WHEN I CAME TO, it was Sonny Duval’s hairy face I saw. He was kneeling above me and gently slapping my face.
“Let me alone,” I muttered. When I moved my jaw to speak, I could feel it was okay. So I added, “Can’t a guy take a nap around here?”
“What happened?”
I ignored him and started doing a little assessing. There was a throb in my right temple, from a small knot just above the ear. My arms and legs seemed okay. My teeth were okay. My face felt puffy again, like that first night at Chantal’s, but there was only a tiny spot of blood. Lobo Davies, the Tsatsos Tackling Dummy. 60 drachs, step up and take your shot. I could charge admission.
I had jammed my left thumb hooking. There was a sharp bite of pain in my left side every time I breathed. That would be from the kicking I remembered, before I went out.
Wearily, I forced myself to sit up and made myself cough, and hawked and spit on the ground. There was no blood in it.
In all, I was in pretty good shape. They hadn’t chest-stomped me afterward. Hadn’t kicked in my jaw. I felt a kind of liking for them. No maiming; just good, clean old American fun.
“The cab drivers said a gang beat you up.”
I made myself roll over onto my hands and knees, trying not to wince from the bright pain in my side. I got one foot under me, then the other. Sonny stepped to help me. I waved him away.
“Damn it, what happened?”
I pushed myself up, and a bright spotlight of pain in my side made me go lightheaded for a second and made my scalp tingle. If there was anything at all, I might have a cracked rib down there. But that was all. I wasn’t feeling the best I’d ever felt. On the other hand I’d taken a lot worse beatings than this in my time.
I looked at Sonny, and gave him my No. 4, tough-but-pitiable grin. “Where did you come from?”
“I just got here. The cab drivers told me you were over here in the weeds.”
“Ah, yes. The happy cab drivers. The grandstand seats.” I looked over at them. They were back on the ground, smoking.
“Will you tell me what happened?”
“Nothing. A bunch of the hippie kids. It’s my own fault. I asked to see some guts and muscle, and I got shown some. If any of those boys are draft dodgers, it’s not through any lack of desire to fight.”
“Draft resisters,” Sonny said. “There’s a difference.”
“Have it your way,” I said. “Draft resisters. I’m too tired to argue.”
I forgot about my side, and took a weary, deep breath which made me jump and cut it off halfway in. “Let’s get something straight. I’m not against draft dodgers. I wish I’d had the guts to be one myself. I just wish everybody in the world would be a draft dodger. Instead of only just Americans. Now leave me alone,” I said. “I’m sort of tired.”
“You don’t seem to be very upset by it all.”
“I’m just wondering if I should go back in there and have one drink,” I said.
“I’ll go in with you, if you want,” Sonny offered.
“You would, hunh? You’re a regular fire-eater, aren’t you?”
“Sure. I’ve been beat up before, myself.”
“Where’s all this peace and loving kindness of yours?”
“A fist fight is not a dehumanized imperialist modern industrial war,” Sonny said.
I just looked at him. He had an infallible ability for ruining the nicest of gestures with some slogan. “That’s true,” I said. “You’re absolutely right there.”
“Do you want to go back in there?” Sonny said.
“I guess not.” I looked up at the lights through the trees. “It wouldn’t add anything. I got what I wanted. I guess I’ll go on home.”
“Come on. I’ll take you.” He put out an arm.
“You will like hell.” I waved the arm aside, and winced. “Where were you all evening?”
“I was home. To eat. I just came out. Jane, uh,” he half hesitated, “Jane didn’t want to come.”
“Jane. Dear Jane. How is dear Jane? You go on up there with your friends.”
His face clouded at my ironic mention of Jane, but he said only, “What shall I tell them?”
“Tell them whatever you want. Join the celebration. It won’t bother me.” I turned away toward the cabs. “Tell them Lobo Davies survived.” I stopped. “They’re not bad kids,” I said. “Most of them. Just misinformed by Stevie-boy. And I deliberately antagonized them.”
“I guess you won’t be wanting the boat tomorrow,” Sonny said.
I grinned. “No. I guess I won’t.”
He stood looking after me reflectively. When I got to the stand of cabs I walked on past them.
“Aren’t you going to take a cab?” Sonny called.
“To hell with them. Anyway, the walk will do me good.”
I hoped it would. But I wasn’t sure. At least it would loosen me up. But my side was hurting more and more. Every breath was an agony, as they say. Actually, it wasn’t all that bad. It hurt, but I had learned about pain that if you would only go down inside of it, and sort of rummage around down there, and feel it in all its corners, it hurt much less than when you drew back from it and tried not to feel it at all.
It was about a mile’s walk back to the edge of the Port, and it was quiet and tranquil in the night air. The cooler night air had freshened whatever flowers there were blooming and their odors mingled faintly in my nose. It wasn’t really all that late, only about ten o’clock.
I had almost reached the end of the hotel grounds, and was passing under one of the infrequent streetlights, when there was a soft sound like a hard puff of air and a whack, and a piece of the whitewashed wall four feet from my head popped out and fell on the ground. It didn’t take vast experience to know what that was. Someone was shooting at me with a silencer.
Another puff, another smack, another piece of wall popped out almost beside the first and a little higher.
I didn’t wait. And didn’t stand on dignity. I cut and ran. In the old days discretion might be the better part of valor, but at the end of the twentieth-century publicity was the better part of heroism. And I didn’t have any PR people with me.
There were two more puffs, two more pieces of wall popped out. I made a couple of zigzags. Wherever it was exactly, it was coming from inside the Xenia hotel grounds. I reached a corner and ducked around it.
The gate entrances and doors were all barred or locked along here, but up the side street I found a deep-set one and flattened myself in it.
Everything was still as I stood in my doorway. I saw no one. Nothing moved. The extreme corner of the Xenia gardens with their dark vegetation just overlapped the entrance of the side street. I had about as much chance of finding somebody in there as you would in any other jungle. Even assuming I could get back down to it, in safety, which I couldn’t.
In the dimness down below nothing moved. After five minutes I took a chance and sneaked out of my doorway. I hotfooted it on uphill, hugging the wall, and holding my left arm against my side. Nothing happened. Nobody followed. There weren’t any more shots.
Up above, on one of the cross streets, I walked back to my house thoughtfully. I was pretty careful at all the crossings.