180
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Two lieutenants who are accompanying me. They will sign
for themselves, I will send them."
"Thank you, Senor el General," said the clerk. He withdrew.
The General paused a moment before the mirror and brushed back
a loop of hair which had dropped over his forehead.
"Are you finished there?"
"l.mmediately,
patron."
He tossed a coin to the boy stiffiy, pitching from the elbow,
and went slowly outside. There were tourists on the lawn, reading
and dozing. In the lake the wind was blowing the hasty little boats,
dispersing them from the center towards the mountain shores and
the islands. Nets hung drying on the bushes. At opposite ends of
the walk sat Paco and Citron. Citron was in civilian clothes and he
dressed well too, the General had to admit, even if too quietly.
A
young man had no business wearing such dark shades especially
when he was so saturnine. But he was good looking with that little
sportsman's moustache of his. He noticed that there were several
American women at a shaded table with whom Citron was already
exchanging glances one by one. "He'll have them all at his mercy,"
thought the General. "He can have his pick of them for tonight,
likely. But they're all old; old hens." Citron seemed to prefer
Americans. His first wife had been an American and not a poor
one by any means, he had heard. Well, what good had come of
it? Citron even with that advantage and with all his good family
and superior education was still a lieutenant of police. At his age
he had already been a man of importance in
J
alisco.
Paco, at his end, was slumped in a chair, asleep, his fat
thumbs in his holster belt, his sombrero falling forward on his
face. Did he ever know what was going on! The General looked
at him contemptuously-those plump legs so heavy in the calves
of his breeches, those cheap shiny boots, that exaggerated tooled
holster. He raised his chin to Citron who rose and came to him.
That rather stocky blonde was watching. "Tell Paco," said the
General fixing his eyes on a vine behind Citron's head, "to do his
sleeping indoors and at the proper time." He said this in a very
low voice but his annoyance seemed to increase with every word.
Not only the blonde but the other women also were looking over
at him. "Everybody is staring. I am going in."
