“Who hit me?” asked Richard Gordon.
“I hit you,” said the wide young man. “That fellow’s a regular customer here. You want to take it easy. You don’t want to go to fight in here.”
Standing unsteadily Richard Gordon saw Professor MacWalsey coming toward him away from the crowd at the bar. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want anybody to slug you. I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do.”
“Goddamn you,” said Richard Gordon, and started toward him. It was the last thing he remembered doing for the wide young man set himself, dropped his shoulders slightly, and clipped him again, and he went down, this time, on the cement floor on his face. The wide young man turned to Professor MacWalsey. “That’s all right, Doc,” he said, hospitably. “He won’t annoy you now. What’s the matter with him anyway?”
“I’ve got to take him home,” said Professor MacWalsey. “Will he be all right?”
“Sure.”
“Help me to get him in a taxi,” said Professor MacWalsey. They carried Richard Gordon out between them and with the driver helping, put him in the old model T taxi.
“You’re sure he’ll be all right?” asked Professor MacWalsey.
“Just pull on his ears good when you want to bring him to. Put some water on him. Look out he don’t want to fight when he comes to. Don’t let him grab you, Doc.”
“No,” said Professor MacWalsey.
Richard Gordon’s head lay back at an odd angle in the back of the taxi and he made a heavy, rasping noise when he breathed. Professor MacWalsey put his arm under his head and held it so it did not bump against the seat.
“Where are we going?” asked the taxi driver. “Out on the other end of town,” said Professor MacWalsey. “Past the Park. Down the street from the place where they sell mullets.”
“That’s the Rocky Road,” the driver said.
“Yes,” said Professor MacWalsey.
As they passed the first coffee shop up the street, Professor MacWalsey told the driver to stop. He wanted to go in and get some cigarettes. He laid Richard Gordon’s head down carefully on the seat and went into the coffee shop. When he came out to get back into the taxi, Richard Gordon was gone.
“Where did he go?” he asked the driver.
“That’s him up the street,” the driver said.
“Catch up with him.”
As the taxi pulled up even with him, Professor MacWalsey got out and went up to Richard Gordon who was lurching along the sidewalk.
“Come on, Gordon,” he said. “We’re going home.” Richard Gordon looked at him.
“We?” he said, swaying.
“I want you to go home in this taxi.”
“You go to hell.”
“I wish you’d come,” Professor MacWalsey said. “I want you to get home safely.”
“Where’s your gang?” said Richard Gordon.
“What gang?”
“Your gang that beat me up.”
“That was the bouncer. I didn’t know he was going to hit you.”
“You lie,” said Richard Gordon. He swung at the red-faced man in front of him and missed him. He slipped forward onto his knees and got up slowly. His knees were scraped raw from the sidewalk, but he did not know it.
“Come on and fight,” he said brokenly.
“I don’t fight,” said Professor MacWalsey. “If you’ll get into the taxi I’ll leave you.”
“Go to hell,” said Richard Gordon and started down the street.
“Leave him go,” said the taxi driver. “He’s all right now.”
“Do you think he’ll be all right?”
“Hell,” the taxi driver said. “He’s perfect.”
“I’m worried about’ him,” Professor MacWalsey said.
“You can’t get him in without fighting him,” the taxi driver said. “Let him go. He’s fine. Is he your brother?”
“In a way,” said Professor MacWalsey.
He watched Richard Gordon lurching down the street until he was out of sight in the shadow from the big trees whose branches dipped down to grow into the ground like roots. What he was thinking as he watched him, was not pleasant. It is a mortal sin, he thought, a grave and deadly sin and a great cruelty, and while technically one’s religion may permit the ultimate result, I cannot pardon myself. On the other hand, a surgeon cannot desist while operating for fear of hurting the patient. But why must all the operations in life be performed without an anesthetic? If I had been a better man I would have let him beat me up. It would have been better for him. The poor stupid man. The poor homeless man. I ought to stay with him, but I know that is too much for him to bear. I am ashamed and disgusted with myself and I hate what I have done. It all may turn out badly too. But I must not think about that. I will now return to the anesthetic I have used for seventeen years and will not need much longer. Although it is probably a vice now for which I only invent excuses. Though at least it is a vice for which I am suited. But I wish I could help that poor man whom I am wronging.
“Drive me back to Freddy’s,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Coast Guard cutter towing the Queen Conch was coming down the hawk channel between the reef and the Keys. The cutter rolled in the cross chop the light north wind raised against the flood tide but the white boat was towing easily and well.
“She’ll be all right if it doesn’t breeze,” the coast guard captain said. “She tows pretty, too. That Robby built nice boats. Could you make out any of the guff he was talking?”
“He didn’t make any sense,” the mate said. “He’s way out of his head.”
“I guess he’ll die all right,” the captain said. “Shot in the belly that way. Do you suppose he killed those four Cubans?”
“You can’t tell. I asked him but he didn’t know what I was saying.”
“Should we go talk to him again?”
“Let’s have a look at him,” the captain said.
Leaving the quartermaster at the wheel, running the beacons down the channel, they went behind the wheel house into the captain’s cabin. Harry Morgan lay there on the iron pipe bunk. His eyes were closed but he opened them when the captain touched his wide shoulder.
“How you feeling, Harry?” the captain asked him. Harry looked at him and did not speak.
“Can we get you anything, boy?” the captain asked him.
Harry Morgan looked at him.
“He don’t hear you,” said the mate.
“Harry,” said the captain, “do you want anything, boy?”
He wet a towel in the water bottle on a gimbal by the bunk and moistened Harry Morgan’s deeply cracked lips. They were dry and black looking. Looking at him, Harry Morgan started speaking. “A man,” he said.
“Sure,” said the captain. “Go on.”
“A man,” said Harry Morgan, very slowly. “Ain’t got no hasn’t got any can’t really isn’t any way out.” He stopped. There had been no expression on his face at all when he spoke.
“Go on, Harry,” said the captain. “Tell us who did it. How did it happen, boy?”
“A man,” said Harry, looking at him now with his narrow eyes on the wide, high-cheek-boned face, trying now to tell him.
“Four men,” said the captain helpfully. He moistened the lips again, squeezing the towel so a few drops went between them.
“A man,” corrected Harry; then stopped.
“All right. A man,” the captain said.
“A man,” Harry said again very flatly, very slowly, talking with his dry mouth. “Now the way things are the way they go no matter what no.”