Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/99

Rh and repeat the wild, unplotted madness of that evening in San Francisco.

On such occasions Anita would plead illness and dance no more that night. Ken, at first limply distraught, would sit at the bar, drink several straight whiskies and then go into the dimly lighted streets. The Mexicans of the town knew him. He dropped into little barrooms, stood shoulder to shoulder with them, learned their language. More than once, black-haired, olive-skinned youths followed him to Frank and Jack's.

"Frank wouldn't like it," he would say. "I meet you mañana." And mañana never dawned.

Thus like a rankly rich orchid, the perverse attachment between Anita and himself grew, reared its violently colored head, now drooped. The woman still craved the touch of his mouth. The man feared her scalding lips and drew back more and more from the chalice of her body. Yet he could not escape from her. He must obey her—although he hated her because she was a woman.

This hatred slumbered deep within him, fed by her insatiable desires. It was never expressed.

He still had the dance. The dance was still glorious. Even on Saturday nights when all California poured across the border to revel and to riot, the staggering drunks, the bleary eyed females, the jittering boys and hard-faced women stopped to watch him dance.

He was paid nothing for his dance. Each time that she went upstairs he sat at the bar waiting for her. When she returned, eyes bright, lips freshly rouged, she beckoned for him to come to her.

With a signal to the violinist she would slip into Ken's arms. They would begin to dance. They never spoke. From