Mendoza in Hollywood (32 page)

What problem he had with Mr. Rubery’s teeth I was never to learn, for at that moment we all picked up the signal we had come to dread: a mortal out there in the night, drunk and wrathful, putting the spurs to his poor horse. Cyrus Jackson.

“Two kilometers out and coming in fast,” Einar announced, getting to his feet.

“Riding,” said Porfirio, pulling out his gun and checking the chambers.

“You can’t kill him,” Oscar said, blowing out the lamp. The room glowed as we switched to infrared. “There’s a mortal witness. That Britisher.”

“Damn. You can’t even shoot him with a trank,” I said, following them out the back door. The valise was right where I could trip over it; impatiently I grabbed it up and shoved it into a cupboard. “The witness would still think we’d killed the guy.”

“But I’m getting tired of Señor Cyrus Jackson,” Porfirio growled.
“Tired of his staking us out all the damn time. I think the moment has come to nail his nasty ass to a wall.”

“Uh-oh,” said Einar, as we emerged into the clearing around the cookfire. Mr. Jackson’s signal was growing louder and clearer as he galloped toward us, and it wasn’t giving us the usual spectrum of his jealous misery and self-pity; it was off the scale. The man was in a homicidal rage. Einar leaned forward slightly, staring intently down the canyon. We heard the thunder of hoofbeats stop abruptly, and there was a thudding crash and a curse.

“I got his horse to throw him,” Einar said. “And . . . shit, he’s still coming.”

There he was on visual now, a grotesque figure by infrared, crawling out of the bushes where he’d landed with the boneless impunity of a drunk and staggering to his feet. On he came, up our canyon trail, pulling his gun from its holster.

“It’s your party, boys,” I said, and winked out to the hillside, where I crouched down and did my best to resemble an ordinary rock formation. I still had a good view of the clearing, with the three of them standing undecided as the monster lurched toward them.

What’s happening
? Imarte broadcast in panic, having just noticed the approaching hazard.

Keep your Englishman quiet
, Porfirio told her.
Maybe he should get his pants on, though
.

I’m staying inside with my birds
, Juan Bautista transmitted from his room.

“We’d best get these poor creatures out of sight,” Oscar said, nodding at the tethered mounts on which Imarte and Mr. Rubery had ridden in from Los Angeles. He took their bridles and led them off to the stable. “Might I suggest a timely visit from Michael Finn? I’ve a bottle of chloral hydrate I’d be most happy to contribute to the occasion.”

“I don’t think this guy’s in any mood to sit down and have a drink with us,” Porfirio said. “Thanks all the same.”

“Smoke and mirrors, I guess, huh, chief?” Einar asked, rubbing his chin pensively. Porfirio nodded, and they winked out simultaneously, to
reappear in the shadows on opposite sides of the clearing just as the mortal man came raving into sight.

He stopped when he saw the house. He stood swaying for a moment. His rage was building to a peak again. He groped around for the bottle he’d lost in his fall; when it failed to present itself, he let out an inarticulate roar.

A gasp from within the house, and some kind of half-smothered inquiry from Mr. Rubery, which fortunately Mr. Jackson was unable to hear. But he had recovered his bearings enough now to remember why he was there. Shambling forward, he addressed the house and drew a deep breath.

“Marthy!” he called. “You come on out of there, you faithless bitch!”

There was silence, at least as far as his mortal ears were concerned. I could hear the pounding of Mr. Rubery’s terrified heart as he struggled to get back into his clothes.

“You come on out here where I’ve waited for you,” roared Mr. Jackson. “You, no-good . . . you’re a pitiless wanton. You’re the goddamn woman in purple and scarlet, that’s what you are. Marthy!”

I could hear Mr. Rubery whimpering, partly in terror and partly in pain as Imarte had hold of his arm in a viselike grip. In a low and exceedingly calm whisper she was explaining to him the dangers of heedless flight. Mr. Jackson, meanwhile, had leaned over backward until he looked likely to topple, staring in an accusatory way at the stars.

“I
defy
you stars!” he said, and hiccupped. “The way you looked down on me an’ laughed. Marthy, ever’ night I sat up there an’ watched for you, an’ waited for you, and it was so cold. You din’t care none! Oh, Marthy, I’d ’a given you ever’thing that was mine, my good name and all, if you’d ‘a loved me.” At this point his gun went off accidentally, kicking up a spurt of dust in the starlight. He was thrown backward and fell on his ass.

At the sound of the gunshot, Mr. Rubery intensified his efforts to
escape to such a degree that Imarte had to let go of his arm or break it. He blundered frantically down the passage into the kitchen, where he tripped over a chair with a crash. Even Mr. Jackson heard it, and he scrambled to his feet with an agility I would not have thought him capable of in his condition.

“All right, I know you’re in there with her. Come out here, you no-good English nancy boy,” he said. “You prancin’ Ephebe! Bring him out, Marthy! Jesus God, woman, ain’t it enough you’ve run my heart through with needles? Ain’t I sat up there bleeding for you, crying in the dark with nobody to care?”

Mr. Rubery was going round and round in the kitchen like a trapped rat. Oh, he must have been hunting for his valise. Mr. Jackson thrust his head forward, peering at the house through narrowed eyes. He had to have been one hell of a hunter when he was sober, because even liquored up he was pinpointing Mr. Rubery’s location as accurately as I was.

“I got you, limey coward,” he snarled. “We go down to hell together, but you go first.” And he started for the house with an un-nervingly steady stride; at least, until Einar popped up beside him.

“Sorry, pal, you just crossed the line,” he said, and winked out again. Mr. Jackson jumped and stared; he looked all around and then turned to look behind him.

Einar popped into view again, not an inch from his face. “You could drop the gun,” he suggested. Instead Mr. Jackson swung it up and fired wildly at him—or at the place he’d been, for of course Einar winked away once more. Even with the echoing gunfire, though, we all heard the crash as Mr. Rubery got the kitchen door open.

“Enough is enough,” said Porfirio, appearing behind Mr. Jackson with the empty frijole pot in his hands. When Mr. Jackson whirled about to see who was speaking, Einar popped up again and gave him a good push. As Mr. Jackson toppled backward, Porfirio shoved the pot down over his head. Mr. Jackson dropped his gun to clutch at the pot with both hands as he fell, and Einar kicked the weapon out of
reach. Then Mr. Jackson was on his hands and knees in the dust, struggling blindly to rise and shaking his head, but the pot wouldn’t come off.

The poker materialized in Einar’s hand, and Porfirio had one of his iron ladles, and the two of them began to rain blows on the pot, alternating like clockwork figures striking the hours. As they did so, Mr. Rubery went running for his life through the sagebrush, bounding up the hill behind the inn at really amazing speed, and vanished over the ridge. Mr. Jackson kept trying to get up, but the deafening noise was too much for him. He collapsed at last, stunned and nerveless. When he’d stopped twitching, Porfirio and Einar stopped hitting the pot. Porfirio took out a little medikit book and peeled off a trank patch, which he stuck on Mr. Jackson’s back, right where the shirttail had come out of the pants.

“That’ll keep him out for twenty-four hours,” said Porfirio, shoving the book back in his coat pocket. I climbed down from my place on the hillside as Imarte came raging out of the inn, stark naked.

“Is that miserable sot of a mortal finally finished with?” she said. “Mr. Rubery! Alfred, dear! Please don’t be alarmed. ’Tis safe to return, dear, the wretch has expired.”

“I don’t think he can hear you,” I said. “He’s probably halfway to San Francisco by now.”

She glared at me and swore an oath that would have made Cyrus the Persian blanch and cover his ears. “I CANNOT TOLERATE THESE WORKING CONDITIONS,” she screamed, then said, when the air had cleared and the little green bats had stopped flying out of her mouth, “Do you know the chance I’ve just lost? Do you know who that boy was?”

“No, but I think he left his valise behind,” I said. “It’s in the kitchen cupboard behind the table.”

“His valise!” She got an intense look in her eyes. “You’re sure?” She turned and went bouncing off to the kitchen, with never a backward glance at Mr. Jackson.

We stood there in bemusement, until a snore from inside the frijole pot recalled us to our immediate problem.

“So, uh, chief,” said Einar. “What do we do with this guy? The witness is gone. I guess he could just turn up dead in a ditch.”

Porfirio made a sour face. “It’s not like he killed anybody. Not here, tonight, anyway. On the other hand, he really needs to go far, far away and never bother us again.”

“Don’t kill him,” I found myself saying, to my surprise, because I’ve always thought mortals with the If I Can’t Have You Nobody Can Have You kind of obsession to be one of the lowest forms of life. “There must be a way to get him out of the picture without violence. We could shanghai him.”

“An excellent suggestion,” Oscar said, popping up beside us. “An involuntary sea cruise is just the thing for him.”

“It’s a long drive to San Pedro at this time of night,” Porfirio said, sighing as he took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair.

“I’ll take him,” I offered, astonishing myself again. Why on earth was I sorry for this mortal?

“And I’ll drive,” Oscar said. “I’ve done this before, you know. Plenty of nasty fellows shipped out of New Bedford feet first when they made a nuisance of themselves around the Company safe house there, let me tell you. It’s generally a humane and reliable way to dispose of unwanted mortals.”

So Mr. Cyrus Jackson made his final exit from Hollywood at last, trussed and snoring in the back of Oscar’s cart, and I heard a numbing five hours of speculation on which assignment Oscar ought to choose as we rattled across the night plain toward the sea.

In San Pedro, we circled warily around Banning’s turf and made for the fishermen’s huts on Rattlesnake Island, across from the old landing. Dark shacks on pilings, with a single lantern burning low and red—not a good place to find yourself at three in the morning. But Oscar drove straight up and hopped out unconcernedly.

“I’ll fetch the blackguard. You go waken Señor Souza and make the arrangements.”

I hated talking to mortals; but I crept up to the shack with the lantern and knocked timidly. After a long moment, the door was opened. I recognized the sleepy and unshaven face that peered out at me.

“Souza? The doctor has work for you,” I said, using the standard phrase.

His eyes widened, and he nodded. “One moment please, seriora,” he replied, and ducked back inside. He emerged a moment later, trousered and shod, just as Oscar came bustling up with Mr. Jackson draped across his shoulders.

“Hello there,” Oscar said brightly, in Portuguese so perfect, you’d have sworn he was born in Lisbon. “Has my friend explained about the evil and desperate man I’m wearing?”

Souza blinked and rubbed the bridge of his nose, just below his Company control implant. “No, señor. You’d like him drowned?”

“Not at all. No, sir, we simply think he needs a change of air. Now, unless I’m much mistaken, that ship over yonder’s full of lumber. Is she going on a long voyage, by any chance?”

Souza raised his eyes to the open sea, where a schooner rode at anchor. He grinned, white teeth distinct in the gloom. “Yes, señor, the
Elg
. She is bound for Norway with the tide. Two of her able-bodied seamen killed in a fight in Los Angeles, too, I hear. Very sad.”

“And this is your boat moored over here, is it not?” Oscar strolled out along the rickety pier.

“I am proud to say so, señor,” replied Souza, strolling beside him.

“Capital.” Oscar shrugged off Mr. Jackson and dumped him into the bottom of the boat, where he lay moaning. Souza leaped in and untied the mooring rope. A moment later he was rowing steadily out through the darkness in the direction of the
Elg
.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Oscar said, adjusting his lapels and shooting his cuffs. “Faugh, what a smell of rye whiskey. This coat wants laundering, wouldn’t you say?”

“Very much,” I agreed, and we climbed back into the cart and wheeled around to return to Hollywood.

Oscar took up the conversation again as though it hadn’t been interrupted, and for the next five hours I gave my morose opinion in negatives or affirmatives on the merits of Hawaii over the Oklahoma Territories. Altogether it was an excellent thing for Cyrus Jackson that he wake up alive in a bunk on board the
Elg
, with no more Imarte to break his mortal heart for him.

The red sun was well above the horizon by the time we got back, and still Oscar hadn’t made up his mind about where he wanted to be posted next. Nor had he decided by the time we saw him off, a week later. But Immortals don’t get choices very often in their eternal lives, and who could blame him for lingering over his decision?

We did receive a holocard from him, later, though, all the way from sunny Molokai, and it may well be the last I ever see of that absurd little machine: pinkly sunburned, smiling and waving from the gondola of a hot-air balloon, the untamed world his oyster.