Ask for Me Tomorrow

“I’d take every penny and lam out of there. Nasty, you say? Not a bit of it. I would have been doing both of us a favor, like putting a plug in a sink where a heap of money was going down the drain. Down the drain, that’s how it was. Before you could say ‘desalinization,’ things began going wrong. The boom started and the price of everything doubled, tripled, quadrupled. Supplies had to come by boat, and mostly they didn’t. Work crews had to be trucked in, and so did water. Maybe one arrived, maybe the other, maybe neither. And all the time the government was making up new rules about building on the coast. Boy, I wouldn’t go through that again for a million dollars.” He added wistfully, “Which is roughly what I expected to make.”

“That much.”

“I told you, I was drunk, crazy drunk, without touching a drop. Well, at least I didn’t lose much except time. B. J. lost everything, shirt, pants and shoelaces. Funny about that man. He must have been over fifty then, but I swear he was like a five-year-old kid believing in everything, Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy.”

“I don’t see you as a tooth fairy, Jenkins, though you’d be pretty good at extractions.”

Jenkins made a small sound like a mosquito’s laugh. “So I didn’t fit the role. Well, I never asked for it, either. I got sucked into somebody else’s dream. B. J. really believed in Jenlock Haciendas. In his mind’s eye the whole project was built and operating, the haciendas occupied, people playing on the golf course, swimming in the pool, sailing around the marina, even flushing their toilets. Sure, they sent both of us to jail for fraud, but with B. J. there actually was no fraud, just a big fat dumb dream... Well, that’s all over now and good riddance.” For the first time since he entered the room, Jenkins’ eyes brightened. “I’ve been thinking, if I could lay my hands on enough cash, I’d open up a fried chicken business here. Quality stuff only, both table and takeout service.”

“I don’t think you have the beard for it, Jenkins.”

“You may be missing out on a fortune. Mexicans are crazy about chicken and if we coated it with corn meal it would be sort of like a chicken tortilla. Roll that around on your tongue. Savor it. How does it taste?”

“It tastes like one of the residents of Jenlock Haciendas just tried to flush his toilet.”

“Hell, you probably don’t have the money, anyway. That’s a cheap suit you’re wearing.”

“J. C. Penney’s.”

“You got to think bigger than J. C. Penney’s, laddie. With a well-tailored suit you could make a pretty good appearance, sort of the ambitious but honest type.”

“Thanks. I’ll try it someday.”

“Nothing too extreme, remember. People distrust extremities. One of my own weaknesses was Hawaiian shirts. I should have known better. Who’s going to trust a man in a Hawaiian shirt with anything but a ukulele concession? Nobody. Not even B. J.”

“Would you like another beer?”

“I better be moseying along to the Domino Club or El Alegre. This is the best time of night for new contacts.”

“Suckers.”

Jenkins shrugged. “Same difference. I got to live, don’t I? And if the tourists didn’t have money to spare they wouldn’t be here, so it’s not like robbing orphans and widows... Oh hell, let the suckers wait. One more beer would be nice considering how we’re down to brass tacks, you and me. I don’t often get to the brass-tacks stage with people. I hope it doesn’t become a habit.”

“I don’t think you have to worry.”

The third beer increased Jenkins’ spirit of camaraderie. “Laddie me lad, what do you want to know? Name it. What’s mine is yours — for a small stipend, of course.”

“So you think B. J. died in jail.”

“He was a sick man, I told you. Cried a lot, couldn’t eat, shriveled up like a prune. The guards kept him pretty well doped so he’d be quiet and wouldn’t bother anyone.”

“Suppose he didn’t die but simply served his time and was released. Where would he be likely to go?”

“If he didn’t have a habit, back to Bahía de Ballenas, maybe. Only he had a habit, a big one. You can’t feed a habit by holing up in a little Mexican village. You got to get out and fight, hustle, beg, steal. Poor B. J. He was soft as a marshmallow; none of that would come natural to him.”

“Perhaps he had someone who’d do it for him.”

“You mean Tula?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Oh, she could do it, all right. She was hustling a couple of weeks after she hit town. But I doubt that a nickel of the money she picked up went to B. J. She was a taker, not a giver.”

“Why do you say was?”

“I don’t know whether she is or not. So to me she’s was until I find out for sure.”

“Can you find out?”

“Maybe. I never tried. Me and Tula weren’t real buddy-buddy. Know what she used to call me? Uncle Harry. Me, half a dozen years younger than her husband and still in the prime, so to speak.”

“What was her attitude toward B. J.?”