Adam growled, “Not one lousy word.”
“A bastard,” said Beach softly. “So that’s why we’re staying all night in El Paso.”
“Slow up,” Jose advised. How much to tell them—and in that instant, he resolved to tell them nothing. If this was a shady deal, he wasn’t going to have them involved in it. If it weren’t, the story would be better when it was embellished by further developments. “What Pablo and I were discussing, amigos, had nothing to do with any female.” He reached. “It had to do with his domb primo, Jaime. And if you doubt me, ask Pablo.”
“After you’ve got him on your side,” Beach complained. “What’s with the blonde?”
Jose reclined in a chair. “She is so beautiful,” he embroidered, “she is like the morning star caught in the leaves of a tall aspen.” The more he said of her, the more they would believe there was nothing to this but Jose trying to pick up another dame. “She is a knockout, a dream a man dreams around a lonely campfire when the cows are bawling. The tawdry rhymes of a jukebox love song become honest because the heart yearns for her beauty….”
Adam grunted. Insultingly.
“Who is she?” Beach demanded. “Where can I find her?”
“One, I don’t know. Two, lay off, she’s a lady. I’ve never met her, all I did was ask Lou who she was because she caught my eye.”
“Lou?” Beach queried.
“What difference does it make to you, love?” Lou asked lazily. “Jose saw her first.”
“I have no loyalty.”
“All of you hombres ought to get married. You’d stop thinking girls were trees or cows bawling, you’d know they were women.” Lou didn’t look at Adam.
Adam said, “If I ever meet one who can cook better than I do, I’ll remember what you said. Until then I’ll be a no good like the Aragon boys, ogling blondes.”
It was all nice and normal, just like old times. Just as if Jose’s blonde were an ordinary doll, not one mixed up with an inquisitive man in a seersucker suit.
II
Jose refused to trust his pristine white linen to Adam’s truck.
“All right,” Adam grudged. “We’ll take Lou’s car. But if you guys aren’t ready to come back after dinner, you’ll have to ride the trolley. I’m not going to hang around Juarez all night.”
It would have been funny, he was always the one who delayed the crowd, he knew everyone from Chihuahua to Mesa Verde. But nothing was funny now. Not even the gags about Jose’s first communion suit; Beach with an out-of-joint nose because there wasn’t time to get his whites pressed once he found out what Jose was up to.
Nothing was funny because of a slip of paper in an envelope. On the paper was penned a name, Senor Praxiteles; an address, Calle de la Burrita. The envelope was in Jose’s white pocket, where his right hand could brush casually against it. On the front of the envelope was his name, Jose Aragon.
He’d never met Praxiteles, Senor el Greco, but he’d heard enough to recognize the old man if they met in the dark. And he didn’t want to meet him in the dark. He didn’t want to go on with this. He was retired from violence, he was a part-time peaceful ranchero of Socorro county and the rest of the time a gay caballero of the royal city of Santa Fe.
He didn’t believe that the name Jose Aragon would have a special pertinence for Senor el Greco. But he couldn’t be sure. Because the web in which Praxiteles sat like an evil black spider had tendrils on every border all over the world. You could never be sure how much the wily spiders knew about those who had tried to sweep out their murky corners.
But he was done with that, Jose reassured himself with more aplomb than he possessed at this given moment. Even if el Greco did recognize the name of one small twig from a great war-time forest, it wouldn’t matter. The war was quits. Certainly there could be no violence involved in doing a favor for a pretty girl.
Yet the moment he opened the envelope and read the name of the man, Jose knew that he’d been right to put a guard on his tongue. This was not something in which he could involve Adam, tired out from three months’ trading through Mexico. Much less could he mention it to Beach who’d be determined to flail in with his usual daring. Beach had been spoiling for a ruckus since they’d taken his fighter planes away from him. And there was Jose again, thinking of it as violent. It wasn’t going to be. But an early idea he’d had to send Pablo to fetch the package died fast when he read that name. This job was his, he’d let himself in for it.
It was true that he didn’t have to do anything about it. He could simply ignore the whole thing. Or he could leave a little note for the young lady, explaining the comedy of errors. A note which might lead to some violence on her part but no knife in the back. And certainly and inevitably would lead to the acquaintance which he’d had in mind from the start. He had no intention of pulling out. Not since learning that Senor Praxiteles was involved.
One small advantage was his. The man in the seersucker suit was curious about the girl’s activities. Curious enough to invade the apartment of the hostess of the Chenoweth Hotel, although, conceivably, Tosteen might not have known it was her apartment. Curious enough to care about a poor Mexican to whom the blond girl might have spoken on the street. To go further, to seek the name of the Mexican. But the man didn’t know that the girl had sent a message to that fellow. Thanks to Pablo putting his protection on Jose, he hadn’t had to pick up the envelope himself. Pablo brought it up with the linen suit and with the information, “A lady leave this at the desk for you.” Pablo was keeping his black eyes open and his ears pricked.
The suit arrived just before six, the envelope had just been handed over by the lady. “I tell Mister Clark I will bring it to you. The lady she is gone. She say give it to you at the desk but Mister Clark he say I should bring it to you.” If anyone was watching to see who picked up the envelope, he would be disappointed. There would be no significance attached to Clark handing Pablo an envelope to deliver. If anyone was watching, he’d have a long, feckless watch.
The only one who could possibly connect Jose Aragon with the blond girl would be the seersucker man. He might have been able to get the name from sources other than the three mum boys. Not from Clark, though, should he breeze up to ask who was in Lou Chenoweth’s room. Clark had worshiped Lou too long to allow anyone to question her business. Jose did not believe that Tosteen knew the Mexican was actually Jose y Maria Angelico Aragon y Vaca, a don by right of inheritance. And he was quite certain that the man would not connect the slim, elegant, white-linened Jose Aragon with either the sweaty Mexican of the noon street or the dripping guy behind a bath towel in Lou’s room. Not at first sight. The three were three different men.
Adam drove. As if he didn’t trust either of the Aragons at the wheel. He turned into the wide street leading to the bridge, a dark street bisected with trolley tracks, flanked by dark warehouses, shabby with unclean hotels before the lights of the bridge approached. They parked on the American side out of custom, in turn out of the wisdom of experience. Adam picked the best-lighted lot, not that it was too good. It was a small one, set between two scabrous buildings, littered with dirty blown papers and melon rinds, peach pits, corn cobs sucked dry. Adam locked the car and put the keys in his own pocket. “Don’t forget, kids. After dinner, we head right back to El Paso.”
“If you were a gentleman,” Beach mused, “you would give the keys to me or to Jo. There’s two of us, you should take the cab to the Chenoweth.”
“If you were a scholar,” Adam rumbled back at him, “you’d know that two in a cab are safer than one in this part of town.”
“Not two borrachos.”
“I hope you’ve got sense enough not to get drunk across the bridge. Not both of you at once.”
They were crossing the street, headed toward the bridge. Jose stayed out of the conversation. He focused all his nerve centers on possible danger—smell, sight, sound. The smell was sour, but that was normal. The sound too was normal, the drift of babble and music from the gari
sh lights beyond. As for sight, there wasn’t anyone who appeared suspicious around here. The faces of those who worked in this neighborhood were no more sinister, and no less, than the faces of Pablo and Jaime. Beach led across the narrow bridge walk to the customs gate, Jose managed to be next, with Adam as rear guard. Caution over valor. Below was the sluggish, murky trickle of the Rio Grande, protected by mid-high, dark, cindery banks.
And then they were at the double barrier. On this side uniformed officials, matter-of-fact, recognizing the look of men such as Adam and Beach and Jose, average fellows out for an evening’s fun. Inspection was perfunctory. With it there may have been an unspoken cynical hope that the three make no trouble for official United States while across the border. The uniforms on the other side of the barrier were quieter and even less concerned. They mumbled their few words, that was all. North American business was the life blood of Juarez. Their hope would be more pious, that no international incident come of the Norte Americanos, so often bad-mannered and always uncivilized drinkers.
The crossing of the barrier was always quiet this way, as if it were set up to offer contrast to the blare of color and sound and smell that smote you as you stepped off the bridge. No matter how many times you crossed the bridge, it was the same. The quickening of the pulse to meet the lively Latino tempo. The watering of the mouth at the spice of garlic and roasting ears and chestnuts and chile scenting the air. The scent covered the less enticing odors of unwashed flesh, cheap powder and paint, and beer and whiskey and rum and gin and tequila and pulque and other temptations to turista palates. The toes danced to the American music, played badly, pouring from cafe loud-speakers, and to the dainty pluck of strings, played well, by the dirty fingers of strolling musicos. It was always bad and always good; the odor of evil ever-present beneath the spangled perfume. It wasn’t Mexico; it was border. And borders were ever venal because they catered to venality. This one was no different from any other.
The turistas looked exactly what they were, middle-westerners, Texans and New Mexicans, passing through El Paso on their summer vacations, staying overnight for a whirl at Juarez. Middle-aged couples for the most part, strolling the few blocks of border Juarez; loitering in the open curio shops, pricing, buying French perfume cheaper than in the States; buying booze cheaper, if the laws of their own state permitted them to carry it across the border; buying knickknacks, straw dolls, painted pigs, souvenir sombreros, postal cards. Only the bold walked the length of Avenida Juarez and found their way to the Mercado. The turistas did not feel exactly safe surrounded by strange faces and a strange tongue. They pushed together near the reassurance of the bridge.
A scattering of young couples from El Paso promenaded with more assurance, with less interest in the shops, with no undercurrent of strangeness to bother them. They came here often, as in another town they’d go to the lake or the dance hall for an evening out. And the natives tended their shops and tended their sidewalk stalls; the former with the dignity of ricos, the latter with noisy chant to lure the tourist dollars. Only in this way could they too have fine shops manana. This was border Juarez, turista Juarez, ignorant of the pleasant city of homes and families that lay away from the river; ignorant of the perversions of the cribs that were a hidden sore in the darkness beyond; ignorant of the twisted byways where men could buy any furtive evil, even ugly death, for dollars. One of these back streets would be called La Calle de la Burrita.
Jose managed to retain the center place as they ambled up the Avenida. Beach’s heels were light; his nose twitched to the delectable Mexican smells. “We needn’t eat yet, need we?” He didn’t want to leave the embrace of color and lights and movement.
“Yeah, we eat first,” Adam decreed.
Beach coaxed, “Jo, my intimate one, my own primo hermano, you will decide.”
Jose was watching eyes as he walked along. Not Mexican eyes alone, more especially the turistas, the innocent-appearing turistas. Those who resembled the man in the seersucker suit and the other men who sat in the Chenoweth lobby. He had to think what Beach had said before he answered, “Let’s eat.” Once they got Adam into the Senora’s he’d simmer down. And a big leisurely dinner would somewhere along the way afford an opportunity for Jose to slip out to the Street of the Little Female Burro.
Before Beach could object further, Jose winked at him. “Adam and I are hungry. I can smell that Gallino Mole. After dinner, we’ll make the rounds.” Quickly he diverted Adam. “We’ve got to get the rum for Lou, don’t we? We won’t stay long.”
They turned off the Avenue at the second block. The side street, Calle Herrera, was brief as all the side streets which wandered off the Avenue. It was also dead end. But it was not perilous. Senora Herrera had a magnificent sign in red and green and orange lights hung crookedly over her gate, spelling out Cafe Herrera. When she’d first started to cook for discriminating tourists, a small, carved, wooden plaque had been the only guidepost.
The walls of her garden stood flush to the street. A door in the wall opened, with a jangling bell, into a patio lit with pink paper lanterns. There were wicker chairs in which to recline. A tiny plashing fountain was ringed with geraniums in yellow lard cans. Great wooden tubs of oleanders decorated the whole with lacy shadows. The patio was traditional; the cafe had been the Herrera casa before the border was given over to American aliens and their money. Across the flagstones were the amber windows of the cafe. Through them came the hum of satisfied diners, good food smells, the strum of music and plaint of Mexican song.
The Senora was older but there was no gray in her ebony braids; she might have been plumper but she was more the brisk, efficient business woman than ever. She and Adam were familiar friends, business brought him so often to the border. But without any prodding she recalled the Aragon boys who hadn’t been here for so many years. She accepted their compliments as renewal of friendship. “Your table, it is waiting for you. Senorita Chenoweth telephoned to say you were coming here.”
There was nothing wrong with the table except that it wasn’t backed by a wall. You learned in the business Jose had been in that it was wise to have a wall behind you. He circled the neighboring tables with his eyes before seating himself. There was no sign of Tosteen or of Dulcinda Farrar. Or of anyone particularly interested in him. Yet he appreciated the reassurance of Adam speaking to a table here and a table there, an El Paso group, another from Carlsbad. He could relax.
Jose insisted upon ordering highballs all around, they hadn’t had a stiff drink all day. He’d have to put a couple under Adam’s belt to have time to make his side trip. He also insisted upon ordering a dinner of some length and great perfection. Tempting Adam and Beach, each of whom succumbed to his palate. His stomach was too nervous to eat half what he was ordering. He hadn’t expected it to be this way and he tried to tell himself, This is nonsense. A simple little favor for a sweet blond number. But the abracadabra failed to take. Because he had knowledge of the evil which seeped like dirty mist through the city.
The Senora’s cafe was as good as he’d remembered, the flower murals as exciting, the girls as pretty—they’d be Herrera granddaughters not daughters now. There were twin guitarists who were hot enough for the Mocambo or the Starlight Room. There was everything, including a white suit, to give to a man a feeling that he was a man of culture, even of elegance, not a nursemaid to cows. The only thing wrong was the feel of an envelope in his right-hand pocket.
The time to go was after the enchiladas and before the chicken mole. There’d be a wait in service, Senora Herrera was too intelligent to pull away an empty plate and plunk down a full one without affording one a respite in which to savor and digest the preceding dish. Or to tempt the taste buds anew with exquisite sips of wine. His leaving was made easy. Adam had wandered to the Carlsbad table. Beach had his eye on a dame who might be with her father if it wasn’t her husband. Jose sauntered toward the cigarette trays by the outer door. He was unobserved; he had only to open the door and walk out. Yet he lingere
d there with no stomach for this errand. He half determined to return to the table and tell the others he was stepping out on a bit of business. In order that if he weren’t back soon enough, they’d come looking for him.
He was deterred only because he knew Beach would be sure it was a rendezvous with the blonde and insist on sharing. He’d like Beach along, together they could make an amusing adventure out of this, the way it had begun. But Beach had been trained for four years in power tactics, smash, thunder, annihilate. He didn’t know how to walk softly, speak gently, for a more permanent end result. As for taking big Adam along, that would make a coward of Jose. He was no coward. He might not be brave, but his trouble was his own.
His hand had curved on the latch, when behind his shoulder the question was asked in heavy accent, “You wish to buy the cigarette?”
If he hadn’t been jumpy, he wouldn’t have darted around at her. He’d have realized it was a girl speaking quite harmlessly. But he’d walked past the cigarette trays; it was evident that he wasn’t waiting to buy cigarettes, but was a man bent on leaving the cafe. And he was jumpy.
She was so small she could have bumped her forehead against the top button of his jacket. He had thought that all the Herrera granddaughters, who flirted their bright full peasant skirts from table to table, were indistinguishable one from the other. He had captured in his mind their round pretty faces and round fringed eyes of chocolate brown, their shining hair which rippled like clean black water below their shoulders, and the coffee-and-cream, plump shoulders rising above the bright embroidery of Mexican blouses. He had captured in his ears the laughter of their rich, red lips.
This one was a maverick. Her face was small and square, her lozenge eyes black as stones. Her hair was straight and stiff, banged above her straight black brows, hanging behind her ears, chopped off halfway down her back. Her ears were small and square like her face, thin Mexican silver earrings pierced them, a tiny silver heart dangling from each ring. She was thin, undeveloped as a child, she was the youngest of the girls here. And she wasn’t a Herrera.
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