Cade Read online

  ‘He has the first bull,’ Creel said.

  Diaz walked over to Franoco. They spoke together, then Franoco took Diaz’s dress cape from him and spread it over the fence.

  Diaz looked up and stared at the faces looking down at him. He looked at Cade, looked away, then stiffening, he looked back at Cade. He said something to Franoco who looked round quickly and also stared at Cade. The sudden entry of the bull made both men jerk around.

  ‘He knew you,’ Creel said in a satisfied voice.

  Cade was looking at the bull that had come into the ring with a blind rush and was now trotting around in the sun, cutting at the air with his horns.

  ‘Well, he is big enough,’ Creel said and Cade thought this was an understatement. The bull seemed enormous to him.

  A thin, shabby man ran out, trailing a cape. The bull charged, hooking with his left horn. He continued around the ring after he had lost the cape, then seeing another cape flopping at him, he charged again.

  ‘Diaz will have to watch that left horn,’ Creel said. ‘Aye! Aye! This is a big one !’

  Cade looked down at Diaz, immediately below him. Diaz was watching the bull. Franoco was leaning over the fence whispering furiously at Diaz, a nagging, scolding, womanish expression on his handsome face.

  ‘Shut up!’ Cade heard Diaz say. ‘Give me the bottle!’

  Franoco handed him a big, narrow-necked jug. Diaz drank. Cade saw him shudder as he handed the jug back.

  ‘They think it is water,’ Creel said, ‘but it is Tequila.’

  There was a commotion going on in the ring. The bull had caught the horse and had flung it over. The picador, cursing, rolled clear. The capes took the bull away.

  Diaz looked directly at Cade. He gave a sneering grin.

  ‘So we meet again,’ he said, pitching his voice so that Cade could hear. ‘I give you this bull but I owe you nothing. I am even sorry for you.’

  The crowd along the seats either side of Cade leaned forward to stare at him. Franoco snarled at him and spat at the sand beyond the fence.

  ‘Good luck,’ Cade said. He meant it. The small, shell of the man incited his pity.

  Creel said quietly, ‘He is very drunk.’

  They watched the short, stocky figure walk out towards the bull. The banderillo had done his work. The scene was now set for the encounter between Diaz and the bull which stood solid across the far side of the ring in the sun.

  Diaz seemed in no hurry to reach the bull. He was slightly unsteady on his short legs, and twice during the long walk he staggered. The crowd watched in silence.

  Cade saw Franoco talking urgently to the other two matadors who listened, shrugged and nodded. Taking their capes, they trotted after Diaz. Three men of the curilla joined them. They formed a wide protective circle behind Diaz.

  When he was within thirty yards of the bull, Diaz looked around. Seeing the men moving forward, he waved them away. He cursed them in Spanish. Some of the crowd began to whistle.

  Cade saw Franoco was running frantically around the ring, between the fence and the seats, heading towards the bull.

  ‘What that fool thinks he is doing, I can’t imagine,’ Creel said. ‘He will only distract Diaz.’

  Diaz was now within fifteen yards of the bull. He stopped, unfurled his cape and shook it at the bull. By now Franoco was immediately behind the bull, his hands clutching the top of the fence.

  The bull’s tail went up as it charged.

  It happened so quickly Cade was unable to see exactly what had gone wrong. He heard a thumping impact and he saw Diaz go up in the air and come down on the sand on the back of his head.

  He heard Creel say, ‘Well, that’s it then,’ and let out a long, hissing sigh.

  The bull turned with the quickness of a cat The capes were flopping as the men ran in, but the bull was only aware of Diaz who was struggling up on his knees. Franoco sprang over the fence, but the speed of the bull beat him. The left horn chopped into Diaz’s chest slamming him against the fence. The horn struck again.

  Franoco was screaming. He now had the bull by the right horn and was beating his fist on the bull’s nose.

  Cade was only vaguely aware of the uproar. Like everyone, he was standing and shouting.

  The bull shook his head and Franoco, like a string-less puppet was thrown away. He fell on his side. The bull charged, but the flick of a cape caught his eye and he charged over Franoco, one of his hoofs thudding into Franoco’s upturned face as the bull went with a rush across the ring, pursuing a running matador.

  Three bull ring servants picked Diaz up. They ran with him out of the ring. Another of them helped Franoco to his feet, his face streaming blood.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Cade said, sickened.

  ‘Yes,’ Creel said and the two men walked quickly up the steps and away from the ring.

  As they reached the exit, Cade said, his voice unsteady, ‘How badly do you think he was hurt?’

  Creel shrugged.

  ‘He is dead. A chest wound like that is always fatal. He had no chance. The horn smashed the cage of his ribs.’

  Cade wiped his sweating face. He was completely unnerved.

  ‘Get me back to the hotel, Adolfo. I’m not staying here any longer. I hate this City.’

  ‘Yes,’ Creel said. He led the way through the hundreds of parked cars to where he had left his Pontiac. ‘Don’t dwell on it. He brought it on himself.’

  They drove in silence back to El Prado hotel. Cade could think only of the broken body that hung so limply in the arms of the bull ring servants as they ran with it across the sand.

  ‘I’ll have to return in a few days,’ he said as Creel pulled up outside the hotel. ‘I’ll call you, Adolfo.’

  The two men shook hands. Cade forced a smile before climbing the steps to the hotel.

  He went immediately to the Travel Agency office and booked a New York flight, leaving at 11.00 hours the following morning.

  He took the elevator to his room, unlocked the door and as he opened it, he thought it was still early. The long evening ahead of him depressed him.

  He shut the door, then stood motionless.

  Juana was standing there with her back to the window. She was wearing a simple white dress, no jewellery and the sunlight made a hazy glow around her beauty.

  ‘There is no one and there never can be anyone like you’ she said. ‘I have returned because I love you and will always love you.’ She moved forward, holding out her hands to him. ‘Do you want me? If you do, then take me.’

  The following morning, Cade called down from his room to the Travel Agency office and cancelled his flight to New York.

  Juana, naked and on the bed, her long black tresses draped across her body, listened, smiling and reached for his hand.

  They had made love and talked, made love and talked during the night.

  ‘It was only when I lost you that I realised how much you mean to me,’ she had said, her head on his chest, her fingers stroking the back of his hand. ‘It was because you were in hospital and I was alone that this bad thing that is in me made me go away with Pedro. If you had been with me, it would never have happened.’

  Cade had thought of the agony she had caused him and the debts she had incurred, but he didn’t care. He knew that however badly she behaved, she was the only thing in his life. For better or for worse, he thought bitterly. It was a crushing sentence, and it depressed him.

  ‘Don’t let’s go over past history, Juana,’ he said.

  ‘We begin again. You are my wife. You want me back. All right so we begin again and we don’t talk about the past. In a couple of weeks, you and I will return to New York. We will find a small apartment somewhere. You can look after it while I work.’

  She traced her finger nail down the hollow of his chest.

  ‘New York? I don’t think I would care to live in New York.’ She turned her face and kissed him. ‘Couldn’t you work here? We could keep the house. I have it still. You liked the
house, didn’t you?’

  ‘I am under contract. I have to work in New York.’

  She lifted her head and looked at him puzzled.

  ‘Contract? What does that mean?’

  ‘I work for a newspaper now.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘Not really, but it suits me.’

  ‘They pay very well?’

  ‘No, they pay very badly.’

  ‘So? Then why do you work for them?’

  ‘This is something you wouldn’t understand. I have a year and a half before the contract finishes.’

  She put her hands on her full breasts and lifted them as she stared thoughtfully up at the ceiling.

  ‘What do they pay, cariño?’

  ‘Three hundred a week.’ He thought without hope: money and the body. Adolfo knows her as I am learning to know her. ‘Money is very important to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. It is nice to have money, but it is not really important.’ She turned her head and smiled at him. ‘I am thrifty. Didn’t I keep the house beautifully and wasn’t my cooking beautiful?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you think we can manage on three hundred a week?’

  ‘Of course. Thousands of people manage on less.’

  She patted his hand.

  ‘Then let us go to New York.’

  That was during the night. After he had cancelled the flight to New York, he called his Mexican lawyers. He told them he wasn’t going through with the divorce. That was something he had also discussed with Juana during the night.

  ‘But you mustn’t divorce me!’ she had said, gripping his arm fiercely. ‘Without you I should be lost! No other man has ever wanted to marry me. You understand? It is because you are my husband that I have returned to you.’

  He took her face in his hands.

  ‘It is because you are my wife, I can forgive you,’ he said.

  When he had finished talking to the Mexican lawyers, she swung off the bed and threw her arms around him.

  ‘I am so happy! Let us go back to the house. Why stay here? Let us begin to save our money. The house is paid for to the end of the month. Let us go back and I will cook for you.’

  So they went back. The first thing Cade noticed was the new scarlet Thunderbird in the garage.

  She dismissed it with a wave of her beautiful hand.

  ‘I like the one you gave me better. Pedro gave this one to me. He had to. He admitted he was responsible for the fire.’

  Cade moved his shoulders as if shifting a heavy weight. He walked into the house and opening the french windows, walked out into the patio with its little fountain and its flowers.

  ‘I will get you a drink, carino. A Tequila?’

  Cade sat down in one of the lounging chairs.

  ‘No, nothing, thank you. I don’t drink now.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘It happens to be bad for me.’

  She looked at him puzzled, then shrugging her shoulders, she said, ‘I will unpack your bag.’

  She left him, sitting in the sunshine. The Thunderbird in the garage sickened him. The atmosphere of the house depressed him. He was sure Juana and Diaz had made love in the big, cool bedroom upstairs.

  It can’t work, he said to himself. It might last a month, perhaps not even so long. Money and the body. She can’t help herself as I can’t help myself being in love with her.

  But at least, he thought, during the uncertain time they would be together he would possess her, have her with him, be able to see her beauty and prepare himself for the inevitable break. But this he must be sure of, he warned himself, when the break did come, he must wash her forever out of his mind. No more drinking. He had been through too much ever to let her do that to him again.

  So for ten days, they lived together, making desperate, fierce love, going out to a modest restaurant when they felt like it, going to a movie, taking long drives. It was a period of peace for Cade, but never once did he let her out of his sight. Even when she went to the market, he was with her. He was so much her shadow that he began to worry her.

  One evening, when they were in the garden, she said, ‘Are you happy, carino?’

  He glanced up from the crossword puzzle he was trying to solve.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘You have changed so much. You are so quiet, so serious. You aren’t interested in things any longer.’

  ‘Things? What things?’

  ‘Many things. Aren’t you going to work again?’

  ‘Yes. I was going to talk to you about that. I must return to New York next week. You will come with me of course.’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked questioningly at him. ‘Where will we live in New York?’

  ‘We’ll stay at an hotel, and then we will look for an apartment.’

  ‘There will be no garden?’

  ‘No.’

  She crossed her long legs. She was wearing only a bikini and Cade thought he had never seen a more lovely woman.

  ‘Perhaps it would be better for me to join you when you have found the apartment. It would save money. We have this house for another two weeks.’ She looked at him, smiling. ‘You see? I am really very thrifty.’

  ‘You will come with me, Juana. I am not leaving you alone in Mexico City.’

  She shrugged and patted his hand.

  ‘Very well, cariño. I will do what you think best. When do we leave?’

  ‘Next Thursday.’

  ‘Perhaps if we left on Wednesday, we could drive to New York.’

  ‘You will have no use for a car in New York, Juana. No one these days owns a car in New York … there is never anywhere to park it. We will sell it. I will ask Creel to find a buyer.’

  He was watching her closely. He saw her eyes darken, but after a little thought, she nodded.

  ‘I didn’t realise that. Good. Then we will sell the car and we will use the money to help furnish the apartment.’

  That night while Juana was preparing dinner, Cade called Ed Burdick.

  ‘I’ll be back on Thursday, Ed,’ he said. ‘Ready for work.’

  ‘Well! Why haven’t you written? I was getting worried about you. I called El Prado. They said you had checked out. What’s going on? Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll give you all the dope when we meet.’

  ‘Fine. I have a job lined up and waiting for you. Can you make a start on Friday?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s a new musical opening with Harry Weston’s costumes. We have an exclusive for the Supplement. It’s all fixed for Friday afternoon.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Cade said. ‘I’ll be there,’ and he hung up.

  He then called Creel.

  ‘Juana and I have decided to settle down together, Adolfo,’ he said, after greeting the Mexican. ‘We are leaving for New York on Thursday. We are leaving her Thunderbird in the garage. Could you sell it? Get what you can for it, but sell it.’

  There was a long pause, then Creel said in an alarmed voice, ‘Did you say you and Juana? No, it must be a mistake, Val, what was it you said?’

  ‘It’s all right. Don’t get excited. I know what I’m doing. Will you take care of the car?’

  ‘Of course, amigo.’

  ‘Thanks,’ and Cade hurriedly replaced the receiver.

  On Wednesday night, as Juana was packing, she sat suddenly on the bed, holding her head in her hands.

  Cade went to her.

  ‘Darling! What is it?’

  ‘I’m just dizzy. It’s all right.’

  She dropped back flat on the bed, and he saw she was white, and there were beads of sweat on her face.

  ‘What is it?’

  She shut her eyes. For a long moment her body shifted as if in pain, her mouth tightened.

  ‘Juana!’ Cade was alarmed. ‘Tell me! What is it?’

  She made an obvious effort as she opened her eyes.

  ‘It would happen n
ow! I have hell every month!’ She rolled on her side. ‘Please leave me.’

  Cade felt sudden panic.

  ‘I’ll get a doctor. Don’t worry … I …’

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ She was suddenly furious and she sat up, her eyes snapping. ‘Women have this damn thing! Don’t act like a child. Just leave me. I’ll be all right.’

  He went down stairs and moved uneasily from the living-room to the patio and back to the living-room. Later, unable to bear the silence from upstairs, he went up to the bedroom and cautiously opened the door.

  Juana was in bed, the bedside lamp shaded. Her face was chalk white and she looked towards him, her brow furrowing with irritation.

  ‘Please leave me alone. This happens sometimes. There is nothing to worry about. I’ll be like this for two or three days, and then I’m fine again. I just want to be left alone.’

  Cade moved further into the room.

  ‘Do you think you will be able to travel tomorrow?’

  ‘I will if I have to.’ Her face twisted. ‘Please don’t bother me, cariño.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ he said quietly. ‘You can come later. Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘No, nothing. I could be all right tomorrow.’

  But of course, she wasn’t. She looked so white and ill that Cade knew he couldn’t expect her to travel, and yet he felt this was suddenly too convenient. He had now learned to distrust her. He was determined to keep her for himself as long as he could.

  ‘I’ll have to leave in an hour,’ he said standing by the bed and looking down at her. ‘You don’t really feel like coming do you?’

  ‘I’ll come if you really want me to,’ she said. ‘It hurts, but I can put up with it.’

  ‘You stay where you are,’ and he went downstairs and called Adolfo.

  ‘Will you come quickly, amigo?’ he said when Creel answered the call. ‘I have to leave in an hour and I need you.’

  ‘I will be with you in ten minutes,’ Creel said and he was. He came hurrying up the path, mopping his face, anxious and worried.

  ‘Will you do something for me, Adolfo?’ Cade said as he led the way into the living-room. ‘There is no one else I can ask: no one else I can trust.’

  ‘Anything, amigo,’ Creel said, ‘but what is this about Juana? I have warned you …’