“You going to pour?” said Quinn.
“Not yet.” She sat holding his fingers and watching smoke.
“You keep working that smoke like that,” he said, “and pretty soon you’re going to go up like that smoke.”
“Oh no. Try?”
“I told you why not.”
“It’s no interference, Quinn, it just slows everything down. Sometimes it slows things so much, nothing runs away any more.” She closed her eyes and held his fingers.
The sun was now halfway into the water, far away, very big and rich-looking, but far. The room was in shadow already.
She put out the cigarette when it was very short and had turned brown and then they drank coffee. She said a long ah, and that she enjoyed coffee more than anything now. Quinn looked at her over his cup, wanting her.
“You look greedy,” she said.
“I am. I like nothing better right now than feeling greedy.”
“Good. Because you owe me one.”
“What?”
“When we made love, you left me way behind.”
“I don’t remember, you know that?”
“You were full of tricks but it wasn’t any good.”
“Tricks,” he said and drank from his cup.
She put one hand on his leg just as the old man came back into the room. She left her hand there and pressed while the old man said something in Arabic and then he left the room.
“Whitfield is back, maybe?”
“No. He said he fixed the bath.”
“You got one of those tin things, too?”
“No. Mine is tile and all black. I look very white on the black,” she said and got up.
The sun was no sun any more but was all red water. She wanted to look out for a while or wanted to close the shutters, but he took her arm and said, “Come on. To hell with the shutters, come on,” and they went upstairs.
That room had a big white bed and was very dim. In a while Quinn did take the drug she had smoked and he smoked that while she took her bath. Quinn stayed that night, and the next day, and the night after that, but he knew this only in the end. What he knew was that the room was dark, that the room was light, that the woman smelled warm, that she was there or wasn’t. Once there was wild laughter, and then there were screams. He was sure he saw Whitfield one time and there were other people. He was holding a woman once and she turned out to be somebody he did not know. Then Bea came back again, crying, then laughing. God, you didn’t leave me behind that time, she said, then wept again. I feel like slush. God, how I hate slush. Some of this came and went in a way which reminded him of the time in the box, except this time it was really the opposite.
Chapter 16
The first thing Whitfield saw from his bed was Quinn, shaving. Whitfield did not have a hangover but he did have a delicate routine in the morning and the razor sounds went through him. He broke routine and started to talk while still lying in bed. This way he would not hear the razor sounds.
“Ah! Good morning!”
“Hum,” said Quinn, doing his chin.
The good morning had sickened Whitfield and he wished he had said hum instead.
“Why are you shaving?” said Whitfield. “Got a date?”
“Lend me some money.”
“How will I get it back?”
“When I get my job.”
“You’re getting a job?”
“Today, if the thing is on schedule.”
The exchange left Whitfield a little limp and he had no idea what it was all about.
“Why do you need money?”
“Because I got a date.”
Which is, of course, Whitfield thought, how we started. And better avoid confusion and not ask how come a date at this hour in the morning.
Quinn was toweling his face and Whitfield closed his eyes. There was too much activity. When he opened his eyes again he saw Quinn stand by the bed.
“You look terribly awake,” said Whitfield, feeling threatened.
“You going to lend me that money? Five bucks or so.”
Whitfield sighed and closed his eyes again. “I’d rather not,” he said, “though it seems I might, any moment.”
“You’ll get it back, Whitfield. Really.”
“I point out to you that you are not permitted to hold a job in this country, not with your status, and I point out to you that it is barely daylight and no time for a date at all, and if it’s Bea, then of course you actually don’t need any money at all. This exhausts my arguments. I am exhausted.”
“I haven’t got a date this early in the morning but maybe I haven’t got time to ask for the money later. And don’t tell me about legalities. You know they don’t mean a thing around here.”
“All right,” said Whitfield, “all right,” and then he got out of bed. He gave Quinn some bills which actually came to about three dollars and then said he was not too interested in discussing legalities, not with an active-type crook such as Quinn, he himself being a passive-type crook only, and that there was a great deal of difference. He, Whitfield, did not enjoy the activity as such but only the rewards, and that was quite different from Quinn’s situation. And would Quinn please leave now, so that he, Whitfield, might wake up in peace.
“Be seeing you,” said Quinn, and left.
Whitfield thought about the way Quinn had grinned, and about this disturbing electric quality which the man could muster at this hour of the morning. And I’ll not be seeing you, not today, if I can help it.
But Whitfield felt apprehensive from that point on without bothering to try and explain this to himself. He knew that he could always find explanations for anything, several explanations for anything, and that it did not help him one bit. He went apprehensively through the entire forenoon, consoling himself with the thought of his siesta.
He was reasonably busy with bills of lading, and at eleven the cutter came in. The cutter had tear streaks of rust down its sides and looked to be built about fifty years ago. Which was true, except for the engine. This was the cutter from Sicily and eleven o’clock was a very nice time of arrival-the cutter did not always come in on schedule-but eleven was fine with Whitfield because by eleven-thirty he could start his siesta. With this thought Whitfield forgot his apprehension for a while and watched how the cutter sidled up to the pier.
Then Whitfield saw the Sicilian. The man stood, arms akimbo, where the gangway would come down from the ship’s side and Whitfield went back into apprehension. Oh no, he thought. First I lose five dollars, while still in bed, and now this has to happen. That man there never comes along on a trip unless there is trouble, or at any rate, hardly ever unless there is trouble, and of course there is trouble today. I feel it. I know my siesta is shot all to hell. Why did I have to be in such an exciting business like shipping in Okar.
The Sicilian was the first off the gangway and came across the bright pier to the warehouse door where Whitfield was standing. Let him walk all the way over, thought Whitfield, I am used to apprehension and besides, that one loves to walk.
This seemed to be true. The Sicilian walked as if preceding an army. He also reminded one of a bantam, except that his face was a monkey face. He wore an Italian suit, the jacket leaving some of the rear exposed in fairly tight pants, and the shoulders flared out as if there were epaulettes. He walked, flashing his shoes. Where an American buys a showy car, Whitfield thought to himself, a Sicilian buys that kind of shoes.
“Whitfield?” said the Sicilian, as if he did not know whom he was talking to.
“How are you, Cipolla,” and Whitfield smiled, hoping that this might influence fate.
“You got troubles, Whitfield. Come on.”
Cipolla talked English whenever he could. He did not talk English, according to Whitfield, but a type of American. Cipolla had learned the language during his few years in New York, before he had been shipped back for illegal entry.