Colonel Rutherford's Colt (7 page)

“When you say the story is out,” the colonel said, “what do you mean? Has he told anyone else apart from you?”

“My wife,” said Doctor Lens. “Odiberto told us together. I give you my word that I will tell no one, but my wife . . .” He shrugged. “I can control how much money she spends at market, but not whom she whispers to.”

“I understand,” said the colonel. “Please . . . proceed.”

Odiberto, through the agency of Doctor Lens, told of the married woman's indecisiveness, this the thing that had caused Luis so much pain and distraction.

“ ‘He could not determine what she wanted,' ” the doctor said. “ ‘One minute she was telling him she would do anything to make him happy, and the next she became distant, uncommunicative. He asked me what he should do, and I advised him to break it off. No matter how much he loved this woman, I said, it would be the act of a fool to surrender his life to what was on the face of it a hopeless passion. But Luis shook his head, said, “No, no! There must be a way to make her know . . . to make her see . . .”

“ ‘He was fanatic in his devotion to the woman. Even obsessive. I could not convince him that he was on the road to disaster, that the physical, mental, and moral dangers he confronted were likely to destroy him. In hopes of finding some means of persuading him, I convinced him to tell me more about the relationship.' ”

Doctor Lens leaned forward and said in a lowered voice, “I will spare you the intimate details, if you wish.”

“No,” said the colonel, who felt cold and immobile, as though imprisoned within a block of stone. “No, I want to hear it all.”

As he listened to Doctor Lens describe the woman's passion, the unalloyed freedom with which she employed her body in the service of her lover's pleasure, Colonel Rutherford began to take heart. This woman, with her unending avidity and sexual inventiveness . . . She could not be Susan. Either Carrasquel was lying, or he was describing someone else entirely. But then the doctor related how Luis gained entry to the estate. The ceiba tree, the sapling palm, the doorway leading to the housekeeper's apartments, the vines crawling over the yellow stucco. Only a single shred of doubt remained in the colonel's mind.

“Did Carrasquel ever speak this woman's name?” he asked.

After a hurried consultation with Odiberto, Doctor Lens said, “ ‘Several days following our initial conversation, Luis and I were walking in the market, taking our lunch
al fresco
, when Luis stopped to stare at a pale beautiful woman who was shopping with a servant. He appeared absolutely devastated by the sight. A moment later the woman lifted her head and their eyes met. The exchange was not casual. For the longest time they seemed unable to move away from one another, and after the woman had left. In a great hurry, I should say. After she left, Luis was beside himself. Flustered, incoherent. His eyes filled with tears, and he refused to speak other than to insist we return to the bank at once. I later ascertained that the name of the woman who provoked this reaction was Susan Rutherford.' ”

The colonel lowered his eyes to the carpet. “Is there more?” he asked grimly.

“Only this,” Doctor Lens said. “And it is I, now, who speak. I hope you will accept that I speak as a friend.” He fingered the beak of the gold macaw. “No one, not even General Ruelas, will blame you if you seek revenge for this betrayal. However, I beg you to be moderate in your judgment. Not only are the lives of Carrasquel and your wife in the balance, but your own. Should your vengeance be a bloody one, your career may suffer. Cuba needs American friends such as Colonel Hawes Rutherford.”

These last words, imparted with a sly oiliness, made clear to the colonel that Doctor Lens' motives in telling him the story were, like Odiberto's, less than pure. The doctor wanted something, and consequently, he must have something to give. It occurred to the colonel that he was being subtly and unobtrusively blackmailed—in effect, being offered
carte blanche
as regarded his handling of the infidelity in return for some favor yet to be determined.

“You say your wife cannot be controlled?” he asked.

“Not easily controlled, at any rate,” said the doctor. “Though I suppose it might be possible, with great effort, to restrain her.”

“And can you guarantee Odiberto's silence?”

“Odiberto understands that his revelation will only profit him if”—the doctor appeared to be contemplating a choice of words; then he smiled—“if there is profit to be had.”

The colonel, in whom rage had begun to stoke its fires, could barely withhold from striking him. He had endured a sufficiency of these effete little men, these half-breeds with their dapper attire and usurers' hearts. But he only said, “I would very much appreciate it if you would do your level best to ensure your wife's discretion.”

The doctor nodded, said, “Of course,” as if no contrary thought had ever entered his mind.

“Perhaps,” the colonel continued, “you will visit me in my office so we can discuss the matter further.”

“I would be delighted,” replied the doctor.

Once the two men had departed, the colonel knocked down his brandy and went out onto the grounds of Tia Maria's. He stood beneath a coconut palm, tipped back his head and gazed at the sky.

All the feelings he had suppressed during the conversation now came spilling out, like tiny devils bursting free from an enchanted box, led by Fury, but followed in swift order by Hate, Bitterness, Loathing, Envy, Despair, and, lastly, by a horrid, squirming, tumescent thing he could not identify by name, but that he recognized as emblematic of the odious and unhealthy sexuality that the news of Susan's infidelity had roused from his depths. These vile beasts of feeling enlarged him, inflated him with their gaseous breath, making him so great with emotion, he half-believed that were he to stretch out his hand, he might pluck the stars from out their sockets of black bone and rewrite the diamond sentences of the sky to contrive a tale of calumny and murder. The colonel was not a courageous man. He had used his family connections to ensure that he would never set foot upon the field of battle; and it was by dint of these same connections and a talent for political in-fighting that he had risen to his position of eminence. But now he saw himself as a warrior, triumphant and painted with the blood of his enemies. And yet he was not, in this vision, intemperate. Oh, no. He would assure himself of the facts before acting. He would weigh his choices. Then and only then would. . . .

 

* * *

 

“Mister!”

A boy and a girl—both of junior high age—were standing in front of Jimmy. The boy was skinny and rodentlike, had tipped hair and wore a white T-shirt with spattery red letters spelling out the words
JESUS WHO?
The girl, a strawberry blond of no appreciable beauty, was demurely dressed in jeans and a crew-neck sweater. The cluttered noise of the crowd was that of a thousand people all saying the same thing slightly out of synch.

“You were talking weird shit in your sleep,” said the boy, and the girl giggled.

Jimmy could not get the colonel out of his head. He stared at the boy with the ferocity of a man who has just received news that has left him in no mood to suffer fools. It seemed his eyes were boring like slow bullets into the boy's eyes.

“He's fucked up on something,” the boy said in a hushed tone that put Jimmy in mind of a golf announcer explaining a difficult lie to the viewing audience. The girl leaned into him and took his hand: he was so wise.

Jimmy hefted the Colt, still warm from the telling, and laid it on the table. He got to his feet. Yawned.

“What kinda gun's that?” the girl asked. “Is it worth a lotta money?”

“Colt forty-five automatic, Model Nineteen-Eleven,” Jimmy said. “Designed by John Browning. Damn near the same sidearm's been used by the US Army these last ninety years. This one here's worth a good bit.”

“He's just talking more shit,” the boy said.

“You know where you are?” Jimmy asked him.

The boy affected a tone only slightly more doltish than his natural one. “Naw. Where am I?”

“That's my one rule of life,” Jimmy told him. “Know where you are. You don't know that, you don't never see it coming.”

The girl tugged anxiously at the boy, urging him away.

“You fucking with us?” said the boy.

“Not yet . . . but I'm tempted.”

In a cute show of defiance, the girl flipped him off and stuck out her tongue. Jimmy grinned, staggered back, pretending to be heart-shot. She giggled again. The boy, perhaps sensing a rival, slung an arm about her shoulder and steered her off toward safer ground.

Jimmy watched them join the sluggish flow of hunters, browsers, T-shirt collectors, and potential murderers milling about the aisles. Over by Doug Lindsay's table, a local TV crew had set up and under hot lights an enthusiastic brunette was, he assumed, saying something like, “ . . . whether or not these particular guns should be banned from the marketplace continues to be a hot issue. But most of these folks have already made up their minds, and they're just out to have a good time. Back to you, Frank.”

As Jimmy took a seat, a squat sixtyish man, bald except for a ruff of gray hair, carrying a Barney's Guns shopping bag, came up and pointed at the sign leaning on the display case. “That for real?” he asked. “Serious inquiries only?”

“It's what she says.”

“Well, I got a serious inquiry.” The man squared his shoulders and arranged his features into a sober mask and set himself as if he were about to lift an enormous weight. “What's it all about?” He stared deadpan at Jimmy for a beat, then laughed until his face grew red. “That serious enough for ya?”

Postal worker, Jimmy thought. Long-divorced and given over to solitary drinking. Favorite TV show:
Cops
.

“What's it all about?” the man said again, and shook his head in glee.

Jimmy found that he was considering the question, though in terms the gray-haired man might have judged irrelevant. “I'll have to get back to you,” he said.

 

* * *

 

After her nap, Rita drove to a Buy-Rite for Alka Seltzer. She hung in the aisles, enjoying the antiseptic smell, picking up bottles of skin lotion and transistor radios and packets of pencils, not really interested in buying anything, just nosing around like a cat exploring unfamiliar territory. Her brain idled, releasing stray thoughts. A Muzak version of an old Stones song began to play. “Two Thousand Light Years from Home.” Shoppers holding plastic baskets drifted past. She had been inside the store for two or three minutes when she noticed that a skinny young guy in a white shirt with Buy-Rite stitched in red on the pocket was following her. She ducked around a corner and hid behind a stand-up display of sunglasses. When the guy came up, she stepped out at him. “You're right,” she said. “I'm here to rob your ass blind. I'm after Post-it Notes, legal pads, aspirin. Shit's worth a fortune on the street.”

The guy adopted a wounded look. “Ma'am, I . . .”

“It's okay. I understand,” Rita told him, and smiled. “From a distance you probably thought I was black.”

“I'm just doing my job.” The guy glanced toward the rear of the store—hoping for assistance, it seemed.

“ 'Course you are. But now you see I'm a Native American, you realize I'm not after sundries, I'm after liquor.” She glanced about inquiringly. “You do have a liquor department?”

“We got beer,” the guy said uncertainly.

“Be vigilant,” Rita said. “Don't confuse those stereotypes.”

Once he was out of sight, she opened a box of Alka Seltzer and slipped the packets into her shirt pocket. She was heading for the exit when she spotted Loretta Snow browsing in an aisle devoted to health care products. Affecting the style of the guy in the Buy-Rite shirt, though more efficiently, Rita tracked her progress, watched her slip two bottles of children's vitamins, a couple of toothbrushes, a Pokemon action figure, and a motorcycle Barbie into her voluminous purse. That Ms. Snow was stealing for her kids spoke to Rita, who recalled having to go Christmas shoplifting for her own kids after her ex-husband had run off. Maybe, she thought, sweet little Loretta wasn't all weak tea and trembly chins. One thing for sure, she was no great shakes at petty theft. Before stuffing an item into the purse, she would lift her head and peer about the store, her hand poised above the thing desired, and after acquiring it, she would hurry away from the site of the theft, head down, clutching the purse to her chest, the picture of guilt. Assuming this was not her first such foray into crime, it was amazing that she had not been caught—to Rita's mind, Ms. Snow did not have the look of someone who had ever been caught.

As Ms. Snow turned into the candy aisle, hovering by a selection of imported chocolates, Rita spotted Mister Buy-Rite homing in on her, moving stealthily along a cross-aisle. Rita quick-footed it down the aisle adjoining the one in which Ms. Snow was stationed. When she reached the cross-aisle she kicked the bottom of a stand supporting a pyramid of vacuum-packed cashews. The pyramid collapsed. Cans clattering, rolling in every direction. The sound alerted Ms. Snow. She gazed wildly about, then hustled toward the exit. The Buy-Rite guy stood glaring at Rita, hands on hips.

“Spill on Aisle Four,” she said. “Sorry.” She picked up one of the cans and inspected it. “Damn! This is cheap! I'm gonna get some of these for my husband.”

She caught up with Ms. Snow in the parking lot—the woman was fumbling with the keys to an old Toyota wagon, its every ding and scar showing under the strong sunlight.

“Hey, Loretta!” Rita called.

Ms. Snow wore a hunted look, as if she were seeing not Rita, but some terrible and unfeeling authority.