Ask for Me Tomorrow

He went back to his car. Through the open door of the mission he could hear the padre snoring. He took the remaining bottles of beer inside and left them on the table. The Blessed Virgin gave him one fierce final stare.

He reached Rio Seco about one o’clock in the morning and checked into a hotel. It was too late to phone Gilly. Besides, he had very little to tell her and nothing she’d like to hear: B. J. and his partner, Jenkins, had been taken to jail; the boy, Pablo, was not only crippled but retarded; and in the middle of a couple of billion cubic feet of sand was a tombstone with her name carved on it.

He went to bed.

Eight

The jail was in the center of Rio Seco as if it had been the first structure and the rest of the city had been built around it. It was shaped like a roundhouse and circled by stone walls twenty-five or thirty feet high which gave it its name: the stone quarry. LA CANTERA, PENITENCIARIA DEL ESTADO was carved above the main entrance where Aragon stood with the other people waiting to be admitted.

In spite of the earliness of the hour, traffic was heavy and the crowd outside the jail was large — a few men of varying ages, but mostly women carrying babies and straw bags and packages wrapped in newspaper, and a handful of prostitutes in miniskirts and maxiwigs. Children played in the street, oblivious to the honking of horns and squealing of tires, or ran up the stone steps and slid down the iron banisters. Apart from the crowd an older American couple, neatly dressed and quiet, stood with their arms locked as if they were holding each other up.

One of the three guards on duty, a young man wearing a cowboy hat and oversized boots that looked like hand-me-downs from a bigger brother, fielded questions: “Ten more minutes, I don’t make the rules, señora... Carlos Gonzalez got out last week... Café opens at nine... You can go home, girls, it’s too early. Give the boys a chance to wash up... If Gonzalez left a message, I don’t know about it... Anyone want a shouter? Ten cents for a shouter, fifteen cents for a first-class shouter.”

The American man held up his hand. “Yes. Please.”

“How much?”

“Fifteen cents.”

“Name?”

“Sandra Boyd.”

“Sandra Boyd. Okay, anyone else?... Ten cents for Cecilio Martinez... Five cents for Manuel Ysidro. That’s a whisper, maybe you don’t want him to hear... Ten for Fernando Escobar... Ten, Inocente Santana. We got a lot of Inocentes in this place. Not a guilty in sight, ha ha... Carlos Gonzalez. You’re wasting your money, señora. I told you, he’s gone. Okay, ten for Gonzalez.”

“Lockwood,” Aragon said. “B. J. Lockwood and Harry Jenkins.”

“That’s two names.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t have one shouter for two names. You must have one shouter for each name.”

“All right, thirty cents.”

At eight thirty the gates of the Quarry opened and the crowd surged inside. No attempt was made to question or search anyone or to examine packages. It would have been impossible under the circumstances. The pushing and shoving and screaming reminded Aragon of doorbuster sales at some of the stores back home.

Within the walls, similar high-pressure merchandising was taking place. The prison peddlers began hawking their wares: pottery, leatherwork, novelties, food and drink, children’s toys. A trio of mariachis singing “Guadalajara, Guadalajara,” gave a fiesta atmosphere to the scene.

The mariachis picked Aragon as their first mark of the morning.

“You want to hear a special song, señor?”

“No thanks.”

“We sing anything you say.”

“Not right now.”

“We know a hundred songs.”

Aragon paid twenty-five cents not to hear any of them.

The cellblocks were built in a circle around a huge recreation yard, where a soccer game was in progress. While he waited in line at the iron-grilled information window, he watched the soccer game. Both sides were dressed alike, so it was difficult to follow. But it was a very lively spectacle, since there were no referees.

Guadalajara, Guadalajara.

You buy a taco, señor? An empanada?

Real, hand-tooled leather purses and belts at prices so low it is a crime.

Balloons, dolls, madonnas, bracelets, cigarettes.

A fight broke out between two men peddling identical calfskin wallets. Compared to the soccer game, it was dull and half-hearted and attracted little attention. Obviously the inmates had more interest in soccer than in fistfights that consisted mainly of loud words and soft blows.

The shouters were already at work:

“Oswaldo Fernandez, hey, Oswaldo Fernandez, hey, Fernandez.”

“Cruz Rivera, ay ay Cruz, ay ay Rivera, ay ay ay ay Cruz Rivera.”

“B. J. Lockwood... Lock — wood.”