Ask for Me Tomorrow

“Nowhere,” he said. “I’ll be going back to Santa Felicia either tomorrow or Friday. The Dragon Lady has asked me to check the American consulate here for any record of her ex-husband. After that I’ll head for home and forget all about Jenkins and bridges and B. J. and Tula, the whole enchilada.”

“No, you won’t.”

“How do you know I won’t?”

“You’ve always liked enchiladas.”

“I can take them or leave them.”

“You’d better leave this one,” she said. “I mean that seriously, Tom. You should be in court handling a complicated tax case or somebody’s nice messy divorce.”

“This is somebody’s messy divorce, or was at the beginning. Now it’s something even messier, something weird, crazy. I’m getting bad vibes.”

“I speak as a doctor — there’s nothing you can do for bad vibes except walk away from their source. So start walking.”

“Tomorrow. Friday at the latest. May I ask you one more question?”

“You will, anyway.”

“Is LSD readily accessible?”

“Here in San Francisco you can practically buy it over the counter if you go to the right counter. In Mexico, the whole drug situation is pretty murky. Officially, narcotics and hallucinogens are illegal. Yet it’s well known that mescal buttons and high-grade marijuana are widely grown. Less well known is the fact that opium poppies are cultivated just as successfully as they are in Turkey. The heroin extracted from them is not white like the stuff grown in Turkey. It’s a peculiar color, that’s why they call it Mexican Brown. It’s equally strong, and a hundred times more dangerous because it’s so much easier to smuggle into the country. There are nearly two thousand miles of border, most of it unguarded... But I haven’t really answered your question. Maybe I was just postponing admitting that I don’t know how accessible LSD is in Rio Seco. My guess is, not very. It’s a product of labs, not fields. An American like Jenkins would be more likely than a Mexican to know about it and buy it.”

“Good.”

“Why good?”

“It fits in with what I’ve thought since the beginning, that the man with Jenkins at the Domino Club was an American and the bartender’s description of him was phony. I’d better go and pay another call on Mitchell. He plays bartender, but I’m pretty sure he’s part owner of the club.”

“It’s terribly late. And if Mitchell lied before, why shouldn’t he lie again? You can’t choke the truth out of him.”

“He was bribed. I’ll rebribe him.”

“Tom, I hate the idea of your mingling with people like that in a place like that.”

“I grew up in a barrio with people like that. I didn’t even know there were any other kinds until I reached high school.”

“Don’t give me any of that macho bull.”

“Okay, cut out the maternal bit. Bargain?”

“Some bargain,” she said. “You do what you want and I’m too far away to stop you.”

“How would you stop me, fair means or foul?”

“Diseases aren’t the only things you learn about in med school. Definitely foul.”

“I’ll take you up on that some time.”

“Tom, listen—”

“Stop worrying about me. I haven’t been in a fight for ten years. Or five, anyway. I promise to be sensible, cautious, alert, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

“It would have been more reassuring without all those et ceteras,” she said coolly. “And if you bring up that barrio stuff once again, I’ll scream.”

“You can’t. You’ll scare your patients.”

“There aren’t any patients in here. Just a couple of interns so tired they wouldn’t wake up if a bomb exploded.”

“Anyway, thanks for the information about drugs. I truly appreciate it.”

“How truly?”

“I’ll bring you a present, a great big sombrero to hide all those brains of yours. Us macho men like dumb dames.”

“Go back to your enchilada. I hope you get heartburn.”

“I love you, too.”

It was one o’clock, the peak of the evening in the Domino Club district. Before going inside, Aragon stopped to talk to the hustlers waiting across the street. There were about half a dozen left by this time. Most of them merely looked blank when Aragon mentioned the name. Tula Lopez. Only one, a girl about seventeen, said she used to know a Tula years ago when she first went into the racket. The Tula she knew must be very old by now, maybe twenty-five, and surely Aragon wouldn’t be interested in such a hag.

“I just want to talk to her about a family matter. Can you put out the word?”

“How much word?”

“Twenty dollars. My name is Aragon and I’m staying at the Hotel Castillo.”

“Sure, okay.”

“What’s your name?”

“Blondie.”

“Blondie?”

The girl had jet-black hair reaching to her waist. “Why do you look funny? Don’t you like that name?”

“I like it fine.”

“So do all the other men. They laugh, it makes them feel good, I don’t know why. But they give me more money when they laugh and feel good. How about you?”

“We agreed on a price.”

When she opened her purse to deposit the twenty-dollar bill Aragon gave her, he saw the gleam of a knife. Blondie wasn’t taking any chances on a customer getting away without paying.

He went inside the club. Mitchell saw him coming. He wasn’t happy about it: “I thought you left town.”