Connington refilled their glasses.
Claire sipped at hers. Connington touched her shoulder and bent his head toward her. Her mouth opened in laughter. She reached out and touched his waist. Her fingers pinched the roll of flesh around his stomach. Her shoulder rose and her elbow stiffened. Connington clutched her wrist, then moved up to her arm, pushing back. He twisted away, hurriedly set his glass down, and splashed into the pool. His hands shot out and took her arms, pulling them forward.
Light dashed itself into Hawks’ face and filled his eyesockets as the sun’s disk slid an edge down into sight under the eaves of the roof. He dropped his lids until his eyes were looking out through the narrow mask of his lashes.
Keeping his hold on Claire’s wrists, Connington doubled his bent-kneed legs forward, planted his feet against the side of the pool, and strained himself out flat. Claire came sliding into the water on top of him, and they weltered down out of sight under the surface. A moment later, her head and shoulders broke out a few feet away, and she stroked evenly to the ladder, climbing out and stopping at the poolside to pull the top of her suit back up over her breasts. She picked her towel from the grass with one swoop of her arm, threw it around her shoulders, and walked quickly off out of sight to the left, toward the other wing of the house.
Connington stood in the pool, watching her. Then he jumped forward, and thrashed up to the steps at the shallow end, climbing out with water pouring down from his shoulders and back. He took a few strides in the same direction. Then his face snapped toward the glass wall. He changed direction obliquely, and, at the corner of the pool, did a flat dive back into the water. He swam forward, toward the diving board. For some time afterward, until the sun was entirely in sight and the room where Hawks was sitting was filled with red, the sound of the thrumming board came vibrating into the timbers of the house at sporadic intervals.
At ten minutes of eight, a radio began to play loud jazz upstairs. Ten minutes later, the electric blat of the radio’s alarm roiled the music, and a moment after that there was a brittle crash, and then only the occasional sound of Barker stumbling about and getting dressed.
Hawks went over to the bar, washed out his empty glass, and put it back in its rack. He looked around. There was night outside the windows, and the only illumination came from the balcony at the end of the room, where the stairs led down from the second floor. Hawks reached out and turned on a standing lamp. His shadow flung itself against the wall.
6
Barker came down carying a half-filled squareface bottle. He saw Hawks, grunted, hefted the bottle and said, “I hate the stuff. It tastes lousy, it makes me gag, it stinks, and it burns my mouth. But they keep putting it in your hands, and they keep saying ‘Drink up!’ to each other, and ‘What’s the matter, Charlie, falling a little behind, there? Freshen up that little drinkee for you?’ Until you feel like a queer of some kind, and a bore for the times you say you don’t want another one, positively. And they fill their folklore with it, until you wouldn’t dream you were having a good time unless you’d swilled enough of the stuff to poison yourself all the next day. And they talk gentleman talk about it — ages and flavors and brands and blends as if it wasn’t all ethanol in one concentration or another. Have you ever heard two Martini drinkers in a bar, Hawks? Have you ever heard two shamans swapping magic?” He dropped into an easy chair and laughed. “Neither have I. I synthesize my heritage. I look at two drunks in a saloon, and I extrapolate toward dignity. I suppose that’s sacrilege.”
He put a cigarette into his mouth, lit the end, and said through the smoke, “But it’s the best I can do, Hawks. My father’s dead, and I once thought there was something good in shucking off my other kin. I wish I could remember what that was. I have a place in me that needs the pain.”
Hawks went back to the settee and sat down. He put his hands on his knees and watched Barker.
“And talk,” Barker said. “You’re not fit company for them if you don’t say ‘Eyther’ and ‘nyther’ and ‘tomahto.’ If you’ve got a Dad, you’re out. They only permit gentlemen with fathers into their society. And, yeah, I know they licked me on that. I wanted to belong — oh, God, Hawks, how much I wanted to belong — and I learned all the passwords. What did it get me? Claire’s right, you know — what did it get me? Don’t look at me like that. I know what Claire is. You know I know it. I told you the first minute I met you. But did you ever stop to think it’s all worth it to me? Every time she makes a pass at another man, I know she’s comparing. She’s out on the open market, shopping. And being shopped for. I don’t have any collar around her neck. She’s not tame. I’m not a habit to her. I’m nOt something she’s tied to by any law. And every time she winds up coming back to me, you know what that proves? It proves I’m still the toughest man in the pack. Because she wouldn’t stay if I wasn’t. Don’t kid yourself — I don’t know what you think about you and her, but don’t kid yourself.”
Hawks looked at Barker curiously, but Barker was no longer watching him.
“If she could see me, Hawks — if she could see me in that place!” Barker’s face was aglow. “She wouldn’t be playing footsie with you and Connington tonight — no, not if she could see what I do up there How I dodge, and duck, and twist, and inch, and spring, and wait for the — the—”
“Easy, Barker!”
“Yeah. Easy. Slack off. Back away. It bites.” Barker coughed out bitterly, “What’re you doing here, anyway, Hawks? Why aren’t you marching down that road again with your ass stiff and your nose in the air? You think it’s going to do you any good, you sitting around here? What’re you waiting for? For me to tell you sure, a little sleep and a little gin and I’m fine, just fine, Doctor, and what time do you want me back tomorrow? Or do you want me to crack wide open, so you can really move in on Claire? What’ve you been doing while I was asleep? Playing stickyfingers with her? Or did Connington weasel you out of the chance?” He looked around. “I guess he must have.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Hawks said.
“What about?”
“What you wanted me here for. Why you came straight to me and asked me to come. I was wondering whether you hoped I could make you go back again.”
Barker raised the bottle to his mouth and peered at Hawks over it as he drank. When he lowered it, he said, “What’s it like, being you? Everything that happens has to be twisted around to suit you. Nothing is ever the way it looks, to you.”
“That’s true of everyone. No one sees the world that others see. What do you want me to do: be made of brass? Hollow, and more enduring than flesh? Is that what you want a man to be?” Hawks leaned forward, tight creases slashing down across his hollow cheeks. “Something that will still be the same when all the stars have burned out and the universe has gone cold? That will still be here when everything that ever lived is dead? Is that your idea of a respectable man?”
“A man should fight, Hawks,” Barker said, his eyes distant. “A man should show he is never afraid to die. He should go into the midst of his enemies, singing his death song, and he should kill or be killed; he must never be afraid to die; he must never be afraid to meet the tests of his manhood. A man who turns his back — who lurks at the edge of the battle, and pushes others in to face his enemies—” Barker looked suddenly and obviously at Hawks. “That’s not a man. That’s some kind of crawling, wriggling thing.”
Hawks got up, flexing his hands uncertainly, his arms awkward, his face lost in the shadows above the lamp’s level. His calves pressed back against the leather of the settee, thudding it lightly against the wall. “Is that what you wanted me here for? So no one could say you wouldn’t clasp the snake to your bosom?” He bent his head forward, peering down at Barker. “Is that it, warrior?” he asked inquisitively. “One more initiation rite? You’ve never been afraid to take your enemies in and give them shelter, have you? A truly. brave man wouldn’t hesitate to lodge assassins in his house, and offer them food and drink, would he? Let Connington the back-stabber come into your house. Let Hawks the murderer do his worst. Let Claire egg you on from one suicidal thing to the next, ripping off a leg here, a piece of flesh another time. What do you care? You’re Barker, the Mimbreflo warrior. Is that it? — But now you won’t fight. Suddenly, you don’t want to go back into the formation. Death was too impersonal for you. It didn’t care how brave you were, or what preparatory rites you’d passed though. That was what you said, wasn’t it? You were outraged, Barker. You still are. What is Death, to think nothing of a full-fledged Mimbreno warrior?