HONKY IN THE WOODPILE Page 16

  “Who?”

  “Some people who were talking in the Tres Hojas while I was waiting for you. They weren’t the only ones discussing your escape, by the way. Practically everyone in the bar seemed to have heard about it.”

  “Groovy. Even though I’m having to run for the hills, I’ve at least managed to make a lot of Sabatanos look extremely stupid. That’s constructive.”

  “Do you ever do anything that isn’t?” she parried, turning to tap ash into the tray on the dashboard.

  “You’re joking.”

  “The hell I am! Christ, what do most people manage to do with their lives—what do most of us manage to do? Suffer! But you’re a one-man walking revolution!”

  “There’s no such thing.”

  “But you overthrew a whole government once!”

  “Oh, sure, honey—I’ve done some useful things because I was in the right spot at the right time, but I was dancing to someone’s else’s tune, like all of us. I didn’t say to myself one day, ‘Hey, there’s going to be a white coup in Milnia, go pack a bag and stop the bastards!’ I was hired. Mark you, I didn’t stay as completely hired as they expected, but that was accidental.” I gave a shrug.

  “You sound tired, Max,” she said after a pause. True enough. And not just from the past few days, either—from the whole exhausting burden of my life.

  “Can you wonder at that?” I said. “Too many narrow escapes, too many jails, too many tight corners where I thought my luck was running out… bound to wear a man down. That’s why for the past year or two I’ve been doing the patient stuff, the organizing, the grass-roots bit.”

  I hadn’t ever talked about this to anybody, not even the people I most loved. Until this minute, in a strange land where for the first time I was being hunted by what I’d always thought of as “my people”, I hadn’t really known it myself. Now words just came welling up from a deep place in my subconscious, and I ached with yearning.

  “What’s the point of being a fucking hero, honey?” I heard myself saying. “Heroes get glory, medals, fame—and a stinking life. You can’t afford the luxury of being tired; it might mean a knife in your guts. You can’t afford a week in bed when you feel ill; you drive yourself, drive yourself, and even when you think you have a chance to relax you’re on edge wondering if the guy who found you a room to hide in can be trusted, or whether right this moment as you doze off he’s turning you in to the police…”

  She had taken the hand I’d rested on the back of her seat and was holding it. Just holding it.

  “I guess that’s one of the reasons I took to Fierro so quickly. He wanted to be a doctor; instead, he drifted—his own word—drifted into having to heal a whole sick society. I drifted into my game, too. Ran away from home when I got pissed off at the way my aunt was renting herself and me and her own kids to whatever man came along, a kind of packaged family for anyone who could support her and keep her happy in bed. I thought I could maybe find some roots, so I signed on a boat, jumped ship in Martinique because that’s where my mother’s father came from… Didn’t find anything there, but I kept looking. I wanted some—some grand simple thing to change my life. Revolutionize it. I’ve been mixed up with Rastafarians and Black Muslims, and I thought Islam might be the answer for me, so I went to North Africa and found it wasn’t, and in Cairo they recruited me as a possible agent, but in Prague and Moscow I found that wasn’t the answer I wanted either, and I’ve been to so many places now, so many countries, I guess the answer doesn’t exist. I’ll have to make one. So I’m trying. But I don’t have the right habits, the right attitude of mind. Hell, what am I doing in Madrugada? A favor for a guy I barely know. I must be out of my skull!”

  I’d been about to toss away my cigarette butt; in the nick of time I changed my mind and crushed it in the door ashtray.

  “So there are other things you’d rather do with your life.”

  “Shit, of course there are! Only the world’s in too much of a fucking mess.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Oh, hell! Normal things, ordinary things, fun-type things! Relax! Create something, instead of always tearing down the evil things other people have put up! Meet the right girl, court her, wander around holding hands in the sunlight making the kind of plans I’ve never been able to, for a home, a family! I’ve never had a home, you know. Never in my entire life.”

  Nor ever, until tonight, realized just how much I wanted one.

  There was a dead pause. I broke it by opening the door.

  “Where are you going?” she demanded.

  “I got a gun to bury. Wouldn’t do for it to be found on me. Won’t be long.”

  I walked off a short distance into the darkness, chose a soft patch of ground where I could make a hollow with my heel, dumped the gun and covered it with leaves and mold. I decided I should take the opportunity of emptying my bladder, too.

  While I was still at that, I heard sounds behind me, and glanced over my shoulder. She had got out of the car, dragging the air-bed which she threw to the ground, and spread the dry towel on top of it. Then she came over to me.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I said in a creaking voice.

  “Something ordinary,” she said. She tugged her blouse free at her waist and tossed it aside; she was wearing nothing under it. “Isn’t it ordinary on a lovely night like this to drive out in the country with a girl, and find a quiet spot to park, and…?”

  “And—?”

  She thrust down her pants and briefs and stepped out of them, then turned me around with one hand on my shoulder and felt for my prick with the other.

  “And I want to, Max. Because the way you gamble with your life, there may never be another chance.”

  Oh my God.

  She was right. It could be the last time. And I didn’t want it to be the last time.

  It wasn’t passion I took her with. It was desperation.

  Just outside Lastilas I slipped from the car and faded into shadows, while she drove on for her drink at the Hotel Santiago… in case the Sabatanos checked up. All of a sudden I was feeling confident again. I had good clear instructions from Diego, and I wasn’t especially worried about the interval between now and our dawn rendezvous. Moreover in spite of the mischance of being spotted by Gilbert, I’d set things up so that the blagro had more or less conclusively identified himself, and that was damned good going considering how short a time I’d been here. I felt, in sum, I was giving value for money.

  By isolated paths I found my way to a lonely stretch of beach, not much patronized because it was too close to the ferry-terminal and the crude sewers of the town. Even the fishermen had moved away, abandoning a hut which Diego had proposed as a secure place for me to lie up.

  There was a car drawn off the road, which I spotted when a glint of moonlight shone on its chromework, but if it was parked here for the likely reason the occupants would probably be too busy to notice me stealing past.

  That must be the hut: a looming shadow, off-square because the roof had tilted. Diego had said the door was on the seaward side. I hurried around and eased it open. The hinges complained.

  A startled exclamation.

  A bright light.

  A voice saying furiously in English, “What the hell—? Who the—? Max! Get out! Get out!”

  TWENTY-TWO

  I was so taken aback I simply stood there for a moment, my eyes adjusting with a stab of near-pain to the brilliance of the flashlight which had been turned on me. I saw details as though in an over-exposed movie film. On the ground, sprawled back on a heap of old rotting nets covered with a rug, a white woman with her long gold-lurex dress hauled up to her armpits, and no panties. Standing beside her, one leg in his pants and one out, his jacket discarded, a black man whose shirt was criss-crossed with the supporting straps of a shoulder-holster.

  Everything suddenly made disastrous sense. Alicia Crowell had found herself a black stud to enliven her holiday.

  And the stud happened to
be a Sabatano. Junior grade.

  I slammed the door shut and ran like hell. But the cat I’d interrupted came right after me, flashlight in one hand, gun in the other. He speared me with the long white beam before I’d made twenty yards, and fired.

  A lousy shot, thank God. I saw it kick up sand a good sixty yards ahead. But if its light reached that far, it must be a hell of a torch he was wielding, maybe one of those six-cell Japanese jobs designed to read yacht-registrations off the sail at two hundred yards… and what was worse, I heard a car-door open, and another similar light sprang up, followed by the noise of crunching feet.

  Fierro had warned me that Sabatanos always operated at least in pairs. Apparently he’d meant not just always, but always!

  There were shouts. The man from the hut yelled an explanation to his chum, and told him to sweep the shoreward side with his light, to prevent me breaking between them. The guy from the car called back that he would, and on the very first pass with the torch skylined me as I rushed for the protection of a boulder. He fired, too. He was a better shot—much better! I gasped and dived aside in sheer fright, because that one was close enough to spit up sand and sting my arm.

  So long as those two had lights to trap me by, I was a dead duck.

  On top of that, if they did lose me—by some miracle—I could imagine the dialogue that would ensue when her boy-friend rejoined Alicia: “You called that man by name! Met him in London? Diablo, you mean Max Curfew? You don’t know? You stupid bitch, if that’s the Max who escaped from jail last night…!”

  I’ve always hated buckra women who chase after black men just for kicks. But never so much as right now.

  They’d worked out a plan of action by this time, with one of them—the better shot—on the high ground inshore, the other approaching the spot where I’d last been seen, both of them sweeping the area with their torches as though brushing a carpet. Did I stand any chance of dodging between them and vanishing into undergrowth? Maybe a slim one—but they could all too easily be local people, whom I couldn’t outwit by day, let alone in the dark, because I’d be exploring new terrain and they might have known it since childhood.

  Should I stay put, rely on being able to overpower whichever of them eventually stumbled on me? No, stupid. Sabatanos used their guns casually, and breaking in on that guy’s love-making was probably good enough grounds for him to kill me the moment he came in view. If I got caught at once, therefore, I’d get shot for the insult; if I didn’t get caught until after that dialogue with Alicia I’d been imagining, I’d be taken back to Brascoso, very likely tortured, and most definitely chained up.

  It wouldn’t be simple deportation for me now.

  Well, there was one way out—only, if I took it, I wouldn’t be keeping my rendezvous with Diego. But could I expect to keep it if I stayed? Heart way down in my shoes some place, I decided there wasn’t a hope in hell.

  While all this was passing through my mind I was dodging and doubling like a coursed hare. Twice more the light caught me, and the second time there was a shot which splashed on an outcropping rock. I saw the light glint on the spattered metal.

  Nothing else for it.

  The sea.

  Out there, four miles off-shore, was Aragon. I could see its looming bulk dark on the dark water. The currents here didn’t run anything like as strongly as they did nearer the Toblino—the guy piloting the launch had mentioned the fact when I went there before. On the other hand it was late at night, I was tired, and I hadn’t swum a distance like that in maybe four or five years.

  But if I stayed here…

  I kicked off my shoes as I twisted towards the water’s edge and ran straight out from the shore. The beach sloped much too gradually. I was barely knee-deep when I heard cries behind me—“Over there, in the sea!”—and a beam of light slashed around and another shot rang out.

  I jumped, leaped, stumbled forward and hurled myself belly-down into the water… and found the beach had shelved at last, and I was swimming. Hampered by my clothes, I launched into a crawl which I knew I couldn’t keep up for long, but which I hoped and prayed would take me out of range.

  I kept thinking of what Dolly had said about not having another chance.

  Above my own splashing I heard the noise of feet in shallow water, and another shot, still extremely close. I cried out, threw up my arms, and after gulping a quick deep breath dived underwater.

  And stayed there, paddling gently, as long as I could.

  One instant before I’d have had to break surface and give myself away I saw the irregular glint of torchlight on the water disappear. Gratefully I let myself rise and breathe, and listened hard.

  Muttered comments—“Bastard, walking in on me like that! Well, at least he got what he deserved.” A flashlight flickered on the side of the hut as they headed back to it. Alicia appeared in the doorway, dressed again and clutching a purse with both hands.

  I was hoping they might leave the scene and allow me to sneak back ashore and hide as I’d originally intended, if not in the same place, when the one without pants took Alicia’s arm and marched her, protesting, back into the hut. I heard a cry of anger, quickly cut short, a harsh laugh, the sound of the hut-door creaking to.

  The other Sabatano lit a cigarette, hefted gun and flashlight, and strolled idly back towards the water as though to pass the time until his turn with Alicia by making sure I didn’t come back.

  Oh, shit! Now I definitely had to swim a long way. I could either go around the point on which the Santiago stood—I could see it from here, brilliantly lighted—and risk someone spotting me who might turn me in, let alone the difficulty of finding my way back here soaking wet to keep my date with Diego—

  The door of the hut burst open again and there was the Sabatano yelling for his friend, holding Alicia tight by the wrist. His friend called back to demand what was wrong.

  “Come back here—quickly!”

  It sounded as though the dialogue I’d feared had just taken place. Well, maybe if she hated Don Amedeo so much, my friendly zachea would get a message back to Diego in time to prevent him falling into a trap meant for me… I hoped so. I’d taken a liking to that guy.

  But for me it was past time to split. I eeled around in the water, getting rid of all my clothes except my trunks. Then I set off, very cautiously, towards Cayachupo.

  It wasn’t long before I discovered that even though the currents here might not be as strong as on the further side of the island, they existed. I was being tugged steadily off my line, and the further I was from shore, the worse the deviation became.

  By this time I could see a few faint lights ahead, flickering, as though tree-branches were waving in the breeze and occasionally obscuring them. Triangulating as best I could on those, and on the conspicuous landmark of the Santiago, I realized eventually that I was in for an even longer swim than I’d allowed for. I was going to have to make a heading a good twenty-five degrees left of my destination. I changed to a back-crawl in order to conserve my strength.

  Well, so long as no fisherman caught me in his nets, and no crazy tourist out joy-riding in a speedboat ran me down, and I didn’t meet any sharks, or jellyfish, or…

  Meantime I cursed myself without stopping. What the hell was I doing here? Why the hell didn’t I go home? I could enter politics, or take up teaching, or organize something constructive like Fierro’s clinic, maybe a co-operative housing development—work directly with the people most in need of help and establish some stability in my life. Marry Dolly, for God’s sake, when she’d split from Gilbert. I wasn’t in any doubt as to whether she’d have me.

  And yet, somewhere deep inside, I knew I’d forget any resolution I made here, alone in a dark sea, my limbs mechanically shuttling back and forth, having to spit out a mouthful of salt water now and again when I met a ripple. Tomorrow, next month, next year, I’d wind up as usual taking on more than I’d intended. I was forever going to drift into the kind of mess I could only get out of by making the
grand crazy gesture no one else was fool enough to dream of. It would go on until I over-reached myself, and I’d be dead.

  No, I couldn’t cure myself of that habit in a hundred years.

  My scarred thigh began to hurt first; I’d expected it to. Luckily, when I rolled on to my belly to find out what progress I’d made, I discovered that my heading was right this time. I could see quite a lot of lights now—not very bright. Probably not even electric; more likely kerosene or carbide.

  I rolled back again, using arms only for a while, and then they started to ache as well and I still wasn’t home and dry. I had to order myself not to look around every couple of minutes because it was a waste of time. The ache got worse, grew up to be pain, then developed into mature agony, and my throat was rasped with my harsh panting and my belly felt as though it was being stretched like fresh rawhide.

  Clear sight of boats now, though, moored or beached, several of them, maybe a couple of dozen—

  What?

  If this were a fishing-village, why was the whole fleet ashore instead of out working?

  I tried to think of a reason, but by then I was too exhausted, and if I stopped swimming I was afraid I might never start again, which would be a damnfool outcome after I’d crossed three and a half miles of the strait…

  And three-quarters…

  And seven-eighths…

  And there was a sound at the very edge of audibility: a pounding rhythm. Drums? Maybe just the blood rushing in my ears—no, wait! That would account for the fishing-boats not being at sea: a badoan ceremony in progress. I knew vaguely that they were sometimes held from sunset to dawn. Read about it somewhere, or Did Diego tell me…?

  Well, that gave me the energy to make my final spurt. I could sneak ashore, hide, steal something to wear, contact my friendly zachea, have a message sent to warn Diego, dry out the money hidden in my shorts and use it to bribe someone to smuggle me to the island I was supposed to be bound for…