CHAPTER TWELVE
WHEN HACKBERRY CAME through the front door of the cantina, he saw the bartender take note of him and Pam, then continue eating from a bowl of tripe, blowing gently on each spoonful before he placed it in his mouth. The bartender was seated on a stool, a napkin tucked inside the top of his shirt, his throat skin as coarse and wrinkled as a turkey’s, his eyes like big brown buttons in a pie-plate face, his head shaved bald and a large black swastika, with red feathers for appendages, tattooed on the crown of his skull. He told Hackberry that he was sorry, but no, he had not seen anyone in the bar resembling Hackberry’s young friend. His hands were big and square and looked like those of a bricklayer rather than those of a bartender. He continued eating, leaning forward over the bowl of tripe, careful not to spill any on top of his stomach.
“How long have you been on duty here?” Hackberry said.
“A few hours,” the bartender replied. “But sometimes I got to serve food and drinks in the back. Maybe your friend was here but I didn’t see him.”
“In back?” Hackberry said.
“That’s right, señor. We rent rooms to people who have traveled from far away. Sometimes they drink too much and want to rest before they drive home again.”
“That’s a very intelligent service you provide. How long does it take for you to carry a service tray to the back and return to the bar where your customers are waiting?”
“That depends, señor. Sometimes my customers take care of themselves. They are poor but honest, and they leave the money on
the bar for whatever they drink.”
“What’s your name?” Hackberry asked.
“Bernicio.”
“You have maybe a half-dozen customers in here. You can see everyone in the cantina from the front door to the back. My friend called me from here. He gave me the name of the cantina and directions to it. My friend is tall and looks very much like an Anglo. Don’t offend me by pretending you were not aware of his presence.”
“Claro that maybe he was here, but I didn’t see him. I wish I had. Then I could be helpful. Then I could finish my supper.”
Hackberry found himself trying to think through a peculiar manifestation of dishonesty that is considered normal in the third world and is totally antithetical to the average North American’s point of view. The individual simply makes up his own reality and states that black is white and white is black and never flutters an eyelash. Appearance and denial always take precedence over substance and fact, and the application of logic or reason will never sway the individual from his self-manufactured convictions.
“Did you see a man with a wound in his face playing pool?” Hackberry asked.
“No, señor.”
“You were already shaking your head before I finished my question,” Hackberry said.
“Because I have no information that can help you. The people who come here are not criminals. Look at those by the pool table. They’re campesinos. Do they have the wary look of dishonest men?”
“I’m an officer of the law in the United States, Bernicio. I have friends who are officials here in Coahuila. If you have deceived us and put my friend in harm’s way, you will have to answer both to them and to the United States government.”
“Will you join me, you and the señorita? I can put onions and extra tortillas in the tripe, and we will have enough for three. I would like very much for you to be my guests and to accept my word about what I have said. I also hope you find your young friend. The Americans who come here are not on a good errand, señor. I hope your friend is not one of these. I worked in Tijuana. Marines would be arrested by our police and moved from jail to jail in the interior and never seen again. Your government could do nothing for them. I served time in one of your prisons. It was a very nice place compared to the prisons here in Mexico. Fortunately, I am a Christian today, and I no longer think about these kinds of things.”
Hackberry studied the swastika that was tattooed as large as a hand and clamped down on the bartender’s shaved scalp. “Do you have to wear a hat when you attend church?” he asked.
Bernicio leaned forward, lifting the spoon to his mouth, his eyes focused close together, as though he were staring at a fly three inches from the bridge of his nose. “Buena suerte, señor,” he said.
Hackberry and Pam went back out onto the street. The dusk had settled on the countryside, and the sky was traced with shooting stars that fell and disappeared beyond the mountains in the south. Farther up the street, a band was playing in a cantina, and prostitutes were sitting on the steps of the brothels, some of them smoking cigarettes that glowed in the shadows and sparked brightly when the girls flipped them into the gutters. Across from where Hackberry and Pam had parked their unmarked Cherokee was a squat one-story building constructed of rough stone with steel bars on the windows and a single tin-shaded yellow bulb over the entrance. Through the main window, Hackberry could see a beetle-browed man in a khaki uniform wearing a khaki cap with a lacquered black brim. The man was absorbed in the comic book he was reading, the pages folded back tightly in one hand.
“You want to check in with the locals?” Pam asked.
“Waste of time,” Hackberry replied.
“It’s like prayer. What’s to lose?”
“It’s not like prayer. The cops run the cathouses.”
She was chewing gum, looking up and down the street, her hands propped on her hips. “This is what hell must look like.”
“It is hell,” he replied.
She glanced at him, then concentrated her attention on the police station across the street. He could hear her gum snapping in her jaw.