The Damned Read online

  Tree shadows were lengthening, and he squinted his eyes against a swirl of dust picked up by a breeze that had scudded across the river, ruffling the water.

  Pepe came back and squatted beside him. He sighed elaborately. “One could grow a long beard while waiting.”

  Bill grinned. “I think Carmelita will still be in Mante by the time we get back, amigo.”

  “Ai! I concern myself with this delay because I am a loyal employee, and become accused of the silliness of love.” He changed the subject. “That shouting some minutes ago was because one tourist lady has been taken ill, and has been carried into the store.”

  “Too much sun?”

  “Something else, I think. Something bad, with a grinding of the teeth. She is the mother of the young man we saw, the one with the glasses who walked with the beautiful girl with the light hair. After the mother was carried in, they spoke together and the man with the glasses struck the girl in front of everyone. It was very ugly and very curious. I did not understand it. If she is his wife, he has a privilege to beat her, but it is better done when alone, I believe. And the boy who swam, he was swimming for a doctor, and came back, you will notice, with none.”

  “You are a veritable newspaper, a monster of curiosity. It does not concern us, Pepe.”

  “One must move the hours by with more quickness. And you, I remember, Beel, applied a crude word to the young lady with pale hair. Thus, I thought you would wish to know of her problems.”

  “I merely called her a pollita.”

  “But with a certain licking of the lips, verdad?”

  The others in the group laughed. Bill stared severely at Pepe. “But it was you, señor, who whistled, verdad?”

  “Ah, look!” Pepe said. “Approaching is the evil monster of a ferry.”

  They all watched it, motionless. There was a concerted groan as it nuzzled against the mud when it was still thirty feet from shore. The laborers aboard stared moodily down at the water, then jumped off into mid-thigh water and began rolling it listlessly with their shovels away from the mud.

  Bill said, “From now on the progress will be like that of Pepe hurrying to work. One meter each half hour.”

  He turned his head and saw the thick-shouldered swagger of the hard-faced American with the bristling black hair. The man came down the road with a ripe-looking girl in a yellow dress. He gave the squatting group a casual, insolent glance and walked to the MG, planted his feet, and stared down at the two young men seated in the shadow of the car.

  “Boys,” he said, “we’ve got a sick woman up there. You’re giving up your place in line so we can get her over to the doctor.”

  The blond boy looked coldly at the chunky man, turned to his companion, and said, “Troy, dear, are we going to fall for a moldy old gag like that?”

  “Come on up and take a look at her, if you think it’s a gag, boys.”

  “It’s far too hot to go staggering up that bloody hill.”

  The girl in the yellow dress stared at them with contempt. She said, “Benson, you aren’t going to get anyplace with them. To hell with them. The ferry takes two cars. Let’s find out who owns this pickup.”

  “Betty, let me hammer on these boys a little.”

  “You get funny with us,” Troy hissed, “and you’ll get something to remember us by.”

  Bill, squatting nearby, was lifting a cigarette to his lips. He stopped the gesture as he saw the wink of sun on the knife blade in Troy’s hand. Two members of his little group stood up slowly and moved away. They wanted no part of any trouble.

  The chunky man made as if to turn away. Then he whirled back and kicked hard. Bill heard the thud of shoe meeting wrist. The knife sailed over the little car and landed on the far side. The two boys scrambled up, chittering and mouthing delicate obscenities. As one of them dived to run around after the knife, the chunky Benson tripped him brutally so that he fell flat and hard in the dust. And Benson went after the blond one, brushing aside the ineffectual hands, hammering with cruelly accurate fists. Bill saw the nose pulped, saw the pink mist of blood spray in the sunlight, saw the boy fall back against the car, sagging.

  Bill came up onto his feet, reached Benson in three long strides, deftly caught the arm, twisted it, and brought it up between the man’s shoulder blades, holding him helpless.

  The man craned his neck to stare back over his shoulder. In crude, rattling, almost verbless Spanish he demanded to know what the hell Bill thought he was doing.

  “Giving you a little chance to cool off, man.”

  “I thought you were spick. Get your goddamn hands off me.”

  Bill saw that the dark-haired boy called Troy had retrieved the knife. He pushed Benson away from him, releasing him as he did so.

  Benson glanced at the knife, glanced at the contorted face of the boy, and backed uneasily away. The boy with the mashed nose was crying.

  “You give him a chance,” Bill said softly, “he’s going to cut you a little.” He turned to the boy. “Put the knife away. I’ll keep him off you.”

  Benson cursed him. “You look like a man, at least. What’s the matter with beating up a pair like that?”

  “They aren’t doing you any harm. They’re just different from you, man. The lady was right. You could have listened to her. That’s my truck. If somebody’s pretty sick, we can rig up a place in the bed of the truck and take her across that way.”

  Bill looked at the girl. She was staring at him in very frank appraisal. There was a measuring boldness in her eyes that made him feel awkward.

  “There sure is plenty of you, Texas. Weren’t you talking Mex a while back?”

  “A buck says he’s half spick,” Benson said with contempt. “Look at the clothes.”

  Bill stared mildly at Benson. “One more time you use the word, man, I’m going to pound on you a little.”

  “Proves I’m right,” Benson said with contempt.

  Bill addressed himself to the girl. “Miss, is he any kin to the lady that’s sick?”

  “No, he was just helping out.”

  “Then you send the woman’s kin down here and we’ll fix it up about how to get her across. Tell your friend there that we don’t need any more big wheeling around here.”

  Benson and the girl went up the hill. She kept staring back over her shoulder. Bill rejoined the group. Benson’s back was rigid with anger as he walked beside the girl. Bill gave the group a complete report on the conversation, with only slight editing. The editing didn’t help in Pepe’s case.

  Pepe said, “Did he use a word of insult, Beel?”

  “Yes.”

  Pepe pursed his lips. “That one is bad. A violent one. A cruel one. It is very clear in his face. You must watch him very carefully. And ah, the little darlings. Look how they share their sorrow.”

  The one called Troy had brought water, taken a clean cloth from their luggage, and was just finishing tenderly swabbing the face of the one Benson had hit so sharply, the one who still wept, hopelessly.

  Their voices came silver-thin through the afternoon air.

  “It is broken, isn’t it?”

  “A beast. That’s what he is, a beast. If he’s still here, darling, when it gets a bit darker, I shall…”

  “No, it’s done. Don’t try to get even, Troy.”

  “I don’t think it’s a bad break, Daniel.”

  “You know it’s just pulp. Pulp.”

  “Well, even if it can’t be perfectly set, perhaps it will give you an air… a jauntiness, perhaps.”

  “I hate all of them, all of them. And that kind the most, Troy. They have to humiliate us to get even with themselves, you know. It’s because they have the same… slant on life and won’t admit it. So they have to go around being terribly ‘he,’ strutting and making women. I don’t hate him, I guess I’m sorry for him, dear.”

  “I could just claw out his horrid eyes, really.”

  “Now you stop fretting. I’m going to be all right. I just feel a little sick from
the shock. And look at that pretty shirt! You ruined it when you fell.”

  They lowered their voices a bit and Bill Danton could no longer hear what was said.

  “You will take the sick woman across in the truck?” Pepe asked.

  “If it will help them.”

  “The truck can be backed up the hill to the store. Perhaps it will be easier that way.”

  “Good idea, Pepe. See if you can get some sort of sticks so we can spread that tarp for shade for her.”

  Pepe stood up. “Here comes the one with glasses, Beel.”

  The boy was approaching, accompanied by the girl in the yellow dress. Bill stood up and saw her point him out.

  The boy stuck his hand out, his air becoming just a bit patronizing as he saw the way Bill Danton was dressed. “Miss Mooney tells me you’re willing to help us. My name is John Gerrold.”

  “Bill Danton’s mine. Thought we might rig up something in the bed of the pickup. It’s six feet long and she could be stretched out. My friend is going to rig a tarp for shade. Ferry ought to be close enough to shore in another half hour. How is she doing?”

  “I… I don’t know. It’s terrible. Miss Mooney has been a lot of help. My… my wife is with her now. If only the doctor could have come over here!”

  “I’ll back the truck up the hill and get her when it’s time.”

  “I had to give the man in the store a hundred pesos to let her stay in there. He kept saying it was driving all the customers to the other store.”

  “Don’t worry about it. That’s more profit than he’s made in the last three months.”

  John Gerrold looked at the dusty truck with evident distaste. He walked over and stared into it. “I’d like to come along, of course, and bring my wife. But that leaves our car over on this side. I…”

  “You’re ahead of me and my friend in line,” Betty Mooney said quickly. “Look, I can take that Buick across the river. No trouble at all.”

  “That’s kind of you,” John Gerrold said.

  “Where will I take it to?”

  “They’ve told me the doctor’s office is on the public square, on the left. Apparently he has a sign out. Dr. Reinares. You could leave the car there and bring the keys up to the doctor’s office, and then your friend could stop there for you when he gets across. I hope it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “Brother, you’re giving me a chance to get off this side of the river. I love you for it.”

  John Gerrold turned toward Bill. “I’d better get back to her. She’s in the first store at the top of the hill. I’ll be there with her.”

  Bill saw the tears gleam behind the lenses of the glasses as the boy turned and looked out across the river. John Gerrold said, “She’s always been such a good sport about… things like this ferry business. She called them adventures.”

  “She’ll be O.K., Johnny,” Betty Mooney said emphatically.

  He turned without a word and went striding up the hill, long legs scissoring slowly, head bent.

  “Is she pretty bad?” Bill asked the Mooney girl.

  “Whatever it is, it sure isn’t a common cold. Mamma’s boy is giving his wife a hard time. Seems to sort of blame her. And here’s a kick, Mr. Danton. That pair are on a honeymoon. With Mamma along. Tie that if you can.”

  She seemed unwilling to leave. He gave her one of the cheap cigarettes, lit it for her. She took a drag, clutched at her throat, and coughed. “Sabotage!” she said in a husky voice.

  “Delicados. You have to get used to them.”

  She took a second drag, cautiously. “Say, they stand right up and talk back, don’t they? You live in Mexico?”

  “We’ve got a farm, my dad and I.”

  “You make a living off it? I’ve seen some pretty tired land around here.”

  “It gets better when you get off the highway. And we’re in the flats, so we don’t get all the wind and water erosion of the boys who slap those vertical fields against the sides of the mountains.”

  “Some of those fields that are almost straight up and down look weird.”

  “Weird, all right,” he said quietly. “It takes fifty thousand years for nature to stick a little topsoil on those slopes and nail it down with a decent root system. So some little joker clears it, plants it, wears it out, and it washes away and blows away in three years. Most of the good land in Mexico is washing out to sea. Or blowing up in the air to make pretty sunsets.”

  “We came through a dilly of a dust storm up in the mountains.”

  “Treated right, this land will pay off.”

  “You really knock yourself out when you think about it, eh?”

  He gave her a slow grin. “Take it a little serious, I guess.”

  “What do you think of that Benson?”

  “Friend of yours, isn’t he?”

  “No. I just met him when the old lady got sick.”

  “Why do you want to know what I think of him?”

  “Well, you pushed him around a little.”

  “I guess I just don’t like that kind of guy very much. Those boys weren’t hurting him any. He just likes to beat on people.”

  Pepe came over and said, “Observe the tarp, Beel.”

  “That’s good. Let’s back it up the hill. Wait, I’ll back it up. You stay here and make certain no one tries to steal our place. Want to ride up, Miss Mooney?”

  “I’ll walk, thanks.”

  Bill swung the truck out of line, put it in reverse, leaned out the door, and backed it up the hill. There was more blue in the tree shadows, and some of the brassy look had faded out of the sky.

  Chapter Five

  AS THEY had made the turn off the Pan-American Highway at Victoria, to head toward Matamoros, the police sedan had halted them.

  The twins, Riki and Niki, in the back seat of the big gun-metal Packard convertible, had been amusing themselves with a bottle of golden tequila, and had been passing it up to Phil Decker just often enough so that he made a serious attempt not to breathe into the face of the mustachioed cop.

  Phil’s kitchen Spanish turned out to be pretty inadequate and the cop had no English, and so the cop had taken them across to a restaurant where there was a man with respectable English.

  When he got the word, Phil held a conference with the twins. They were identical twins, a pair of sleek show-girl blondes wearing identical blue denim play suits. Tequila had made the four blue eyes a bit glassy.

  “Like this,” Phil said. “There’s some kind of delay at the ferry about a hundred miles down the road there, and the cars are getting across too slow. If we stay at the hotel here, we can probably get across in the morning with no trouble. Or we can go to Laredo to cross, which is no dice on account of the one-week stand near Harlingen. We stay overnight, we got to fly like big birds to get settled in and straightened away from Harlingen tomorrow night.”

  “Woops, we’re marooned,” said Riki.

  “We can take a chance on the ferry, but when these kids say something is bad, it’s usually worse.”

  Niki turned owlish. “Think of our public, Phil. Leave us lay in supplies, advance on the ferry, and picnic as we wait. A hundred miles from now some of the sting ought to be out of this sun.”

  The suggestion was carried by a vote of two against one, the twins against Phil, and with resignation he procured a picnic of sorts from the hotel. When he got back to the car he found that Riki and Niki had done a bit of foraging, and the bottle supply was once again up to par.

  As they had started down the highway, the twins had started to sing again. There were not enough of them, nor was there enough quality, to make it come out Andrews or Fontaine, but it came out lusty, with a nice drive to it.

  Phil Decker drove doggedly. The long run at the Club de Medianoche had filled up the kitty, and Sol had lined up enough stands between the border and New York so that they ought to be able to arrive with the kitty maybe a bit bent but not busted.

  And this time, he told himself grimly, they were going to
make the TV idea work. Sell it to somebody. The kids were young and had talent. And he wasn’t getting any younger. The routines would have to be cleaned up, but that wasn’t hard. Wangle a few guest spots, and pray. This time the Triple Deckers ought to come through.

  He had no illusions about himself. He knew he was a baggy-pants comic with an ugly face, a heavy left hand on the piano, and a sense of timing and pace learned the hard way, learned in crumby clubs from border to border. It was the kids who were going to clinch it for him. A piece of luck finding the kids right when Manny got so sick and had to quit. A pair of Cleveland gals who’d won an amateur contest and had been booked around with a poor act of their own devising. He’d watched them, made the offer, sewn them up, gone to work on them. Now they had a bag of tricks. The gutty singing, and the duet strip. It had been tough talking them into the strip, but after they’d gone through the paces that first night in New Orleans, awkward and damn near blushing all over, the gals had been convinced that he was right. And they had the milkman skit, and the sorority-house skit, and that blackout business with the violin. A fast, rough show, with plenty of long slim legs, and plenty of double-talk that wasn’t too coarse.

  Well, this was going to be the gamble. The big time, or crawl away on your belly, Phil boy. And the nagging fear came back that maybe the gals had too much class. Somebody would step in and take over and cut him out. Well, the contract was as tight as he could make it, and they’d have to do a lot of scrambling around, but if they wanted to get out of it, they could probably fix it up somehow. He had learned about contracts the hard way, too.

  There was one way you could tell real class when you ran into it. Riki and Niki were not going to let anybody’s bed get in the way of ambition. They never let themselves get separated, and the two of them could certainly handle any pair of eager guys.

  He realized he had made a fool of himself in New Orleans, but it had worked out all right. He certainly hadn’t wanted to mess with either or both of them, because he knew that could foul up an act quicker than anything. And he knew that neither of them had intended to tease him along, but living like that, having to go into their room, having them get so casual with him that it was as if they thought he was one of those boys they fix up so they won’t make trouble around a harem—it had got a little too much to take. And so he’d made that fast pass at Niki and she’d blown up in his face and there had been a lot of yammering and then the big conference, at which he apologized very abjectly and they promised to comport themselves in such a way that he wouldn’t be so likely to lose control in the future.