House of the Rising Sun: A Novel (31 page)

A
RNOLD BECKMAN’S OFFICE
building and the apartment he kept in it were not far away, on a green plain north of the city, in sight of both the San Antonio River and the ruins of the Spanish mission. The building was white stucco, with blue trim and a gray slate roof and balconies from which orange trumpet vine hung in thick clusters. But there was something wrong with its architectural design and ambiance. The colors were too bright, the windows too small, the flower beds unplanted and humped with manure that hadn’t been worked into the soil. A solitary live oak hung with Spanish moss stood in front, half of the branches withered by lightning or blight. The adjacent lot was stacked with construction debris powdering in the wind. When Ishmael approached the building with Maggie Bassett, its symmetry made him think of a man about to sneeze.

Beckman’s office had the same sense of ambiguity. It was filled with potted plants that had wilted, the drain dishes curlicued with grit. Most of the furniture was made of antlers and curved and debarked and shellacked wood that resembled bones, with rawhide and animal pelts stretched across it. High on the wall, behind the massive desk, was an oil painting of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at an encampment, the men staring in opposite directions, the brushwork flawed in a way that made both appear cross-eyed.

“Drink?” Beckman said.

“No, sir. Thank you,” Ishmael said.

“Have a seat.”

“You’ll have to excuse me. If I sit down, I have trouble getting up.”

“You’re a polite young man, Mr. Holland. I could use a few more like you.”

Beckman’s chair was pushed back from his desk. He wore an open shirt and a silk bandana tied around his neck; his legs were extended in front of him, crossed at the ankles. His face seemed possessed by levels of energy that his skin could hardly constrain. His movements were not movements but jerks, muscular spasms, twitches; his hands kept opening and closing. His eyes were a brilliant blue, constantly roving over Ishmael’s person. He squeezed his scrotum. “You were at the Battle of the Marne?”

“Yes, sir, one of the battles, the last one.”

“What did you think of the French machine gun, the Chauchat? What do they call it? The ‘sho-sho’?”

“My men thought it was junk.”

“What about the Lewis?”

“There’s none better.”

“Why not the Maxim or the Vickers?”

“They’re too heavy and take too many men to operate. The Lewis is light. One man can run thousands of rounds through it without a misfire.”

“I have a firing range in back. I’d like for you to demonstrate a few weapons for me.”

“Why do you need me to demonstrate them?”

“I don’t. I need to see how you’ll demonstrate them to our clients.”

“Who are your clients?”

“Let’s go outside. I’ll explain a few things to you. Maggie, will you fix me a vodka and orange juice with a couple of cherries and a sprig of mint?”

She looked at Beckman blankly. He had not asked her to sit down; he had hardly acknowledged her presence. “Sorry, I was daydreaming. What did you want?” she said.

He repeated his request and said, “Have you ever seen a more beautiful woman? Look at her. Ageless, not a wrinkle in her skin. Tell us how you do it, Maggie.”

She went to the foyer and called to the maid and told her to fix Beckman’s drink and bring it out to the gun range.

“See that?” Beckman said. “She stays young by not letting men boss her around.”

“Refer to me again as though I’m a ventriloquist’s dummy, and you’ll wish you hadn’t,” she said.

Beckman smiled with his eyes and led the way to the range, the dimple in his chin glistening with aftershave lotion. The targets were all the same: the black silhouette of a man printed on paper that was mounted on a board forty yards out. The shooting tables and canvas chairs were arranged uniformly under a striped awning. In the distance, to the left of the range, Ishmael could see the bell towers of the mission. A cloud moved across the sun, dropping the countryside into shadow, lowering the temperature precipitously. He thought he saw men, maybe stonemasons, working on the mission. On the shooting tables were rifles and pistols and field boxes of ammunition.

Beckman gestured at the closest table. “Recognize these?”

“The Lee-Enfield, the ’03 Springfield, the Mauser, the Mannlicher-Carcano, the .30-40 Krag.”

“Let’s see what you can do with them.”

“I don’t fire at that kind of target anymore.”

The maid brought Beckman his drink. He drank from it. His lips looked cold and red and glossy, as though they had been freshly lipsticked. “You don’t shoot at a target that resembles a man?”

“That’s correct.”

“Inside you asked me whom I sell to. I could tell you the world. But that’s not accurate. I sell weapons to collectors, and I sell them to people who need them to defend themselves. I also supply them to motion picture companies.”

“But your big purchasers are nations?”

“Not any nation. The ones in danger. Do you know who those happen to be?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“As soon as the Bolsheviks get things tamped down in Moscow, they’ll be after East Europe. The Japanese want China’s resources. They also want Southeast Asia. North Africa is up for grabs. The Arabs thought they were going to win their independence from the Ottoman Empire. Instead, they got royally screwed. You look uncomfortable.”

“I need to sit down.”

“Are you in pain?”

“It passes,” Ishmael said, easing himself into a chair.

“You don’t look well, Mr. Holland. Let me get you a drink.”

Ishmael shook his head. The countryside was going out of focus, the birds from the bell towers freckling the sky. “I apologize. My knees get weak if I stand too long.”

“That’s understandable. I took one through the kneecap at Gallipoli. A Turk got me from one mile out. I had to hand it to the nasty bugger. It was a magnificent shot.”

“I remember hearing of an arms dealer in Mexico. I never saw him, but I was told he was German or Austrian,” Ishmael said.

“There were many. I was one of them.”

“This one was in business with General Lupa. The Wolf.”

“Lupa’s nickname was a compliment. He was a swine.”

“He lynched four of my men at a bordello. He lured others into a trap.”

Beckman raised his eyebrows as though being forced to speak on an unpleasant subject. “Lupa was a bastard. I heard he was killed, maybe by his own men. I didn’t do business with him, so I’m not well informed as to his fate.”

“Did you know Huerta or Villa?”

“No, I supplied Emiliano Zapata, a true man of the people. He was pure of heart and wanted nothing for himself. He’ll probably be assassinated. No Mexican story has a happy ending.”

“I thought that was the Irish.”

“They both get a regular fucking. It’s the nature of the beast. Why grieve on it?”

“What kind of salary goes with the job, Mr. Beckman?” Ishmael said.

“Eight thousand dollars a year. To start. At some point, your commissions will be greater than your salary, and eight thousand dollars will seem a pauper’s salary. Which of these rifles do you favor?”

“The .30-40 Krag. For its smooth action and the way you can keep loading while you’re firing and never be empty.”

“Shoot it for me.”

“The angle of your range isn’t good. I think there’re some trucks down by that old mission. I don’t want to use your targets, either, sir.”

“That mission has been deserted for years,” Beckman said.

“They’re restoring it, Arnold,” Maggie said.

“It’s Sunday. Why would anyone be working on it today? I’m a bit tired of that bunch, anyway. They used the power of the church to challenge the title to my land. I had to cede them fifty acres along the riverside to keep what was already mine. Tell me the clerics don’t know how to make the eagle scream.”

“Ishmael doesn’t want to shoot. Leave him alone.”

“You don’t want to shoot?” Beckman said.

“Another time.”

“That’s the way it was in the trenches?” Beckman said. “Let’s take a bloody vote on it? Wait until the weather is nicer? Fritz might be sleeping in?”

“Not quite,” Ishmael said.

“I’ll be fucked if I see trucks or workmen there. What is it, four hundred yards? You think this .45 automatic will travel that far?”

“Arnold, behave,” Maggie said.

“I’m sure Mr. Holland has an opinion. Do you have an opinion, Mr. Holland?”

“Don’t wave that around,” she said.

“This is perhaps Mr. Browning’s best creation. Think it might reach the mission, wake up a few Irish immigrants who are probably drunk or dozing on the job?”

“Arnold, I mean it. Stop the histrionics before you hurt someone,” Maggie said, pushing Beckman’s wrist down.

“I’d like to try the Krag, Mr. Beckman,” Ishmael said, picking up the rifle, working the leather sling around his left forearm.

“You worry over nothing. Watch,” Beckman said. He pointed the .45 in the direction of the mission and pulled the trigger seven times, his wrist bucking, the ejected shells bouncing on the table. “See? No one even noticed. People are being killed all over the world at this very moment. It isn’t being written about or filmed, so it doesn’t exist. The British sent hundreds of thousands into Maxim guns. I saw their bodies stacked like frozen cordwood. The incompetent bastards who sent them to their death wouldn’t take time to piss in their mouths. But they’re treated as fucking national heroes.”

“I think we’d better be going,” Ishmael said.

“Don’t be a prima donna, Mr. Holland. I know you’re a brave man. We’ll take a drive and check out the cabbage eaters you’re worried about. Darling Maggie will come with us, won’t you, you lovely mog?”

“Of course,” she said.

“What did you call her?” Ishmael asked.

“A mog. That’s British slang for a cat. Look at her, sleek and lovely and about to spring. She’ll ruin other women for you. After Maggie, they’ll all seem homely as a mud fence.”

“Thank you, Arnold,” Maggie said. “But please shut up. I’ve never known anyone who can absolutely pump it to death.”

“She’s the only one I let talk to me like that,” Beckman said. “Venus Rising in Texas, right out of the Gulf of Mexico, the sun bursting from her hair. The egalitarian queen and cowboy’s delight.”

“I’m warning you, Arnold,” she said.

His face split into a smile; he clapped his hands like a magician making all bothersome complexities disappear. “Let’s go see if we put any holes in the mission’s walls. I don’t want to bring the papists down on my head again.”

T
HE AIR WAS
cold, the sunlight harsh, as they drove in Beckman’s open-top car to the Spanish ruins. Beckman was riding hatless in front, his hair blowing. “Told you,” he said. “Half of them look like boiled red potatoes. I’ve yet to know a Paddy that wasn’t a nigger turned inside out.”

Maggie leaned forward and pushed him in the shoulder. “Will you stop that?”

“Admit it, you love it,” he replied.

“I commanded colored troops,” Ishmael said.

“I’m aware you did. So don’t be so bloody serious. We can’t seem to have any fun these days. Everyone has his own smug cause.”

The driver parked in front of the mission. Ishmael and Maggie stepped down, but Beckman remained in the seat. He lit a cheroot and dropped the match on the ground, tilting his head back as he blew a stream of smoke into the wind. Ishmael waited for him.

“Go ahead,” Beckman said. “I’ll be along.”

Ishmael talked with a foreman about the reconstruction, then finally said what was on his mind. “We were shooting down below. A round didn’t stray this far, did it?”

“Not that we noticed,” the foreman said.

“I’m glad. I apologize for disturbing your work. How old is this place?”

The foreman had a build like a beer barrel about to burst, the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up on his thick forearms, his face wind burned. “Two centuries, I suspect. Want to walk around inside?”

The wooden roof had collapsed long ago, and the rock walls had been blackened by fire, the apse piled with debris. Ash from a trash fire in back floated like hundreds of moths out of the sunlight into the nave.

“It’s cold in here,” Maggie said. Her hands were stuffed in a fur muff.

“You didn’t ‘love’ what Beckman said, did you?” Ishmael asked.

“What was that?”

“He said you loved his racist sense of humor.”

“I’m used to it.”

“Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“That you didn’t like that comment about Irishmen and Negroes.”

“No, I didn’t like it. I’ve heard worse. Who cares? Why is it so cold in here?”

“Early winter, maybe.”

“I don’t like the cold,” she said. “It’s like being alone. I could never live in the North. I never liked winter or gloomy places. Why did you want to come in here?”

“It makes me think of all the people who stacked the stones in the walls or prayed in here or died here. I think they’re still around, just like at the Alamo.”

“You’re talking about ghosts?”

“Sometimes I believe that all time happens at once. Maybe the dead are still living out their lives right next to us.”

She removed one hand from the fur muff and slipped her arm inside his. “You’re a strange boy.”

“I like the way you stood up to Beckman. I just wish you didn’t push him the way you did. Like you were having fun with him.”

“Fun? There is no such thing as fun with Arnold. Don’t ever underestimate him. He’s lighthearted until he decides to become serious. Then he’s dangerous. I’ll put it another way: He’s a short man no one thinks of as short.”

“Maybe we should stay away from him.”

“Arnold is the twentieth century. Be glad I found you, Ishmael, even if I have my warts.”

“I’ve yet to see them.”

She started to smile, then her gaze broke. “We should go now. Why talk about things no one can understand? One day we’ll all be dead and none of this will matter.”

“That’s a grim way to think,” he said.

“We have now. We have each other. You like me, don’t you?”

“Sure. Who wouldn’t?”

“Then let’s talk about now and not these other things. I don’t like to be cold. I don’t like to be alone.”