Snake water, p.1
Snake Water, page 1
SNAKE WATER
Alan Williams
For P.E., D.G., R.K., and D.S.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE: MAN ON THE LOOSE
CHAPTER TWO: MAN ON THE RUN
CHAPTER THREE: CASA SPHINX
CHAPTER FOUR: STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
CHAPTER FIVE: THE MAN IN ROOM SIX
CHAPTER SIX: HIGH RIDE
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE DEVIL’S SPOON
CHAPTER EIGHT: SNAKE WATER
CHAPTER NINE: THE LAST CHANCE
CHAPTER TEN: DELIRIUM
ALSO BY ALAN WILLIAMS
CHAPTER ONE: MAN ON THE LOOSE
Ben Morris leaned against the deck rail, his mouth turned down at the corners, and watched the lights winking at him across the bay. The shore lay perhaps half a mile off, perhaps a mile — it was hard to calculate in the tropical twilight. The engines had slowed to a thud, and he listened to the water lapping against the hull. His cabin had been cleared and locked, his suitcase and canvas briefcase stowed at the head of the gangway. All he could do now was wait for the pilot boat to come out and guide them into port. From then on, he was alone.
There were steep mountains beyond the shore and storm clouds that curled in the dusk, settling darkly over the town. He could smell rain and felt his skin prickling under his shirt. Even the scrubbed deck rail was moist.
There was almost no sound on board. The other passengers would probably be in the wardroom now, playing Scrabble or gin rummy. He doubted whether any of them would ask to go ashore tonight. He was the only one leaving the ship here: the rest were booked on the round trip back to London.
She was a slow freighter that ran cargoes around the west coast of Africa, down to Central and South America, with accommodation for six passengers. Ben’s companions were two English couples in their fifties and a widower who drank up to three bottles of rum a day and was prone to fall over every time the ship rolled. They took their meals at a table with the captain and chief engineer, two gloomy Scots who usually ate in silence, chewing steadily as though to batten down their boredom.
The voyage had lasted nearly four weeks, with calls at Casablanca and Dakar. The first couple of days, as they steamed down the Channel into the Bay of Biscay, he had spent on his bunk with the porthole screwed down, sweating. The other passengers had been seasick; he had not. He had lain in silent battle with himself, fighting down the fear and loneliness that had been attacking him ever since he had awakened two months ago in that hospital in Bordeaux.
At night he relied on sleeping pills; sometimes they worked; often they didn’t. He would drop off for an hour or two, then lie awake till the steward came in the gray of the morning with tea and biscuits. He had had no appetite in those first days; had drunk warily and talked to almost no one. He had done a lot of reading: David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities for the second time; the Richard Hannay adventures by Buchan; a stack of paperback thrillers, H. L. Mencken’s essays, a Spanish phrase book.
After Dakar came the muggy crossing of the tropics when the physical limits of his life had been as confining as those of a man in prison. There were the deck, the wardroom, dining room and his spartan cabin with its steel basin and single bunk; and gradually the monotony of each day had brought him a numbed peace, until, like a man trying to postpone a dreaded reality, he had wished the voyage would last six months, even a year.
A door opened beside him and a man stepped from a lighted cabin onto the deck. Ben recognized the captain; he was wearing a white shirt without jacket or tie, his face mauve with blood pressure. ‘Evenin’, Mister Morris.’ He spoke with a strong Lowland accent.
‘Good evening, Captain.’ They paused, peering through the dusk for a glimpse of the pilot boat. ‘So ye’re goin’ ashore here, are ye?’ the captain said, without turning his head.
‘That’s right.’ Ben felt a stab of panic. After so long on the open sea the stillness of the ship filled him with an irrational anxiety.
The captain was breathing heavily beside him. He was not an easy man to talk to. On their last night in Dakar he had come on board drunk and called Ben into his cabin, confessing savagely that he hated the sea: the tedium and hard work and poor pay, with less than three months at home in the year: telling Ben he was a lucky lad to be free to travel halfway round the world. Free as air — scowling into his cup of gin and tepid water. Free! Ben thought. Oh, he was free all right. He’d escaped. He had absolutely nothing now, except his suitcase and briefcase, and £330 in traveler’s checks and 170 dollars in cash — all the money he had in the world, now buttoned down in the breast pockets of his bush-shirt, the one with the label ‘Genuine Safari Bush-Shirt Guaranteed to Fade’. He had tried to plan how long the money would last: perhaps as long as his six-month visa, if he avoided the big hotels and clip joints and whorehouses. There was a single-line railway through the mountains to the inland capital of Parataxín in the south. He planned to take the first train out. He had nothing to hold him now: no responsibilities to anyone. He was free.
The captain growled beside him: ‘Ye must be mad stoppin’ here! The dairtiest port on the coast.’
‘What’s the matter with it?’
‘Pure bloody hell!’ the captain cried, in a sudden fluting voice. ‘If the dear Lord wished to give the world an enema, he’d know just where to insert the tube. Guadaigil!’ He nodded at the lights ahead. ‘Why don’t you come t’ Rio? There’s a city for ye! This place has nothing.’ A bell clanked somewhere above them in the darkness. That’ll be the pilot boat.’ He turned toward his cabin. ‘Come t’ Rio, mon,’ he muttered again, without looking back.
‘Rio’s too far,’ said Ben. ‘This is as far as my ticket goes, and this is where I get off.’
The captain moved away without answering, slamming the cabin door behind him.
Pure bloody hell he’d said it was, Ben thought, looking at the dipping waterfront. And the captain ought to know — he did this run twice a year.
Ben walked down the quay toward the Customs shed, his suitcase in one hand and briefcase in the other. The night was black and sticky, and the sweat was already itching down his face and under his collar. In his case were a couple of bottles of Johnnie Walker, bought duty-free on the ship, which he had decided to declare.
Two men sat inside the shed drinking coffee under a fan. One was a Negro with a face pitted like anthracite. The other was an officer; he had white piping on his shoulders and wore sunglasses, a holster and supple black boots. He snapped his fingers at Ben without standing up: ‘Passport!’ One hand flicked at a black nailbrush mustache while the other turned the pages of the passport, taking its time.
‘You speak Spanish?’
‘A little.’
‘How long are you staying in Guadaigil?’
‘I’m going to Parataxín by train.’
‘The first train is tomorrow at eight. How much money have you?’
Ben told him. The man’s fingers snapped again: ‘Show me.’
Ben unbuttoned his breast pocket and took out the billfold of traveler’s checks and the 170 dollars in cash.
‘You have pesos?’ the officer asked.
‘No.’
The sunglasses watched him blankly for several seconds. ‘All money must be changed by the proper authorities,’ he said at last. ‘It is illegal to import pesos from abroad.’ He paused meaningfully: ‘Black-market activities are severely punished in this country. You understand?’
‘I understand,’ said Ben. ‘I have no pesos.’ He looked up at the framed photograph of a heavy-faced man in military uniform, with the inscription: President of the Republic for the Glory of God, Dr. Isodor Romolo. Doctor of what? Ben wondered. The Negro yawned and went on sipping his coffee. Ben said: Where can I change money?’
The officer put out his hand again: ‘Give me the dollars. I change them.’
Ben gave him a single ten-dollar bill, the lowest denomination he had. The officer spread it on his knee and studied it, then opened a drawer in the table beside him. He counted out fifteen dog-eared notes, each worth one peso, and thrust them at Ben.
Ben hesitated.
‘Fifteen pesos,’ the officer said.
Ben knew from the list of exchange rates given to him with his traveler’s checks that the peso stood at 3s. 6d. — almost exactly half a dollar. He had been short-changed by 25 percent. The man could have made a mistake. Ben gave him a false smile: ‘I am sorry, Señor — ten dollars is twenty pesos.’
The officer slipped the bill inside his tunic. ‘Fifteen pesos,’ he said, and opened the passport again. Ben took out his check folder, pointing at the exchange rates. The values were given against sterling only and the officer did not seem interested; he reached out for a rubber stamp.
Ben felt hot and exhausted. The currency value could have changed since he had left England. This was not, after all, one of the world’s most stable states. He watched the officer stamp his passport and write down its number with his name in a ledger beside him. Then he pointed at the suitcase and briefcase. ‘Open!’ He examined both thoroughly, again taking his time. When he came to the Scotch he lifted the two bottles out and stood them on the table. ‘Eight pesos,’ he said.
Ben took out his money again and peeled off eight notes, but the officer shook his head: ‘I change ten more dollars.’
‘But I have pesos now.’
‘Not enough. For one night in Guadaigil you will need at least fifteen pesos. You pay eight for import tax — you have seven left. Yes?’
‘Yes,’ said Ben, wit h sudden helplessness. He gave him another ten-dollar bill and the officer gave him seven pesos change. Ben put the Scotch back in the bag. ‘I want a receipt, please.’
The sunglasses stared at him.
‘Recibo,’ Ben repeated.
‘It is not necessary,’ the officer said and handed the passport back.
Ben’s color was rising. He took a step forward: ‘It is necessary! I want a receipt for eight pesos!’
The Negro shifted in his chair and put down his coffee cup. The officer did not move. He said: ‘If it is necessary, then I will tell you. You will go now.’ He made a motion with his hand and the Negro stood up and stepped over beside Ben.
For a moment he was filled with a wild fury; he had been cheated and humiliated: short-changed by nearly two pounds; and no doubt the eight pesos on the Scotch would go to buying the officer cigars. But Ben had chosen to come to this country, and this was the way it worked. He picked up his bags and went outside, through the port gates where a band of scrawny Indian porters came whimpering round him like dogs after a bone. He ignored them and after a few yards they slunk away into the darkness.
He began walking down a dirt road into the town, past stunted palm trees that reminded him of pineapples. Further on there were huts and warehouses with lights hung at long intervals. An oil tanker out in the bay groaned suddenly like some great beast in pain. Otherwise there was no sound. He felt a horrible loneliness. The incident with the officer had depressed him and put him on the defensive. The next person who tries to hustle me, he thought, is going to regret it. He came into a street of white houses with wooden verandas, and noticed that the ground everywhere was covered in a powdery gray dust which in places had drifted into heaps up to a foot high.
A man with a gun sat in the door of a wine shop, chuckling to himself. He yelled something at Ben, who hurried on, into a brighter street where there was a little yellow church and a row of bars murmuring with mariachis. Insects began humming around him, sticking to his hair and the sweat on his face. Ahead, he saw lightning flashes up in the mountains.
A couple of taxis stood near the church door, their drivers dozing inside. A young man in a baseball cap was lounging against one of the hoods. He started up when he saw Ben and came forward smiling: ‘Hey, mister, wanna hotel?’
Ben walked on, and the young man began walking beside him. ‘You American? O.K., what you are?’ He was still smiling.
‘I can find a hotel. Thank you!’
‘You go to Pez Espada Hotel,’ the young man said, keeping in careful step with him. He made no attempt to carry Ben’s bags, and at the end of the street he said: ‘C’mon — this way!’
Ben began to get angry. ‘Listen, I don’t want to go that way. I can find my own hotel. Understand?’
The man smiled: ‘Down there, Hotel Pez Espada.’ Ben looked and saw there was only one way to go — the way the man was pointing. The street led into a plaza with arcades and a dry fountain. As soon as he started off again, the young man fell in behind him.
The hotel was a two-story house in the Spanish colonial style, with a stuffed swordfish over the entrance. ‘Hotel Pez Espada!’ the young man cried, skipping up beside him, grinning. Ben clamped his jaws shut and said nothing. He started up the steps and the young man was beside him at once, touching his sleeve: ‘One peso please mister!’
‘Go to hell!’ Ben said without turning round. He took another step and the man was in front of him. He was not smiling now. He had black glassy eyes that looked too old for his face. ‘One peso mister.’
Ben felt his pulse quicken. Don’t push it, he thought: I’m in a nasty mood. I’ve been in a nasty mood for a long time. I may try taking it out on somebody. He stepped round him and took another step, and the man shouted something in Spanish which Ben didn’t catch. A big sad-faced man in a striped pajama top came out of the hotel foyer and looked down at them. He had a long nightstick clipped to his belt. ‘Qué pasa?’ he said quietly.
The man in the baseball cap began talking rapid Spanish. Ben shook his arm free and spoke to the big man: ‘I want a room for the night!’
The man stared at him: he had a drooping mustache on a face the color of a dead leaf. ‘You pay him one peso,’ he said, nodding at the young man.
Ben put down his bags. For a moment he stood with arms tensed, his heart beginning to race. It was a long time since he had hit anybody: not since the night in a Soho restaurant when a drunk had called his wife ‘a stuck-up little deb.’ The man had had to be helped out into a taxi afterward.
‘Shit!’ he said in English, and the big man repeated in Spanish: ‘You pay one peso.’
‘Why?’
‘Commission,’ the man said quietly, his hands hanging motionless at his side. It would take a couple of seconds to unclip the nightstick, Ben thought. On the other hand, one of them might have a knife; and even if he won, the police would probably throw him in jail and fine him fifty times what this was going to cost.
He took out a one-peso note, avoiding the young man’s eyes. ‘You’re a thieving little bastard!’ he said as he gave it to him, and the man waved, grinning: ‘Bye! Bye! Mister!’
Ben went up the steps, past the big man in the pajama top, and thought bitterly: I’m letting them get away with it. Twelve pesos, or nearly two quid, in half an hour. I’m a coward. He said: ‘I want a room for one night.’
The big man nodded and went behind the desk.
It was a poky room on the ground floor with a humpbacked bed, a basin and iron bidet. He put his case on the bed, took out one of the bottles of whisky, went over to the basin and saw there was no water glass. He tried the tap; it coughed and spat out a dead insect. He took a deep breath and looked at himself in the mirror. His face was tauter than when he had left England and he looked more than twenty-nine. It was a broad face with short pepper-brown hair and a nose that had been badly broken twice — first at the age of five when a door had been opened against him in a game of hide-and-seek, and again during a boxing match at Aberystwyth University. Apart from the nose it was a good face; the nose gave it a hint of brutality.
He went into the passage and shouted for the big man to bring him a glass and bottle of mineral water. As he got back the rain started. It came in a roar, splashing through the shutters against the mosquito net which had shrunk and split away from the frame. He threw the shutters open and let the water bounce onto his face.
Then he noticed the dust on the ledge. It was the same as he had seen in the street outside — about half an inch deep, like a layer of cigar ash. The rain was already swilling it into a gray slime. He ran his finger through a corner that was still dry and it did not feel like ordinary dust: it was hard and gritty, and oddly sinister.
Somebody knocked on the door. A woman came in carrying a tray with the glass and mineral water. He watched her put it down and noticed that her legs were shaped like Indian clubs, tapering down from low heavy hips formed by generations of women used to carrying loads on their heads. She was the first girl he had seen since Dakar, nearly a month ago.
She hurried out of the room, her eyes away from him. He waited till she had closed the door, then poured the tumbler full with equal measures of Scotch and water, pulled the suitcase to the floor and flung himself down on the bed, sipping his drink and staring at the ceiling.
He began to think of Laura. He tried to avoid her, fight her off, but her memory crept up on him, as it always did at about this time, and as always it was more a physical pain than a mental process. She had been very beautiful; but after that he could not really remember what she had looked like. She had been twenty-two when he first met her — almost exactly two years ago, while she was working in a West End bookshop and he was in his sixth year of a good dull job with a firm of City architects. He had married her five months later. There had been a big wedding down at her parents’ house near Cirencester in Gloucestershire. He remembered that part well: the marquee in the garden, presided over by Laura’s father — a hard-drinking, Jaguar-driving tycoon with a wife who sat on the magistrates’ bench. They had not been too sure about Ben at first. His background was not imposing: born in Fishguard, West Wales, where his father was a librarian. But they had finally accepted him, and her father had furnished a flat for them both in Camden Town, and also paid for the honeymoon in Marrakesh.
