Ride the Pink Horse Read Online Free PDF Page A

silly black hat with the bobbles, the red sash winding his white pants. The bobbles were red and green and yellow. “Come for Fiesta?” he asked.
    Sailor said, “Sure,” hearty as if he meant it.
    The Sen couldn’t have hired McIntyre to protect him. It couldn’t be that. Mac wasn’t the Sen’s man. He’d gone in when the reform commissioner was appointed. He’d been against the Sen for too many years to have gone over to his side. “You here for Fiesta?” Sailor asked.
    “Yeah,” McIntyre said.
    “Kinda interesting, isn’t it?” Two guys from Chicago talking it over in a foreign town.
    “See Zozobra burn?”
    “Yeah, I saw it,” McIntyre said.
    Close-mouthed, McIntyre. Tight-mouthed and gimlet-eyed, his eyes going through what you said into what you were thinking. Sailor stirred. The silly hat struck him again. He laughed. “Have to pick up a costume, I guess. Only got in this afternoon.” He wanted to ask and he did. “You been here long?”
    “A week,” McIntyre said.
    Sailor kept satisfaction out of his face. “Well, be seeing you,” he said. His foot was out to move away but McIntyre spoke again. “Where you staying, Sailor?”
    It was a casual question but he was afraid of it. It caught him flat and he answered the truth. “I haven’t got a room yet. Kind of hard to find one during Fiesta.” He wouldn’t put it past Mac to have him jugged as a vag. If it suited his purpose. He laughed quick. “If I’m out of luck, I got a friend here who’ll put me up.”
    “Yeah,” McIntyre said. Not “Yeah?” but “Yeah.”
    He knew the cop was thinking of the Sen and he ought to have been thinking of the Sen too but the funny thing was, he hadn’t been. He’d been thinking of the merry-go-round man, of fat dirty Pancho Villa. If he was out of luck, Pancho would take care of him.
    This time he broadened his smile. “Be seeing you, Mac,” he said and this time he walked away. Walked away while McIntyre was saying, “Take care of yourself, Sailor.” Saying it like he might need to walk carefully. McIntyre didn’t know what he knew. McIntyre didn’t know Sailor had the Sen where he wanted him.
    He walked out of the hotel, not stopping at the desk. Because he’d had a quick one, a real one in the dome. McIntyre was trailing the Sen and the farther Sailor stayed away publicly, the safer he’d be. Mac knew a lot of things. He might know that Sailor was one of the Sen’s boys. Was, meaning, had been. But again, he might not know it. Tomorrow was time enough to get the Sen’s room number. The Sen wouldn’t be running away. Not before he knew Sailor was looking for him.
    Sailor went out again into the cool of night. After the fumes of perfume and liquor and body stench in the lobby, the night was a cool drink. He still hadn’t had that cold bottle of beer. He still wanted it though the edge was off want after the stink of liquored breaths in the hotel. He didn’t care to be caught in another trap like that one. If he could have beer here on the Plaza it would have a taste.
    He stopped at one of the thatched booths and asked. The wizened woman could barely speak English. Her head was bound in a blue turban and there were chile stains on her white apron. “No beer,” she said. Her smile was toothless. “Pop.” He didn’t want pop but the cold moisture clinging to the bottles made his dry throat ache. He bought a coke and he drank it standing there, everyone around him speaking in foreign tongue, Spanish-speaking. He felt suddenly lonesome, he who was always separate and never lonesome. He felt uprooted, he who had no roots but the Chicago streets; a stranger in an alien place. He finished the pop and walked on. His throat wasn’t dry but he still had a beer thirst. Pancho could tell him where to cure it. His faith in Pancho was childlike. But even as he mocked the faith, it became the stronger.
    He swung down into the park and over to Tio Vivo. He couldn’t get near. It was ten