Miss Spence threw down her cigarette and stamped on it.
"Haven't they caught that bastard yet?" she demanded angrily.
5
Jai alai is the fastest and toughest sport in the world. It is played with a cesta or basket, strapped to the player's right hand. The curved, three-foot basket has a maximum depth of five inches. A player can wear out three or four baskets during a contest. The hard, rubber-cored ball or pelota, slightly smaller than a baseball, is covered with goatskin.
The ball is driven with such speed that it sometimes breaks a leg or arm. The playing court or cachet is spacious, its green walls rising to the high-netted skylight of the auditorium. Where the concrete of the cacha floor ends in the red foul line and meets the wooden floor of the auditorium, there is a vertical wire screen which protects the tiers of customers.
The server drops the ball, catches it on the rebound, and hurls it with a terrific forehand stroke against the wall. The opposing player has to intercept the ball with his basket and keep it in play. The players move like lightning, their cesta-lengthened hands reaching out miraculously to intercept and return bullet-like rallies of the ball. The pelota continues in play until it falls in illegal territory, or a contestant fails to make good a return.
There are few ball games calling for greater strength, endurance and skill, and it is said most jai alai players die young. If they're not sooner or later severely injured by the ball, their hearts give out.
I had followed Miss Spence and her boy friend in their Cadillac sedan to a large coral-tinted stucco building, which turned out to be the jai alai headquarters. I had watched Miss Spence leave her boy friend at the player's gate and enter the auditorium. I had tagged along behind her.
Now I was sitting beside her on a plush seat in the front row of the first of the tiers behind the wire screen, looking down into the floodlit cacha.
Four energetic young Spaniards were dashing about the floor slamming the almost invisible ball back and forth, and performing acrobatic miracles. The crowd seemed to be getting a big bang out of them, but I was more interested in Miss Spence.
She had spread out on the flat plush top of the balcony wall a program, a pair of binoculars, her hand-bag, a carton of cigarettes and her orange scarf. The heady perfume of No. 5 Chanel brooded over her nick-nacks, herself, and of course, me.
Sitting so close to her—the seats were cut on economical lines—I could feel a subtle warmth from her body, and her perfume had a distinct effect on me. I wondered vaguely what she would do if I enfolded her in a Charles Boyer embrace.
The four Spaniards finished their game and walked off the court to a scattering of applause. They looked jaded and hot. If I'd been in their place I would have been carried off on a stretcher, with a dewy-eyed nurse in attendance packing ice around my temples.
There was an interval, and Miss Spence looked around the auditorium as if she expected the rest of the audience to stand up and sing the National Anthem at the sight of her. They didn't.
She looked to her right, and then to her left. As I was on her left, she looked at me. I gave her a sad, coy leer, and hoped it would unhook the disdainful expression on her face. It didn't exactly do that, but it registered enough for her to study me.
I leaned forward confidentially. "They say the elastic shortage has made woman's position in world affairs less secure than it was four years back," I said briskly.
She didn't say "Huh?", but she wanted to. She looked away instead, the way you look when a drunk speaks to you. Then she looked back and caught my grin. She smiled bleakly.
"Reilly's the name," I said. "I'm a playboy with a lot of dough and a yen for red-heads. You'd better scream for help while there's time. I'm considered to be a fast worker."
She looked me over. No smile now. Eyes medium to hard.
"I could handle you without help," she said in a husky voice that sent chills up and down my spine, "and I don't like playboys."
"My mistake," I said, shaking my head. "I missed out on psychology when I worked my way through college. I'd've thought playboys would have been your strong suit. Let's forget it," and I picked up my program and pretended to study it.
She gave me another bleak stare and concentrated on the court below.
Four men had just walked on. One of them was Gomez. You could tell he was the local champ. Not only did the crowd give him a tremendous hand, but the other three players hung back and let him scoop the limelight. He was full of bounce and arrogance. I watched him wave to the crowd. He certainly had something to be arrogant about. I've never seen such a specimen of a he-man. He looked in our direction and gave Miss Spence a special wave. She ignored him, so I waved for her, just for the hell of it. He didn't seem to appreciate the gesture.
Miss Spence's mouth tightened, but she didn't say anything.
The four men were now in a huddle in the middle of the court, testing the pelota which had just been thrown in. Then they broke up and went to their positions.
"Do these guys get paid to play this sissy game?" I asked out of the corner of my mouth.
"What makes you think you're so tough?" she snapped back, before she remembered her dignity.
"Give me a chance and I'll show you," I said.
She leaned forward and looked down at the players. Her eyes brooded sudden death.
Gomez served. I'll say this for him, he could certainly sling a mean pelota. The ball whizzed through the air, struck the front wall and shot back, hugging the wall and buzzing like an outsized hornet. One of the other players turned into the side wall and took three quick steps up its perpendicular height, like a man running up a short flight of stairs. He trapped the ball in his cesta, dropped back and slammed the ball away. White figures darted about the court, arms reached out, the ball whizzed to and fro. Gomez did all the things you'd expect a champ to do, and did them well. His stamina was terrifying. The score moved quickly. It looked a walk-over
for him.
I gave Miss Spence a sidelong look. She was watching the game with a bored disdainful expression on her face as if she knew what was going to happen, and didn't care if and when it did happen.
I remembered what the hall porter had said about her flopping at the drop of a hat. I wondered if it had to be a certain kind of a hat or whether any hat would do. I wished I'd asked for further details.
"Before long that side of beef will be looking for you," I said softly. "Suppose you and me walk out on him? I could show you the moon. If you don't like moons, I'll show you my tattoo marks instead."
Her long, slender, red-tipped fingers tapped on the binocular case.
"I still don't like playboys," she said, and looked away.