was in what was known as the general reception cell, a room about forty feet square with rough stone walls that looked as if they might very well pre-date Cortez. There were about thirty of us in there which meant it was pretty crowded and the smell seemed compounded of urine, excrement and human sweat in equal proportions.
An hour of this was an hour too much. An indio got up and relieved himself into an over-flowing bucket and I moved out of the way hurriedly, took a packet of Artistas out of my pocket and lit one.
Most of the others were indios with flat, impassive brown faces, simple men from the back country who’d come to town looking for work and now found themselves in prison and probably for no good reason known to man.
They watched me out of interest and curiosity because I was the only European there which was a very strange thing. One of them stood up from the bench on which he sat, removing his straw sombrero and offered me his seat with a grave peasant courtesy that meant I couldn’t possibly refuse.
I sat down, took out the packet of Artistas and offered them around and hesitantly, politely, those closest to me took one and soon we were all smoking, amicably, the lighted cigarettes passing from mouth to mouth.
The bolt rattled in the door which opened to reveal the sergeant. ‘Señor Keogh, please to come this way.’
So we were being polite again? I followed him out and along the whitewashed corridor as the door clanged behind me. We went up the steps into a sweeter, cleaner world and crossed towards the administration block of the police barracks.
I had been here once before about four months previously to obtain a work permit and had been required to pay through the nose for it which meant that the jefe in Bonito was about as honest as the usual run of police chiefs.
The sergeant left me on a bench in a whitewashed corridor under the eye of two very military-looking guards who stood on either side of the jefe’s door clutching Mauser rifles of the type used by the Germans in the war. They ignored me completely, and after a while the door opened and the sergeant beckoned.
The room was sparsely furnished; desk, filing cabinet and not much else, except for a couple of chairs, one of which was occupied by my fat friend from the Hotel Blanco, the other by the jefe.
Janos lurched to his feet, and swayed there, propped up by his ivory stick, sweat shining on his troubled face. ‘A dreadful business, Mr Keogh, but I’m with you, sir, all the way.’
He subsided again. The jefe said, ‘I am Jose Ortiz, Chief of Police in Bonito, Señor Keogh. Let me first apologize for your treatment so far. A regrettable error on the part of my sergeant here who will naturally answer for it.’
The sergeant didn’t seem to be worrying too much about that and the jefe opened a file before him and studied it. He was a small, olive-skinned man in his fifties with a carefully trimmed moustache and most of his teeth had been capped with gold.
He looked up at me gravely. ‘A most puzzling affair, Señor Keogh. You say this man was stealing your wallet?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then what has he done with it, señor? We have searched the stairs and the foyer of the hotel thoroughly.’
‘Perhaps he had an accomplice,’ I suggested. ‘There were several people milling around there.’
‘By God, he could be right,’ Janos cut in. ‘It could explain the whole thing.’
The jefe nodded. ‘Yes, that is certainly a possibility and on the whole, I am inclined to believe your story, señor, for the man is a known thief.’
‘That is very kind of you,’ I said gravely.
‘There was much in the wallet of importance?’
‘Twenty or thirty dollars, some rail and steamer tickets and my passport.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘So? Now that is serious. More so than I had realized.’ He looked in the file again. ‘I see from your papers that you were registered as a British citizen. This is correct?’
I said calmly, ‘That’s right.’
‘Strange. I thought you Irish had your Free State now since the successful termination of your revolution.’
‘Some people might question that fact,’ I told him.
He seemed puzzled, then nodded brightly. ‘Ah, but of course, now you have your civil war. The Irish who fought the English together now kill each other. Here in Mexico we have had the same trouble.’ He glanced at the file again. ‘So you would be able to obtain a fresh passport from the British Consul in Tampico.’
‘I suppose so.’
He nodded. ‘But that will take some weeks, señor, and what are we to do with you in the meantime. I understand you are not at present employed.’
‘No, I worked for the Hermosa Mining Company for six months.’
‘Who have now, alas, suspended operations. I foresee a difficulty here.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m sure Mr Janos can suggest something.’
‘By God, I can, sir,’ he said, stamping his stick on the floor. ‘I’ve offered Mr Keogh lucrative employment – highly lucrative. For as long as he likes.’
Ortiz looked relieved. It was really a quite excellent performance. ‘Then everything is solved, Señor Keogh. If Señor Janos makes himself personally responsible for you, if I have this guarantee that you will be in secure employment, then I can release you.’
‘Was there ever any question of it?’ I said politely.
He smiled, closed the file, got to his feet and held out his hand. ‘At your service, Señor Keogh.’
‘At yours, señor,’ I replied punctiliously, turned and went out.
I heard a quiet, murmured exchange between them and then Janos stumped after me. ‘All’s well that ends well, eh, Mr Keogh. And I’ll stick to my bargain, sir. I shan’t take advantage of your situation. Five hundred dollars and your steamer ticket. That’s what I said and that’s what I’ll pay.’
‘A gentleman,’ I said. ‘Anyone can see that.’
His great body shook with laughter. ‘By God, sir, we’ll deal famously together. Famously.’
A matter of opinion, but then all things were possible in that worst of all possible worlds.
2
When we got back to the hotel, Janos took me round to the stables in the rear courtyard. A couple of stalls had been knocked out at one end and the truck stood in there.
It was a Ford and looked as if it had spent a hard war at the Western Front. There was a canvas tilt at the back and it was loaded to the roof with medium-sized packing cases. I checked the wheels and discovered that the tyres were new which was something, then I lifted the bonnet and had a look at the engine. It was in better shape than I could have reasonably hoped.
‘You
