It was almost one-thirty when we came to the end of the highway and turned off to Fajardo. The town was dark and there wasn’t a soul on the streets. We rounded the empty plaza and drove down toward the ferry dock. There was a small hotel about a block away and I stopped in front of it while he went in to get a room.
In a few minutes he came out and got into the car. Well, he said quietly, I’m okay. The ferry leaves at eight.
He seemed to want to sit for a while, so I lit another cigarette and tried to relax. The town was so quiet that every sound we made seemed dangerously amplified. Once the rum bottle banged against the steering wheel as he was passing it back to me, and I jumped like somebody had fired a shot.
He laughed quietly. Take it easy, Kemp. You don’t have anything to worry about.
I wasn’t so much worried, as spooked. There was something eerie about the whole business, as if God in a fit of disgust had decided to wipe us all out. Our structure was collapsing; it seemed like just a few hours ago that I was having breakfast with Chenault in the sunny peace of my own home. Then I had ventured into the day, and plunged headlong into an orgy of murder and shrieking and breaking of glass. Now it was ending just as senselessly as it began. It was all over and I was very sure of it because Yeamon was leaving. There might be some noise after he left, but it would be orthodox noise, the kind a man can deal with and even ignore –instead of those sudden unnerving eruptions that suck you into them and toss you around like a toad in rough water.
I couldn’t remember where it actually began, but it was ending here in Fajardo, a dark little spot on the map that seemed to be the end of the world. Yeamon was going on from here and I was going back; it was definitely the end of something, but I wasn’t sure just what.
I lit a cigarette and thought about other people, and wondered what they were doing tonight, while I was here on a dark street in Fajardo sipping rum out of a bottle with a man who would tomorrow morning be a fugitive murderer.
Yeamon handed the bottle back to me and got out of the car. Well, I’ll see you, Paul — God knows where.
I leaned across the seat and stuck out my hand. Probably New York, I said.
How long will you be here? he asked.
Not long, I replied.
He gave my hand a final shake. Okay, Kemp, he said with a grin. Thanks a lot — you came through like a champ.
Hell, I said, starting the engine. We’re all champs when we’re drunk.
Nobody’s drunk, he said.
I am, I said. Or else I’d have turned you in.
Balls, he replied.
I shoved the car into gear. Okay, Fritz, good luck.
Right, he said as I pulled away. Good luck yourself.
I had to go down to the corner to turn around, and as I came back up the street I passed him again, and waved. He was walking down toward the ferry and when I got to the corner I stopped and watched to see what he would do. It was the last time I saw him and I remember it very clearly. He walked out on the pier and stood near a wooden lamppost, looking out at the sea. The only living thing in a dead Caribbean town — a tall figure in a rumpled Palm Beach suit, his only suit, now full of dirt and grass stains and bulgy pockets, standing alone on a pier at the end of the world and thinking his own thoughts. I waved again, although his back was to me, and gave two quick blasts on the horn as I sped out of town.
Twenty-One
On my way back to the apartment I stopped to get the early editions. I was stunned to see Yeamon on the front page of El Diario under a big headline that said Matanza en Rio Piedras. It was from the shot of the three of us in the jail, taken when we got arrested and beaten. Well, I thought, this is it. The jig is up.