Ride the Pink Horse Read Online Free PDF Page B

the background. There was no reason for him to look in Pila’s direction, she hadn’t moved, she hadn’t spoken. But he looked because he would look anywhere for escape from the scrawny kid and her companion. He looked into Pila’s eyes, black fathomless eyes; he saw the stone inscrutability of her brown face. She was square and strong, her face was square, her strong black hair lank about her face. The skirt she wore was bedraggled and worn, her blouse faded, the flower in her hair a joke. She was young, young as the kid, and she was old, old as this old country.
    He was frightened of her, the same fright he had felt earlier when twilight was deepening over the little Plaza and the absence of life under the lights and banners a thing unreal. She was unreal, alien; yet she belonged and he was the alien. She, not the kid, was Fiesta; something deep and strong and old under the tawdry trapping, under the gimcracks. Something he didn’t understand because he was a stranger.
    He knew a frantic urge to bolt, not only from her but from the skinny kid and the homely girl friend. He was saved by the homely one, by Irene. Tired of his disinterest, her protruding black eyes were watching the walkers and she cried out, “Look, there is Eleuteriol”
    She pulled at Rosita’s arm, moving as she spoke. Rosita called over her shoulder, “Goodbye, Sailor.” He looked again at Pila, fearing she wouldn’t leave, but she turned without speaking and tagged after them. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead.
    Behind him there was a snicker and he turned on the two gangling youths sitting up on the ledge. He didn’t have to say anything, the face he gave them was enough. It usually was enough for punks. He was reassured by their scuttling eyes; the withdrawal of their scorn.
    He walked away. The merry-go-round was still turning although the circle of children was thinner. He could breathe Pancho’s sweat this far away. Pancho could find him a room but it would be stained with sweat. It would stink of sweat and chile and stale garlic breaths. He didn’t live like that; he hadn’t come here to live like that.
    He stepped up on the curb out of the way of the street crowd, walked slowly towards the La Fonda cross section. The Sen had to take care of him. Or else. McIntyre ought to be gone by now. Sailor was going to see the Sen tonight and the Sen could buy the beers.
    He walked hard, swaggering his decision, but at the white bank building he stopped and fell back into the shadow. There was a group rounding the corner of the ticket office, a group of swells. They were laughing; they were too gay, satin-and-silk-and-velvet gay, champagne gay; they were a slumming party, leaving their rich fastness momentarily to smell the unwashed part of Fiesta. The Sen was with them.
    Sailor stood there, flat in the shadows. He hadn’t planned meeting the Sen bulwarked by blooded friends. In all his plans he’d seen only himself and the Sen, alone, face to face. Nothing like this. Anger swelled in him. A big fair fellow in black velvet cavorted by, his arms around a hard-faced bitch in white lace and a small baby-faced blonde in a coral shawl. The bitch screamed, “Hubert, you’re divine!” and the baby face snuggled closer. She had a thin chain of diamonds about her throat and she stunk of whisky.
    Sailor didn’t see the next couple, he saw the Sen approaching and out of anger he stepped out and confronted him. “Hello, Sen,” he said.
    The look on the Sen’s face was worth waiting for. The protuberance of nose, the sleepy dark eyes, the thin lips and brush mustache—he’d watched them in his dreams react just this way. The moment of total disbelief, the realization and the blank masking of all reaction, the groping for customary patronizing sureness. It was all there just as he’d seen it. He’d surprised the Sen.
    The weasel face was coming back to life. The Sen hadn’t spoken to him and he didn’t now. He spoke to the girl with