I came to in a room full of ridiculous, old-fashioned, plush furniture. Ridiculous because the clumsy junk looked new. My curly head was still soaring—this was the day to get my thick noggin whipped—when it finally settled back on my sore neck, I was able to get the two men into focus. One was my “friend,” the other looked so much like the B-movie conception of a gangster, I could have grinned—under other circumstances. He also was short, but with an attractive bull neck and barrel chest. The swarthy, over-handsome face held strong features, brittle eyes, and gold teeth in a wide mouth. The glistening black hair, with the right touch of silver-grey at the sides, was well acquainted with a brush and oil. The heavy neck was circled by a thin gold chain, a thicker one about his powerful wrist. He was a sun-hound, skin a deeper tan than mine. The creased dark-blue silk slacks, white, Italian-styled sport shirt, the high-heeled shoes—all casual and very expensive. A small automatic in a pigskin hip holster completed the picture—even if that wasn't casual.
They were going over my wallet, thin book of travelers checks, and Robert Parks' passport. Moving on the stone floor, I shook my dizzy head. “Get up, fat bastard!” the gangster said, in English, with the proper throaty growl in his husky voice. “Where you get this passport?”
“As you're obviously not Robert Parks, what business is it of...?” The gangster sent a vicious kick at my side. Rolling out of the way, I tried not to scream, “I found it in my bag!”
“Where?”
“In my room...!”
The two of them held a whispered French conference. I stood up, staggering a bit. I heard the name of the big blonde—Noel—several times, and the word police came through once.
Gangster-type stepped toward me. “Fat boy, I want some goddamn level talk from you! What's your name? Who are you? How come this passport was in your suitcase? Parks your friend?”
I rubbed the back of my neck to give me thinking time—a foolish gesture: I nearly passed out with pain. Perhaps it was the pain: I became brave, decided to stop being the frightened cluck, do a little shoulder-talking myself to these runts. “Suppose you tell me what this is all about?” I asked, loudly. “I don't stand for being pushed around by a couple of two-bits slobs who think...”
Swarthy started for me, so did the bartender—chopping hands spread like a crab's. I kept my back to the wall. The bit in Judo is the surprise element—I'd had my share of surprises for the day. Turning slightly to face the bartender, I feinted with my left hand as I kicked him on the knee. Yelling, he sat down, hard. I then crossed what I thought was a nifty right to the side of the gangster's face, expected him to drop. Merely grunting, he hit me with a left hook any number of heavyweights would have been damned proud of.
Floating down a well of whiteness, I thought: This is also my day to tangle with pros! For a long time I seemed to be swimming hard and painfully in soupy brightness, a vast, creamy-white ocean—then night came on fast.
When I opened my eyes I was on the floor of a cell-like room, the only light being the sun streaming through a small, square opening high on one rough wall. I closed my eyes again to stop the throbbing in my sore head and jaw. Opening them seconds later, I made out dirty clothes piled on a chair, worn copies of Life, the Paris edition of the N. Y. Herald-Tribune on the stone floor next to an army cot.
Mr. Robert Parks was sitting cross-legged on the cot, wearing only torn and badly-soiled shorts—pimples and sores all over his broom-handle arms. A wispy, reddish beard outlined this thin face—looking pale and sickly, the eyes watery blue blurs, sharp nose dripping. Parks looked worse than his passport photo. For a moment we stared at each other with mutual suspicion.
Digging under the lumpy cot mattress, he pulled out my passport. Opening it, he cackled in an utterly silly voice, “Why... of course! It's you! You're Clayton Biner...!” He waved the passport at me. “Old man, you didn't come alone?”
I tried to talk but my numb jaw refused to work. Gangster-type could wallop! I'd taken three head beatings in less than that many hours.
Rubbing the silky hair on his chin, Robert Parks went on in the same childishly shrill voice, “Oh man, I thought you'd dig... was positive you'd bring the police. Instead... now... here you are... like me. Man, you duded out... on me!”
His wash-eyes began to tear as he grinned, showing neat, dirty teeth. Then Parks rocked back and forth on the stinking cot, full of low, intimate laughter... absolutely insane giggles.
CHAPTER 3
After several false starts I managed to stand. Except for a distant ringing in my dome, I felt okay. Grabbing a chicken shoulder, I jerked Parks to his feet—he didn't weigh in at much over 115 pounds—although he seemed six feet tall—each bone, tiny muscle, vein of his pitiful chest and scrawny neck showing, as in a medical illustration. “What's the big laugh?” I asked, my mouth and lips finally coming alive. “What the hell are you doing with my passport?”
The watery, vague eyes didn't even see me as I yanked the green booklet out of his limp hand, feeling a true sense of relief at having my passport back. I spent a second thumbing through it with my free hand—all was in order, including my bloated-face evil passport photo.
“Come on, laughing boy, what's this about?” I snapped, shaking him again. Up close he had this unwashed stink.
Flinging one skeleton arm at the sunlight coming down from the wall opening like a stage spot, Parks shrilled, “What is this all about? Man, why not go for the larger question—what is life all about? Gaze at the sun's staircase. Often I crawl up that golden gangplank, escape this filth—soar out into a new world of dazzling colors and fuzzy warmth. As Tennyson said, 'Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'... Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades... Forever and forever when I move.' Old Tenny bugs me, because man, it really is forever and...”
I shook him hard. “Come on, cut the stupid chatter! What the hell is your story, Parks?”
Blinking many times, tears started down his hollow cheeks. “My story? Haven't you heard? I'm Robert Parks, the junkie poet!”
“The news shatters me! Stupid, what's going on here? What did I step into?”
“I'm the talent chump, the new Sandburg, the modern Thomas Hood. 'Talent is that which is in mans power: genius is that in whose power a man is.' James Russell Lowell. I...”
I shook him until his bones rattled. “Stop making school boy quotes! What's happening here?”
As if talking to himself, Parks said, “I came to Europe to study that elusive passion called art—poetry, the art of communication... and now I'm carrying the world's largest monkey on my back. My Christ, what a buggy term, what horrible imagery—I cart the whole damn zoo on my poor back! Thomas Grey so perfectly stated, 'The paths of glory lead but to the grave.' Trouble today—our poets are snobs, don't dig the wisdom of the old masters or the...”