Five-Star Fugitive

Chapter Three A Daughter of Many Kings

He awoke at dawn as Felicia came in with the stranger, whose size shrunk the shack. He could not stand erect in it. He was wary. Lane found he was much stronger as he sat up.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The man sat on his heels and offered a cigarette. Lane took two and handed one to Felicia. The stranger lit all three gravely. “You,” he said, “were the little man in the middle.”

“If this busted head was supposed to be for you, where were you?”

“I wasn’t in a cantina swilling up the local poison, that’s for sure. You got a smart little girl here, friend.”

“How long do we keep on fencing?”

“I had a little trouble yesterday. It cramps my style, Lane. That your last name?”

“First name.”

“Okay, play cute. It’s contagious. Yesterday they towed your car into the courtyard of the police station. Somebody did a good job of going through it. What they left, the kids stole. But I think it still runs.”

“That’s nice.”

“They’re about to report you missing. They got the name by a cross check on the motor vehicle entry permission. I think they’ll probably wait until noon.”

“You get around, don’t you?”

“Friends keep me informed, Lane. I’ve got some instructions for you. Go and get your car this morning. Get it out of that courtyard. Are your papers in order?”

“They are, but if you think I’m going to—”

“Please shut up, Lane. Get your car and drive it to a little garage at the end of Cinco de Mayo. There’s a big red-and-yellow sign in front which says, „Mechanico“. Tell them you want it checked over. Leave it there while you have lunch. Then get it and drive it across into Baker, Texas. Put it in the parking lot behind the Sage House. Register in the Sage House. Is that clear?”

“Damn you, I have no intention of—”

“You run off at the mouth, Lane. You ought to take lessons from this little girl you got. She’s got a head on her. She could tell you what will happen if you don’t play.”

Lane looked quickly at Felicia.

“Don’t bother,” the stranger said. “We’ve been talking too fast for her to catch on. I’ll give it to you straight. If you don’t play ball, some friends of mine are going to give the most careful description of you to the police you ever heard. And they’re going to tell just how you shived that citizen yesterday. You won’t get any help from the American Consul on a deal like that. You’ll rot in the prison in Monterrey for twenty years. Beans and tortillas, friend.”

The big man smiled broadly. He was close to forty. He had a big long face, small colorless eyes and hulking shoulders. He was well dressed.

“That’s a bluff,” Lane Sanson said loudly.

“Ssssh!” Felicia said.

“Try me,” the big man said. His tone removed the last suspicion Lane had.

“Why are you picking on me?”

“Laddy, you’re still the man in the middle. Park your car behind the Sage House and leave it there. Take a look at it the following morning. That’ll be tomorrow morning. If everything has gone well, laddy, there’ll be a little present for you behind the sun visor on the driver’s side. Then you’re your own man. But if there’s no present there, you’ll go and see a girl named Diana Saybree — at least she’ll be registered that way in the Sage House. Now memorize what you’re going to say to her.”

“Look, I—”

“Friend, you’re in. If you don’t play on the other side of the river, there’re friends over there too. This is what you say to Diana: ‘Charlie says you might like to buy my car. He recommends it. You can send him a payment through the other channel. No payment, no more favors’.”

He repeated it until Lane was able to say it tonelessly after him.

The big man took a fifty-dollar bill, folded it lengthwise and laid it on the floor beside Lane’s hand. “That’ll cover expenses. Now go over to the police barracks as soon as they open. It’s nearly six. You’ve got three hours.”

As the stranger ducked for the low doorway, he said, “Just follow orders and chances are, by tomorrow afternoon, you can be on your way wherever you’re going with a little dough to boot.”

He was gone. Sanson’s head was aching again. He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “He is not a nice man, no?” Felicia said.

“He is not a nice man, yes,” answered Lane, “It is a bad thing that you should bring him here.”

“That shows what you know.” Her eyes flashed. “It was all planned by them for you to be taken by the police for the murder yesterday. Children saw you sleeping here yesterday. In the market a thing is soon known all over town. But for me you would be in prison for murder.”

“I am truly sorry, chica.”

Her anger left and her smile was warm. “It is nothing.”

He pushed the bill toward her. “Here. This is yours.”

“No, it is much. It is more than four hundred pesos. You see, I know the value of dollars. What could I do with it? If I try to change it, the police will have me. Better you should give me some of your pesos if you wish to make a gift to me.”

He handed her his pesos. She took them without looking up into his face. She seemed suddenly shy.

“Muchas gracias, Felicia.”

“It is nothing, señor.”

He touched her cheek, slipped his hand under her chin and lifted her face until he could look into the deep wild gleam of the black eyes.

“Truly a daughter of many great kings,” he whispered.

She took his hand and kissed it. “Go with the Lord, Señor Lane.”

After lunch he walked back to the garage where he had left the car. The small man with large pimples charged him ten pesos for the work on the car.

To get to the bridge he had to circle the zocolo with its bandstand in the center, with the paths and rows of iron benches. Curio shops, churches and public buildings faced the square. As he turned the corner to head along the fourth and last side, he saw two uniformed policemen armed with rifles standing on the walk. A crowd had gathered but they stayed well back from the policemen, staring avidly at the crumpled form on the walk. Others came running up to join the crowd.

As Sanson drove slowly by, he saw the body of the stranger who had come to Felicia’s shack. His cheek rested in a spreading pool of blood. Blue flies buzzed in a cloud around his face. The skull was subtly distorted by the impact of slugs against the brain tissue. Sanson set his jaw, clamped his hands on the wheel and resisted the impulse to tramp hard on the gas.

At the Mexican end of the bridge he surrendered the tourist card, which he had renewed three times during the two years in Mexico. He signed it in the presence of the guard and was waved on. In the middle of the bridge he paid the fifty centavo toll.

At the American end, a brisk man in kahki stepped forward and said, “American citizen? Where are you coming from? Please bring your luggage inside for customs inspection.”

Lane made himself grin. “I wish I could. I did too much celebrating the other night. Somebody broke into my car and took everything. The only thing they left was the car itself.”

The man stared at him. “Have an accident?”

“Fell and hit my head.”

“Have you got proof of citizenship?”

Lane dug out his birth certificate. “This do?”

“Fine. Now open up the trunk, please.” The man shone a flashlight around inside the trunk, then climbed into the car and looked down into the well, where the top folded.

He turned around. “I have the idea I ought to know that name. Lane Sanson.”

“There was a book, six years ago. Battalion Front.”

The customs man grinned. “Hell, yes! I read that thing five times. I was a dough, an old infantry paddlefoot, so it meant something to me.” He backed out of the car. “You haven’t written something since that I missed, have you?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, that’s all the red tape, Mr. Sanson. Good luck to you.”

“Thanks.”

He drove down into the main street of Baker. Directly ahead, on the right, he saw the Sage House, a three-story frame building painted a blinding white. The entrance was dark green. He parked in front and went in. People stared at him. He was conscious of his heavy beard, the badly rumpled suit.

“I’d like a room, please,” he said.

The clerk looked at him with obvious distaste. “I’ll have to see if there are any vacancies.”

Sanson slipped the traveler checks out of the inside pocket of his wallet. “While you’re looking, tell your cashier I want some of these cashed. If you have a room, I want a barber sent up in thirty minutes. And I’ll want a portable typewriter, and my car put in your parking lot in the rear. I have no baggage. It was stolen over in Piedras Chicas. So, I’ll pay you in advance.”

Under the impact of the flow of imperious demands, the clerk’s dubious look faded away. “As a matter of fact, I notice that we do have a quite pleasant room on the second-floor front. It’ll come to...”

“I’ll take it. Send the boy up to open it up and wait for me while I cash my traveler checks.”

“Number 202, Mr. — ah — Sanson,” the clerk said, reading his signature as he wrote it. “If you’ll leave your keys here—”

“They’re in the car.”

“I’ll have a typewriter sent up, sir.”

“With a twenty-weight bond, black record carbon and glazed second sheets.”

“Yes, sir,” the clerk said, thoroughly quelled.

Once in the room. Lane threw his jacket on the bed. He stripped off his trousers and emptied the pockets onto the bureau top. He said to the boy, “Go over to the desk and write this down.” The bellhop shrugged and sat down. “Waist 32, inseam 33. That’s for the slacks. Now for the shirts. 16 collar, 34 sleeve. Go buy me two pair of slacks, gabardine if you can get them. Pale gray or natural. And two sport shirts, plain white, short sleeves.

“Take my suit along and leave it to be cleaned. Fastest possible service. I want a doctor as soon as he can get up here and, exactly one hour from now, a good barber to give me a shave and haircut. Oh, yes. Get some underwear shorts and some dark socks, plain colors, three pair, blue or green, size twelve. This ought to cover it.”

The bellhop scribbled some more. “Three pair shorts?”

“That’ll do it. Any questions?”

“You give me a fifty. How high you want to go on the pants and shirts?”

“Fifteen for the slacks, three and a half for the shirts. With what you have left over, get some fair rye. Bring up ice and soda.”

“This town is dry, sir.”

“It doesn’t have to be the best rye.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

The doctor arrived when the bathtub was almost ready. He inspected the cut, sighed, rebandaged it. “If you’d called me when it happened I could have put clamps in it and it wouldn’t have left much of a scar. Five dollars please.”

When he finished washing, the barber had spread newspapers and put a straight chair near the windows. Just as he finished, the bellhop arrived, laden with packages. Lane checked the purchases and tipped the boy. Ten minutes later, as he was dressing, the typewriter arrived, ice and soda following soon afterward. Lane sent the boy back for cigarettes.

When the door was shut and he was alone, Lane Sanson unwrapped the paper, rolled a sheet into the machine. He made a drink and set it near him. He lit a cigarette.

Across the top of the first sheet he typed:

He sat for a long time, sipping the drink. When the glass was empty, he began to work. The words came, and they were the right words. After six years — the right words. He forgot time and place and fear.