“Can you find out?”
“Maybe. I never tried. Me and Tula weren’t real buddy-buddy. Know what she used to call me? Uncle Harry. Me, half a dozen years younger than her husband and still in the prime, so to speak.”
“What was her attitude toward B. J.?”
“As long as the money held out, she put on a show of affection. She even came to see him in jail a few times for what they call in polite society ‘connubial privileges.’ That’s probably where she got the idea of taking up the work professionally. On visiting days the hustlers flock around the jail like starlings. Tula just naturally followed the flock. There wasn’t much else she was prepared to do, she couldn’t read or write. I used to see her once in a while, all gussied up hanging around the cheap bars. She pretended not to recognize me. Good old Uncle Harry found himself de-uncled.”
“You don’t think she might have paid B. J.’s fine, or put up bail or bribe money?”
“Not in a million years would be my guess. But what’s that worth? Women are not reasonable creatures, so how can a reasonable man like me tell what they’re going to do?”
“Let’s assume,” Aragon said, “that Tula is still in town and you have the right connections for finding her.”
“Consider it assumed. And then?”
“I’d like to ask her some questions. Given enough time, I might be able to find her myself. But I don’t know the city, what name she’s using, where her hangouts are, or even what she looks like.”
“So how much is it worth to you if I ask around?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
Jenkins ran an expert eye up and down the J. C. Penney suit, the Sears, Roebuck shirt and the orange birthday tie from his cousin Sandoval, who was color-blind.
“You can’t afford that kind of money, laddie, unless the job is real important. Two hundred is pretty small potatoes for something real important. Let’s raise the ante to three hundred, fifty in advance.”
The deal was settled at $250. Gilly might squawk, but Aragon had the feeling that if she and Jenkins ever met, at the Domino Club or El Alegre, they would understand each other immediately.
Jenkins put the bills Aragon gave him in his coat pocket. “I could walk out of here with this fifty and you might never see me again. Did that occur to you?”
“Certainly. You won’t do it, though. You need the rest of the money to help you get out of town. There’s Emilia and the turnip mashing, remember?”
“Hell, how could I forget. One of those relatives of hers is probably standing right outside the hotel this very minute waiting for me to come out. It’s not fair. Me, I don’t have a relative in the world unless it’s a kid some place where I got careless... Did you know B. J. and Tula had a kid?”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Crazy as a coot. Makes funny noises.”
“We all make funny noises. Some may be just a little funnier.”
“Is that philosophy or bullshit, laddie?”
“A little of both.”
“No matter. I try to avoid stepping in either.” Jenkins stood up. He was unsteady on his feet, and small round patches of red had appeared at the tip of his nose and on both cheekbones like the make-up of a circus clown. “I’d better start to work. That two fifty ought to set me up in Mexicali. Mexicali’s full of tourists, it’ll be a gold mine.”
“Stay out of real estate.”
“Oh, I can’t truly regret Jenlock Haciendas. It was a great place while it lasted.” It sounded like a fitting epitaph.
Aragon said, “Suppose you come back here tomorrow night and give me a progress report.”
“If that’s how you want it.”
“I’ll be waiting for you. Good night, Jenkins.”
“I have a nice feeling about you, laddie. You’re going to bring me luck.”
Eleven
Twenty-four hours later Aragon was still waiting in his hotel room to hear from Harry Jenkins. It was after eleven when the phone finally rang.
“It’s me, laddie.”
“Where are you?”
“Never mind about that. Listen, I said you were going to bring me luck, and by God, you did. I met this pigeon. He came down to Mexico to scout around for investment opportunities and I happen to have one for him. Me.”
“I’ve already invested in you, fifty bucks, two hundred more coming. I’m expecting a report.”
“All in good time. This other matter is more urgent. The pigeon’s due to leave town pretty soon and I’m trying to nail him down.”
“What are you nailing him to?”
“The chicken tortilla business. He thinks it’s a winner.”
“How many drinks has he had?”
“That’s not a nice implication,” Jenkins said reproachfully. “But I won’t hold a grudge. Maybe you got something against chickens, maybe you just lack financial vision.”
“Did you find Tula?”
“I’m on her heels. By tomorrow night I’ll be able to take you straight to her.”
“Why not tonight?”
“I told you, tonight I’m involved in a new business venture.”
“Where are you?”
“Now, why do you want to know that?”
“Because wherever it is, I’m coming. I want to protect my investment.”
“Oh hell, laddie, don’t do that. You’ll blow it for me. This may be my chance of a lifetime. He’s fat and juicy and ready for plucking.”
“Let’s get back to Tula.”
“Sure, sure, whatever you say. Only I’m in kind of a hurry.”
“I think you’re bulling me,” Aragon said. “You already know where the girl is, don’t you?”
“Even if I told you, you couldn’t find her. It’s not like she has an ordinary job with a real address and maybe even a telephone. Looking for customers while dodging the police, that takes moving around, see?”
“Where are you, Jenkins?”
“I asked you not to press me, laddie,” Jenkins said and hung up.
Aragon put the phone back on the hook. It was late and he was tired. He would have liked to go to bed and forget about Jenkins for the night, but the conversation had made him uneasy on two counts. The first was the possibility that if Jenkins plucked enough feathers out of his new pigeon, he wouldn’t wait around town for Gilly’s extra two hundred. He’d be in Mexicali by morning.
The second possibility was in a sense more disturbing. Rich, drunk, gullible tourists were not uncommon in Rio Seco, but the fact that Jenkins found one so quickly and easily was suspicious. Nobody was easier to con than a con man, and Jenkins would be easier than most. He seemed to have the same kind of basic innocence he’d criticized in B. J. If B. J. believed in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, Jenkins believed in rainbows with pots of gold. The only thing that would protect him from being taken was that he had nothing much to take, only the fifty dollars he’d received in advance for locating Tula.
Aragon was almost certain that Jenkins had found out where the girl lived and that the reason he’d refused to give more information over the phone was his fear of not being paid the extra two hundred. For someone in Jenkins’ position it was a natural enough fear. He’d probably cheated and been cheated hundreds of times. Now that he had something real to sell he would deliver it in person, for cash and in his own time. Meanwhile, some half-soused American tourist was hearing a lot about chicken tortillas.
As he put on his coat and tie Aragon thought back over the conversation. Jenkins had not, in fact, mentioned the word “American,” only a pigeon ready for plucking. The pigeon could be an Eskimo or an Algerian, but the odds were against it. Emilia had named three places as Jenkins’ favorite hangouts because they catered to American tourists, and Jenkins had referred to two of them the previous night, El Alegre and the Domino Club.