Border Town Girl

by John D. MacDonald

  She shivered. She put on pajamas, stretched out across the bed and picked up the room phone. The sleepy desk clerk intimated by the tone of his voice that this was a hell of a time to make a long distance phone call.

  She lit a cigarette, lay back and waited for the phone to ring. It took twenty minutes.

  There was no sleep in his voice. The name of the town from which the call was coming had alerted him. And she sensed his anger at this violation of the rules he had made.

  “George, honey? This is Diana. I just got lonesome and had to call you up.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “I had hard luck today, George. You know I planned on buying you a present down here. Well, I put the money in a special place and darn if somebody didn’t steal it Now what am I going to do?”

  There was a long silence. “Maybe you were careless,” he said then.

  “No, George. I was real careful. It was just one of those things, I guess.”

  “Any idea who took it?”

  “Not the slightest.”

  Again there was a long silence. He laughed harshly. “I’d hate to think, kid, that you just decided to spend the money on yourself instead of buying me a present.”

  Her hand tightened on the phone. “Gee, George, I’m not dumb enough to make you mad at me.”

  “I hope not. Having a good time?”

  “As good as I can away from you, George. Do you still want a present?”

  “It would be nice.”

  “You know, George, wouldn’t it be funny if you told somebody that I had the money with me to buy you a present and it turned out they decided to steal it?”

  “Very funny, kid. Look, I’m glad you called. A friend of mine will be down that way tomorrow or the next day, I’ve told him to look you up.”

  “Who, George?”

  “Christy.”

  “Please, George. No!”

  “He’s a nice guy, kid. I know you don’t like him, but he’s a nice guy. Show him a good time for me.”

  The line clicked as he hung up.

  Diana walked the floor for an hour. She walked with her fists clenched and tears in the corners of her eyes. If she packed and ran, George would be sure that she had crossed him, and George had a special and unmentionable way of dealing with people like that. But if she stayed it meant Christy, and she knew from George’s tone that he was angry enough with her to throw her to Christy. Christy, with his queer twisted mind. She remembered how she and George had laughed about Christy.

  George had been kidding her, she had thought, when he said, “If you ever make me mad, kid, I’ll hand you over to Christy.”

  And now, suddenly, horribly, she knew that he hadn’t been joking. What a fool she had been to think that because she had lasted longer with George than any previous girl, it had been for keeps. With all her heart she wished she were back at Club Tempo, doing the five a night, whispering the bawdy lyrics into the mike, swaying with the beats of Kits Nooden’s Midnight Five.

  Into her mind flashed a picture of the empty eyes and broken mouth of the young girl Christy had brought down from upstate.

  It had been almost a year ago that George had explained Christy to her. He had said, “Kid, I’m in the roughest, dirtiest business in the world. I got to have a guy like Christy around. I admit it makes me feel like an animal trainer sometimes, but nobody who knows me and knows Christy ever wants to cross me up.”

  She turned out the lights and smothered her weeping with the pillow. Maybe George had spoken out of anger. Maybe he’d regret it, change his mind, call her back.

  “George,” she said softly into the night. “Please, George.” For a long time she had thought that she was hard enough to bounce back from the blow. But now she felt like a frightened child, alone in the crawling dark.

  4

  LANE SANSON OPENED HIS LEFT EYE. THE right one felt clotted and stuck together. He raised trembling fingers and touched it, found that it was swollen shut, the skin around it taut and painful. It was daylight and he looked at an adobe wall inches from his face. He felt extraordinarily weak, far too weak for it to be the result of a garden-type hangover. He sensed that he was indoors. When he moved he felt and heard a rustle underneath him.

  There was an evil taste in his mouth. He listened, attempting to identify an odd sound. A drip and slosh of water and then silence. Then another drip and slosh of water. It came from behind him. With enormous effort he rolled over. He was in some sort of small shed with a sloping roof. He could see the blue sky through holes in the roof.

  A sturdy naked brown girl stood by a pail made of a five-gallon gasoline tin with a wire handle attached, taking a methodical bath. He stared at her with alarm. Her back was to him. In one corner was a wooden crate of clothes. In the other corner he could see, under a flat piece of metal, the red glow of coals atop a stove improvised of cinder blocks and bricks. A tin chamber pot with a florid rose painted on its side stood near the stove. The sun came through the roof holes and made golden coins on the packed dirt of the floor. The light gave the girl’s skin coppery glints.

  He was thinking that this was certainly one part of Mexico City where he had not been before and then he remembered that this was Piedras Chicas, the border town, and he remembered vaguely a girl in a cantina, two men in an alley and a great explosion against his head. He dug down into the disjointed memories and came up with a name.

  “Felicia,” he said in a half-whisper.

  She turned sharply. “Bueno!” she said. “Momentito.”

  She dried herself without shyness on what appeared to be a strip of sheeting, then took a red gingham dress out of the crate and pulled it down over her head, smoothing it across her sturdy hips with the palms of her broad hands. She came and sat beside him, cross-legged, her skirt halfway up the strong brown thighs. She leaned forward and put her hand on his forehead. “Ai!” she said. “Hot!”

  He coughed, said in Spanish, “If you speak slowly, chica, I can understand. How do I come to be in this place?”

  “Truly, it is like this. I was in the zocolo. Two men came to me and asked if I would wish to earn twenty pesos. Of a certainty, I said. They were strangers to me and their accent is of the south. They walked me to the cantina and pointed to you through the window, Lane. They promised you would not be hurt. They wished me to bring you outside to the alley and hand you over to them. It is a thing I never did before as I do not wish trouble with the policia. I am not a good girl, but neither am I ever taken by the policia and with me that is a matter of pride. They talked to you and then they hit you a great blow and came out of the alley. They gave me ten pesos and said it was enough and I spit on their feet. It appeared you were dead from the great blow and I knew that there would be much trouble. But I put my ear to your chest in the darkness and heard the poom, poom of your heart.

  “You are truly heavy, Lane,” she went on. “There was no one to help. But I am very strong because until last year when I became weary I worked in the fields. I dragged you through the alleys to this place, my casita. It is a question of pride, as they promised you would not be hurt. This, it is my fault and something I must do. There is a great wound in the side of your head, Lane. But I have prodded it with my fingers and I do not feel any looseness of the bone, so I think it is not broken. I washed it and, poured in much of the dark red thing which is for bad wounds so that they do not rot. On it I have put clean cloth. This morning at dawn I lit a candle for you at the iglesia and said many small prayers. Now you wake and I shall buy food for us. See?”

  She reached under the edge of the serape on which he lay and pulled out his wallet. “Nothing is gone, Lane. I am not a thief. May I take pesos for food?”

  “Of course!”

  She took a five-peso note and put the wallet under him. He tried to sit up and a great wave of weakness struck him. He sagged back and the flushed feeling went away. His teeth began to chatter violently.

  She jumped up and brought an ancient torn blanket to c
over him. He tried to grin at her. The chill grew worse.

  “Pobrecito!” she said. “Pobre gringo!”

  She pulled the blanket up and slipped in beside him. She slid one arm under his neck very gently, pulled his face into the hollow of her throat and shoulder. Her breath was warm on his cheek. She held him tightly and warmly and sang softly to him, a song without melody. The great shudders began to diminish in violence. He felt as though he were a pendulum swinging more and more slowly, as it sank with each swing further down into a restful darkness.

  When next he awakened there was a flickering light of one candle in the shack. He craned his neck and stared over at her. She sat near the stove fashioning tortillas from masa, her hands slapping rhythmically. She smiled, and her eyes and teeth glinted in the candlelight.

  “Tortillas con pollo. You hongry, babee?”

  “And thirsty. Take some more money and get me cold beer. Two bottles. Carta Blanca or Bohemia, por favor.”

  She took the money and left. He staggered weakly across the floor and then back to his bed. His head throbbed so violently that he thought it would break open.

  The icy beer made him a little tight. He wolfed down the food until she gasped in amazement. He wiped the grease from his mouth with the back of his hand and grinned over at her.

  “You’re a good girl, Felicia.”

  “Not good. I told you before. This is entirely a matter of pride.”

  “How many years do you have?”

  “Eighteen, I think.”

  “Where’s your family?”

  Her mouth puckered up. “Mi padre, he drowned in the river trying to cross to the estados unidos. Then there is no money. The sisters, they are gone. I do not know where. Mi madre, she dies of the trouble in the lungs, here.”

  There was nothing he could answer to that.

  At last his hunger was satisfied. He lay back. Sleep rolled toward him like a dark wave. Insects had found him but their tiny bites did not disturb him.

  “Lane?”

  “Yes, chica.”

  “I forgot to say. Today a man was killed in the Calle Onco de Mayo. Stabbed to the heart. It was one of the two men who talked with you in the alley and struck the great blow.”

  “Who is he?”

  “That is not known. It is said that a tall gringo, tall like you, did that thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Also I heard in the market that the tall gringo is hiding somewhere in Piedras Chicas. It might be that those two thought you were he.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “What did they want of you?”

  “They thought I had a package of some kind.”

  “Then it would appear, Lane, that the other gringo has the package.”

  “You are smart.”

  “No, it is a part of living here. This is a town of much violence, much smuggling. One learns how these things happen. It gives me to think.”

  “How so?”

  “You came up from the south. It is said the other gringo did the same. So it is a matter of importance for him to get the package across the river, no? He hides. It is thought he has killed a man. Those who seek him and the package now know that they were mistaken in approaching you. Thus you could take the package across with perfect safety and much profit, no? They would not think you had it.”

  “Now wait a minute! I don’t want anything to do with the police any more than you do. I’m no smuggler.”

  “We do not know if it is a police matter, estupido! Sleep, Lane. Felicia must think.”

  He awakened again and the shack was dark. Moonlight came through the holes in the roof. He raised his head and looked around. Felicia lay on a serape on the dirty floor, naked and asleep, her body at right angles to his, her feet near his feet.

  His coat was folded under his head. He dug through the pockets and found a crumpled pack of cigarettes with one left in it. He looked at her again as he hunted for matches. Moonlight silvered her body in random patches where it shone through the holes overhead. It was a heavy, sensual body, reminding him of the island paintings of Gauguin. He put the cigarette between his lips and scratched the match. At the thin scrape of the match and the small golden flame she came awake like an animal, rolling instantly up onto her knees.

  “Ai!” she said. “You frightened me.”

  “Sorry, chica.”

  She remained on her knees, looking toward him through the moonshafts. “There is one for me?”

  “No. This is the last.”

  “I should have bought more.”

  The feeling of well-being that had been his during the evening after the sleep of the day was gone now. He felt dulled and aching. But the look of her moved him. “This can be shared,” he said huskily.

  She came to him and crouched beside him. He held the cigarette to her lips. As she inhaled the tip glowed brightly, casting a reddish glow across the broad planes of her face, the mounds of her deep breasts. He brought the cigarette to his own lips again, and then held it to hers. He put his hand on her waist tentatively, hesitantly. But his head hurt and he felt slightly nauseated. He took his hand away.

  She seemed to understand at once. “You are not yet well.”

  “Not yet.”

  “It does not matter, querido.”

  She moved the serape closer to his makeshift bed and stretched out on it. He stubbed the cigarette out against the dirt floor. Her hand found his and clasped it tightly. In the night streets of the city the mongrel dogs yapped and howled. Distant roosters crowed, their throats soft and rusty with sleep. Somewhere nearby a sick child wailed. There was no light but the moon.

  He awoke at dawn as Felicia came in with the stranger. The size of him dwarfed the shack. He could not stand erect in it. He was wary.

  Lane found he was much stronger as he sat up and said, “Who are you?”

  The man sat on his heels and offered him a pack of cigarettes. Lane took two and handed one to Felicia. The stranger lit all three gravely. “You,” he said, “were the little man in the middle.”

  “If this busted head was supposed to be yours, where were you?”

  “I wasn’t in a cantina poisoning myself. This is a smart little girl you’ve got here.”

  “How long can we keep this up before somebody has to say something that means something?”

  “I had a little trouble yesterday. It cramps my style, Lane. Lane. That your last name?”

  “First name.”

  “Okay, play cute. It’s contagious. Yesterday they towed your car into the courtyard of the police station. Somebody did a good job of going through it. What they left, the kids stole. But I think it still runs.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “They’re about to report you missing. They got the name by a cross check on the motor vehicle entry permission. I think they’ll probably wait until noon.”

  “You get around, don’t you?”

  “Friends keep me informed, Lane. I’ve got some instructions for you. Go and get your car this morning. Get it out of that courtyard. Are your papers in order?”

  “They are, but if you think I’m going to—”

  “Please shut up, Lane. Get your car and drive it to a little garage at the end of Cinco de Mayo. There’s a big red and yellow sign in front which says: ‘Mechanico.’ Tell them you want it checked over. Leave it there while you have lunch. Then get it and drive it across into Baker, Texas. Put it in the parking lot behind the Sage House. Register in the Sage House. Is that clear?”

  “Damn you, I have no intention of—”

  “You run off at the mouth, Lane. Damn it, how you run off! You ought to take lessons from this little girl you got. She’s got a head on her. She could tell you what will happen if you don’t play.”

  Lane looked quickly at Felicia.

  “Don’t bother,” the stranger said. “We’ve been talking too fast for her to catch on. I’ll give it to you straight. If you don’t play ball some friends of mine are going to give the poli
ce the most careful description of you you ever heard. And they’re going to tell just how you shivved that citizen yesterday. You won’t get any help from the American consul on a deal like that. You’ll rot in the prison in Monterrey for twenty years. Beans and tortillas, friend.”

  The big man smiled broadly. He was close to forty. He had a big long face, small colorless eyes and hulking shoulders. He was well dressed.

  “That’s a bluff,” Lane Sanson said loudly.

  “Ssssh!” Felicia said.

  “Try me,” the big man said. His tone removed the last suspicion Lane had.

  “Why are you picking on me?”

  “Laddy, you’re still the man in the middle. Park your car behind the Sage House and leave it there. Take a look at it the next morning. That’ll be tomorrow morning. If everything has gone well, laddy, there’ll be a little present for you behind the sun visor on the driver’s side. Then you’re your own man. But if there’s no present there, you’ll go and see a girl named Diana Saybree—at least she’ll be registered that way in the Sage House. Now memorize what you’re going to say to her.”

  “Look, I—”

  “Friend, you’re in. If you don’t play on the other side of the river, we have friends over there, too. This is what you say to Diana. ‘Charlie says you might like to buy my car. He recommends it. You can send him a payment through the other channel. No payment, no more favors.”

  He repeated it until Lane was able to say it tonelessly after him.

  The big man took a fifty-dollar bill, folded it lengthwise and laid it on the floor beside Lane’s hand. “That’ll cover expenses. Now go over to the police barracks as soon as they open. It’s nearly six. You’ve got three hours.”

  Felicia rattled off a machine-gun burst of Spanish.

  The stranger grinned. He said, “She says you can’t go until she washes your clothes. It’s okay by me if you don’t get there until ten.”