V

Dinner at Eight

At least Baldo has the sense to shag the mop bucket back to his outpost and then use it, however senselessly, to mop the feathers and blood from the sea-wall steps. He could just as easily fill the bucket and pour it over the mess, but he mops, dragging the damp head through the sand and pebbles like a fool, but a wise fool who knows the value of an explanation, even if it makes no sense.

The dead bird is gone. Antonio sees this as Baldo sees him shuffling near in a rare display of fatigue and perhaps early senility, talking to himself. Baldo nods up to the surf, indicating burial at sea for the late bird. The wounded bird rests quietly in a makeshift nest with his feathers carefully straightened over the makeshift dressing that binds the distorted wing. Baldo has torn strips from his own T-shirt. Beside the bird is an oyster shell filled with water, in case of thirst, and a small piece of fish, in case of hunger. The turtle nursery is buffed and organized like a well-oiled machine. Antonio reels briefly on the logistics of matching stories, on the need for parallel details that will cohere precisely to cover the last thirty or sixty minutes. It would be one thing if he and Baldo could engage in rational dialogue to compose a narrative with no holes, to troubleshoot, modify, and polish the finished version as necessary. But this is quite another thing. At least the situation lends some value to a mentally disturbed brother who is mute. Perhaps what has transpired tonight can be buried in obfuscation, just as the corpse was buried at sea.

He sits beside Baldo and sighs. Baldo nods and parrots his sigh. Baldo smiles and shrugs, relieved, it seems, with justice dispensed. Or maybe relief derives from cleaning up the beach. Or maybe Baldo is happy because his babies are resting peaceably again. Antonio shakes his head, leans close, and says, “We sat here since happy hour. We did not walk on the beach. No, no. Forget I just said that. We walked on the beach. The other way. We saw nothing. Nothing.” Baldo sits up straight, curls his lips back, sets his tongue behind his teeth, and mouths Nada.

Well, for all Antonio or anyone knows, Baldo is as mentally undisturbed as a man or boy could hope to be. He beheaded another man as casually as hacking a coconut; this is true, but this other man was engaged in multiple commission of the same crime.

¿Que? ¡Ay, cabrone! Imaginary voices from the upper level heckle and jeer. You compare a man’s life to that of a fish?

Antonio’s eyebrows rise like flotsam as he weaves through the breakers with a smooth response: Yes, well, it was two fish, actually, Your Honor. And who knows how many fish before we got there? He grimaces at this glib flirtation with the firing squad and follows a falling star with a wish: How I wish I had another beer. He muses over what is worse, one beer or no beer at all. And as if the evening were made for dreams come true, good dreams and bad dreams, Baldo reaches into the shadow at the base of the wall by the steps between the beach and the pool and pulls out a beer. He hands it over to Antonio, who cannot accept without first knowing where this beer came from and how it was purchased. Baldo smiles and shrugs and flops his arms in a silly reenactment of prepping his pants for washing, which begins, of course, with emptying the pockets. That is, the fisherman had enough for three beers with a peso left over.

“Where is the clothing?”

Easy, it’s in a pillowcase just here, ready for delivery anywhere you might like.

Antonio nods and wonders. He drinks when Baldo urges him to drink. Baldo waits with another beer, because one is enough for him, and besides, he got the third one for Antonio. The third beer slows things down and smoothes them out, and Antonio eases into the easy sense a few beers can make.

I will be late for dinner because I was on the beach, Your Honor, having a few beers with my brother Baldo. Baldo is unusual, Your Honor, a boy of rare skill and potential who applies himself with diligence. We spend this time together to enhance his further development.

Antonio nods, sustaining himself, and stands, telling Baldo he will return later with something to eat. Baldo shrugs and rises as well, to step forward and lean over and look in on his chicas. He makes sure they are resting well and that none are having bad dreams after the evening’s rude intrusion. Antonio takes the pillowcase full of the fisherman’s clothing and steps up to the pool deck. He looks back to see Baldo adjusting the injured bird.

He stops in the lobby tienda for three more beers. No, make it two, which will make five altogether. No, make it three, in case Lyria wants one, or two; no, make it four. Four beers, please.

He knows that any man must be crazy to pay three times the price here in the lobby, but he feels crazy. He has the money. He is on the rise, and the beer is here. And this pounding chaos in his head could absorb all the beer in the cooler.

He is surprised and gratified when Juanita the clerk rings in a fifty percent discount and dourly informs him that he is an employee and therefore entitled. Antonio loves entitlement but is none too certain that employee classification fully recognizes, much less captures, his essence.

Think of it: an employee might need to restock a cooler, but he is responsible for the basic happiness of the hotel’s most precious commodity, its guests. Two hundred people look this way every day for fun. You call that an employee?

Never mind. He pops a beer for the walk out front to the bus stop and laughs when his arrival at the curb is timed perfectly with the bus. He doesn’t break his stride but steps right on board and smiles like a happy man. He welcomes the view of a full bus, because these people saw me, Your Honor, heading home after a few beers.

Besides, it’s good to stand up on the ride home on a night like this, because too much luck must average out sooner or later. Besides that, a beer is easier to drink while standing up.

Across the road and up and down the hill feels like a long way from a few hours ago, but it’s not. Carrying the extra beer is a good thing too, because it distracts anyone’s attention from the pillowcase. Still, he would like to burn the pillowcase if he can find a fire. Maybe he’ll build one.

In the meantime, he tosses the bundle into a corner and plops onto his hammock, suddenly feeling age catching up and surging ahead. Dios mio, the mesh never felt so good. Ohhhh, he moans, helping the tension ooze from his muscles and bones. Mmmm, he shifts for another angle of release. Ahhhh, he reaches for one more beer, but it’s just beyond his reach, but that’s okay. Lyria will be here soon to hand it over and sit beside him carefully so as not to tip him from his hammock.

¡Caray! Can you believe the nerve? He will soon share his disbelief with her. Four beers each for four winners in a single game? Is their good fortune supposed to spell doom for my own? No, let them drink one and buy three more if it’s three more they want to drink.

Or maybe she will swing her legs up and they will lie together. What can it hurt and who can it scare with clothing on in a hammock, least of all Lyria, who could lie back and spread her legs if she wanted to, but what can he do in a hammock, arch his back like a pelicano and dive for his dinner? A man can do nothing on a hammock, except perhaps for a gentle feel here and there, which can only enforce the bond between himself and the woman of his dreams.

True, his gluepot is full, but such is the way of true romance in the beginning, and besides, Mrs. Mayfair won’t leave without a formal goodbye. Then he can coast with indifference to the blondie for two days, after which she too will be served.

Sexual desire is an old familiar for him but only now emerges in Lyria. And a girl needs time.

Proper timing underscores Mrs. Mayfair’s contribution. She should be invited to the wedding, which perhaps should be soon. He ponders the night of nights, or perhaps a lazy afternoon. He will deny himself the pleasure of others before immersion with his beloved. Not that it matters with such a renewable head of steam. Two hours should be adequate. Besides, Mrs. M will doubtless have a special wedding gift for the groom.

Feeling his pinga rise to the kindness and generosity of his friend from the north, he deflates directly in deference to a day that began a long time ago. Er er-er er-errrr, he thinks, drifting, drifting. Jesu Cristo, what a mess.

He half mumbles, half snores, falling quickly and soundly asleep. Time enough, he dreams, for a short, revitalizing nap. Then he will rise and clean himself, and they will go for dinner and stay out late and maybe dance. Maybe he will touch her breasts and breathe fast as he tells her of his intentions. Maybe she will want to touch his pinga, which could lead to trouble but may help her overcome her fear of such a ruthless beast who can be a most agreeable fellow, once you get to know him. Er! Er-er! Er-errrr!

But maybe this is not a good plan, he is still such a young man, and no woman, not even Lyria, would allow customer relations with Mrs. Mayfair if he and Lyria were married. As the saying goes, Antes que te cases, mira lo que haces; before you marry, look what you do.

You multiply a hundred fifty pesos times four for an average week but sometimes six, depending on her need to be needed, and once it was eight. Already you’re talking terrific loss, and then you multiply that by two, because she now talks of one week not being enough, and then multiply by two again because she comes twice a year now.

“What, are you loco?” he asks, suddenly waking to her vigorous insistence. One scent of her tells him he has let a rare opportunity pass by, for she smells of sweet gardenia, and he sweats like a fat man from too much beer. She shakes her head and appears to be disgusted, as if this is not the evening she had in mind. Moaning again like a much older man, he swings his legs over. He breathes laboriously, hurrying himself into coherence and then calming himself. He offers her a beer. She declines, standing pertly back as if to see what he has to say for himself.

He smiles and says, “Well, then. I’ll have one for both of us.” Rubbing his face and head as if to clear the fog, he reaches another beer, drinks half of it and says, “Please, sit down.”

“No, thank you.”

“Lyria, please. We have trouble tonight. Very much trouble.” She waits, and so he tells her of Baldo’s promotion to El Capitán de las Tortugas, which makes her laugh, but more with amusement for Baldo’s antics than with tolerance for Antonio’s shenanigans. He moves directly to Baldo’s obsessive concern for the baby turtles and his, Antonio’s, attempt to bring Baldo home. From there they went for a walk on the beach and, as luck would have it, encountered the fisherman who lopped off the trumpets of Baldo’s friends, the trumpet fish. Or at least he, Baldo, thought they were his friends, and they likely were. At least they could have been. But anyway, Baldo cut the man’s head off.

She waits for more. He shrugs, terminado.

“He cut the man’s head off?” She thinks Antonio is onstage again, exaggerating as if Lyria, who has known both him and his schtick ever since when, is supposed to laugh on cue like a good audience. But he’s late and dirty and smells like a butcher, which could be the lingering scent of the aging puta for all she knows.

Lyria simmers with disappointment verging on rage with a dash of disgust. Tonight was not meant to be a casual rendezvous but a Saturday night of anything goes with a possible inching toward who-knows-what and a certain probability of you-know-what. “So what? You think this is funny?”

But Antonio is not reaching for humor. He reaches low instead with both hands and slowly rises to neck level with his best air machete. “Sí. He cut the fisherman’s head off.” Antonio drags a finger across his neck, then nods to the corner. “There. His clothing is in the pillowcase. The fisherman’s clothing.”

“But what of the man? Where is he? And why is he without his clothing?”

Antonio shakes his head. “Please, don’t ask. The poor fisherman is without much more than his clothing. He is without his head, and worse yet, without his life. Satisfy yourself to know that he was put to good use.” He stops shaking his own head and goes to a nod. “Recycled.”

She turns and walks to the doorway for fresh air and fresh perspective. She moves seductively as a beautiful woman in a dress and high heels, though these are not high heels but only sandals, because she has no high heels. Where would she wear such shoes? Cleaning rooms? Having dinner with Rosa? No, she needs no high heels, but even with sandals a man can imagine how gracefully her dress would fall past the curvature of her lower spine and over the luscious ripeness of her hindquarters if only she were propped just so. Just look at how much grace flows forth this very moment. And for what? For a crazy story from a man who remains blind to everything?

Antonio, however, isn’t blind to some things. He sees the grace. He wants to step up, hike her dress, and feel her high thighs but determines quickly that discretion here will pay off in a few short hours. She will be smooth as rayon. Tonight, his gluepot will bind the woman of his future. High thighs will be his. He will kiss the space between them. Then we’ll see who calls him disgusting, when she trills like Toucan over fresh berries. Too much waiting is no good. Abstinence beyond a point feels mas larga que la cuaresma, longer than lent.

She comes back and sits beside him. “This is terrible,” she says.

He shrugs. “It could be much worse. Everything is taken care of.”

“How can you say such a thing; everything is taken care of? The man’s clothing is there in a pillowcase.”

He shrugs. “I will burn them in the morning.”

She can’t believe his casual response to a heinous crime. “And where is Baldo?”

“Where else? Baldo is exactly where he wants to be, where he should be, babysitting the babies.” He smiles at his own grace, offering the soft opening to a few hours here together, alone at last on a Saturday night with the whole world waiting between now and sunrise.

She stands again, requiring him to check his balance. “We must take him something to eat. He must be starving. He eats nothing all day, you know.”

“He eats nothing all day by choice. And he sleeps with the turtles by choice.” Antonio rises. “I will only be a minute. Then we can go as we planned. We can take him something to eat. Okay? Okay.”

From behind the curtain he tells her they will dine at Jimi Changa’s, because he feels good in spite of a very demanding day. She won’t respond when he talks like Rico Suave on Money Street, so he ignores her silence. He says he has decided on lobster for himself and one as well for her. She hasn’t eaten lobster since seeing them walk in a line a mile long across the ocean floor on The Discovery Channel in the hotel laundry room. Baldo watched too, seeing the face of God.

Antonio watched too but still craves lobster, even as she refuses a reply. He finishes washing his armpits, butt crack, and scrotum, reaching deep under his nuts with a daub of scent just in case. “Hey, Jaime the Weasel owes me something, so maybe tonight we let him pay. Con langosta.” He sorely wishes his new T-shirt was in hand for such a night but resigns himself to a camp shirt with a pattern of tiny gabiotas winging across the front and back and around the sleeves, too. It’s not a bad shirt. It’s just so regular for such a night.

He emerges and steps up behind her where she stands facing the night sky in the doorway. He bends to kiss her neck softly, to set the mood and to eliminate the distance he feels has grown between them. It’s only a minor misunderstanding that will soon be repaired. She moves away in irritation, but that’s only her way of telling him that his gesture is not enough. She wants more, which is what she will get, the whole enchilada, before or after dinner, at her leisure.

They watch the night sky for a minute more, perhaps thinking of stars twinkling or the moon waxing or love or youth or passion. He bends near again until his lips barely touch her neck and whispers that she is a beautiful woman.

It is just this expression and this sensual contact that she has imagined for so long, but it falls shorter on the second try in the gruesome context of events. Her skin tightens under his lips as if to repel him, but he perseveres here as in all things. Resistance will melt and move with warmth. Just you wait and see; like a dam bursting it will soon flow forth.

Perhaps it would flow if Lyria could ease the nagging questions. How can he be so casual after disposing of a body on the beach? How well can you know a man, if you’ve only known the boy? She stands motionless with no resistance, and Antonio senses discretion may still be the better part of breast-tweaking.

He takes her hand for the lovely stroll to Jimi Changa’s, where some disco dancing will follow an extravagantly touristic dinner with cocktails. Then we will see what’s up and who’s ready. Glancing back in the shadows, he sees her beauty enhanced in the half-light. Unbuttoning another button on his shirt, he sighs and squeezes her hand.

It isn’t so bad, not talking but simply walking, holding hands, in a way cementing the bond between them. They haven’t held hands since they last peed in their pants together, and the years have changed the feeling in their fingertips. Now they’re electric, wired for transmission and reception. When she twitches as any woman might, holding hands with Antonio and sensing the eruptive potential of any given evening, he gives her a rest and leads the way like a lead dancer. Up the sidewalk and onto the patio of Jimi Changa’s they arrive. He is as handsome as any young man; she is as beautiful as a starry night.

They pass the cage bought cheap by Jaime Ruíz because of so much rust covering its ornate Victorian grillwork. Now the old cage is painted white but shows up electric blue under the black light overhead. Toucan perches inside, solitary as a single bird in a very large cage. It’s past his bedtime, so he’s in his sleeping position with his bill pointed back and tucked under his wing. But he’s given up on sleep, and his eyes move with the movement around him as the wild diners come and go. Antonio belches in passing, and Toucan jumps with a squawk.

“I belched,” Antonio explains, but Lyria pushes him onward as if she knows better. At least Baldo isn’t here, and they’re spared that embarrassing scene, with the hyena squeals, the gyration and genuflection, the preening and cooing between birds of a feather.

Antonio knows this place, where judgment is instantaneous and measures a man by the woman on his arm and the respect shown by the maitre d’. It’s hard to say why a weasel like Jaime Ruiz is so admired and famous. Yet he has everyone performing according to the social standard here. Some of these men are fat and red. Some have gray temples. All appear to be flush.

Antonio announces softly, with confidence, “Two, please.” He palms twenty p into the hand of the host, who is no older than himself and just as eager to fill a role.

The host quickly inventories Lyria up and down and what’s in his hand. He looks surprised, then he takes the lead with authority. “This way, please. I have a beautiful table for you.” So the gavel falls, and judgment is secure. Lyria avoids looking back at those who ogle by keeping her eyes straight ahead. Something makes her wince. Never mind. She most likely shaved with a dull blade, and a little black nub stuck to her dress stings when it’s pulled.

Antonio smiles with serene confidence, carrying himself with the poise of a man out on the town. They wend their way through the maze of lesser echelons, on their way to the top.

The diners obsequiously observe as they remain obsequiously oblivious, until Antonio notes the presence of the hot salsa dance combo, Autoridad, musical misfits who will charge the evening with a throbbing pulse after an exquisite dinner.

The scrutiny gauntlet is the first course at Jimi Changa’s. It’s why they come, to ignore it and then sit and burn whoever comes next with merciless assessment. And it’s fun, or it could be fun and would be fun if not for the nemesis of the common man, which is circumstance, that, in the end, must occasionally be faced. But Antonio has not been among the common ranks for quite some time now. So, qué pasa aqui?

Alas, the sting in Lyria’s panties is Mrs. Mayfair, having dinner with a fat red man with gray temples, who appears unqualified for Mrs. M’s favorite forced march. He’s so red he matches her hair.

Mrs. Mayfair watches Antonio far past the dictate of good taste and in fact gazes shamelessly. And she’s grinning! And now nodding as she rises repeatedly in her seat as if responding to a little portable pinga on the upthrust, which no man or woman would put past her after one look at that dress! It leaves nothing to the imagination, including what a man might do with such a woman. Or better yet, what such a woman might do to a man. Oh, she is her own magnetic field.

Tonight Mrs. Mayfair dines with a man of commerce, like her husband, Mister Mayfair, though this is not Mister Mayfair, because Mrs. Mayfair purred only yesterday, or maybe the day before, that Mister was freezing his lilywhite buns on the frozen tundra of Texas, just as he deserves.

Besides, this man is more attentive than a husband would be. What husband would look so fervently down a dress? He appears mannerly, moneyed, and patient, and perhaps he will have a bit of luck a esta noche, unless of course he suffers coronary complexity in the stretch. She’s ready to romp, as anyone can see. But who can blame her for having fun?

Mrs. Mayfair helps this man along, out of his stodgy shell. He nods at her husband’s fabulous success with one development after another. They share a wonderful understanding, she says, she and the Mister.

She gazes off, igniting her date’s curiosity, because it’s a game you play, or you watch until the fire burns to ashes and you wish you’d played. Still, a man who lives in a shell is wary of social blunder. It makes such a mess, and nobody wants to live in a messy shell. Easy as a move can be, it can also be elusive.

He smiles, assessing a back flip with a gainer and a full twist on the one hand and belly flopping on the other.

She shares her quest for fulfillment. She lives to the fullest, she says, with everything she wants most of the time, because nobody gets it all the time. Most integral to her happiness is creature comfort. “I make no apologies. I love to be warm and soft. I’m not a bad person, and I love it. So there.” Another key component is sex; make that good sex. “I love good sex, and my one wish in life would be for great sex once every day in the morning and once again every day in the evening. Is that too much to ask?”

Mrs. Mayfair’s escort is so heavyset with worldly experience relative to restaurant dining, that an observer might think she only taunts him. The jowls flap, the gout hurts, and the skin flashes crimson. Apparently cognizant of the fleshy treasure before him, he remains tentative. Perhaps she’s merely jerking his chain. But why would she do that? He ponders the parameters of good taste and says, “Yes, well, no.” He frowns and smiles again. “I suppose it’s not. Too much, I mean. To ask. I … haven’t given it much thought.”

Like hell, she thinks, plucking the paper parasol from her piña colada and twirling it before her eyes as señoritas used to do. Well, they did it in the movies, anyway.

Frederick Wendell leans forward as if to clarify his position on the subject, rising slightly to facilitate movement or relieve pressure. Then he eases back again like a man of global import. “You know,” he begins timorously, looking up with a crooked grin, so much as saying, This is the best I can do. Is it adequate? “You’re a very beautiful woman.”

She touches him lightly, looks down, and admonishes, “Oh, aren’t you sweet?” He knows that tonight he will get none, until the touch goes to a grasp, giving Frederick Wendell hope that his concession to beauty is suddenly adequate and that he will shine till midnight or fatigue, whichever comes first. He may rise again in the morning, before he simply must return to Dallas.

But she’s looking past him, and he shudders, sensing the husband, unannounced. He follows her gaze but can’t find her focus. All he sees is a Mexican boy and girl dressed in department store clothing, endearing them on one level but causing regret on another. End of an era, Frederick Wendell thinks, when the help eats at the same restaurants.

Antonio wonders if a man was ever tested so frequently as he has been these last few hours. Siesta seems like a hundred hours ago. He knows the odds of random encounter remain constant at medio a medio. So who can be surprised? It’s a small town.

Lyria sees Mrs. Mayfair, who isn’t exactly making a scene but is ogling long distance, stretching her neck and waving like it’s grand reunion time.

¡Hola! ¿Sí? But Antonio calling across Jimi Changa’s in response to her wanton leer and patently seductive greeting would surely throw fuel on the fire. Maybe just a nod and a fond smile will suffice in light of her generosity and understanding. But no—

“Antonio! Darling!” She turns to Frederick Wendell, who Antonio recognizes from the fat and red contingency poolside but can’t be certain with so much tailoring. Who can fathom hundred-dollar trousers, a hundred-dollar shirt—dollars!—and a five-hundred-dollar suit on a man who brings his own Styrofoam cooler to the pool? The gordito who has no pride smiles like a pooch caught sniffing the flan, a cheap pooch unworthy of instant pudding much less this smooth and creamy company.

Mrs. Mayfair stands and embraces Antonio like she hasn’t seen him in years, and he fears she will whimper like she did on Tuesday with his tongue thrust between her legs with such proficiency she nearly triggered the smoke alarms. No, wait; it was Wednesday. Where does the time go?

In his pocket he comforts his sleepy pinga that, like a troublesome child, seems so sweet when it’s napping. The other hand grasps the three crisp fifties that will pay for his romantic dinner with Lyria, in case Jaime the Weasel is not here tonight and another scene must be avoided. He grasps those three fifties plus two more or maybe three, in case they find the magic rhythm leading to true romance after many sour drinks, a long, exquisite dinner, and hours of disco dancing.

Mrs. Mayfair is still embracing Antonio, practically writhing, rubbing her melones against him so he can feel the dark jalapeños protruding from the ends, as if such grotesque presentation of her mutant nipples through sheer translucence isn’t enough.

Who can see such a woman with such tetas rubbing against Antonio and not imagine him suckling like a piglet? Nobody is the answer, because the translucence is enough to stir mild nausea in any decent woman, especially with those wiry hairs growing horribly around the ends.

Mrs. Mayfair gushes in matching translucence and flourish, telling Frederick Wendell, “You must meet this man. Antonio. He’s fabulous! Really, he can do anything. And I’ll tell you something else; if you want a good point man for your project, Antonio is the man. Antonio! It’s so good to see you out. Who is your young lady?”

Shy and tentative as the teenage boy he was only last year, or the year before anyway, he bows like a cleric and says, “This is my friend, Lyria.”

Lyria looks at him with startled confusion. My friend? Is it not more than that? Especially in the face of this puta? She wonders briefly what she would best be called, for they are not betrothed, nor has the subject been broached. So what could he say, that she is his future wife? Would she actually want that introduction to the woman who sucks his pinga while he holds her ears? Of course Lyria cannot be certain that he holds her ears; he often exaggerates shamelessly. Even so, such an introduction may not be desirable, but still, my friend?

“Isn’t she lovely? Where did you get that dress, dear? I adore it. Oh, you must forgive me. I just never know when to shut up.”

Yes, you do, think Antonio and Lyria, in synch at last, or at least in concurrence. Lyria imagines the worst, with the gagging and gulping and the obscene mess running down her chin and, for all we know, gumming up those fake red curls. Antonio warmly recalls a kinder, gentler largesse.

“This is Wendell Frederick.”

The fat red man who travels with a Styrofoam cooler rises and offers a puffy hand, as rich gringos are compelled to do. He leans forward and mumbles, “Buenos noches. Frederick Wendell.”

“Oh! My! I meant Frederick Wendell!”

Frederick Wendell blushes, his sunburned apoplexy purpling around his half smile. He wears a khaki suit and a tie, as if this were a sixty-year-old movie. He won’t look at Mrs. Mayfair now, much less down her dress, lest anyone in view suspect him of the worst. He is focused on keeping his shell clean.

Mrs. Mayfair beams in the light of her own making, her splendid bronze bosom presented on a satiny platform rather than grasped by fiberglass hands. The deep and endless cleavage preempts the lift and spread, but any reasonable man, including Antonio, thinks this display only fitting and proper. Evening calls for formal presentation, unless you’re dancing after dinner, in which case lift and spread might be more appropriate and less floppy. Which is the main problem with huge breasts and cleavage longer than the Line of Demarcation between what is owned by the church and all else. Oh, Antonio knows his history; he took a correspondence course, for the background and the polish.

“Antonio!”

“Yes.”

“I asked you what your young lady does!” Mrs. Mayfair moves like initial tremors, rumbling plates below the surface, sliding boulders over plains like mere toys.

“She works.”

“I’m a maid at the hotel. I clean your room. Under the bed. In the bathroom. A maid.”

“Oh, and what a lovely job you do! You know …” She leans forward in a display of spherical grandeur. “Wendell plans to build a hotel. A very nice one. I’m telling him he ought to look into you kids, you know, for some real ground-floor connections.”

“I don’t clean rooms on the ground floor,” Lyria says.

Antonio blushes. “Oh, my,” Mrs. Mayfair giggles, covering her mouth and the faux pas as well.

Since no one else has anything to say, Frederick Wendell takes the lead with a twenty-four carat phrase plucked directly from the handbook of the worldly wise. “It’s been pleasant meeting you.”

Antonio, missing nary a beat, replies with a bow, “Yes. The honor is all mine.”

Now Mrs. Mayfair is blushing. Frederick Wendell looks puzzled. Which leaves only Lyria to unabashedly lead her friend away, just as the boat with the engine tows the big banana.

Antonio doesn’t mind, but feels none of the romance and sensitivity appropriate to such an evening. He orders wine. Lyria can’t believe that anyone in his right mind would pay as much for a glass of wine as two bottles would cost back in the neighborhood. He wants to tell her that certain events in life have nothing to do with money and in fact transcend expense. Besides, it will likely be free! Because of the bird! But why start? He would sooner savor the buttery complexity of an exotic vintage while living in the esprit of esprit de corps. But he sips and feels tired, which is only natural. And guilty, which is not a good sign.

She takes his hand in both of hers and scrunches forward like Mrs. Mayfair with less firepower. He is amazed again at her fresh scent and flawless skin. Still, he regrets the apparent motive of her body language, which is to gain advantage, to ask for and to receive. “Please, Antonio. I cannot be happy here tonight. I want to come here again with you, I think perhaps sometime soon. But not tonight. Tonight …”

She pauses, and into the interlude he lopes, “She only …”

“Not her. I worry for Baldo and what you said. Please, let us get something hot in a bag and go to him. You can drink all you want.”

Well, he has to admit: he should cut his losses. All is well with Lyria. They simply picked the wrong night to express their love over romantic dinner and wild discotheque. He is very tired anyway, and it’s not easy, reading the left side of this menu without factoring the shifts required to pay for the right. And where is the Weasel when you need him? No, a smart man saves his load for opportunity.

So, okay for now, we go, maybe stopping at Manny’s Tamales on the way for some tamales and pickled chilies. We’ll get out of there for thirty pesos for three of us, instead of two hundred forty pesos here for only two—and that’s before the wild dancing and the drinks.

Oh, and the tips!