The Damned (12 page)

Bennicke pursed his lips. “I don’t like that. Those guys have a nasty habit of coming around and checking all the time, just for the laughs.”

“Nuts. That was two years ago and it was over in El Paso. Besides ,you said it was just Mexican trouble.”

He made his shrug casual. “They might get real stuffy and try to get me extradited. But I doubt it.”

“You could be bad news, Benson. I have a hunch.”

“Then follow your hunch. Stop snowing in my face. Go and leave me alone.”

She hit his knee gently with her fist. “It isn’t much of a hunch.”

He looked across the river. “There comes the answer to the Buick problem, anyway. Some guy is rowing her across.”

Betty Mooney stood up. She smiled down at him. “Don’t go away. I’ll go give her the keys back.”

Betty Mooney went down the bank. She gave Bennicke an oblique look, back over her shoulder. He saw that her knowledge of his eyes on her altered her walk a bit, put more of an arch in her back, made her slacken the thigh and hip muscles of the supporting leg with each step to increase the tilt and swing of the hefty hips. Watching her walk, he decided that the stay in San Antone might not be too expensive after all. She had slyness enough, but no real guts. There was a narrow line between amateur and pro. She could be broken down and put on the road. He’d made the same cool decision before, many times, and he had yet to be wrong. And once the yelping was over and they got used to it, their very abjectness made him feel bigger and stronger.

He knuckled his thigh. The damn tiredness was making him cross bridges before he came to them. The thing was to get out of this country. Maybe the brazen way was best. Brass it out. Take the Cad across the bridge. He fingered the reassuring bulge of the sweat-damp money belt. Money was your friend. Money and quickness and the bag of tricks.

He straightened out his tough bowed legs and leaned back, fingers laced against the harsh short hair at the back of his head. The sky was deepening. Once there was a color like that. When and where? A damn long time ago. Color of a shirt long ago in New Jersey, worn with a white tie. Hell, that’s when I was pearl-diving in that stinking kitchen of that summer hotel. Just a kid. What was her name, now? Dora? No, Dorine. Grabbed a swim early in the morning off the hotel dock and there she was. Red suit. Cute as a bug. A guest. She figured me as a guest too, and I had sense enough not to talk too much. Dated her for later, and bought that dark blue shirt in town. A real sharp kid. What was I? Seventeen, I guess. About that. Somehow they got wise. Her daddy and the manager were waiting when I tried to sneak her back to the hotel. Manager cracked me across the puss and fired me on the spot. Nose bled on the white tie. Daddy dragged Dorine inside and she was crying. Had to pack and get out right then. That manager saw me off the grounds. Fooled them all, though. Stashed the suitcase in the brush down the road and sneaked back. Got gasoline out of the tool shed. Poured it all over that big son-of-a-bitch of an automobile her daddy had. A Pierce Arrow. Tossed the match and ran like hell. God, what a whoompf!

Wonder what would have happened if they hadn’t caught us sneaking back. Never even tried to touch Dorine. Thought she was an angel or something. Know better now. Talk about turning points. Been roaming ever since. Had to make time for a few days and get out of the state. Wonder where Dorine is now. Home and kids. Big eyes she had. Brown. Cute little mouth. Never even touched her. Never even…

The hand on his shoulder brought him awake with a start. The sky was black overhead, star-spangled.

“Sugar, your nerves are shot,” Betty Mooney said, laughter in her voice.

“Must have been asleep.”

“Darby’s still sleeping. And I don’t wonder. That old boy will sleep for a month to catch up.”

He stared across the river. Spotlights had been rigged, somehow. The truck was up on its wheels. Men were hauling at a long rope and he heard the distant chant as they heaved in unison. The truck was inching backward out of the river.

“Progress, eh?”

“The ferry ought to be over pretty soon. And you’ll have to do something about your car.” He couldn’t seem to come all the way up out of the mists of sleep. His mind was cottony, turgid. He stood up and stretched until he heard his shoulder muscles make small popping sounds.

“Who’s singing?” he asked dully.

“Those twin blondes. Sitting up in their car. They gave me something. Here.”

His hand closed around the cool bottle glass.

“It’s tequila, sugar. Maybe you need some.”

He removed the cork, tilted the bottle up. It splashed acidly against his teeth, burned his mouth. He took three gasping swallows, lowered the bottle, and shuddered. It socked hard into his stomach, made a spreading warmth.

He listened to the singing. Funny thing for them to be singing. Church music. Sounded sweet and clear. Gave you the creeps, somehow. Took you way, way back. Combed and brushed and sitting there, and the little shelves with holes for the wineglasses, and the funny taste of the bread as it melted slowly on your tongue. Sun slanting in and that low organ note that made your belly feel hollow every time the man hit that exact note.

Bad luck to think about churches.

He tilted the bottle up again. It went down easier.

“Hey, don’t be a pig!”

He gave her back the bottle. Had to watch it. Empty stomach under that tequila. He braced his feet and stretched again, yawned, scrubbed at his belly with his knuckles.

She slid an arm under his and ran her fingers up the nape of his neck. He clamped her waist in his arm, put his mouth down hard on hers, pressing all substance out of it, pressing it into looseness, running his other hand down her flank, pulling her in hard against him.

“There’s a place,” she said, her voice sounding dusty and broken.

They stumbled back into the darkness, into the field behind the tree line, making difficult business of walking, the way he was holding her closely. After a time she turned against him, slack-legged, pulling him down, grass rasping dry under them, dress fabric rustling, then thighs hard-white in starlight, her mouth a blackness, eyes reflecting a feral star glint, and taloned hands and the fumbling and the knowledge of the quickness coming. Bennicke glanced to the side and saw, in the starlight, the bullfighter and the barb drawn back, and the metal gleam. With a great cry he threw himself back and away from her, scrabbling crabwise, crying out again, and suddenly the bullfighter was gone from the starlight. He looked at her and saw no barbed shaft protruding, saw only a whiteness and heard her voice, heavy with contempt, saying, “What the hell is the matter with you?”

He didn’t answer. He located the gleaming bottle, set carefully aside out of harm’s way. He moved to it, tilted it up, drained what was left.

“What am I supposed to do?” she asked acidly.

“Shut up!”

She sat up, rearranged her clothes. He threw the empty bottle into the darkness. It thudded and rolled, not breaking. When you started seeing things, you were going nuts. No question about that.

She moved to him, tried with a certain sullenness to excite him. He pushed her roughly away.

“The deal is off, sugar,” she said.

“Just get away from me.”

“Pardon me for living,” she said. She got up and walked away, leaving him. He could still hear the sweet distant singing, the counterpoint chant from the far bank of the river. Something scuttled in the dry grass and he thought of scorpions and stood up, quickly. Desire had gone as though it had never existed, as though it would never return. The thought of her, the thought of any woman, sickened him.

Tequila rolled thunderously through his blood. He arched his hard thigh muscles and hunched his shoulders. He wanted to hit something, smash something, regain through violence his accustomed feeling of assurance.

After a bit he went down to the river bank, his walk a cocky strut, his elbows held away from his sides. Tequila droned and sang in his ears. The river bank was lighter because of the lights across the river. He saw the half-spick Texan sitting with the pale-headed girl. The Texan’s greaser buddy squatted on his heels a half-dozen feet from the couple, perennial cigarette clenched between thumb and middle finger. Flames roared high in Bennicke’s brain. He had to do something, anything, to feel alive once more.

He swung his shoe and kicked the Texan’s buddy heavily in the ribs, sending him sprawling. Bennicke bounced on his toes, waiting, and said, “Squat around where you don’t get in people’s way.”

The Mexican jumped up and moved away, holding his hurt side. He said something softly to Texas, who had got to his feet.

Texas said gently, “What was the point in that?”

“He gets in my way and next time I kick him in the face.”

Figures had moved out of the shadows. Bennicke felt them moving slowly in, converging on him. His mouth suddenly went dry. He suddenly realized he had to make his scrap with Texas, or perhaps feel the white-hot twist of a knife.

He moved with a prancing walk toward Texas, saying, “Maybe you want to get in my way?”

Texas said something quickly in Spanish. Laughter suddenly exploded through the tension, shattering it. The laughter went on and on. Bennicke felt his face burning.

“What kind of a crack was that?” he demanded. “You talk too fast for me.”

“I told them they could watch how little fighting roosters are trained for the ring. Mrs. Gerrold, suppose you walk up the road and keep your back turned.”

“I’ll stay here, Bill,” she said.

Bennicke realized that Danton expected to take him. So he leaped quickly, snatching at Danton’s wrists, butting at his face. Danton snapped a hand free, brought his forearm across, chopping Bennicke across the side of the neck with it, moving his body out of the way. Del Bennicke’s rush carried him to the side of the truck and he slammed his palms against it to stop himself.

He spun fast, bringing his hands up, but Texas hadn’t followed him. He stood, waiting for Bennicke to make the next move, and Bennicke sensed contempt and anger in the tall man. Bennicke put his chin on his chest and went in fast, trying to hook the taller man in the middle. From somewhere out of the night there came a vast, hard-knuckled fist, swung like a bag of rocks on the end of a rope. He saw it a fraction of a second too late—too late to roll with it, much too late to move inside of it. As red lights exploded across the sky, and as the earth tilted up to crash against the back of his head and shoulders, he was filled with anger at his own mistake in judgment, yet also with the release that only violence seemed able to bring him.

When he sat up, Texas was sitting on his heels talking to the girl again. Texas said, “Now tell my friend you’re sorry. The one you kicked.”

“You can scrap,” Bennicke said softly.

“Tell him.”

Bennicke found Pepe in the gloom. “Sorry,” he grumbled.

“Está bien,”
Pepe said, and Bennicke heard the laughter behind his words. Bennicke got up slowly, kneading the side of his neck. They all seemed to be waiting for his reaction, looking at him as if he was a damn beetle in a jar. He walked away, up the dark road.

The Mooney girl caught his arm, pulled him away from a nearby car. She was panting as though she had run a long way. Almost like a dog in summer.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Del, oh, my God, Del!” she whispered, holding his arms. “He’s… he’s dead! And I thought “Be was asleep!”

He pushed her away. “It’s your party. Remember? I’m out of it.”

“You’re not! You’re not! You’re going to help me.”

“In a pig’s—”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll tell everybody here the Mexican cops want you. I’ll get somebody to tell them in Matamoros. I’ll tell them you stole that car. I’ll tell them you’re a murderer or something. I’ll clobber you good if you don’t help me.”

“O.K.,” he said quickly. He took her up the steep bank, and in the deeper blackness near the trees, he drove his right hand at her throat, caught the softness between thumb and strong fingers. She raked his face once before he pinned her hands. She twisted and they tripped and went down, heavily. She thrashed, half under his weight, and then he sensed her struggling growing weaker. Suddenly he released the pressure, sat a bit apart from her, his head in his arms. She coughed and gagged for a time, then lay still, breathing hard.

In a husky, toneless voice she said, “What made you quit?”

“I don’t know.”

“They must want you bad, the Mexican cops.”

“They do.”

“Murder?” she whispered.

“It wasn’t, but they’ll call it that.”

“We’re both in bad shape, Del.”

It was said in a quiet voice, a voice that held no anger, no surprise.

“How do you know he’s dead?”

She took his hand and he felt her shiver. “I went to him. He was making a real funny noise. I couldn’t figure it. And then… something ran away from him. Something small. It was…”

He had a funny impulse to put his arm around her. Comfort her, somehow. All the brass and starch was gone out of her. She was a frightened kid.

“I’ll help,” he said, “but not on account of you threatening me. Keep that straight.”

“I don’t care why as long as you do it.”

“We’ll do it just like we planned. Only I’ll have to get him away from here. I’ll have to carry him. I remember from daylight that there’s a rock ridge about a quarter mile back and a half mile off the road—same side of the road he’s sitting on. I can get him up on my shoulders, We’ll drag him back a way so nobody will notice. I’ll put him over behind that ridge. It should work. They’ll find his car in San Antone. The records will show he came back into the States. I’ll strip him, and if nobody finds him before tomorrow night, they’ll never know who the hell he was—or even what color he was.”

On the far side of the river the truck was completely out of the way. Two cars had crawled up to the ferry deck. Bennicke sat silently, thinking of how close he had come to killing her, of killing, with her, his only chance. Murder had been the word to touch off the insanity. They were all after him. Every one of them. Even now somebody was probably watching. He looked around, moving his head very slowly.