Aragon said, “Do you have a picture of the girl, Tula Lopez?”
“Why should I? She was a servant, not a member of the family. In fact, she was only employed here for about six months. She proved incompetent and lazy. But she must have been a fast worker in her off hours. By the time I decided to fire her, the decision had been made for me.”
“How did you hire her in the first place?”
“Stupidly. There was a sob story in the local newspaper about some illegal aliens who were going to be sent back to Mexico if they weren’t sponsored and given jobs. B. J. and I offered to help. He had a soft heart and I had a soft head, or maybe it was vice versa. Anyhow, for a couple of softies we did some pretty hard damage.” She added cryptically, “The whole thing was like a war — nobody won.”
Aragon set aside the pictures he wanted to take with him: the one of B. J. in Dreamboat, another of him sitting on the edge of the pool with his feet dangling in the water, a couple of full-face Polaroid shots and a copy of his passport photo. In all of them, even the passport, he looked pretty much the same, rather homely in a pleasant way, the kind of man who posed no threat to anyone and offered no challenge. Only a woman Gilly’s age could have considered him beautiful; a fifteen-year-old would see him more clearly.
Gilly picked up the letter that was separate from the others and handed it to Aragon. It was heavy. The envelope — addressed to G. G. Lockwood, 1020 Robinhood Road, Santa Felicia, California — was expensive bond paper, engraved Jenlock Haciendas, Bahía de Ballenas, Baja California Sur. The grade of paper and the engraving were obviously meant to impress, but the handwriting inside ruined the effect. It was like that of a child not accustomed to the use of pen and ink or the discipline of forming letters.
Aragon said, “Are you sure this is B. J.’s handwriting?”
“Pretty sure. He never learned to write decently and he forgot to take along his typewriter.” She smiled wryly. “I guess it’s one of the things you tend to overlook under the circumstances... Can you make it out?”
“I think so.”
“Read it aloud.”
“Why?”
“I’d like to hear how it sounds coming from a stranger. Maybe it’ll give me a few laughs.”
“If it’s very personal, you might want to reconsider your decision.”
“There are no torrid passages, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
“I’m not worried exactly. I’d simply like to spare you any embarrassment.”
“Is that what they teach you in law school, not to embarrass people? Don’t be such a stuffed shirt.”
“Smedler, Downs, Castleberg, McFee and Powell,” Aragon said, “only hire stuffed shirts.”
“Really?”
“To protect their image.”
“Well, I don’t give a cow chip about their image. And you won’t either when you find out what it is.”
He already had and already didn’t, but he wasn’t eager to admit it, especially to one of Smedler’s golden oldies.
“Why are you staring at me?” she said, frowning. “Haven’t you ever heard the word ‘cow chip’ before?”
“Sure. About every half-hour from my old man, only he said caca de toro. Otherwise my old lady wouldn’t have understood. She never learned English.”
“Where do you come from?”
“Here. I was born in the barrio on lower Estero Street.”
“What’s a barrio?”
“A Mexican ghetto.”
“Good. You’ll be able to deal with these people on their own level.”
“And what level are these people on, Mrs. Decker?”
“Oh hell, don’t get fussed up over some silly little remark. The Tula Lopez incident gave me kind of a prejudiced view of her whole race.”
“I’ll try to correct that,” Aragon said. “I think we’ll get along fine.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I’m being paid to think so.”
“Why, that’s downright cynical. Did you learn such stuff in your boy scout manual? That’s what Smedler called you, you know, a real boy scout.”
“It’s an improvement over some of the things I’ve called him. In private, of course, like between you and me.”
“I see. The lawyer-client relationship works both ways.”
“Ideally, yes.”
“Smedler also told me you were a very nice young man. That worried me because I’m not a very nice old lady. I wonder if we’ll have any common ground. Do you have a sense of humor?”
“Sometimes.”
“Well, read B. J.’s letter and let’s have a few laughs. Or didn’t you believe that about me getting some laughs out of it?”
“No.”
“You could be wrong. Laughter, as Violet Smith says, is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe this time I’ll behold it funny. Go ahead, read it.”
Four
“Dear Gilly:
“You’re probably surprised to be hearing from me after all this time. I’d like to think you’re even a little bit pleased, too, but how could you be after the crazy way I ran out on you like that. Honestly I didn’t have much control over the situation. A man has to do the right thing under certain circumstances and I did it. You know Gilly I wanted to say goodbye in a civilized manner but I was just plain scared of you. I mean how you’d take it etc. And Tula kept saying hurry up, hurry up, as if the baby was going to be born any minute. (It wasn’t born for 6 months, I guess she was just anxious to get away from the immigration authorities and back to her own family.)
“Anyway here I am in this place that’s hard to describe. Do you remember that time we went to a football game at the college stadium with Dave Smedler and his wife (I forget which one). Suddenly somebody yelled Whales! and we all looked out over the ocean and there they were, 5 or 6 grey whales migrating through the channel just beyond the kelp beds. It was some sight, blowing and leaping in the air and submerging again. Well Gilly you’d never guess where they were headed. Here. Right here a few hundred yards from where I sit writing this letter. Bahía de Ballenas is on a lovely little bay (it means Bay of Whales) and the grey whales come down here from California to have their calves etc. I never knew this before I got here. In fact I never thought of whales as doing much along that line but naturally they do. They’re human just like us.
“The water in the bay is very blue, as blue as your eyes used to be, G. G. I guess they still are, why not? I keep thinking it’s such a long time since I’ve seen you but it really hasn’t been 3 years. It seems longer to me because this place is so foreign and the people live so different. I haven’t caught on to the lingo or the way they can ignore dirt and bugs and things. I often think of how you used to take 3 showers a day. You certainly were a clean person.”
“ ‘You certainly were a clean person,’ ” Gilly said. “I behold that funny, don’t you, Aragon?”
“Yes.”
“I’m a clean person with eyes as blue as the bay where a herd of whales go to copulate and calve. What a great compliment.”
“I’ve heard worse.”
She walked over to the barbecue pit and stood for a while staring down into it as if at the ashes of old forgotten fires. “I never took three showers a day. Where’d he dredge up that idea?” She turned back with a sudden explosive sound that seemed to come all the way from her bowels. “Ethel! By God, he got me mixed up with Ethel. How do you like that? He not only can’t remember which of Smedler’s wives went with us to the football stadium, he can’t even remember which of his own wives took three showers a day.”