Дэшил Хэммет - The Hunter and Other Stories

“ Mais oui .”

She peered into his face with eyes that were very large and dark and on a level with his — she was a tall woman — but in his pale eyes there was no hint of the mockery that had tinged his voice.

Michael, standing aside to let them enter the elevator, said, “Julie was afraid you were sore — not answering my letter — but I told her you had too much sense for that.”

The woman squeezed Felix’s arm again and smiled at him.

He asked, “What letter?”

“The letter I gave Tomas for you.” When the smaller man said nothing, Michael asked, “You got it, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“By God!” The big man frowned, said slowly, “I don’t understand what—” He broke off, opened his eyes wide. His eyes were a deeper blue than Felix’s. “Then you must think—” He broke off again. “This is our floor.”

They got out of the elevator.

The big man touched Felix’s shoulder lightly, said, “Then I reckon we’ve got a lot of talking to do,” and led the way to a white door at the end of the corridor. He walked lightly for his weight and his stride was a young man’s, though his thick brown hair and carefully trimmed mustache were sprinkled with gray and he must have been within a few years of fifty. He opened the white door, reached inside to turn on lights, and held the door open. “Didn’t you see Tomas at all?”

“No,” Felix replied. “He’d left Concepcion — some kind of Milicia Republicana trouble.” He dropped his hat on a seat in the vestibule. “But you got my letter.”

The big man opened his eyes wide again. “No. What letter? Not a word from you since that night at— Julie, Felix says he sent us a letter.” He shut the corridor door.

The woman was switching on lights in a gray and green sitting-room. She stared at the big man, said slowly, “That is most peculiar,” and continued to stare at him.

Felix went up close to the big man and said, “I don’t believe either of you. You got my letter. You didn’t send me one.”

The woman laughed.

Michael’s cheeks flushed, but his voice was unruffled. “It’s no use talking like that. We—”

Felix’s right hand moved and a clasp-knife snapped open in it. He put the tip of its four-inch blade against Michael’s smooth white shirt-bosom and said, “I don’t want any more of you. Give me that letter.”

“For Christ’s sake, Felix!” The flush had gone out of Michael’s cheeks, most of the color had gone out of his face, but his face — except for the eyes strained downward to watch the shiny threatening knife — was still firm-featured and handsome.

Felix’s body hid the knife from the woman. She put her wrap — olive green velvet and dark fur — on a chair and chid them impartially: “Why must men quarrel always? Can’t you wait at least until we have talked awhile and I have gone off to my bed? It is so long since we three have been together.”

“Cornejo’s letter,” Felix said to the big man. The point of his knife, moving an inch or two, left behind it a deep scratch in the starched linen.

Michael winced, but did not step back from the knife. He moistened his lips with his tongue. “Put that thing away. That temper of yours. Give me a chance to talk.”

“I don’t want talk,” Felix said. “I want Cornejo’s letter.”

“But listen to me a minute.” The big man forced his eyes to look up from the knife-blade to Felix’s hard thin face. “I’m not trying to—”

“Shut up.” Felix held out his left hand. “Cornejo’s letter.”

The woman, staring perplexedly at Michael, had come far enough toward them by this time to see the knife. The perplexity went out of her eyes. She said amicably, “You are being most foolish, Felix. There is no letter.”

Felix said, “No?” and the point of his knife opened a three-inch slit in Michael’s shirt-bosom.

“Don’t!” the big man cried hoarsely, and flattened himself back against the wall, away from the knife. “I got it, Felix.”

Felix dropped the open knife, handle down, into his jacket pocket and slapped Michael’s face.

Michael sobbed, “Don’t, don’t,” but did not raise his hands to protect his face.

The woman said, “ Virgen santísima ,” very softly. She was leaning forward a little, full red lips parted, looking at Michael as if she had never seen him before.

Felix turned his back on Michael. “Do you know where he keeps the letter?” he asked the woman.

She shook her head and said slowly, “I do not think he has it — now.”

Michael said hastily, “If you’ll only listen to me a minute, Felix. If you’ll only let me talk.”

Felix turned around. “Sure, I’ll let you talk.”

“And you won’t fly off the handle till I’ve—”

“You’ll have to take your chances on that. I don’t like you. I never liked you.” He slapped Michael’s face again.

The big man hung his head and mumbled, “I know.”

The woman laughed. “ C’est incroyable ,” she told Felix, “but in his pocket he has a pistol.”

The big man, blushing, said, “Well I can’t shoot my own brother.”

My brother Felix came over from the mainland in Rev Youngling’s boat early in the morning. I didn’t know him at first. I hadn’t seen him for five years and he was smaller and darker than I remembered. But when, as I came out on the pier, he turned from paying Rev and grinned up at me with his lips flattening against his teeth I knew him.

“How are you, Morgan?” he said, watching me come down to the float. He grinned again. “A horse. Papa ought to be satisfied.”

Rev pushed his boat away, said, “His ears are too long, ha, ha, ha,” waved his arm and headed back for the mainland.

I told Felix I was all right and was glad to see him and we shook with all four hands. He had got two scars on his face, thin straight lines — white against his sunburn — running from his left ear to the bridge of his nose and there were other scars like them on the backs of his hands.

“How is Papa?” he asked.

“All right.” I picked up two of his bags, he took the other one and his newspapers. “Everybody’s all right except Inés and she’s a lot better now.”

“Was she really very sick?”

“I guess she was, but she’s better now. Did you know they got married?”

He said a little carefully as we climbed up to the pier, “I knew they were thinking about it.”

“Are you going to stay a while this time?”

“I don’t know. It depends on—” The dogs — we had two brown poodles then — crashed through the bushes and came racing out on the pier to meet us. “They’re beauts.” He put his bag down to play with them. “Where’s old Cap?”

“Dead. So we got these.”

Papa came through the bushes behind the dogs. When he saw Felix he took his pipe out of his mouth and said, “That’s odd. I dreamed about you last night.”

Felix stepped over the dogs to go to Papa, who bent down a little to let Felix kiss him on the cheek. I thought as I had thought before how funny it was that of all Papa’s children only Felix didn’t look anything like him. I suppose Felix took after his mother. I never saw her. My mother was Papa’s second wife.

Papa spoke to me over Felix’s head. “Take his things up to the house, son. He’ll want to look around a little before breakfast.” He led Felix off toward the orchard.

I tucked the newspapers and the third bag under my arm and went up to the house with the dogs romping ahead of me. Viv was on the porch steps eating grapes. Cocoa stood up on her hind legs and was given a grape. Jummie tried to stand up on his hind legs, fell over on his side, and was given a grape. Then Viv saw the bags, pointed the grapes at them, and asked, “Who’s come?”