Ed Lacy - Shoot It Again

     “You make me sound like a drag. I've already caused you...”

     “I'm going. That's settled. Ill meet you at the airport—nine-thirty p.m.”

     “I'll pay for your time, Biner.”

     Shaking my head, I pulled out the gallery check. “You're talking to a selling artist, Parks. Just pay my fare—I'll cash in my open boat ticket in the States.”

     His blank eyes took on a slightly puzzled look. Biner... Mister Biner, are you sure you want to go?”

     “Positive.”

     “Lord, you're the real big brother.”

     “Balls. I'm doing it for... me.”

     When I was left alone again for another few minutes, feeling quite cheerful—sort of like I'd finally got from under—the All-American clean-cut came in, scowling a bit. He told me, “Biner, quite rightly the French take a rather dim view of your striking one of their police officers. They insist that if you hadn't bolted the cambio shop, they would have found Parks without all the shooting. I doubt it, and I tried to explain the... eh... tense circumstances under which you took a poke at the officer. However... they've given you forty-eight hours in which to leave the country. I'm sorry. Go to Italy, across the border, stay in Vintimille. I shall try my best to... What are you grinning about? This is hardly a joking matter.”

     Suddenly I was laughing, real solid old-fashioned laughter... first time I'd laughed this way in years. When I was able to talk, I said, “Thanks for giving it the old try, but tell the French they're about forty hours late—I'm flying back with Parks tonight.”

     “You understand the French only have authority to force you to leave here, you don't have to return to the States?”

     I merely nodded because he seemed so upset. There was no way I could make him know how much I had to go back to the States, to that nameless and formless place called... home. I asked, “Am I free to leave now? I've things to do in the few hours I've left in Nice.”

     “You can leave any time. I have my car downstairs, can I drive you to your hotel?”

     “Sure can,” I said, giving him Sydney's address.

     The castle had a high white tower... white turrets... snow white, horse-white. Once read up on castles... call this the Teutonic type... Only real castle I ever saw... the monstrosity at Avignon. The old papal palace. Over-sweet nougat candy they sell in Avignon.

     The white tower was beautiful in the last rays of the sun. On one side of the castle a woman sat on a beach chair, reading a newspaper. On the other side, a little boy...

     The whimpering barks in my ear... noise of sea gulls? I studied Lu's face... the tense, pasty coloring. Staring hard at the white top of the castle as she tried to call out... the barking sounds... sand clinging to her lips... sand in her throat.

     Was she calling for her beloved 'boy?' Or...for... help? Couldn't have help... now. Not with the two stiffs... behind us. Never... never... never... explain them to the police.

     I told Lu to shut up, looked at the marvelous white castle. Odd... no blood down there. Tide must be only coming in now... Nuts to time and tide... I couldn't wait for... them.

     Lu kept grunting. Raising my left hand... slowly... high as I could...let it fall on her black hair. Where it wasn't matted with blood... still so soft. Lu didn't even feel my hand, glance at me. Gathering my strength... another noise, a jet was flying high over us... I pressed Lu's face into the sand. Pressing firmly... gently... Until the animal grunts stopped..

     The effort was too much... I had to leave... soar after the jet.

CHAPTER 5

     Through the lace curtains I watched the lights going on in an apartment across the street. Syd's room was large and not too badly furnished—the English have a knack for finding decent and inexpensive lodgings. It was growing dark—and late.

     Turning to reach for my watch, my hand fell across Syd's flat rump. Stroking the smooth skin, I felt fine. For this last sheet-exercise with Sydney I'd been as eager as a schoolboy, gone at her with passion which had startled me. Even if I kept thinking of the time—wanted to see Henri at his gallery before I left. But feeling sexually pooped, I knew —for sure—I only wanted to see Hank about my paintings—strictly business.

     The room was comfortably quiet except for Syd weeping softly. Stroking her hips I thought of all the truly beautiful girls I'd slept with; the models, my second wife—Amy—with a better figure than any stage beauty—yet none of them had turned me on like scrawny Syd. Rolling her over, kissing her face—salty and messy with tears—I felt her trembling under me as she put her arms around my neck. Kissing again, her tongue trying to part my lips, I reached for my watch on the table. It was six-forty-five p.m. I started to get up but she clung to me. I sat Syd on my lap. She cried harder. Patting her lean belly, I told her, “Stop it, honey. I don't like to see you crying.”

     “Clay, I can't help it. Does this have to be the end?”

     “All things end—sooner or later,” I said, smartly.

     “In a lousy three hours you'll be out of my life forever; I won't have it! I bloody well won't!”

     “Aw Syd, we've had a great time, why spoil it?”

     “This has been more than a 'great time' for me —Clay, you know that. I don't want it 'spoiled' by being over! I'm not being some sticky virgin gushing over her first man... it's been far more—for both of us.”

     “Syd, what good is this kind of talk? No matter what you mean to me—I still have to go back to the States. I'm only marking time here.”

     “Clay, go wherever you wish, but take me! Clay dear, please, marry me or don't marry me, but take me with you! Look, I was a bit windy... about being on a holiday as a college graduation present. I really did graduate—a London business school, and when my first position folded—I took all my savings and came here. But...”

     Bending down to rub my nose against her breasts, I mumbled, “Syd, really, I have to make a plane... soon.”

     “Do hear me out, Clayton. You want to shake Nice, fine. I'm a good secretary, can always find work, support us both. Don't you see, darling, you'll be able to paint and I'll work; in London, the States, or in Australia. I was telling you the truth about my land, Clay, I swear it. I own five thousand acres. Australia is a place of opportunity and frontiers. Once we save enough to build a house on the land, then we have a go at raising sheep, drilling for oil, farming...”

     For a moment with my face still pressed against her childish breast, I seriously considered it. It would be something to never look at a paint brush or canvas again, starting all over in a new field... like... whatever you did on five thousand wild acres.

     Placing both her hands on my fat face, she pulled my head up to her eye level. “Clay, oh you're not even listening!”

     “Sure I was. We'd have a goal in life—work and save for the house. Once that's built, we tackle the land, working together. Maybe we'll hit it rich and maybe we won't, but we'll be together all the time... be happy. Isn't that what you were trying to tell me?”

     “Yes, yes... oh yes!” It came out like a sex-moan. “Clay, don't you want that?”

     “Oh, I do. It's a great little dream... and like all dreams, turns to crap when you wake up.”

     Syd opened her eyes wide. “What a blooming nasty thing to say! We can try it... Can't we, Clay?”

     I shook my head. “Honey, it wouldn't work. Face it, I don't know which end of a shovel is shove. Be different if I had a little money to vaseline our way, but—starting on a shoe string only ends with being tied in knots—if you'll pardon the lousy simile.”

     “I'll sell my scooter, bring enough for my passage to America. I heard English secretaries are in great demand there. I'll...”

     I closed her jabbering mouth with a soft kiss. “Syd, Syd, I'm not getting through—I'd be no damn good for you. I've been a bum all my life, plus now... I'm washed-out, jaded... feel old.

     “Old? You were a bloody jack-hammer just now. A lovely pile driver tearing me apart with pleasure!”

     Glancing at my watch again as I kissed her, I gently slapped her behind—dropped her on the bed. “Hon, I hate sounding like a soap opera, but I am all wrong for you. Maybe we're a big deal in bed, now, but I... Hell, in time you'll want kids, a home, a... I really don't know what I want. That's the most honest statement I've ever made. Syd dear, I've known too many women, was a bastard to them all... I'm trying not to hurt you because I do care for you and...”

     “Only care,' Clay?”

     “Yeah, care, I've never been able to love.” Standing, I went to the wash basin in the corner of her room, cleaned up. I dressed as she sat on the bed, watching me—plain face all full of grief. She jumped off the bed. “I'll dress, go with you.”

     “I... I have a few things to do, business matters. I'll be rushing around.”

     “I'll call for you at your place, drive you to the airport.”

     “Syd, never get my easel and things on your scooter.”

     “Don't you want me to see you again, Clay?”

     Something about the pathetic tone of her voice, the beaten way she stood there, aroused a kind of desire within me. “Now stop the dramatics, hon, of course I do. You be at the airport at nine-fifteen, or I'll beat you. Syd, believe me, if I thought we could make it, I wouldn't hesitate. If anything works out for me in the States, I'll get in touch with you.”

     “Where can I write you, in New York City?”

     “See hon, that's exactly how rootless I am—what I've been trying to say to you. I don't know—now —where I'll be tomorrow. Look, you'll still be in Nice for at least another week, moment I have any kind of address, I'll wire you. Now let me get on my horse, so we'll have a few minutes at the airport tonight.”

     Walking me to the door for a final hard kiss, I held her tightly and whispered, “Syd, you don't know how good you've been for me. So damn good.”

     “Lightning struck whenever you touched me, Clay,” she said, starting to cry again.

     On that cliche I patted her behind and went out. The family who owned the pension were eating supper and they all nodded happily at me as I passed the kitchen, opened the front door.

     I was hungry myself, but had to see Henri before he closed. I stopped at a bakery for bread sticks. The dumpy woman behind the counter glanced at me, then held up a copy of Nice-Matin she'd been reading—pointed to a picture of Noel and myself on the front page. Excited, she started to ask me about the thugs, but I explained I was in a hurry. I bought a copy of the paper at a corner stand, walked toward Henri's gallery eating the bread and trying to read the story.

     I finally shoved the paper in my back pocket, aware of a mounting eagerness within me at the thought of seeing Henri. I kept telling myself it had to be part of my excitement at leaving—and wasn't certain I believed that.

     Hank Dupri was about the most sophisticated person I'd ever known, and God knows I'd seen enough clowns trying for that title. Physically he was short and slim for his sixty years, with a sharp, handsome face, waxed moustache, and a monks ring of perfectly white and deliciously soft hair on his tanned bald head. His clothes were always in modest taste, immaculate, and his entire appearance added up to a man wise enough to never take the world seriously. Hank had a vast knowledge of art, was a highly respected critic—all over the Continent. I started hanging around him because I seemed to amuse him... and a critic and gallery owner of Hank's stature could make an artist's reputation. I kept seeing him because he made me understand painting, showed me what to look for in the masters. For example, he once spent the best part of a rainy afternoon showing me the similarity between a Picasso work and that of the 17th century Dutch artist, Vermeer. It was a terrific eye-opener for me to see how Picasso had demonstrated Vermeer could be translated into abstract terms. Not only gave me a tremendous lift, but courage to study technique. Once Hank cracked the door there seemed nothing to fear; it was all clear and reasonable... minus the gassy fog the clucks try to smother 'art' in.

     If I amused Hank, he was a fascinating character himself. A beach and sun hound, a bum heart kept him from swimming, but he claimed to have swum from Nice to Monte Carlo in his youth. He had Foreign Legion medals, lived in the Far East, once worked in Hollywood as an 'adviser' to a star who found buying the works of Miro, and Dufy, brought him far more publicity than posing with his horses and six-guns. Speaking many languages, Hank hinted at having slept with the most beautiful screen beauties in Hollywood, Joinville, and Rome. He said one of his sons was an engineer on a top secret project deep in the Sahari, while there was a plaque on a side street near the Nice flower market where Henri's daughter had been shot by the Nazis. Hank considered it an ironical jest to have outlived his wife, who'd been a health nut. At present he was sharing the villa of a rajah's wife—strictly a platonic relationship since she was much older than Hank but full of deep and witty conversation—and once a month Hank had three young girls spend the day in his apartment.

     Granted I only believed half of this, I enjoyed being in his company, hearing him talk. Only... lately I found myself trying to paw him, had this desire to hug him.

     His Galeries D'Azur was a corner shop, open on three sides—at night he rolled down metal shutters. He had some cheap oils in the front, for the tourist trade, and the deeper you went into the store, the better the paintings. Mine were about halfway in the shop. I'd seen a small Chagall, even a Braque on display, and despite the wave of stolen paintings in Venice and Saint-Tropez, Hank didn't seem to worry about being robbed. He also had a counter of ceramics from Vallauris—good stuff: and—reflecting the sole corny flaw in Hank's taste—hideous, cheap, made-in-Japan ash trays, plus large and horrible glass cat figurines.