Free Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes Page B

the window the smoke and grime and cold of a Chicago winter rattled skeleton claws. He went to school because it was warm in school. He’d rather have hung around the pool hall, it was warm there too, but the truant snoops were always busting into the pool hall looking for kids. And the fat guy who ran the pool hall didn’t want any trouble with the officers. He peddled reefers under the table and he couldn’t afford to get mixed up with the truant officers. He’d push the kids right into the snoops’ hands. The kids were afraid to snitch on him about the reefers because they’d seen him kill a man once. Picked the guy up and broke his back like you’d break a stick. He was so fat you wouldn’t think he could move so quick or be so strong. He didn’t get sent up for breaking the guy’s back. Everybody in the place, even the kids, swore it was self defense. The guy was doped and had pulled a knife on the fat guy. Besides the coppers probably knew about the reefers anyhow. Anybody could smell them that walked by. You didn’t have to go inside. The same sick smell like in the dive where Sailor’d found Ignatz tonight. The coppers probably got their cut. If he hadn’t gone to school to keep warm, kept going even to high school, the Sen wouldn’t have picked him out of the bums in the corner pool hall. The Sen wouldn’t have sent him to college, yeah, the University of Chicago, for a year and a half. He’d had a good education. He wasn’t any bum.
    Pancho was shrugging. “Who is this Mr. Lincoln? The Spanish peoples do not know of him. The Indian do not know he has free them. They are poor slaves. After while the Gringos come and say Mr. Lincoln free the slaves. You do not be slaves. You go home now. And you Mexican sonnama beetches you work for us now.” He smiled. “You know why you are my friend, Senor Sailor?”
    “Haven’t any idea,” Sailor yawned.
    “Because I am an Indian,” Pancho said. “And you are good to a little Indian girl. You do not say to her come to my bed and I will give you a ride on old Tio Vivo.”
    He didn’t say, “I haven’t got a bed.” He said, “For God’s sake, she’s only fourteen.”
    “Does it matter?” Pancho shrugged. “She is older I think at fourteen than the pale lily Gringos are at twice fourteen. But you are a good man. You buy her pop and a fine fast ride on Tio Vivo with music playing. On the pink horse.” He smile was open, warm. “You do this for her only that she may have pleasure. Not to steal nothing from her. You are my friend.” He broke into song again. “Mi amigo, mi amigo, mi amigo, amo te mucho . . .”
    “That’s fine,” Sailor said. He was awake again. The bottle was almost empty. He left enough for one last drink for Pancho. “Let’s go to bed, ok?”
    ‘You are also my friend,” Pancho said with a sly squint, “because you do not say, You goddamn Mexican, give this girl a ride or I—’ with your hand on the gun in your pocket.”
    Sailor’s hand went quick to his right-hand pocket. The gun was still there, safe. But how had Pancho known it was there? Did McIntyre know? He didn’t want any trouble.
    Pancho was effusive. “No, no. You are a good man. You pay much money for the favor. For the little Indian Pila to ride on the pink horse. You make rich presents to poor Pancho and to poor Ignacio and poor old Onofre Gutierrez. You make everyone happy for the Fiesta.”
    “Zozobra is dead,” Sailor quoted ironically. “Viva las Fiestas.” He laughed out loud. The laugh startled the quivering black night Nobody had ever called him a good man. Nobody had any reason ever to call him good.
    “Thus you are my friend, my primo. I too am a good man. A proud man and a good man.”
    The old brigand had probably killed a dozen men in his day. Broken their backs like he was breaking sticks.
    “Unless you are good you cannot be proud,” Pancho said. He lifted the farewell drink, squinted at its meagerness. If he had another pint