Sí señor, he said.
Billy turned and looked at him.
Are you Eduardo?
No. How may I help you?
I wanted to see Eduardo.
What do you want to see him about?
I wanted to talk to him.
Yes. Talk to me.
Billy turned to look at the barman but the barman had moved away to serve the other patrons.
It’s just somethin personal, Billy said. Hell, I aint goin to hurt him.
The alcahuete’s eyebrows moved slightly upward. That is good to know, he said. You find something you dont like?
I got a deal he might be interested in.
Who is the dealer.
What?
Who is the dealer.
Me. I’m the dealer.
Tiburcio studied him for a long time. I know who you are, he said.
You know who I am?
Yes.
Who am I?
You are the trujamán.
What’s that?
You dont speak spanish?
I speak spanish.
You come with the mordida.
Billy took out his money and laid it on the bar. I got eighteen dollars. That’s all I got. And I aint paid for the drinks yet.
Pay for the drinks.
What?
Pay for the drinks.
Billy left a five on the bar and put the thirteen dollars in his shirtpocket along with his cigarettes and lighter and stood.
Follow me.
He followed him out through the lounge past the whores in their whore’s finery. Through the kaleidoscope of pieced light from the overhead chandelier and past the empty bandstand to a door at the rear.
The door was covered in winecolored baize and there was no doorknob to it. The alcahuete opened it anyway and they entered a corridor with blue walls and a single blue bulb screwed into the ceiling above the door. The alcahuete held the door and he stepped through and the alcahuete closed it behind them and turned and went down the corridor. The musky spice of his cologne hung in the air. At the farthest end of the corridor he stopped and tapped twice with his knuckles upon a door embossed with silver foil. He turned, waiting, his hands crossed before him at the wrist.
A buzzer buzzed and the alcahuete opened the door. Wait here, he said.
Billy waited. An old woman with one eye came down the corridor and tapped at one of the doors. When she saw him there she blessed herself with the sign of the cross. The door opened and she disappeared inside and the door closed and the corridor stood empty once again in the soft blue light.
When the silver door opened the alcahuete motioned him inside with a cupping motion of his thin ringed fingers. He stepped in and stood. Then he took off his hat.
Eduardo was sitting at his desk smoking one of his slender black cigars. He was sitting sideways with his feet crossed before him propped in the open lower drawer of his desk and he appeared to be examining his polished lizardskin boots. How may I help you? he said.
Billy looked back at Tiburcio. He looked again at Eduardo. Eduardo lifted his feet from the drawer and swiveled slowly in his chair. He was dressed in a black suit with a pale green shirt open at the neck. He rested his arm on the polished glass top of the desk, he held the cigar. He looked like he had nothing much on his mind.
I got a business proposition for you, Billy said.
Eduardo held up the little cigar and studied it. He looked at Billy again.
Somethin you might be interested in, Billy said.
Eduardo smiled thinly. He looked past Billy at the alcahuete and he looked at Billy again. My fortunes are to change for the better, he said. How very good.
He took a long slow pull on the cigar. He made a strange and graceful gesture with the hand that held it, turning it in an arc and holding it palm up. As if it cupped something unseen. Or were accustomed to holding something now absent.
Do you care if we talk alone? Billy said.
He nodded and the alcahuete withdrew and closed the door. When he was gone Eduardo leaned back in his chair and turned again and recrossed his boots in the drawer. He looked up and waited.
What I wanted, said Billy, was to buy one of these girls.
Buy, said Eduardo.
Yessir.
How do you mean, buy.
I give you the money and take her out of here.
You believe these girls are here against their will.
I dont know what they are.
But that’s what you think.
I dont think anything.
Of course you do. Otherwise what would there be to buy?
I dont know.
Eduardo pursed his lips. He studied the end of the cigar. He doesnt know, he said.
You’re tellin me that these girls are free to just walk out of here.
That is a good question.
Well what would be a good answer.
I would say that they are free in their persons.
In their what?
In their persons. They are free in their persons. Whether they are free here? He placed his forefinger alongside his temple. Well, who can say?
If one of em wanted to leave she could leave.
They are whores. Where would they go?
Suppose one of em wanted to get married.
Eduardo shrugged. He looked up at Billy.