Candy Kid (17 page)

“Look,” Jose began, “if you still think I slipped a knife into Tustin because I didn’t like his face or because I was conditioned to the black commandment of killing someone who stood in my way—if that’s what you think, why didn’t you arrest me this afternoon? Why this buggy ride?”

“I’m talking about something else,” Harrod said calmly. “I’m talking about conscience.”

“My conscience.”

“Your conscience and mine. What did yours say when you killed some defenseless guy whose only mistake was to believe his side was right? Did you say like a lot of the losers are saying now: It was orders! I did not do this because I wanted to do it; I obeyed my orders and my conscience is clear; those who gave the orders are the guilty ones.”

“One thing I’m not,” Jose said precisely. “I am not a coward.”

“What answer did you give to yourself?”

“I believe I know what you want me to say.” Jose spoke slowly. “And for all I know it may be as dishonest a rationalization as the other one. But I’ll say it, I’ve said it plenty of times to myself. In war one man’s little life isn’t as important as the lives of one man multiplied by thousands, perhaps millions. I killed one man to save many men from being killed. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“That’s the way I’ve had to figure sometimes.”

“Are you trying to tell me you killed Tustin?” Jose’s laugh was sardonic.

Harrod’s was amused. “Good gravy, no!”

“I didn’t think so.” Jose laughed freely now. “But you were building up a pretty good case for yourself.”

“You know what I’m trying to say. It’s better to write off Tustin’s death as an accident. So far as I’m concerned it was accidental. If I’d had any idea, I wouldn’t have let it happen. I was figuring on talking to him.”

“Procrastination,” Jose warned.

“Maybe. I knew he was on the border but he wasn’t in my bailiwick until he crossed the bridge to our side. When he did, he registered at the Chenoweth just as if he was what he claimed to be, a Detroit business man. He was from Detroit even if he hasn’t been there much in the last twenty years. Still has folks there, pretty proud of their globe-trotting brother. You call it procrastination. I call it waiting. Until I found out what he was after. He wasn’t hard to keep an eye on. All he did was sit in a hotel rocker and read the newspapers. Maybe he was on vacation, how do I know? Until it’s too late.”

“Who was he?”

There was again that modicum of surprise in Harrod’s answer. “He was a man for hire.” He shook his head gently. “I’m surprised you didn’t run into him in Germany. He was pretty busy there the same time you were.”

“Or in Cairo or Panama City or maybe Lisbon?”

“He got around.”

For moments they rode in silence, each thinking his own thoughts. Harrod broke the interlude, thinking aloud, “He caused plenty of accidents in his time. He came to the end of his road so often he must have thought it would take a silver bullet to do him in. He wouldn’t figure on getting a grubby knife in his back in a dirty little border town. When you’ve beaten big danger you don’t expect the little stuff to beat you.”

“Is that another lesson of the day?”

“Could be. It pays to be as careful of mosquitoes as of elephants. Sometimes they’re more deadly.”

With this Jose agreed but he kept it to himself. He closed his eyes. There was a long trip ahead. Whatever rest he could get now would help out tomorrow. And the tomorrows thereafter until he was out of this. He must have slept; he came to as Harrod pulled up at a roadside truck stand.

“I’m for coffee,” Harrod was saying.

“I’ll join you.”

They stretched in the warm starry dark of early morning. They were in New Mexico now. The night man at the stand knew Harrod. Like Adam, Harrod would know everyone up and down the highway. The two talked baseball and let Jose alone. He woke up on coffee and a hamburger; Harrod stowed away two hamburgers and a piece of pie. When they went back to the car, Jose offered, “I’ll take over if you like. Unless you think I might try a break.”

“What for?” Harrod was mild. He yawned. “Maybe I can catch a nap.” He was snoring before they passed the second
pinon.

Harrod woke in Albuquerque. The sky was paling for dawn, the far stars were already gone, as magically as sparks from a skyrocket. He was talkative again, “I suppose you’ll be seeing the blonde.”

“What blonde?”

“The one Tustin was trailing.” Harrod was smart. He’d saved important talk until he’d had his nap. Until he was rested.

“You think she stuck him?”

Harrod drawled, Texas-style, “You’re forgetting. He was just another drunk.”

“So it doesn’t matter who he was trailing or why.”

“I haven’t figured,” Harrod said.

Jose’s smile was wide. “If I chase blondes, it’s because they’re blondes.” The air smelled good out here on the Santa Fe highway. A mountain chill in it. He drew in a lungful. The unrelieved heat of the southland sapped a man’s confidence; he’d needed this. “And you know something? I prefer blondes to drunks who fall in the Rio Grande. You can have Tustin, I’ll take the Candy Kid.”

He’d talked too fast, the confident air had gone to his head.

But Harrod didn’t pick it up. He said only, “Glad to hear it, Jo.”

It was breaking daylight when they entered the still-sleeping town. “I can drop off at La Fonda,” Jose said.

“You stopping there?”

“I live here. I’m going home.”

Harrod said, “Then go on home. I’ll find my way back to the hotel.”

Jose circled the Plaza, passed the Cathedral, and went on to the bridge, over the hill to home. The gates of the old Spanish wall stood open. He didn’t drive in. He said, “Thanks, Harrod.” He hauled out his bags.

“Be seeing you,” Harrod said.

Jose was sure of it. He watched the car turn and start down the hill before he shouldered his bags. He entered quietly into the big, silent house. He would have preferred bed to Beach. But his cousin was yawning in the doorway of the guest bedroom. It wasn’t usual; Beach must have slept with Jose heavy on his mind.

“You got a ride?”

“Yeah.”

Beach followed into Jose’s bedroom.

“I might as well tell you. You’ll find out soon enough. With the chief of the border Feds.”

“You don’t say.” Beach yawned wider. “What’s he after you for?”

“Smuggling, murder, and who cares?”

“Speaking of smuggling, Dulcy wants to see you.” Beach wasn’t feigning boredom now. And he wasn’t half asleep, his eyes were hard and bright.

Jose tried to kid it. “You’ve made progress.” Because he didn’t want to talk.

Beach wasn’t having any. “Not much.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t get in until dinner time. Dropped the package at the hotel after I’d cleaned up. Mission accomplished, I decided to stick around a while, make sure it was picked up.”

“Not because of blondes? Or beer in the Cantina?”

“Beer in the Cantina it was. Particularly since Tim and Rags were established there.”

Jose said sharply, “Skip to Dulcy.”

“She came in later. I gave her a big play, as if I were half in the kegs, but she was interested only in your whereabouts.”

“Nothing about the package?”

“Not a word. Nor did I.”

Jose had his clothes off. He shoved into bed. Beach stretched to his feet, looked down at him. “You’re welcome to your harmless smuggling, Jo—but what’s a Fed got to do with a bottle of perfume?”

Jose grunted, “That’s what I want to find out.”

“That’s why you stayed behind today.”

“Yeah. But I didn’t find out.”

Beach went slowly to the door. “I thought between the war and the occupation you’d had yourself enough trouble to last a lifetime. I thought you went civvie to live out your years in peace.”

“I thought so too,” Jose sighed.

He was asleep almost before the door was shut.

The house wasn’t silent when he woke. Old Juana was yelling at the granddaughters she’d brought along to do the work; yelling above a nasal Spanish singer squalling from the radio, turned loud to a local disk-jockey show. These natural disturbances hadn’t waked him, rather it was the protracted jangling of the phone bell.

He pulled on his bathrobe, opened his door, and shouted above the clamor, “Somebody get that phone.” He saw by his watch it was near noon. The phone had stopped ringing and he waited for a report. It came in a moment out of Nancita’s head, poked around the corner. “There is nobody on the line,” she announced with pleasure.

It wasn’t important. If it were, the caller would try again. He said, “How about rustling some breakfast? I’ll be out in about two minutes and I’m a hungry man.”

The girl giggled and ran away.

He wasn’t rested but he hadn’t time for more sleep today. Not until he’d seen Dulcinda Farrar. He was washing up when the phone began jangling again. He listened and it was silent. Nancita didn’t bother to knock on his door, she walked in. “Jo,” she announced with the familiarity of one who had attended on the Aragon family from before her birth, “this time it is for you.”

His bedroom slippers slopping along the polished brick corridor remembered old Praxiteles. He didn’t want to think about el Greco. Let Harrod take care of the old one, it was his job. But the voice on the phone brought the Senor even closer to hand. He knew who it was when she spoke, before she said, “This is Dulcinda Farrar.”

He recalled in time that with her he must be the Spanish-American playboy, nothing more. “Well,” he caroled, “you don’t waste any time, do you, Carita?”

“Will you have lunch with me?”

“Is it lunch time so soon?”

“It will be by the time you reach the hotel.”

He gave a low laugh. “I’m not that far away.” His performance wasn’t going over; her voice continued to be clipped to business. But he wasn’t going to know anything about that business. “Be patient, Dulce, I will be with you before you can order a Cantina punch.”

“I will be waiting.”

Nancita and her sister were standing near in big-eyed approbation of his charms. He hung up the phone, gave them a wink. “The food—you must eat it yourselves. I have a date.” They giggled. Always they giggled.

He dressed fast. He mustn’t keep Dulcy waiting. She might change her mind about talking; he took it for granted that she wouldn’t have called unless she had something to say to him. He knew he was playing a danger game in dealing with her. He knew he ought to turn the contents of her damn package over to Harrod right now, along with his pittance of knowledge. Let the professional take over. He’d been a professional once; without the authority and machinery that went with the office, he was as helpless as the most inexperienced tyro.

And why wasn’t he going to turn it over to Harrod? Because he was a stubborn Spanish fool,
un bobo,
that was why. Because he’d never yet left a job unfinished; because his curiosity was greater than his caution; because it was agreeable to have the charming Dulcinda whistling to him? Or because of a small, dark mestiza who had risked returning the package to him?

Before he went out he’d have to find a hiding place for his mementos of Juarez. He hadn’t done anything about the stuff last night, it was still in his unpacked bags. He’d been too tired to care. But an empty house was an invitation to search; Juana and the girls would go home after lunch; Beach wouldn’t be wasting his holiday hanging around. It was too much to hope that the phony package hadn’t been spotted by now.

The cord and paper were easy, he put them under his pajamas in the lower bureau drawer. They probably didn’t mean a thing. Where could you hide perfume where your nose wouldn’t find it? Everything in his suitcase stunk of love roses. Where could you hide a box of candy where Nancita’s sweet tooth wouldn’t unearth it? She was a good girl, she wouldn’t touch a battered penny but candy was something else again. She would have no compunctions about breaking through the sealed cellophane. Again his fingers itched to open that box. Nothing less than diamonds or pigeon’s blood rubies must be smuggled in it; when death was part of the game, the stakes had to be large. Candy was an easy disguise. But there wasn’t time now to investigate.

He wasn’t too satisfied but the old credenza in his mother’s room was the best hiding place for the moment. There was the usual secret drawer in the heart of it. Moreover, with his mother away, her room was entered but once a week, for cleaning, and another moreover, the girls stood sufficiently in awe of Senora Aragon not to snoop through her things. He draped a pajama top over the stuff in case any of the Juana outfit should be in the corridor. They weren’t. He closed himself within his mother’s room; on second thought, dropped the bolt on the door. The secret compartment was empty. It surprised him until he remembered that Mama Mia would have put her heirloom jewels in Tio Francisco’s vaults as always when out of town.

The perfume first. The candy box was a close fit but he wedged it in, replaced the secret panel. He left the room as unobserved as he’d entered it. And now to join Dulcy. He picked up his wallet on the run, cut through the kitchen to ask the kids, “Where’s Beach?”

They didn’t know. Beach had left early.

“In my car?”

They giggled yes. As his mother’s vintage motor was tucked away for the duration as carefully as her jewels, he was left to hoof it. To wait for a taxi would take twice as long.

The sky was a turquoise blaze, the noon sun was hot but the mountains were in it, none of that sticky border heat. He loped down the hill and had crossed the Garcia bridge before a familiar rattle and yell, “Hi, Santa Fe!” stopped him. The vacationing Fernandez brothers in their beaten truck. He climbed in. They’d started this whole thing with the foolish tag they’d given him. They now delivered him over to her again, straight to the door of the hotel: Foolish Gentleman arrives in style to lunch with Sinister Young Blonde.

She didn’t look at all sinister. The yellow-and-brown shine of her hair, the unembellished yellow linen dress, the tanned clean skin, the modern mouth, bold and red. She was lovely, but it wasn’t her loveliness alone that his pulses recognized. It was the girl beneath the beauty.