A fight broke out between two men peddling identical calfskin wallets. Compared to the soccer game, it was dull and half-hearted and attracted little attention. Obviously the inmates had more interest in soccer than in fistfights that consisted mainly of loud words and soft blows.
The shouters were already at work:
“Oswaldo Fernandez, hey, Oswaldo Fernandez, hey, Fernandez.”
“Cruz Rivera, ay ay Cruz, ay ay Rivera, ay ay ay ay Cruz Rivera.”
“B. J. Lockwood... Lock — wood.”
“Harry Jenkins... You are wanted, Harry Jenkins.”
“Juanita Maria Placencia, come here, Jua — ni — ta!”
“Sandra Boyd, if you please... Sandra Boyd... Sandra Boyd.”
“Amelio Gutierrez, answer to your name.”
When Aragon’s turn came he presented his credentials to the uniformed man at the information window. After consulting with his colleagues, the man sent a runner to summon the assistant to the assistant to the warden himself.
The new arrival introduced himself as Superintendent Perdiz. “These two Americans you are asking about, I never heard of them. It would be better for you to come back later when the warden is here.”
“How much later?”
“Wednesday. He works very hard and needs long weekends to recuperate at his beach house.”
“Who’s in charge when the warden’s away?”
“The assistant warden. He’ll be back tomorrow, Tuesday. He doesn’t need such long weekends because his responsibilities are not so great.”
“He’s got a beach house, too, I suppose.”
“No. He likes to go to the mountains. The air is more invigorating. Here in Rio Seco we have bad air. Do you smell it? Phew!”
Aragon smelled it. Traffic odors, people odors, jail odors, exhaust fumes, sweat, garlic, urine, cigarette smoke, antiseptic.
“Phew,” Perdiz said again. “Don’t you think so?”
“Yes.”
“Then you understand the need for long weekends out of town?”
“Of course.”
“So now we are in complete agreement. A man, even one in a lowly position like mine, needs a country house for a breath of sea or mountain air on the weekends. I’d like to buy such a place but my salary won’t allow it.”
“Would ten dollars help?”
“A little more might inspire me to go and search the files personally. What do you think my personal attention is worth?”
“Fifteen dollars.”
“That’s most kind of you.”
Perdiz accepted the bribe with solemn dignity. After all, it was part of the system, paying a mordida to influyentes, and he was an influyente. “You wait here.”
Aragon waited. He watched the soccer game some more and bought a wallet from the loser of the fistfight, a can of ginger ale and a doll made of two withered oranges with cloves marking its features and dried red chiles for arms and legs. He didn’t know why he’d bought such a ridiculous thing until he held it in his hand and studied it for a while: it looked like Pablo, round-eyed and vacant-faced, untouched, untouchable.
The shouters were still at work. At least one of them had brought results — the American couple were talking to a pale stringy-haired young woman wearing a ragged poncho that reached almost to her ankles. The man was doing most of the talking, the older woman was crying, the younger one looked bored.
Perdiz returned. Nowhere in the files was there any mention of B. J. Lockwood.
“You should have some record of him,” Aragon said. “He was arrested.”
“How do you know he was arrested?”
“I was told.”
“Who told you?”
“A priest.”
“A priest. Then it’s very likely true that he was arrested. But maybe it was a mistake. Maybe he didn’t do anything wrong, so they let him go. If we kept records on everyone who never did anything wrong, we’d have a jail full of paper. A paper jail, isn’t that a funny idea?”
“A real rib-tickler,” Aragon said. Gilly was now an unofficial contributor to a beach house or maybe a mountain cabin, but she wasn’t any closer to B. J. “What about Harry Jenkins?”
“I could find nothing concerning him either. Truthfully — you want truthfully?”
“Yes.”
“All right, truthfully. We don’t like to keep records on Americans. It’s bad for international relations. Consider which is more important, a few pieces of paper or a great war between nations.”
“I don’t think anyone would start even a very small war over Harry Jenkins.”
“One never knows. Peace today, war tomorrow.”
“Yes. Well, thank you for your trouble, Perdiz.” And may your beach house be swept away by a tidal wave and your mountain cabin buried under an avalanche.
He began pushing his way through the crowd in the direction of the main gate. When he passed the American couple he saw that both the man and the older woman were now crying, but the girl hadn’t changed expression. She was absently tying, untying and retying a couple of strands of her hair. On impulse Aragon handed her the dried orange-and-chili doll that looked like Pablo. She immediately picked out the cloves that were his eyes and popped them in her mouth. Nobody said anything.
He had almost reached the main gate when he felt a hand touch his back between his shoulder blades. He turned abruptly, expecting to catch an inept pickpocket. Instead, he saw a Mexican woman about thirty, with dark despondent eyes and wiry black hair that seemed to have sprung out of her scalp in revolt. Her arms and hands were covered with scars of various sizes and shapes and colors, as if the wounds had occurred at different times under different circumstances.
Her voice had the hoarseness of someone who talked too loud and too long. “I heard a shouter calling for Harry Jenkins. I said, ‘Who hired you?’ and he said, ‘An American with big glasses and a blue striped shirt.’ That’s you.”
“That’s me. Tomas Aragon.”
“Why do you want to see Harry?”
“Why do you want to know why I want to see Harry?”
“I’m Emilia, Harry’s good friend. Very good, special. Someday we will be married in the church but that must wait. Right now I am in and he is out. Before that, I was out and he was in, and before that, we were both in. What did Harry do to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you looking for him?”
“Actually I’m looking for a friend of his. I thought Harry might give me — or sell me — some information.”
“You buy information?”
“Sometimes.”
Her lips parted enough to reveal two slightly protruding front teeth. It was the closest Emilia ever came to a smile. “I have information.”
“What kind?”
“All kinds. The best. I’ve been around the Quarry off and on since I was fifteen. When I go away they beg me, ‘Emilia Ontiveros, come back, come back.’ If I say no, they invent charges to force me to come back because I am such a fine cook. I am the head cook in the Quarry café.”
That explained the scars. They were burns and cuts accumulated throughout the years.
“Do you have information about Harry Jenkins, Emilia?”
“He is a snake. That much I give you free. The rest will be more expensive.”
“I’d like to talk to you. Isn’t there some place we could have a little more privacy?”
“There’s a talking room. It will cost you money, fifty cents. But a dollar would be better.”
It was probably the primary law of the Quarry: a dollar was better than fifty cents but not as good as two dollars, which was vastly inferior to ten.