Serenade - James M. Cain [26]
When we got to Acapulco she steered me around to the hotel where we were going to stop. I don't know if you ever saw a hotel for Mexicans. It was a honey. It was just off the road that skirts the harbor, on the edge of the town, and it was just an adobe barracks, one story high, built around a dirt patio, or court, or whatever you'd call it, and that was all. In each room was a square oil can, what they use to carry water in all over Mexico, and that was the furnishings. You used that to carry your water in, from the well outside, and there wasn't anything else in there at all. Your mat, that you slept on, you were supposed to have with you, and unroll it on the dirt floor yourself. That was why she had been packing all those mats around. Your bedclothes you were supposed to have with you too, except that a Mexican doesn't need bedclothes. He flops as is. The plumbing was al fresco exterior, just over from the well. In the patio was a flock of burros, tied, that the guests had come on, and we parked our car there, and she took her hatbox, the cape, the espada, and the ear, and the hostelero showed us our room. It was No. 16, and had a fine view of a Mexican with his pants down, relieving his bowels.
"Well, how do you feel?"
"Very nice, gracias."
"The heat hasn't got you?"
"No, no. Nicer than Mexico."
"Well, I tell you what. It's too early to eat yet. I think I'll have my suit pressed, then take a walk around and kind of get the lay of the land. Then after sundown, when it's cooler, we'll find a nice place and eat. Yes?"
"Very nice. I look at house."
"All right, but I got ideas on the location."
"Oh, the político already have house."
"I see. I didn't know that. All right, then, you see the político, have a look at the house, and then we'll eat."
"Yes."
I found a sastrería, and sat there while they pressed my suit, but I didn't waste any time on the lay of the land after that. You think I was going to bookkeep for a whorehouse now? A fat chance. Those high notes down the arroyo made everything different. There was a freighter laying out there in the harbor, and I meant to dig out of there, if there was any way in God's world I could promote passage on her.
It was nearly dark before I found the captain. He was having dinner at the Hotel de Mexico, out under the canopy. He was a black Irishman, named Conners, about fifty, with brows that met over his nose, a face the color of a meerschaum pipe, and blistered sunburned hands that were thin and long like a blackjack dealer's. He gave me a fine welcome when I sat down at his table. "My friend, I don't know your uncle in New York, your brother in Sydney, or your sister-in-law back in Dublin, God bless her, nevertheless. I'm not a member of the Ancient, Free, and Accepted Order of Masons, and I don't care if you ever get the twenty pesos to take you to Mexico City. I'll not buy you a drink. Here's a peso to be off, and if you don't mind I'll be having my dinner."
I let the peso lay and didn't move. When he had to look at me again I recited it back to him just like he had handed it to me. "I have no uncle in New York, no brother in Sydney, no sister-in-law in Dublin, thanks for the benediction, nevertheless. I'm not a member of the Ancient, Free, and Accepted Order of Masons, and I'm not on my way to Mexico City. I don't want your drink, and I don't want your peso."
"By your looks, you want something. What is it?"
"I want passage north, if that's where you're headed."
"I'm headed for San Pedro, and the passage will be two hundred and fifteen pesos, cash of the Republic, payable in advance, and