Charlie Martz and Other Stories (7 page)

“They failed,” he said.

“They?”

He moved toward her. “There is no time for that today. Just do one last good thing and don't scream.”

“You ran into an ambush and you think—”

“Almost. My forward men found them. We tried first one way around, then the other, but their lines protect Ladang on three sides. No isolated patrol; an entire battalion of Gurkhas deployed and waiting.”

“Gurkhas! There are none of those here.”

But even as she spoke, as she heard Tam Lee say, “I know those animals when I see them,” she remembered a note on the wall and remembered a Colonel Gordon Mitchell and remembered Clad talking to him on the telephone, remembering part of it, not all, but enough—his words about a field problem.

“Mitch, why not march them up here? Let them bash about in the woods for the day . . .”

Of all the days—Ah Min stopped. She heard Clad again using the same words over the telephone. “Of all the days to pick for a field problem . . . I know, I should have phoned you before but . . .”

She provided the rest herself, though it was still Clad's voice in her mind
: But my girl misplaced my note to call you.

On the left side of the board,
she thought dully,
instead of the right.

They had come, perhaps arriving sometime during the night; but up early and already maneuvering, their lines dug in, firmly established in time for Tam Lee. Of course he would think it was an ambush. Anyone would. And there would be no convincing him otherwise.

She was aware of Tam again, the parang already in his hand, the blade not glistening but hard and cold looking. She closed her eyes and let him come to her.

I won't scream,
she thought. But she sucked in her breath, gasping and tightening as the parang went into her. She was already dead when, moments later, three rapid-fire reports of a carbine came from the front of the bungalow.

T
HE
STRAITS TIMES
HEADLINED
the incident in its Monday edition.

LEADER OF LADANG GANG SLAIN!

A three-column picture showed Tam Lee lying in the doorway of the police post. There was a smaller photograph of Constable Yeop, obviously posed, standing at attention with carbine at his shoulder.

The text of the write-up inferred that Tam Lee had come to the police post to assassinate Clad. It told how the alert Constable Yeop shot him as he attempted to flee. Halfway down the column Ah Min was mentioned: civil service typist, an innocent victim, murdered in cold blood simply because she had been in the office.

The story even told how the reporter and photographer happened to be on the spot; but other than this indirect reference, there was no mention, not even on the sports pages, of the Selangor State Badminton finals.

Clad stood in the outer office. Lowering the newspaper, his gaze went to Yeop's desk.

“Well, you were wrong about her.”

The Malay nodded.

“Still,” Clad said, “if you hadn't suspected Minnie you wouldn't have bagged Tam Lee.” He folded the newspaper under his arm. “There must be a lesson to be learned from this.” He was thinking of the fifteen villages, all likely targets as far as Tam Lee was concerned; yet the man had come here. And only because one Malay
constable had kept his eyes open was Tam Lee now a past concern.

“But what the lesson is,” Clad said then, “I'm pretty sure I don't know.”

At his desk, his feet up on the corner, Clad opened the newspaper to the sports pages. His eyes went over the columns carefully. But no, there wasn't even one inch devoted to the badminton finals. Perhaps if the games had been finished—

He jotted down a reminder on his notepad:
Why not play off b.t. anyway? Even if it didn't work—at least something to do!!!

He folded the note double, attached it to a dart, and apparently without aiming hit the center of his file board.

W
HAT WE TRY TO
do,” the American said, “my wife and I, we watch the people as they come in the dining room and we try to figure where they're from. You know, like that couple, he's very tall and looks like Sinclair Lewis and she's blond, kind of nice-looking.”

Paco, the day clerk, standing behind the lobby desk, had never heard of Sinclair Lewis, but he nodded pleasantly.

“We thought sure they were British,” the American went on, “and they turn out to be Dutch.”

“Yes,” Paco said. “We have the Dutch couple . . .”

“Hey, and the Italian countess, with the monkey.”

“She has a ranch in Kenya,” Paco explained.

“Is she really a countess?”

“They say she is.”

“Now the Norwegian couple we knew weren't English.”

“You knew them before?”

“No, no. I mean you can tell by looking at them. And as soon as you talk to her you find out her husband's a ship owner. Every other word: ‘We have a big house and a chauffeur because my husband is a ship owner, you know.' Or: ‘I was skiing last week in the mountains . . . my husband is a ship owner, you know.' But the one that really fooled us is the fellow with the cane and the little Pekingese. We call him The Duke. He wears an ascot, duck shorts, kneesocks, and we find out from that couple from London, the Grahams? . . .”

“The Grahams. Four seventeen.”

“Now they could pass for American.”

“Yes, they could.”

“But the fellow with the cane and the ascot, we find out, he
is
American and his wife, who looks American if anybody does, is
English
.”

“This time of year,” Paco said, “our guests are almost all English.”

“I'll say. Really English. You know that older couple with the son that's tall and kind of bald and never says anything?”

Paco nodded. “They went to Tangier today.”

“Right. Well, they usually sit next to us at the swimming pool and every day the old man . . .” The American grinned. “Every day he wears this sort of blue-on-blue dressing gown that reaches almost to the ground. He lies there in the sun and after a while he gets up and says, very, very slowly, ‘I believe I shall make my way down to the sea.'” The American shook his head, grinning his sincere grin. “Then he comes up,
changes
under the dressing gown and spends the rest of the morning scraping the tar off his feet.”

“From the oil tankers,” Paco said.

“I'm the only one using the pool.”

“I suppose they like the salt water.”

“Do
you
like it better?”

“Oh, I don't swim very much.”

“Working all day.” The American nodded understandingly, looking away for a moment, then back to Paco. “Is Torremolinos your home?”

“Nerja.”

“Nerja. I understand it's beautiful up there. The caves and all.”

“Very beautiful,” Paco said.

“But you live in Torremolinos now.”

“Yes, I have a room here.”

“You go to school?”

“Do I go now?”

“I mean
did
you?”

“For two years in Sevilla.”

“I thought so. You speak very good English. Excellent.”

“I think I learn most of my English in Madrid.”

“Wonderful city.”

“I was in a hotel there three years.”

“How old are you now? If you don't mind my asking.”

“Twenty-four.”

“I see.”

What is there to see? Paco thought. He watched the American put a cigarette to his mouth; a Reyno. Paco slipped his lighter from a side pocket and flicked it lit as he reached across the counter.

“Thank you.”

“Nada.
”

He waited while the American looked across the lobby to the wrought iron clock against the white wall. He checked his watch with the clock.

“Almost dinnertime.” The American's grin formed again. It came and went, as if actuated by a switch.

“I don't know if I'll ever get used to eating so late. You always eat this late? I mean does
every
body?”

“Nine, or ten perhaps.”

“The people in the villages too?”

“Perhaps a little earlier.”

“They work hard and get hungry, I guess.”

“Or there's nothing to do so they eat and go to bed.”

The American took time to grin before looking at his watch. “It's been nice talking to you, but we're supposed to meet the Grahams—the English couple from London?—in the lounge.”

Paco smiled politely. “Enjoy yourselves.” To tell him the Grahams had not yet returned from Tangiers would only lead to more conversation.

“Thank you. I mean,
gracias
.”

Paco stood motionless with his hands on the edge of the counter waiting for the American to cross the lobby. “He did see,” Paco said, his tone becoming very serious, “you don't learn about Spain at the Castellana Hilton and taking one-day trips to Toledo and Escorial and hurrying back to Madrid to eat in the good restaurants.”

“No,” the manager said. “You come to Torremolinos.”

“You learn about a country,” Paco went on, “by living in one place and talking to the people.”

“Ah, the people,” the manager said. “Of course.”

“He feels the Spanish people are very warm and sincere.”

“Unlike the French.”

“He feels the Spanish people have dignity.”

“But think too much about death.”

“He wonders about that.”

“They must all read the same book.”

“He feels the Spanish people have remarkable poise.”

“In the face of appalling poverty.”

“He would like to live here.”

“With many servants,” the manager said.

“He feels the ideal would be to have the temperament of the Spanish and the material convenience of Americans.”

“I feel,” the manager said, “I should return to my office.”

Just before nine the English couple with the balding son and the Grahams, the Londoners, returned from the all-day round-trip excursion flight to Tangiers.

Dennis Graham, who wore checked shirts and large cuff links and reminded Paco of a television announcer, reached the desk first.

Paco was waiting, thinking: He could be Spanish: his height, his hair.

“Did you have a good trip?”

“All right, I suppose,” Dennis Graham said. “Messages?”

“No. Nothing.”

“The, ah . . .” Graham snapped his fingers trying to remember. “The American couple. Have they come down?”

“In the lounge.”

Dennis Graham took his wife's arm and she had to skip quickly, her dark hair bouncing, to move with him. “It was fun,” he called to the English couple and the son.

“To do once,” the Englishwoman called back. She, her husband, and son moved unhurriedly to the desk.

“You wouldn't have matches, would you?” her husband asked. He wore a canvas sun hat, the brim turned down all around. Paco's lighter came out and flicked once, then again before the flame appeared.

“No. What I need are matches.”

“I'm sorry,” Paco said.

“Do you know,” the Englishwoman said, “in all of Spain I don't believe there are more than several packets of matches.”

“No paper bags at all,” the son said. “I haven't seen a paper bag since Gibraltar.”

“The scarcity of forests,” the Englishman said.

Paco smiled. “You had an enjoyable trip?”

“Beggars,” the Englishman said. “All we saw were beggars. One chap in the group brought out a peseta and they nearly tore him to pieces.”

“Robert,” the Englishwoman said, “feels he's caught something.”

The son twitched his shoulders. “I've been scratching all day.”

“Well,” the Englishwoman said. “I think I shall make my way up.”

Her husband considered this. “A Scotch first?”

“I think after,” she said.

As they moved off, the Englishman turned back to the desk. “When you get the matches, send up a few packs, won't you?” He did not wait for a reply.

At ten o'clock Paco was about to leave when the American appeared again. He raised his arm coming across the lobby and Paco was held at the desk.

“We still haven't eaten. The Grahams came in and we got to talking . . . very interesting . . . but what I need is a match.”

Paco brought out his lighter. He offered the flame, leaning forward slightly with his elbow on the counter. The American did not have a cigarette ready, but he brought out his pack of Reynos quickly, pressed against the counter with a cigarette in his mouth, and puffed once, twice, gratefully.

“Gracias
.”

“Nada
.”

The American frowned. It was his I-want-to-learn-and-I'm-trying-to-understand expression. “I say thank you and you say ‘Nothing?'”

“De nada,
” Paco explained. “But we shorten it. Like saying . . . it's nothing, uh?”

“I see.” The American's momentary thoughtful expression vanished and his face brightened. “Listen, would you join us after dinner? I mean, could you?”

“Oh, I don't think . . .”

“We're just going up to the British Club with the Grahams for a drink or two. You'll be off, won't you?”

“I'm off now.”

“Then it's done.” He snuffed his Reyno out in the ashtray on the
counter and was moving away as he said, “In about an hour then.”

The brown suit that Paco wore had been left in room 519 the year before and he had given the manager 450 pesetas for it. The suit did not fit the manager and it did not fit Paco as a suit should; but with the coat buttoned no one could tell that the trousers were too large about the waist and were pinned so that the back pockets came almost together.

He wore a white shirt, which was his own, and a neckerchief knotted tightly and folded over once and showing just two inches of red pattern at the open unbuttoned collar of his shirt. This was for the benefit of the American who would expect something about his dress to be
different
, something the American would feel was
Spanish
, or at least European.

He sat at one end of the couch in the dimly lighted British Club. The American sat in the upright chair across the coffee table from him, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands folded above the glass of sherry on the low table.

The American's wife sat in the middle of the couch half turned to Dennis Graham next to her, but dividing her attention between Dennis and his wife, who sat on the floor, her legs tucked under her, on the other side of the coffee table. This setting before the fireplace took up nearly a third of the oak-paneled room. Behind them stood a small bar with six stools, a barman, and three waiters. Somewhere behind the bar a record player was playing one of the recent hits of the Beatles.

“You don't hear them in America?” Lizzy Graham was amazed.

“I don't know,” the American's wife said. “
I've
never heard them.”

“We might've,” the American said. “But you're never sure because they all sound alike.” He looked up as the waiter approached.

“Let's order another.”

“I love that dress,” the American's wife was saying.

Lizzy Graham pinched the shoulders of the loose-fitting sweater-like wool, stretched the front out and let go. “It's so comfortable. Especially for lounging around; you know?”

“Mary Quant?”

Lizzy straightened, surprised. “Yes. Do you see her things?”

“Just beginning to.”

The American looked around and up at the waiter again. “Silence means consent. That's oon boor-bon, oon Scotch, oon gin and tonic ee dos cloroso.”

“I think,” Paco said, looking down at the glass in front of the American's wife and lingering on the tight beige-knit of her thigh before raising his eyes, “I'll try bourbon this time.”

“Then that's dos boor-bon ee oon cloroso.”

“How do you like his Spanish,” the American's wife said.

“Listen, I try. That's more than a lot of people do.”

“But don't you find,” Dennis Graham said, “there's always someone who speaks English?”

“That's not the point. Why should everybody learn our language and we don't bother to learn theirs?”

Dennis smiled his television-announcer smile. “No one's forcing anyone.” He raised his glass, put it down again suddenly, and pointed a finger in the startled, upturned face of the American's wife.

“I've got one. Greer Garson and Gregory Peck. Coal.”

“Valley of Decision
.”

“Damn—all right, Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier . . .”

“Rebecca.
”

“That's too easy,” Lizzy Graham said. “I've got one. Carole Landis, Betty Grable, and Victor Mature. Spooky.”