a hatchet. Nothing like son Hubert.

McIntyre went on, “Kemper Prague is the one in the sombrero. The one about to slide under the table.” Kemper Prague. Millionaire playboy of the North Shore. Plenty of dirty scandal tainting him. Always hushed up. McIntyre said, “Don’t know the others. Must be local talent.”

Sailor said and his voice was hard, “I’d be willing to bet they don’t have to work for a living.” Oh, the Sen had done all right for himself since he left off selling soap and had gone into politics. There’d been his wife’s money to get him started. She’d been older than he, ten years at least, but there wasn’t any age on her money. He’d come a long way from the little frame house on the South side. Graft and his wife’s money, all his now, he’d done well by himself. Only not well enough. Now he was going into the millionaire class. Nothing but the best for the Sen. But he’d welch out of a thousand-dollar debt if he could. He couldn’t

“Wouldn’t take that one,” McIntyre said. “I wonder what the Senator’s after now.” He was idly curious.

Sailor could tell him. McIntyre ought to be able to see it himself, he could see her there. Couldn’t McIntyre see her, the white rose, the pale white star?

“Maybe it’s the governorship.”

Sailor hooted his amazement “What would he want to be governor for? He’s been senator.”

“Being governor of the sovereign state of Illinois isn’t a bad job.” McIntyre was mild. “Not only does it carry prestige, it could be remunerative.”

The waiter was sliding in with the tray. He’d brought the beer. He glared at Sailor. “Sev’ty-seex sants,” he mouthed. Sailor peeled a dollar, threw it on the tray. “Keep the change,” he waved. The ape gave him hate instead of thanks. But the beer was cold. He trickled it into his mouth tenderly. He wiped the corner of his mouth with his knuckle as he set down the bottle.”I don’t think he needs dough that bad,” Sailor said. He was thinking of that insurance policy. Fifty grand. Besides the estate.

“Nobody ever has enough,” McIntyre said dryly.

The beer was good but his head was getting a little light. He knew it was time to make a move. He had better sense than to talk to a copper when he was drinking. He wasn’t a drinking guy, never had been. That was one reason he’d stayed in the Sen’s inner circle. The Sen could trust him not to get woozy and muff things. Strictly a one-bottle-of-beer guy. Two bottles wasn’t too much, only he hadn’t had anything to eat today. Coffee and a cinnamon roll for breakfast, dry sandwich and coffee for lunch. He’d finish the beer and go. He took another long drink. It was good, good.

“I don’t think he’ll ever be governor,” McIntyre mused.

The Sen was getting up on the floor now. She was getting up too. He was going to dance with her. He was putting his arm around her clean white waist. Sailor clenched the bottle with hard knuckles. He spat through his teeth, “Son of a bitch.”

McIntyre heard him. He’d said it under his breath and the juke was blaring the Woody Herman “Apple Honey” and men were bellowing at each other and glasses were clanking and women were squealing and chairs were bumping but McIntyre heard him say it. McIntyre turned his steady colorless eyes on Sailor.

Sailor said, “He’ll be governor if he wants it.” He laughed just as if he’d not said son of a bitch and McIntyre hadn’t heard him.

The homicide detective studied him mildly for a moment then repeated, “I don’t think he’ll ever be governor.” He turned back to the dance floor.

Sailor didn’t know what McIntyre was trying to say. He didn’t know because that was the way McIntyre was. He never said anything out straight like dumb flatfeet. He let you guess. He could be trying to say the Sen would never be governor because he was going to fry. Fry for the murder of his wife.

Sailor finished the beer. The Sen was still hopping around, his arm clamped around white Iris. Sailor said thickly, “I haven’t eaten all day. I’m going to go get something to eat.”

“You can order here,” McIntyre said.

Sailor pushed away from the table. “I’m going where I can taste it. Be seeing you, Mac.”

McIntyre nodded. “Take care of yourself.”

He wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t even tight but his head was light. He bumped through the aperture. Bumped into one drunk shoving out from the table. The drunk was in fancy pants like the Sen’s. The drunk threatened, “Watch where you’re going.”

Sailor said, “Button your lip.” He didn’t stop to button it for the drunk, he pushed on out of the dump into the night. He pumped the stale air out of his lungs, pumped in the night freshness. The night was sweet and chill, there was a faint smoke smell in it, like fresh pine burning. He walked back to the Plaza, to the museum corner. The Plaza was dark and quiet, only the circlet of dim colored lights hung over its darkness. He saw deeper shadows under the shadows of the portal. Mounds, blanket-wrapped, shawl-wrapped. The Indian peddlers were asleep, the stuff they’d had spread out earlier wrapped now in big calico bundles like laundry in a dirty sheet. He might borrow a blanket and sleep with the Indians. He put a filthy word into a vicious whisper. He’d never had to sleep on the ground yet.

There was no place to eat on the Plaza. The Plaza was asleep dark, quiet, asleep. The thatched booths were asleep and the smokestacks which had trickled thin smoke. The shops squaring the Plaza were dark, asleep. The cheap hotel was only a dim light. He crossed into the park and took the path to the right. He hadn’t investigated the street that led down away from the square. There could be another hotel. With no rooms. Fiesta, you know. There must be, somewhere, an all-night eating joint. Even hick towns must have some place for night workers to feed their faces. He turned sharp where a street came up to meet this one. He’d walked up it earlier today. He hadn’t noticed the restaurant down on the corner, across from The Inca. He hadn’t been thinking about food then.