Angels in Heaven

a solicitude that wasn’t even skin-deep. I
didn’t give her the satisfaction of an answer, naturally. Benny showed us where
the road that ran westward to the prison was; he said the clink itself was in a
stretch of barren sand and old sisal plantations between the bustling
metropolises of Tesip and Molas, combined population roughly thirty, counting
the cucarachas and scorpions.
    “Right there,” he said, putting one
well-manicured finger on the map, “at the crossroads where the road, if you can
call it a road, that goes to the prison starts, are a rundown collection of
cafés, a sort of restaurant, old grannies selling tacos and oranges, and kids
hustling what they can hustle. Anyway, right there is where I heard something
that might be of interest.”
    “The only thing of interest I want to
hear,” said Doris, shaking out her new coif in that way women have, “is the
supper bell.”
    Benny, always the gentleman, or a lot
more of the time than me, anyway, immediately leapt up, went to the small table
in the corner, and came back with a tin of green salty things that might have
been dried pumpkin seeds or might not, took a modest handful himself, then
passed them on to Doris Jr. By the time the tin got to me, you can imagine how
many were left.
    “What I heard were the words one old
man sitting at the table next to me right there at the crossroads café said to
the other old man he was sitting with,” Benny said.
    “Fascinating,” I said. I made a
lightning grab at the pile of pumpkin seeds Doris was holding in one cupped hand,
but she was too quick for me for once. “And what was this scintillating
dialogue you overheard, something about the Mexican team’s chances in the next
World Cup?”
    “No,” said Benny, “it was about the commandante of the Prison’s chances with the delectable young daughter of his life’s new
cook.”
    I arched one eyebrow at Doris, who
looked away disgustedly.
    “The point being,” said Benny, “that
this dialogue occurred just after the commandante ’s car turned out of
the prison road and headed off in an easterly direction. And what the commandante was doing was being driven to his home for lunch, to be followed by a lengthy
siesta—a daily event, I inferred.”
    “Interesting,” I said. “What else
have you got for us?”
    “A safe phone there,” he said,
pointing to an intersection on the map a few blocks southwest of our hotel, his
pal Jorge’s shop, it turned out, about which more later. “American consulate,”
he said, pointing again, “at the end of Paseo Montejo. The nearest pharmacy. My
Panama hat connection.”
    “That should be useful,” I said.
    “How about a dope connection,” Doris said. “I don’t see a picture of that anywhere.”
    “So, Supremo,” Benny said, folding up
the map neatly, “what is the master plan to be this time? I presume you have
one.”
    “I presume so too,” said Doris, bestirring herself to go over to the control for the overhead fan and turning it to
a faster setting. “Otherwise, what are we doing down here in this steam bath.”
    “I do have the beginnings of an
idea,” I admitted modestly. “The merest modicum. I’ll know more anon when I can
get a look at the consulate and that other U.S. concern in town that Benny
found.”
    “The U.S. Cultural Association,”
Benny said. “It’s not far from here, we can take a look tonight if you like.”
    “I like,” I said.
    “I don’t,” said Doris. “What the heck
has the U.S. Cultural Ass. got to do with anything?”
    “Patience, Doris, patience,” I said.
“Soon all will be revealed. As we can’t really get started until tomorow,
except for giving the Cultural Ass. the once-over, I propose that tonight we
relax, we stroll, we absorb the charm of Old Mexico, we wine and dine
moderately and then betake ourselves early to bed.”
    “I dunno if I can take all that
excitement,” said Doris.
    We relaxed downstairs in the little
outdoor café next to the hotel entrance, although it is not particularly easy
to relax when constantly fending off a small but voracious army of hammock
vendors, hat peddlers, grubby urchins thrusting cardboard boxes of caramelos and Chiclets in your face, to say nothing of ancient females in traditional
Mayan costume—loose-fitting white dress with brightly embroidered hem and
neckline—who’d stop at the table and hold their hands out politely but
insistently. To my surprise, Benny knew several of the hammock