The Last Place God Made

TEN

I came awake slowly, not at all certain that I was still alive and found myself in my hammock in the hangar at Landro. The kettle was boiling away on the spirit stove. Mannie was sitting beside it reading a book.

‘Is it any good?’ I asked him.

He turned, peering over the top of cheap spectacles at me, then closed the book, stood up and came forward, genuine concern in his eyes.

‘Heh, what were you trying to do? Frighten me?’

‘What happened?’

‘You went out like a light, that's what happened, just after getting out of the plane. We carted you in here and Sister Maria Teresa had a look at you.’

‘What did she have to say?’

‘Some kind of reaction to too much stress was all she could come up with. You crowded a lot of living into a small space in time today, boy.’

‘You can say that again.’

He poured whisky into a glass — good whisky. ‘Hannah?’ I said.

‘He's been in and out of here at least a dozen times. You've been lying there for nearly six hours. Oh, and Joanna, she was here too. Just left.’

I got out of the hammock and moved to the edge of the hangar and stared out into the night. It had stopped raining, but the air was fresh and cool, perfumed with flowers.

Piece by piece I put it all together again. Alberto's burning anger back there on the launch. He had even refused medical assistance from her — had preferred, he said, the comparatively clean hands of his medical orderly.

He had taken us straight back to the landing strip and had instructed Hannah to fly us back at once. And that just about filled in the blank pages although I couldn't for the life of me actually remember fainting.

‘Coffee!’ Mannie called.

I finished my whisky and took the tin mug he offered. ‘Did Hannah tell you what happened up there?’

‘As much as he could. Naturally there was little he could say about what took place at the actual confrontation.’

So I told him and when I was finished, he said, ‘A terrible experience.’

‘I'll probably dream about that walk back through the jungle for the rest of my life.’

‘And this thing that took place between Sister Maria Teresa and the Colonel. A nasty business.’

‘He had a point, though. If she'd done as she was told and stayed on board things might have gone differently.’

‘But you can't be certain of that?’

‘But she is,’ I said. ‘That's the trouble. Certain that whatever she does is because the good Lord has so ordained it. Certain that she's right in everything she does.’

He sighed. ‘I must admit that few things are worse than a truly good person convinced they have the answer for all things.’

‘A female Cromwell,’ I said.

He was genuinely puzzled. ‘I don't understand.’

‘Read some English history, then you will. I think I'll take a walk.’

He smiled slyly. ‘She will be alone, I think, except for that Huna girl she bought from Avila. The good Sister is awaiting delivery of another baby, I understand.’

‘Doesn't she ever give up? What about Hannah?’

‘He said he would be at the hotel.’

I found my flying jacket and walked across the landing strip towards Landro. When I reached the house, I actually paused, one foot on the bottom step of the veranda, but thought better of it.

The town itself was quiet. There was a little music through an open window from a radio and somewhere a dog barked a time or two, but otherwise there was just the night and the stars and the feeling of being alive here and now. Here and now in this place.

When I went up the steps to the hotel and opened the door, the bar was empty except for Hannah who sat by an open shutter, feet on the table, a bottle of whisky in front of him and a glass.

‘So the dead can walk after all,’ he said.

‘Where is everybody?’

There had been a wedding, it seemed, a civil ceremony presided over by Figueiredo as he was empowered to do in the absence of a priest. The land agent's son, which meant there was money in it. Anyone who was anyone was at the party.

I went behind the counter and got a glass, then sat down and helped myself to whisky from his bottle. ‘You satisfied now?’ he said. ‘After what you did back there? You feel like a man now?’

‘You did a good job with the launch. Thanks.’

‘No medals, kid — I've already got everything, but the Congressional. Heh, you know what the Congressional is, you Limey bastard?’

I think it was only then that I realised that he had obviously drunk a great deal. I said gravely, ‘Yes, I think so.’

And then he said a strange thing: ‘I used to know someone just like you, Mallory, back there in the old days at the Front. We were in a Pursuit Squadron together. Fresh kid from Harvard. Old man a millionaire — all the money in the world. He couldn't take it seriously. Know what I mean?’

‘I think so.’

‘Hell, is that all you can say.’ He filled his glass again. ‘Know what he used to call me? The Black Baron on account of Von Richthofen was the Red Baron.’

‘He must have thought a hell of a lot about you.’

He didn't seem to hear me. He said, ‘I used to tell him, “Watch the sun. Never cross the line alone under ten thousand feet and always turn and run for home if you see a plane on its own because you can bet your sweet life it isn't.”’

‘And he didn't listen?’

‘Went after a Rumpler one morning and didn't notice three F.W.s waiting upstairs in the sun. Never knew what hit him.’ He shook his head. ‘Silly bastard.’ He looked up at me. ‘But a good flyer and all the guts in the world, kid, just like you.’

His head sank on his hands, I got up and walked to the door. As I opened it he spoke without raising his head. ‘Show some sense, kid. She isn't for you. We're two of a kind, her and me.’

I closed the door gently and went outside.

Light streamed out through the latticed shutters as I approached the house, golden fingers filtering into the darkness. I went up the steps to the veranda and paused. It was very quiet. Rain fluttered down, pattering on the tin roof. It was strange standing there, somehow on the outside of things, waiting for a sign that would probably never come, for the world itself to turn over.

I started to move away and on the porch a match flared pulling her face out of the darkness. There was an old cane chair up there, I had forgotten about that. She lit a cigarette and flicked the match into the night.

‘Why were you going to go away?’

To find a reason or give one, was difficult, but I tried. ‘I don't think there's anything here for me, that's all.’

There was a slight creaking in the darkness as she stood up. The cigarette spun through the night in a glowing arc. I was not aware that she had moved, but suddenly she was there in front of me, the scent of her like flowers in the night. She was wearing some sort of robe or housecoat, which she pulled open to hold my hands against her naked breasts.

‘There's this,’ she said calmly. ‘Isn't that enough for you?’ It wasn't, but there was no way of explaining that, and in any event, it didn't really seem to matter. She turned, holding me by the hand and took me inside.

Naturally it was nothing like that first time, perfectly successful as a functional exercise, but no more than that. Afterwards, she was strangely discontented, which surprised me.

‘What's wrong?’ I demanded. ‘Wasn't I up to scratch?’

‘Love,’ she said bitterly. ‘Why does every damned man I meet have to breathe that word in my ear while he's doing it. Do you need an excuse, you men?’

Which was a hell of a thing to say and I had no answer. I got up and dressed. She pulled on her robe and went and stood at the window smoking another cigarette.

I said, ‘You're a big girl now. Time you learned to tell the difference.’

I moved behind her, slipping my arms about her waist and she relaxed against me. Then she sighed, ‘Too much water under the bridge. I set my sights on what I wanted a long time ago.’

‘And nothing gets in the way?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Then what are you doing here, a thousand miles from nowhere?’

She pulled away from me and turned. ‘That's different. Anna is all I've got. All that really counts.’

And she was still speaking of her in the present tense. I held her arms firmly. ‘Listen to me, Joanna, you've got to face facts.’

She pulled away from me violently. ‘Don't say it — don't ever say it. I don't want to hear.’

We stood there in the pale darkness confronting each other. Outside, someone called her name, there was a crash on the veranda as a chair went over. As I went into the living-room, the door burst open and Hannah staggered in. He was soaked to the skin and just about as drunk as a man could be and still stand up. He reeled back against the wall and started to slide. I grabbed him quickly.

He opened his eyes and grinned foolishly. ‘Well, damn me if it isn't the boy wonder. How was it, kid? Did you manage to bring her off? When they've been around as long as she has it usually takes something special.’

No rage — no anger. I stepped back leaving him propped against the wall. Joanna said, ‘Get out, Sam.’

He went down the wall in slow motion, head lolling to one side. I was aware of Christina, the Huna girl, standing in the entrance to the other bedroom wearing a silk nightdress a couple of sizes too large for her. The eyes were very round in that flat Indian face, the skin shining like copper in the lamp-light.

Joanna stirred Hannah with her toe, then folded her arms and leaned in the open doorway. ‘He's a bastard, your friend, King Size, but he knows what he's talking about. I've been a whore all my life, one way or another.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘Oh, there was Grantsville to get out of and that's the way show business is. How do you think I got where I am?’

She took the cigarette from my mouth, inhaled deeply. ‘And then,’ she said calmly, ‘I've got to admit I like it. Always have.’

Which was honest enough, God knows, but too honest for me. I said, ‘You can keep the cigarette,’ and moved out into the darkness.

I paused some little distance away and glanced back. She stood there in the doorway, silhouetted against the light, the outline of her body clear through the thin material of the housecoat. I was filled with the most damnable ache imaginable, but for what I could not be certain. Perhaps for something which had never existed in the first place?

I heard Hannah call her name faintly, she turned and closed the door. I felt a kind of release, standing there in the rain. One thing was for certain — it was the end of something.

There was news when I returned to the hangar, word over the radio that Alberto had been ordered to evacuate Santa Helena forthwith and was to pull out the following day. It touched me in no way at all, meant absolutely nothing. I ignored Mannie's troubled glances and lay in my hammock staring up at the hangar roof for the rest of the night.

I suppose it would be easy to say with hindsight that some instinct warned me that I stood on the edge of events, but certainly I was aware that something was wrong and waited, filled with a vague unease, anticipating that what was to come was not pleasant.

There was no sign of Hannah when I left at nine the following morning for Manaus on the mail run. I was tired, too tired for that game, eyes gritty from lack of sleeep and I had a hard day ahead. Not only the Manaus run, but two contract trips down-river.

Under the circumstances, I'd taken the Hayley, but the military evacuation from Santa Helena made it more than likely that Hannah would be required up there when they managed to get him out of her bed.

I made the mail drop, re-fuelled and was off again with machine parts which were needed in a hurry by one of the mining companies a hundred and fifty miles down-river and a Portuguese engineer to go with them. He wasn't at all certain about the Bristol, but I got him there in one piece and was on my way back within the hour with ore samples for the assaye officer in Manaus.

My second trip was nothing like as strenuous, a seventy-mile hop with medical supplies to a Jesuit Mission and another quick turn-about, to the great disappointment of the priest in charge, a Dutchman called Herzog who had hoped for a chess game or two and some conversation.

All in all, a rough day and it was about six o'clock in the evening when I landed again at Manaus. A couple of mechanics were waiting and I helped them get the Bristol under cover.

The de Havilland Rapide I'd noticed a day or so earlier, was parked by the end hangar again. A nice plane and as reliable as you could wish so I'd been told. The legend Johnson Air Transport was neatly stencilled under the cabin windows.

One of the mechanics ran me into town in the old Crossley tender again. I dozed off in the cab and had to be awakened when we reached the Palace. Hardly surprising, when you consider that I hadn't slept at all the previous night.

I wanted a drink badly. I also needed about twelve hours in bed. I hesitated by the reception desk, considering the matter. The need for a very large brandy won hands down and I went into the bar. If I hadn't, things might have turned out very differently, but then, most of life, or what it becomes, depends upon such turns.

A small, wiry man in flying boots and leather jacket sat on the end stool constructing a tower of toothpicks on the base of an upturned glass. There was no barman as usual. I dropped my grip on the floor, went behind the counter and found a bottle of Courvoisier.

His left eye was fixed for all time, a reasonable facsimile of the real thing in glass. The face was expressionless, a wax-like film of scar tissues, and when he spoke the mouth didn't seem to move at all.

‘Jack Johnson,’ he said in a hard Australian twang. ‘Not that I'm any bloody punch-up artist like the black fella.’

I held up the brandy bottle, he nodded and I reached for another glass. ‘That your Rapide up on the field?’

‘That's it, sport, Johnson Air Transport. Sound pretty good, eh?’

‘Sounds bloody marvellous,’ I said and stuck out my hand. ‘Neil Mallory.’

‘Well, I'll come clean. That Rapide is Johnson Air Transport.’ He frowned suddenly. ‘Mallory? Say, are you the bloke who's been flying that old Bristol for the Baron?’

‘The Baron?’ I said.

‘Sam Hannah, the Black Baron. That's what we used to call him at the Front during the war. I was out there with the R.F.C.’

‘You knew him well?’

‘Hell, everybody knew the Black Baron. He was hot stuff. One of the best there was.’

So it was all true, every damned word and I had been convinced he had told me some private fantasy of long ago, a tissue of half-truths and exaggerations.

‘But that was in another country, as they say,’ Johnson went on. ‘Poor old Sam's been on the long slide to nowhere ever since. By God, his luck certainly turned when you came along. You saved his bacon and no mistake. I hope he's paying you right?’

‘The boot was on the other foot,’ I said. ‘If he hadn't taken me on when he did, I'd have ended up on the labour gang. He already had another pilot lined when I arrived.’

It was difficult to come to terms with that face of his. There was no way of knowing what was going on behind the mask. There was just that hard Australian voice. In other words, he gave nothing away and to this day I am still not certain whether what happened was by accident or design.

He said, ‘What other pilot? What are you talking about?’

‘Portuguese, I think. I don't know his name. I believe he'd been flying for a mining company in Venezuela which went bust.’

‘First I've heard of it and pilots are like gold on the Amazon these days, what with the Spanish war and all this trouble coming up in Europe. You must have seemed like manna from heaven to poor old Sam dropping in like that after all those bad breaks he had. But he sure ran it close. A week left to get a second plane airborne and Charlie Wilson waiting to fly up from Belem and take over his government contract.’

‘Charlie Wilson?’ I said.

‘Haven't you met Charlie?’ He helped himself to another brandy. ‘Nice bloke — Canadian — works the lower end of the river out of Belem with three Rapides. Sell his sister if he had to. Mind you I always thought Sam would come up with something. Nobody in his right mind is going to let twenty thousand dollars slip through his fingers that easily.’

It was all turning over inside me now, currents pulling every which-way, explanations for some irrational things which had never made any sense rising to the surface.

‘Twenty thousand dollars?’ I said carefully.

‘Sure, his bonus.’

‘I hadn't realised it was as much as that.’

‘I should know. I bid for the contract myself originally then my partner went West in our other plane so that was that. I've been free-lancing since then in the middle section of the river operating from Colona about four hundred miles from here. I don't get into Manaus often.’

He went on talking, but I didn't hear for I had other things on my mind. I went round the counter, picked up my canvas grip and moved to the door.

‘See you around, sport,’ Johnson called.

I suppose I made some sort of answer, but I can't be certain for I was too busy reliving that first night in minutest detail. My meeting with Hannah, events at The Little Boat, Maria of the Angels and what had happened later.

For the first time, or at least for the first time consciously, it occurred to me that, to use one of Hannah's favourite phrases, I had been taken.

Strange how the body reacts according to circumstances. Sleep was the least of my requirements now. What I needed were answers and it seemed a reasonable assumption that I might get them at the place where it had all started.

I had a cold bath, mainly to sharpen myself up for it had occurred to me that I might well need my wits about me before the night was over. Then I dressed in my linen suit, creased as it was from packing, slipped the .45 automatic in one pocket, a handful of cartridges in the other and left.

It was eight o'clock when I reached The Little Boat, early by their standards and there wasn't much happening. I wanted one person, Hannah's old girl-friend, Lola of the red satin dress, and she was not there. Would not be in until nine-thirty at the earliest according to the barman.

I steeled myself to wait as patiently as possible. I'd had no more than a sandwich all day so I went out on the private deck and ordered dinner and a bottle of Pouilly on Hannah's account which gave me a perverse pleasure.

Lola arrived rather earlier than expected. I was at the coffee stage of things when the sliding door opened then closed again behind me, fingers gently ruffled my hair and she moved round to the other side of the table.

She looked surprisingly respectable for once in a well-fitting black skirt and a white cotton blouse which buttoned down the front.

‘Tomas says you were asking for me.’ She pushed a glass towards me. ‘Any special reason?’

I filled her glass. ‘I was looking for a little fun, that's all. I'm in for the night.’

‘And Sam?’

‘What about Sam?’

‘He is with this — this woman who was here the other night? The American?’

‘Oh, she seems to have become something of a permanent fixture up at Landro,’ I said.

The stem of the wineglass snapped in her hand. ‘God damn him to hell,’ she said bitterly.

‘I know how you feel,’ I said. ‘I love him too.’

She frowned instantly. ‘What do you mean?’

I stamped on the floor for the waiter. ‘Oh, come on now,’ I said. ‘Maria of the Angels, you remember her? The one who was so good at dropping out of sight? Mean to say you and Hannah had never clapped eyes on her before?’

The waiter appeared with another bottle. She said carefully, ‘And even if this were so, why should I tell you?’

‘To get your own back on him. Much simpler from your point of view than sticking a knife in his back. Now that can be messy. That would get you at least ten years.’

She laughed out loud, spilling her wine on the table. ‘You know, I like you, Englishman. I like you a lot.’

She leaned across the table, her mouth opening as she kissed me, tongue probing. After a reasonably lengthy interval, she eased away. Her smile had faded slightly and there was a look of surprise on her face. She seemed to come to some decision and patted my cheek.

‘I'll make a bargain with you. You give me what I want and I'll tell you what you want. A deal?’

‘All right,’ I said automatically.

‘Good. My place is just along the waterfront from here.’ She walked out and I followed, wondering what in the hell I'd let myself in for now.

The room was surprisingly clean with a balcony overlooking the river, the image of the Virgin and Child on the wall above a flickering candle. Lola herself was a surprise to say the least. She left me on the balcony with a drink and disappeared for a good fifteen minutes. When she returned, she was wearing a housecoat in plain blue silk. Every trace of make-up had been scrubbed from her face and she had tied back her hair.

I got up and put down my glass. She stood looking at me for a while then took off the housecoat and threw it on the bed. Few women are seen at their best in the nude. She had a body to thank God for.

She stood there, hands on hips, and said calmly, ‘I am beautiful, Senhor Mallory?’

‘Few men would dispute that.’

‘But I am a whore,’ she said flatly. ‘Beautiful perhaps, but still a whore. Available to any man who can raise the price.’

I thought of Joanna Martin who had never actually taken cash on the barrel which was the only difference between them.

‘And I am tired of it all,’ she said. ‘Just for once I would like a man who can be honest with me as I am honest with him. Who will not simply use me. You understand?’

‘I think so,’ I said.

She blew out the light.

It was late when I awakened. Just after two a.m. according to the luminous dial of my watch. I was alone in the bed, but when I turned my head I saw the glow of her cigarette out there on the terrace.

I started to get dressed. She called softly, ‘You are leaving?’

‘I'll have to,’ I said. ‘I've things to do or had you forgotten?’

There was silence for a while and then, as I pulled on my boots, she said, ‘There is a street opposite the last pier at the other end of the waterfront from here. The house on the corner has a lion carved over the door. You want the apartment at the top of the second flight of stairs.’

I pulled on my jacket. ‘And what will I find there?’

‘I wouldn't dream of spoiling the surprise.’

I moved to the door, uncertain of what to say. She said, ‘Will you be back?’

‘I don't think it very likely.’

‘Honest to the last,’ she said rather bitterly, then laughed, sounding for the first time since we had left The Little Boat like the old Lola. ‘And in the end, Senhor Mallory, I'm not at all certain that was what I really wanted. Don't you find that rather amusing?’

Which I didn't and did what I suspected was the best thing in the circumstances and got out of there fast.

I found the house with the lion above the door easily enough. It was one of those baroque monstrosities left over from the last century, probably built for some wealthy merchant and now in a state of what one might delicately term multiple occupation. The front door opened at once giving access to a large gloomy hall illuminated by a single oil lamp. There was a party going on in one of the downstairs back rooms, I heard a burst of noise and music as someone opened and closed a door.

I started up the stairs in the silence which followed. The first landing was illuminated like the hall below by a single oil lamp, but the next flight of stairs disappeared into darkness.

I went up cautiously, feeling my way along the wall, aware of the patter of tiny feet as the rats and lizards scattered out of the way. When I reached the landing, I struck a match and held it above my head. There was no name on the door opposite and the lamp on the wall was cold.

The match started to burn my fingers so I dropped it and tried the door handle with infinite caution. It was locked so I did the obvious thing and knocked gently.

After a while, a lamp was turned up, light seeping under the door, there was movement, a man's voice and then a woman. Someone shuffled towards the door, I knocked again.

‘Who is it?’ the woman demanded.

‘Lola sent me,’ I answered in Portuguese.

The door started to open, I moved back into the shadows. She said, ‘Look, I've got someone with me at the moment. Can't you come back a little later?’

I didn't reply. The door opened even wider and Maria of the Angels peered out. ‘Heh, where are you man?’

I took her by the throat, stifling all sound, and ran her back into the room, shutting the door quietly behind. The man in the bed, who cried out in alarm, was a mountain of flesh if ever I've seen one. A great quivering jelly more likely to die of fright than anything else.

I produced the .45 and waved it at him. ‘Keep your mouth shut and you won't get hurt.’

Then I turned to Maria. ‘I'd have thought you could have done better than that.’

She was calmer now, a trifle arrogant even. She pulled the old wrapper she was wearing closer around her and folded her arms. ‘What do you want?’

‘Answers, that's all. Tell me what I want to know and I won't bring the police into this.’

‘The police?’ She laughed at that one. Then shrugged. ‘All right, Senhor Mallory, ask away.’

‘It was a set-up our meeting that night, arranged by Hannah — am I right?’

‘I'd just come up-river,’ she said. ‘I was new in town. Nobody knew me except Lola. We're second cousins.’

‘What did he pay you?’

‘He told me to take whatever money was in your wallet and get rid of anything else.’

The instant she said it, I knew that she had not done as she was told. She wasn't the sort. I said, ‘You've still got them, haven't you? My wallet and the passport.’

She sighed in a kind of impatience, turned to a sideboard, opened the drawer and took out my wallet. The passport was inside together with a few other bits and pieces and a photo of my mother and father. I was caught by that for a moment then stowed it away and put the wallet in my breast pocket.

‘Your parents, senhor?’ I nodded. ‘They look nice people. You will not go to the police?’

I shook my head and put the .45 back in my pocket. ‘That's one hell of a knee you have there.’

‘It's a hard world, senhor.’

‘You can say that again.’

I let myself out and went down the stairs. It was very quiet on the waterfront and I walked along the pier and sat on a rail at the end smoking a cigarette, feeling absurdly calm in the circumstances.

It was as if I had always known and had not wanted to face it and perhaps that was so. But now it was out in the open. Now came the reckoning.

I got up and walked back along the pier, footsteps booming hollowly on the wooden flooring, echoing into the night.