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had
begun. Now the conversation mixed with the dry click of the
bones, forming a tangle of words and dominoes, double-fives
and five/fours. The cantina was far from quiet. Two melancholy
drunks sat drowning their sorrows at one end of the bar; a kid
played an out-of-tune guitar at a table by the door; and a Lebanese fabric merchant, talking at the top of his lungs, was trying
to convince his two drinking buddies of the potential profits to
be gotten by establishing a new mule route over the mountains
to Acapulco, traditional bastion of the Spanish where his countrymen have never managed to get a foothold. And if that weren't
enough, Reckless Ross sat at the other end of the bar telling a
bored bartender how three years ago in Chicago-before he
found himself obliged to "travel around countries the size of a
postage stamp giving shows in fleabag theaters,"-he broke
the U. S. motorcycle speed record. His narrative came liberally
embellished with the roar of a motor emerging from a throat
heavily lubricated with shots of mezcal.
    "So what'd you think when you checked out the guy's wallet?"
asked the poet.
    "Took a little balls on your part, didn't it?" added the lawyer
Verdugo.
    "Never fear, play away," said Manterola noticing the Chinaman's hesitation.
    "You just pay attention, okay? I've got this one lapped up,"
said Tomas, setting the two/one onto the table.
    "Watch it, poet, I smell a trap," said Verdugo, more than
anything else to gauge his opponents' reaction.
    "I didn't search him," explained Manterola. "A traffic cop had
already gotten there by the time I gave up looking for the lady.
When I told him I was a reporter, he showed me the guy's wallet
and that's when I got the big surprise..."
    The poet pulled his own surprise, playing a two and forcing everyone else to pass. Enjoying his move in silence, he played the
two/three.

    "Playing it pretty close to the chest there, eh partner?" nodded
the lawyer Verdugo admiringly.
    "Just luck is all," said the poet.
    "Looks like we're screwed, Tomas," said Manterola.
    "It isn't ovel yet," said the Chinaman flatly.
    "Anyway, that's when I find out the guy's name is Colonel
Froilan Zevada, and I say to myself, `Now isn't that a hell of a
coincidence.' Enough to make a man nervous. Two Zevadas in
one week. First yours and now mine..."
    "I hear you," said the poet. "If you'd only seen the way they
blew that trombonist's brains out, you'd know what nervous really
was.
    "You surely don't expect me to believe that was the first time
you ever saw anyone's brains blown out? After all the time you
spent in the Northern Division where they'd blow a fellow's
brains out at the drop of a hat," said Verdugo.
    "And then eat them," put in the Chinaman.
    "Go ahead and have your fun, but the fact is it was a little too
much to have to watch a fellow's head blown open while he was
playing the Alvaro Obreg6n March."
    "I hadn't thought about that," said the lawyer.
    The Chinaman turned the game to fours, forcing everyone to
pass, and giving his partner the next move.
    "See what I mean, inkslingel?"
    "Trust in the eternal wisdom of the Orient, that's what I
always say. Dios nunca muere. God never dies."
    "Wasn't that Confucius who said that?" asked the poet.
    "Don't ask me, I'm an atheist," said Tomas Wong. He
smiled.
    "Do you remember the photograph of that young woman you
found in the trombonist's pocket?" asked Verdugo.
    "What? Do you think...?" said the poet.

    Manterola looked up from the dominoes and stared at the
lawyer. "Licenciado," he said, "you have what they call a powerful
recall."

     

FERM 1N VALENCIA HEARD THE BLARE of car horns
as he walked along Reforma toward the offices of a mining
engineer who'd contracted him to write "a few love poems at
a modest price." The fellow had been struck bitterly by his love
for a chorus girl from the Arbeu Vaudeville Theater but, as he
himself admitted, was incapable of putting six words together in
a row