Outside the hall they ran across Enrique Salvador, a newspaperman that Ben knew. He had a car and a chauffeur. He shook hands and laughed and said the car belonged to the chief of police who was a friend of his and wouldn’t they like to ride out to San Angel? They went out the long avenue past Chapultepec, the Champs Elysées of Mexico, Salvador called it. Near Tacubaya Salvador pointed out the spot where Carranza’s troops had had a skirmish with the Zapatistas the week before and a corner where a rich clothing merchant had been murdered by bandits, and G. H. Barrow kept asking was it quite safe to go so far out in the country, and Salvador said, “I am a newspaperman. I am everybody’s friend.”
Out at San Angel they had some drinks and when they got back to the city they drove round the Pajaritos district. G. H. Barrow got very quiet and his eyes got a watery look when he saw the little lighted cribhouses, each one with a bed and some paperflowers and a crucifix that you could see through the open door, past a red or blue curtain, and the dark quiet Indian girls in short chemises standing outside their doors or sitting on the sill.
“You see,” said Ben Stowell, “it’s easy as rolling off a log… But I don’t advise you to get too careless round here… Salvador’ll show us a good joint after supper. He ought to know because he’s a friend of the chief of police and he runs most of them.”
But Barrow wanted to go into one of the cribs so they got out and talked to one of the girls and Salvador sent the chauffeur to get a couple of bottles of beer. The girl received them very politely and Barrow tried to get Mac to ask her questions, but Mac didn’t like asking her questions so he let Salvador do it. When G. H. Barrow put his hand on her bare shoulder and tried to pull her chemise off and asked how much did she want to let him see her all naked, the girl didn’t understand and tore herself away from him and yelled and cursed at him and Salvador wouldn’t translate what she said. “Let’s get this bastard outa here,” said Ben in a low voice to Mac, “before we have to get in a fight or somethin’.”
They had a tequila each before dinner at a little bar where nothing was sold but tequila out of varnished kegs. Salvador showed G. H. Barrow how to drink it, first putting salt on the hollow between his thumb and forefinger and then gulping the little glass of tequila, licking up the salt and swallowing some chile sauce to finish up with, but he got it down the wrong way and choked.
At supper they were pretty drunk and G. H. Barrow kept saying that Mexicans understood the art of life and that was meat for Salvador who talked about the Indian genius and the Latin genius and said that Mac and Ben were the only gringos he ever met he could get along with, and insisted on their not paying for their meal. He’d charge it to his friend the chief of police. Next they went to a cantina beside a theater where there were said to be French girls, but the French girls weren’t there. There were three old men in the cantina playing a cello, a violin and a piccolo. Salvador made them play La Adelita and everybody sang it and then La Cucaracha. There was an old man in a broadbrimmed hat with a huge shiny pistolholster on his back, who drank up his drink quickly when they came in and left the bar. Salvador whispered to Mac that he was General Gonzales and had left in order not to be seen drinking with gringos.
Ben and Barrow sat with their heads together at a table in the corner talking about the oil business. Barrow was saying that there was an investigator for certain oil interests coming down; he’d be at the Regis almost any day now and Ben was saying he wanted to meet him and Barrow put his arm around his shoulder and said he was sure Ben was just the man this investigator would want to meet to get an actual working knowledge of conditions. Meanwhile Mac and Salvador were dancing the Cuban danzon with the girls. Then Barrow got to his feet a little unsteadily and said he didn’t want to wait for the French girls but why not go to that place where they’d been and try some of the dark meat, but Salvador insisted on taking them to the house of Remedios near the American embassy. “Quelquecosa de chic,” he’d say in bad French. It was a big house with a marble stairway and crystal chandeliers and salmonbrocaded draperies and lace curtains and mirrors everywhere. “Personne que les henerales vieng aqui,” he said when he’d introduced them to the madam, who was a darkeyed grayhaired woman in black with a black shawl who looked rather like a nun. There was only one girl left unoccupied so they fixed up Barrow with her and arranged about the price and left him. “Whew, that’s a relief,” said Ben when they came out. The air was cold and the sky was all stars.
Salvador had made the three old men with their instruments get into the back of the car and said he felt romantic and wanted to serenade his novia and they went out towards Guadalupe speeding like mad along the broad causeway. Mac and the chauffeur and Ben and Salvador and the three old men singing La Adelita and the instruments chirping all off key. In Guadalupe they stopped under some buttonball trees against the wall of a house with big grated windows and sang Cielito lindo and La Adelita and Cuatro milpas, and Ben and Mac sang just to keep her from the foggy foggy dew and were just starting Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie when a girl came to the window and talked a long time in low Spanish to Salvador.
Salvador said, “Ella dit que nous make escandalo and must go away. Très chic."
By that time a patrol of soldiers had come up and were about to arrest them all when the officer arrived and recognized the car and Salvador and took them to have a drink with him at his billet. When they all got home to Mac’s place they were very drunk. Concha, whose face was drawn from waiting up, made up a mattress for Ben in the diningroom and as they were all going to turn in Ben said, “By heavens, Concha, you’re a swell girl. When I make my pile I’ll buy you the handsomest pair of diamond earrings in the Federal District.” The last they saw of Salvador he was standing up in the front seat of the car as it went round the corner on two wheels conducting the three old men in La Adelita with big gestures like an orchestra leader.
Before Christmas Ben Stowell came back from a trip to Tamaulipas feeling fine. Things were looking up for him. He’d made an arrangement with a local general near Tampico to run an oil well on a fifty-fifty basis. Through Salvador he’d made friends with some members of Carranza’s cabinet and was hoping to be able to turn over a deal with some of the big claimholders up in the States. He had plenty of cash and took a room at the Regis. One day he went round to the printing plant and asked Mac to step out in the alley with him for a minute.
“Look here, Mac,” he said, “I’ve got an offer for you… You know old Worthington’s bookstore? Well, I got drunk last night and bought him out for two thousand pesos… He’s pulling up stakes and going home to blighty, he says.”
“The hell you did!”
“Well, I’m just as glad to have him out of the way.”
“Why, you old whoremaster, you’re after Lisa.”
“Well, maybe she’s just as glad to have him out of the way too.”
“She’s certainly a goodlooker.”
“I got a lot a news I’ll tell you later… Ain’t goin’ to be so healthy round The Mexican Herald maybe… I’ve got a proposition for you, Mac… Christ knows I owe you a hellova lot… You know that load of office furniture you have out back Concha made you buy that time?” Mac nodded. “Well, I’ll take it off your hands and give you a half interest in that bookstore. I’m opening an office. You know the book business… you told me yourself you did… the profits for the first year are yours and after that we split two ways, see? You certainly ought to make it pay. That old fool Worthington did, and kept Lisa into the bargain… Are you on?”