Cade Read online

  ‘I believe in courage,’ Creel said, getting to his feet. ‘I once said to you that one can forgive a man much if he has courage. Please don’t disappoint me, senor.’

  ‘You are a sentimental fool,’ Cade said, not looking at him. ‘Run along. You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve reached the happy stage when I’m not worth worrying about.’

  ‘I would like to stay. We could talk. Talking often helps.’

  ‘Oh, get out!’ Cade said, his voice low and strangled. ‘I don’t want anyone! Do you imagine I want a greaseball like you slopping over me? Get out!’

  ‘Yes, senor,’ Creel said, his face impassive. ‘I understand.’

  As he started to the door, Cade said, ‘You’re slipping. You called me amigo not so long ago.’

  Creel paused.

  ‘If I chose to make a man my friend, I don’t expect him to make me his friend, senor.’

  ‘Oh, get out!’ Cade said and picking up the bottle of Tequila, he splashed the raw spirit into his glass.

  ‘Please be careful with that drink,’ Creel said, watching him. ‘It is very dangerous and vicious. It is habit-forming.’

  ‘I said get out!’

  Creel regarded him sadly, then went down the path to his car.

  Half an hour later, he was talking to Sam Wand on the telephone.

  Wand said, ‘Now look, Adolfo, there is nothing you can do about this. You can’t lead other people’s lives. If Cade gets thrown because some woman takes him to the cleaners, it is his funeral. Not yours, and most certainly not mine. So don’t bother me with Cade’s troubles. I have enough of my own. He’ll snap out of it. Just leave him alone.’

  ‘He is a good man, senor,’ Creel protested. ‘We should try to do something. Can’t you come down here? You could talk some sense into him.’

  ‘No one can talk sense into him. He’ll snap out of it. Quit bothering me!’ and Wand hung up.

  Creel left the café from where he had been telephoning and went to sit in his car. He sat there for three hours with the indifference to time all Mexicans have and worried about Cade, wondering what he could do for this man he liked so much.

  When it was dark, he drove back to Cade’s house. He had no idea what he would say to Cade, but he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Cade to face the night on his own.

  He found the house in darkness. The front door was unlocked and he entered the sitting-room and turned on the light.

  Cade lay slumped across the table, the bottle of Tequila empty, the glass at his feet.

  With difficulty Creel got the unconscious man onto the settee. He loosened his tie and took off his shoes, then he went over to the table and picked up the pawn tickets. These he put in his wallet. He went back and stood over Cade, hesitating to leave him, but he finally decided Cade would sleep the rest of the night and shaking his head, he let himself out of the house and walked slowly and heavily to his car.

  A little after 10.00 hours the following morning, Cade swung his legs off the settee and sat up with a groan. He had a splitting headache and his mouth was dry. He remained still for some minutes, his head in his hands, then he forced himself to his feet. He felt weak and shaky and depressed.

  He looked around the room, then he stiffened and started forward. His well-used Pan-Am overnight bag stood on the table. With shaking fingers, he pulled back the zipper and looked into the bag. His camera and his equipment were all there, and as he lifted the Minolta from the bag, the door pushed open and Creel came in carrying a tray of steaming coffee, a cup and saucer and a bowl of sugar.

  ‘Good morning, senor,’ he said and put down the tray.

  Cade looked at him.

  ‘You get this back?’ he asked, fondling the camera.

  ‘Yes, senor.’ Creel poured the coffee. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Where did the money come from?’

  ‘A small loan, senor. There is no hurry. We both had disasters. I lost my tyres. You kindly replaced them. You lost your camera …’ He lifted his fat shoulders and smiled.

  Cade sat down.

  ‘Thank you, Adolfo.’

  ‘It occurred to me that you wouldn’t want to remain in this house,’ Creel said, pushing the cup of coffee towards Cade. ‘I happen to have a spare room in my apartment. It is nothing very much, but I thought you might care to use it for a few days.’

  ‘No. I’m not in the mood for company,’ Cade said quickly. ‘Thanks all the same. I’ll find somewhere.’

  ‘The room has a separate entrance. I understand how you feel, senor. I too would want to be alone. No one would bother you.’

  Cade rubbed his aching forehead, hesitated, then shrugged. The thought of trying to find other accommodation appalled him for he knew he couldn’t afford to remain in the house.

  ‘Well, then I can’t very well refuse. Thank you, Adolfo. But only for a few days. That’s understood.’

  ‘Of course. Please enjoy the coffee. I will pack your clothes,’ and the fat man went out of the room.

  Three hours later, Creel put a telephone call through to Sam Wand.

  He explained that Cade was now installed in a room in his apartment.

  ‘It is essential, Senor Wand, for him to start work again. He is in deep depression and is inclined to drink too much. You must find him something at once. He not only needs the money, he needs rehabilitation. This is extremely urgent and important.’

  ‘Okay, Adolfo,’ Wand said. ‘I’ll see what I can dig up. Is he fit enough for work?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘How can I contact him?’

  Creel gave him Cade’s telephone number.

  ‘You can leave it with me.’

  But Creel wasn’t happy. He had alerted his servant, Maria to keep an eye on Cade and she reported that a boy had arrived soon after Cade had moved into the room, carrying three bottles of Tequila. The food she had left outside Cade’s door had been scarcely touched.

  The following morning, Creel, taking a newspaper with him as an excuse, knocked on Cade’s door.

  There was silence. He knocked again.

  ‘What is it?’ Cade’s voice sounded sharp and impatient.

  ‘The newspaper, senor,’ Creel said.

  ‘I don’t want it! Leave me alone!’

  ‘Is there anything you want? Cigarettes perhaps?’

  ‘Oh, go to hell and leave me alone!’

  Creel lifted his fat shoulders in a gesture of despair and went away. During the afternoon, he visited Cade’s house where he found some mail. He drove back to his apartment and again knocked on Cade’s door.

  ‘There are letters for you, senor.’

  There was a pause, then the door jerked open.

  Cade had removed the bandage around his shaven head. His hair was beginning to grow again. He hadn’t shaved, and Creel could see he was pretty drunk. He glared at the fat man, his face stony, his eyes glazed.

  ‘Give them to me!’

  He snatched the letters out of Creel’s hand and flicked through them with a desperate urgency that made Creel unhappy. He guessed Cade was hoping for a letter from Juana.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ Cade said and he slammed the door in Creel’s face.

  Sitting on the bed, he ripped open the envelopes. A brief glance told him they were all bills. Among them was a letter from the Car Insurance people acknowledging Juana’s receipt for three thousand dollars as settlement for the Thunderbird. There was also a Diner’s Club statement for six hundred dollars.

  Cade tossed the bills on the floor. He walked unsteadily to his dressing-table where the remaining full bottle of Tequila stood. He poured a drink, then flopped down on the bed.

  He knew he was destroying himself, but he was past caring. As he was raising the glass to his lips, the telephone bell rang. The sound startled him and he slopped his drink. For a moment, he hesitated, then he put down the glass and lifted the telephone receiver.

  It was Sam Wand.

  ‘How are you, Val?’ Wand boomed
. ‘You feel fit for a day’s work?’

  Cade closed his eyes. His head was swimming and he felt sick.

  ‘You there, Val?’

  With an effort Cade said, ‘Hello there, Sam. I’m fine. Look, I’ve got a flock of bills just arrived. I want you to settle them. Sell Stock. I must get these goddamn debts fixed.’

  ‘That’s okay. Send them to me. I have work for you. Are you fit enough?’

  ‘I keep telling you … I’m more than fine. What’s the job?’

  ‘General de Gaulle will be arriving in Mexico City tomorrow. He’s returning captured flags or some damn thing. You’ve got the French exclusive of this, Val. I’ve bust a gut landing this one for you. It’s big: Paris Match. Jours de France … the lot. Get those pictures and you won’t have to worry about debts. Adolfo will set it all up for you. You have just to get the pictures.’

  Cade wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand. The Tequila he had drunk was making his head ache again.

  ‘Can do … will do,’ he said. ‘Thanks, Sam. You’ll get them,’ and he hung up.

  This was the first of the disasters to come from Cade’s camera.

  Although Creel did the field work well, arranging for passes, getting Cade an exclusive interview with the General, getting Cade to his allotted place at the Palace well before time, Cade had drunk too much Tequila to bolster up his sagging nerves to make successful photography possible.

  He wasn’t even in a fit enough state to process his own films. He had to hire Tomas Olmedo to do it for him. He and Creel sat in Olmedo’s office waiting to see the prints. Both men were silent with a premonition of disaster hanging over them. When Olmedo came out of the dark room, the expression on his face sent a chill up Cade’s spine.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Olmedo said, looking bewildered. ‘These are useless. They are all out of focus. There’s not one that’s any good. Something bad must have happened to the camera.’

  Cade knew it wasn’t the camera, but that was his excuse to Wand.

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’ Wand shouted furiously when he heard the news. ‘It’s your business to check your goddamn camera! What’s the matter with you? What am I going to say to Paris Match? You mean you haven’t one goddamn picture for me?’

  ‘This is a once in a lifetime thing, Sam,’ Cade said, lying frantically. ‘The automatic pre-set wasn’t working. It had me fooled. It’s just one of those things.’

  ‘Is that what you think? Let me tell you something! You’ve fixed me in France! Those boys don’t listen to excuses. Judas! Cade … how could you do a thing like this to me?’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ Cade shouted. ‘This could have happened to anyone. Forget it! Find me something else! I want money! I’m cleaned out! Right now, I’m borrowing from Creel. Find me something! Do you hear?’

  ‘Pull another stunt like this, and you and me are through,’ Wand said. ‘It’s all right for you to talk this way, but I have to do the explaining. This fiasco is going to cost me plenty!’

  ‘Stop whining!’ Cade reached for the ever ready glass of Tequila and drank. ‘I’ve got to have work!’

  ‘I’ll call you,’ Wand said and banged down the receiver.

  Two days later, Cade received a statement of accounts from Wand. All his bills had been settled, including Dr. Pinto’s account and the hospital charges. He no longer owned any Stock and he saw with a sinking heart that the account included his half year’s royalty. He realised he wasn’t worth a dollar now since he already owed Creel seven hundred dollars and his credit balance with Wand was six hundred and fifty dollars.

  But he was beyond caring. He was hooked by alcohol. Without the deadening effects of Tequila his mind immediately began to dwell on Juana, and this was something he couldn’t bear.

  Wand got him the assignment to cover the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit to Mexico for Look Now, a new, but up-and-coming magazine that circulated in California. They were offering six hundred dollars for exclusive pictures.

  ‘Can’t you do better than that?’ Cade demanded furiously over the telephone. ‘Edinburgh is a big story, damn it! This should be a syndicate job!’

  ‘So it is, but Lucas has got that,’ Wand said. ‘The words got around about the General. You’ve only yourself to blame. I’m sorry, Val, take it or leave it. It’s up to you, but if you do the job, for God’s sake, give me pictures!’

  ‘You’ll get them,’ Cade said.

  It cost him a lot physically and mentally to get the pictures. Half the time he was drunk, the rest of the time he wished he were drunk. When the films were processed, Olmedo silently handed him the prints. He didn’t even bother to look at them. He knew they were the ordinary run-of-the-mill stuff any third rate press man would take, but at least they were in focus and could be reproduced, but they weren’t Cade.

  The following afternoon Wand came through on the telephone. Cade was lying on his bed with the now inevitable glass of Tequila in his hand. He guessed it was Wand and for some moments, he let the bell ring, afraid to hear what Wand would say. Then he sat up, put down his drink and lifted the receiver.

  He was expecting a blast from Wand, but this time Wand was quiet, but nonetheless lethal.

  ‘Look, Val, I don’t think you can be fit,’ he said. ‘This stuff you sent me is no use to Look Now. They could have hired any small time photographer if they wanted the prints you have come up with.’

  Cade felt a surge of weak rage rush through him.

  ‘What the hell do they expect for six hundred lousy dollars?’ he shouted. ‘Those photographs …’

  ‘Skip it, Val! They’ve paid, but they are using Lucas’s prints. It’s costing them, but they have a reputation to think of. So have I. I’m sending you six hundred dollars. I’m not taking any commission. That should hold you for a couple of months if you’re careful. You take it easy and rest. When you’re really fit, I’ll look around for something for you, but right now …’

  ‘Oh, get stuffed!’ Cade shouted, his voice high-pitched and he slammed down the receiver.

  The noise of the fast moving traffic coming through the open window, the monotonous whine of Maria’s vacuum cleaner, the sudden roar of a passing jet tore at his nerves.

  What was he going to do? He couldn’t believe, after all these years, Wand was dropping him. The fat slug! Who did he think he was anyway? Cade reached for the glass and drained it. He got unsteadily to his feet.

  Well, Wand wasn’t the only agent! He would show him! From now on, he would never get another Cade picture!

  Then something came adrift inside Cade. He began to shake. Dropping on his knees, he hid his face in his hands. Racking, gasping sobs came from him as sounds of hopeless despair.

  FIVE

  Ed Burdick, special correspondent to the New York Sun, walked into the News Editor’s office, pushed the door shut and straddled the only other chair in the room.

  Henry Mathison laid down his blue pencil and regarded Burdick suspiciously. By rights, Burdick should have been down in Mexico. Mathison had sent him down there to write a series of articles aimed at the tourist trade: an assignment that Burdick had been reluctant to accept.

  ‘Who told you to come back, Ed? I didn’t.’

  Burdick grinned. He was a tall, thin blond man in his late thirties. He was probably one of the best writers the Sun had ever had, and he knew it. He took certain liberties but he had never failed to deliver.

  ‘If you’re worrying about that tourist crap, relax. I’ve got it all wrapped up and Burley’s handling it. Henry, something’s come up. I have an idea that if it’s handled right, it could do the Sun a lot of good. It could do you good and me good.’

  Mathison fetched out a pack of cigarettes. He looked even more suspicious, but he waited.

  ‘Guess who I ran across in Mexico City ten days ago?’ Burdick said, helping himself to one of Mathison’s cigarettes although Mathison hadn’t offered him the pack.

 
‘Tell me. This isn’t a TV quiz.’

  ‘Val Cade, the photographer,’ Burdick said and leaned back to watch the effect of his words.

  He was disappointed. Mathison lit his cigarette and blew smoke across his soiled blotter.

  ‘Well?’ he asked as Burdick waited.

  ‘You remember Cade?’

  ‘Yes, I remember him. He got mixed up with some woman, took to the bottle, loused up the de Gaulle assignment and cost his agent a heap of money. Why should I get interested in a lush like him?’

  ‘Because he happens to be the greatest photographer in the world,’ Burdick said crisply.

  ‘If you’ve come all the way back from Mexico to tell me that, I’m still not interested. Just why did you come back, Ed?’

  ‘Because I want to work with Cade.’

  Mathison stared, screwed up his eyes and leaned forward.

  ‘Come again.’

  ‘I want to team up with Cade. He and I could give the Sun a new look, and strictly between friends, the Sun could do with a new look.’

  ‘Have you been helping Cade empty his bottle?’

  ‘Henry, I’m serious. If you don’t cotton to this idea, then I’m going to talk to the Times, and if they don’t cotton, I’ll talk to the Tribune. Cade and I as a team could be sensational.’

  ‘The guy’s a lush. He’s hooked. You’re wasting your time. What’s got into you? What makes you think Cade could ever be fit to work again?’

  ‘What makes you think he can’t?’

  ‘I know lushes. Once on the hook, they’re on for keeps.’

  ‘Do you have to be so goddamn pessimistic? What have we to lose? This could be a once in a lifetime idea.’

  ‘Have you talked to Cade about it?’ Mathison leaned back in his chair and flicked ash on the floor.

  ‘Of course I have. He’s as keen about it as I am.’

  ‘I understood he was holed up in some Indian’s shack. Then I heard he was living on a pesos a day and a bottle of Tequila. Right?’

  ‘That’s all old hat. He was holed up in a shack. Then he got ill. Wand’s agent, a guy named Adolfo Creel, found him and got him into hospital. They worked on him. He was in hospital for three weeks without a drink. Creel came to me. He begged me to do something. So I saw Cade. I liked him and he liked me. Remember those bull fighting pictures he took? Remember the documentary he did on the Indians? Tremendous stuff, Henry! This guy is as low as a man can get, but he’s ready to rise up again. He’s ready now. Do you realise he has never worked for a newspaper? He has always been so good and so talented no newspaper could ever hook him and you know nearly all of them, including the Sun, have tried some time or other. He’s not yet ready to stand on his own feet, but with me with him and you directing, he’ll come back as good as he ever was and that, as you know, is very, very good indeed.’