Three by Cain: Serenade, Love's Lovely Counterfeit, the Butterfly Read Online Free PDF Page A

there. My same old waitress came around grinning, and I didn’t waste any time. “Orange juice, the biggest you got. Fried eggs, three of them, and fried ham. Tortillas. Glass of milk, frío , and café con crema.”
    “ Bueno.”
    She took iced coffee, a nifty down there, and gave me a cigarette. It was the first I had had in three days, and I inhaled and leaned back, and smiled at her. “So.”
    “So.”
    But she didn’t smile back, and looked away as soon as she said it. It was the first time we had really looked at each other all morning, and it brought us back to that night. She smoked, and looked up once or twice to say something, and didn’t, and I saw there was something on her mind besides the billete . “So—you still have no pesos?”
    “That’s more or less correct.”
    “You work, no?”
    “I did work, but I got kicked out. Just at present, I’m not doing anything at all.”
    “You like to work, yes? For me?”
    “… Doing what?”
    “Play a guitar, little bit, maybe. Write a letter, count money, speak Inglés , help me, no work very hard, in Mexico, nobody work very hard. Yes? You like?”
    “Wait a minute. I don’t get this.”
    “Now Í have money, I open house.”
    “Here?”
    “No, no, no. In Acapulco. In Acapulco, I have very nice friend, big politico . Open nice house, with nice music, nice food, nice drink, nice girls—for American.”
    “Oh, for Americans.”
    “Yes. Many Americans come now to Acapulco. Big steamboat stop there. Nice man, much money.”
    “And me, I’m to be a combination professor, bartender, bouncer, glad-hander, secretary, and general bookkeeper for the joint, is that it?”
    “Yes, yes.”
    “Well.”
    The food came along, and I stayed with it a while, but the more I thought about her proposition the funnier it got to me. “This place, it’s supposed to have class, is that the idea?”
    “Oh yes, very much. My politico friend, he say American pay as much as five pesos, gladly.”
    “Pay five—what?”
    “Pesos.”
    “Listen, tell your politico friend to shut his trap and let an expert talk. If an American paid less than five dollars, he’d think there was something wrong with it.”
    “I think you little bit crazy.”
    “I said five bucks—eighteen pesos.”
    “No, no. You kid me.”
    “All right, go broke your own way. Hire your politico for manager.”
    “You really mean?”
    “I raise my right hand and swear by the holy mother of God.But—you got to get some system in it. You got to give him something for his money.”
    “Yes, yes. Of course.”
    “Listen, I’m not talking about this world’s goods. I’m talking about things of the spirit, romance, adventure, beauty. Say, I’m beginning to see possibilities in this. All right, you want that American dough, and I’ll tell you what you’ve got to do to get it. In the first place, the dump has got to be in a nice location, in among the hotels, not back of the coconut palms, up on the hill. That’s up to your politico . In the second place, you don’t do anything but run a little dance hall, and rent rooms. The girls came in, just for a drink. Not mescal, not tequila. Chocolate ice-cream soda, because they’re nice girls, that just dropped in to take a load off their feet. They wear hats. They come in two at a time, because they’re so well brought up they wouldn’t dream of going in any place alone. They work in the steamboat office, up the street, or maybe they go to school and just came home for vacation. And they’ve never met any Americans, see, and they’re giggling about it, in their simple girlish way, and of course, we fix it up, you and I, so there’s a little introducing around. And they dance. And one thing leads to another. And next thing you know, the American has a room from you, to take the girl up. You don’t really run that kind of place, but just because it’s him, you’ll make an exception—for five dollars. The girl doesn’t take anything. She does