House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

“Then what?”

“Take care of business,” he replied.

A half hour later, he stood with her at the entrance to her apartment house. The moon was up, and the banana plants and elephant ears and philodendron were beaded with water, like big drops of mercury.

“Would you like to come in?” she said.

“I’d like to, but I cain’t.”

“Are you going to drink?”

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“Please come inside.”

“That would make me awful happy. I want to get my boy back. But I want to get his mother back, too. Her name is Ruby Dansen. She was a good girl and deserved a lot better than me.”

“That’s a pretty name. Good night, Mr. Holland.”

“Goodnight, Miss B.”

He watched her go inside the apartment, then began walking toward his hotel, trying not to think too hard on the deception Mealy Lonetree had perpetrated on him, at least not until he could do something about it. He stopped at a package store and bought a pint of whiskey and drank it as he walked, a thick layer of white fog swirling around his knees, the whiskey flooding his throat with a golden airiness that could not be measured.

ISHMAEL FELT THE train tilt and begin its abrupt descent down Ratón Pass, its wheels locked, screeching down the grade with such intensity that the inside of the Pullman room trembled and the closet doors swung open and shook on their hinges. He lay on his side in the bed, in his underwear, watching the pinyon trees and ponderosa and outcroppings of rock and the steep slope of the mountain slide past the window, the woman’s body molded against his, her breath on his neck, her hand resting on his hip.

It was funny how he sometimes thought of her as “the woman” rather than as Maggie Bassett. Maybe that was what she intended. She made herself into all things woman. She was lover, caretaker, mother, and confidante. “Provider” might be another word. The injection she had given him before they left the hospital was more than a temporary flight from pain and worry that the Greek god Morpheus usually offered. The hit had traveled up his arm and spread through his body like the Red Sea, turning his eyelids to lead, filling him with a sense of pleasure and warmth that bordered on orgasm, taking him to a sunlit place where the earth jutted into infinity and the stars plummeted past him into a heavenly abyss.

“Are you awake, sleepyhead?” she said.

“I was watching the rocks and the trees. The grade is dropping so fast, I dreamed we’d fallen in a hole.”

“We’ll be in New Mexico in a few minutes. In another hour we’ll be in Texas.”

He tried to turn his head to see her face, but she was pressed too close. “I don’t remember getting on the train. How did I get to the station?”

“You were sedated.”

He closed his eyes and opened them again, the canyon dropping into shadow on a curve, the couplings jarring. “My mother was coming to see me. She didn’t show up?”

“It’s the medicine. You have things turned around. I left a message and a phone number. If you like, we can call her when we reach San Antonio.”

“How do you know where she is?”

“The people we work for can find anyone, Ishmael. Did you know you might be in motion pictures?”

“What are you talking about?”

“With your looks and physique? The man I work for, the man you’ll be working for, owns part of a film company in Pacific Palisades.”

“I don’t know where that is. I feel strange. Like bees are buzzing under my skin.”

“We’ll go out to the Palisades. I’ve been there. It’s right on the ocean. They say it’s the place where no one ever dies. The man I work for says that’s why people love motion pictures. They believe the actors in the film become immortal. If they can associate themselves with the actors, they become immortal, too.”

“Maybe they should visit the Marne. It might cure them of their thoughts on immortality.”

She spread her fingers on his stomach, then moved them down into his shorts and touched him. “We can pull the shade. The door is locked, and the porter won’t bother us. I told him not to come by unless we call him.”

“I don’t feel too well right now.”