Stallion Gate (25 page)

“One fight will pay for it.”

“Then the Casa Mañana will make you rich?”

“It’s the music, not the money. Sooner or later, a great club loses money the way a beautiful balloon loses air. You mind my fighting?”

“It sounds like a bad movie. We had such movies in Germany. The man who fights one last time to pay for an operation for his sister so her sight can be miraculously saved. Naturally, he loses his.”

“I’m going to win. And I won’t go blind or break my hands.”

“If this is what you truly want—”

“It is.”

“Then I don’t think anyone in the world could stop you.”

It was midnight when they came out of the club into the parking lot.

This part of Albuquerque’s Central Avenue was called Old Town, as if the Old West had been lined with curio stores and pawnshops with steel shutters. At night the street was deserted and black, except for the tents of light around streetlamps.

As Anna got into the jeep she touched her hair. “My new pin. I left it on the table.”

Joe returned for the pin, and as he came out of the club again he took a shortcut through the kitchen and out the back. There were fewer cars there, the jalopies of waiters and kitchen help. Among them, he heard voices and a laugh, and then something hitting the ground.

Between a pair of Fords a tiny beam of light played from a horizontal face to a shirt, to a double-breasted jacket, to a hand in the jacket pocket. As Joe approached the beam slid up to the face, which was round as a plate, subcutaneous blue on the upper lip and chin,
eyes closed and mouth slack. Spread on the man’s chest were license, business cards, postcards, money. Kneeling over him was Captain Augustino, still in civvies.

“Harry Gold.” Augustino read the cards under the light. “Harry Gold of the Philadelphia Sugar Company. Harry Gold, licensed driver of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Street map of Santa Fe. One thousand two hundred and fifty dollars in cash. Harry Gold on vacation.”

An empty champagne bottle rolled away from the captain’s knee and came to rest against a tire. Joe assumed Augustino had used the bottle on the back of Gold’s head.

“You know about him,” Joe said.

“Heinrich Golodnitsky, to be exact, Sergeant.” Augustino flicked the light back to the plump face and crumpled hat. “Heinrich Golodnitsky, of Russian-Jewish lineage. Golodnitsky, who came at the age of three to an America of sugar-sweet opportunity, not only to find gold on the streets but to be Gold. Golodnitsky, Gold. Heinrich, Harry.” As he pointed the beam at Joe, some of the light escaped to touch his own lean, passionate face. “See, you always thought I was crazy, Sergeant. Yet here he is. It’s like catching a real devil. A small devil, but a devil all the same. We were at the bar. You played well. Dr. Weiss looked lovely.”

“I thought you were at Trinity, sir.”

Augustino opened the back door of the nearer Ford. “I thought you were on the Hill. Help me get him into the car.”

The band could be heard faintly in the lot. Joe could make out the beat, but not the tune; 2–4 time, a whisper of horns.

He gathered Harry Gold in his arms and laid him on the backseat of the car. “What are you going to tell Gold when he wakes up?”

“The concussion will eliminate any short-term memory. I’ll tell him he got drunk, fell down and hit his head. He
was
drunk.”

“He won’t believe it. He’ll go right to the Russians.”

“Of course he won’t believe me. But apart from treason, Harry Gold is a two-bit chemist, a nothing, a zero. The luckiest day of his life was when he became a spy. You think he wants to lose his only interesting quality? He’s not going to tell the Russians anything. Tonight never happened.”

“Like us, sir. I never saw you, you never saw me.”

“Would I stand in the way of romance, Sergeant? When we’re on the same team at last?”

Driving back to the Hill, they stopped to swim in the Rio where it cut a deep curve in the sandbanks above Santiago. White petals passed on the black surface of the water. With five days left until Trinity, minutes seemed to hurry by, as if rushing to a quicker channel of time.

“A choirboy? I can’t believe it,” she said.

“We’ll go to Harlem an’ we’ll go struttin’,” he sang to her, “an’ there’ll be nothin’ too good for you.”

She was cool and weightless to the touch, but she
slipped away from his hand. Something was wrong, although he didn’t know what.

“Sometimes I wonder what my father’s dreams for me must have been,” she said. “A lecturer’s chair at the Mathematical Institute. Learned arguments with other professors as we watched Göttingen fade into the dusk.”

“Sounds like a travelogue.”

“The memory of a refugee
is
a travelogue. Anyway, a proper husband, also a professor, two children and a villa on the Wilhelm-Weber-Strasse with window boxes of clematis. I don’t believe my father ever dreamed of the Rio Grande or you. I will miss it.”

“Miss it? What do you mean?”

“I will miss this place.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Everyone will be leaving soon after Trinity. I’m leaving before. I’ve only told Oppy, and you.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to leave New Mexico.”

“Yes, it does.”

“What about us?”

“Us? This is your home, and now you have your music here, too. It’s not my home, and I don’t have my work here.”

Though he was floating, he had the sensation he was about to fall through the water. “You came tonight to say good-bye?”

“Yes.”

“No. You asked me to come to Chicago. That’s what you were getting at when we were dancing.”

“Joe, we’ve only known each other a month—really, two weeks. This is not the end of a long affair. We were just getting to know each other. I had never seen you happier than you were tonight.”

“I thought you were happy, too.”

“Not like you. It must be wonderful to be so in love with music.”

“You’re leaving to make some sort of ethical statement about Trinity, right? You feel forced to go?”

“You could say that.”

“Then come back.”

“And do what? Sell cigarettes in a nightclub?”

“You wouldn’t have to do anything.”

“But I
do
do something. I am a mathematician, and I work at a certain level. Besides the Hill, there is no such place here for me to work. Could I work with you? You wouldn’t know what I was saying. This is not insulting. I’m not asking you to leave your music, to live in Chicago and erase blackboards for me.”

“Then the hell with the club. I’ll go with you, once I’m out of the Army.”

“Now that I know that the club is what you want most in life? Oh, no.”

“I love you. There’ll always be another Casa Mañana.”

“I don’t think so. I think this is your chance. For you to give it up and follow me, that would be a small version of Joe Peña. You know, the first time I saw you at the Christmas dance, Klaus Fuchs pointed to you and said, ‘There is the Chief, stupid and dangerous and larger
than life.’ You aren’t stupid, but you are the other two, and I don’t want you to change. I don’t want you any smaller than Chief Joe Peña.”

“It’s beginning to sound as if I’ve been some sort of conquest for you. Entertainment. Part of your tour of Indian country.”

“That’s not true.”

“It’s simple. I love you and I’m willing to go. If you loved me, you’d stay.”

She reached out for him. “I do love you. We can make love right now.”

He wanted to. The water was getting colder and colder. She hovered in it like a flame.

“Then stay.” He could stand her silence only so long before he turned. “Then go. Let’s get you out of here. Let’s get you packed and gone.”

She followed him out of the water, so he was the first to see the two figures squatting on the sand.

“Hello, Joe.”

In the quarter moon, Roberto and Ben Reyes showed the fatigue of a chase. Their hair was loose, their necks limp. Sophie Reyes hung back behind a log.

Joe picked up Anna’s skirt for her. “One’s blind. The other’s so old it doesn’t matter.”

“They need your help,” Sophie said.

“Do they?” Joe asked. He stepped into his pants. “Well, the lady’s in a big hurry. So excuse us, but we’re going.”

“It was the Indian Service. They came at sunset,” Roberto said. “It was lucky they came from the east. Ben saw them.”

“A buckle shined,” Ben said.

Joe snatched his shirt from the ground. “Really? And you desperadoes slipped away? How many were there?”

“Just two,” Ben said. “Those Service riders.”

“No one riding drag? You sure are lucky. Two cowboys came straight into the sun. You flush and nobody follows. You came back here to your house?”

“Your house,” Roberto said. “We thought they might be watching Ben’s.”

“Naturally. You could have kept on going.”

Anna buttoned her shirt. “Joe,” she said, “he’s blind.”

“Blind and crazy.”

“Have you climbed the ladder in my dream yet?” Roberto asked Joe.

“See what I mean?” Joe asked Anna.

“The Service came by with a federal warrant,” Sophie said. “They were talking about sabotage and the FBI. They said they were watching the bus terminals, so Ben and Roberto should give themselves up.”

“You saw the warrant?” Joe asked.

“I can read,” Sophie said stiffly.

“They need your help, Joe,” Anna said.

“To do what? I already gave them two chances to escape, but they wanted to play cowboys and Indians. Only now it’s getting a little rough. I told them there was a war on, but they didn’t believe me. What do you care? A minute ago you couldn’t get out of here fast enough. Come on, I’ll take you back. You’re freezing.”

“I gathered some sticks,” Sophie said. “We could be warm if you have a match.”

“You have to help them, Joe,” Anna said.

“I don’t
have
to do a damn thing. I’m not responsible for them. Don’t tell me what to do. I made a fool of myself for you, but that’s over, right? Over, and you’re going. I don’t want to hear any more from you about ethical choices. All I want is you in the jeep, you on the train and gone.”

“Joe,” Sophie said. “Please.”

In a depression in the sand was driftwood that looked like piled antlers. He sighed, then knelt and lit the shavings underneath with his lighter; yellow flames branched from stick to stick. In the upcast glow, Ben’s face was dusty and scraped from a fall. Roberto’s hands were wrapped in bloody bandages. Joe looked up. Was the entire universe Indian, or were there scattered craters of sanity?

Roberto’s eyes turned to the heat. “That spy on the cliff. What ever happened to him?”

“He means Fuchs,” Joe told Anna. “So far, Roberto, he seems to be getting away, which is more than I can say for you. A federal warrant? That means another country, at least until this blows over.”

“Smokes?” Ben asked.

Joe gave him his Luckies. “Keep the pack.”

“I prefer Chesterfields,” Ben said, but pocketed the cigarettes. “What do you mean, ‘another country’?”

“Mexico’s the nearest one. You can be another Pancho Villa, Uncle.”

“I don’t like Mexico. They do something funny to their beans.”

“Yeah, they mash them into shit and pour flies over them. That’s why they have such good beer. Uncle, are you listening? Mexico’s your only chance. The war’ll be over soon, people will calm down, and then you can come back here.”

“You’ll take them?” Anna asked.

“Well, this really has nothing to do with you, does
it?” Joe said. “You’ll be in Chicago or somewhere. We will be a fond memory. You can look at your pot or your silver pin and think of us. And, Lord knows, you’ll always be grateful for your short but fascinating sojourn in Santiago.”

“Stop it, Joe,” she said.

“The Indian mysteries revealed, the firing of the clay.”

“Please stop.”

“The exotic nights with an authentic chief.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Joe, will you take them?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah. Okay, okay. It’s not that hard. It means going to El Paso and taking the trolley into Juarez. We’ll put some sunglasses on Roberto and a serape on Ben. Easy. But I won’t be able to take them through until Sunday night.”

“That’s the night of the test,” Anna said carefully. “That’s the night you’re fighting.”

“Test of what?” Roberto asked.

“The weapon,” Joe said.

“The gourd of ashes?”

“That’s the one.”

“And the ladder? You’re going to climb it to the gourd?”

“I’m not climbing anything. I’m not even going to be around for the blast. The general wants me to drive around and make sure no wild Apaches wander onto the test range. That’s why I can get away and fight. After the fight we’ll go down to the border. The trick
is for you to hide out until then, and for you to get to the fight with a car.”

“A serape?” Ben muttered. He already had the manner of an emperor going into exile. “Where are you going to fight?”

“Below Socorro is a little town called Antonio. There’s just one cross street. Make a left and go half a mile to the Owl Cafe. In back of the cafe is a motel. The fight will start in the motel courtyard at eight
P.M
. By nine it should be over and the cars cleared out. That’s when you show up.”

“What if you can’t go?” Anna asked. “What if there’s a problem?”

Joe ignored her. “Park in the courtyard and put out your lights. Wait five minutes, no more. There’ll be MPs all over the place. If I can’t join you in five minutes, that means there’s a real problem. There won’t be, don’t worry, but in case there is, tell the driver to go back to the highway, turn south to El Paso and then put you on the trolley car. When you find a place in Juarez, call the Casa Mañana in Albuquerque and leave a message where you’re staying. If there’s a change in plan before then, I’ll tell Felix Tafoya, who seems to be just as good as a clown or at tossing lightning wands as he is pushing a broom.”

“Good.” Roberto grinned. “You figured that out.”

“Yeah. And, Ben, your former brother Hilario told me the other day he’d never missed a dance in Santiago. I didn’t see him at the dance when they came for Roberto, but let’s assume Hilario was absentmindedly telling
the truth about his perfect attendance. He fingered Roberto and left. He’ll be at the fight, so keep your head down.”