Thompson, Hunter S (10 page)

“Damn good you did,” I said. “We'd be back in that goddamn dungeon if you hadn't come.”

Yeamon and Sala mumbled agreement.

“Enjoy it while you can,” Sanderson replied. “You won't be out for long.”

We rode the rest of the way in silence. As we passed the Plaza Colon I heard the first
sounds of morning -- a bus beginning its run, the shouts of early fruit peddlers -- and
from somewhere up on the hill came the wail of a police siren.

After only a few hours of sleep, I was awakened by a great shout. It was Sala, sprung up
as if from a nightmare. “Mother of balls!” he yelled. “The car! The vultures!”

After a moment of confusion I remembered that we had left his car on the road near Casa
Cabrones. The Puerto Ricans take a real interest in abandoned cars -- they set upon them
like hungry animals and tear them apart. First go the hubcaps, then the wheels, then the
bumpers and doors, and finally they haul away the carcass -- twenty or thirty of them,
like ants dragging a dead beetle, hauling it off to some junk dealer for ten
yanqui
dollars, then fighting with knives and broken bottles for shares of the money.

Yeamon woke up slowly, groaning with pain. Around his mouth was a crust of dried blood.
He sat up on the mattress and stared at us.

“Wake up,” I said. “Your scooter's out there too.”

Sala swung his legs over the edge of the cot. “It's too late. They've had twelve hours --
Christ, they can strip a car in twelve minutes. We'll be lucky to find an oil spot.”

“Gone?” said Yeamon. He was still staring at us, not quite awake.

I nodded. “Probably.”

“Well by God let's get out there!” he exclaimed, leaping off the mattress. “Catch 'em and
smash a few teeth!”

“No hurry,” said Sala. “It's all over by now.” He stood up and flexed his back. “Jesus,
it feels like I've been stabbed.” He came over to me. “What's wrong with my shoulder -- is
that a knife hole back there?”

“No,” I told him. “Just a scrape -- maybe a fingernail.”

He cursed and went into the bathroom for a shower.

Yeamon had already washed his face and was hurriedly getting dressed. “Let's hustle,” he
said. “We'll take a cab.” He opened one of the windows and let in some light

Reluctantly, I began to dress. There were bruises all over my body and it was painful to
move. I wanted to go back to bed and sleep all day, but I could see there was no hope for
it.

We walked several blocks down to the Plaza Colon and got a cab. Yeamon told the driver
where to go.

I had never seen the city on a Sunday morning. Usually I got up about noon and went to
Al's for a long breakfast. Now the streets were almost empty. There was no sign of the
weekday chaos, the screech and roar of an army of salesmen careening through town in
uninsured cars. The waterfront was nearly deserted, the stores were closed, and only the
churches seemed to be doing any business. We passed several of them, and in front of each
one was a colorful knot of people -- tan-skinned men and boys in freshly pressed suits,
flowery women with veils, little girls in white dresses, and here and there a priest in a
black robe and a tall black hat

Then we sped across the long causeway to Condado. Things were different here. I saw no
churches and the sidewalks were full of tourists in sandals and bright bermuda shorts.
They streamed in and out of the big hotels, chattering, reading papers, carrying satchels,
all wearing sunglasses and looking very busy.

Yeamon mopped his face with a handkerchief. “Man,” he said, “I don't think I can stand to
lose that scooter. Jesus -- fired, beaten, arrested. . .”

I nodded and Sala said nothing. He was leaning over the driver's shoulder, as if he
expected at any moment to catch sight of a mob dismantling his car.

After what seemed like hours we turned off the airport road and onto the narrow lane to
Casa Cabrones. We were still several hundred yards away when I saw Sala's car. “There it
is,” I said, pointing up the road.

“Christ,” he muttered. “A miracle.”

As we pulled up to it I realized it was sitting on two coconut logs, instead of its
wheels. They were gone, and so was Yeamon's scooter.

Sala took it calmly. “Well -- better than I thought.” He got into the car and checked
around. “Nothing gone but the wheels -- damn lucky.”

Yeamon was in a rage. “I'll recognize that thing!” he shouted. “One of these days I'll
catch somebody riding it.”

I was sure we were due for more trouble if we hung around Casa Cabrones. The thought of
another beating made me nervous. I walked a few hundred feet toward the bar, looking to
see if anyone was coming. It was closed and the parking lot was empty.

On the way back to the car, I saw something red in the bushes beside the driveway. It was
Yeamon's scooter, covered with a layer of palm fronds. Someone had hidden it, intending to
pick it up later.

I called him and he dragged it out. Nothing was missing. He kicked it over and it started
perfectly. “Damn,” he said. “I should sit here and wait for that punk to come back for it
-- give him a little surprise.”

“Sure,” I said. “Then spend the summer in La Princesa. Come on -- let's get out of here.”

Back at the car, Sala was figuring up the cost of four new tires and wheels. He looked
very depressed.

“Let's get some breakfast,” said Yeamon. “I've got to have food.”

“Are you nuts?” Sala replied. “I can't leave this car -- they'll finish it off!” He
reached into his wallet. “Here,” he said to Yeamon. “Go down to that gas station and call
the Fiat dealer and tell him to send four wheels. Here's his home phone -- tell him it's
for Mr. Lotterman.”

Yeamon took the card and clattered off down the road. In a few minutes we heard him
coming back. Then we sat for an hour until the wrecker arrived. To my surprise, the man
had sent four wheels. We put them on, Sala signed Lotterman's name to a ticket, and then
we drove in to the Long Beach Hotel for breakfast Yeamon followed on his scooter.

The patio was crowded, so we sat inside at the snack bar. All around us were people I had
spent ten years avoiding -- shapeless women in wool bathing suits, dull-eyed men with
hairless legs and self-conscious laughs, all Americans, all fearsomely alike. These people
should be kept at home, I thought; lock them in the basement of some goddamn Elks Club
and keep them pacified with erotic movies; if they want a vacation, show them a foreign
art film; and if they still aren't satisfied, send them into the wilderness and run them
with vicious dogs.

I glared at them, trying to eat the rotten breakfast the waitress had put in front of me
-- slimy eggs, fat bacon and weak American coffee.

“Goddamnit,” I said. “This isn't Nedick's -- don't you have Puerto Rican coffee?”

She shook her head.

Sala went out and bought a
Miami Herald.
“I like this place,” he said with a grin. “I like to sit up here and look down at the
beach and think of all the good things I could do with a Luger.”

I put two dollars on the table and got up.

“Where are you going?” Yeamon asked, looking up from a part of the paper he had taken
from Sala.

“I don't know,” I said. “Probably Sanderson's. Anyplace where I can get away from these
people.”

Sala looked up. “You and Sanderson are pretty good buddies,” he said with a smile.

I was too intent on leaving to pay any attention to him, but after I got out in the
street I realized that he'd meant to be insulting. I guessed he was bitter because my bail
was so much smaller than his. Hell with him, I thought. Sanderson had nothing to do with
it.

Several blocks up the street I stopped at an outdoor restaurant for some Puerto Rican
coffee. I bought a
New York Times
for seventy cents. It made me feel better, reminding me that a big familiar world was
going about its business just over the horizon. I had another cup of coffee and took the
Times
with me when I left, lugging it along the street like a precious bundle of wisdom, a
weighty assurance that I was not yet cut off from that part of the world that was real.

It took me a half hour to get to Sanderson's, but the walk was along the beach and I
enjoyed it. When I got there I found him stretched out in his garden on a plastic sun pad.
He looked thinner than he did when he was dressed.

“Hello, slugger,” he said. “How was jail?”

“Horrible,” I said.

“Well,” he replied, “next time it will be worse. You will be a marked man.”

I stared at him, wondering what sort of twisted humor he was practicing on me.

Sanderson propped himself up on his elbows and lit a cigarette. “What started it?” he
asked.

I told him, deleting a few minor points here and there, categorically denying what
little I knew of the official version.

I leaned back in the chair, looking out at the white beach and the sea and the palms all
around us, and thinking how strange it was to be worried about jail in a place like this.
It seemed almost impossible that a man could go to the Caribbean and be put in jail for
some silly misdemeanor. Puerto Rican jails were for Puerto Ricans -- not Americans who
wore paisley ties and button-down shirts.

“Why was your bail so much lower,” he asked, “did they start the trouble?”

Here it was again. I was beginning to wish they had charged me with something brutal,
like “violent assault,” or “mauling an officer.”

“Hell, I don't know,” I said.

“You're lucky,” he said. “You can get a year in jail for resisting arrest.”

“Well,” I said, trying to change the subject, “I think your speech saved the day -- they
didn't seem very impressed when we said we worked for the
News.”

He lit another cigarette. “No, that wouldn't impress anybody.” He looked up again. “But
don't think I lied for you. The
Times
is looking for a travel stringer down here and they asked me to find somebody. As of
tomorrow, you're it.”

I shrugged. “Fine.”

I went inside for another drink. While I was in the kitchen I heard a car drive up. It
was Segarra, dressed like some gigolo on the Italian Riviera. He nodded stiffly as he came
through the door. “Good afternoon, Paul. What was all the trouble last night?”

“I don't remember,” I said, pouring my drink down the sink. “Get Hal to tell you. I have
to go.”

He gave me a disapproving glance, then went through the house to the garden. I went to
the door to tell Sanderson I was leaving.

“Come by the office tomorrow,” he said. “We'll talk about your new job.”

Segarra looked puzzled.

Sanderson smiled at him. “Stealing another one of your boys,” he said.

Segarra frowned and sat down. “Fine. Take all of them.”

I left and walked out to Calle Modesto, wondering how to kill the rest of the day. It was
always a problem. Sunday was my day off and usually I had Saturday too. But I was getting
tired of riding around with Sala or sitting at Al's, and there was nothing else to do. I
wanted to get out on the island, look at some of the other towns, but for that I needed a
car.

Not just a car, I thought, I need an apartment too. It was a hot afternoon and I was
tired and sore. I wanted to sleep, or at least rest, but there was no place to go. I
walked for several blocks, ambling along in the shade of the big flamboyan trees, thinking
of all the things I might be doing in New York or London, cursing the warped impulse that
had brought me to this dull and steaming rock, and finally I stopped at a native bar to
get a beer. I paid for the bottle and took it with me, sipping it as I walked along the
street I wondered where I could sleep. Sala's apartment was out of the question. It was
hot and noisy and depressing as a tomb. Maybe Yeamon's, I thought, but it was too far out
and there was no way to get there. When I finally faced the fact that I had no choice but
to walk the streets, I decided to start looking for my own apartment -- a place where I
could relax by myself and have my own refrigerator and make my own drinks and maybe even
take a girl once in a while. The idea of having my own bed in my own apartment cheered me
so much that I felt anxious to be rid of this day and get on to the next, so I could begin
looking.

I realized that to tie myself down with an apartment and perhaps a car was more of a
commitment than I wanted to make right now -- especially since I might be hauled off to
jail at any moment, or the paper might fold, or I might get a letter from some old friend
about a job in Buenos Aires. Just yesterday, for that matter, I'd been ready to go to
Mexico City.

But I knew I was coming to a point where I would have to make up my mind about Puerto
Rico. I had been here three months and it seemed like three weeks. So far, there was
nothing to get hold of, none of the real pros and cons I had found in other places. All
the while I had been in San Juan I'd condemned it without really disliking it I felt that
sooner or later I would see that third dimension, that depth that makes a city real and
that you never see until you've been there awhile. But the longer I stayed, the more I
came to suspect that for the first time in my life I had come to a place where this vital
dimension didn't exist, or was too nebulous to make any difference. Maybe, God forbid, the
place was what it appeared to be -- a melange of Okies and thieves and bewildered jibaros.

I walked for more than a mile, thinking, smoking, sweating, peering over tall hedges and
into low windows on the street, listening to the roar of the buses and the constant
barking of stray dogs, seeing almost no one but the people who passed me in crowded autos,
heading for God knows where -- whole families jammed in cars, just driving around the
city, honking, yelling, stopping now and then to buy pastillos and a shot of coco frio,
then getting back in the car and moving on, forever looking, wondering, marveling at all
the fine things the
yanquis
were doing to the city: Here was an office building going up, ten stories tall -- here was
a new highway, leading nowhere -- and of course there were always the new hotels to look
at, or you could watch the
yanqui
women on the beach -- and at night, if you arrived early enough to get a good seat, there
was
television
in the public squares.

I kept walking, more frustrated with every step. Finally, in desperation, I hailed a cab
and went to the Caribe Hilton, where they were staging an international tennis tournament.
I used my press card to get in and sat in the stands the rest of the afternoon.