Gringos (15 page)

“Let me say too that I am disappointed with this talk about the phases of the moon. I took you for a modern man like me.”

His name was Hakim. He wanted to chat some more, but about California and career opportunities there in real estate management. I knew nothing about it. Yucatán is off the California flyway, and we didn't see many of those birds around here. There was a heavy squarish lump in his pocket. Hakim, I think, was holding a little .22 or .25 automatic in that smock pocket. He was ready to defend Naroody's property with force.

I went to the rail yard and the feed mill and even watched the round black hole of the drain pipe for a while. I crouched in the weeds like a stalking cat. It was downright cold there, though the wind had fallen off. The dog didn't show.

What we had here, according to Jerry, another modern man, was a case of conflation or confabulation.
El Obispo
and the dog, taking similar steps, made regular circuits around town. Someone had noticed this and with an imaginative leap had spun a tale combining the two elements. It was a good enough explanation except that the two gaits were not alike. The old man and the dog just didn't walk in the same way, and as far as I could see there were no points of physical resemblance whatever.

Jerry then was not above a little confabulating himself. He too dealt in fables, and this was a good name for his science, I thought, confabulation, not that Jerry ever defended his science, not with the tiniest of pistols, being trained as he was to believe in nothing. In the Anthropology Club, as I understood it, you were permitted, if not required, to despise only one thing, and that was your own culture, that of the West. Otherwise you couldn't prefer one thing over another. Of course Jerry's curiosity was no more damnable than mine, a poking, pointless, infantile curiosity, but then he got paid for his.

After cruising around the cathedral a couple of times, I gave up on the night dog and went to Doc's house to pick up Refugio. He wasn't ready to go. They were upstairs in the bedroom looking at old photographs. A little tepee of sticks was blazing away in the fireplace, so seldom used. The fat
ocote
wood was popping and there were some cedar sticks, too, some
kuche,
for the pleasant scent. How long had it been since the three of us had sat around a fire at night?

Doc said, “Look, Jimmy. See what Cuco brought me. It's by far the finest jade I ever held in my hands. This is the work of a master.”

Refugio had given him the little Olmec man. Quite a gift. Quite an exchange. A $7,500 jade for a $200 pistol. Doc asked me if I would place the little
idolo
in his mouth when he died and see that he was buried with it. I refused. Then would I just clasp his dead fingers around it? A simple grave offering. No! I wouldn't put that snarling little demon into the grave of my worst enemy and I told him so. He tried to pass it off as a joke. Refugio, looking troubled, must have turned him down, too, or more likely had hedged. It took an effort to cross the great Doctor. Or he may have been having second thoughts about his generosity—if in fact he had made a gift of the thing. Doc may have misunderstood him.

The moment passed, and we went on to other things. Doc offered advice on how to conduct the search for the missing boy in the
selva
. “Chombo is the man you want for that work.” Soon it was like the old days around the campfire, with Doc toasting the soles of his big white feet and Refugio spitting at the coals. We laughed and talked foolishly for hours. We must have burned up a donkeyload of pine knots, or
ocote
wood. But then we pushed it too far, tried to make the happy occasion last, and along toward daylight our talk trailed off. Doc let his pipe go out and began heaving mighty sighs. He said, “Well, what does it matter in the long run? When you get right down to it everything is a cube.” One by one we went numb. The fire died. No one stoked it. We were grainy-eyed and lost within our own heads again.

NO USE turning in now. Refugio and I had breakfast at the little café on the
zócalo
called the Louvre. The crazy black ants of Yucatán were at play on the tabletop. They never let up. From birth to death they went full out, racing about to no purpose on the oilcloth and crashing into one another like hockey players. The Louvre would do in a pinch. A cook was on duty all night and the onion soup was good, but they wouldn't give you enough crackers. They begrudged you every last
galleta.
The biggest and most modern cracker factory in Mexico was right here in Mérida, but you would have never guessed it at the Louvre, where they doled them out two at a time.

Refugio tried to sell some of his plastic pipe to a Dutch farmer, a Mennonite, who was sitting there in overalls spooning up corn flakes from a huge white bowl. He could have washed his hands in that basin.
Give them all the corn flakes and milk they want but make them beg for crackers.
What kind of policy was that? The Mennonite said nothing and missed not a beat with his spoon and yet he managed to show a kind of crafty interest in the pipe deal.

I was watching the jailbirds, the
degradados,
who were out early sweeping the plaza. One was a very tall American with a black goatee. It was Eli Withering. I picked up an orange from the table and walked across the street. I gave the guard a cigarette, and he allowed me to have a word with my
cuate.
My pal, that is, which was stretching it a bit.

Eli said, “They got me cold, Budro. Can you let me have $500? They got old Nordstrom too. That amber was bad news. You knew it and I didn't. I never had any luck with that stuff. Now look at me. These flat Popsicle sticks are hard to sweep up.”

Yes, there was Mr. Nordstrom in the line of sweepers, working hard with a pushbroom to cover his shame, poking away, trying to get a purchase on the
paleta
sticks. He would be a model social-democratic Scandinavian prisoner. Mr. Nordstrom wouldn't bang his cup against the bars or otherwise give trouble. It was too bad, but I had told the old man not to meddle in this business.

Eli was disgusted with himself. “It was really dumb. Sauceda was tailing me and I didn't spot him.”

“He would have gotten you anyway. It wasn't the amber.”

I saw a third gringo in the work gang. It was Louise's friend, Wade Watson, the young man from Missouri. He was dragging a trash box along and he still seemed to be taking a dazed delight in everything. First he couldn't believe he was in Yucatán and now he couldn't believe he was a prisoner.

“That boy there,” I said. “What's he in for?”

“I don't know. Sauceda grabbed him too. He was just standing there with us, asking a lot of questions. I thought he was with Nordstrom. Do you know him?”

“I've met him.”

“There's something wrong with him. He won't shut up. He talked all night in the tank. Here, let me have that.”

Eli grabbed my orange and ripped it apart and sucked the pulp to shreds. “I need that money today. I'm counting on you, Budro. I need to get this settled before it goes up to the Director of Investigations.”

“Do you want Nardo to handle it?”

“Hell no. Bring the money to me in dollars. I'll cut my own deal. Sauceda is a man you can talk to. You know I'm good for it. I'll put my car up against it. Bring me a blanket, too, and get me a hat of some kind. Somebody stole my hat while I was sleeping.”

I told him I would see what I could do. And there was poor Wade, caught hanging around the wrong people, on his first night here too. He must have been hoping to catch some sparks off the conversation of two old Maya hands. I went over to him and asked if he had any money.

“A little. Who are you? I have my credit card.”

“That's no good. Here. You'll need a few pesos if you're going to eat. I may be able to get you out of this jam.”

“How? I don't even know what I'm doing here.”

“It's a tradeoff. I may be able to pull some strings, but first, you see, I'll have to know where the City of Dawn is.”

“Oh yes, you're the curious guy from the bar. Why do you want to know?”

“I'm to meet a friend there, but she forgot to tell me where it is.”

“Oh? Then she must have had her reasons for not telling you. Just as I have mine. There are good and sufficient reasons why certain people know things and others don't.”

“Well, you think it over. They've got you on a pretty serious offense. Encroaching on the national patrimony. I won't be able to do anything after you're formally charged.”

The guard shooed me away. I didn't want Eli's car. I didn't need a Dodge Dart with burnt valves and major oil leaks and an electrical system that shorted out every time you hit a puddle. The distributor was mounted low on the block and was readily swamped. Eli kept saying he was going to trade the Dart for a heavy car with a long trunk lid. But I did owe him for services rendered. Unclean bird that he was, he was always square with me. Or he wasn't always square but he was generous.

He had shown me the ropes in the antiquities business. It was Eli who had put me on to the job with Doc Flandin. They had worked together briefly and then fallen out over the First Fruits Rule. This was the rule whereby Doc, as boss, had the pick of the finds. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. He was no hog. Doc didn't always take the most valuable pieces. In his more swaggering moods he called this privilege his
quinto
, or royal fifth, though it was more like a half.

I felt too that I had let Eli down. I had sent Nordstrom to him. Nardo had warned me that he was in danger, and I had done nothing, sat on my hands.

So now I had to wait until the banks opened. Refugio took a nap in my room. I called Louise at Beth's place and told her about Wade. She was still in bed, her voice languid and nasal.

“You're not in Chiapas?” she said. “You haven't even started yet?”

“Not yet. If you want to help this Watson boy go to the police and carefully explain to them that he has a screw loose.”

“Why do you say that? You think everybody's silly but you.”

“Do you want to get him out of jail? They don't like to be bothered with crazy people. I'm telling you how to get him out, Chiquita.”

“Don't call me that.”

“And then I want you to find out from Wade Watson just where this City of Dawn is. You know how to talk to those people and I don't.”

“What does this have to do with Rudy?”

“Nothing, but it's important. It's something else I'm working on.”

“A city of dogs?”

“Dawn. The Inaccessible City of Dawn. It's something your New Age friends are talking about. You must have heard of it, an insider like you.”

“No, I haven't.”

“Rudy didn't mention it?”

“I don't think so. Does it have another name? What is it anyway?”

“That's what I don't know. A place. That's all I know.”

“He was going to Tumbalá. That's the only place he mentioned to me.”

“Yes, and that's where we'll find him. All right, get up and brush your hair and go to the city jail. Tell them Wade Watson is
loco, débil
in the head, and that he has no money and will give them a lot of problems. Tell them you will put him on the next bus to the border. Then I want you to get that information out of him. I need to know where this city is. Do you understand?”

“I still don't understand why Wade is in jail. What did he do again?”

“He didn't do anything. It was a mixup.”

“I've been thinking. Maybe I should go to Chiapas with you.”

“No, that's not a good idea. Just do what I tell you. Ask for Sergeant Sauceda at the jail. We can't keep changing our plans. I'll be in touch.”

There was a crowd outside my bank. At opening time it always looked like a run on the funds. Old Suarez was there waiting in the
cambio
line, the exchange line, a revolutionary in coat and tie and black felt hat. He was all in black, watchful, on the lookout for little signs of disrespect to his person. A big American woman had sat down on him once. She hadn't seen him on the park bench. Today he was lecturing. The leathery woman in front of him was from Winnipeg. She painted big brown landscapes. Suarez didn't think much of Canadians either and he was setting her straight on a few things. Their nation was illegitimate. Their sovereignty had been handed to them on a platter, an outright gift, instead of having been properly won through force of arms. The birth throes had to be violent. There had to be blood. He told her too that no woman in Spain would dare to show herself in public in her underwear—a reference to her shorts. She listened in icy silence. Why didn't she slap him or claw his face? Draw some of that consecrating blood. Why didn't she forget all that dead brown topography and buy a bucket of black paint and do a portrait of the fierce little
anarquista?
I got the money in fifties. It was a big withdrawal for me, but I can't say it cleaned me out.

It would have been little enough, $500, a
gasto
, a modest business expense, back when I was selling those long tan coats and making money hand over fist and living at the Napoles. That was my first period of prosperity in Mexico, before I drifted into the relic business. I bought soft leather coats from the Escudero brothers and sold them to Rossky's in New Orleans.

Ramón Escudero had a tanning and softening process all his own, using alum and extract of oak galls and yolks from sea bird eggs and I don't know what else. Every woman in New Orleans wanted one of those coats. We couldn't deliver them fast enough. Then there was a family squabble. Ramón walked out of the workshop one day, accusing brother Rodolfo of making life unbearable for him. “The devil is in this business!” he said, and he went home and wouldn't come back. He wouldn't even come out of his house. Rodolfo, the younger brother, tried to carry on with the same workers, but the coats were never quite the same. They didn't feel right and they didn't drape right. I think I must have poisoned the lives of the Escuderos with my production demands. Anyway, the women in New Orleans stopped buying the coats and went on to newer things. Rodolfo and I were left high and dry.