As he approached Hem, for the first time Hector realized how much taller he was than Ernest and he was shocked by the difference in their height. It was like Hem’s charisma and actual stature were bleeding away from him at the end.
Hem opened his arms and gave Hector a bear hug. “Christ it’s good to see you, Lasso.”
“You too, Hem.” Even as he said it, Hector was surprised by how much he meant it.
Hem’s small, blond, sun-wizened fourth wife smiled at Hector — a smile that showed no teeth and made her pointed chin more pointy. She said, “Jesus Christ, I’ve heard all about this big handsome son of a bitch.” Mary hugged Hector and feinted one up at his chin and said, “Anyone ever tell you that you look like Billy Holden?”
“Not today.”
Mary punched Hector in the gut and winked at Hem. “Fuck, but I like this one.”
“Women always do,” Hem said. “You ride up front with Juan, Pickle. Me and Lasso, we’ve got twenty-two years of catching up to do.”
“Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.”— Renee Magritte
FINCA VIGÍA
42
They were sitting by the pool. Hem said, “Ava Gardner used to swim naked in there.”
Hector smiled and accepted a mojito from one of the servants. He nodded at the long pool, the sun glistening on its wind-rippled surface and said, “You change the water since?”
Hem winked and pulled on a pair of sunglasses. He scooted his chair into the shade. He moved like an old man now.
Hector had given his own body no quarter over the years. Hector had recently been diagnosed with a mild form of diabetes and he needed glasses for anything involving real seeing, but he felt positively spry set against Ernest.
By all accounts, successive plane crashes that Hem had suffered in Africa during his last safari had nearly killed him. Hem had played tough for the world press, even drinking while in the throes of a concussion...next trying to put out a brush fire while severely incapacitated with his plane injuries. That had resulted in Hem actually falling into the fire and sustaining more injuries. Those who knew him best claimed that Hem had aged many years in a period of just days in the aftermath of the crashes and the fire.
Hem sat back down and pulled on a white, long-billed fisherman’s hat — probably to keep his thinly covered scalp from sunburn Hector guessed — and wincing, crossed one leg over the other. The old scars from Italy and “the Great War” were still prominent on Hem’s calves and shins. As if he was reading Hector’s mind, Hem said, “I still have some metal work itself to the surface now and then. Hardly a month goes by I’m not at my legs with tweezers, trying to dig out some shard of kraut shrapnel. How you doin’, Lasso?”
Hector shrugged and hoisted his glass. “Gotta keep these to a minimum,” he said. “Blood-sugar. And I can’t see for a damn. Feel like the two Jimmys — Joyce and Thurber — when I’m without my spectacles.”
“Me too...wingshooting’s gone to hell,” Hem said. “Can’t drink like I want...have to watch my eating. Can’t fuck at will. Can’t...”
He didn’t say “write,” but Hector figured that’s where Hem was headed when his voice trailed-off.
“It’s a beautiful place,” Hector said, nodding at the magnificent old white hilltop house...built in 1887 by some long-dead wealthy Catalonian. Martha had found it for them. Hector figured he couldn’t hold that fact against the Finca — he loved it on sight.
“I’ll have to leave it forever soon,” Hem said. “Since Batista fled on New Year’s Eve, it’s been dicey. All the property confiscations...the shootings. And now with Castro’s crowd...one of his guerilla’s shot Black Dog. So we’re going to buy a house in Idaho. Move there after Spain. Try to get the paintings and books and other things out of here before Castro seizes the place like he has nearly every other damn thing on this island. My public stature is the only thing standing between me and losing all of this to that son of a puta and his bloody revolution.”
“Yeah, things back home are deteriorating fast in terms of relations with Cuba,” Hector said. “We may be headed for an embargo.”
“That’d be seen as an act of war down here, if the sons of bitches could wage a war on anything other than one another.” Hem sipped his own drink — a daiquiri — and said, “You married currently?”
“Nah, between wars,” Hector said, smiling crookedly. “I may even be done on that front. Four’s probably enough.”
Hem waved a hand. “No hay quinto malo. No prospects?”
“I had a damned fine one,” Hector said, thinking of the woman he had met two years before, a young unwed Mexican mother named Alicia. “But she was too fine for the likes of me.”
Hem smiled. “Back in the day, I’d have made odds you would have ended up with that woman you were bedding during the hurricane. Or with her sister, the painter. A bloody fucking crime what happened with those two.”
“Yeah — either one I could have gone for,” Hector said. “Might even have lasted.”
There was no percentage in telling Hem that neither Rachel nor Alva had died all those years before. It was enough for Hector to soldier on alone knowing he and Hem had killed an innocent man — a critic, but an innocent man — for Rachel’s crimes.
And in Hem’s present state, Hector feared that confiding to Ernest that they’d conspired to unjustly murder Quentin Windly might push Hem over some precipice.
“Those murders were maybe the oddest thing I was ever party to,” Hem said.
“Me too,” Hector said. “You know, I had some more brushes with all of that back in 1947. Out in Hollywood. A whole crew of killer surrealists. The parties that bunch threw would make Sodom and Gomorrah look like an Amish mixer.”
“I hear they’re all back in Europe, now,” Hem said, sipping his drink. “Hell, ain’t many of us from back then left around. Fucking Dos’ll outlive us all, I’m convinced of that. But Max, and Scott...that old cunt Gertrude, all gone. And more passing on every week...people dying this year who’ve never died before.”
“Tell me about Mary,” Hector said.
“She’s...fine. Hell, it’s too late to find another. Not who’ll take me on as I am now.”
And...
But there was no more to come.
And then Mary was suddenly there, wearing a terrycloth robe.
“It’s sweltering you two lugs,” she said, beaming again, her tiny eyes hidden behind big round sunglasses. “How about a dip?”
“Didn’t bring a suit,” Hector said.
“We don’t use ’em,” she said, dropping her robe. She was small and busty...a drinker’s gut of her own. She dove naked into the pool. Hector shifted in his chair, trying to focus on Ernest, who seemed unconcerned.
A small elderly Cuban woman sidled up to Hem and whispered something into this ear.
He looked up sharply. Hem said to her in Spanish, “Fetch me a gun.”
Hector said, “Trouble? Castro’s crew?”
“No, something else,” Hem said, putting down his drink and struggling up. Hector put down his glass and followed Hem off a ways down a path toward the driveway.
Another of Hem’s servants trotted up behind them and passed Hem a double-barreled shotgun. A few neighborhood children were standing at the wrought iron gate at the end of the Finca’s driveway, standing in the dusty shade of the many mango trees that bounded the property on Hem’s side of the wall.
As he had in Key West, Hem kept many cats on the property...more polydactyl pussies.
One of his mutant cats had been tied to the front gate. Its belly was slit open and its tiny lungs and innards had been thrown over its shoulders in the manner of some miniaturized Viking blood eagle.
A slip of bloodied paper was jammed into the cat’s mouth.
Hem was visibly unhinged — spitting iron.
Hector reached out and took the slip of paper and unrolled it.
Scrawled in Spanish on the note:
Últi
mo!
In a postscript it read:
P.S. So much for pussy’s eight other lives, eh?
“‘Último,’” Hem said, “the last...the final third of the bullfight, when the bull is killed. And to fucking kill a man’s cat this way...”
Hector almost said, “At least you’ve got four or five dozen more,” but held his tongue. Hem so loved his fucking cats.
Hem borrowed a pocketknife from one of the Cuban kids and started to work cutting down the corpse of his murdered cat.
Hector watched him, then looked around — just kids...a few peasants...some burned, hunchback with a badly broken nose in a worn guyabera shirt. A couple of old men with less than half-a-mouthful of teeth between them, loitering...watching.
Gawkers and beggars.
No pretty blonds...no striking brunettes.
Not a surrealist in sight.
“Art should give us back the world that our living confiscates.”— John Wilson
POSTHUMA
43
Hem and Mary had gone down into Havana to finalize some details for their pending trip to Spain. Hem had left Hector alone in the Finca’s sitting room.
The sitting room had a high ceiling and tall, open doors on one side. A couple of floral-print chairs faced a long, matching sofa. There was a table placed between the two chairs with a serving tray on top. The tray was burdened with liquor bottles — Hem didn’t even have to stand up to mix himself any conceivable drink...unless he wanted ice.
Low bookcases ran around the sides of the room and the walls were covered with paintings and trophy heads from Hem’s first safari.
It was very much a “writer’s house” and it was strikingly reminiscent of the house that Pauline had maintained for Hem in Key West.
Hector was sitting in Hem’s own favorite chair, a TV tray set before him. On the tray sat three stacks of typed manuscripts. These included what had come to be known among the Hemingway cognoscenti as “The Big Novel,” Hem’s novel of a painter coping with the effects of World War II. The second was The Garden of Eden, a kind of roman à clef about a couple of young artistic men, each caught in the throes of a tawdry ménage à trois. The third was what Hem was calling the “Paris book.” This last was essentially Papa’s memoir of his apprenticeship in the City of Lights in the 1920s.
Hector had read deeply enough of all three manuscripts to settle on the memoir as his favorite.
Somewhere off in the Finca, Hector heard the phone ring, then a servant came in and turned down the stereo: Hem had stacked on several discs of Bach before leaving.
The servant said, “It is the phone for you Señor Lassiter.” Then she led Hector to that phone.
It was odd to be receiving a phone call at Hem’s.
The world knew of course, thanks to Leonard Lyons’ column, just where to find Hector, but he didn’t expect anyone to actually try and call him at the Finca.
Except maybe for Rachel.
Hector picked up the phone, half expecting a female voice on the other end.
It was a man speaking — guttural...a voice filled with hatred and violence.
“I’m going to kill you, Lasso. I’m going to fucking kill you, and I’m going to kill Hem, at last, now that you’re both together. I’m going to do that soon. I just wanted you to know that, so you don’t have any peace. You’re both dead...and very soon.”
The caller hung up.
Hector stared at the phone, trying to place the voice.
***
Hector, who hadn’t yet told Hem about the phone call, thought they should perhaps hang around the Finca...at least be reasonably safe, or well-armed there — there in proximity to Hem’s impressive arsenal of weapons.
But Hem was adamant they go to his favorite bar. “We can’t drink ’em like the old days, maybe,” Hem said, “But we can drink a few like the old days.”
***
The chauffeur let them out of the big red Chrysler and climbed back behind the wheel with a paperback novel...not one of Hem’s, but some pulp Western from the looks of the thing.
Hem and Hector walked through dirty streets by a few ancient, crumbling facades, then Hem said, “My oasis.”
It was one of Hector’s axioms: It’s always a dangerous prospect to really know or to be known by a world-class bartender.
Hem had barely parked his broadening ass on the stool when the first of several of Papa’s peculiar and potent daiquiris were plunked down before him. It was made to Hem’s own idiosyncratic, alcoholic tastes: no sugar and a double portion of rum.
Things were slow in the Floridita bar. An old man with a hunchback and ancient scars from some terrible burns was mopping the black and white tile floor. The man made funny noises as he walked — his right leg turned out at some crazy angle from some long-ago injury.
Hector looked up at the ceramic statute of a fighting cock set on the top shelf of the bar — the cock depicted in mid-crow. He said, “You get out on the Pilar much?”
“Not as much these days,” Hem said. “Bad weather, all the time it seems. And the quality of the fishing in the Gulf has been tapering off for years. What are you drinking, Lasso?”
“Kind of enjoying mojitos now that I’m back where people know how to make them. I’ll stay with those boys.” Hector shook loose a cigarette and fished out his Zippo.
Hem grunted and took the lighter from Hector’s hand. “You carried this all these years?”
“Sure.”
“You’re a sentimental sort, aren’t you, Lasso?”
“You’re not the first to say it,” Hector said.
Hem handed the Zippo back to Hector. “Who knew? So, Lasso, no lies now, kind or otherwise. I can take an honest shot from my oldest friend. You read all three, or at least good bits of all of them, yes?”
The manuscripts. Hector took a deep sip of his first mojito. “Yes.”
“What are your thoughts, Lasso? I want your honest thoughts. If you think they’re shit, and you say it, I’m not going to lose my temper or get my fucking nose out of joint.”
Hector didn’t believe that. He sucked down smoke to buy himself a minute. He expelled that in a slow thin stream, then sipped more of his rum. He was honest, but selective:
“They’ve all got stretches of absolute brilliance. Description that can stand up to the best stuff you’ve ever done,” Hector said. “The memoir is the best, and it’s brilliant and funny and mean. It’s good a thing that so many in it are dead — and thanks, parenthetically, for giving me a pass.”
Hem seemed very pleased but said, “No saying the manuscript is done, yet.” He sipped his daiquiri. “And the novels? What about those?”
“Islands in the Stream has wonderful moments...but purely on a plot level, I think it has one major issue, and that’s at the end. It’s too close To Have and Have Not. For me, Harry Morgan’s and Thomas Hudson’s ends are too close...the circumstances too similar. It doesn’t play as an homage, or echo, or something inviting reinterpretation, or an attempt at recontextualization. It just seems the same.”
Hem shook his head. “You’re right. I knew it, but I didn’t know it, until you just said it. You’re right. I need to put a new ending on that bastard. Kill him differently.”
Or maybe for once, Hector thought, not kill “him” or “Hem” at all. Hem had famously remarked that all stories followed far enough end in death, and since A Farewell to Arms, in every one of his novels, Hem had driven each book right to that end. Only poor, dickless “Jake Barnes” had ever gotten out of a Hemingway novel alive. Oh, and Santiago...the old man in The Old Man and the Sea. But Hector had heard Santiago had survived only at Mary’s begging.
Hem said, “And The Garden of Eden?”
“Brave. Even fearless and naked in some ways. Self-aware, often. But to borrow Gertrude Stein’s old word to you, for the moment, maybe even for many years to come, that novel is inaccrochable. Even as the work of Ernest Hemingway — as a work the world would pant for after The Old Man and t
he Sea and all the big awards, the Swedish thing and all that — even with your clout, Scribner’s could never put that book out, not in our current climate.”
“Exactly. I’m writing for the long game now,” Hem said. “The legacy. I see all three of these as posthumous works. Maybe in the 1970s, or the 1980s, the world will be ready for Garden and Islands. And they’ll ensure I’m still out there — still the champ. Like I told that bitch Gellhorn — they’ll be reading me long after the worms have finished with her.”
Brutal.
But Hector was no fan of Martha’s, so he shrugged. He said, “Hem, you had a passage in Islands, about a murdered woman’s body,” Hector said. “It’s based on a real killing, I hear.”
Hem toyed with Hector’s lighter left on the counter atop the crime writer’s pack of Pall Mall cigarettes.
“Yeah, I finally told Mary it was some voodoo nonsense,” Hem said. “She thinks I’m crazy, anyway. There’s no denying I go through phases of Black Ass that defy description, Hector. Days without sleep that leave me buggy...wondering what I’ve actually done and what I’ve only dreamed. But I know some things — can still sense a real threat. But at first I made the mistake of being too honest with Mary about that dead woman’s body and what it might mean for me...and about J. Edgar’s boys stalking me. Mary doesn’t believe any of that, either. She says I’m paranoid. I may be, but that doesn’t mean that sometimes I don’t have reason to be.”
“No. It surely doesn’t.” Hector ground out his cigarette’s stub and lit another. “I believe you.”
“You’d know, especially about the FBI maybe, I guess.”
Hector let that one pass without remark. He said, “If not a cult, or not just some psycho boyfriend or husband, what about this murdered girl?”
“I’m getting letters, too,” Hem said. “I haven’t shown Mary the worst of those. They reference that murdered woman’s torso. That murder, and a couple of other murders...killings of working girls from around here committed over the past few days. And now this cat of mine...gutted like that. The handwriting on the letter shoved in the cat’s mouth looks like the handwriting in the death threats I’ve been getting. It’s almost like living in one of your novels.”
Toros & Torsos (The Hector Lassiter Series) Page 29
