Serenade - James M. Cain [86]
I went right over to one of the open-front drugstores, went in a booth, and called Pan-American. I spoke English. I said I was an American, that I had met a Mexican lady at the hotel and promised to give her some pictures I had taken of her, but I hadn't seen her for a couple of days and I was wondering if she had left town. They asked me her name. I said I didn't know her name, but they might identify her by a fur coat she was probably carrying. They asked me to hold the line. Then they said yes, the porter remembered a fur coat he had handled for a Mexican lady, that if I'd hold the line they'd see if they could get me her name and address. I held the line again. Then they said they were sorry, they didn't have her address, but her name was Mrs. Di Nola, and she had left on the early plane the day before for Mexico City.
Mexico looked exactly the same, the burros, the goats, the pulquerías, the markets, but I didn't have time for any of that. I went straight from the airport to the Majestic, a new hotel that had opened since I left there, registered as Di Nola, and started to look for her. I didn't go to the police, I didn't make any inquiries, and I didn't do any walking, for fear I'd be recognized. I just put a car under charter, had the driver go around and around, and took a chance that sooner or later I'd see her. I went up and down the Guauhtemolzin until the girls would jeer at us every time we showed up, and the driver had to wave and say "postales," to shut them up. Buying postcards seemed to be the stock alibi if you were just rubbering around. I went up and down every avenue, where the crowds were thickest, and the more the traffic held us up, the better it suited me. I kept my eyes glued to the sidewalk. At night, we drove past every café, and around eleven o'clock, when the picture theatres closed, we drove past them, on the chance I'd see her coming out. I didn't tell him what I wanted, I just told him where to drive.
By the end of that day I hadn't even caught a glimpse of her. I told the driver to be on deck promptly at eleven the next morning, which was Sunday. We started out, and I had him drive me into Chapultepec Park, and I was sure I'd see her there. The whole city turns out there every Sunday morning to listen to the band, ride horses, wink at the girls, and just walk. We rode around for three hours, past the zoo, the bandstand, the boats in the lake, the chief of the mounted police and his daughter, so many times we got dizzy, and still no trace of her. In the afternoon we kept it up, driving all over the city going every place there might be a crowd. There was no bullfight. The season for them hadn't started, but we combed the boulevards, the suburbs, and every place else I could think of. He asked if I'd need him after supper. I said no, to report at ten in the morning. It wasn't getting me anywhere, and I wanted to think what I was going to do next. After dinner I took a walk, to try and figure out something, I passed two or three people I had known, but they never gave me a tumble. What left Mexico was a big, hard, and starved-looking American. What came back was a middle-aged wop, with a pot on him so big it hid his feet. When I got to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, it was all lit up. I crossed toward it, and thought I'd sit on a stone bench and keep an eye on the crowd that was coming in. But when I got near enough to read the signs I saw it was Rigoletto they were giving and this dizzy, drunken feeling swept over me, that I should go in there and sing it, and take the curse off the flop, and show them how I could do it. I cut back, and turned the corner into the town.
Next to the bullring box office is a café. I went in there, ordered an apricot brandy, and sat down. I told myself to forget about the singing,