The Zebra-Striped Hearse

10

THE CANTINA HAD several interconnected public rooms, and looked as though it had once been a private house. At eleven-thirty on this Tuesday night it had just about reverted to privacy. A single drinker, a big man with streaked yellow hair that hung down to his collar, sat in a corner behind the deserted bandstand. There was no one else in the place.

A number of small oil paintings hung on the walls. Their blobs and blocks and whorls and scatterations reminded me of the shapes that dissolve on the retina between sleeping and waking. I felt that I was getting closer to Burke Damis, and I moved from picture to picture looking for his style or his signature.

“Las pinturas, they are for sale, señor,” a mild voice said behind me.

It belonged to a Mexican youth in a waiter’s apron. He had a broken nose and a mouth that had been hurt both physically and morally. Intelligence burned like fever in his black eyes.

“Sorry, I don’t buy pictures.”

“Nobody buys them. No more. ‘Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”’ ”

“You read Poe?”

“In school, señor,” he said smiling. “ ‘My beautiful Annabel Lee,... in this kingdom by the sea.’ I studied to be a professor but my father lost his nets, I had to give it up. There is very little money, and work is not easy to find. Tourism is slow this summer.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Who understands the migration of the birds? I only know it is hard to make an honest living. I tried boxing, but it is not for me.” He touched his nose.

His story had come fast and slick, and I was expecting a touch. I liked him anyway. His battered face had an incandescence, as if the scattered lights of the dark town had gathered and were burning in him. “Something to drink, señor?”

“I guess a beer.”

“Dark or light?”

“Light.”

“Bueno, we have no dark. We have three bottles of light beer, one litro of tequila, and no ice. The beer is cold, however. I borrowed it.”

Smiling intensely, he went into a side room and came back with a bottle and a glass. He poured the contents of the one into the other.

“You pour beer well.”

“Yessir. Also I can make martinis, margueritas, any kind of drink. I work at parties sometimes, which is how I speak English so good. Please to tell your friends, when they need a first-class cantinero, José Perez of the Cantina is at your service.”

“I’m afraid I have no friends in these parts.”

“You are a tourist?”

“Sort of. I’m just passing through.”

“An artist, por ventura?” he said with an eye on Stacy’s sweater. “We used to have many artists here. My boss himself is an artist.” He glanced across the room to the solitary drinker in the corner.

“I’d like to talk to him.”

“I will tell him, señor.”

José darted across the room and said something in Spanish to the long-haired man. He picked up his drink and plodded toward me as if the room was hip-deep in water, or eye-deep in tequila. A woven belt with an amethyst-studded silver buckle divided his globular stomach into two hemispheres.

“Aha,” he said. “I spy with my little eye a customer and a fellow American.”

“Your eye is sound. My name is Archer, by the way.”

He stood over me tall and leaning, a Pisan tower of flesh.

“Why don’t you sit down?”

“Thank you.” He subsided into a chair. “I am Chauncey Reynolds, no kin to Sir Joshua Reynolds, though I do dabble in paint. I’ve always considered Sir Joshua a better critic than he was a painter. Or don’t you share my opinion?” He hunched forward with a touch of belligerence.

“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Reynolds. I’m not too hep artistically.”

“I thought you were, since you were looking at the paintings. No matter. It’s a pleasure to have a customer.”

“What happened to all the other customers?”

“Où sont les neiges d’antan? This place was jumping, honestly, when I took over the lease. I thought I had a gold mine on my hands.” He looked down into his pudgy hands as if he was surprised by their emptiness. “Then people stopped coming. If the drought of customers persists, I’ll close up and go back to work.” He seemed to be delivering an ultimatum to himself.

“You paint for a living?”

“I paint. Fortunately I have a small private income. Nobody paints for a living. You have to die before you make a living out of painting. Van Gogh, Modigliani, all the great ones had to die.”

“What about Picasso?”

“Picasso is the exception that proves the rule. I drink to Pablo Picasso.” He raised his glass and drank from it. “What do you do for a living, Mr. Archer?”

“I’m a detective.”

He set down his glass with a rap. His bloodshot eyes watched me distrustfully, like a wounded bull from his querencia. “Did Gladys send you to ferret me out? She isn’t supposed to know where I am.”

“I don’t know any Gladys.”

“Honestly?”

“And I never heard of you until now. Who’s Gladys?”

“My ex-wife. I divorced her in Juarez but the New York courts don’t recognize it. Which is why, my friend, I am here. Forever.” He made it sound like a long time.

“The one I’m interested in,” I said, “is a young man named Burke Damis.”

“What’s he wanted for?”

“He isn’t wanted.”

“Kid me not. I read a great deal of mystery fiction in the long night watches, and I recognize that look you have on your face. You have the look of a shamus who is about to put the arm on a grifter.”

“How well you express yourself. I take it you know Damis.”

“In a casual way. He used to pass the time here, mainly before I took over the leash – the lease.” He leaned forward over the table, and his long hair flopped like broken wings. “Why do you suppose they all stopped coming? Tell me – you’re a trained objective observer – do I have an offensive personality?”

“José tells me business is slow all over,” I said noncommittally. “It’s like the migrations of the birds.”

He looked around for José, who was leaning against the wall, and called for another drink. José replenished his glass from a bottle of tequila.

“Did you ever talk to Damis?”

“Not what you’d call intimately. He’s an attractive chap but I never got to know him. He was usually with other people. Do you know if he’s still in Ajijic?”

“No. Can you name some of the other people?”

“The one I saw him with most often was Bill Wilkinson.”

“How can I get in touch with Wilkinson?”

“You might find him at The Place. I hear he’s taking most of his business there since we had our little run-in.”

“Run-in?”

“Actually, it was Mrs. Wilkinson I had the run-in with. She’s one of those Southern California types who fancies herself as an art collector simply because she has money. I told her what she could do with her money, and Bill would be better off if he did the same. I’m not a woman hater–”

“Neither is Damis, I understand. Did you ever see him with women?”

“Almost invariably. He spent a lot of time with Annie Castle. That was before he took up with the blonde girl, what was her name?” He sat locked in combat with his memory.

“It doesn’t matter. Who is Annie Castle?”

“She runs an artsy-craftsy shop on the other side of the plaza. As a matter of fact, Damis has or had his studio on the same premises. No doubt propinquity did its deadly work. Annie’s a cute enough kid if you like them dark and serious. But he dropped her when the big little blonde showed up.”

“What do you mean, ‘big little’?”

“Quién sabe? Big girl, little ego, maybe. She hasn’t made the breakthrough, into womanhood, you know.” He refreshed his alcoholic insight from his glass. “Whenas she ever does, she could be quite a thing. Beauty isn’t in the features so much as in the spirit, in the eyes. That’s why it’s so hard to paint.”

“You’re quite an observer,” I encouraged him.

“I’m a people watcher, my friend. If you’re a detective, as you say, you must be something of a people watcher yourself.”

“I’m a walking field guide,” I said. “You seem to have paid pretty close attention to the blonde girl.”

“Oh, I did. What was her name? Miss Blackstone, I believe. Her mother introduced us some time ago. I haven’t seen her lately. I tend to take special notice of the tall ones, being rather outsize myself. Gladys is nearly six feet, mirabile dictu. She was once a burlesque queen on the Bowery, whence I rescued her and made a model of her, foolish man. With the consequence that I am here on my personal Bowery.” His eyes strayed around the empty rooms.

I got up. “Thanks for all the information. Can you tell me how to get to The Place?”

“I can, but look here, man, I’m enjoying this. Drink up your beer, and I’ll have José make you a proper drink. Where is José? José!”

“Don’t bother. I have to see Bill Wilkinson.”

He rose cumbrously. “Whatever you say. Do you feel like telling me what this is all about?”

“I could make up a story for you. But that would be a waste of time.” I got out my wallet. “How much do I owe you for the beer?”

“Nothing.” He fanned his arm in a lordly gesture which threatened to overbalance him. “You’re a stranger within my gates, I couldn’t possibly accept your money. Besides, I have a feeling you’re going to bring me luck.”

“I never have yet, Mr. Reynolds.”

He told me how to get to The Place and I set out through the midnight streets. The children had been swallowed up by the doorways. Some men and a very few women were still out. Wrapped in blankets, with faces shadowed by volcano-shaped hats, the men had a conspiratorial look. But when I said “Buenas noches” to one small group, a chorus of “Buenas noches” followed me.