“I hope he’s in a happier mood,” Laura said.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Beecher said, and wondered why he had been impelled to make such an obvious remark.
A curious thing happened then. Lynch appeared from the shadows of the garden and moved with long ungainly strides toward the Frenchman. The two men collided in the graveled pathway, a seemingly accidental encounter, and Beecher heard Lynch laugh and say, “I beg your pardon, old chap. I must be frightfully tight. Hardly saw you coming along there.”
Maurice muttered something unintelligible and started forward again, but something checked him abruptly, and Beecher saw then that Lynch’s big hand was clamped above the Frenchman’s elbow. He couldn’t be sure there was a struggle; in the uncertain light he had only an impression of shifting and restraint, and then the two men turned and walked back toward the terrace. Lynch was still holding the Frenchman’s arm.
Laura apparently hadn’t noticed anything odd. “Well, I’m glad he found someone besides us to bother,” she said.
“I think we’d better be going,” Beecher said. “We can stop at the Irishman’s for a nightcap.”
“Are you sending me off to bed?”
Beecher smiled as he swung her down from the wall. “I thought you might be tired.”
“Not at all.”
The hard core of the community’s drinkers stood about the bar on the terrace, paying little attention to anything but the business of emptying and refilling glasses. The buffet table looked as if it had been smashed with a big fist; half-empty plates were blackened with cigarette ashes, and bits of food, olive pits, bones, and crusts were scattered among goblets smeared with lipstick, and coffee cups afloat with soggy cigarettes. Someone had placed a high-heeled slipper in the centerpiece of flowers, the toe pointing down into the water. It was a jarring note, Beecher thought — as if the person wearing it had been snatched from a preposterous disaster at the last instant.
Laura went into the villa to get her wrap, and Beecher debated the wisdom or necessity of having another drink. He didn’t feel like one, and this surprised him pleasantly. Also he didn’t want to get involved with the serious drinkers around the bar. Laddy Curtis would want to tell about the time he had walked into the New York Racquet Club wearing swimming shorts; Ferdie McIntyre would be cursing Spaniards; old Polly Soames would put her thumbs in her ears and go “Hoot! Hoot!” at him; Juggy Olsen would be insisting that bullfighters were yellow; while the rest would have maid problems, car problems, or passport problems to discuss in tones of pioneer excitement and enthusiasm.
Then, from beyond the double doors leading into the villa, he heard Laura cry out softly: “No, stop it! For God’s sake, please.”
Beecher reached the doors in two long strides and pushed his way into the living room. Laura stood inside the entrance with a hand pressed to her mouth. Don Willie was crouched in front of the fireplace, staring over his shoulder at them with a guilty but imploring expression on his flushed face. Tears streamed from his eyes and gleamed on his plump cheeks. One of the shepherd dogs lay at his feet, whimpering softly, a wet red tongue lolling from its great jaws. In Don Willie’s hand was a leather crop as thick as a walking stick.
“I must punish him,” Don Willie cried. “He has been bad. He is too strong to have his own way.”
“You’ll kill him!” Laura said.
“I am sorry you saw this thing.” He stood and put the crop behind his back as if he were ashamed of it. “You will think bad of me. But I must do it. I do not enjoy it. Look, please. I am weeping. I love my little babies. But he did wrong. And he knows he must be punished. See, he is crawling to lick my shoes. If you raised your hand to me he would fly at your throat.”
Beecher took Laura’s arm. He could feel the tremors running through her body. “We’d better go,” he said.
“Mike, please explain to her,” Don Willie said, dabbing at his tears. “You are a man. You can understand. She must not think I am cruel and unkind.”
Beecher hesitated; his own reaction was confused. Obviously a large and formidable dog needed discipline. But the weight and size of the crop sent a chill through him. And Don Willie’s tearful distress was also disturbing. The tears were a license to violence. You could do what you damn well pleased, as long as you wept to prove you didn’t enjoy it.
“All right,” he said at last. “Thanks for the party. It was fun.”
As they walked up the road to his car, Beecher said, “Don’t let this upset you.”
She looked up at him suddenly. “Is that why you don’t want to work for him?”
“Because he’s brutal with his dogs? No. But he’s made them like it. That’s something to think about, you know.” He opened the door of his car. “Let’s not spoil our evening with this.”
“All right. What’s the Irishman’s like?”
“You’ll see.”
6
The irishman’s pub had the dimensions of a railway coach; it was a narrow and dimly lit haven for anyone weary of castanets, flamenco, and the bright, boisterous tones of the Spanish bars and cafés. There were murals of city scenes done in a heavy black line on the blue-gray walls, and no entertainment except muted recordings of show tunes, and an occasional irrelevant bit of Gilbert and Sullivan. The Irishman served free hors d’oeuvres, and the bar was stocked with Scotch and Irish whiskies, bonded American bourbons, and French cognacs. When business slacked off for any reason, the Irishman, who was a shrewd practical psychologist, simply raised his prices, and this brought the crowds back in a hurry. The prices at the Irishman’s were a stable complaint of the foreign colony, and anyone who hadn’t suffered them at firsthand was bound to feel left out of things.
When he came in Beecher saw that Trumbull and Nelson were sitting alone at a table in the rear of the room. They looked mournful and tight. Beecher joined them and introduced Laura, which caused them to perk up immediately.
“Bastard’s going home,” Nelson said, pushing ineffectually against Trumbull’s big shoulder. “Defecting. Bloody coward.” He took Laura’s hand and stared at her solemnly. “Welcome to Spain.”
Beecher ordered drinks. Laura was delighted with Trumbull and Nelson, he could see, and they were fired by her attention, flattered by her smiling and incredulous reaction to their nonsense. She made them feel important. They wanted to tell her how it was, how it had been, how it would be. Any good-looking young girl would have made the same impression on them, he decided philosophically. They hit it off with her instantly and intimately, and he realized that he did not; the touchstone was their youth, the warm and sympathetic awareness of sharing the same niche in time.
“Will you excuse me a second?” he asked.
“Formality, yet,” Trumbull said. “To the latrine and be done with it, O lurking conscience in our wee-wee Gomorrah.”
“Gomorrah and Gomorrah and Gomorrah,” Nelson intoned in sepulchral tones. “Creeps in this petty place abound and abound and abound.” He began to sing. “Sodom-day I’m going to murder the bugg-er.”
Laura was laughing. “Please stop it. You’re both crazy, you know that, don’t you?”
Beecher walked to the bar and sat down. He felt tired and old. The Irishman said, “What’s your pleasure, Mike?”
“Nothing, thanks. I’ve got a drink at the table.”