by Peter Rabe
She smoked and sipped her coffee.
“Duddle burden, bubby,” Red called to the bartender.
Juanita said angrily, “Damn him! I wish he would leave.”
“Durdle bubben, duddy,” Red called.
“What is he trying to say?” Juanita asked. “He sounds like he’s drowning.”
“He is drowning,” I said. “In booze. He’s trying to order a double bourbon.”
Juanita signaled the bartender and caught his eye. She made a gesture with an inverted thumb.
“A Mickey?” I asked quietly. “Dangerous business, Juanita.”
“It’s Saturday night,” she said. “We’ll be crowded in another hour. Do I want him around here then, calling people spies? I’m protecting him from himself. I have a cot in the back where he can sleep it off.”
I sipped my coffee, ignoring her.
“You’re angry,” she said.
“Why not? With the help of his friends, I might be able to do Skip Lund and his son some good. And now I learn he has no friends. So I have to go back to him and say I can’t honestly take his case because I can’t do him any good.”
She shook her head and sighed. She studied me a second and then glanced toward the table where Red was now drinking his drugged double bourbon. She gestured to the guitar player and stood up.
At the bar the man out of uniform had his back to us, oblivious to the shenanigans going on behind him, quietly drinking a beer.
Juanita moved a few steps away from the table and talked softly to the guitar player. He nodded and went back to the others. She sat down again and I stood up.
She frowned. “You’re not going …?”
“Why not?” I took some bills from my pocket. “How much?”
“Nothing, nothing.” She took a breath. “Angry, aren’t you?”
“Frustrated. I have to go back and tell Skip I can’t do him any good.”
At the other table Red had collapsed, his head among the cards. The guitar player and one of his friends lifted him and half carried, half dragged him through the swinging door that led to the kitchen.
The Filipino and his companion laughed nervously, the bartender boredly polished glasses, the man out of uniform continued to drink his beer.
From the kitchen came the sound of excited Spanish words and then an abrupt silence.
I said, “I hope he doesn’t get knifed again tonight. A man can only take so much of that.”
Juanita’s eyes flashed. “You have a nasty tongue.”
“I’m an anglo,” I explained, “and I am resentful, knowing what you think about angloes. And tonight you’re kissing off Skip Lund and Bud Lund and Callahan. Thank you for the free meal and the beer and good night to you, Señora Juanita Rico.”
“Damn you!” she said hoarsely. “It’s not like that at all. You know those are lies. You have a viper’s tongue and a mind like a cop.”
“Watch your language,” I said. “There’s a cop at the bar.” I turned my back on her and started out.
I was about three steps from the door when she said, “Please wait. Please?”
I turned and waited.
She came over to put a hand on my arm. “We had a bad start. I guess I can trust you. I won’t promise; but will you give me a little time to think about it?”
“All right.”
She smiled warmly. “Have a beer and be patient.”
Perhaps patience would only give her time to dream up more evasions, but I had no other leads. I couldn’t honestly expect her to involve her safety in the affairs of Skip Lund when Lund refused to save his own neck. I went back to the table and another glass of beer.
A couple came in and went to a table. A woman came in and took the stool next to the police officer in civvies. The guitar player moved his chair into a corner and began to play softly.
Peaceful again, deceptively peaceful. Mañana land, and mañana was Sunday. It would get festive as the alcohol seeped into the warm blood stream; it might even get violent. But this was the lull before the loving — natural party people slowly warming up.
Beneath the surface sweetness of the quiet guitar there was a beat I couldn’t chart, repetitive and constant, unrhythmical, disturbing, trying to say something less soporific than the melody.
Imminence seemed to lurk hazily in the room. Imminence of what? Romance? Revelation? Violence?
I had a sense of being a surface swimmer, only a few feet above the kelp in a calm sea, while beneath the kelp the sharks watched, patient and alert.
Behind the bar Juanita was now helping the bartender. A squat, dark-brown waitress was working out of the kitchen. The Filipino was holding the hand of his beloved in the black dress, blithely oblivious to the urgent undertone of the guitar and the mythical sharks under the kelp.
Over all their heads I watched Juanita working the bar and the tables easily and gracefully, a woman who probably missed nothing, a complete and courageous but still womanly woman.
When Skip used the word “boss” I was sure that he was speaking of Juanita. That would mean that Johnny had been working for her, too. And Pete Chavez. And what was their trade?
Juanita went to the kitchen and came out in less than a minute, carrying nothing. Had she checked on Hovde? She went to the bar and picked up a pair of drinks to take to the Filipino couple.
And then she was standing in front of me and I rose. The sound of the guitar dwindled off to nothing. I glanced at the player and he returned my stare vacantly, then started another piece.
“What I have decided to tell you must be kept a secret,” Juanita warned. “Can you promise me that and still stay in business?”
“Unless it means I have to hide a murderer, I promise you that, whether it’s wise or not.”
“It might help to find a murderer.”
“Then I will keep your secret.”
“Have you guessed anything?” she asked musingly.
“I’ve been thinking of narcotics. It was only a hunch.”
“It was a good one,” she said, and sat down across from me.
ELEVEN
SHE GAVE IT to me straight and simple, but it was still a strange story. The boat brought in opium; she had a man who derived the heroin and morphine, a trained man, an addict.
In this end of town, she explained, drug addiction was growing. And why?
“The money in it,” I guessed. “Once a man is hooked, he’d do anything to get the money for more. So the pushers build the business and get rich.”
“And the addicts steal and kill, if they have to, to get the money. And the women turn into prostitutes. It was growing in this end of town.”
“Was growing? Isn’t it any more?”
“There hasn’t been a new addict in this neighborhood in three months.”
“Why not?”
“Nobody’s getting rich from it,” she said. “When angloes can’t get rich, they get out of a business. They don’t want to build new customers for a nonprofit business.”
“Don’t tell me you gave it away?”
“When we had to. Those who could pay did pay. Those who couldn’t pay didn’t have to pay. They could owe or take charity. Since we started, we have three addicts who seem to be cured, though one can never be sure. The ones still on it will die, eventually, and there will be no new customers to take their places. Then we can happily go out of business.”
“And who moves in?”
She stared at me, frowning.
“Juanita,” I said quietly, “wherever there’s a big and dirty buck, the slime moves in. And there are ways to get rid of small operators like you. The boys from down south don’t like independent wholesalers. It’s just a question of time until they move in here.”
“They have tried,” she said simply. “They have failed.”
“It couldn’t have been the big boys, then. They never fail.” I smiled grimly. “Nonprofit narcotics. Ye gods, Juanita, it sounds un-American!”
“It works in England,” s
he said. “It is working in San Valdesto.”
I shook my head. “The Mafia is old and wise and universal. They will never permit it. The idea might spread to the big towns.”
“It has worked,” she said stubbornly.
“So far.” And then I remembered what Harris had said about Chavez’ being friendly with the newcomers. And I asked, “Was Johnny Chavez your muscle?”
“What is a muscle? Johnny was a friend.”
“He’s also been a friend to some of the new people up here, the way I heard it.”
She frowned. “What new people? Gangsters, hoodlums?”
“That’s right. Let’s call ‘em the doubtful people. Did you trust Johnny?”
“Completely,” she said.
“I was thinking that if Johnny ratted to the law, you’d be out of business. And Johnny would then be big with the police and the new people. A spender like Johnny wouldn’t stay interested in a nonprofit business, would he?”
“You didn’t know him,” she said. “He got a rotten deal in this town. Johnny was a good boy.”
“A good boy who sold reefers to high-school kids? Isn’t your sentiment clouding your judgment?”
“You didn’t know him,” she repeated. “He was a willful boy, but a good one, once he saw who his friends were.”
“All right. I can’t argue against sentiment. But tell me, Juanita, what would you have done if you had learned that he had been double-crossing you?”
She shook her head. “You’re talking nonsense again.”
I smiled. “Can you handle a.30-.30?”
“I can handle anything that uses bullets,” she told me levelly. “I have four rifles. And three shotguns, Make a case out of that, nosy Brock Callahan.”
“And never again taste your enchiladas?” I teased her.
“Don’t joke.”
The low-rent-district Glenys Christopher, taking care of her own. No victim, this girl — and it was a pleasure to sit there and look at her. I was getting a bellyful of victims.
“What are you thinking, sly one?” she asked me.
“About your source,” I lied. “Is it constant, down there in Mexico?”
“My father,” she explained. “He will live a long time yet. And when he is gone, my brother will be there.”
Silence once more. The guitar’s beat was a throbbing of blood in hot veins, tight, demanding release. Juanita turned to look at the musician and she spoke in Spanish. The beat went away; the soft, sad melodies came back.
She smiled at me. “It is too early for that kind of music. There is a time for everything, no?”
“Yes,” I said. A time to live and a time to die, I thought. Too many beers?
“You’re thinking again,” she accused me. “You’re a moody Irishman, aren’t you?”
“A man is dead,” I said. “A nothing man, from all I’ve heard; but he’s dead and his death causes complications among the living. You don’t think Johnny went to the cabin to meet one of the strangers from down south?”
“No,” she said firmly. “And he was not a nothing man. Because he was Mexican, is that why you think of him as nothing?”
“That’s not why. I don’t have your bigotry, Juanita. I think of him as a basketball player who sold reefers to kids. In my book, that makes him a shtunk — and I don’t care what his nationality was. I have a hunch he lusted to be a hot-shot again and tried to sell you out.”
She shook her head vehemently, but I thought I saw the beginning of doubt in her eyes.
“Didn’t he go with Skip, usually, to Mexico?”
“No. He couldn’t stand the ocean. He got seasick.”
“And Pete? Do you trust him, too?”
She nodded. “Pete is like you — all temper. But he is a friend.”
I had learned what I had almost guessed and gained nothing. Perhaps Pete Chavez knew things that Juanita didn’t. Though my chances of getting any information out of that knot-head were remote.
I stood up and said, “Thanks, Juanita, for trusting me. I don’t know if it has helped, but it might be a wedge with Pete or Skip.”
She looked up at me anxiously. “Go with God, amigo. And keep our secret.”
“I will.” I paused. “That Red Hovde — take it easy with him. He’s a jerk but really gone on you, honey.”
She sighed. “All the wrong men love Juanita. It is one hell of a world, hey, Irish?”
“At times. Where does Pete Chavez live?”
“In Goleta. But not tonight, I heard. Tonight he is staying in Skip’s apartment, here in town. Do you know where that is?”
I had it in my notebook, given to me by Chief Harris while he had still been semico-operative. I nodded.
“There is probably a girl there,” she explained. “He may not answer.”
I nodded again.
“And watch your tongue,” she said gravely. “He is very tough, that one.”
“So I’ve been told. I’ll be polite. Good night and thank you.”
As I went out, the beat of the guitar changed once more. Goodbye, it seemed to be saying. Get lost.
His beloved cousin lying cold among the mourners and Pete Chavez in the hay with a broad. A realist. His buddy in the clink, so why waste the apartment?
Well, why not? No tears bring back the dead. Get as hot as you can; you’re a long time cold. The opiate of the orgasm.
It was a warm night. Shadows hid the grimness of the neighborhood, showing only the warm light through the window, from where came the happy sounds of the poor man’s cocktail hour. A slight, dry breeze whispered in the eucalyptus overhead. The stars were bright.
It was not quite seven o’clock; perhaps Pete hadn’t reached his borrowed love nest yet. I drove over to the apartment almost hoping he wouldn’t be there.
It was true adobe ranch, an old place, four units in a row next to a new medical building. The front doors all faced on a covered, ground-level porch that served as a walk.
There was no bell. I knocked.
I heard footsteps over a stone floor and then the door opened and a stocky, well-used imitation blonde stared out at me.
“I’m looking for Pete Chavez,” I explained. “Is he here?”
“Not yet,” she said. “He phoned a couple minutes ago and said he was picking up a bottle on the way. You a friend of his?”
“I’m a friend of Skip Lund’s,” I said.
“Come in, come in,” she said genially. “Any friend of Skip’s is a friend of mine.”
I came into a high-ceilinged, rough-stone-floored utility apartment, complete with day bed, still unopened.
“You like Skip, eh?” I asked.
“I get goose bumps thinking of that hunk of wonderful flesh. But he’s so hot for Mary Chavez, he wouldn’t look at me, probably. You know Mary?”
“I’ve met her.”
“That was too bad about her brother, huh?”
I nodded.
She sat down on the day bed and pointed at a pull-up chair. I took it and she crossed her legs, showing me much more of her chunky thighs than I cared to see.
“You’re big,” she said. “You a fighter or something?”
“Nope. I’m a lover. Like Pete.”
It was the wrong thing to say. She had already had a few jolts of booze, I now realized, and it had made her combative.
She flushed. “Smart guy, ain’t you? Get lippy around Pete and he’ll cut you down to size.”
“I’d better be careful,” I admitted. “Nothing personal, Miss …?”
“Never mind my name. You’re not here to see me. For all I know, even Pete doesn’t want to see you. I shouldn’t have let you in.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was trying to be funny. I guess I didn’t make it.”
“O.K.. O.K.” She uncrossed her legs. “You live around here?”
“In Montevista,” I said. “I have forty acres up there, but I’ve decided to subdivide it. That’ll leave me about ten acres around the house, plenty for a
single man.”
She looked at me suspiciously. “Montevista? You’re trying to be funny again, huh? You don’t look like money to me.”
“I’m the old money,” I explained modestly, “the kind that doesn’t have to look it. We’re beyond all that up where I live.”
“Huh!” she said in doubtful scorn. “You don’t fool me.”
I knew her now, Red Hovde’s spiritual sister, one of the great unfooled. I sighed and shrugged and stared at the stone floor.
Almost a minute of silence, and then she said, “Maybe you’re a cop. You’re snotty enough.”
I made no comment.
The defiance was wavering in her dull face now. For all she knew, I might be the LAW. Her voice was softer. “You a cop?”
Footsteps from outside before I could answer, and she rose quickly and went to the door.
She opened it and said with relief, “Welcome home, Pete. Your friend from Montevista is here.”
He came in with the fifth of supermarket bourbon and a bag of ice cubes. Big-time spender on Saturday night.
He looked at me scornfully and just as scornfully at his lady friend. “Montevista? He’s a two-bit private eye from down south. He couldn’t buy a cemetery lot in Montevista.”
“Let’s not fight,” I said easily. “I’m working for Skip, Pete. Skip needs all the help he can get. I’ve just had a long talk with — ” I paused, to look meaningfully at the blonde.
“With who?” he asked.
“I’d rather tell you privately.”
He frowned doubtfully.
Then, “Honey, we ought to have something to eat, too.” He handed her a bill. “Gino’s is right up the block. Get some ham and rolls and some of those kosher pickles.”
“Aw, Pete! I thought we were going to eat out.”
He looked at her coldly. “Take about ten minutes. O.K.?”
She sniffed. She snatched the money, picked up her purse from the day bed, muttered something that sounded like “Montevista,” and stomped out, slamming the door.
Pete hadn’t moved. “So? You had a talk with who?”
“With Juanita. And she explained why Skip hasn’t an alibi.”
“Who thinks he needs one?”
“Be realistic for a few minutes. He’s being held, isn’t he? And not on a parking ticket. He’s being held on suspicion of murder.”
