Chapter 3
Her parting remark haunted me all night.
I slept fitfllly, awakening repeatedly to toss and roll and tangle myself in the sheets. I couldn't tell from the tone of her voice whether the remark was a slur on my masculine capabilities, or a plea for me to keep temptation from her.
On the one hand I never before had any complaints from women; on the other, she'd seemed just as eager as I. Unless she had a husband or lover somewhere in the background I could see no reason for her not to want to see me again. I was sure she left that motel room just as satisfied as I was.
Every time I awoke I looked at the watch lying on the nightstand beside my bed. The luminous hands seemed to creep through the night. Once I awakened three separate times in the space of one hour. The day dawned pink and cloudless and I forced myself to stay in bed until I knew the kitchen would be open. There was no point in wandering through the empty corridors of the hotel. Even if I couldn't sleep.
At eight thirty I rolled out of bed and stumbled into the shower. I felt light-headed from lack of rest and my body was drawn with fatigue. Room service promised to send up a pint of orange juice and a pot of coffee and I went into the shower. Somehow a shower always helps, at least for a little while. No matter how tired or hung over I am, a session under the running water always revitalizes me.
After I rinsed the soap off I stood under the hot water and silently cursed Millie Gention. In one ill-chosen phrase she had completely destroyed my night's rest. After the shower I spread shaving cream over my face and proceeded to slice off the top layer of my skin, taking the beard along with it. Just as I was washing off the residue of the lather I heard a knock at the door. "Come in," I called. "The door's open."-I grabbed a towel to dry my face as I heard the door open, then close.
"Put the coffee on the dresser and bring me a glass of the juice."
I heard the sound of feet moving across the carpeted floor and turned back to the mirror to comb my hair. The bathroom door was part open and in the mirror over the sink I saw it swing open wider. A hand bearing a glass of orange juice was followed into the bathroom by a body. Just before that body appeared in the mirror I remembered that this hotel used waitresses for room service. And there I was, naked as a newborn babe. Nakeder-I was a hell of lot more developed than an infant. And all my development was in plain sight.
"Wait a minute," I yelled.
It was too late. She already was in the room, staring at me with wide eyes and a mouth shaped like a perfect circle.
"Senor," she gasped, standing stupidly in shocked surprise, her hand stuck out in front of her with the glass of juice.
I had two courses of action open to me. I could screech like an outraged virgin and huddle with my hands covering myself from her gaze, or I could be completely nonchalant, as though I was used to pretty little Mexican girls surprising me naked in the bathroom.
If I took the first course of action I would appear foolish. There is something inherently undignified about a grown man huddled down with his hands over his loins. If I took the second course she might think me completely out of my mind, but I'd retain some dignity in the process.
I was as nonchalant as a naked man can be in the presence of a fully-clothed and very pretty girl. I turned towards her and smiled. Good morning," I said, taking the glass from her hand.
She was too surprised to even move. Her mouth was still pursed in that surprised "O" and her eyes bulged. I drank about half the glass in one long swallow and turned back to finish with the comb and brush. I could see her reflection in the mirror and noticed after a couple of seconds her face relaxed and a tiny grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes ran down my body and then back up again, and strangely I felt myself becoming excited.
I stalled with my back to her as long as I could, waiting for her to go into the other room. I suppose I could have draped a towel around my hips, but by then I was committed to nonchalance. Below my waist I knew my body was awakening to the first stirrings of my excitement and I didn't want to turn around in that condition. But she left me no choice. After a few seconds of stalling I knew she wasn't going to leave that bathroom.
She asked for ft.
I turned and her eyes nicked to my loins. The grin tugged harder at her lips. She didn't move as I stalked past her into the bedroom and her breasts in their starched blouse brushed across my arm. She followed me. I signed the check and handed it to her, and still she made no move to leave.
Of course, she was waiting for a tip. Desperately I looked around for my trousers, and finding them dug out a dollar bill. Now she no longer looked at my body, her eyes found and tried to hold mine. The expression on her face could only be described as avid, there were signs of definite interest in her eyes.
I suppose I was getting used to being naked in her presence. Eitiier that or my excitement was beginning to affect my thinking. Either way, when I handed her the dollar and watched her open the top two buttons of her blouse to tuck the dollar bill between her breasts I became interested.
She left the buttons open after putting the money into her personal version of the First National Bank and shifted her hips to a jaunty angle. I kept looking away, but her eyes drew me like magnets. They were big-overly large for her small face-and brown and deep and soft. I imagined I could see a flicker of flames in those orbs. Her desire to smile finally won out, and her lips split back over her white teeth. The pink tip of her tongue peeped at me from behind her teeth.
She was waiting for me to say something and my mind was a complete blank.
"Are you the same girl who brought me the ice yesterday afternoon?" I asked finally.
"Si." Her voice was soft and throaty. And still she stared, smiling and waiting.
"You must work a long day if you begin so early in the morning."
The absolute idiocy of that statement coming from a naked man in a room alone with a waitress will give you an idea of how far off balance she had me.
"What's your name?"
"Consuelo. Consuelo Cerezo." Even when she talked she smiled. And that smile was beginning to take on a hungry air.
"Well, Consuelo, that will be all for now," I said, turning to pick up a fresh pair of undershorts.
"Oh?" She said, a little disappointed. "You are sure that is all you require?"
Now I had the upper hand and I was beginning to feel more sure of myself. I was so much more at ease that I even postponed putting on my shorts. I stood with them dangling from my hand, facing her, my body exposed to her now-hungry eyes.
"Yes," I said. "At nine o'clock in the morning I'm sure that's all I require."
That damned smile of hers finally faded. She picked up the check and moved to the door.
"If I want something else some other time, say-this afternoon, how do I find you?"
The grin returned. "Ask for me by name when you call for service," she told me. Then she was gone.
I felt like a new man. Consuelo's evident interest in me as a male had restored my faith in myself. My ego was whole again and I whistled tunelessly as I dressed. The small coffee pot held a little over three cups of coffee and I finished them all before I slipped into my jacket and left the room.
The first desk clerk, as efficient and officious as ever, was back when I turned in my key. He gave me the full expensive-guest treatment, a "Good morning" and a smileless grin.
After a short wait my car was brought around and I headed out into the fresh dry warm morning air. Downtown El Paso was a snarl of traffic as the stores and shops opened for the day's business, and I got a kick out of snaking the Healey through impossibly small spaces. When I got across the border into Juarez I found the town still asleep. The streets were almost empty, just a few industrious shopkeepers were busy sweeping the sidewalks in front of their establishments. The only real business in Juarez at this hour took place in the innumerable bars which stood with their doors wide open like hungry mouths to the morning sun.
I drove past people hurrying down the side-streets, hands shaking and legs unsteady, seeking that first drink, the one that's supposed to cure your hangover. I always wondered where that silly notion came from. How in the world can more of the same stuff which made you sick make you well again? The only time I ever tried it as a cure the odor of the liquor made me so violently ill I threw up for almost two hours. And then I was so weak I had to stay in bed for the rest of the afternoon.
A couple pf blocks further on I got out of the tourist section and into the residential-business section. Here the people were wide awake and the shops open. Here business went on as it did everywhere else in the world. The shopkeepers, not having to depend on late sleeping tourists for their income, were up and functioning at the regular hour.
I found the City Hall and the office buildings surrounding it, slid the Healey into a parking space. In the breast pocket of my suit was a slip of paper with the name of a Mexican lawyer. I checked the address against the numerals on the face of the building and went inside.
There was no elevator so I had to climb the stairs. By the time I got to the third floor landing I was puffing. Hauling a body the size of mine up three flights of stairs is no easy task. The corridor was cool and dim and from behind the closed doors I could hear the sounds of busy activity.
Every second door I passed bore the double inscription: ATTORNEY-DIVORCES. If I didn't already have the name of a divorce lawyer, it would have been easy to find one.
My lawyer's office was at the far end of the corridor. His door had pebbled glass inserts instead of just plain panels of brown wood. This status symbol probably meant his fees were higher than those of his fellow lawyers. I opened the door and found myself in a small ante room. A couple of leather chairs sagged against the wall and a low wooden railing split the small room in half. Behind the railing was an empty desk, and behind the desk a closed door.
"Hello," I called loudly. "Anybody home?"
From behind the closed door came the scuffling of feet, and a moment later a tall blonde appeared tucking her blouse into her skirt as she came. The Mexican lawyer and his American secretary obviously engaging in indoor sports while they awaited their first sucker of the day.
I guess I was the first sucker.
"Yes sir," she said coolly. I guess she was angry that I had interrupted her fun. What a hell of a way to take a coffee break.
"I'd like to see Mr. Soto."
"What is the nature of your business?" She asked efficiently.
My business was none of her business.
"It's personal. I'll discuss it with Mr. Soto."
"Mr. Soto never sees anyone without knowing the nature of the service they will require," she said. The nosy bitch wasn't going to give up.
Neither was I. "In that case I'm sure I can find another attorney to handle my problem."
She let me get as far as the door.
"If you'll wait just a moment, sir, I'll ask if Mr. Soto can see you immediately."
I turned and smiled at her, and she disapeared into the other room. She came back a moment later, held open the gate in the railing for me. "Right this way, sir.
I guess I expected to see a greasy, fat little man with his hair pasted flat against his skull when I walked through the door. Instead I saw a tall thin hawk-faced man moving around the desk toward me. He was smiling, holding his hand out to me.
We shook hands. He motioned me to a seat and closed the door. Then he moved back around the desk and sat down.
"Now sir," he said in perfect English. "What can I do for you?"
"My name is Bell," I told him. "Herbert Bell. I want to make the necessary arrangements for a divorce."
"I see," he said, and reached for a printed form from a pile on the corner of his desk. Under his perfect English I could detect the lilt of a Spanish background and I wondered at his Anglo-Saxon appearance. He had a Spanish name and looked like English nobility. If you're puzzled about something the only way to find the answer is to ask a question. I asked, "Are you Spanish?"
He smiled. "I see you're puzzled by my appearance. Yes, I am not a Mexican. I was born in Madrid of Castilian ancestry. It is a popular, though erroneous, North American belief that because Mexicans tend to be small and swarthy, all Spanish-speaking people are small and swarthy."
He said it like he knew it by heart, as though he had to repeat it for every lame-brained divorce-seeking American who came into his office. I felt like a penny looking for change.
"I'm sorry," I said. "It was a stupid question."
He softened at my apology and the smile returned to his face.
"It is unusual for the husband to seek a Mexican divorce," he said. "In most instances all we see are aggrieved wives."
"I'm not what you could call aggrieved. Not in any sense of the word. My wife and I feel it best to part company. And since she is the one who made the request I felt that I should get the divorce. It's an amicable enough parting. There is no financial settlement."
He nodded in agreement. "It is the only civilized way."
We talked a few minutes more and he skillfully extracted all the pertinent information from me without seeming to pry. As we talked he made notations on the printed form in front of him and after about ten minutes the preliminaries were concluded.
We shook hands and he escorted me to the door. "If you're in a rush," he said as we stood in his office door. "I can arrange everything before lunch."
"Not at all," I told him. "I'm combining this trip with a vacation.
"Good. Then if you return at two o'clock this after-non we can complete the formalities."
I was amazed to realize when I walked out of his office at a few minutes after ten that I was as good as divorced. A stray thought popped into my mind and I wondered if Juney and the Greek were waiting for the divorce decree before hopping into the sack. Then I realized they'd probably enjoyed each other many times on my frequent business trips. How else could they have decided they were in love? For a minute I was angry. The outrage of the cuckold flashed through me. But it only lasted a moment. If Juney didn't love me than I was better off without her.
Daytime in a tourist town is a hell of a place to kill a few hours. And in a tourist town like Juarez it's even worse than hell. The main attraction in this border town is sexual titillation. The tourist can see strip shows which are more revealed than those in any city in the United States. He can buy pornography. He can purchase fifteen sweaty minutes in the dank arms of an unwashed prostitute. But all these things are available at night, after dark. Even whores and strippers have to sleep. And since their busiest hours are between midnight and dawn, they sleep from morning to evening.
Of course for a price anything is available. But if I wanted a woman there were easier, cleaner ways than rolling with a sleepy-mouthed slut. I had four hours to kill and no plans. I could shop for souvenirs. I knew from my previous trip that the shops were full of genuine Mexican artifacts made in Japan. It was strange, if it had been twenty years ago and I was a young kid with five bucks in my pocket, I couldn't resist spending that five dollars as soon as possible. Well, I had considerably more than five dollars and it was twenty years too late. There was nothing in the shops I wanted.
So I hopped into the Healey and drove back across the border to the hotel. Before I was halfway there the hot southwest sun had made its presence felt. Once over the bridge and through the customs inspection I pulled the car to the curb and took off my jacket and tie. With my shirt collar open I felt a little cooler. As I completed the drive I was sorry I hadn't taken my sunglasses with me that morning. El Paso is some four thousand feet above sea level. Add to that the fact that the area is notoriously lacking in humidity. Multiply all this by a warm, almost semi-tropical climate and you arrive at the inevitable conclusion that it gets pretty damned hot when the sun shines. Needless to say, the sun almost always shines.
So I had a legitimate right to perspiration.
I entrusted the Healey to the hot-rod happy hands of the parking-lot jockey and winced as he roared away from the hotel entrance. Up in my room I found a pair of swimming trunks in the bottom of my suitcase and headed for the pool.
The pool was empty. Its unroiled water, clear and cool looking, invited the invasion of my body while the lifeguard dozed in the shade of a large umbrella. I dropped my towel and cigarettes on one of the lounge chairs and went to the diving boards. I had my choice of three boards. The one meter board was too low to really experience the thrill of hurtling through the air, and the three meter board was a hell of a long way from the water It was too far to fall. T chose the tvsr meter board and climbed the six steps of the steei ladder.
The boards, obviously had been chosen for durability and not for excellence. They were good enough for once-a-year swimmers and divers, but a really good diver wouldn't dare to risk his exhibitionist skill on one of them. They were made of metal and their top surfaces were covered with a fibre glass film filled with a mixture of pebbles and ground glass. The purpose of the film and ground glass was to limit the slippeyness of the board. I prefer the old system of burlap matting. The hairy burlap gives much better footing than ground glass and pebbles. Besides, it sounds dangerous to walk on ground glass.
I walked out to the edge of the board and tested the spring. It was much too soft for any attempt at something fancy like a double somersault with full twist. I couldn't do a double somersault with full twist anyway. The best I'd ever been able to manage was a half-twisting one-and-a-half somersault.
I took a few tentative hops on the end of the spring board and then let it bear the full brunt of my weight. I came down hard and felt it thrust me high into the air. When the board was relieved temporarily, I hoped, of my weight it vibrated against its metal support structure.
"Craaang," it went, the sound bouncing hollowly off the stone wall of the pump-house nearby.
The lifeguard came awake in a rush and almost fell off his chair. He looked wildly around for an instant until his eyes found me, then he settled back in his chair. I saw all this while I was still in the air hurtling back to the lip of the spring board. I came down on the board again, thank heaven, and flexed my knees to absorb the protesting thrust of the board. Now that I had an idea of what the board would do with my body when I pounced on it, I was ready to get my feet wet.
I paced off four long steps from the edge of the board and turned to face the water again. The lifeguard, evidently satisfied that I knew what I was doing, had dozed off again. I shuddered to think what would happen if I couldn't swim. But I could swim and I let him sleep. If he was anything like lifeguards at other hotels, he'd had a busy night servicing some of the female guests, the ones who wanted to learn to swim but insisted that their first lesson be given on the relatively safe springboard of the hotel's excellent mattresses.
I judged the distance to the end of the board and set myself. My feet took three quick steps and one long hop, I hit the end of the board with all the force I could muster. The end of the springboard dipped dangerously close to the surface of the water and then whipped back upwards carrying me along with it. When it reached the top of its arc it launched me savagely into the air.
I went up and out, and as I flew I threw my head back and my arms out to my sides. My back was arched, thrusting my chest forward, and from the hips to the tips of my toes were one rigid straight line.
My body reached the apogee of its arc and then turned down towards the water. I could see the clear flat surface rushing towards me. Just before my body struck I whipped my arms over my hand, clasped my two hands together, and tucked my head down between my arms. My body cleaved the water in one long straight line and made only a very small splash.
I opened my eyes under the water and felt the sting of the chlorine. My arms whiped from over my head back to my sides and my legs scissored my body through the water. I swam under water all the way to the ladder and hauled myself, puffing and panting out onto the warm cement. As I came out of the water I heard the sound of two hands clapping. Someone was applauding and having a normal ego I naturally assumed he, she or it was appauding me. I looked around.
She was standing at the far end of the pool, down where the water is shallow enough for the six-year-olds. But she sure as hell wasn't a six-year-old, I remembered that much from the feel of her breasts punching into my chest when I bumped into her coming out of the elevator. She was wearing a Chinese coolie hat, sun glasses and a terry-cloth jacket that came just to the top of her thighs. From where I was standing that looked like all she was wearing.
I grinned at her and walked toward where she was dumping herself into a lounge chair. She returned my grin.
"Hi," I said.
"Hi, yourself. For a man who promised to buy me a drink you sure aren't wasting any effort trying to find me."
"I've been busy," I explained.
"If you've had enough aquatic sport for a while, sit down," she said.
She picked her legs up and stretched them before her while her hands opened the buttons of her shorty robe. The front halves of the thing peeled back to show me the biggest breasts in the least amount of material I've ever seen. Yes, it was a bikini, but on her it was a hell of a lot less bikini than any I'd ever seen a woman wear. The top was about as wide as a belt, and it covered even less skin. Both the upper curves and under swells were completely bare and beautifully tanned, the belt-sized top covered only the tips of her nipples. I liked the way those breasts thrust straight out from her body even with no support. With breasts that size she must have tremendous muscles to hold them up.
From the naked undercurves of her breasts all the way to the apex of her thighs she was all bare honey-colored flesh. The bottom half of her suit was so low on her belly a flea would need a passport to get from there up to her navel. The bottom of the suit was a triangle of cloth about five inches wide at its invested base, and it tapered to nothing as it disappeared between her thighs. It seemed to be held on by a thin string which ran around her body, biting deep into the soft flesh of her hips.
Her voice broke into my thoughts. "Oh yeah, I forgot you were a looker, always using your eyes."
I grinned. "And you're still a shower, always leaving it around where people can stare at it."
"That's my business." She said it with a laugh in her voice.
"When it's around where I can see it, it becomes my business too," I told her.
"Silly, that's not what I meant. I meant I get paid to let people look at me."
"Let me guess," I said, feeling sure I knew her occupation. 'Model?"
She shook her head. "In show business then?" This time I got a nod. 'Stripper?"
"I have been, but not right now. Now it's just plain dancer-in the back row of the chorus line."
"If they put you in the back row I'd love to meet a front-row girl. On second though, I think I'd be afraid to meet a front row girl."
This time her laugh was loud and long. It rang clearly through the air and was a pleasure to listen to.
"They put me in the back row because I bounce too much when I dance," she said, indicating the offensive portion of her anatomy with a sweep of her hand. It was a long sweep to take in all of her proportions. I could see that she might conceivably have more bounce to the ounce, and there were a hell of a lot of ounces.
"I think it's a shame they hide you in the back row. Such abundance should be right out in front where everybody can have the pleasure of seeing it."
"Yeah," she said sarcastically. "The producers are square."
"Well, now that I've found you again, how about that drink I promised?"
"Uh uh," she said and my hopes fell. "They only serve beer and that makes me fat."
I envisioned all those lovely curves destroyed by rolls of hanging flab and I winced. "I certainly wouldn't want you to get fat. But I do have a bottle of very fine bourbon up in my room. If you really want a drink we can always go up there and get one, or more than one."
She laughed again and it still sounded good. "You sure don't waste any time, do you? I'll bet if I went up to your room right now I'd be fighting you off inside of three minutes."
"Who me? I'm as harmless as a sixty-five-year-old on social security."
"I know all about sixty-five-year-olds. I see enough of them hanging around the dressing-room backstage. Besides, who said they're so harmless? My grandfather had a paternity suit against him when he was over sixty."
"Was he convicted?"
"Damned right he was. He was so proud that he confessed to the whole thing. I always wondered if he was just grabbing credit or if he really was the father of that baby."
"Maybe it was just a family myth."
"Couldn't be," she said, shaking her head. "I was around at the time. The kids in my high-school class kidded me about it for over a year after it hit the papers."
"Let me see," I said, "High-school, that must have been last year." I knew it was an awkward compliment as soon as the words left my mouth.
She accepted it graciously. "You're close. It was the year before." The way she said it I knew that wasn't true either.
"Since we're such good friends already I might as well know your name. Mine's Herb Bell."
"Mine is Laurie Yost."
"That must be your stage name. What's your real name?"
"Everybody thinks the same thing. Just because I'm in show business I must have changed my name. That is my real name." There was a slight edge to her voice.
"Well, Laurie, if I can't buy you a drink then how about a quick dip in the pool."
"Can't do it," she said. "I wish I could, but I've got a show to do tonight and I can't get my hair wet."
"Don't you ever have fun?"
"Only on my day off."
"Ah, now we're getting down to basic information. When is your day off, and how about spending it with me?"
"I'm off the day after tomorrow, and it all depends on how you want to spend the day. I still don't want to go to your room for a drink."
"I'm easy to convince. What do you like to do?"
She grinned again, and this time I could see we were going to be very close friends some day, close enough maybe for her to come up to my room for that drink. "What I like to do," she said, "I don't like to do with men I don't really know."
"If that's all that's stopping you, what do you want to know about me? Go ahead, ask me anything you like."
"I only have one question right now. The rest will come later."
"Go ahead."
"Are you married?"
"What time is it?" I asked. "Almost noon."
"I am married. But in a little more than two hours I won't be married."
"Oh, I get it. The Juarez scene."
"I don't know how much of a scene it will be, but that's the general idea."
"I have a policy," she said, "never to talk to married men. Anyway right now I want to get a little sun. Come back when you are a free man."
"Tonight I'm coming to the show. What time are you free?"
"I'm never free. The show is over at two a.m. But I've got a date for tonight. You'll just have to wait til) the day after tomorrow."
She closed here eyes and tilted her face back to the sun. The large brim of her coolie hat shaded only her forehead and eyes. It was obvious that our conversation was at an end.
I stood up and walked to edge of the pool. When I hit the water I made as much splash as I could, hoping that some of it hit her. Four fast laps winded me completely and I decided it was time for lunch. With only coffee and juice for breakfast I was good and hungry.
My stomach rumbled all through my shower and downstairs again I hesitated between the coffee shop and the dining room. I decided on the dining room. The napkins were cloth instead of paper and the tablecloth was sparkling white. A waitress appeared the minute I sat down and I ordered the chopped steak luncheon, with a double order of french-fried potatoes instead of a vegetable. In the dining room I couldn't get beer with my meal, so I settled for a tall glass of iced tea.
I ate slowly, enjoying every mouthful, and when I finished it was time to head back to Juarez.