Джон Макдональд: Murder Run-Around

As he had expected, it was no trick to buy a gun in Mexico City. The plane from San Antonio had towered high over the flat dryness until at last the Sierra Madre, jutting steeply up from tropical slopes, reached toward the belly of the plane and the motors droned a new song.

He had been by the window, and, except for the upholstery, except for his quiet business suit instead of battle dress, it was like that dawn four years before when, at the jump master’s signal, he had snapped onto the static line, tested, moved toward the door, hand on the shoulder of the man in front of him, fear tight in his throat. Then the whip of the slip stream, the jar of the harness, the pendulum swing down through three hundred feet of tracer fire...

This was very different, and yet somehow the same.

When he shut his eyes he could see the outline of a gun that would fit his hand, a grip that would jar solidly back against the heel of his hand with each shot, sending the faint impact through wrist and elbow to shoulder.

And he could see three faces. The wide florid face of August Brikel, with salesman’s smile and eyes like flecks of polished flint. The bird-face of Gowan Teed, with flat hard forehead, sharply pointed nose, greenish eyes constantly in motion. And of course, Laena Severence. Hair the precise shade of ancient and invaluable ivory — a rich gold-white — contrasting with the dark brows. Flare of nostrils, sway of cheekbones, lips of subtle savagery.

He wondered how it would feel to kill a woman. Would you feel forever soiled? Impact of slug on dancer’s body.

After he checked in at a small hotel near Alameda Park, he used the daylight hours to find the gun. He avoided the shops of Juarez and Madera, took a taxi down to the Plaza de la Merced. There he found what he wanted. It was a .38 Special with the barrel sawed short, and the front sight removed. He tucked it inside the waistband of his trousers and went back to the hotel. It was not a gun for long-range work, but it satisfied Brendon Harris. He wanted to be close. Very close.

He sat on the bed with the gun beside him. He looked at his turista card. “Motivo del viaje” — purpose of the trip. “Recreo” — Recreation. The smile strained his lips. Maybe it was recreation. Maybe it would be the most delightful recreation he had ever enjoyed. Tomorrow he would look for them. And tomorrow he would find them.

Dusk had turned to night. He opened the shutters and looked down on the noisy brawling traffic. The lights of the Del Prado shone on the other side of the park. He decided that on this first night here he would go out alone...

At eleven o’clock he walked slowly down a block of luxury. The Reforma on the corner, Nick’s bar close by, a plush nitery on the other side, a swank restaurant beyond that. He was a big man with square hands and coarse brown hair that wouldn’t respond to brush or comb. There was, about him, a look of controlled force, of energy held in check, a hint of ruthlessness.

During the evening he had drunk in many places, but sparingly and cautiously. In one little bar there had been a man at a piano, a girl sitting alone on a stool at the bar. For a moment he had wanted a girl beside him during this evening. But when he looked at her carefully, he saw the puffiness around her eyes, the liquorglaze, the hand uncertain with the match, and he turned away.

In the restaurant he sat at the counter, ate ham and eggs and drank two tarros of the strong black draught beer. He left the place, yawning, half-willing to go back to the hotel. He walked away from Reforma, turned a corner to the left, and stopped as though he had run into an invisible wall.

The place was called El Torero, A small blue neon sign spelled out:

“Con Laena Severence.”

He remembered another club in another city in another country. Her name had been in lights there, too.

As he stood there two girls in short dresses, arm in arm, giggled as they brushed by him, turned to look at him and giggle again, calling out something in Spanish which he could not understand.

He took a breath so deep that it made his lungs ache. He walked to the doorway of El Torero, pushed by the deep red curtain that hung just inside the door. The bar was at the left, the tables directly ahead, with dance floor and tiny orchestra playing Cuban music beyond the tables. As the waiter stepped up to him, Harris motioned toward the bar. He went to the end of the bar nearest the dance floor, where he saw an empty stool.

The bartender spoke English. Harris ordered a scotch and water and asked when Laena Severence would dance again. In fifteen minutes.

He sat with his back to the bar and sipped his drink as he looked around the small club. It was nearly full. There was a sprinkling of turistas, but most of the clientele was Mexican. Against the far wall, two over-dressed American women in their late forties were using shrill schoolgirl Spanish on the two sleek young men accompanying them. On the floor, a vastly drunken Britisher was attempting to dance with a slim Mexican girl. The hot fierce rhythm of the music was as stirring as a scream in the night.

When he was on his second drink, his lips faintly numbed, his reflexes a shade slow, a man in a white mess jacket pulled a mike out in front of the band and a chord of music cleared the floor. The sidelights dimmed and a blood-red spot shone on the M.C.

The Spanish was like the sputter of firecrackers. The crowd laughed. Then Harris caught the name of Laena Severence. The crowd applauded. The man dragged the mike to one side and the spotlight moved to pick her up as she came through a side door, onto the floor.

Brendon Harris felt the old and familiar tightness in his throat. Her hair was longer. She wore a tight silver bandeau and a shimmering silver skirt that almost touched the floor. It was V cut in front like a harem-dancer’s skirt. The drum alone picked up the rhythm and, as always, she danced without the faintest shade of expression on her face, contorting her body into postures of angular gracelessness that were somehow more enticing than any amount of grace would have been. Her magic stilled the last whisper in the room.

As the drum beat quickened, as the dance grew more abandoned, the thin clear clarinet picked up an oriental counterpoint, a wail that had in it all of the sorrow and poignancy of the East. At the.climax of the dance she spun like a silver top. Then, on the last, almost physical blow of the music, with a stamp of her bare feet, she stopped, head thrown back, feet spread, clenched fists raised. The roar of applause was like the crash of a storm wave.

Her next number was pure Spanish, the costume, the castinets as crisp as the stamp of her metal-shod heels against the floor. In this number she was grace itself, holding the gun-fire of castinets over her head as she leaned back, spinning slowly, with a ballet dancer’s sureness.

The following dance was the one she had created, had done with so much success in the other club. The M.C. announced it and Harris knew that he was explaining to the crowd that Miss Severence was going to do her imitation of a very proper young girl from the country who goes to the city to become a great actress and is talked into trying to do a hula — to the great loss of her dignity.

Harris leaned against the bar and half shut his eyes. He could almost imagine that this was taking place back in the Corner Club. He watched her through the mists of memory. The dance was the same, with a howl of laughter greeting its finale.