Barking Man (16 page)

He walked out of the Gare Routière on the downhill side. Beyond the railroad overpass, the road opened out into a boulevard with a sort of park between the lanes, with a fountain and palmettos and a lot of vaguely tropical-looking shrubbery. Two blocks down it dead-ended at the front of a cream-colored building with looping letters over the door that read
CASINO.
Clay practically flinched when he saw that, his mouth pulling tight at the corners. There was a blond chick sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette and he hailed her as he approached.

“Hey, darling, got the mate to that?”

The girl looked up at him, startled and blank, and Clay wiped her away with his hand as he went on by. It didn’t matter, there was plenty of traffic. When he saw the next girl smoking he tried again.

“Hey there, sugar, let me have a smoke?”

Again he could tell for sure by the look on her face that she didn’t understand one word he’d said. Clay stopped cold and fumbled the bus schedule out of his inside pocket to scope out just exactly where he was. Menton—it didn’t look to be that far, but in Monte Carlo at
least
every other person had spoken English.

“Well, I’d call these steps just a little bit skimpy,” Martin Ventura grunted, mostly to himself, since nobody else was paying any particular attention. Nadine was still fussing around the car they’d rented in Nice, and Mindy had already started yakking it up with the concierge, or listening to the concierge yak it, at the foot of the steps in the entrance hall. In fact, the steps were so narrow Martin practically had to turn his feet sideways to get down them, no joke either when he was carrying the two grotesquely heavy suitcases, which weren’t even his but Mindy’s and Nadine’s, of course. Not more than an inch away from a nice fall to a pair of smashed kneecaps and a gorgeous damage suit, though he supposed he’d have to hire help to take it through the French courts, he didn’t even own a wig himself. Reaching the level floor at last, he dropped the suitcases with a crash, set his hands on his hips and tried to arch the cramp out of his back. From the far end of the dim hallway he could hear Mindy calling back to him.

“
Daddy
, you be careful with my bag.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Martin muttered.

Nadine had come to the top of the stairs. “Need any help with those, Marty?”

“From here I can wheel it,” Martin said. “Just leave the other one in the car, I’ll come back and get it. And try not to break your neck coming down these stairs.”

He snapped out the tow handles of both suitcases and hauled them down the curving corridor to the open door at the end of it. The concierge was displaying various features of the little kitchen cubicle to Mindy, who was nodding and smiling and now and then slipping in a word of her own. On her face was a beautiful look of comprehension which Martin knew meant nothing at all, since it was the look she always put on whenever he tried to tell her something she should know.

The whirl of French seemed to daze him a little; he was half stunned already from the flight and, especially, from the drive. He let go of the suitcases and took a turn around the apartment. When you traveled by throwing darts at the map, you had to be ready to overlook a few things and this place offered enough opportunities to practice the technique. There was one bedroom, which he and Nadine would take; Mindy would have to make do with a fold-down something in the living room. The place was thin on furniture, which was just as well given the character of the furniture that was there. On the walls were some of the worst pictures of boats he’d ever yet seen in any vacation apartment; there might be room for those in a closet somewhere, though on the other hand it might be unwise to expose any more of that wallpaper.

Well, the idea wasn’t to spend all that much time indoors anyway. Martin slid back a glass door, stepped out onto the balcony and swore. The view of the sea the agency had promised was a thumbnail of blue at the far left corner, mostly obscured by some sort of scrubby pine tree that had sprouted from just below the building. The main prospect was over the roofs of a few other condos, across the canyon to the hair-raising highway cut into the side of the mountain.

“The French Riviera,
voilà
.” Mindy was hanging in the doorway behind him, her arms stretched wide enough to raise the hem of her shirt a good two inches above her little brown bellybutton. “Congratch, Daddy, you found us another real dump. I told you we shoulda went to the Cape.”

“I spend all this money to send you to Concord so you learn how to say ‘shoulda went’?” Martin said. “Sweetheart, I hope your French is better than your English or we’re all going to be in trouble soon.”

Mindy swung her head back and a wave of black hair broke over her shoulders.

“So far I’m managing,” she said. “Dibs the bedroom, by the way.”

Martin laughed.

“There’s fold-down beds in the living room,” he said. “Take all three of them if you want. You don’t need any bedroom anyhow, you spend your life in the bathroom, you know?”

He walked away from her down the balcony and discovered another sliding door that let into the bedroom. Nadine was already laying her things out on a small vanity under the mirror.

“Oh, you brought the other stuff,” Martin said. “I was going to go get it.”

“Didn’t want to leave it all in the car.” Nadine rubbed at some invisible blemish on the side of her nose and stared at the spot in the mirror. “You got both the heavy ones anyway.”

Martin stepped into the room and slid the door shut behind him.

“Well, I can’t say it’s not the French Riviera this time,” he said. “You know why, because it
is
the French Riviera.”

“I like it just fine, babe,” Nadine said. “It’s plenty big enough, it’s got all we really need. We might just switch things around a little …”

“Just don’t stand too near that wallpaper,” Martin said. “Looks to me like it might be planning an attack.”

He opened the door again and stepped back out. The balcony was big, you could say that for it. It ran the length of the apartment and was comfortably wide. From this angle he could look down across a railroad track that must come out from a tunnel somewhere underneath the building. Half a mile down it was the town of Menton.

“Maybe we should go out for a while,” he said. “Have a look around the town.”

“Sure, if you want,” Nadine said. “Just let me get changed into something cooler.”

Martin walked back along the balcony, trailing a hand along the rail and looking vaguely out toward the highway.

“Mother Mary,” he said, and stopped cold.

“You rang?” Mindy had come out on the balcony.

“Smart pants,” Martin said. “I thought they only did that in Italy.”

“Did what?”

“You already missed it,” Martin said. “Two buses passing on a turn.” He shook his head. “What a trip, I think I might be ready for a delayed-reaction heart attack.”

“Coulda let me drive, I offered.” Mindy shrugged. “Okay, I’m going to the beach I guess, if I can find it from here, that is.”

“Forget it,” Martin said. “We’re going to town and look at culture, we need you for an interpreter.”

“So I can drive?”

“Drive what?” Martin said. “I want to see things, we’re going to walk.”

Mindy cupped a hand around her ear.

“There’s a secret to life which you ought to know,” Martin said. “If you walk and do exercise kind of things sometimes, you can eat like a human being and still not get fat.”

He turned around and went back into the bedroom. Nadine had put on a white sundress with spaghetti straps. Martin bent down to kiss the back of her neck. “You’re not going to get sunburned in that thing?” he said.

“I’ve got the sunscreen in my purse,” Nadine said. “Mindy ready?”

Martin exhaled and stroked the side of his carry-on bag to verify that both bottles were still there, unbroken. “Sure she is,” he said. “She’s ready to give me a pain in the neck.”

When the sun had reached a point almost directly overhead, Ton-Ton Detroit stopped and took off his radio. He put on the white hat and crinkled its short round brim up over his ears and put the radio back on, on top of it. The puff of air trapped in the top of the hat made a cooling cushion between his head and the sun. Now it was perfectly clear, the sky a smooth bland shade of blue. He could have seen almost as far as San Remo if there hadn’t been anything in the way. The next cape westward down the coast was clearly defined against the sea.

A proportion of the morning sunbathers were beginning to pack up their mats and towels and start in for lunch. Those who remained would be too completely stunned by the light and heat to even look up when he went past them, and they’d stay that way for at least an hour, as long as the sun was at its height. He had come all the way to the end of the beach at Cap Martin without selling any more than two bracelets and one of the belts. It was too early in the season, most of the people were French and he had nothing in his display to surprise them. Scattered back across the beach toward Menton, he could see the silhouettes of the other peddlers coming along wraithlike through the shimmering heat. They would be doing no better than he.

Ton-Ton Detroit walked down to the last ripple of stones before the water’s edge and stepped out of his sandals there. He raised the hem of his dashiki and walked out till the water was halfway up his shins. The sudden cold sent a pain rocketing up through his bones all the way to his back teeth. After a moment its sharpness was broken and it faded into a rather pleasant ache. The water was fantastically clear and he could still see the bottom plainly out to five feet deep. Odd scraps of seaweed hung suspended at different depths, along with bits of molding paper trash. His own feet seemed to float up toward him, distorted and slightly magnified by the water. There were no swimmers nearby except for a twelve-or thirteen-year-old girl who sat astride a dolphin-shaped float, rocking in the small rollers that came into the beach. She was tanned very brown all over and her brown hair hung in a tangle just down to the bare knobs of her new breasts. The dolphin bobbed continuously, relaying her a molded rubber smile, but she was staring fixedly out over it toward a large sailboat which had anchored some seventy yards out.

Once he was thoroughly cool within, Ton-Ton Detroit came out of the water and walked up the steps to the promenade. He went past the corner
tabac
to the bakery and bought a loaf and then a tomato from the fruit stand outside. Turning uphill, he went to the Escalier de la Plage and climbed enough steps to reach a shady spot, where he sat down. Dozens of doves were softly hooting, hidden in the trees and shrubs all around the long concrete staircase. Ton-Ton Detroit sliced the tomato onto the bread and ate it very slowly. The bread was fresh enough to be just slightly warm. When he had done he stayed there long enough to smoke two cigarettes and in between them he dozed for half an hour.

After his second smoke was finished he got up and went back down the stairs and out to the promenade. It was still very hot but there was a breeze bringing a cool air current in off the water. He rearranged his display across the front of the dashiki and began to walk at a steady pace toward the cafés that were scattered across the promenade all the way back to Menton. Above the town, the mountains could now be most plainly seen, the bald rocks thrusting out through gaps in the skein of trees.

Sometime a little after noon, Clay got just too played out to keep moving anymore. Already he could feel big liquid blisters rising on the balls of his feet just back of his big toes. Slick patent leather wasn’t good for this much rough walking up and down. He went among the cafés on the promenade, looking for a likely one. The place with the cushioned swings facing the water was irresistible, even though he supposed it might be more expensive than the others. When he sat down a girl with birdlike eyes shining from a mass of curly hair appeared, holding one of the round high-walled trays.

“Uh bee-are,” Clay said.

The girl receded. Christ, he hoped he wouldn’t end up with a lemonade or something. Already it had been a bad day, and he had not yet eaten. Everybody around here seemed to be white, though that wouldn’t have bothered him if he just could have talked. The girl came back with a stemmed glass of lager. Clay handed her a fifty-franc note and she gave him back four of the fat brown ten-franc coins along with a little silver. Oh God, now he was down to nothing but change.

He sank back into the creaking swing and tried to smooth his mind completely blank. Under the sunshade he quickly grew cool, but his stomach would not come unknotted and he couldn’t keep his eyes shut tight. When they came open he saw one of the guys in the muumuus starting to work the tables in his direction, a tall lean dude with a scruffy white beard that scrambled over the jet-black ridges of his face. Clay’s eyes fastened on the cigarette clamped in the corner of his mouth; he hadn’t had a smoke all day either. Nobody spoke English but waiters and barmen, and with them nothing would ever be free. As the old man came closer he began to compose a sentence in his mind.

“Voo—Voozahhh—” He gave up. “Cigarette,” he said hopelessly. “Cigarette, see voo play.”

“Say you want a cigarette?” Ton-Ton Detroit said. “First one’s free.”

Clay’s tortured mouth muscles went marvelously slack.

“Hey, you talk English,” he said. “Come on and sit down a minute, tell me your name.”

“Ton-Ton Detroit, you know, man, like Uncle Detroit.” The peddler dropped into the swing beside him. He smelled a little high up close but Clay was in no mood to mind it.

“Clay, uncle,” he said, reaching for the cigarette. “You sound like an American. Where you from?”

“Cleveland,” Ton-Ton Detroit said. “You?”

“New York.” Clay lit his cigarette off Ton-Ton Detroit’s and held the first drag deep. “Man, that goes down good right now,” he said. “Hey, lemme ask you something, how come they call you Ton-Ton Detroit if you from Cleveland?”

Ton-Ton Detroit smiled with long brown teeth. “People round here can’t wrap their lips around Cleveland too good,” he said. “It just makes things more easier. Where’d you blow in from yourself?”