corrida,” at any time. If dinner is over, the meal is called “cena,” meaning “supper,” whatever time it is by the cathedral clock.
Dobbs, knowing he could pay for his meal, kept the Chinese running like the devil. Everything that was set before him he had changed for something else, exulting in feeling once more how pleasant it is to chase someone around without mercy.
Then he trudged again to the plaza, picking his teeth on the way, and rested on a bench until he felt hungry for coffee. He walked the streets for a good while without success, until a man in white finally gave him a silver coin, fifty centavos again.
“Geecries,” Dobbs said to himself, “I’m sure lucky with gents dressed in white.” He walked across the plaza to the side nearest the docks of the passenger liners and freighters. Here was a cafe without walls, doors, or windows, which were not needed since the cafe kept open twenty-four hours every day.
Dobbs ordered a glass of coffee—the greater part of it hot milk with coffee poured on the top of it—and two pieces of milk bread. He sweetened the coffee with a quarter of a pound of sugar. When the waiter put the ice- water on the table, Dobbs looked up at the price-list painted on the wall and yelled: “Haven’t you bandits raised the price for that stinking coffee five cents more?”
“Well,” said the waiter, chewing a toothpick, “runningexpenses are getting higher. We simply can’t do it any longer for fifteen fierros.”
Dobbs did not really object to the price. He just wanted to complain, as any patron who can pay feels he is entitled to do.
“Go to hell! I don’t buy any lottery tickets,” he bellowed at a little boy who for the last five minutes had been brandishing lottery tickets right under his nose.
The little merchant, barefooted and wearing a torn shirt and ragged cotton pants, did not mind; he was used to being yelled at. “It’s the Michoacan state lottery, senor,” he said; “sixty thousand pesos the main premium.”
“Scram, you bandit, I don’t buy tickets.” Dobbs soaked his bread in the coffee.
“The whole ticket is only ten pesos, senor, and it’s a sure shot.”
“Son of a poacher, I haven’t got ten pesos.”
“That’s all right by me, caballero,” the boy said. “Why don’t you buy only a quarter of a ticket, then? That’s two pesos fifty.”
Dobbs, swallowing his coffee in big gulps, had scalded his lips. This made him mad, and he roared: “To hell with you and stay there! If you don’t leave me to drink my coffee in peace, I’ll throw this whole glass of water right in your face.”
The boy did not move. He was a good salesman. He knew his patrons. Any man who could sit at the bar of a Spanish cafe at this time in the afternoon and drink a huge glass of coffee and eat two pieces of milk bread must have money. A man who has money always wants more and likes it to come easy. This man was the right customer for lottery tickets.
“Why don’t you take one tenth of the ticket, senor? I’ll sell the tenth to you for one peso silver.”
Dobbs took up the glass of water and threw the contents in the boy’s face. “Didn’t I tell you, you little rascal, I’d do it if you didn’t leave me in peace?”
The boy laughed, wiped the water off his face, and shook it off his ragged pants. The lottery makes men rich—always one in twenty thousand—but the boy knew from experience that it was safer to make a certain living by selling lottery tickets than to buy them and wait for the premium. He considered the free bath merely the first sign of opening business connections with Dobbs.
Dobbs paid for his coffee and received twenty centavos change. Catching sight of these twenty centavos, the boy said: “Senor, you ought to buy one twentieth of the Monterrey lottery. A twentieth costs you only twenty centavos. Main premium, five thousand pesos cash. There, take it. It’s a plumb sure winner—an excellent number. Add the figures up and you’ll get thirteen. What better number could you buy? It’s bound to win.”
Dobbs weighed the twenty-centavo piece in his hands. What should he do with it? More coffee? He didn’t want any more. Cigarettes? He didn’t want to smoke; he liked the taste of coffee on his tongue better just now, and smoke kills any fine taste. A lottery ticket, he thought, was money thrown away. Still, money comes, money goes. There was fun in waiting for the drawing. Hoping for something is always good for the soul. The drawing was only three days off.
“All right, you brown devil,” he said. “Give me that twentieth, so that I won’t have to look at your dirty face and your damned tickets any longer.”
The little merchant tore off the twentieth of the sheet and handed it to Dobbs. “It’s un numero excelente, senor. A sure winner it is.”
“If it is such a sure winner, why the hell don’t you play it yourself?” Dobbs asked suspiciously and jokingly at the same time.
“Me? No, sir,” said the boy. “I can’t afford to play the lottery. I haven’t got the money.” He took the silver piece, bit on it to see if it was good, and said: “Muchas gracias! A thousand thanks, sir. Come again next time. I always have the winners, all the lucky numbers. Buena suerte, good luck!” And off he hopped like a young rabbit, chasing another patron he had just glimpsed.
Dobbs put the ticket in his watch-pocket without looking at the number. Then he decided to go for a swim.
5
It was a long way to the open river. The river at this point was the meeting-place, so it seemed, of all the bums in port. When Dobbs arrived, the water was well crowded with a multitude of Mexicans, Indians, and whites who had reached the same social level as Dobbs. None of them wore bathing-suits. Farther up the river girls were in the water, also without bathing-suits of any sort, accompanied by boys to make the affair more lively.
On the high hills that formed the banks of the river to the east was the residential section of the port. Here, in beautiful modern bungalows, American style, the Americans, English, and Dutch who were employed by the oil companies lived with their families. The city was very low, only a few feet above sea-level, and suffocatingly hot, for it was seldom reached by the breeze coming in from the sea. The colonies of the well-to-do foreigners on these hills along the eastern river-banks had the cool seabreeze all afternoon and during the night. For tea and afternoon bridge-parties the most desirable bungalows were those nearest the edge of the hills, from which the river could be seen. Ladies coming to a tea-party in this vicinity brought their field-glasses along, for of course they could not go down to the river and join the bathing parties, much as they would have liked to do so. Through their field-glasses they watched the men and girls bathing without swimming-suits. It was so interesting that they never for a moment thought of playing bridge. It might have been just for this reason that this colony was called Colonia Buena Vista, which means “Beautiful View.”
In the tropics bathing is always a good thing. And Dobbs could save the twenty-five centavos a short shower in the Oso Negro cost—a shower which lasted only thirty seconds. For another thirty seconds another twenty-five centavos had to be paid, because water was expensive.
Here in the river bathing was not all pleasure. The riverbottom was muddy and infested with horseshoe crabs. Any foot which invaded their dwellings was badly treated by those giant crabs, and many a bather feared that he might go home one toe short.
At this point the river spread out deltalike and it was here the crab-fishers sat. Only the Indians and poorer Mexicans fish for crabs, because it calls for a godlike patience. The bait is meat; the more it stinks, the better bait it is. A piece of this meat is fastened on a fish-hook held by a long string and thrown in the water. The fisherman lets the bait sink down into the mud and rest for a few minutes. Then he begins to draw in the line as slowly as only an Indian can. It takes many minutes before he pulls it up on the low bank. The crab, or jaiba, as they call it, grasps the bait with its claws and, eager not to lose the welcome meal, holds on so that when the line is hauled in, the crab is pulled out of the river and caught. There is no way to tell whether a crab has grasped the bait or not. Often the line has to be pulled in twenty times before a crab is caught. Sometimes the crab outwits the fisherman and takes the bait without being hooked. Patient fishermen who work from sunrise to Sunset make a very fair living, for the restaurants pay rather good prices for this kind of crab, the meat of which is considered a delicacy.
Dobbs, looking out for any opportunity to make money, and watching these men fishing, yet knew that this
