Assignment Carlotta Cortez
Page 17
He owed his life to a dead man, and the owing of it made it a debt he could never repay.
Not too many days ago, Durell remembered, he had wondered if he were going stale, if a kind of battle-weariness hadn’t taken possession of him. He knew how that this wasn’t so. He wouldn’t quit. He couldn’t. Within the foreseeable cycle of future years, there was no end to the silent war in which he fought.
Even if he wanted to quit now, Garry had placed an injunction on him to go on. That was why Garry had chosen to die.
“Mr. Sam?”
He turned and saw Pleasure in the doorway to his room. O’Brien was with her. The girl looked different, an image of Galatea completed, he thought wryly. She wore a simple gray woolen suit and a cloth coat trimmed with fur and a chic new hat. Her makeup was subdued. Her eyes were bright and then filled with shadows as she looked at Durell’s tall, somber figure. He wondered if O’Brien had paid for her new outfit this time. He remembered that Pablo O’Brien came from a wealthy family down in Latin America, and decided it didn’t make any difference.
“Mr. Sam, are you all right?” Pleasure asked.
“Of course. And you?”
“You bet. I mean, yes, thank you.” She looked at O’Brien. “Pete told me about Pa. You knew they’d killed him, too, didn’t you, Mr. Sam?”
O’Brien had winced at the “Pete.” He held on to Pleasure’s arm as if he never intended to let go.
“Yes, I knew,” Durell admitted.
“You were kind not to tell me about it right away.”
“I’m glad you feel that way.” He drew a deep breath. “I suppose we had better start thinking about taking you home, Pleasure.”
“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I’m not going home.” “But you can’t stay here. I couldn’t—”
“Pete and I are going to get married,” she said. “Then we’re going to his home. I’m learning to speak Spanish real good.”
Durell looked at O’Brien. O’Brien grinned and said softly, “I have always looked for an innocent one like this one, amigo, to take for my wife. Thanks to you, I have found her.”
“Are you in love with Pleasure?”
“Most certainly, amigo. With all my heart. As Pleasure says, however, we come here to you for your consent.”
“My consent?” Durell felt astonished. “I have nothing to say about it.”
Pleasure came to Durell and stood on tiptoe and kissed him. Her kiss was still the innocent kiss of a child. “I figured you promised Pa you’d take care of me, Mr. Sam,” she said. “And you did. And now that Pa is gone, you’ll sort of have to take his place. Pa would have to say if it was all right for me and Pete to get married. So we’re askin’ you, instead.”
Durell said, “I don’t think I’m being flattered.” He looked at O’Brien, who grinned again. “If you’re sure—”
“We are sure, amigo.”
“We would like,” Pleasure said shyly, “for you to give me away, like Pa would have done.”
Durell met O’Brien’s smile and smiled in return. He saw how young the girl was, and how innocent. Everything was relative, he thought. To Garry Fritsch, he was a young man just really beginning his career. To Pleasure, he took the place of her father. It wasn’t too bad, really. He was just in the middle of things.
He decided that was where he wanted to be.
THE END
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One