A Game of Authors (15 page)

“It is I who am indebted to you,
Señor
.”

“Shall we be going?” snapped Luac. “Choco, you and El Grillo wait here.”

“
Sí, Patron
.” He saluted Garson. “
Adiosito
. . . Hal.”

Garson blinked, experienced a sudden choked feeling. He turned away quickly, followed Luac into the building. They crossed an almost empty lobby, entered the brightly lit coffee shop.

A scattering of airport personnel sat at the tables, several men in business suits looking tired and bored. Large windows at one side gave a view of two spotlighted planes, men working around them.

Garson and Luac took a corner table. A tired-eyed waitress crossed to them.

Luac held up three fingers.
“Tres cafes.”

She nodded, went back across the room.

Garson felt the drained-out limpness of fatigue in his muscles, the sick bitterness of frustration.

They used me, by God!

Anita came in looking distantly poised, sat down across from Garson. “Your plane leaves in an hour and half.”

“You two needn’t stay and hold my hand.”

“Oh, but we want to.” She took an envelope from her purse, put it on the table in front of Garson. “Your ticket.”

“Thanks. Thanks loads!” The bitter anger overcame his control. He pushed himself away from the table, surged to his feet. “Why don’t you shove off?”

“Tired of us so soon, darling?” she murmured.

Luac was studying his daughter with a puzzled expression.

Garson stepped around the table, glared down at her. The mockery in her eyes was suddenly washed away by something that seemed to stare out at him from some deep well. She got to her feet, looked up at him.

“What’re you waiting for?” demanded Garson.

“Perhaps I forgot something,” she whispered.

He felt that they were suddenly in a vacuum—the murmurous coffee shop sounds around them did not exist. The curious glances of the other patrons were nothing to him. There were only these two people, Garson and Anita Luac, in a moment frozen out of time.

“Maybe you did forget something.” He reached with savage violence, jerked her to him, crushing his mouth onto hers. She accepted the kiss without resistance, without response.

Garson pushed her away. “Is that what you forgot?”

She shook her head from side to side. The look on her face, the light in her eyes, made him think of a diabolic Madonna.

Her arms went around his neck. She pressed against him, lifted her lips, stared up at his eyes.

Garson found that he could not resist.

The kiss shook him with desire and bitterness. It made him think of the garden behind the hacienda, of all the empty years ahead of him without her.

She pulled away, whispered softly, “That is what I forgot.”

He took a shuddering breath, noted abruptly that Antone Luac had disappeared from the table. “Couldn’t your father stand to look at our parting?”

Anita shook her head, held up her hand. Her fingers grasped an envelope. “He saw what he accomplished.”

“Saw what?”

“My ticket.”

It was like a dash of cold water across the face. “Your tick . . .”

“Don’t you want me to go with you?”

All he could do was nod. Then: “Why did you do it like this?”

A look of sadness and infinite regret crossed her face. “I didn’t know how to tell him.” She shrugged, and something very like anger replaced the sadness in her face. “I fought this dreadful scheme of his from the first. I knew it would come to no good.” Her eyes seemed to burn into Garson’s. “He destroyed everything I loved. The hacienda—I can never return! And poor old Maria . . .” She shook her head, shuddered.

“Do you trust me on such short notice, Nita?”

“I trust my instincts about you.” Her mocking smile returned, touched only faintly by something wistful. “I make my own decisions, you know.”

“I love you, Nita.”

“And I love you.” She turned her head away, spoke with a slow distinctness. “I don’t want to be like my father: bitter and unhappy. I want to be like me.” She looked back at Garson. “And I never knew what it was like to be me until that night in the grove when we kissed.”

“Is that when . . .”

Someone coughed beside them.

They turned. A young man in an attendant’s uniform extended an envelope to Anita, leered at Garson. She took the envelope. The young man saluted, departed.

Her hands made nervous, fumbling motions opening the envelope. She pulled out a note, glanced at it, then read it aloud with a husky sadness in her voice:
 

“You will never be able to find me. I am going with Choco and El Grillo. The enclosed claim check is for your insurance, which I have prepaid through on your tickets. There should be enough money in what I gave you to see you to the States where it is my belief that your young man will take care of matters. He is a fool, but a dependable one according to all reports. If things turn out badly, cash in some of the insurance. Please do not name any of your little fools after me.”

She folded the note, bent over the table, pushed the paper into her purse.

Garson saw tears slipping down her cheeks. “We can still catch him, Nita.” He turned toward the lobby.

“No!” She caught his arm. “He’s already gone. The ground will swallow them.”

“But, after all, he is your father! Won’t you ever hear . . .”

“Be calm, darling,” she murmured, and the infinite sadness was plain in her voice. “We will hear from my father when he has found a new place to hide.”

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About the Author

Frank Herbert, the visionary author of Dune, wrote more than twenty other novels, including Hellstrom’s Hive, The White Plague, The Green Brain, and The Dosadi Experiment. During his life, he received great acclaim for his sweeping vision and the deep philosophical underpinnings in his writings. His life is detailed in the Hugo-nominated biography Dreamer of Dune, by Brian Herbert.

Other Frank Herbert novels available from WordFire Press include Destination: Void, The Heaven Makers, Direct Descent, The Godmakers, and three previously unpublished novels, High-Opp, Angels’ Fall, and A Game of Authors. Also available are The Pandora Sequence, which includes The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor (all with Bill Ransom), and Herbert’s last-published novel, Man of Two Worlds, coauthored with his son Brian.

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