Serenade - James M. Cain [28]
I left him, my heels lifting like they had grown wings. Everything said lay low until midnight, and never go back to the hotel. But I hadn't eaten yet, and I couldn't make myself go in a café and sit down alone. Along about nine o'clock I walked on up there.
I no sooner turned in the patio before I could see there was something going on. Two or three oil lamps were stuck around, on stools, and some candles. Our car was still where I had left it, but a big limousine was parked across from it, and the place was full of people. By the limousine was a stocky guy, dark taffy-colored, in an officer's uniform with a star on his shoulder and an automatic on his hip, smoking a cigarette. She was sitting on the running board of our car. In between, maybe a couple of dozen Mexicans were lined up. Some of them seemed to be guests of the hotel, some of them the hired help, and the last one was the hostelero. Two soldiers with rifles were searching them. When they got through with the hostelero they saw me, came over, they grabbed me, stood me up beside him, and searched me too. I never did like a bum's rush, especially by a couple of gorillas that didn't even have shoes.
When the searching was over, the guy with the star started up the line, jabbering at each one in Spanish. That took quite a while. When he got to me he gave me the same mouthful, but she said something and he stopped. He looked at me sharp, and jerked his thumb for me to stand aside. I don't like a thumb any better than I like a bum's rush.
He fired an order at the soldiers then, and they began going in and out of the rooms. In a minute one of them gave a yell and came running out. The guy with the star went in with them, and they came out with our beans, our eggs, our ground corn, our pots, bowls, charcoal, machetes, everything that had been packed on the car. A woman began to wail and the hostelero began to beg. Nothing doing. The guy with the star and the soldiers grabbed them and hustled them out of the court and up the street. Then he barked something else and waved his hand. The whole mob slunk to their rooms, and you could hear them in there mumbling and some of them moaning. He walked over to her, put his arm around her, and she laughed and they talked in Spanish. Quick work, getting the stolen stuff back, and he wanted appreciation.
She went into No. 16 and came out with the hatbox and the other stuff. He opened the door of the limousine.
"Where you going with that guy?"
I didn't know I was going to say it. My play was to stand there and let her go, but this growl came out of my mouth without my even intending it. She turned around, and her eyes opened wide like she couldn't believe what she heard. "But please, he is político."
"I asked you where you're going with him."
"But yes. You stay here. I come mańana, very early. Then we looked at house, yes."
She was talking in a phoney kind of way, but not to fool me. It was to fool him, so I wouldn't get in trouble. She kept staring at me, trying to get me to shut up. I was standing by our car, and he came over and snapped something. She came over and spoke to him in Spanish, and he seemed satisfied. The idea seemed to be that I was an American, and was all mixed up on what it was about. I licked my lips, tried to make myself take it easy, play it safe till I got on that boat. I tried to tell myself she was nothing but an Indian girl, that she didn't mean a thing with me, that if she was going off to spend the night with this cluck it was no more than she had done plenty of times before, that she didn't know any different and it was none of my business