The Adventurers (103 page)

Fat Cat looked at me hesitantly. "I don't like to leave you alone."

"What can happen to me in the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee?" I asked. "See, it's already daylight."

Fat Cat still didn't move.

I got to my feet and took a machete down from the wall where el Presidente had hung it. I placed it on the desk in front of me. "Besides, I have this."

Fat Cat shook his head and turned, still silent, and started back to the kitchen. I heard the faint rattle of pots and then the sound of water running. I got out of the chair and walked slowly around the office. It was still filled with memories of el Presidente. There were pictures of him everywhere I turned—medals, medallions, scrolls, cups, each engraved with his name.

The gray morning light began to fill the room. I walked over to the window and looked out at the city. The street lights were beginning to go out near the port and soon the first rays of the sun would be creeping in from behind the mountains to the east. I opened the wide French doors and went out into the garden to breathe the morning air.

It was sweet and fresh as I strolled across the garden to the wall to look east to the mountains and catch the first glimpse of the morning sun. Then I heard a faint sound behind me. I started to turn but suddenly I was caught in a grip of steel. An arm crooked around my neck from behind, and I was jerked backward almost off my feet as a harsh voice whispered in my ear. "Not a sound or you're a dead man!"

I tried to turn but the arm held me as if I were a baby. Again that voice in my ear. "El Presidente—where is he?"

The pressure relaxed slightly so that I could speak. "He is gone. Exiled."

The arm tightened again. "You lie!"

Another voice came from behind me. "It does not matter. This one is as good."

I stared as the man behind me came around to face me. He was one of the ugliest individuals I had ever seen. His mouth was twisted in a perpetual grin over blackened steel false teeth. His right hand was crushed, the fingers twisted, and a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun rested negligently in the crook of his other arm.

"Do you recognize me?"

I shook my head.

"Remember the boy whose father you talked into coming down from the mountains to be murdered?"

He began to laugh as he saw my eyes widen. "That's right, el Condor. I never forgot your face, how could you forget mine?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't have even if I had wanted to; the arm around my throat allowed me scarcely enough air to breathe.

"Let him go."

Abruptly the arm was taken from my neck, and I was hurled back against the wall. I stumbled and almost fell but managed to turn and face them. The other man was older, square and stockily built. There were two guns stuck into his belt.

"How does it feel to be trapped the way my father was trapped?" el Condor asked.

I didn't answer.

"I swore that I would not go back to the mountains this time without the blood of at least one of my father's assassins!"

I still didn't speak. I was tightening my muscles for an attempt to escape. Carefully I tried to gauge the distance between us. He was at least eight feet away.

"Assassin!" el Condor suddenly screamed. "You die!"

I sprang toward him at the same moment I saw the muzzle of the gun flash. At first I thought he had missed, then I was on the ground before him, staring up at him, and I knew he hadn't. But the strangest thing was that there was no pain. I had always thought there would be pain.

Everything seemed to slow down. Even el Condor's smile as he slowly raised the shotgun to fire again. Then a crazy thing happened. There was a flashing light and the arm that held the gun seemed to fly off from his shoulder and float lazily through the air. I saw el Condor's mouth open and heard his scream as the blood came gushing up. Then the light spun at him again and the scream was cut off.

I heard the shots, and I could count them as I turned my head. Three, four, five, six. There was a horrible look on Fat Cat's face as he walked steadily toward el Condor, the bloody machete held high in his two hands like a woodsman's ax.

Desperately the other bandolero clawed at the gun left in his belt, but it would not obey his frightened fingers. He turned screaming and began to run. He had gone but four paces when Fat Cat threw the machete after him. Abruptly he seemed to break open from the back of his head to his spine. He plunged forward over some small bushes out of sight.

I twisted my head toward Fat Cat. He was walking toward me, then he seemed to stumble and fall. He lay stretched out on the ground only a few feet away.

"Fat Cat!" I called, but my voice was very weak.

At first I thought he did not hear me, then he raised his head and looked over at me. He began agonizingly to crawl slowly toward me, rolling, using his elbows, clawing his way. The blood was streaming from his mouth and the hole in the side of his neck.

I stared at him in shocked surprise. Fat Cat was dying. I couldn't believe it. Not Fat Cat. He could never die, he was indestructible. "Fat Cat, I'm sorry," I wanted to say, but I couldn't get the words out.

Now our faces were almost touching and we hung there together on the spinning earth staring into each other's eyes.

I felt the icy polar cold creeping upward through me. "Fat Cat, I'm cold," I whispered. Even as a child I had hated the cold. I loved the sun.

But the sun coming over the mountains now gave me no warmth. Only a bright dazzling light that hurt my eyes and made it difficult for me to see. I felt the cold getting colder and creeping ever higher.

"Fat Cat, I'm afraid," I whispered. I squinted my eyes against the sun so that I could see his face.

Fat Cat raised his head and into his eyes came a look I had never seen there before. It was all the looks of love in one expression. Of a friend, of a father, of a son. Then he pushed his hand out over mine and covered it. I gripped his fingers tightly.

His voice was hoarse but soft. "Hold my hand, child," he said, "and I will take you safely through the mountains."

POSTSCRIPT

Hildebrandt, his chauffeur, was waiting as he came through the swinging doors from customs. "The car is just outside," he said, taking the valise. "Did you have a good flight, sir?"

Jeremy nodded. "It was a good flight."

They got into the big limousine and it sped rapidly off into the night. There was very little traffic at this hour and almost before he knew it, the car was racing past the multicolored lights of the World's Fair and onto the approaches of the Triborough Bridge.

"I called Mrs. Hadley when I heard your plane would be late."

"Thank you, Artie."

They came off the bridge onto the almost empty East River Drive and, racing downtown, turned off at the Sixty-third Street exit. A few blocks more .and the car pulled to a stop on a quiet tree-lined street just east of Central Park.

She was waiting at the door as he crossed the sidewalk to the steps of the gray town house. He stepped inside and shut the door and took her into his arms. They clung together silently for a tiny quiet moment.

She felt the weariness and the ache of travel in him. And something more than that. A strange stillness of spirit that was somehow foreign to his nature. She kissed him gently, comfortingly. Then she took his hand and led him into the living room.

"It's the staff's day off," she said. "I've made sandwiches and coffee; they're in the kitchen."

"It's all right," Jeremy said. "I'm not really hungry."

She looked up into his face. "How was it?"

"Pretty awful." There were grim lines there she had never seen before. "I never knew there could be anything like that."

She nodded. "Was there anyone else there?"

Jeremy shook his head. "I was the only one."

She was silent, watching him.

"It wouldn't have been so bad if someone else had been there. But I was the only one. And there had always been so many people—"

"No more talk about it now," she said quickly, touching her finger to his lips. "You go wash up. You'll feel better after you eat something."

Jeremy went upstairs and into the bathroom. A few minutes later he peeked into the children's rooms. The girls first Their room was the nearest.

They were fast asleep, their eyes tightly shut against the night. His golden girls. He smiled to himself. They were three and five years old and there was nothing that could wake them. Not even an earthquake.

But the boy was different. He slept lightly, and the slightest sound would waken him. Even now, as he came into the room, the boy stirred, then sat up in the bed. "Dad?" he asked in his nine-year-old voice.

"Yes, Dax."

"What kind of a plane did you come home on this time?"

"A 707," he answered, coming over to the side of the bed. He bent down and kissed the boy's forehead. "Now, go back to sleep."

"Yes, Dad," the boy said, lying down again. "Good night."

"Good night, son," Jeremy said gently, leaving the room.

She was waiting at the foot of the staircase when he came down. Silently he followed her into the breakfast nook just off the kitchen. The table was already set with sandwiches, coffee, and cake.

Unexpectedly he was hungry. He sat down and began to eat. She sat down opposite him and filled his coffee cup. He finished the sandwich and reached for his cup. "I was hungry," he said.

She smiled. He took a sip of the hot coffee. His eyes were somber again. "No one came."

"Very few do," she said, "even under the best of circumstances. Ten years is a long time to be remembering."

"I wonder if we'll ever really know the story of that last day," he mused.

"Never," she said. "Within a few months they were all dead. Except Vasquez." "Do you think he killed them?"

"Yes." Her voice was positive. "With Dax gone he knew the junta would fall apart. Who was there to be its conscience? Vasquez turned out to be no better than el Presidente."

"There is talk of revolution."

"Jeremy, I don't care." A faint edging of nerves came into her voice. "I told you, I don't care. I left it a long time ago because it was sick and all they ever thought about was death and destruction. I don't even want to hear about it any more."

"All right, all right," he said soothingly. "But I still remember sitting in the gallery at the UN when he made that last speech. The way he looked at them as he spoke. As if he was reminding the whole world of its conscience. 'Let there be no man among you to help another make war against his brother.'"

She looked at him without speaking.

Jeremy put his hand into his pocket and took out a ring. "They gave me this," he said, holding it out to her. "That is, I thought they had until I found out I was expected to buy it."

She took it from his hand and looked down at it. "I always wondered about the inscription."

"It's a class ring. He was in Jim's class at Harvard. We gave it to him when he had to leave before graduation."

She studied it.

"Upstairs, when I was in the boy's room, Beatriz, I was thinking. He's so much like his father. He should know."

"The boy knows one father. That's enough."

"He would be very proud of him."

"He's very proud of you," she replied.

"He's growing up," he persisted. "What if he should find out?"

"I'll take that chance," she insisted stubbornly.

"In fairness to his father?"

"No!" she said sharply. "His father is dead and fairness doesn't matter to him any more." Abruptly she got up and walked into the kitchen. From the table he saw her pull open the incinerator chute and drop the ring into it. He heard it tinkling on its way down.

"Why did you do that?" he asked when she came back to the table.

"Now he is gone," she said tightly, "and there is nothing left of him but a dream we all had when we were young."

Jeremy started to speak but then he saw the tears standing in her emerald eyes. Instead he too got up, taking her into his arms and holding her closely to him. He felt the trembling in her and the salt of her tears against his lips.

She was wrong. And he knew that she knew it.

There was always the boy upstairs.

THE END