“What bar is she working at?”
“The Velada, on lower State.”
Alston nodded. “That’s where she’s worked before, off and on. It’s owned by a friend of her mother’s, a Mrs. Brewster. Both Mrs. Brewster and the Velada are known to every health and welfare agency in the county, though the place has never actually been closed. It looks as if you’re on the right track, Steve. If you find out the girl is really Juanita, let me know immediately, will you? I feel a certain responsibility towards her. If she’s in trouble, I want to help her.”
“How will I get in touch with you?”
“I’ll be home about the middle of the afternoon. Call me there. Meanwhile, I’ll keep hoping a mistake has been made and the real Juanita is happily and securely ensconced on an island in the middle of the Pacific.”
Alston got up and closed and locked the window as an indication that as far as he was concerned, the interview was ended.
“Just one more minute,” Pinata said.
“Hurry it up, will you? I don’t want to keep the Newcomers Club waiting.”
“If they knew how much you were going to touch them for, I don’t think they’d mind waiting.”
“Oh yes. Speaking of money...”
“Here.” Pinata gave him a ten-dollar bill. “Have you ever heard of a man called Carlos Camilla?”
“Offhand, I’d say no. That’s an unusual name. I think I’d remember if I’d ever heard it before. What about him?”
“He killed himself four years ago. Roy Fondero was in charge of the funeral.”
“I know Fondero,” Alston said. “He’s an old friend of mine. A good man, level-headed and straight as die, no pun intended.”
“Will you do me a favor?”
“I might.”
“Call him up and tell him I’d like to ask some questions about the Camilla case.”
“That’s easy enough.” Alston reached for the phone and dialed. “Mr. Fondero, please... When will he be back? This is Charles Alston speaking... Thanks. I’ll call him back later this afternoon.” He hung up. “Fondero’s out on business. I’ll try and set up an appointment for you. What time would you prefer?”
“As soon as possible.”
“I’ll see if I can arrange it for today, then.”
“Thanks very much, Charley. Now, just one more question, and I’ll leave. Did Mrs. Harker know Juanita?”
“Everyone at the Clinic did, by sight if not by name. But why ask me? Why not ask Mrs. Harker?” Alston leaned across the desk, his eyes narrowed. “Is there anything the matter with her?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I heard on the grapevine she and Harker are planning to adopt a child. Would this mysterious visit of yours have anything to do with that?”
“In a remote way,” Pinata said. “I wish I could tell you more, Charley, but certain things are confidential. All I can do is assure you that the matter is, to everyone else but Mrs. Harker, quite trivial. There are no lives at stake, no money, no great issue.”
He was wrong: all three were at stake. But he hadn’t the imagination or the desire to see it.
12
I wish they were good memories, that like other men I could sit back in the security of my family and review the past kindly. But I cannot...
Fielding’s first hitch got him as far as Ventura, and his second, with a jukebox repairman, landed him in San Félice at the corner of State Street and Highway 101. From there it was only a short walk up to the Velada Café, sandwiched between a pawnshop (we buy and sell anything) and a hotel for transients (rooms without bath, $2.00), modestly called the Ritz. Fielding registered at the hotel and was given a room on the second floor. He had stayed in a hundred rooms like it in his life, but he liked this one better than most, partly because he was feeling excited and partly because he could see through the dirty window the shimmer of sun on the ocean and some fishing boats lying at anchor beyond the wharf. They looked so tranquil and at ease that Fielding had a brief notion of going down and applying for a job as deckhand. Then he remembered that he’d even got seasick on the Staten Island ferry. And there was Muriel now, too. He was a married man with responsibilities; he couldn’t go dashing off on a boat with Muriel expecting him home... I should have gone to sea when I was younger, he thought. I might have been a captain by this time. Captain Fielding, it sounds very right and proper.
“Heave to,” Fielding said aloud, and as a substitute for going to sea, he rinsed his face in the washbasin. Then he combed his hair (the jukebox repairman had been driving a convertible with the top down) and went downstairs to the Velada Café.
There was no cocktail hour at the Velada. Anytime you had the money was the time for drinking, and business was often as brisk in midmorning as it was at night. Brisker, sometimes, since the smell of stale grease that permeated the place increased the agonies of a hangover and encouraged the customers to dull their senses as quickly as possible. The manager of the Ritz Hotel and the operator of the pawnshop frequently complained about this smell to the Department of Health, the police, the State Board of Equalization, but Mrs. Brewster, who owned the Velada, fought back tooth, nail, and tongue. She was a scrawny little miser of a woman who wore an oversize denim apron which she used for everything — wiping counters, swatting flies, mopping her face, handling hot pans, blowing her nose, shooing away newsboys who came in to sell papers, collecting her meager tips, drying her hands. This apron had become the expression of her whole personality. When she took it off at night before going home, she felt lost, as if some vital part of her had been amputated.
Fielding noticed the smell and the dirty apron, but they didn’t bother him. He’d smelled worse and seen dirtier. He sat down at a booth near the front window. The waitress, Nita, wasn’t in sight, and no one seemed interested in taking his order. A Mexican busboy, who looked about fifteen, was sweeping up cigarette butts from the floor. He worked very intently, as if he were new at the job or expected to find something more in the morning’s debris than just cigarette butts.
“Where’s the waitress?” Fielding said.
The boy raised his head. He had huge dark eyes, like prunes swelling in hot water. “Which one?”
“Nita.”
“Fixing her face, I guess. She likes to fix her face.”
“What’s your name, son?”
“Chico.”
“Tell the old lady behind the counter I want a ham on rye and a bottle of beer.”
“I can’t do that, sir. The girls get mad; they think I’m trying to con them out of their tips.”
“How old are you, Chico?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Come off it, kid.”
The boy’s face turned dark red. “I’m twenty-one,” he said, and returned to his sweeping.
Five minutes passed. The other waitress, who was attending to the back booths, glanced casually in Fielding’s direction a couple of times, but she didn’t approach him, and neither did Mrs. Brewster, who was wiping off the grill with her apron.
Juanita finally appeared wearing fresh lipstick and powder. She had outlined her eyes so heavily with black pencil that she looked like a coal miner who’d been working in the pits for years. She acknowledged his presence with a little flick of her rump, like a mare twitching her tail out of recognition or interest.
She said, unsmiling, “So you’re back again.”
“Surprised?”