Candy Kid (6 page)

Jose walked close to the darkened shop windows. There was no one following him. There would be as soon as Tosteen could proceed. He must move fast, he was too easy to follow, the white suit was a glimmering beacon. He could ask anyone on the street the way and be directed to Calle de la Burrita. He could ask the way to Senor el Greco’s but that would be less circumspect; the reputation which surrounded the Senor’s name was not savory. His particular concern at the moment was whether mention of the street would automatically point to the seeking of el Greco’s shop. Why else would a fine gentleman wish to be directed away from the bright lights? He would be less suspect if he asked directions to the cribs.

He made a quick decision because he must. He beckoned a street urchin sitting on the curb. The boy, small and cheeky and ragged, came without haste. “Gimme dime.” He stuck out a hand encrusted with dried, dirty juice of the watermelon. “Gimme cigarette.”

Jose measured the boy with his eyes. “Chico!” he commanded.

The boy dropped his hand. Suspicion clouded his eyes.

Jose spoke in the boy’s tongue. “I have need of a guide. I will give you a dollar if you will serve me.”

The suspicion didn’t go away but greed crowded it.

“What do you say?”

The boy muttered. “You will give me a dollar?”

“Yes.”

“I cannot go far,” the boy hesitated. “The old one, my grandfather, leans on me.” Jose followed the gesture to the bent shoulders and gray hair of the man who stood beside the tray of watermelon slices.

“Is the Street of the Little Burro far?” Jose inquired.

“But no.” Suspicion vanished in a smile. “He will not know I am gone. Come, Senor.”

The boy squirmed away, taking care his grandfather did not observe the departure. Jose followed, cutting across to the opposite corner, in the direction he had come, but not on the Avenue now. Up a darkened side street. They had gone but a brief way before the boy stopped and faced him.

“You will give me the dollar now.”

“That I will not do,” Jose answered coolly. “If I give you the dollar, you will not lead me to the street of the small she-burro. You will run back to your grandfather.”

“If I lead you to the street, you will need me no longer,” the boy argued. “You will drive me away without the dollar you have promised.”

Jose pushed the boy forward, following behind him. “You do not trust me. And I do not trust you. But because the reward is great, you will show me the way and hope I am an honorable man. Which I am, Chico.”

The boy’s bare feet dug into the pavement. “If you are an honorable man, give me the dollar now.” Jose began to shake his head but the boy’s grimy finger pointed. “This is the street you desire.”

The words flaked on the wall, Calle de la Burrita. Jose walked quickly to the corner, peered into the narrow passage. “My dollar,” the little boy wailed, tugging at Jose’s coat.

“Yes.” He reached into his pocket, drew forth a silver cartwheel and pressed it into the small hand. The boy’s eyes rounded with disbelief. The Senor had been an honorable man. It was not often so in his experience. Jose warned, “Say to no one where you have found this.”

The boy clenched his fingers over the prize. “I will tell no one nothing,” he gurgled. Jose understood. The
chico
would not risk losing the dollar to someone stronger than he.

Jose turned into the alley. It was as narrow as the street where the Cafe Herrera stood but it was not elegant, not even in a faded fashion. The houses here were not walled, they crumbled on the street without protection. The street was not paved with tipsy bricks; warm dust sifted over the hard-packed dirt. It had one advantage over Calle Herrera, it was not dead end. At the far corner it twisted into another lane, much like the one he had just traveled with the boy.

This byway seemed deserted. It showed no light, it made no sound. The faint echo of the Avenida’s merriment whimpered from another world. Jose walked silent as a glimmering ghost, but boldly. If he was under observation from behind dark windows no suspicion should attach to him by reason of his gait. The way seemed to grow darker and more silent, although that was pure nervous stomach and he knew it. He walked the entire length of the narrow lane before coming upon the shop of Senor Praxiteles.

It was a real shop with a large glass window through which tourists might peer before entering. If they should happen to wander this far from the bridge. Jose did not stop to peer through the undisturbed dust which swathed the pane like mist. He merely made note that the darkness was broken by a flicker, dim as a candle, far in the rear of the shop. The light was so small it laid no color on the street. The entrance was on the corner, there were tip-tilted earthen steps leading to a heavy wooden door, so old the iron of the hinges and the latch were worn black and thin. Above the door was a small iron bell, a dirty piece of string hanging limply from it. Jose didn’t ring, he was loathe to disturb the absolute soundlessness of the street. He put his hand on the latch. It didn’t give. There was nothing to do but ring. Gingerly he took the soiled string between thumb and forefinger; he pulled. The clang was faint, but he could hear it echoing within the shop, attached to another bell inside. When it died away, silence lay more heavily. He could make out the tinkle of the Beer Barrel Polka from the Avenue, and it seemed he could hear the one man band and Canario’s singing whine.

Nothing happened after the bell. He stood there waiting, wondering. He might be too late but the blond girl hadn’t set any particular time for him to pick up the package. Perhaps she’d taken it for granted he would rush with the envelope from the desk to the Senor’s. The sooner to enjoy his pay. He wasn’t wondering so much about the delay as about the number of people who seemed to be in on this business. Canario couldn’t have remembered him from more than five years ago, the musico was a part of this thing. It was not accident that Canario had waylaid him, he had been watching for Jose’s appearance. The girl at Herrera’s was a part of it. And the seersucker man. As was the blonde who’d known when she hired the Mexican lout that it wasn’t a cinch job.

The door opened so softly, he was taken unawares. There’d been no warning creak, those ancient hinges were well-oiled. Someone was peering out at him but his eyes were unable to penetrate the blackness inside. The door was open but a crack. Through the aperture a voice whispered dustily, “It is too late. Return tomorrow.”

Jose rebelled. He’d be damned if he were going through this again. And he’d be damned if he were going to give up now after the trouble it had been to reach here safely, trouble to his nerves if naught else. He was missing the best chicken mole on the border, he might be missing a safe ride back to El Paso; he would not depart empty-handed.

He edged one white buckskin toe against the crack. He announced, “I won’t be here tomorrow.” The words sounded too loud in the empty night. And prophetic in an unpleasant way.

The croaking whisper didn’t care. “The shop of Senor el Greco is open only by day. El Greco is a poor man—
el pobrecito
—he does not have the lights
electrico
to shine upon his poor treasures—
el pobrecito
—” The voice was so old it was without cadence, there were accents laid upon accents in it.

Jose realized two things. He’d been peering at eye level for the figure, he sensed now that it huddled no taller than the latch. The other thing was that the Senor wasn’t interested in anyone without an envelope. He said, almost whispering himself, “I bring this to you.” He took the envelope from his pocket, held it to the crack in the door.

A claw snatched it. Again Jose waited. The door pushed against his foot but it didn’t close because his foot was there. Why didn’t the old buzzard let him inside? His nerves were quivering anew, expecting at any moment that Senor Tosteen would round the corner.

And then the door gave. “Come inside,” the whisper invited.

Now that the invitation had come, Jose didn’t think much of the idea. Yet sinister as the place appeared, and sinister as he knew Senor Praxiteles’ reputation to be, there should be no danger attached to picking up a package. He wasn’t here officially as he once might have been. He stepped in, blinded by the dark as the door was shut to the street. He didn’t know where the old one was standing until the whisper came from behind him, “Go straight ahead.”

He moved cautiously and perceived after a step that a heavy curtain separated this vestibule from the shop, creating the blackout. It explained how the old man had been able to study the envelope. Jose reached out and spread the curtains. The shop was dark but not black, the globule of flame at the rear conjured enormous grotesqueries of shadow which clawed the walls. The room seemed to be empty. There was no way to be sure. There were hiding places in the black of shadow, in giant ollas and mammoth woven baskets. El Greco’s poor treasures were ancient with dust, they might be ancient with value as well. It was a motley collection, the cheap clay trinkets and inevitable straw dolls on horseback mixed indiscriminately with what might be museum pieces. There was a stone altarpiece which could be Mayan.

However, Jose hadn’t come to appraise el Greco’s collection. He was no expert. The old man followed him into the room. He was as old as his voice, old and withered and dusty, yellowed like vellum with age. He would never have been tall; bent now with the years, he was no larger than a child, no larger than the
sorbita
who had barred Jose’s path at the cafe.

He was dressed as if he had been expecting company other than a messenger boy. He wore a frock coat, too large for him and green at the seams; the shirt front was a warped dicky, the string tie had been fumbled into an unpracticed effort at a bow. His trousers were stained with splotches, from wine dribbled down them long ago, but they were once fine broadcloth. The faded grandeur ended at the ankles. On the old man’s feet were carpet slippers, made of pieces of discarded carpet; Jose remembered once as a boy finding a like pair in the old stable at home. Perhaps, like Canario, shoes hurt the old one’s feet.

It was Senor Praxiteles, it could be no other, yet Jose asked the question. “Senor Praxiteles?”

The man did not answer. He stood there, his eyes fastened on Jose. He had eyes like a lizard, hooded, unblinking. The hand which clutched the envelope lifted slightly. “Your name is…?”

“I am Jose Aragon,” Jose repeated. “You are Senor Praxiteles?”

“Yes.”

There was again the silence, the lizard study of Jose. Perhaps the wonder why a gentleman had come for the package. There was even the possibility that the earlier Jose had been described. Jose was ready to get things into action when the Senor questioned again. “Why do you come here?”

“I come for a package.”

“Who has sent you?”

He was not supposed to know her name. He shrugged. “I am earning an honest dollar, Senor. A lady has hired me to come for her purchase.”

Evidently what he said was acceptable. Senor Praxiteles dropped the questioning. He began to shuffle slowly to the rear of the shop. Jose followed. It wasn’t a candle that led them; it was a lamp, the wick turned low to save oil. It stood on a high-built desk, out of another century. It was whispered that the old miser was the richest man in Juarez, that he owned the Avenida Juarez from the bridge to the Plaza, that he even owned the bank.

Praxiteles shuffled around to the back of the desk, his head alone visible above it. He climbed onto the high stool as if he were climbing a ladder, rung by rung. His ledgers lay open in front of him, a stubby pen rested on a pen wiper fashioned of yellow and white felt into the shape of a daisy. The white petals were smeared with dried ink. A tall brown bottle and a tumbler dregged with red-brown smelled of wine.

Impatience grew in Jose. “The package,” he reminded.

The lidded eyes lifted. “Yes,” said Praxiteles. His hand reached under the desk.

Jose had stood like this before and had a gun drawn on him. With el Greco it would be a knife. All Jose had was two empty hands and the instinct when to drop. But what the old man brought forth was a package, wrapped in green paper like that used by druggists in the States, tied with thin brown cord. It was about the size of a book but of uneven bulk, not the rigid oblong lines of a book. What it was, was perfume; you could smell it all the way to the Plaza.

Jose’s relief came out between his lips. As if the expelled breath had chilled him, the old man hunched his shoulders higher. “There it is,” he croaked. He seemed in a hurry for Jose to take it and be gone.

“The papers,” Jose demanded. “I am no smuggler, Senor, The lady assured me the papers were correct.”

Praxiteles’ head swiveled in the direction of the window. Swiftly Jose’s eyes followed. But there was nothing to be seen outside, nothing at all to be seen but the dust fingering the glass.

“The papers,” Jose repeated. He had not touched the package.

The yellow claws rummaged under the ledgers. They brought forth a receipt book. Praxiteles dipped the pen into an encrusted glass well. His fingers squeezed the wooden holder and he scrawled the necessary forms. Again he rooted, found an ink-scrolled blotter, blotted. Carefully he wiped the pen on the daisy before pushing the receipts across the desk. “This satisfies you?”

Jose took time to scan the scrawl. There didn’t seem anything wrong; the wording was standard. He folded his slip, placed it into the inner pocket of his coat. The unblinking eyes watched as carefully as if it were a wad of bills Jose placed there. When the receipt was stached, Praxiteles was holding out the package. Jose accepted it as if it were nothing, as if there were no blond girl and no man in a seersucker suit.

He said briefly, “Thank you, Senor.”

The withered hand edged toward the wine bottle. “I may offer you refreshment?”

He might have accepted as a gracious gesture, a pretense that between them there was friendship. But the hooded lids lifted too soon. Evil glittered across the saurian eyes.

“To my regret, I must refuse, Senor,” Jose said. “I am in haste.”