Devil May Care

by Wade Miller

  "I should've known," he said. "I'm old enough." He slumped forward, holding the bottle cool against his cheek. "Pabla…"

  Presently a new voice said, "Is this a private drunk or can just anybody get in?"

  Biggo turned his head. Instead of the peacock were a woman's white shoulders and a woman's white face. "No," he said. "You're not true either." He tried to see through her to the tapestry.

  Jinny said, "I knew if I hunted around long enough I'd find the hole you crawled into." She slipped up onto the stool next to him. She wore the black dress that showed off her back down to her slip. She looked out at the deserted casino and shivered. "Funny you'd bring your troubles here, though. Isn't out there where Lew knocked your ears down?"

  Biggo began to believe she was actually there. "Hello, honey," he said.

  "Hello."

  "We all get licked eventually, you know. You can't win. It's rigged."

  She puffed her cheeks and blew out her breath. "Boy," she murmured and put her hand on his forehead.

  He struck it away. "What'd you do with your suitcase? You ran but on me. What'd you come back for-more money? You can't have any more."

  "Oh, you damn dumb lummox," Jinny said. She smiled and patted his hand. "Suitcase is back in the room. I should have left you a note, shouldn't I? But I didn't think you'd wake up. You didn't sleep all night."

  "How do you know?"

  "Buck up, Biggo," she said and rummaged in her purse. "Look at this stuff." She laid three bills on the bar in front of him. They were twenties. He counted them with his forefinger. She asked, "Well, aren't you going to say anything? That gives us about eighty dollars again."

  "Where'd you get it?"

  "Remember the airplane ticket? Well, it wasn't redeemable so I went into town this morning and put on a crying act in some of the bars and showed my knees a little and I found a sucker. I got nearly forty-five dollars for it. Isn't that wonderful?"

  "Yeah," said Biggo. He barely understood. "That's swell."

  "Of course, it was worth fifty but I figured I'd better take what I could bloody well get. The rest of that sixty is what I took from your wallet to make change with." She waited for him to speak and when he didn't she hugged his arm impatiently. "Aren't you proud of me, though?"

  "I'm proud of you."

  She took out his wallet and put the three twenties in it and slid the wallet back in his pocket. She put her hand on his forehead again. "You didn't really think I had run away, did you? I didn't think you'd wake up. I had to take the suitcase to make it look good and I had to take my clothes to make the suitcase weigh something. I thought you'd see my toothbrush was still in the bathroom and my hairbrush and so forth."

  "Yeah, I guess I should have."

  She flared up. "Hell's bells, Biggo, I did my best! You ashamed of me?"

  "No," he said and put on a grin. "No, I'm proud of you, honey. I'd have been lost without you."

  Her coming anger vanished. She blinked and rubbed her nose and slid her hand over his big fist on the bar. "You're taking it pretty hard, aren't you? That's all right, Biggo. Anything you want to do, go ahead. It's tough to lose somebody. Cry if you want, get it out of your system."

  He shook his head. He couldn't figure out how she knew about Pabla. Then he realized she was talking about Toevs.

  She asked, "Does it make you feel any better to get drunk?"

  "I don't know. Maybe."

  Jinny looked around at the high empty rooms and bit her lip. She got off the bar stool and took his arm. "Come on."

  "Come on where?"

  "If you're going to get plastered, that's swell. I'll get that way with you. But not here."

  "What's wrong with here?"

  "Because it's dead and you're alive. We're alive. Come on. Let's go up to our room and do it there."

  She carried the half empty bottle and held onto his arm up to their room. She had made the other bed while Biggo was out. Her blue suitcase again sat in its corner. Jinny helped him out of his coat and tie and kicked off her shoes and sat down with the bottle.

  By three o'clock they were high as the sky. They were solemn about it and sat side by side on his bed, passing the bottle back and forth. They told the stories of their lives.

  "I don't know what I did wrong," Jinny said. "I wish someone'd tell me."

  "I don't know," he said. "No use blaming anybody but ourselves, though. If you can't take blame, you're no good."

  "That's right. But who's any good?" She stood up and pulled her dress off over her head. "Too damn hot," she complained and flung it into the corner. She didn't put anything on over her slip. Through the pale rayon could be glimpsed the hint of her black girdle but no brassiere.

  She huddled next to him and he told her the life story of Daniel Toevs and what a wonderful fellow he had been.

  Jinny said, "I wish I'd had a chance to get to know him. I wasn't nice to him." Tears came easily to her eyes.

  "Well, you didn't know, honey. It isn't your fault for everything."

  "Times like this it seems like it is. I guess you're right. All you can do is try to make up for things. Isn't that what we're getting plastered for-to make up for things by being as sorry as possible? Poor Dan'l!" She kicked the empty bottle with her stocking foot.

  Biggo watched it roll and shine in his eyes. "I'll settle for Dan'l," he growled. He put his arm around her and patted her reassuringly. A strap slipped. Neither of them noticed.

  "I feel sorry for us, too. You know how to fight but I don't. You know what we are? We're outcasts." She nuzzled tipsily against his collarbone. "I don't want to be one. I don't want to fight. Oh, Biggo, who wants us? Who'll settle for us?"

  "I don't know that anyone wants us. I don't even know how to fight any more."

  They leaned against one another and eventually he told her about Pabla, from the beginning. He told her how Pabla had appeared in the jail like an angel and how he had met her again and found out about love all at once. And how, after she had played her violin, she had stood close and desirable in the darkening room and he'd done such a noble thing, not laying hands on her. And then in the cabana tent, indecent with Hardesty and not bothering to cover herself.

  His voice dragged to a finish. Jinny hadn't said anything. Once she had vaguely tried to adjust her drooping slip but had failed and forgotten it. Her cheeks were flushed, vivid above her white naked shoulders. She lay back against the headboard of the bed and gathered Biggo to her. "Oh, Biggo," she whispered. She rested his head on her breast, warm and soft. "Poor Biggo-I didn't know how it was."

  "I should've known. I was the sucker."

  "Yes, you should have known. You're such a big baby. Pabla-the way you thought of her-people like that just don't exist, Biggo, honey. Honey, honey, you were dreaming."

  "Maybe I was. Kind of odd, I can't get mad at Hardesty. Like Hardesty didn't have anything to do with it. Just me, blind and dumb."

  "You hush now and listen to me." But Jinny didn't say anything for him to listen to. He nestled there and heard her heart and sighed, toying idly with the ribbon straps that had lagged low on her plump arms. After a while she cracked their silence with a vicious, "I could kill her."

  "That's all right, honey."

  "I guess." She murmured, "I never had anyone to hold like this before." She sighed too. "You know, I've forgotten being here the first time. In this room-you know."

  "Good. You're a good kid, Jinny."

  "You're a good kid yourself. You're too rough and nothing but a big baby but you're good. You won't ever hit me again, will you?"

  "No." He discovered that the hem of the slip had ridden up to her stocking-tops and he commenced to stroke the silken sides of her legs with no other thought but that they were pretty. Out of the storm had come this calm, this lingering nearness of another being, and he was grateful. He added, "Just don't ever rig the liquor or throw away a perfectly good gun again."

  Fascinated, she watched his hand trail back and forth reverently over the c
ontours of her stockings. "You can be gentle, can't you? I'm scared of guns and things like that, Biggo-violence. We're out of liquor. I'm scared of getting sober. No, don't move yet." She held him tight against her. "You know, you weren't really in love with her, I don't think. You were just all moony over her, like a school kid. You were in love with love."

  He didn't answer for a while. Then his voice was muffled against the cozy flesh of her bosom. "Maybe that was it. Second childhood."

  She shook him gently and the slip dodged finally and became nothing but a twisted swath of rayon around her hips. She didn't pay any attention."You're not that old! Quit thinking about it all the time. A man is a man until he's dead." She paused and they both thought about Daniel Toevs. Her tone was more subdued. "Well, what I mean is, look at all the big movie stars, the men. Hardly any of them less than forty and some of them fifty. You're grabbing for something you don't really want, you big ox, darling."

  He grunted. Their hearts were beating the same peaceful rhythm and their breathing was the same. When he had thought about it for a long time, he said, "No. I guess what I thought was Pabla was probably something I wanted as a kid, when I ran away from home. Romance, is that what I mean? Hell, I don't need anything out of a kid's storybook. Why should I want the same thing I wanted that many years ago, huh?"

  "That's right, honey baby." Jinny touseled his head and kissed the top of it. Then she pushed him upright. "It's wearing off," she said. "Go down and get us another bottle. I don't want to lose ground. I want to keep what we got so far."

  Apart, they both realized suddenly how exposed she was. "So do I," Biggo said.

  She reddened and began to do something about the errant garment. Then she changed her mind and met his eyes. "I guess," she said faintly, "all that people like us ever get is a moment here or there. Whenever the time and the place cross. I guess we ought to take advantage of it."

  He nodded tensely. He didn't move because he was afraid to lose himself any minute and force his brutality on her. Jinny was lovely, mussed and gazing at him so seriously. Thoughtfully, she unsnapped the tops of her stockings. Her hand crept within the folds of the slip and he heard the rasp of the girdle's zipper and she squirmed, using both hands. Then she paused with a shy laugh. "Times when you could be some help, you know."

  His arms went around her and he pressed down on her mouth, remembering to be gentle. A breath later he forgot all his good intentions as fast as she did. He discovered response and delirium and explosion and then a placid infinity through which they drifted, hugged close together.

  Finally she opened her eyes and patted his cheek and whispered, "How about that other bottle? We want to stay drunk. What we got, we don't want it to start wearing off."

  Biggo stumbled to his feet and nearly fell down. "Wearing off, hell," he said and grinned down at her foolishly. He picked up her hand and held it. "Just don't you move, that's all. Don't run away from me again or anything."

  Jinny nearly purred. She tried to sit up and clutched her head. "I just thought I'd change into something."

  "You look good right now, honey."

  "I just got a prettier slip, that's all."

  "I'll be right back," he promised. He kicked his coat aside and the Mauser skidded under the bed. He walked carefully out of the room.

  He made it down to the taproom and bought another bottle and fumbled the change back into his pocket. Then he heard her speak to him.

  "Biggo," said Pabla softly.

  He knew she was standing in the archway between the taproom and the lobby. His muscles tensed and all he had to do was turn around to see her. She wanted to talk to him badly, wanted him badly. She'd put it all into speaking his name.

  But he didn't turn around. The bartender started to say something and changed his mind, only glancing curiously toward the archway and then at Biggo. Biggo stood still and wondered, Is it over? It was fine when Jinny was talking yet how was it when Pabla called his name? He didn't stir and presently he sighed because he knew she had gone away.

  He looked behind him and the archway was empty. He picked up his bottle and walked into the lobby. He wasn't sure how he felt. Confused, mostly.

  But now Pabla was gone. It was a strange sort of relief and he made his way over to the French doors of the lobby because he knew she was going out to the yacht. It wouldn't spoil anything to watch her go.

  The glare from the ocean hurt his eyes. Biggo squinted and saw the figures going away from him. There was Mamacita carrying the violin case and the parrot and Valentin carrying suitcases. Pabla walked in front, carrying nothing. She had on a bright blue street dress that showed how slim her body was and how shining her hair.

  The trio was headed for a motorboat that waited at the stone jetty at the end of the beach. They reached the jetty and boarded, one by one. Pabla boarded last and the driver of the boat stood up to help her in.

  Biggo's face creased in a horrible grimace. He shoved open the French door for a better view. He half-raised the bottle in his hand as if to strike from that distance. Because it was more than his imagination wanting it so. The driver of the motorboat was Red.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Sunday, September 17, 4:00 p.m.

  His mind was fogged with whiskey but it recorded two things clearly. One was the remembered taste of hate and the other was the white wake of the motorboat cutting away from the jetty.

  Biggo followed, the bottle held clubbed at his hip. He shambled across the hotel lawn in a weaving line and his eyes were fixed on the trail of the boat. He didn't stop until the low wall that separated the promenade from the beach struck a blow across his thighs and the bottle shattered. The noise brought him closer to reason. "Can't get them now," he said and looked down stupidly at the sharp neck of the bottle still in his fist. "Got to be later."

  The motorboat had curled out of sight behind the yacht. He stood staring at the yacht and, "I'll come," he promised it. And he promised Toevs.

  His drunken brain had a hard time putting its pictures in order. Toevs lay dead over a chunk of granite shoring. Pabla lay writhing in a man's arms. Red had killed Toevs; and Red and Pabla had gone home to the yacht. The assassins were home now, all together out there.

  Biggo dragged his forearm across his eyes. "Damn drunk," he said. "Why do I have to be drunk now? Got to get out there. Got to straighten up."

  The yacht. It might have come up from Acapulco-or down from Los Angeles. What mattered was that its sleek beautiful lines enclosed in one place Silver Magolnick's people. It might be a fortress in its way but to Biggo it was a white spot on a blue bay, like a mark on a map-a destination.

  "Good," said Biggo after he had stared at it a while. "Good for me." But he knew he was in no shape to start anything. The liquor wouldn't let him think very well and his limbs dragged like dead weights.

  So he half-rolled over the promenade wall and lit feet first on the beach. He trudged through the dry sand until he reached the hardpack at the water's edge. The sun was getting lower but it was still hot. He began to trot along the tide line, head down. By the time he passed the first dunes that hid him from the hotel his stomach was rolling over and over. He stopped. He spread his legs and bent down and stuck his fingers into his throat.

  He vomited away most of the whiskey in him and his head felt ready to float off. He pulled himself together and jogged back up the beach. He didn't peel off his shirt though it was already tight and dripping against his torso. He wanted to sweat away the whiskey, force the alcohol numbness out of his pores. Up and down he went, not looking at anything except his shoes as he ran and his footprints he had left on previous laps.

  Over the noise of his own breath he heard somebody calling but he didn't look up. When he came back on his next lap Lew Hardesty was waiting for him.

  Hardesty looked clean and cool in a gray sport suit. He grinned and said, "Hey, Biggo-what's up?" Then he shied away as Biggo thudded closer and a wary expression replaced the grin. Biggo realized he was still carry
ing the broken neck of bottle around with him and he dropped it and started back down the beach.

  Hardesty fell in stride with him. "You're a little old to go in training."

  "Get out of here," said Biggo. He kept running.

  "I don't like to see you kill yourself off, champ. And this is a high-class beach you're stinking up." As Biggo swung around to make the return trip, Hardesty caught his arm. "Slow down, Biggo." Biggo shook loose but Hardesty blocked his path.

  "Get out of my way," Biggo said.

  Hardesty's face was serious. "Look, Biggo," he said and then had to stop and scratch his scar and frown at the breakers to get his words in order. "What I want to say is that I don't give a special damn about you any more than you give a special damn about me. But we've known each other a long time, here and there, and there aren't a whole lot of us who've known each other a long time. See what I mean?"

  Biggo said, "I'm busy."

  "Well, in that tent this morning, I didn't like the look on your face. It made me think. I didn't know I was cutting that deep. I didn't know what was going on-or is going on-with you and that Ybarra girl. I still don't. It wasn't like that little scrap of ours yesterday, nothing like that-" Hardesty flushed and hunted more words. "Whatever happened this morning, I'm sorry."

  Biggo squinted at him. "I guess you must be talking about Pabla."

  "Yes. What I-"

  Biggo shrugged. "Oh, to hell with her."

  Hardesty laughed and pretended to wipe his brow. "Well, you could have fooled me. I thought this morning maybe you were going soft."

  "Not me. Don't worry about me."

  "Well, good. She's just another one of those that can't get enough. I paid her a call in her room the other night after the concert. I said to myself, Lew, old man, I bet that's too good to be true and furthermore I bet that hair is dyed. And, what do you know?"

  "Oh, shut up," said Biggo. "I got more important things on my mind."

  "Like what?" Hardesty asked quickly.