California Gold (80 page)

Side by side in boiling dust, the cars rattled and screamed toward the point where the road shrank to a single-lane bottleneck. Fairbanks swung over and rammed.

Mack hadn’t expected that so late in the race. He’d unclenched his jaws. The impact jammed his teeth together on his tongue and blood spurted. But he held the wheel as if he were fused to it. There were carriages parked on the roadside beyond the bridge, spectators waving the racers on. Fat black clouds plumed behind the steamer and it coughed and bucked and Mack pulled slightly ahead.

The bottleneck rushed at them. Fairbanks sideswiped him again, and Mack’s right-hand mirror snapped off while the front fender bent farther down and the edge sliced a thin shaving of rubber from the tire.

Fairbanks hit the Ghost a third time. Spectators jumped up and shouted, seeing the unsportsmanlike maneuver. Blood ran down Mack’s chin and splashed his duster. The autos hurtled side by side toward the bottleneck and the bridge. Mack pressed his bloody lips together, put his head down, and steered arrow-straight. He could feel the White inches away, with the road narrowing thirty yards ahead.

Then twenty yards.

Ten—

Mack refused to give way, and finally Fairbanks’s nerve broke. Mack heard a raging oath, howling tires. The White veered off.

Mack shot onto the bridge just as the bent fender carved through the tire and burst it. The Ghost banged into the stone rail on the right side. Mack fought to control the wheel as the twisted right fender raked the mortared stones, spewing up sparks and smoke. The spectators began to yell fearfully and jump from their vehicles.

The Silver Ghost roared off the bridge, hell to steer because of the burst tire. Mack flung a look over his shoulder and saw the White miss the bridge and shoot on, its front end lifting, sail over the narrow lagoon, and crash bonnet first in reeds on the other side.

Ducks fled with terrified honks as the steamer’s rear wheels sank in shallow water scummed with green algae. The car bubbled and hissed, steam billowing out in enormous clouds. Fairbanks climbed groggily into the water, massaging his neck, then splashing to the reeds and ripping off his goggles.

Mack throttled down. Even so, the Ghost remained hard to drive. The wooden wheel rim was cracking and splintering.

He passed the applauding spectators and crept up the curving drive at two miles an hour, the Ghost straining and chugging on the grade. She almost didn’t make it to the driveway in front of the hotel but Mack pleaded and coaxed, and she rolled to a stop at the extreme end of the veranda. There she seemed to sigh and settle on creaking springs.

Beneath her, like the flow from a fatal wound, hot oil spread on the sparkling driveway of crushed stone and oystershell.

Mack limped back down the drive to the bridge. Dust dyed his hair a curious tawny color, the blood on his duster and gauntlets already brown. He licked at his crusted mouth and wondered how Fairbanks felt, giving way at the last second.

Because he was on foot, he reached the bridge only moments before the Cadillac, the Luverne, and the gleaming yellow Buffalo drove into the bottleneck on the other side. Carla ordered her chauffeur to stop and park. She jumped out and splashed across the shallow lagoon, while, on the near bank, Fairbanks walked up and down with small agitated steps. An obese gentleman from a Packard landau pumped Mack’s hand and congratulated him, and Mack’s ghastly bloody face cracked in a poor imitation of a smile. Carla flung off her veil, her cap, her gauntlets, dropping them all in the green water. Fairbanks stepped down to examine the White, now settled hub-deep.

Carla reached him. “Darling, darling—are you all right?” Mack stood by the bridge rail where the Ghost had left a long scar, then sat down gratefully, exhausted. As usual, Carla wore a great number of rings—sapphires, emeralds, a huge oval-cut diamond—and Mack stared dully at the flash and dazzle as she caressed Fairbanks’s face and shoulder. “Are you hurt, sweet?”

“I don’t think so,” Fairbanks answered. “The auto’s a total loss.”

“Don’t worry, don’t concern yourself, sweetheart.” She kissed his dirty face. “I can buy you a new one. I can buy you ten new ones. It’s the least I can do for my husband.”

She knew Mack was resting on the bridge within earshot.

Fairbanks put his arm around her. They stood in the green water, smiling at him. Mack remembered how he’d felt in the room with Coglan, years ago, punched nearly senseless. He felt that way again. Fairbanks had won his victory before the race started.

“Congratulations, Chance,” Fairbanks called.

“And to you and Carla. I didn’t know you were married. When was the happy event?”

She smiled defiantly, letting her husband answer. “Two weeks ago. In Los Angeles. Very private.”

“Yes. Well. Quite a surprise. All the best to you both.”

With a weary, strangely queasy feeling, Mack walked back up the road past the silent spectators.

E
XHAUSTION AND A DEEP
unhappiness continued to grip Mack in the hours just after the race. He sent Yosh back to the City with the Rolls-Royce, saying he wanted a day or two by himself. He had no idea of where he was going, but he promised to telephone Alex Muller next day. Driving the Cadillac, he found a small, quiet country inn as dusk was coming down.

On Monday, from the Monterey central telephone office, he placed a call to Sacramento Street. There was some kind of trouble on the line; the operator couldn’t get the call through. After the third attempt, he gave up. No real harm done; his various enterprises would survive for a bit without him.

On Tuesday he drove to Carmel. Nellie served him lunch of fish chowder and beer. It was a dark day, and she’d lit kerosene lamps inside the snug redwood cottage. She had neither electricity nor a telephone.

The solitude didn’t seem to sit well on her. Her outdoor color had faded; she was pale as a piece of china. Strain marked her eyes with charcoal smudges. She was humorless, ate almost nothing, smoked one Turkish cigarette after another.

He said he’d changed his thinking about Hetch Hetchy. Said he’d written Muir. He expected an enthusiastic response, questions. She said, “That’s good” in a distracted way. That was all.

In silence they cleared the table, and then she put on a sweater and led him over a winding path to the white dunes. The fog hid all but fifty yards of gray-green sea. Huge pieces of driftwood lay about in tortured shapes. One reminded Mack of a hunchback kneeling to pray.

They walked in the cold murk, careful not to touch. Sandpipers fled from them. A man with a fan beard, dim as a ghost, hailed Nellie from a quarter-mile away. He was hurrying off the beach with his easel and paint box. Nellie returned his wave listlessly.

He told her about the race, and some of the events that led up to it. The news of the wedding surprised her. “Did you see any more of them?”

“No, they checked out right away. It was so damn strange, Nellie—once the race was over, I found I didn’t care about it anymore. There wasn’t any satisfaction in beating him. We were acting just the way Johnson said—like a couple of eight-year-olds in a schoolyard.”

Head down, hands in the pocket of her skirt, she said, “Sometimes grown men play those games all their lives. They call it business, politics, sports. You can feel good that you’re outgrowing it.”

The surf rolled foamy white and glassy green from the enveloping fogbank, and a ship’s horn uttered its lonely plea far to the west. Mack’s white hair blew in the dank wind. He wanted to hold and comfort her.

“Time to talk about you,” he said. “You don’t look well.”

“Oh—physically I’m all right. It’s the depression. The fog lifts, but the feeling doesn’t. I’ve never been so low. Not in my whole life.”

“Are you writing?”

“No, I don’t even pick up the pen. I kept hitting my head against Frank’s book until I couldn’t stand it. So I quit. Now I read, I’m a beachcomber—I failed, Mack. I just failed.”

“It’s allowed, you know.”

A wry smile came and went in a moment. “Do I hear
the
great J. M. Chance admitting human beings can be less than perfect?”

He laughed. “You can’t get my goat with that. You want to discuss failure? I’ll tell you about failure.”

He told her about Jim.

At the end he said, “Johnson’s right about that too.”

It seemed to draw her out of herself. They sat on a driftwood log, staring into the mist. Sandpipers kept marching through the shallows in quick-step.

The wind blew her hair and she brushed at flying strands. “You’re amazingly frank about yourself.”

“I told you, a lot of things came clear at the hotel. But what good is that? I don’t know what to do.”

“Why, H.B. had one of the answers. Forget business for a while. Concentrate on Jim. Give him more of yourself. No matter how awkward it seems at first, or how difficult…” She watched the fog. “You don’t want to make the same mistake you made with Mr. Fairbanks’s new wife.”

“Now listen. About Carla. When we were married, I tried—”

At that point he cut it off. It was bluster, an automatic defense. He no longer believed it; why should others? “No, you’re right,” he said finally. “I neglected her. She drew away, so I neglected her more. The pattern’s repeating with Jim. I began to recognize that yesterday, dimly. You’ve seen it clearly, I guess. You’re a smart woman.”

“Oh, yes. Expert with everyone’s problems but my own.” She scooped up sand and flung it angrily.

Then she rose and wandered down to the water with a hopelessness that alarmed him, and he hurried after her. He touched her shoulders and turned her. The wind blew her hair forward on either side of her face, teasing his skin like unseen hands.

“I hate to see you feeling so bad.”

“I hate it too. Where’s all that California hope? God, I need a little.” She averted her face, eyes shut, crying now.

Mack embraced her, felt her shuddering against his wrinkled motoring coat. She crept her arms around him and clung to his back.

They held each other a while. Then she pulled her head back to gaze up at him. Her mouth was pale as ivory. He kissed her and tasted salty tears.

Her hair blew against his closed eyes, and he put his mouth to her ear. “Nobody else keeps me straight like you. I wander off the path and you kick me back. Stay with me. I love you—”

She kissed him with enormous ardor, twisting her head back and forth, finding his tongue. He rubbed his palms up and down the back of her sweater and felt her legs brace against his. He kissed her throat.

“Let’s go back,” he said.

“No. I can’t.” Her voice strengthened. “Not when I’m in this state. I’ve got to straighten myself out. Then—we’ll see.”

“Damn it, Nellie, I want you so damn bad—”

She pushed against his chest—not hard, but firmly. “Your son needs you. If you’re serious about him, now’s the time to show it.”

“I can’t get back to San Francisco tonight.”

“Start now, you’ll be there in the morning.”

“Let me stay.”

“God, I’m tempted. But—no.”

He kissed her ear, her eyelids. “You want what I want. I know it.”

“Please, Mack. Go on. You don’t know how weak I am. If you stay the night, I’ll beg you to stay a week. A year. Forever. I’d hate myself if I kept you from Jim one hour longer than necessary.”

“That’s very selfless.”

“Oh, don’t be bitter.”

“What the hell do you expect? You’re turning me away. Again.”

“You’re losing your temper again. When you get over it, you’ll see I’m right about—”

“Very selfless, and it makes me feel like hell.”

“Well, I don’t feel much better. Not about you, myself, anything. Go. Go. Go.”

She ran off over the dune. He stood there, a study in despair, while the surf rushed and the hidden foghorn mourned.

Damn woman—stubborn as ever.
He went straight back to the Cadillac and drove off without knocking on her door.

T
HE SEEDY LITTLE BUILDING
overlooked Half Moon Bay. Bilious tan paint was peeling from the siding and a weak electric bulb lit the sign over the doorway:
SHORE CAFÉ WINES BEERS LIQUORS
.

Mack peered at the sign through the dust rising around the acetylene headlights. He shut everything off and walked to the café. Behind him, in the black abyss of the ocean, he heard gulls. He was spent. He’d been driving steadily, stopping only for gasoline.

The owner, the only person in the place, was cleaning up. He was a burly thick-necked man in a shirt with vertical blue stripes. A single shaded lamp threw light on the back bar, where three plates were propped on a narrow shelf above the bottles, souvenir plates, painted in gaudy enamels. One showed Cliff House, another the Ferris wheel at the 1894 Midwinter Fair in Golden Gate Park, and the third depicted angelic tourists in the Japanese Tea Garden.

The snap of his rag indicated that the owner didn’t like Mack’s rumpled clothes and general air of raffishness. “Closed up,” he said. “See the clock? Half past ten.”

“I want some whiskey.” Mack dug in his pocket. “You can take time to sell me a pint of whiskey, for Christ’s sake. You can take time to sell me some gas.”

The man studied the bill on the bar. Then he laughed, a hog snuffling. “Twenty dollars? For that I can. For that I’ll set you up in style.” He gestured to the deal table under porthole windows made nearly opaque by smoke and cooking grease.

“If you want to go to bed, go on,” Mack said. “Just fill the car and leave the whiskey.”

“How many pints?”

“How many have you got?”

Lifting his head, Mack winced and groaned.

His mouth tasted of the risen bile of his belly. He ground the butts of his palms in his eye sockets. Three pints of whiskey stood in front of him, one empty, on its side, one a quarter full, one unopened.

“God,” he groaned, “what time is it?” He dropped his pocket watch, fumbled for it under the table, snapped it open. A few minutes past five.

In the morning?

There, outside the greasy portholes, the Cadillac glistened with dampness. Beyond it, Half Moon Bay spread gray and flat, though there were touches of pink brightening it. Three little fishing smacks were raising sail.