“I guess they’re called the same names as the rest of us.”
“No, no, no. They are Harrovians.”
“You don’t say.”
“It’s God’s truth.”
“Your friend’s getting crocked,” the bartender told Juanita.
Juanita gave him a blank stare. “No, he’s not. He always talks that way. Hey, Foster, are you getting crocked?”
“Absolutely not,” Fielding said. “I’m feeling absolutely shape-ship. How are you feeling, my dear?”
“My feet hurt.”
“Take off your shoes.”
Juanita began tugging at her left shoe, using both hands. “They’re genuine snakeskin. I paid $19 for them.”
“Your tips must be good.”
“No. I got a rich uncle.”
She put the sharp-toed, needle-heeled shoes side by side on the counter in front of her. She had ordinary-sized feet, but out of their proper place the shoes looked enormous and misshapen, as if they belonged to some giant with a taste for pain.
Fielding’s drink seemed extremely small in comparison with the shoes, and he pointed this out to the bartender, who told Juanita to put the shoes on again and quit messing around.
“I’m not messing around.”
“When I come over to your joint for a drink, I don’t undress and leave my clothes on the counter.”
“Well, why don’t you?” Juanita said. “I think it’d be a riot. I can just see Mrs. Brewster swelling up and turning blue.”
“If you want to do a striptease, sit in the back booth so the police patrol can’t see you. Saturday night they go past maybe ten times.”
“I’m not scared of the cops.”
“Yeah? You want to know what happened up in Frisco the other day? I read it in the paper. This girl wasn’t doing nothing except walking around in her bare feet, and by God, the cops arrested her.”
Juanita said she didn’t believe it, but she picked up the shoes and her half-finished drink and headed for the back booth, trailed by Fielding.
“Hurry up and finish your drink,” she said as she sat down. “I’m sick of this place.”
“We just got here.”
“I want to go where we can have some fun. Nobody’s having any fun around here.”
“I am. Can’t you hear me laughing? Ho ho ho. Ha ha ha.”
Juanita was sitting with both hands clenched around her glass as if she were trying to crush it. “I hate this town. I wish I’d never’ve come back. I wish I was a million miles away and never had to see my old lady again or anyone else. I’d like to go where everybody is a stranger and don’t know anything about me.”
“They’d find out soon enough.”
“How?”
“You’d tell them,” Fielding said. “Just the way I did. I’ve hit a hundred towns as a stranger, and inside of ten minutes I was talking to somebody about myself. Maybe I wasn’t speaking the truth, and maybe I was using a false name, but I was talking, see? And talking is telling. So pretty soon you’re no stranger any longer, so you head for the next town. Don’t be a patsy, kid. You stick around here, close to that rich uncle of yours.”
Juanita let out an unexpected little giggle. “I can’t very well stick close to him. He’s dead.”
“He is, eh?”
“You sound like you don’t believe I ever had a rich uncle.”
“Did you ever see him?”
“When I was a kid, he came to visit us. He brought me a silver belt, real silver made by the Indians.”
“Where did he live?”
“New Mexico. He had important cattle interests there. That’s how he made all his money.”
He didn’t have any money, Fielding thought, except a few bucks on Saturday, which were gone by Sunday because he couldn’t help drawing to an inside straight. “And he left this money of his to you?”
“To my mother, on account of she was his sister. Every month she gets a check from the lawyer, regular as clockwork, out of the — I guess you call it the trust fund.”
“Did you ever see any of these checks?”
“I saw the money. My mother sent me some every month to help feed the kids. Two hundred dollars,” she added proudly. “So in case you think I’ve got to work in a crummy dive like the Velada, you got another think coming. I do it for the kicks. It’s more fun than sticking around the house watching a bunch of kids.”
To Fielding, the story was getting crazier by the minute. He signaled the bartender to bring another round of drinks while he did some rapid calculation. An income of $200 a month would mean a trust fund of around $50,000. The last time he’d seen Camilla, the man had been unemployed and trying desperately to raise the money for some food and clothing. Yet Juanita didn’t appear to be lying. Her pride in having a rich uncle with important cattle interests was as obviously genuine as her pride in the $19 snakeskin shoes. The whole thing was beginning to smell like a shakedown, but Fielding felt almost certain that if Juanita was part of it, she had no knowledge of her role. The girl was being used by someone more intelligent and cunning than she was. But that’s crazy, he thought. She’s the one who gets the money; she’s admitted it.
“What was the name of the lawyer?” he said.
“What lawyer?”
“The one who sends the checks?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because we’re friends, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know if we’re friends or not,” Juanita said with a shrug. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“That’s because I’m interested in you.”
“A lot of people have been interested in me. It never got me nowhere. Anyhow, I don’t know his name.”
“Does he live in town?”
“Are you deaf or something? I told you I never saw the checks, and I don’t know the lawyer. My old lady sent me the money every month from my uncle’s trust fund.”
“This uncle of yours, how did he die?”
“He was killed.”
“What do you mean, killed?”
Juanita’s mouth opened in a yawn a little too wide and loud to be genuine. “What do you want to talk about an old dead uncle for?”
“Old dead uncles intrigue me, if they happen to be rich.”
“There’s nothing in it for you.”
“I know that. I’m just curious. How did he die?”
“He got in an automobile accident in New Mexico about four years ago.” In an attempt to appear detached, Juanita stared at a patch of grimy pink roses on the wallpaper. But Fielding had the idea that this was a subject which interested and puzzled her and which she actually wanted to discuss in spite of her apparent reluctance. “He was killed right away, before the priest could give him the last rites. That’s why my old lady’s always praying and burning candles for him, so he’ll get into heaven anyway. You saw the candle, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“It’s funny her making such a fuss over a brother she never saw for years. It’s like she did something wrong to him and is trying to make up for it.”
“If she did something wrong to him, he surely wouldn’t have left her his money.”
“Maybe he didn’t know about whatever she’d done.” She reached out and began tracing the outlines of one of the pink roses on the wallpaper. Her sharp fingernail cut a path through the grease. “It’s like he only got to be important by dying and leaving the money. She didn’t even talk about him when he was alive.”
He didn’t talk about her, either, Fielding thought. Only once, right at the end: “I’d like to see my sister Filomena before I go.” “You can’t do it, Curly.” “I want her to pray for me; she’s a good woman.” “You’re crazy to take a chance seeing anyone now. It’s too dangerous.” “No. I must say good-bye to her.” At the time he’d barely had a voice to say good-bye, let alone a cent to leave anyone.