The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [198]
She shivered and Rachel wailed nervously, “I knew we shouldn’t have come here!”
“Oh, but, Rache, I am sure we should!” Azaylee was gripped by a strange, nervous excitement. She could never tell anyone exactly what she had seen, not even Rachel. After crossing the road, she stopped outside the Commerciale.
“Maybe we should just go home,” Rachel said, hanging back reluctantly.
Carlos del Villaloso spotted them as he strolled down the street, having just lost five grand at the Foreigners’ Club. He had exactly three hundred dollars left in his pocket, not even enough to pay his hotel bill, let alone finance his gambling fever. The two young girls dithering on the sidewalk outside the Commerciale stood out from the crowd like virgins at the gates of hell, and he grinned as he watched them clutching each other’s arms and daring each other on. So, they had escaped from the beautiful dragon lady and come to find a bit of excitement. Then who better than he to show them the ropes? Straightening his tie, he strolled across the road to the Commerciale.
“Buenas noches, señoritas.” He smiled disarmingly at them as they swung round, startled. “I recognized you from the hotel and wondered if you realized it is not exactly comme il faut for well brought up girls to wander around Tijuana?”
They blushed, lowering their eyes, embarrassed, and he added, “It would be better if you allowed me to escort you. The Commerciale is a rough place for women alone.”
He held open the door and they filed through, smiling shyly at him and murmuring their thanks. He found them seats at the three-hundred-foot-long bar and, after grabbing one of the fifteen bartenders, asked what they would like to drink, flinching when they asked for lemonade. With a wink at the barman he added in a low voice, “With a touch of gin.”
Azaylee leaned her elbows on the counter, sipping her lemonade and staring wide-eyed at the raffish crowd of drinkers, punters, pimps, and hookers who streamed nightly across the border in search of pleasures forbidden in their native America. Pretty dark-eyed girls paraded their wares, for which there were plenty of takers; alcohol flowed like an endless river and music blared deafeningly. Her nerve ends tingled: It was the most exciting place she had ever been to.
Carlos decided that the dark one was obviously very frightened but the blonde was interesting, with her pale, tumbling hair and those strange, dazzling eyes reflecting her excitement. She couldn’t keep still. She was wriggling on her barstool and nervously knocking back her “lemonade” as if she expected any minute to be arrested. Of course they were too young and innocent to warrant his attentions. He needed someone like their mother, a woman in charge of substantial purse strings, not juveniles out for a thrill. Still, innocence had its own charm, and it might be fun to give the blonde her first taste of corruption. Giving the barman a wink, he ordered two more “lemonades.”
“You must be on vacation from college?” he asked as the barman placed the fresh drinks in front of them.
Azaylee’s face was flushed from the gin and her eyes sparkled as she replied, “Oh, no. We are in the movies.”
“Movies, eh?” He thought of Mrs. O’Hara, the dragon lady who was too beautiful for her own good—or his. She hadn’t looked like his idea of a stage mother; she was far too grand and dignified. A lady, he would have guessed, with a background of solid family wealth and education. She had put him off so obviously, he had not bothered to find out more about her, but now he was intrigued.
“And your father?” he asked, leaning closer to Azaylee. “Where is he?”
She hiccuped loudly, putting a hand to her mouth and blushing. “Papa is … Papa is dead,” she finished. Her lips trembled, and he quickly took her hand and squeezed it.
“I understand,” he said gently, “and I am sorry I asked such a personal question. It was unforgivable.”
Rachel stared into her lemonade, her eyelids drooping as she yawned and said, “It’s okay. Missie’s going