The Second Saladin

7

Ramirez did not like them. He should have loved them, for they were throwing money around like American millionaires or Colombian cocaine merchants, yet they were neither American nor Colombian. Tips for all the poor girls. American whiskey only, and lots of it. Cigars, a foot long, for themselves and for anybody else.

But who were they?

Ramirez took another sip of his Carta Blanca, which was warm and flat from sitting so long in his glass, then set the drink before him on the table. The room was long and dark but he could see their profiles by looking across the room into a mirror which in turn looked into a second mirror. They had just ordered another bottle of Jack Daniel’s and given the boy Roberto, who brought it, a five-dollar bill. Ramirez knew his clientele well: college boys down from Tucson for a night of whoring, lonely tourists, an occasional Mexican businessman or two. It was a prosperous enterprise but no gold mine, and it didn’t draw the big spenders such as these two.

He knew he should feel safe. He had journeyed to Mexico City after the fiasco at the border to make personal amends to the Huerra family. He had waited patiently for an appointment and been finally escorted into the old man’s office at the top of one of Mexico City’s finest buildings and there apologized abjectly and cravenly for his errors in judgment on the evening in question and offered to do a penance. Could he pay a fine, make a donation? Could he offer a service, do a task?

And Huerra, the elder, the patriach, an old gentleman with the courtly manners of a Spanish grandee, had said, “Reynoldo, you have served our family well and long. Two old friends such as ourselves should feel love toward each other, not hate or distrust. It is good that you come and ask forgiveness and I grant it to you. You are forgiven. You owe us no penance.”

“Thank you, Don José,” Ramirez had said and had dropped swiftly to his knees and kissed the old man’s hand.

“I would ask one thing,” said Don José.

“Anything. Anything.”

“It is said you are no longer a religious man. I hear you do not give to the Virgin, you do not talk to priests. This bothers me. As I get older, I see the importance of the religious life.”

“I have sinned. I have been a vain and greedy man. I have lived a terrible life, Don José.”

“Go back to God, Reynoldo. God will forgive you, just as I have. God loves you, just as I do. The Church is your mother; she will forgive you as well.”

“It is done. I will light a candle every day. I will give half to the Mother Church.”

“Not half, Reynoldo. I should think a quarter would be sufficient.”

And so Reynoldo had taken up again the religious life. He lit candles, he wen to early mass, he made ostentatious donations. He became a changed man, a new man. It lasted about two days.

He took another sip of his Carta Blanca. He looked about for Oscar Meza who had disappeared. Had he left? Where was Oscar Meza? He looked again into the mirror and saw the two men — one wore a fine cream suit, elegantly cut, the other a pale blue leisure suit with an open-collared shirt, after the American style, though both were Latins — and saw that they had lit another pair of cigars and were laughing madly at some private joke.

What was so funny?

An hour later, Ramirez glanced at his gold watch. It was nearly 3:00 A.M. Things would die soon; the quiet hours before dawn would arrive, when even a poor whore might sleep. Ramirez pulled his bulk from behind his table and walked through clouds of stale smoke, past a few lingering drunken college boys who were trying to decide which girl to give their business to, and went behind the bar.

Instantly, the youth Roberto appeared.

“Patrón?”

Ramirez threw open the register and made a big show of fingering through the bills. He counted them twice, then turned to the boy.

“Stealing again, Roberto?”

“No, patrón.”

“There should be at least a thousand here. I have watched carefully.”

“A slow night, patrón.”

“Not that slow. Steal only a little, Roberto. If you steal too much at once, the big machine gets out of alignment and maybe you get caught in the gears and squashed.”

“I–I steal nothing, patrón,” the youth said, but could not look into Ramirez’s eyes.

Ramirez knew exactly how much Roberto stole each night and that it was within permissible limits, just as he knew how much Oscar stole — more and more lately — and how much the old lady who sat by the top of the stairs and checked peckers stole. Everyone stole; everybody took only a little for themselves, but by certain rules. There were rules. Nobody was allowed to break them.

“Just do not get so greedy, Roberto. I want to see you live a long, wonderful life and have fifty children. Be fruitful, populate the earth with your seed.”

“Yes, patrón.”

He turned, edged his large body away from the register. He paused for a moment, then moved along. In the pause his fingers had touched a Colt Cobra.38 Special in a holster under the register, he plucked the little revolver out and slid it into the waistband of his trousers, thinking, I wish I had my big Python instead of this little lady’s gun. And thinking, I wish I lit a candle this morning.

The two men in suits continued to drink steadily at their table.

“Roberto,” Ramirez called.

The boy hurried over.

“Take a bottle of the finest American stuff to our two friends. Say it is a gift of the proprietor.”

“Yes, patrón.”

Roberto fetched the bottle and took it to the table. The two looked up as he explained with his stiff little bow. The two men laughed warmly and asked where the proprietor was.

Roberto pointed.

“With great appreciation we accept the gift of the proprietor,” the man in the cream suit called in Spanish.

Ramirez nodded. Oscar Meza should have been back by now. Where was he?

“You run a nice place, Señor Proprietor,” called the man in the cream suit.

“Thanks much, my warm friend,” called back Ramirez. “It is a humble place but honest and clean.”

“An excellent prescription for success in any endeavor,” said the man dreamily. He had slicked-back black hair and was pockmarked, yet he was handsome in a mean way that attracts certain women. His friend in blue was fatter and more solemn — the sort who speaks only when spoken to, and then curtly. Also, he needed a shave.

“Did you have a visit with my girls?” Ramirez asked. “They’re the prettiest in Nogales. In all Sonora.”

“They are flowers. Each and every one. They know tricks, too, all kinds of tricks. I suppose the proprietor taught them himself.”

“These modern girls, you can’t teach them a thing. They already know everything,” he said. “There’s a young one with a magnificent mouth. A mouth of uncompromising sweetness. She’ll play you like a trumpet for only a little extra.”

“Is that Rita? I had Rita. Rita, a most refined and gifted young lady.”

“Rita is truly a rare bloom,” Ramirez called, and kissed his fingertips in homage to her skills. Under the kiss his fingers seemed to blossom, grow light and float away. Rita was fifty and needed dental work.

“We ought to be going,” said the man in the blue leisure suit. “It’s getting late.”

“You’ll come back, I hope?”

“Sadly, no. Our business in Nogales is almost finished.”

“A great pity. But I hope you’ll remember our little establishment fondly.”

“I have a great affection for it,” the man in the cream suit said, rising enthusiastically. He had an automatic pistol in his hand and he brought it to bear on Ramirez’s center, aiming carefully, and Ramirez shot through the table, hitting him in the chest, spinning him around. The report in the closed space was sharp and ugly, but it did not bother the man in blue, for he shot at Ramirez, hitting him under the heart and knocking him back off his chair.

Ramirez felt as though he’d been punched. He fought to get his breath back and to find feeling in his fingertips and when he looked he could see the man in blue tugging at his wounded partner, trying to bring him to his feet, but the man’s limbs were floppy and indifferent and the body kept collapsing forward. Ramirez pushed himself to his knees and rushed a shot at the man in blue, missing, and fired again quickly, hitting him in the jaw. The man sat down stupidly next to his friend. He held his head in his hands and began to moan. He started to weep.

“Oh, it hurts,” he said brokenly, with blood spilling from his mouth.

Ramirez climbed to his feet and walked over and shot him in the back of the neck, pitching him forward.

“Jesus Mary,” said Roberto. “Who are they?”

“Evil men,” said Ramirez. But who were they?

“Run,” he said to Roberto, “go get the Madonna. Quickly, boy, before I bleed my life away.”

The boy dashed off to get one of the prostitutes who claimed to have been a nurse.

Ramirez sat down on a chair. He still had the pistol in his hand. He dropped it.

The room began to flutter before his eyes. He wanted a priest, he hurt so bad. He looked at the two women on the couch, who stared at him in horror and shock.

“Get out of here, whores!” he bellowed. “Whores may not watch a man die.” They scurried off.

He wished he’d lit a candle that morning. He wished he’d been to mass. He wished there was a priest.

Where was the Madonna?