"Norman, you wonder man, you," Hassim squealed. "That was the best party I've ever been at! What a do! They'll talk about it for years! Meet Hennessy, sweetie. Hennessy's just off that sub that came in this morning. They'll only be in port till noon. He bought an adorable watch for his mother from me, and I'm standing him to a beer. Let Mr. Paper-man see it, Hennessy."
The sailor with bashful pride took out a Little Constantinople box, and showed Norman a tiny French gold watch set with small diamonds.
"Isn't it heaven?" said Hassim.
"Ye gods, can you afford that, boy?" Paperman said.
The sailor put away the box, blushing. "Well, sir, it's like this, the other fellows play cards and Ah don't. And well, you know, Ah don't spend mah money on some other things like they do. Mah mom's about all Ah've got, and well, this is mah pleasure, sir."
"Isn't he nice?" Hassim purred. "Only Southerners are like that. Real gentlemen."
Norman could see that Hassim wasn't making a play for this sailor. Such a boy would be dumfounded if Hassim made one of his odd proposals, and would just laugh at him, if he didn't knock him senseless with a blow. Hassim was wistfully enjoying Hennessy's sunny presence for an hour or so, as a lonesome ugly old man will take a beauty to dinner with no hope of sleeping with her; as, indeed, Lester Atlas entertained actresses, who put up with his crudity for the sake of dinner at the Colony or the Four Seasons. Norman wasn't happy about having Hassim at the Club this early in the morning. The Turk was such a blatant old queen; colorful and exotic, no doubt, with his quacking voice and bouncy manners, and adding much Caribbean authenticity to the scene, but a bit oppressive. There was nothing to do about it, however. He left Hassim to entertain the sailor boy, and went down on the beach to enjoy the sunshine and his beer.
He had been lounging on a chair for perhaps half an hour, oozing sweat and beginning to feel drowsy and good, when a call from the new bartender roused him. "Mistuh Papuhman, suh! De police heah. Wants to axe you about last night."
A rookie cop by the name of Parris stood at the top of the beach stairs beside the bartender, his khaki uniform ablaze with gold braid, pistols and bullet belt prominent around his slim middle.
"Hello, there, Parris. Shall I come up?"
"If you please, suh. It kind of hot out dah."
"Coming."
Parris said as he approached, "Dat Frenchman still in de fort. De chief send me to get a full statement."
"Good. Something to drink?"
"I just have a Seven-Up, tank you very much."
"Right. Another beer, please, Cecil."
Norman knew Parris and liked him: a tall, bony, slightly jittery Kinjan, not too many years out of high school, with a toothbrush mustache that made him look younger, perhaps, than he was. Parris took himself and his uniform most seriously. He was one of the pleasanter Kinja cops, punctilious and obliging, and quicker than most to answer a call, or to untangle a traffic jam without excessive shouting and bullying.
Parris pulled out a large leather notebook and began writing down Norman's narrative, often asking him to stop while he painstakingly scrawled. He hardly touched his soft drink. He seemed distracted, and more nervous than usual; he kept glancing at Hassim and the sailor, who were now on their third or fourth round. The sailor was flushed and boisterous, and Hassim was putting on a rather strong performance. All at once Parris snapped his book shut. "Excuse me a minute, suh," he said, and he went over to the other table.
Norman was well aware of the unwritten rule in Kinja protecting sailors from the gay crowd. But Hassim's intentions toward Hennessy being so obviously innocent, Norman hadn't thought of it before, and he imagined it might not even have occurred to the fluttery Turk. After all, a mere drink in the morning!
Parris spoke to them in low tones, and Norman saw the disconcerted look on both their faces. Hassim said something placating and jolly. The sailor also answered the policeman with a joke. Parris spoke louder. The sailor retorted sharply, and the policeman grasped his shoulder. The sailor knocked the dark slender hand off his white uniform with such force that Parris staggered back.
"Now, mister policeman, hands off me. Ah'll drink a bottle of beer with anybody Ah please. This gentleman's mah friend, and whah don't you get losti3 We ain't bothering nobody."
Parris fell back a few more steps and drew a large pistol. "You resistin' an officer!" he exclaimed. "You realize dat?"
The sailor opened very round blue eyes, and stood, swaying a step or two toward the policeman. "Now listen, mister policeman, take it easy, heah? That there's a gun. Whah, Ah bet it has real live bullets in it. People can get hurt by them things, honest."
"You keep away from me. You coming wid me to de fort," Parris said shrilly, brandishing the pistol.
Norman was too startled by all this to interfere, but Hassim got up and seized Hennessy's arm just as the boy started to move toward the policeman, smiling genially. Parris walked backwards three or four steps, and fired his gun twice. The two explosions sounded thin and fake in the open air of the bar. Norman smelled gunsmoke. Nothing happened to the sailor, but Hassim put his hand to his chest, with a shocked, pained look. "Oh, Parris, you fool! Now why did you do that? This is so ridiculous-this is absolutely ridiculous." So saying, he toppled forward on his face. Norman jumped to his side. Hassim rolled over and turned his head toward Norman. "I don't believe this, Norman dear, you know?" he said with a grimace and a cough. "I simply don't believe it. It's too silly, and besides-" He said nothing more because he died. The light went out of his eyes, he gave a gasp, he stopped breathing, and his mouth fell open. Norman had a corpse on his hands, and Hassim looked every inch a corpse. His chest was still, and so was he; quite still, and limp, his open eyes fixed. A stain discolored his mauve shirt.
Parris dropped his gun on the floor, fell into a chair with his hands over his face, and started to sob.
The sailor stood, legs spread as though he were on a heaving deck, looking at the dead man and then at the weeping cop, his square face as puzzled as an animal's.
Norman telephoned the police at once. The agitated desk sergeant promised to come over, and to bring the chief of police if he could find him. The trouble was, he said, that the Carnival Parade down Prince of Wales Street had already started, and the chief was out in a patrol car to help keep things moving.
There was nothing to do but wait. Parris pulled himself together and told everybody not to touch Hassim-who was looking deader by the minute-because the police had to record the details of the incident exactly as it had occurred. He took the names of the half-dozen other people in the bar who were sitting around in somber stupefaction, told them to remain, and closed off the door to the lobby.
Hassim's death seemed to Norman not tragic, not serious, hardly real. There the storekeeper lay on the red tiles, his last whiskey sour still un-consumed on the table, a sea breeze fanning him, a beautiful tropic scene as his background, with eight Christmas vacationers as unwilling stunned watchers over his cadaver. Norman's thoughts were fragmentary and stupid-what would this do to the lunch business? Could a pretense be carried off that Hassim had had a stroke? How loud had the shots sounded? To Norman they had seemed no noisier than two big firecrackers going off.
Fifteen minutes after Norman telephoned, the chief of police appeared in his sunburst of gold braid, accompanied by three other cops in the usual bullet belts and pistols. Norman knew the chief as a jovial sort given to flirting on the street, but now he was all business. He marshaled the witnesses one by one, got a coherent story in short order out of them, and hurried along the photographing of the scene, and the taking of measurements. Two men from the undertaking parlor arrived with a long brown basket-the same ones who had been removing chairs an hour earlier-and stood waiting for permission to carry off Hassim to his last home. The usual procedure in Amerigo, except for people who had family plots in one of the old cemeteries, was to bury them in weighted sacks at sea.
It was now wearing on toward noon, and peo
ple were beginning to knock at the closed door of the bar. A few also tried to come around by the open terrace, but the chief posted a man there to send them back. At one point the hammering at the door became insistent, and a policeman came in to whisper to his chief, who nodded, and beckoned to Paperman. "Ah, suh, de lady who stay here, Mrs. Tramm-ah, de governor's, ah, friend, you know-she want to know what become of her dog. She can't find him and she very upset."
"May I go out and talk to her? I won't be long."
The chief nodded.
The lobby was about half full of murmuring guests, who glanced at Paperman with alarmed curiosity. Lionel, standing right at the door, buttonholed him. "What is this, Norm? Some people say there was a shooting, others say a fellow dropped dead. A lot of folks want a hair of the dog, you know, and they're all wondering what the hell about the cops and everything."
"Tell them the bar'll be open in about ten minutes, Lionel. We're having a bit of trouble. It's one of those things." Norman broke away, seeing Iris at the door of the lobby, staring out at the lawn.
"Iris, I know where Meadows is. Don't worry," he said, coming up to her.
"Do you? Thank God. He broke the screen door and got out. I could swear I had him chained. But I was so damned drunk!" When she turned to talk to him, she shocked Norman with her battered unpainted face, her bloodshot eyes in sunken brown sockets, and her wild look of fear. She wore a shapeless house dress of gray. "Where is he? Is he all right?"
"Yes. He will be."
Norman gave her a rapid account of what had happened, starting his story with Cohn's reassuring report. Iris's face contorted when he described the wounding of the dog. She pressed him for details about the injury to Meadows. Norman did his best to minimize it.
"Well, there's only one thing to do, and that's go and get him," she said. "Dr. Keller is fine, Meadows likes him, but the poor beast must be horribly sad and lonesome." She started down the stairs, then halted halfway.
Iris was sober, her walk was steady, but she was suffering a storm of nerves, Norman judged. The broken door, the vanished dog, had been a shock for which she was ill-prepared. She seemed oblivious to the trouble in the bar, to the gathering crowd in the lobby.
"Norm, what day is this? Thursday or Friday?"
"It's Friday, Iris."
"Hell and damnation, then the Carnival Parade's on. I'll never get my car out of the garage. It's right up there on Prince of Wales Street. You'll have to lend me the Rover." She ran up the stairs, holding out a shaky hand. "Please give me the key."
"If you wait a while, Iris, I'll drive you."
"But when will you be free? Don't you have a tourist with a heart attack in the bar, or some damned thing?"
A policeman came to Norman at this moment and said, "The chief axe to talk to you now, suh. He got papers you must sign."
"I'll be right there."
Iris followed Norman to the desk in the lobby. "How can you drive out past the parade?" he said. "Isn't the whole waterfront shut off by the judges' stand? You're better off walking to Back Street and getting a taxi."
"No, no. There's a way around the back of the judges' stand. I've done this before. All the damned taxi drivers will be watching the parade. Not a one of them will want to drive me way out in the country, not for love or money. Give me the key, Norman. Please. I'm perfectly all right and I want my dog."
Norman gave her the key.
She sighed. "Darling, did I do anything very terrible last night? I remember nothing except getting dressed and coming over here with every intention of wrecking the joint. Don't ask me why. I woke up and found my evening dress still on me, and all messed up. What went on? Did I rape somebody? Or get raped?"
"You were fine, Iris. You fell asleep and missed the dinner. The governor and I put you to bed. You sort of slipped and fell on the gravel at one point. You didn't do anything."
"Thank heaven. How was the party?"
"Everyone says, the biggest success ever on this island."
Her looked brightened. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I'm glad. Norman, don't ever tell Henny, and let's not do a thing about it, for heaven's sake, but I do believe I fell in love with you, a little bit. But now I'm going to get my dog and go back to San Diego, on the first plane I can catch. I've had the Caribbean. I've decided on that."
"That's wise, Iris. We'll miss you, but it's the thing to do."
"We'll stay in touch, though, Norm, won't we? I'd like to know how you and Henny make out here. And listen, no matter what, let's go on exchanging postcards, just a couple of times a year-say on Yom Kippur and Easter, how's that? Till we're both old and gray. And whenever you hear a Maxine Sullivan record, why, you can think of me, your young love that you had when you were fifty."
"Forty-nine, for God's sake, Iris," Norman managed to say. "That's bad enough."
"Bye, Norman Paperman." She glanced around the busy lobby, then touched his face with her hand. "Let's have another incarnation some time soon, why don't we? And next time let's do it right, okay darling? Let's make it to Dingley Dell. God, I've felt better. And looked better, I daresay." She gave him a crooked smile, and hurried out of the lobby.
The door to the bar was open and guests were streaming in. Where Hassim's body had lain there was only the red tile floor. Norman saw the two undertaker's men moving clumsily off down the dance terrace with the shut brown basket. The policemen were following the basket, and Hennessy was going with them; only the chief remained at a table, writing. Norman had to sign a green form and a white form, and the chief told him that later a policeman would return and the witnesses would be asked to sign typed transcripts of their stories.
"What's going to happen to Parris?" Norman said. "Was this murder, or manslaughter, Chief, or what?"
The chief shrugged, putting his papers into a briefcase. "Dat be for de judge, and maybe for a jury, to say. Parris a good officer, and Mr. Hassim a fine gentleman, but"-the chief rolled knowing eyes at Norman-"his unfortunate peculiarity cause de trouble, you know! Mrs. Tramm find her dog all right?"
"Yes, that's taken care of."
The chief closed his briefcase and stood. "Well, I'm sorry dis disagreeable incident mar your holiday sea-son."
"Excuse me, Chief." The new bartender was hovering nearby. He pointed to the table where Hennessy and Hassim had sat. "Is it all right -can I move dose now? Parris say not to touch dem."
On the table stood Hennessy's empty beer glass, and the whiskey sour that Hassim had not managed to drink.
"Oh yes. Dat be all finish."
The bartender took up the glasses and swept a rag over the table. Four guests immediately fell into the chairs, clamoring for drinks.
The chief shook hands with Norman, in an embarrassed way. "Could you stop by de fort some time today and give us a statement on Hippolyte Lamartine?"
"Yes, of course. How's Hippolyte?"
"Oh, not too bad. He got plenty friends in de jail."
Norman's fear that the death would cast a pall over the hotel was groundless, he soon saw. The bar became as crowded as ever, and unusually animated. The shooting was a topic for talk, and since almost nobody knew just what had happened, there was much room for jovial improvising. Hassim had in fact, with his absurd demise, provided the needed antidote for the general hangover after the Lovers' Beach party. The questions thrown at Norman grew tiresome, and he went down to the beach, where he found Henny and Hazel in bikinis in the sun, both looking tense and worried. He started to tell them what had happened, but he had not gotten far when the bartender called to him again from the head of the stairs. "Mistuh Papuhman, telephone for you in de office."
"Oh, no!" he groaned. "Not now, Cecil. Get the name and I'll call them back."
"It be de chief of police callin', suh."
Norman gave his wife and daughter a weary look. "I suppose this thing will haunt me for days. Be right back."
He dragged himself to the office, closed the door, switched on the wheezing air-conditioner, and
picked up the telephone, seating himself on the disorderly desk.
"Yes, Chief?"
"Sorry to boddah you again, Mr. Papuhmon. We givin' you kind of a bad time today, I guess."
"Quite all right. What is it?"
"Mr. Papuhmon, dat green Land Rover, license 1674, dat belong de Gull Reef Club, don't it?"
"Yes," Norman said. "Yes, it does."
The chief's heavy sigh rattled in the telephone. "Well, it bust up pretty bad on Back Street, near Pomegranate Alley. Just around de turn by de Big Bamboo Bar. -You still dere, suh?"
"I'm still here. Was Mrs. Tramm hurt? She was driving it."
"She a little hurt."
Herman Wouk - Don't Stop The Carnival Page 44
