Candy Kid

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  He walked into the shower, leaving the bathroom door open so he could listen for Pablo. You couldn’t actually hear with water pouring over your head, drizzling into your ears. You had to count on recognizing an intrusion without hearing it. And he did. Because he’d had to develop that super-sensory quality or he wouldn’t be here today waiting for his cerveza.

  He stuck his head out from the shower curtain and yelled, “Put it on the bureau.” He couldn’t see the boy but he heard the murmured response, “Awright.”

  It wasn’t right. It wasn’t Pablo’s voice, and it wasn’t the word the boy would have spoken. He grabbed a towel to wrap around him as he dripped fast to the door. No, it wasn’t Pablo. It was an ordinary man in a wrinkled seersucker suit, a man who might have just finished dropping Jose’s dirty levis back to the floor. The man wasn’t frightened when he saw Jose, but he began backing toward the door. “Guess I’m in the wrong pew,” he offered.

  “Yeah.” Jose looked him over thoroughly. “This is Miss Chenoweth’s apartment.” He punched it. “It’s her hotel, too.” You couldn’t mistake Lou’s apartment for any other room in the hotel. You’d stop in the sitting room and know your error.

  The man didn’t bat an eye. “Mistakes will happen.” He’d backed into the doorway by now. And behind him, Jose saw the blue smock of Pablo. When he saw that Jose was gazing beyond his shoulder, a quiver of apprehension went over the man’s face. He swung around and it could have been the narrow doorway that swung his hand toward his armpit. At any rate the hand dropped immediately.

  “Here’s a boy for you,” the man said. “Sorry I interrupted.” He noticed the two beers; he’d notice details. Maybe he thought Jose had a friend in the shower.

  Jose waited until he heard the man go out and close the door. Then he said to Pablo, “Bring the tray in here. On the bureau.” Pablo moved with slow deliberation. “The quarter’s for you. I’ll sign for the beers.”

  “Miss Chenoweth, she sign for this.”

  “On the house? Dream girl.” The water was still roaring down in the shower. No one outside could hear what he asked. “Who was that guy?”

  “I do not know what you say.”

  “That guy who was in here. Who is he?”

  “He is your friend.”

  “I never laid eyes on him before.” This wasn’t exactly accurate. But the idea was. “Said he got into the wrong room.”

  “Your door, she was open. It is a mistake.”

  “Are there any rooms in the hotel that look like Miss Chenoweth’s?”

  Pablo understood. “They are not.”

  “That’s right.”

  But Pablo didn’t know who the man was, no use keeping him here any longer.

  “Be sure you pull the door tight when you leave.”

  “I will do that.”

  Jose tilted a bottle to his lips. But he didn’t return to the shower until the door slammed after the boy. Mistakes will happen, the seersucker suit had said. But the mistake was that Jose had caught him in the room. Mr. Seersucker hadn’t made a mistake, he’d come for a purpose. There was only one reason for him to come. Because Jose had been talking to the girl and the man knew it. Between the girl and the man there was something. And that something wasn’t accidental.

  Well, the guy had made one big mistake. Because Jose was picking up that envelope labeled Jose Aragon at six sharp. And not out of idle curiosity. He resented a stranger pawing through his things. In El Paso you didn’t expect Balkan tricks.

  He finally had enough of the shower. Maybe because he was thirsty for a second beer. He turned off the faucets, rubbed himself damp dry, and took a clean towel for a wraparound. The beer was still plenty cold. He jerked open the bureau drawer; no, the prowler hadn’t got there before he was interrupted. Jose’s stuff was just the way he’d tossed it in.

  If the guy had been reaching for his armpit and if he’d wanted to start something, Jose had been in a pretty pickle. Standing there clutching a wet bath towel around his middle. He was sick of the guy sloshing around his head. He went into the living room where it was cooler, picked up the phone. He was dry enough to stretch out in the easy chair. The desk answered.

  “Miss Chenoweth still there?”

  She came on after a moment.

  “Lou, what about Beach?”

  “He’s coming.”

  “When? I’m trapped here stark naked. Except for one of your best towels.”

  Lou gurgled. “You can’t be chasing blondes, can you? If it’s essential, you can help yourself to a bathrobe from my closet.”

  “Won’t I look pretty!”

  “Don’t be so vain, chico. How’s the beer holding out?”

  “It’s almost gone. When’s Beach going to get here?”

  “He said he’d be over pretty soon. He was surprised you’d decided to stay all night. Said you wanted to get back to Santa Fe. I didn’t tell him about the blonde, thought you’d like to surprise him.”

  Jose said patiently, “Look, my little dove, give me the number and I’ll call Beach myself. And Lou, how about sending up a salad, shrimp, a lot of them, and some more beer? And also, Lou, gracias, but this tab I’ll sign. You’re not giving a party.”

  “It’ll be on your bill.” Her voice trickled off and then on again with the requested number.

  He said, “Thanks,” grinned into the phone, “If the blonde asks for me, send her up.”

  Lou made a noise and rang off. He waited a moment and re-lifted the phone, repeated the number Lou had given. It took a bit of ringing before a voice shouted, “Hello.”

  “Is Beach Aragon still there?”

  “Hold it, I’ll see.” He could hear the man yell, “Beach Aragon here?” and then the voice returned, “Just left.”

  Jose didn’t believe a word of it. “Let me talk to Adam.”

  “Wait a minute.” The voice changed to Adam’s warm bass, “Hello, Lou.”

  “This isn’t Lou. It’s Jo.”

  “Why don’t you get over here?” Adam rumbled. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Look, I can’t get over. Incidentally, welcome home and all the trimmings. Let me talk to Beach. I know he’s there.”

  “Bright boy,” Adam jeered gently.

  He held on until Beach drawled, “What gives?”

  “Listen, Beach, Lou is letting us stay with her tonight.”

  “She told me.”

  “Okay. She also told you to bring the bags over, didn’t she? I’m sitting here in a bath towel waiting. I can’t join you and Adam because I haven’t anything to wear but those stinking things I took off and I’m damn sure not going to put them back on. Come on, be a pal. Besides Lou might like to see the old Adam, no?”

  “Will do,” Beach agreed. A touch of romance could usually bring him around. The blonde would have brought him faster but the blonde was a business proposition, Jose’s business.

  Jose urged, “Don’t stall any longer. I’m getting claustrophobia shut up here by myself.” He replaced the phone. They might come and they might not. Adam might meet twelve other guys he wanted to gab with before they made it.

  Jose paddled into Lou’s room and surveyed the robe situation. There was a terry cloth which wasn’t fancy. It was short in the skirt and the sleeves, tight in the shoulders, but in a pinch it would cover him. He carried it back to the living room where it would be handy. Because he didn’t want to think he turned on the radio and found afternoon music. The knock on the door made him start. It wasn’t his cousin and Adam, they’d approach with noise.

  He called out, “Who is it?”

  “The lunch.”

  The accent was right. He put on the robe, feeling all arms and legs, and opened the door an inch. It was the lunch all right, another twin of Pablo’s in another sloppy blue smock. “On the table.” The boy struggled the tray to the low carved table. Jose remembered that he wasn’t wearing pockets with pants. He went into the bedroom, found a quarter, and brought it back to the boy. No use mak
ing him wait for it, once the beerdrinkers arrived lunch would stretch on to dinnertime.

  The boy took the quarter and pocketed it. “Pablo he say Tosteen.”

  He didn’t get it. “What’s that?”

  The boy repeated the exact words. “Pablo he say Tosteen.”

  Pablo, he knew. Tosteen had no significance. And then it did. “Mister Tosteen?” What other message had Pablo to send but the name of a man?

  The boy shrugged. “He say Tosteen.”

  “Okay.” The hunch must be right. “What’s your name, fellow?”

  “Jaime.”

  “Jaime, you say to Pablo, mil gracias.”

  “I will say it.” The boy pulled the door tight after him.

  So Pablo had found out the guy’s name. Because of a quarter tip? Uh-uh. Because it was Aragon against Tosteen; the gringo didn’t have a chance. Jose peeled off the skimpy robe, the towel was more comfortable, then removed the white tablecloth from the tray. The shrimp salad was a special, not what you’d get if you ordered it on the menu in the coffee shop. The rye bread was cold and firm. And the bottle of beer had five brothers. Lou must have believed Jose’s phone call to the Blue Label would bring results. He put the five in the ice box behind her portable bar and fell to. He was plenty hungry. It had been a long time since that six o’clock breakfast on the ranch.

  You could hear Beach and Adam from the time they got off the elevator. Their laughter cross-boomed against the corridor walls. He held the door open for them. “High time. Look at me!”

  “You ain’t so pretty,” Adam allowed. Laughter rolled over his face, opened his mouth, shook his big frame. Adam was the biggest man that had walked the earth since Paul Bunyan. The biggest man who’d ever walked the Rio Grande valley. Jose was only an inch under six foot himself; beside Adam he stood like a schoolboy. So did Beach’s full six feet.

  Jaime was like a toy. He trailed after them, carrying the three bags. His polished black eyes ignored Jose’s loincloth. Beach and Adam were loaded, both arms, with enormous paper sacks. More beer. Beach tipped Jaime and pushed the door to a loud shut. Adam was already at the shrimp bowl.

  “Get out of there,” Jose warned. “Order your own.”

  Adam swallowed the shrimp he’d filched and licked his fingers. He was a sight for sore eyes, pleasantly beery, dirty and sweaty and wonderfully normal.

  “You didn’t lose any weight on your tour,” Jose remarked pointedly.

  “What are you talking about? I lost fifteen pounds. So help me, I tip the scales at only two hundred and thirty this minute—full of beer though I be. Want proof?”

  “I’ll take your word,” Jose said hastily. “You don’t want to break Lou’s scale. Sit yourself down—away from my lunch—and I’ll see what I can do for your emaciation.” He lifted the phone. “Send up two more big shrimp salads. This is Jose Aragon.” He cradled it, tucked the towel more safely about him as he returned to the couch, and resumed eating.

  Beach said, “You could have knocked me over with a blunderbuss when I saw Adam going into ‘The Blue Label.’”

  “A man can’t have his morning beer without being caught at it,” Adam decided.

  “When did you get in?” Jose garbled with full mouth.

  “S’morning.”

  “How was the trip?”

  “Pretty good. Mexico City’s always good. But the beans and pan got pretty monotonous in those hinterland dumps. That’s how I lost all those pounds.”

  Adam had come to the Rio Grande valley in the thirties. But he wasn’t like most of the refugees from the East, well-heeled, looking for a place to sit out the coming holocaust. A guy that big couldn’t be satisfied twiddling his thumbs at parties. He’d started trading in less than a year. The war had skipped him, a lot of too big fellows had something wrong. Adam Adamsson, trader, was about the smartest importer in the state, maybe the Southwest, by now. Jose loved him like a brother. Everybody loved him.

  Adam rubbed his big hand over his stubbled chin. “Got a razor, Jo? If I’m going to eat in Lou’s apartment, I got to be fancier than this.”

  “Help yourself.”

  Beach stretched. “You shave, Adam, I’ll shower. Put the beer on ice, Jo. What made you change your mind?”

  “What do you mean change my mind?”

  “You were hell-bent to get back to Santa Fe tonight.”

  “I wasn’t hell-bent. I was indeterminate. It was hot.”

  “Still hot,” Beach argued.

  “I’m cooled off. We can get an early start in the morning when it’s fresh.”

  Adam lifted the bags as if they were filled with cotton puffs. “I got to start back tonight.” He returned for a parcel, stripped off the paper, and revealed a clean shirt, socks, and shorts. He traveled light.

  “What for?”

  “Business.”

  “Another day won’t hurt,” Jose urged. “Call your office. Tell them you’re with the Aragons.” He’d finished the last shrimp; he was pleasantly stuffed.

  “I’ve got better sense,” Adam grinned slowly. He went back into the bedroom. Jose helped himself to a cigarette from Lou’s box and followed. He’d forgotten to buy that pack. The shower was pouring. Adam had all the bags open and was rummaging.

  “In that one,” Jose pointed. “What’s another day?”

  “I’ve got to be in Santa Fe in the morning. Shipment coming in.”

  Jose stretched out on the bed which had the least junk on it. “Stay for dinner anyhow. We’ll go across the bridge. To Herrera’s.” It wasn’t that he wanted Adam’s bulk behind him on his junket. It was the fun the big guy put into any gathering.

  “Sure I’ll stay for dinner. What about lunch first?”

  “It’ll be along.” Jose put on clean shorts, the buzz of the razor joined the shower downpour, conversation was stymied. He unpacked his white linen suit. Not the sort of thing you carried to a ranch for the cattle, but he’d had El Paso in mind when they started out. And there were always parties in El Paso if you wanted them. The suit needed pressing, he’d send it out when lunch showed up. The others might guy him about being so fancy for dinner in Juarez, but he didn’t have to explain why. He couldn’t explain too well, it had something to do with a gorgeous gal seeing him at his worst and maybe he’d run into her again at his best.

  It was Jaime who brought the lunch. And with great pleasure, a message. “Pablo say it is Mister Tosteen.”

  Jose was gravely courteous. “Mil gracias to Pablo and to you, Jaime.” Closing the door on the boy, he yelled into the bedroom, “Chow,” and sidestepped the stampede.

  Lou joined them around five. They hadn’t dressed yet, none of them. It was comfortable to be shirtless, sitting around gabbing about nothing. Nothing that was actually on your mind. They hadn’t been bothered by the remains of lunch and the empty bottles until they saw through her eyes.

  “P-uu.” She picked up the phone. “Send up a boy, Clark.”

  One big stride took Beach to the table. He began gathering the remains and hiding them under the white napery. “Honey,” he said in that sweet voice which got them whether they were seven or seventy, “we’re awful sorry we made such a mess.” He gave her the sweet smile which melted them like maple sugar. “And you so good to us.” He was six foot, yellow-haired and blue-eyed; he had the face of an angelic child and he was a brat. He was the only Aragon who resembled the old Spain side of the family, seven generations back. But he was wasting the charm on Lou. There was nobody for Lou but Adam, that’s the way it had been for twelve or fourteen years now. If Adam weren’t so damn in love with Mexico, maybe he’d see what he was missing. For a warm guy, he was a cold fish.

  Lou dismissed Beach. “Go put your pants on.” She surveyed his bright pink nylon shorts with distrust. “You too, Jose. Adam, you can open a beer for me if you pigs left any.”

  Jose’s shorts were candy-cane-striped. “I can’t. My suit isn’t back yet. Throw me a robe, Beach. The lady resents our peacock feathers. We’re
going to dinner at Herrera’s. Join us, Lou?”

  “And a glass,” she instructed Adam. “I’m a lady. Broke a tooth on a bottle once. I can’t, Jose. There’s a banquet of the dear old Rose Club and I have to be around. You boys may each bring me a jug of rum, white. I have to give a party sometime this fall, a pay-back one, and I’m stocking up.”

  There was no delay on a boy when Miss Chenoweth requested. The discreet rap was Pablo this trip. He shouldered the tray but he delayed his return to the door. Jose realized the little fellow was trying to attract his attention. He sidled over to him.

  “That Jaime he tell you what I say?”

  Jose lowered his own voice to match Pablo’s. “He did.”

  “He is so dumb that Jaime, I do not know if he tell you right.”

  Jose said, “He did. Thanks.”

  Pablo continued to stand there, gazing into Jose’s face with his polished eyes. Waiting for another tip. And Jose still without his pants. Then he realized that wasn’t it; Pablo wanted to say something and the other three weren’t even making polite sounds to cover this private conversation. They were all peeling their ears. Jose stepped in closer.

  “That Mister Tosteen he want to know what is your name.”

  Jose kept his face without expression. “He asked you?”

  “He ask it of me and Jaime and Garcia, who runs the elevator.”

  “And you told him what?”

  “We do not know.” With the weight of the tray on his shoulders, he still managed to give the impression of a shrug. Somewhere behind the graven face lurked a smile. “Even that dumb Jaime, he understand he does not know.”

  “See you later, Pablo.” Their eyes understood what he meant. “Mil gracias.”

  “Es nada.”

  He leaned himself against the closed door. Now he had to face the gang. They were waiting all right, ready to jump him.

  Adam jumped first. “Now, what’s that all about?”

  “It couldn’t be a blonde?” Lou queried dryly.

  “A blonde?” Beach sparkled.

  “You mean he hasn’t told you about her?”