The Cut of the Whip

  The Cut of the Whip

  by

  PETER RABE

  Chapter I

  THE DIFFERENCE between the town of Heering and other small Texas oil towns was that Heering seemed more regimented. Since it was planned, built, and operated by the man whose name the town bore, there were only straight streets, uniform houses, and everything built very close together. Heering looked gray from a distance and it looked gray from close.

  Dan Port slowed when he came into the street which went straight through the town and looked for signs. There were no signs except the kind which had to do with the oil fields. Field Three Depot, they said, and an arrow, or Field One, Truck Entrance; but nothing that showed Port how to get out of there. Maybe the town wasn’t even on the map, he thought, no more than a factory would be on the map. Port stopped his MG by the curb and got out. He had obviously lost his way.

  There were few lights on at this time, except for one gate light over a wire fence and the light in a diner. Port went into the diner.

  The counterman looked Port up and down, not because he was something extra large, extra heavy, extra ugly or handsome or something like that, but only because Port was new in the town. Dan Port displayed no peculiarities. He wore a dark suit and had very black hair. His face—the most a description could tell—was quiet.

  “Coffee?”

  “Black,” said Port.

  The counterman had nobody else in the place, so after he brought Port his coffee he stayed close and kept looking. Port sat, waiting for the coffee to cool, and lit himself a cigarette. The match made the only sound in the place. Then he said, “I’m getting self-conscious. You’re staring.”

  The counterman smiled and kept looking.

  “Why?” Port asked.

  “You’re new here.”

  It was a good answer, thought Port. None other would have been as true.

  “Well,” he said, “have your fill. I’m leaving soon.”

  The counterman looked disappointed, and, as if to get the most out of his short opportunity, he started to ask Port any number of questions. Having driven all day Port didn’t mind. He said yes, he had been driving all day; no, he had not meant to come here; yes, this was his first time in Texas; no, he was not in the oil business.

  “So what are you here for?”

  “I’m going fishing,” Port said. “I was heading for the Gulf, but I think I lost my way.”

  “That’s a fact,” said the counterman. “That most certainly is a fact.”

  “Can you show me the right highway out of here?”

  “There’s but one way out of here,” said the counterman, “and you take that. Take the street this way,” and he pointed. “Five miles or so, and you catch the highway south.”

  Port nodded and started to sip his coffee. It was lukewarm by now, which was the way he liked it.

  “Getting dark,” said the counterman. “Maybe you ought to stay over.”

  Port didn’t think he would like to stay over. The small town was depressing. It did not feel very much like a town to him but more like just houses, put there for no other reason than to be close to the rigs. And that, Port thought, was a hell of a reason for putting up a house.

  “Maybe you don’t like our architecture?” said the counterman. He didn’t sound proud or anything like that, but mostly resigned.

  “It all looks very efficient. Like a company town.”

  “And cheap. You forgot to say cheap.”

  “Why are you staying?” Port asked him.

  “Because it’s a company town, feller. That means I owe Heering. Everybody owes Heering.”

  “The town?”

  “The man. His name’s Heering too. Ever hear of Heering?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Ever hear of oil?”

  “Sure—”

  “Then you’ve heard of Heering,” and the counterman folded his arms.

  Port nodded at his coffee and then he said, “You don’t like him,” just to be saying something.

  “Don’t like him? Every time I drive by his house I get an ulcer attack,” said the counterman.

  “He lives here? Why here?”

  “Because his first field is right here, and that way Mr. Heering reminds himself of his humble beginnings.”

  “Not a friendly picture,” said Port and got up. He said it to agree with the counterman and to finish the conversation. He was not really interested and wanted to leave.

  It was dark outside when Port got into his car and there were lights on in several places; in houses, a few on the street, and on the field which ran parallel to the main street. But most of all there were no people. The middle of a shift, thought Port, but it only explained part of the impression. It did not explain the mean look of the place, the grimness of the sight which showed silent houses and silent machines in the background. It must be because he was getting tired, Port thought, and because of the counterman’s peevish talk. Port drove down the street and when he saw the end of it he speeded up. It would be good to drive in the open again, and old Mr. Heering was probably a very nice man…

  As soon as Port was out on the highway the wind was noticeable. It made a noise over the dark plain and pushed at the car. It struck Port as odd that there should be a wind at night. Then he came to the fork in the road. Port didn’t remember the counterman mentioning a fork. The size of the two roads seemed about equal but the one on the right was in better condition. There were no road signs. There was a point to driving back into town and asking which fork to take, but Port didn’t feel like turning back; he turned right, down the better road.

  It started to wind and then it climbed, straight towards a black mass which seemed very large. Then the headlights picked it up. Rock. High, solid rock from one side to the other. The road seemed to end at the outcropping until the headlights picked out the gap which had been blasted to let in the road. The passage was short and when it was over the road leveled out, like on the top of a plateau. And suddenly there were trees. Port couldn’t make out what they were, except they were all needle wood, short, thick needle trees which did not seem native.

  Port slowed. It wasn’t the right road. Everything looked too well tended and the road wound too much, but before he decided to stop and turn, a big car shot around the next bend and the tires screamed.

  It came without lights. The driver would have seen Port’s car by now, the headlights at any rate, but did not seem to care. With a wild lurch the car tried at the last moment not to hit head-on, to try and get past as fast as possible—if possible. Port jumped. His top was down and he didn’t wait any longer, just jumped.

  With a loud crash and tearing the MG seemed to fly out from under him and the rush of air from the big car hit Port in the face. But it was harder than air, a terrible jolt that cracked into him without pain, but with great force.

  A strange feeling—more surprise than anything else—came over Port. He knew he was on the road and soon he’d start hurting. He lay there and waited. The other driver, a man, was in front of him now. A young, surprised face, an expression that seemed strangely in a hurry—and then the man ran away. Port heard the big car roar and squeal. Then it was gone. Port closed his eyes and passed out.

  The coming to was easy and had something classic about it. That was the first thing which crossed Port’s mind. The next thing was a pain. His hands hurt, where he had scraped the palms, and the back of his head hurt, where he could feel the bump. Port kept his eyes closed for a while, to get used to himself, and then he opened them slowly. He still saw the same thing. A large room, dark where the glow of the bed lamp didn’t reach, a four-poster bed, and he was in it. The walls of the room were paneled, there was heavy furniture on a thick carpet, and
the windows were tall. It was night outside and Port could hear the wind.

  He sat up and winced. A weight seemed to shift inside his skull, hitting the back of his head. He moved more slowly and got out of bed. There was just the sound of the wind and his own breath coming carefully. Nothing else. It struck him that a hell of a lot had happened since he had left the diner but he hadn’t seen a soul since that time. Except for the man with the large car, some foreign make, a Benz, thought Port. There was something gratifying in knowing that it had been a person who had hit him on the road. The thought helped to balance the impressions now, the soundless room, the time spent unconscious—how long had that been?—the impersonal comforts of the clean bed, the small patch on the back of his head—and all of this without any persons involved.

  But there would be an explanation. Port walked slowly to the chair where his clothes hung and where his suitcase was standing. Everything was still there, the things in his pockets, all his clothes. There was a long rip in one trouser leg and his shirt had some blood on the collar. Port started to dress from his suitcase. When he came to the tie he started to think what he should do next, besides walk out of the door. Call for somebody? Walk around carpeted corridors in a large house which seemed empty? When he put on his jacket a phone rang.

  It rang very gently, not like any other phone Port had ever heard, and it took him a moment to place the sound. On the third ring he saw it on the bedside table, and when he picked it up he hesitated a second, with something like anticipation. I’m sure, he thought, this will be a human voice.

  “Mr. Port?” it said. “Are you awake?”

  “Yes. I’d like—”

  “May I come in?”

  “I wish you would,” he said, and then the phone clicked in his ear.

  She came into the room only a few minutes later. She was a girl with large waves of black hair and a small face, a very beautiful face, except for the tension Port saw. She wore a house robe which showed how well she was built, in spite of the fact that it reached from her chin to her feet. She closed the door and came towards him quickly.

  “I’m so glad you’re up, Mr. Port. But you shouldn’t be dressed—”

  “I shouldn’t?”

  “I mean, the doctor advised…”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “Two hours. You had a sedative. Are you dizzy?”

  “No. I’m not dizzy,” said Port. He would have liked to sit down, because of his aches, but the girl kept standing.

  “That’s good,” she said. “The doctor didn’t think the bump was too serious, but if you were dizzy or had trouble seeing…”

  “I don’t think I cracked my skull,” said Port. “Just the bump hurts.”

  He watched her stand by the bed and Port thought that she looked concerned, but it was a distracted kind of concern, as if she didn’t know what to worry about—as if she were not too much disturbed.

  “May I use your phone for a moment?” she said.

  “Of course. I thought it was yours.”

  She didn’t answer and dialed a two digit number. Then she said, “Father? Mr. Port is up… Fifteen minutes? Very well,” and she hung up the phone.

  “Everyone here seems to know my name,” Port started.

  “We looked in your clothes. The driver’s license—”

  “… but I still don’t know yours,” he finished.

  “I’m Jane Heering,” and she started to smile but then dropped it. “I’m sorry I didn’t—there’s been so much—”

  Port smiled at her because she seemed so distraught. “If my accident has upset you,” he said, “the damage is nothing that can’t be replaced. Rip in the pants, dent in the car maybe, and for the rest,” he touched his head, “you’ve been very attentive.”

  But she didn’t return his smile. She just nodded. “It sounds simple,” she said. “It would be nice if something very simple would happen sometime.”

  They looked at each other for a moment, but then it went. Jane Heering straightened a fold in the bedclothes and Port turned to look out of the window. There was nothing to see. “Tell me,” he said. “Who hit me?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Then she said, “That was my father before, on the phone. He’d like to see you.”

  “The Heering?”

  She was at the door, holding it open, and then Port followed her down a broad hall. It led to a staircase which curved into a center hall which had the square area of an average house. The floor was stone and the ceiling had a peak. It was a cold looking hall. Then Port saw Heering.

  Port’s first impression of the man was formality. Heering was slight and pale, of medium build and medium height. He stood by a tall door and looked up to the stairs. His eyes had very little movement.

  Heering and Port shook hands and Jane Heering made the introductions. Not counting the man’s eyes, Port thought, Heering might look like some elderly shipping clerk. Not that it meant anything—J. P. Morgan would have looked right tapping beer in a neighborhood tavern. But counting the eyes, and going back about two hundred years, this Heering looked like a witch burner.

  “Thank you, Jane,” said Heering and made a small nod with his head. He kept looking at her until she left. She had not wanted to leave, thought Port.

  Heering took Port into an unlit room and for a moment, before the light was turned on, the long frame of the window showed the moon coming up at the end of the plain, the black derrick skeletons silhouetted against the sky. Then the light snapped on and the windows turned blind.

  “Sit down, Mr. Port. And you may want some of this.” Heering came back from the liquor cabinet and brought a small glass. “It’s Schnaps. Quite bracing.” He gave the drink to Port without any gesture of friendliness or the companionable air that should go with offering a drink. The Schnaps was a medicine and that’s how Heering gave it to Port.

  The room looked heavy and Victorian, everything showing craftsmanship, quality, and no beauty. There were two large chairs facing each other and Heering and Port sat down there.

  “Did you see who hit you, Mr. Port?”

  It seemed very abrupt. It seemed important to Heering to get that part out of the way.

  “Did I see? I saw him, but I don’t know who he was.”

  “Did you see him well enough to recognize him again?”

  “Yes,” said Port. “I’ll recognize him.”

  Heering looked down at his hands. He sat like that with his lids lowered over his eyes and, since his eyes were the only alive thing in his face, it now seemed that he was hardly there. His eyes were not closed though. He was looking down at his fingers, rubbing their tips with the thumb.

  “Well?” said Port. “You ask as if it makes a difference.”

  Heering looked up and said, “It does.” Then he obviously changed the subject. “You will of course be reimbursed in full. Your car, in case you don’t know it yet, is a total wreck.”

  Port hadn’t known it. This would delay his leaving, of course, but then it struck him that his leaving was not such a matter of importance at all. To fish in the Gulf? A diversion, a way to kill time because he had nothing else to do. It had been like that for some time now…

  “It makes a difference for this reason,” said Heering. “If you had said no, you didn’t see the man’s face, I would have reimbursed you for your damages and then bade you a good night.”

  “But?”

  “You saw him, well enough to find out who he is.”

  “This is important?”

  “He’s my son,” said Heering.

  Port sat back and waited. Heering had told him very little, but enough to show that something in Heering’s affairs, something very important, might now involve Port.

  “I would like to offer you a job, Mr. Port.”

  “What?”

  “It happens I know who you are.”

  Port looked at Heering and then he looked at his empty glass. He got up, went to the liquor cabinet, and poured himself hal
f a pony of the Schnaps. Then he came back and sat down.

  “You know what, Mr. Heering?”

  “You are the Daniel Port who was affiliated with the Stoker organization up North.”

  “There is no more Stoker organization.”

  “And I know that you were responsible for its collapse.”

  Port shrugged. These polite facts could have been known to anyone who had read the right papers. They were very polite facts, because Heering had not called the Stoker organization by its right name, a syndicate branch, political on the surface, criminal in almost everything else.

  “I know,” Heering went on, “that you were Stoker’s right-hand man, that you left because of disagreements, and that in the process you ruined—or exposed may be the proper word—the entire set up.”

  “You do know more than the papers,” said Port.

  “I have my own investigative organization,” said Heering. “I was particularly impressed,” he went on, “with the unique way in which you have stayed alive.”

  “Not working, you mean?”

  But Heering was not in a joking mood. “I mean the threat of a sweeping exposure, for which you have arranged in the event of your death.”

  “Well,” said Port, and his surprise was genuine. “And do you know the details of that exposure, too?”

  “No. I’ve only had a few hours. And besides,” said Heering, “what I know is sufficient.”

  “For what, Mr. Heering?”

  “To hire you.”

  “You want an ex-hood?”

  “Not necessarily; but I know for a fact that you functioned more as a businessman. I will tell you that I have only respect for a businessman who can maintain himself on the other side of the law. I want you,” said Heering, “for three reasons. First of all, you are discreet. You could not have maintained yourself as you have, if you were anything else. Second, hiring you saves me from exposing my personal matters to additional people, since you saw my son anyway, and could have learned his identity sooner or later.”

  “Not even your own police force would do?”

  “They are not a police force, Mr. Port. They are a legitimate, investigative branch of my—”