The Quicksilver Kid

Chapter One


An inviting foam formed over the surface of Cole’s coffee and, tentative, he took a sip. It was hot, to be sure, but through it he tasted a heavy dark roast, nutty and smooth.

“Cream?” his host asked, reaching for the small tray between them. “Sugar? I have honey.”

“Honey!” Cole looked up at the man and smiled. “I’d known your books sell, Mister Redding, but really--”

“Please, call me Rick. The honey is from my aunt. She keeps bees. Would you like some?”

It was tempting, but Cole wasn’t about to tamper with a perfectly decent cup of coffee. He declined. “And this?” he asked, raising his cup. “Do you have an aunt who grows beans? Every morning I go to the diner for a cup and a donut, but this is coffee.”

“That’s the hotel’s, I’m afraid,” said Rick, but he looked pleased all the same as he settled into the sofa, reaching into his front pocket for a cigarette case. He snapped it open and offered to Cole, who accepted. They looked a mite more enticing than the battered pack of Chesterfields in his coat. Rick Redding lit for them both and Cole thanked him.

“And how do you like San Jose, Mister Redding? Sorry, Rick.”

“Oh, I like it fine. I’ve been here many times.”

“You grew up in Salinas.”

“That’s right.”

As they spoke, Cole reached for his pad and pen. “I guess that should be obvious to anyone who’s read your books.”

“Possibly,” Redding said. “Yes, I hope so.”

“You know the place well. You must have a lot of love for that town.”

There was a pause while Redding stared at him. Cole wondered if he shouldn’t have used the word love. He wondered if Redding hadn’t noticed something in the way Cole looked at him. He couldn’t help it--that photo on the dust jacket really didn’t do the man justice. Taking a quick drag off his cigarette, Cole tapped the ash into a tray and glanced down at his notes. He made a pointless scribble in the margins. Finally, Redding spoke.

“Yes,” he answered, drawing the word out. “I do.” He smoked quietly for a minute. “You know how it is. You grow up in a place and your whole world is a certain familiar way, and because you’re young and there has to be more, you leave, and by the time you come back you don’t fit into that certain way any longer. Things are familiar, but not really.”

“So these are memories? Your novels, I mean?”

“Not exactly. God, could I be more abstract?” Redding leaned forward. “More coffee?”

Cole wasn’t quite halfway through his cup. “No thanks. You mean you’re no longer an insider. You did some growing out in the world and now it’s square peg meets round hole.”

Redding paused in the middle of filling his cup to give an uncouth laugh, short and ungainly as a dog’s bark. It was at such odds with the fine coffee and custom tobacco blend, Cole found it amusing.

“Yes, that’s just what I mean. Lucky for us you’re the one writing the article.”

“I don’t know, Rick, you have a way with words.”

A light came to Redding’s eyes, and he adopted a sly expression. “You’ve read my books?”

“One or two. Makes sense if I’m going to interview you, now, doesn’t it?”

“So professional. I have to admit, when I received your call my ego and I wondered if there wasn’t some personal interest. This doesn’t seem your regular line.”

The cigarette paused halfway to Cole’s mouth. “Pardon?” he finally managed.

A quiet smile touched Redding’s expression. “Cole Tanner, Staff writer,” he recited Cole’s byline. “I enjoyed your piece on the strike in Gilroy last month. The lettuce fields?” He added this last after a moment, as Cole stared at him dumbly. The quiet smile grew. “You don’t remember me, do you, Mister Tanner?”

“Cole,” he corrected absently, staring still and trying to place Redding’s face. It was familiar, but he’d seen it on the book jacket. Hadn’t he?

Redding laughed, that ungainly bark again. “I don’t know whether to enjoy this or be offended.” Cole thought he couldn’t look less offended with that big grin. Redding watched him try to figure it out, a gleam in his eye as he drank his coffee.

“I’m sorry,” said Cole, hardly aware of what he was saying. From where did he know this man? “I’m usually good with faces…”

Again, Redding laughed. He tapped the ash from his cigarette and said, “Well, to be fair, it was very dark.”

Stranger and stranger. Cole didn’t mind a good razzing now and then but his host had really caught him off guard. “Mister Redding,” he began and paused when Redding leaned suddenly forward, a firmness in his gaze.

“Rick,” he said. “Call me Rick. I met you once. In a club.” He watched Cole’s face for any sign of recollection. “A gentleman’s club,” he added gently.

“A gentleman’s--?” It all came back and Cole gave a start. “Oh,” he said. “Oh--” He glanced quickly at the door.

“Please don’t be alarmed. We’re very much alone.”

Cole said nothing for a moment, smoking with an absence of mind that had him burning his fingers. “Ouch,” he said, stabbing the thing out with force. The butt stood crooked and smoking in the tray. He sucked his wounded finger and studied Redding, who sat mild as ever.

“Would you like another?” Redding asked, offering the case.

Cole eyed him, finally shaking his head. He rummaged around his pockets, muttering, “I’ve got my own.” Before he could protest Redding had a match ready and Cole begrudgingly allowed him to light. He watched the author select a fresh cigarette from his own case and they smoked together in silence. Cole stared at him.

“I do remember,” he said at last.

Redding looked almost relieved. “Oh, good.”

“You’ve shaved.”

Mention of the old beard had Redding rubbing a hand over his smooth jaw. “Yes. Wanted a change.” He flashed a smile, not too friendly, but polite, and Cole detected a nervous tension in its breadth.

“You never mentioned any bestselling novels.”

“Yes, well.” Redding frowned and studied his cigarette. “You did most of the talking and then--then there wasn’t much talking at all.”

Cole grimaced. He was a chatty drunk, and that night he’d been fried. He needed to be more careful. But that was easier said.

“I’m a dunce,” Redding announced suddenly. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Please forget I said anything. I’ve got no feel for this sort of thing, it’s why I work alone.”

“Why you work alone?” Cole echoed. “Yes, I see your point. I’m running into old flings at least once a week.”

Redding stared at him, his coffee forgotten, cigarette burning away between his fingers.

“I’m joking,” Cole said. “You’ve caught me off guard, is all.”

“Of course. I really do apologize. You’re here to work and I’ve balled everything. Mister Tanner--Cole, I do apologize.”

He was so damned earnest Cole had to laugh, and for the first time that afternoon he relaxed in his chair. “It’s all right. Puts a new spin on things, I suppose.” He thought back to what he’d read last from Rick Redding. There had been two characters, two men awfully close who Cole had for his own benefit wondered about. Now he thought perhaps that interpretation hadn’t been so far off the mark. “It’s been, what, a year? More?”

“Just over,” Rick murmured, his gaze steady on Cole. “My last trip to San Jose.”

Cole nodded slowly, absorbing this information. What had Redding thought when Cole rang him? He tried to recall any strangeness in the conversation, but any awkwardness could be put to the poor connection and noise of the writer’s den around him. The staffroom was always bustling with reporters simultaneously struggling to make their deadlines and scrabbling for the next lead. He said, “Well I’ll be,” and Redding made a sound of agreement.

They stared at one another for a long minute and Cole’s cheeks began to burn. A big smile grew out of him, a nervous tic, and he directed it at his notepad, which was bare but for his black squiggles in one corner.

“If you want to pass the interview off onto someone else, I’ll understand.”

“To hell with that. Listen, if it’s all the same to you we’ll do this now. You and me. I haven’t passed on a story yet and I don’t mean to start.”

Redding looked surprised but pleased. “All right.” He really was a handsome fellow, Cole thought.

“Let’s talk about the university. They’re why you’re here, after all.”

Through the interview, Cole wondered if Redding were always this candid. Under the playful volley of question and reply he studied the man, noted the lightness in his gaze and how it lingered. Cole could not for the life of him remember anything he’d said at their last meeting, but it must have included his name and profession at least. He really needed to watch himself. He wasn’t in France any longer.

“Cole?”

With a guilty start, Cole returned to the conversation. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m listening.”

Redding studied him. He’d finished his cigarette and now held his empty hands laced together before him. They were long, agile, and like the rest of him the light olive color of a natural tan deprived. “I said I hope you’ll make it. I can’t promise it will be very interesting but if you’re free I’d love to meet with you after.”

The lecture. Redding was scheduled to speak at the university that Friday evening. Cole shut his notebook and tucked it away inside his coat pocket. They stood.

“I’d love to come,” he said, and Redding seemed to understand that was not a promise. He smiled all the same.

“I’ll look for you.”

“All right.” They stared at each other, and the silence grew uncomfortable. The moment seemed to lack something very specific and finally Cole said, “Well, thanks again--” just as Redding spoke.

“I’m really glad--”

They clammed up and grinned like boys.

“Well,” said Redding, when he deemed it safe to speak.

Cole nodded his head once. “Well,” he agreed. He patted his notebook where it sat inside his pocket. “This is heading for the Wednesday edition if you’re interested.”

“So soon.” Redding followed him to the door.

“I’ll have it written up tonight. Then it’s off to my editor and then to press. Listen.” At the door, he stopped, turning.

“Yes?” Redding's mild, interested smile was belied by the anxious gleam in his eye.

Cole suddenly did not know what to say. “Thanks for the coffee. I hope to make the lecture.” Before Redding could form any reply, Cole opened the door and slipped into the hall. He was halfway to the elevator before he released the breath he’d been holding and in the little cage he slumped against the wall, breathing deeply. The operator ignored him.


* * *


Late that afternoon the office clock struck four and Cole began to wonder if he hadn’t been a little too flippant in his attitude toward the article. It was a simple piece that should not have taken more than a couple of hours, but here he had been at it for four if one discounted lunch. The knowledge that Rick would soon read Cole’s words about him somehow made every sentence an agony. He caught himself romanticizing the encounter, carrying away with long phrases that obsessed over the way Rick smoked his cigarettes or detailed the troubled expression he wore when asked of Salinas.

He thought back to one year ago, recalling more easily now the handsome stranger who had squeezed up beside him at the bar. It had been a rough night for Cole. A rough month, in fact, and he’d been determined in drowning his sorrows. Anyone who wanted to help him with that was a fast friend.

It had been the beard, he remembered. Rick’s beard, bristled but soft, that caught his attention. Men no longer wore beards. Cole’s father had, he recalled that dimly, but the man died so long ago, Cole no more than a child. Now there were smooth cheeks abound, at least in the city. He read stories about gun slingers and mountain men, but that was an America far removed from bustling San Jose, trapped between the big city madness of San Francisco and all the long, fertile fields a ways south. When he let his own beard grow it made him itch, it made him think of unclean things, because a beard meant unhappiness, a dark growth creeping in the trenches.

Not Rick’s, though. His was trimmed and clean, lending an exquisite masculine appeal. Cole thought of the man’s jaw as it had looked when he’d seen him that morning and thought even clean-shaven it remained a fine thing, sharp and square.

He was dawdling again. With a short sigh, Cole flipped his notebook shut and gathered his things, put on his coat. He needed a drink. He headed out to a blind pig a couple blocks out from the paper, just far enough at the edge of the downtown area that he felt he could relax. There was breathing room here, a little elbow space, most especially on a Tuesday night. Most guys were home with their families, he guessed, and bully for them. He was a free agent. No family, no worries beyond his own next meal. Just another old soldier finding his way.

Such musings made him think again of Rick, of their first meeting. He'd been such a mess back then, and after Jim's untimely departure it was no surprise. Things had seemed pointless back then, bleak with the stink of trenches not long washed away and a good man's life wasted. There was so much the world could offer a man like Jim, if he couldn't muster the nerve to reach out and take it, what chance did a bum like Cole have?

Dawdling. Right. It had been some time since he'd indulged thoughts like those. It was all behind him now, he reminded himself. No choice but to look forward. He couldn't compare himself to Jim, to Rick—had Rick served? No, he hadn't. Well-to-do family, promising career. Not a chance. He scowled, sipped his drink.

Cole flipped open his notebook on the bar and scanned what he had written so far. It was crap. He sighed.