A shelf with little compartments was filled with letters for patrons. Bundles of letters, many of them from a mother, a wife, or a sweetheart, were piled up, covered with thick dust. The men to whom they were addressed might be dead, or working deep in the jungles clearing new oil-fields, or on a tramp in the China Sea, or helping the Bolsheviks build up a workers’ empire, with no time to think that the letter-writers back home might be crying their eyes out over a lost sheep.
What the manager or the clerk called his desk was a small table, wabbly and well worn. On this were the register, a few letters and papers, an ink-bottle, and a pen. Every patron had to register, as a reminder that he was staying in a civilized country and not with an Indian tribe. Only his last name was written in, with the number of his shack and his cot and the amount of money he had paid. All other information concerning a patron, his nationality, his profession, his home town, was of no interest to the clerk or to the police, who never came to inspect the register except when looking for a criminal. The tax officials frequently looked into the register to find out if the hotel had made an incorrect declaration. The city had no surplus of officials, and only where there are more officials than are actually needed are people pestered to tell the police all about their private affairs.
Dobbs came to the window, banged his peso upon the table, and said: “Lobbs, for two nights.”
The clerk took up the register and wrote: “Jobbs,” because he had not caught the name and was too polite to ask again. His answer was: “Room seven, bed two.” “Room” meant “shack,” and “bed” meant “cot.”
Dobbs grunted something which might have been: “Okay, brother,” or perhaps: “Kiss me somewhere, you mug.”
He was hungry and had to go hunting or fishing… . But the fish would not bite. He went after a man in a white suit and whispered a few words to him; the man, without looking at him, handed him a toston—that is, half a peso.
With these fifty centavos Dobbs hurried to a Chinese restaurant. Chinese cafes are the lowest-priced in the republic, but not the dirtiest. Lunch-time was long past, but in a Chinese cafe one may get dinner, called “comida corrida,” at any time. If dinner is over, the meal is called “cena,” meaning “supper,” whatever time it is by the cathedral clock.
Dobbs, knowing he could pay for his meal, kept the Chinese running like the devil. Everything that was set before him he had changed for something else, exulting in feeling once more how pleasant it is to chase someone around without mercy.
Then he trudged again to the plaza, picking his teeth on the way, and rested on a bench until he felt hungry for coffee. He walked the streets for a good while without success, until a man in white finally gave him a silver coin, fifty centavos again.
“Geecries,” Dobbs said to himself, “I’m sure lucky with gents dressed in white.” He walked across the plaza to the side nearest the docks of the passenger liners and freighters. Here was a cafe without walls, doors, or windows, which were not needed since the cafe kept open twenty-four hours every day.
Dobbs ordered a glass of coffee—the greater part of it hot milk with coffee poured on the top of it—and two pieces of milk bread. He sweetened the coffee with a quarter of a pound of sugar. When the waiter put the ice-water on the table, Dobbs looked up at the price-list painted on the wall and yelled: “Haven’t you bandits raised the price for that stinking coffee five cents more?”
“Well,” said the waiter, chewing a toothpick, “runningexpenses are getting higher. We simply can’t do it any longer for fifteen fierros.”
Dobbs did not really object to the price. He just wanted to complain, as any patron who can pay feels he is entitled to do.
“Go to hell! I don’t buy any lottery tickets,” he bellowed at a little boy who for the last five minutes had been brandishing lottery tickets right under his nose.
The little merchant, barefooted and wearing a torn shirt and ragged cotton pants, did not mind; he was used to being yelled at. “It’s the Michoacan state lottery, senor,” he said; “sixty thousand pesos the main premium.”
“Scram, you bandit, I don’t buy tickets.” Dobbs soaked his bread in the coffee.
“The whole ticket is only ten pesos, senor, and it’s a sure shot.”
“Son of a poacher, I haven’t got ten pesos.”
“That’s all right by me, caballero,” the boy said. “Why don’t you buy only a quarter of a ticket, then? That’s two pesos fifty.”
Dobbs, swallowing his coffee in big gulps, had scalded his lips. This made him mad, and he roared: “To hell with you and stay there! If you don’t leave me to drink my coffee in peace, I’ll throw this whole glass of water right in your face.”
The boy did not move. He was a good salesman. He knew his patrons. Any man who could sit at the bar of a Spanish cafe at this time in the afternoon and drink a huge glass of coffee and eat two pieces of milk bread must have money. A man who has money always wants more and likes it to come easy. This man was the right customer for lottery tickets.
“Why don’t you take one tenth of the ticket, senor? I’ll sell the tenth to you for one peso silver.”
Dobbs took up the glass of water and threw the contents in the boy’s face. “Didn’t I tell you, you little rascal, I’d do it if you didn’t leave me in peace?”
The boy laughed, wiped the water off his face, and shook it off his ragged pants. The lottery makes men rich—always one in twenty thousand—but the boy knew from experience that it was safer to make a certain living by selling lottery tickets than to buy them and wait for the premium. He considered the free bath merely the first sign of opening business connections with Dobbs.
Dobbs paid for his coffee and received twenty centavos change. Catching sight of these twenty centavos, the boy said: “Senor, you ought to buy one twentieth of the Monterrey lottery. A twentieth costs you only twenty centavos. Main premium, five thousand pesos cash. There, take it. It’s a plumb sure winner—an excellent number. Add the figures up and you’ll get thirteen. What better number could you buy? It’s bound to win.”
Dobbs weighed the twenty-centavo piece in his hands. What should he do with it? More coffee? He didn’t want any more. Cigarettes? He didn’t want to smoke; he liked the taste of coffee on his tongue better just now, and smoke kills any fine taste. A lottery ticket, he thought, was money thrown away. Still, money comes, money goes. There was fun in waiting for the drawing. Hoping for something is always good for the soul. The drawing was only three days off.
“All right, you brown devil,” he said. “Give me that twentieth, so that I won’t have to look at your dirty face and your damned tickets any longer.”
The little merchant tore off the twentieth of the sheet and handed it to Dobbs. “It’s un numero excelente, senor. A sure winner it is.”
“If it is such a sure winner, why the hell don’t you play it yourself?” Dobbs asked suspiciously and jokingly at the same time.
“Me? No, sir,” said the boy. “I can’t afford to play the lottery. I haven’t got the money.” He took the silver piece, bit on it to see if it was good, and said: “Muchas gracias! A thousand thanks, sir. Come again next time. I always have the winners, all the lucky numbers. Buena suerte, good luck!” And off he hopped like a young rabbit, chasing another patron he had just glimpsed.