Holden smiled a tired smile. “Come in and see me as soon as you get back.”
The drive under close palms, on the coral road to the valley sheltering the Wheeling house, look less than ten minutes. I hurried through the drowsy atmosphere, spun into the arch of the Wheeling driveway, stopped behind the sedan parked there with the driver nowhere in evidence, and climbed out. It was the Wheeling private car, pulled up primly before the two-story white frame house built in a style favored by homesick colonists of an earlier era.
Standing there in the sun, sorting out what I might say, I heard raging sounds rip the hot, still air from a side of the house giving off on a terrace garden. I walked quickly in that direction and stopped near the open French doors. I stood there, hidden behind a bush bearing a richly-scented, velvety purple bloom.
Fury roughened Catherine Wheeling’s voice almost beyond recognition.
“— can’t even talk straight, you swollen clown! Look at me! What am I doing in a hole like this with a fool like you? Love you? That’s fine — oh, that’s good. Even my flesh is sick when you paw at me, you — you—”
Wheeling’s muzzy baritone sounded vaguely. Then Catherine shrieked.
“Yes! Yes, I went with him! And he’s more of a man than you ever were, you four-bit flop! You or your all-seeing, all-knowing, all-wise Robert Holden! Even if he is a native servant, he’s more of a man than the two of you together! He doesn’t drink himself stupid and he doesn’t play with a woman, just to laugh and walk off—”
Again Wheeling rumbled. And Catherine drowned him out.
“Who are you to talk to me about pride? Who are you? What have you ever done for me? Yes! — he put his arm around me and even if he is a native, he didn’t reek of whiskey or laugh when I kissed him! And he gave me these — you see them? Can you see them? Spurs! Silver spurs! And you know what I’m going to do, Jimmy? I’m going to keep them! But first I’m going to make you believe me. With them. I should’ve done — this — a long time ago—”
Wheeling’s tortured bellow smothered the last of Catherine’s tirade. Simultaneously with that came the bright are of something soaring from the open doors and through the air, chunking onto the thick grass of the terrace garden. The silver spurs, linked together.
His right hand pressed to his check and blood oozing through the fingers from the wound in his flesh, Jim Wheeling staggered into the sunlight. He bent down and snatched up the spurs, staring at them. Then he turned slowly, stuffing them into the pocket of his crumpled white suit coat. Catherine Wheeling moved to the doors behind him.
Her features were soapy-white under the tan. Her hands hung in fists at her thighs. They faced each other in silence and I thought of the way banderilleros watch the bull to measure the effect of darts placed in his hide. But they respect the bull. They respect him or perhaps die. There was no respect in Catherine Wheeling’s hard green eyes.
“I’m getting away from you,” she said. Her voice was flat now, and very quiet. “Clever of you, Jimmy. Knocking his little gift out of my hand. Perhaps I should’ve used them on your neck, not your face. But I’m leaving you, Jimmy, while I still have something to give. While I can still dance to a good orchestra and a man doesn’t look through me when I walk past his table — while most of them still want to touch me. Until I get out of here, Jimmy, I’ll beat the hotel — but I don’t want to see you. Understand? I don’t want you near me!”
She whirled and disappeared. Wheeling stood on the sun-drenched grass, his black hair tumbled, his eyes leveled at the spot where his wife had been standing. He didn’t move, didn’t seem to be breathing.
I got away from there and back in the car, and down the half-moon of the driveway as quietly as I could. I pressed the gas pedal to the floor and concentrated on driving, gripping the wheel and sweating.
I headed toward the beach. If I’d thought of it, I might have prayed that no native cart would creak out into the road ahead of me.
Holden looked up when I threw open the door of his office. He lifted his colorless brows at my expression and turned his wrist over to check his watch.
“That was quick,” he said. “Didn’t you find him?”
“I found him — and Catherine,” I said. “Holden, it’s a good thing I’ve a strong stomach. This — this is the—”
I stopped and sat down quickly. Holden folded his arms on the edge of his desk and looked at me with calm gray eyes.
“Tell me what happened.”
I went over it, missing nothing. Holden listened, turning in his fingers a native knife he uses as a letter opener, pressing the needle-like point against his thumb. When I finished, he dropped the knife and sighed.
He rested his head against his hand in a manner which made a visor of his fingers, hiding his eyes. With his free hand, he stroked the clean-looking length of the native knife. “Merrill, I’ve come to know you pretty well. I’d like to think that we’re friends?”
I said, “Of course.”
“All right. We can’t, at this time, risk having one of our men — however much of a broken stick he may have become — get in over his head through difficulties which he may not fully deserve.”
I remained silent.
“I must say — it’s obvious to you, of course — that I know Catherine. Pretty well. It’s not being a laundered little gentleman to say so, Merrill, but she isn’t worth it. Depending on what kind of man you are, you may or may not see that in time with someone like her. She married Wheeling only because of some exaggerated idea of the glories and prestige attaching to the service. It’s been my privilege to sit by and watch him falling apart under the humiliation of his wife’s behavior.”
Holden straightened up and aimed his gray stare at me.
“I know what you’re thinking, Merrill. You’re wondering how I can talk in this fashion about someone you suspect me of having loved. Some day I may tell you whether or not your suspicions are justified. In the meantime, it’s none of your affair — if only to spare you further confusion. I’ll tell you this: I’m sorry I ever so much as had a drink with that woman.
“I hope, my friend, that she really has gone to the hotel. While you were in the valley, I put through a cable recommending administrative recall for Wheeling. That sends him back with a clean nose. Once that couple gets home, whatever happens can be more easily dealt with or hushed up — and that’s what counts. That’s all that counts.”
I stood up and shook my trousers down over the damp skin of my legs. My breath came freely again. I met his gaze.
He smiled at me and patted his palms soundlessly against the top of his desk. He said, “Thanks, Merrill.”
I moved to the door and paused to look back. Holden had stopped smiling and it was as if he had never smiled.
“See you in the bar at 7,” he said.
Tension nagged me through the rest of the day, but in fresh clothing after a long shower and with my highball before me in the hotel bar I felt slightly more relaxed. I checked my face in the aged mirror behind the bar and the face hadn’t really changed any more than the mirror itself. I drained my glass, ordered another, and looked up to see Holden’s trim outline in the reflection.