Devil May Care

by Wade Miller

  His lips formed the words, "Come on, come on," constantly. He was begging for action.

  Almost at once the request was answered. One of the shadows ahead of him moved. Biggo stopped and became just another part of the night. A quick sideward movement took him behind the rear stoop of a small warehouse where there was even deeper blackness.

  Somebody was walking quietly-but not as quietly as Biggo had-across the street at an angle. The person was coming toward him. He could see the man's outline now. It wasn't Toevs and there were no other considerations in Biggo's mind. As the man walked past him, Biggo leaned out and smashed him behind the ear with the muzzle of his pistol.

  The man grunted, not loudly, and folded face downwards onto the dirt. Biggo didn't touch him. He waited for a second man. But no one else appeared and there was no additional sound. Biggo then knelt by the fallen man and turned him over and made a soft clucking with his tongue.

  The man, unconscious and breathing hoarsely, was Red. He wore the same black suit as when he had watched at the airport and when he had watched at the Hotel Comercial. He bled from behind the ear.

  Biggo didn't waste any more time with him. Walking quickly now, he angled toward the locality Red had just quit. He still held the automatic at ready but it was only a gesture. He knew what he was going to find because it seemed inevitable.

  Daniel Toevs was a crumpled shape across a block of the granite that edged the bay shore. The street was narrow here, where number 22 would be had it existed. Between the backend of Zurico's and the next building was a narrow alleyway. Somebody had waited in that black slot for Toevs the way Biggo had waited for Red. And when Toevs had come scouting, the somebody had stepped out and put a gun against Toevs' spine and shot him to death. It probably hadn't made much noise at all, the gun tight against Toevs that way.

  The pockets of his shabby suit had been turned inside out. The lining of his coat had been ripped in several places. He had been searched hastily and his wallet had been tossed aside. Biggo fumbled with it. The money was still in it. He didn't take it back because it was so bad dying, much less dying broke. Toevs wasn't a bum; no reason he should look like one to anybody.

  Biggo crouched there and patted the old hand helplessly. The flesh was still warm. He began to cry. He straightened Toevs' clothes a little. So this was the end of all of them, the soldiers of fortune, shot in the back on a foreign waterfront. He remembered the Daniel Toevs of only ten years ago, of Marrakech, full of strength and the joy of fighting. Biggo rocked back and forth on his heels, sick at heart.

  "You old son of a bitch," he said. "Why were you such an old son of a bitch?" It was all the benediction he could think of.

  There was a movement nearby. Biggo raised his gun sharply. But it was only a mongrel, coming up stiff-legged and smelling at the odor of death. Biggo's lip curled. He clawed up a rock and threw it hard. "Not yet you don't get him," he growled. The dog fell down and then scooted away into the night.

  The action turned his grief into wrath. Biggo got to his feet and wiped his sleeve across his eyes. He stretched his arms as if gathering in weapons and his fists were clenched for their own power; the gun only happened to be in one of them. Daniel Toevs had been his own kind and his friend. His brother even, by virtue of the blood they had shed together.

  He said, "Don't worry, Dan'l. They'll pay. Red and anybody else." He turned and, walking stiff-legged as the dog had done, went back the way he had come. He thought about the redheaded man lying there unconscious, waiting to be paid off. There was death on his face and in his mind.

  He stopped. Caution came back to him. He was no longer the only person on the Calle Estradura. Down the street where he expected to find Red lying, lights danced. Flashlights, a pair of them. The beams glanced off leather belts and big buckles, off the barrels of carbines. Police.

  But of Red there was no sign at all. Biggo had crouched by the body longer than he'd thought. Red had come out of it and escaped.

  Biggo shook with fury but he made himself move backwards into the darkness. He found a passage and went through to the next street. He walked one block and then another. He kept saying, "Later, Dan'l, later. We can wait some more." He remembered to put the Mauser away in his coat pocket before he reached the lights. He was stumbling a little. He said, "They'll find you soon. They'll take care of you, Dan'l. They'll keep the dogs away."

  * * *

  A taxi took him back to the Riviera Pacifico. Somehow he got through the corridors to his room. Jinny took one look at his red eyes.

  "Biggo," she said. She was ready for bed but she got up.

  "I didn't make it," he said. "I didn't do anything. They shot him in the back and left him for the dogs."

  She didn't say much. She didn't try to sympathize or tell him it wasn't his fault when he knew it was in a way. She just took his arm and led him over to his bed. "Try to get some sleep, Biggo. Then you can think about it." She took off his coat and hung it away in the closet. She brought the Bible from under her pillow and stuffed it under his pillow.

  He watched it change places. "Red killed him. Now I got the whole thing, both halves of the twenty thousand. All I have to do is wait them out. But the money's running low. Need money to just wait."

  She whispered, "That's not what you're thinking about." She unbuttoned his shirt.

  "No. I guess that's love, seeing yourself in somebody else. I loved the old fool. They killed him and they killed me. I saw me lying there and that's just the way I'll die. Dan'l and I, we're the same thing. I shouldn't have talked to him like that."

  "Please," said Jinny. "Try to get some sleep, Biggo." She knelt before him and started unlacing his shoes. "Wait till morning. Think about it then."

  "Yeah," he said. "I guess." He lay back on the bed and shielded his eyes against the light. She finished undressing him and turned off the light. Later she heard him speaking but only caught one little part of it, "… remember, Dan'l, the time we…"

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Sunday, September 17, 11:00 a.m.

  Biggo passed the night but it couldn't be called sleep. Sleep itself didn't come until the room turned gray and then he was unconscious until he heard distant clanging. He usually woke up quickly but today he drifted, not wanting to enter the world again, until he made out that the clanging was church bells and that it was Sunday morning. According to the sun, around eleven o'clock.

  He rolled over to look at Jinny. Her bed was made up. She had gotten up ahead of him and he hadn't heard her movements. He stayed where he was a while, staring at the neat bed and thinking about Daniel Toevs. He halfdreamed, willing himself to meet Red again. He had no doubt about it. He would meet Red and he would settle for Toevs. With Red and anybody else connected with him. "Old Dan'l, you're worth a lot of settling," he mumbled. "I hope there's an army of them." He expected Jinny to come out of the bathroom any minute. When Biggo realized he wasn't hearing anything he raised on his elbows and looked around.

  The bathroom door was open. Jinny wasn't anywhere in sight. He threw back the sheet and got up, uneasy. Bleary-eyed, muscles stiff, he gazed around their room. Where was she? He didn't see her little blue suitcase. He threw open the closet door. Only his own clothes remained.

  He went then to his pillow and found the Bible was still under it. He groped his wallet out of his pants. Inside were two tens. The five and the flock of ones were missing-approximately fifteen dollars. There was no note or explanation but there didn't have to be.

  He said, "She's left me."

  She had made her bed and left him. For the second time this week he had awakened in a room they shared to find himself alone once more. He looked through the wallet again and the airplane ticket was gone too. The church bells had stopped ringing by now and he could hear a plane pass over the hotel, high above. He didn't go to the window to look.

  Biggo dressed slowly and shaved, trying to figure out exactly how he felt about it. He thought he ought to feel anger for the girl but he didn't. Only
disappointment and a sort of sluggish sadness. Jinny had gotten out when the getting was good. She called herself a cheat but she hadn't cheated him; she'd only taken a fair share of his money and the ticket. Not his wrist watch and clothes this time-or the Bible. He guessed she had foreseen that the peacock business wouldn't ever come to anything, that he would run out of money and the thing would peter out and he would give up. He found he was wondering about that himself, decided she was wrong, decided what she thought didn't matter anyway. Toevs was about the only thing that mattered.

  But he felt like a loser as he wandered from bathroom to bedroom and put on his coat with nothing in mind. "Well?" he asked himself. Well, he missed not having Jinny to talk to. Well, so he was alone again.

  He said suddenly, "Pabla," wondering what had taken the idea so long. "Pabla." Today was the day she was supposed to leave the hotel for her father's yacht. But it was still early and perhaps if she hadn't left yet, she could find a way to be alone with him and talk to him. He threw his shoulders back and straightened up for the first time that morning. Pabla was the rightest answer he had ever come across.

  He put the Bible in his left hand coat pocket and Hardesty's gun in his right hand coat pocket. From now on they would be part of his clothes. Then he was ready to go.

  The hotel was quiet with a Sunday hush. As he went downstairs he passed the honeymoon couple who had flown down here in the seat ahead of him. The young fellow and his cute trick of a wife. They were cosily arm-in-arm and they even had a smile to spare for Biggo. He grunted. It almost surprised him that they were happy and that all the world wasn't concerned in his troubles.

  He strode through the lobby and up a staircase to Pabla's second-floor suite. He knocked and hoped.

  Mamacita answered the door. She listened to him and then shook her head distastefully.

  "Well, senora, can you tell me where she is?"

  She said, "The senorita is not here. I am busy with packing. Excuse me." She closed the door in Biggo's face.

  He let off some of his steam by making a noise with his lips that she would hear through the door. Then he whirled and stalked down the hall. At the turn he ran smack into Valentin. The accompanist wore a silk maroon shirt and maroon slacks. He looked like part of a gypsy quartet and he smelled of cologne.

  Biggo got hold of the silk shirt in front. "You'll do," he said. "Where do I find the Senorita Ybarra?"

  Valentin wriggled a little but not much, so as not to ruin the shirt. "Please, senor, I don't know. I am late-"

  "I think you know. You're a watchdog, aren't you? I want to see her."

  "But I… we…" Valentin shook his head plaintively. Biggo's stolid stare continued. Valentin's lips twitched with nervousness. Then he managed a smile that stayed put and the longer he smiled the nastier it got. "Certainly. If you truly seek the senorita, she is bathing in the ocean. There is a cabana south on the beach, very vivid. You know how to find the ocean, I suppose."

  Biggo let it pass. He was glad enough to learn that Pabla was still around. He said, "Thanks, amigo," and turned Valentin loose. He reminded himself that someday he must slap that snotty smile off the fellow's face. But not today.

  With every step toward the beach, he came more to life. The death of Toevs, the grinding frustration of his mission down here, the running-out of Jinny-those were all familiar parts of a sordid life. Familiarities you never got quite used to. But Pabla was a new thing-a combination of youth and beauty and innocence. He desperately needed some of that close to him. He needed to be exposed to some of that to rub off and restore his strength. Even to watch her at a distance, playing in the breakers, that would help him. "You're the one, Pabla, angel," he murmured. She could restore him. He hurried.

  In front of the hotel where a fountain gurgled, he swung past the shaded deck chairs and down onto the concrete promenade that ran the length of the hotel, stopping abruptly at the sand dunes on each end.

  The tide was out. The wide white sand was clean. There weren't even any people swimming or sunbathing. Biggo stopped, scared. No Pabla. He decided if Valentin had lied to him, he would break his neck.

  Then, past where the promenade ended, he saw the cabana. It was a gay tent, orange and crimson, with even a little fringed awning. "Sure, in there," Biggo said. He was suddenly positive and his heart thumped as he hastened over the dunes toward it, grinning.

  He came near and heard her voice, low as if talking to herself. He hesitated, not wanting to frighten her.

  Then he realized she was reliving their few moments together just as he had relived them. Pabla was murmuring, "It is beauty that is vital. The only vital thing in the wide world, I believe, and so elusive. For beauty I would…" Her voice trailed off. Biggo smiled.

  He pushed the tent flap in. He hadn't known it was fastened and a couple of snaps gave. He stepped inside where it was hot and yellow-dark.

  He couldn't believe he was there. He couldn't speak.

  Pabla lay on a sort of chaise longue. She wore a two piece white swimsuit but the bandeau had been tossed aside onto the canvas floor. She lay half under a man and her golden arms were twined around the small of his back, tugging him closer, and her golden legs were tangled up with his mahogany-tan ones. The man was Hardesty and he wore bathing trunks. Each of their mouths seemed trying to swallow the other.

  Biggo stood above them, a silent empty-eyed hulk, as the girl lapsed into pleasant shudders and the man dropped his head to bite her neck and shoulders. Then her eyes flicked open.

  She pushed against Hardesty and he said, "What-" and then he saw Biggo too. Hardesty sat up, an idiot smile on his face, and the only noise in the tent was the faint rubbing of their skins as the pair untangled.

  Biggo's head swam. Whatever was caught in his throat made a whimpering noise when he tried to say something. He had nothing to say, no formed thoughts in his head. Only the swirling.

  Hardesty made an attempt to carry it off. "Didn't anybody ever teach you to knock, old man? Or I guess you can't on canvas, come to think of it."

  Biggo's lips moved. He put his hands up to touch his head. When the first sanity came, it was inconsequential. It was, Why does she just sit there smiling as if she were alone with me? Pabla, why don't you even have the decency to get dressed, now that I'm here?

  Then the swirling stopped in his head and he saw their shamelessness like an explosion. His eyes squinted and his lips tightened against his teeth. His hand dropped into his coat pocket onto the Mauser.

  Hardesty knew. He scrambled back. "Biggo!"

  Biggo grunted. He wanted to smash and destroy. He wanted to hit back and he wanted company in the agony of being hit. He could taste the hate that curdled tight in his belly.

  Pabla had slipped to her feet too but she had come nearer. Except for the heated eyes her face was sweet and endearing. She held out her arms to him and her voice crooned, "Biggo…" She was all golden flesh except for the white material banded around her loins and she was offering herself to him. To him too. "Biggo, please don't be angry with me…"

  The touch of her hands chilled him. It cured the knot in his belly and the taste in his mouth changed. He unclenched his fingers from around the gun and let it stay in his pocket. He took a step away from her. Her bandeau caught on his shoe and he kicked it away.

  "No," he whispered because he didn't want her to touch him. "No," he said again because he didn't want to kill when it wasn't worth it.

  Pabla couldn't understand.

  He stumbled over the portal, getting out of the tent. The sunlight blinded him. He swung his head until he located the outline of the hotel and plodded toward it as if it signified home. His shoes dragged in the sand. "No," he said dully. It hadn't happened. He didn't believe it. Then the real pain of disillusion came down on him and it was the hell of all roads leading to the same place.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sunday, September 17, 1:00 p.m.

  All around him lay silence. Unless he moved there was no movement at all in
the cloudy mirror. If he closed his eyes there was no one at all to see the dusty pyramids of glasses, the empty tables and stools, the bar itself curving off into infinite dimness. When he held his breath the heavy air didn't get breathed by anyone.

  He focussed at the peacock on the wall. "So it boils down to this-do you really exist or do you just exist because I happen to be here?"

  The peacock said nothing though Biggo waited. There was a lot of gold thread-like Pabla's hair-woven into the peacock and it was the central figure on a brocaded tapestry that hung to one side of the bar. The tapestry was suspended from a long wrought-iron spear.

  "Oh, you exist," Biggo growled finally. He kept one hand secure around the bottle he had bought in the hotel taproom. It was already a third empty. "You'll last, when all the rest of us are dead and gone. Vanity of vanities, says the fellow." He poured some more of the bottle down his throat. In the mirror he could see the face of the squint-eyed old man who was drinking too.

  He didn't like the look on the mirror's face. Biggo swung back and located the peacock again. He had found his refuge and he wanted to sink deeper into it, into being alone. There was no lonelier place than these almost forgotten gambling rooms at the north end of the hotel. "Pabla," he whispered suddenly. The sick hurt had caught up with him again. Just when he thought he had it destroyed with the bottle it would come again.

  "I should've known better," he mumbled to the tapestry. "You're just like her. El Senor Pavo Real Pavon. You and her parrot, all feathers and show. I'll bet that parrot talks about beauty too. But what does it mean, huh?" He scowled, puzzled. He wanted to know. "What am I supposed to believe? You can't believe in anything. Did you ever try to hold on to anything? There's nothing there, nothing anywhere."

  The gold threads in the peacock glinted a little, that was all. Biggo drank some more. He wanted to cry but he wouldn't let himself. He had cried over Toevs and he wasn't going to cry over Pabla too. That might make them the same and they weren't.