“Yes. I win, in lotería. The auto, and five honnerd pesos. The auto, is very pretty. I can no make go.”
“Well, I can make it go, if that’s all that’s bothering you. About those five hundred pesos. You got some of them with you?”
“Oh yes. Of course.”
“That’s great. What you’re going to do is buy me a breakfast. For my belly — muy empty. You get it?”
“Oh, why you no say? Yes, of course, now we eat.”
I pulled in at the Tupinamba. The restaurants don’t open until one o’clock, but the cafés will take care of you. We took a table up near the corner, where it was dark and cool. Hardly anybody was in there. My same old waitress came around grinning, and I didn’t waste any time. “Orange juice, the biggest you got. Fried eggs, three of them, and fried ham. Tortillas. Glass of milk, frío, and café con crema.”
“Bueno.”
She took iced coffee, a nifty down there, and gave me a cigarette. It was the first I had had in three days, and I inhaled and leaned back, and smiled at her. “So.”
“So.”
But she didn’t smile back, and looked away as soon as she said it. It was the first time we had really looked at each other all morning, and it brought us back to that night. She smoked, and looked up once or twice to say something, and didn’t, and I saw there was something on her mind besides the billete. “So — you still have no pesos?”
“That’s more or less correct.”
“You work, no?”
“I did work, but I got kicked out. Just at present, I’m not doing anything at all.”
“You like to work, yes? For me?”
“... Doing what?”
“Play a guitar, little bit, maybe. Write a letter, count money, speak Inglés, help me, no work very hard, in Mexico, nobody work very hard. Yes? You like?”
“Wait a minute. I don’t get this.”
“Now Í have money, I open house.”
“Here?”
“No, no, no. In Acapulco. In Acapulco, I have very nice friend, big politico. Open nice house, with nice music, nice food, nice drink, nice girls — for American.”
“Oh, for Americans.”
“Yes. Many Americans come now to Acapulco. Big steamboat stop there. Nice man, much money.”
“And me, I’m to be a combination professor, bartender, bouncer, glad-hander, secretary, and general bookkeeper for the joint, is that it?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Well.”
The food came along, and I stayed with it a while, but the more I thought about her proposition the funnier it got to me. “This place, it’s supposed to have class, is that the idea?”
“Oh yes, very much. My politico friend, he say American pay as much as five pesos, gladly.”
“Pay five — what?”
“Pesos.”
“Listen, tell your politico friend to shut his trap and let an expert talk. If an American paid less than five dollars, he’d think there was something wrong with it.”
“I think you little bit crazy.”
“I said five bucks — eighteen pesos.”
“No, no. You kid me.”
“All right, go broke your own way. Hire your politico for manager.”
“You really mean?”
“I raise my right hand and swear by the holy mother of God.But — you got to get some system in it. You got to give him something for his money.”
“Yes, yes. Of course.”
“Listen, I’m not talking about this world’s goods. I’m talking about things of the spirit, romance, adventure, beauty. Say, I’m beginning to see possibilities in this. All right, you want that American dough, and I’ll tell you what you’ve got to do to get it. In the first place, the dump has got to be in a nice location, in among the hotels, not back of the coconut palms, up on the hill. That’s up to your politico. In the second place, you don’t do anything but run a little dance hall, and rent rooms. The girls came in, just for a drink. Not mescal, not tequila. Chocolate ice-cream soda, because they’re nice girls, that just dropped in to take a load off their feet. They wear hats. They come in two at a time, because they’re so well brought up they wouldn’t dream of going in any place alone. They work in the steamboat office, up the street, or maybe they go to school and just came home for vacation. And they’ve never met any Americans, see, and they’re giggling about it, in their simple girlish way, and of course, we fix it up, you and I, so there’s a little introducing around. And they dance. And one thing leads to another. And next thing you know, the American has a room from you, to take the girl up. You don’t really run that kind of place, but just because it’s him, you’ll make an exception — for five dollars. The girl doesn’t take anything. She does it for love, see?”
“For what?”
“Do I know the Americano, or don’t I?”
“I think you just talk, so sound fonny.”
“It sounds fonny, but it’s not just talk. The Americano, he doesn’t mind paying for a room, but when it comes to a girl, he likes to feel it’s a tribute to his personality. He likes to think it’s a big night for her, too, and all the more because she’s just a poor little thing in a steamboat office, and never had such a night in her life until he came along and showed her what life could be like with a real guy. He wants an adventure — with him the hero. He wants to have something to tell his friends. But don’t have any bums sliding up to take their foto. He doesn’t like that.”
“Why not? The fotógrafo, he pay me little bit.”
“Well, I tell you. Maybe the fotógrafo has a heart of gold, and so has the muchacha, but the Americano figures the foto might get back to his wife, or threaten to, specially if she’s staying up at the hotel. He wants an adventure, but he doesn’t want any headache. Besides, the fotos have got a Coney Island look to them, and might give him the idea it was a cheap joint. Remember, this place has class. And that reminds me, the mariachi is going to be hand-picked by me, and hand-trained as well, so maybe somebody could dance to the stuff when they play it. Of course, I don’t render any selections on the guitar. That’s out. Or the piano, or the violin, or any other instrument in my practically unlimited repertoire. And that mariachi, they wear suits that we give them, with gold braid down the pants, and turn those suits in every night when they quit. It’s our own private mariachi, and as fast as we get money to buy more suits we put on more men, so it’s a feature. The main thing is that we have class, first, last, and all the time. No Americano, from the time he goes in to the time he goes out, is going to get the idea that he can get out of spending money. Once they get that through their heads, we’ll be all right.”
“The Americanos, are they all crazy?”
“All crazy as loons.”
It seemed to be settled, but after the gags wore off I had this sick feeling, like life had turned the gray-white color of their sunlight. I tried to tell myself it was the air, that’ll do it to you at least three times a day. Then I tried to tell myself it was what I had done, that I had no more pride left than to take a job as pimp in a coast-town whorehouse, but what the hell? That was just making myself look noble. It was, anyway, some kind of work, and if I really made a go of it, it wouldn’t make me squirm. It would make me laugh. And then I knew it was this thing that was drilling in the back of my head, about her. There hadn’t been a word about that night, and when she looked at me her eyes were just as blank as though I’d been some guy she was talking to about the rent. But I knew what those eyes could say. Whatever it was she had seen in me that night, she still saw it, and it was between us like some glass door that we could see through but couldn’t talk.