The last shell felt funny and light, and when he opened it he found inside a little slip of paper printed in red ink. GET GOING, it said.
He jumped up and ran, heart in mouth, and clattered down the stairway to the beach. Near the bottom of the Ocean View Avenue ramp he had to slow down, hobbling along clutching at his side, but he was too scared to stop.
All the way down the beach he watched the place with the silver trees, and he couldn’t see the old man’s white robes anywhere. The same little kids were still playing on the sand, though, and when he put down his head and plodded across the soft sand the same silence fell over everything; so he was not really much surprised, coming to the foot of the first dune, to lift his head and see the old man leaning against one of the dead trees.
“All right, boy, tell me what his answer was,” said the old man without preamble.
Markie gulped for air and nodded. “He says-your servant should be failed because of his father, and the rule about the two and three generations. And he’s committed adultery about the flesh, and his son died, and that’s why.” Markie sank down on the sand, stretching out his tired legs. The old man put his head on one side and stared fixedly into space for a moment.
“Hmm,” he said. “Point taken. Very well. Go back and find Smith. Tell him he may therefore afflict my servant with wasting disease, and set scandal to defile his good name. Further, that he may confound his judgment among the nations. Go, boy, and tell him that.”
Markie didn’t want to go anywhere, and he was just tired enough to open his mouth in protest. Before he could make a sound he felt the soft sand begin to run and sink under him, and in terror he scrambled away on all fours. It didn’t seem wise not to keep going once he’d started, so once he reached the hard sand he got to his feet and limped away down the beach, muttering to himself.
He left the beach and had started up the ramp at Ocean View before he remembered that the Andersons’ dog was loose. Turning, he picked his way along the top of the seawall, balancing precariously and stepping around the loose bricks. Jumping from the end, he wandered through the courtyard of another small motel, pausing to duck into its row of phone booths and carefully checking to see if any change had been left in the Coin Return compartment. If none had, sometimes a punch at the Coin Return lever sent a couple of nickels cascading down; this was another good way to get money. The third booth rewarded his efforts mightily. Not only did he coax a nickel out of the phone, somebody had dropped a dime and it had fallen and stuck between the booth’s ventilation slits near the floor. Markie’s fingers were little enough to prize it out. He pocketed his small fortune and strolled on along the seafront, feeling pleased with himself.
At the snackbar at the foot of the pier he paused and bought a bottle of Seven-Up. The laconic counterman took off the bottlecap for him and thrust a straw down the neck. Markie carried the bottle carefully to the railings above the sand and sat with his legs dangling through the rails, sipping and not thinking. When the bottle was empty he held it up to his eye like a telescope and surveyed the world, emerald green, full of uncertain shapes. The view absorbed him for a while. He was pulled back to earth by the sound of shouting. One of the shouting voices belonged to Ronnie. Markie scrambled back from the railings and turned around quickly.
Ronnie and another man were over in the parking lot, standing one on either side of a big red and white convertible, yelling across it at one another.
“You were drunk!” the other man was telling Ronnie.
“Fuck you!” Ronnie told the man. “I haven’t had a drink in two years. Fuck you!”
“Oh, that’s some great way to talk when you want your job back,” the man laughed harshly, pulling open the car door and getting inside. “It sure is. So you haven’t had a drink in two years? So what exactly was that you puked up all over Unit Three, you goddam bum?” He slammed the door and started up his car.
“Come on, man!” Ronnie caught hold of the car door. “You can’t do this. I’ve got an old lady and a kid, for Christ’s sake!” But the man was backing up his car, shaking his head, and as he drove away uptown Ronnie ran after him, yelling pleas and threats.
Markie slunk into the arcade, and for a moment the din was almost welcome. At least nobody was fighting in there. He squared his shoulders and marched down the ramp, down into the room where there was no day or night.
Smith was waiting for him, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His cigarette was canted up under his nose at a jaunty angle.
“You deliver my answer?” he inquired. Markie nodded. Smith leaned back and exhaled slowly, two long jets of smoke issuing from his nose. He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them his attention was riveted on Markie, suddenly interested. “Hey. What’s your name, kid?”
“Markie Souza.”
“Souza, huh?” Smith narrowed his eyes and pulled at his beard. “So you’re a Portugee, huh? Boy, your people have been cheated by some experts. You know it was the Portuguese who discovered the New World really? And a lot of other places, too. They never get credit for it, though. The Spanish and the Italians grabbed all the glory for themselves. Your people used to have a big empire, kid, did you know that? And it was all stolen from them. Mostly by the English, but the Spanish had a hand in that too. Next time you see some Mexican kid, you ought to bounce a rock off his head. You aren’t all Portuguese, though, are you, with that skin?” Smith leaned forward again, studying Markie. “What are you? What’s your mother, kid?”
“She’s Irish,” Markie told him.
“Well, Irish!” Smith grinned hugely. His teeth were yellow and long. “Talk about a people with good reasons to hate! Kid, I could sit here for three days and three nights telling you about the injustices done to the Irish. You got some scores to settle, kid, you can’t grow up fast enough. Any time you want to know about Irish history, you just come down here and ask me.”
“Okay,” said Markie faintly. The smoke was making him sick. “But the man said to tell you some other stuff.”
“What’d he say?”
“That you can do bad things to his servant. Waste and disease, and, uh, scandal. And something about confining his judgment of nations.”
“All right,” Smith nodded. “All right, that’s fair. Will do.” He made a circle out of his thumb and index finger and held it up in an affirmative gesture. “But… ask him if he doesn’t think we ought to up the ante a little. So what if I punish one sinner with good intentions? He’s the leader of a whole people, right? Aren’t all his people jumping on his little bandwagon with their Camelot bullshit? How seriously do they believe in what they’re saying? Shouldn’t they be tested too?”
Markie didn’t know what to say, so he nodded in agreement. Smith stuck his cigarette back between his teeth and laced his gnarled fingers together, popping the knuckles.
“O-kay! We got a whole nation suddenly figuring out that racial injustice is bad, and poverty is bad, and reaching for the stars is good, right? Except they damn well knew that already, they just didn’t bother to do anything about it until a pretty boy in the White House announced that righting all wrongs is going to be the latest thing. Fashion, that’s the only reason they care now. So what’ll they do if this servant of his is taken out of the picture? My bet is, they won’t have the guts to hang on to those high ideals without a figurehead. What’s he want to bet? You go ask him, kid. Does he want to test these people?”
Markie nodded and ran. It was a lot to remember and the words kept turning in his head. He emerged into the brilliant sunlight and stood, dazzled, until he realized that he was still clutching the empty Seven-Up bottle. With a purposeful trot he started up Pomeroy Avenue. The phone booth behind the Peppermint Twist lounge yielded a Nesbitts bottle, and there were two Coca-Cola bottles in the high grass next to the Chinese restaurant, and three pennies lying on the sidewalk in plain view right in front of the Wigwam Motor Inn. He was panting with triumph as he marched into Hatta’s, and the cool green linoleum felt good under his bare feet. He lined the bottles up on the counter. Mary Beth looked up from her magazine. She was reading Hit Parade now.