Honey in His Mouth

“Oh. Well, you hadn’t mentioned money, only Roebuck, and I thought you meant one favor in exchange for another.”

“I will never need a favor from a man of your caliber, Harsh.”

“Well, if you say so. But a man never knows.”

“I asked you if you were for sale, you fool.” The man looked at Harsh with eyes as cold and moist as those of a dead cow.

“I guess the answer is yes.”

“Good. It is settled.” Brother began buttoning his topcoat preparatory to leaving. “This is as far as our discussion need go.”

“Wait a minute.” Harsh stubbed out the cigarette. “Nobody said how much money we’re discussing.”

“I already know your price tag, Harsh.” Brother drew a package of money from his pocket and tossed it on the bed. “That is the full amount we are discussing. There will be no more. Count it. It is not yours until your job is done. I will be back later.”

The sheaf of currency was held by a rubber band. It had come to rest exactly in the middle of Harsh’s stomach. He could see it by looking down his nose. He did not touch it.

“Harsh.”

“Yes?”

“You are to be removed from this hospital and taken to another city. That will happen this afternoon.”

Brother swung and walked to the door, opened it and went out, closing the door behind him.

I’ll be damned, Harsh thought, wondering how much money was in the packet. His palms suddenly felt sweaty and he rubbed the right one on the sheet. He pulled the money to him and slipped off the rubber band and began to count. He counted off five or six bills and stopped. He took one of the greenbacks with his fingers and held it up to the light, turning it this way and that and speculating on whether it was counterfeit. He did not think it was phony. It was a one hundred dollar bill. His palm was still sweating and he rubbed it on the sheet again, then went on counting, moving his lips and concentrating. Halfway through the pile his hand shook so that he had to pause. Jesus, he thought. He had a coughing spell that wracked him and he wondered if he was out of his goddamn mind. He seized all the money and shoved it under the sheet and lay there breathing heavily. He began to have visions of the nurse coming in and jerking the sheet off him and finding the money and taking it away from him the way they had taken away his clothes. He must be dreaming. Oh hell if he was dreaming, he might as well get the full effect of the dream and finish counting the money. He began counting again and his lips felt very stiff when he tried to move them to frame the numbers. He began to hear the blood going through his ears like water in a faucet. Finally he finished counting the money and clutched it all together and put it under the sheet with him and rolled over on it so the money was under his belly. He lay there having difficulty breathing. He felt the money pushing against the outside of his belly. Then he got the impression the money was penetrating right into his gut and making a lump like a barrel. The lump became as hot as fire. Then it began to melt and as it melted the gold fluid ran through his veins, ran through his veins into his throat, making him sick, making him have to vomit. He did not want to vomit on his bed. He lurched up but he had to let go anyway when he put his weight on his broken arm without thinking and the arm exploded with pain. He had to scream. The scream sounded like a fire engine to his ears. The whole hospital would hear the squall, he thought, and come running to take the money away from him. Oh, Lord. His bed was a mess. So this was how it felt, he thought, to get your hands on fifty thousand dollars.

PART TWO

SEVEN

The cablegram was delivered at eight minutes past ten o‘clock that morning and it put real terror into Mr. Hassam. Some minutes passed before he controlled his breathing to the point where he no longer took air into his lungs in shaky gasps. He memorized the name of the town, Kirksville, Missouri, where the cablegram had originated, and the name of the hotel, Colonial Motel, where the sender wished to be contacted, then he burned the cablegram on his desk ashtray. He sat staring at the ash.

Just burning the cablegram might not be enough, he reflected. You never knew. He kneaded the ashes in his palm to be sure he had thoroughly disposed of them. The paper smoke still hung in the office and it smelled enough like what it was, paper smoke, that anybody chancing to come in might recognize it. The president of the bank, the vice president, a clerk, anyone who came in would know paper smoke when they smelled it, and remember. He supposed anyone at the bank would be afraid to say anything, the situation of the government being what it was. But again, you never knew. Everyone was being careful to keep eyes and ears disconnected from mouths as long as the descamisada, the shirtless ones, still thought God had come down to earth and was running the government for their benefit. But the time of crisis was coming.

Since it was only ten o’clock in the morning, Mr. Hassam thought, God was probably still in bed with one of his teenage friends.

The smoke from the cablegram stank like camel breath, Mr. Hassam reflected, and he got up and opened the window. He stood there looking into the Avenida del Libertador General San Martin. It surprised him to see several thousand persons gathered in the street. He could not think what the occasion might be. He could see that the crowd was made up largely of shirtless ones, but for the life of him he could not recall why thousands of the fools should be down there in the street at ten o’clock this morning. He recalled that somewhere in his desk there was a silly calendar made up by some favor-currying concern which showed all the holidays dedicated to El Presidente and his late wife. He found the calendar and looked at it. Today was La Senora De La Esperanza day, the Lady of Hope Day, which was what the shirtless ones worshipfully called the late wife. So that was it.

Mr. Hassam put away the calendar. He wondered how the project of making a Saint out of La Senora De La Esperanza was coming along. El Presidente had ordered the Catholics to make his late wife a Saint about a month ago. The Catholic faith was dominant in the country, and the church officials did not like the Saint project. You could not blame them, for she had been a real bitch. It was rumored that El Presidente had personally telephoned the Pope in Rome and told him the Saint thing had to go through right away. Mr. Hassam could imagine what a hit that made with the Pope. All those teenage girls he was getting must be giving the bastard a God complex for real, thought Mr. Hassam. If he stirred up all the Catholics, he was opening a hornet nest, and he should have enough sense left to know it.

The way the crowd was starting to gather, there would probably be fifty thousand of them under the lecher’s balcony by two o’clock, the hour he usually put in his appearance.

Where was Kirksville, Missouri, anyway? In the U.S.A. obviously, since that was where the cablegram had originated. Mr. Hassam was somewhat puzzled as to which was the town and which was the province, and the general location. He consulted an atlas. Missouri, he found, was a province in the central U.S.A., and Kirksville was a small city.

He still felt frightened. Fear was like having a drink of a strong liquor, vodka or slivovitz or bourbon whiskey, in the way it put a false feeling into a man, and the sensation did not leave the system immediately.

The telephone rang. Mr. Hassam swung about to face the instrument, his nerves tightening. He was reluctant to pick it up, but he felt he must do so.

“Who? Senorita Muirz? Put her on, of course.” It was bad business when a man grew frightened at a telephone call, he reflected. “Ah, Miss Muirz. A profound pleasure.”

“I plan to be in your office at two o’clock, Hassam.”

She sounds high-handed, he thought. He was irritated. High-handedness must be a disease they caught in bed with that bastard. Only last week when he was visiting El Presidente’s summer residence in Olivos, a teenage flip had ordered Mr. Hassam about as though he were a peon, and he had not forgotten.