The Hemingway Thief (19 page)

The stranger leaned his bicycle against the farmhouse they had converted into a saloon and hotel. He took his luggage inside and a moment later he reappeared in the doorway. The duffel was gone, but he clutched the suitcase to him like it was a wailing child. The stranger's eyes found Chavez's father, and he strode across the yard with graceful, purposeful steps.

“You Javier?” the American said. “I was told there is work here.”

Chavez's father nodded and took the American's hand when he offered it. “For those who can do the work, yes.”

Father had never given work to a gringo before. He had never expressed any particular prejudice against them, but he had passed on them many times. They had been broken, low men, desperate for work and escape. While the American also seemed to be escaping, he didn't have the look of the desperado. He was tall and large around the chest, which belied the delicate features of his face. Although he was the same age then as Chavez was now, the lines of age were just beginning to show around his eyes, but they were only seen when he smiled and they were not seen often.

Father hired him on the spot.

Chavez never got around to asking his father what he had seen in the American, but it quickly became evident that hiring him had been a good move. The American was skilled as a fighter, although he only offered himself as a sparring partner. He was useful whenever any construction was attempted. He designed the new saloon and was the first to propose using the mines to house the fights. It was behind the bar, however, that his true talent shone. He was a master of all spirits, but it was his daiquiris that drew the crowds. They weren't the frozen abominations that would become popular in the coastal cities, saccharine horseshit to give the tourists a sugar high. The American's daiquiris were for drinking men. Men who knew their liquor and knew the subtle art of making each part sing so that the whole was a libation of harmony.

The American stayed for one year. He made drinks for the gamblers during the day. At night he would make his one glass of Campari last for hours. Between each sip he would hum Cole Porter.

And then the one they called Papa came.

At ten years old, Chavez had earned a spot in the saloon with the American. He fetched him his ice and washed up. It was a good job. The American was kind and mixed Chavez Shirley Temples whenever he hauled the ice from the machine in the barn to the box under the sink. When Papa came, Chavez had just finished hauling a wheelbarrow full, and he sat at the end of the bar, his feet kicking under the stool, sipping on grenadine and 7 Up. The American was having a cigarette behind the saloon. It was a quiet, dreamy May afternoon.

When the writer entered the room, the air swept out of it. Every object, every person, bent toward him as if he were a black hole sucking up their attention with nothing more than his mass. His thinning hair was combed straight back, and his wild, white beard reminded young Chavez of the Santa Claus on the cover of his mother's magazines. Great rings of perspiration hung under the arms of his guayabera shirt. He waited a moment, panting in the doorway, taking note of the faces, the room, the liquor over the bar. His eyes moved quickly, cataloguing, collecting, understanding. He walked with a somber gait to the bar and slapped a raw, well-lined hand down on the bare wood.

“You run this saloon, son?” the man asked Chavez. There was a smile under his whiskers, but it was weary. Chavez felt the man meant to be cheerful, to let him know he was a kind old man, but he couldn't quite pull it off. There was a sadness in the eyes that repulsed Chavez as much as the man's initial entrance had attracted him.

‘“My father,
señor
,” Chavez said.

“I see,” the old man said. “But you can pour a rum, yes?” Chavez did not answer, but slid off his stool and retreated behind the bar. He was not a tall child and, as he poured the rum into the glass, he heard the old man's voice but could not see him.

“I understand there is a man here named Milch,” the old man said. “Is that correct?”

“I do not know this man,” Chavez said. The old man swore under his breath and slapped the mahogany again.

“An American, then? Is there an American here under any name?” Chavez almost answered at once, but he stopped himself before he could say the American's name. He didn't know why. The American would be returning any second. He could not hide him or warn him about the old man. He didn't even know why he would want to. The old man was not a threat. Not here in his father's place. But there was something terrible about him despite the kind smile and twenty American dollars he offered Chavez in exchange for the rum.

“The rest is for you,” the old man said. He drank his rum slowly, and some of it ran down his beard and dripped onto the bar. He let out a long “
Ahhhhh
” when it was finished and placed the glass upside down on the bar.

“Ernie,” the American said from the far end of the bar. “How good of you to come.” The old man, Ernie, turned on the stool, and Chavez could hear his old bones and tendons creak with the effort. The American stood in the doorway, that serene look on his face.

“You,” the old man said. The American moved behind the bar, patted Chavez on the head, and shooed him away. Chavez felt the sheer electricity between the two men, and although he knew he should run for his father, he stayed. He wanted to be there when whatever was going to happen happened. It would be a story, and at ten years old he had precious few of those.

The American took the turned-over glass and righted it again. He reached to the high shelf—the one Chavez could not reach—and brought down the unlabeled bottle. This bottle was meant only for men of status and the
judiciales
when they came for their due. The American poured half a glass for the old man. He cut a fresh lime, twisted it over the spirit, and dropped the peel in. The old man did not touch the drink.

“I don't want a long conversation. Do you understand?” the old man said.

“I do.”

“I want it.”

“What is that?”

“I don't want a long conversation.”

“We've established what you don't want, Ernie. I'm still uncertain about what it is you do want. From my perspective, I would think you would want a bath or at least a shave. By the by, I preferred the mustache. You look like Crusoe, for Man's sake.”

“Don't test me. Do you still have the suitcase?”

“I've kept it, yes.”

“I want it.”

“It's not yours to want,” the American said. The old man stepped off his stool and raised one hulking hand, his index finger extended out like a baton.

“You went back on a square deal,” he said in a rough growl. His head bobbed as if the weight of these words rested on his brow. “What kind of man are you?”

“I suspect I'm the same sort of man you are, Ernie,” the American said. He picked up the untouched glass of rum and drank it down in one gulp. He spit the lime back into the ice and tossed the glass over his shoulder. It landed in the sink, and the sound of the glass breaking made everyone in the joint turn to watch. The old man saw that he had gained an audience, and he turned with one foot toward the room so that he could address both the American and the small crowd as he spoke.

“Like me?” he roared, and gave a thick but hollow laugh. “This man has stolen from me and now he insults me.” There were about ten men in the saloon. A mixture of fighters and gamblers, who looked at the old man with the dull expression of cattle.

“They don't know you, Ernie,” the American said. “They don't care.”

“They know me,” the old man said with exquisite certainty. “They may not know my face; they know my name.”

“OK,” the American said. A cruel look came over his eyes, and he called for the room's attention. “Does anyone here know the name Ernest Hemingway?”

Young Chavez was the only one to raise his hand. The old man pointed at him with a satisfied grin.

“There you see? And who is Ernest Hemingway, boy?”

“A writer.”

“There, you see?”

“What did he write?” the American asked Chavez. Chavez shook his head and slumped his head over his Shirley Temple.

“Your legend hasn't made it down here yet,” the American said. “These people don't have time for you. They do not read. They live and they don't write it down. No one needs your stories here.”

The old man looked as though the American had slapped him in the face. He staggered back, his mouth open. The American smiled a black, cruel grin, the sadistic smile of the executioner before he drops the ax.

“So, Ernie, if you've had your drink, and I see that you have, I suggest you fuck off.” The American crossed his arms. The old man opened and closed his mouth a few times, then screwed himself up to his full height. He turned to the crowd and found that their backs were already to him; he had already lost his entertainment value. He turned back to the American and held up one righteous finger. What the finger was meant to convey was lost on Chavez, and the American seemed to take no stock in it either. The old man nodded once as if satisfied, turned with a military air, and stalked out of the saloon.

“Who was he?” Chavez asked, watching the man through the door as he skulked through the hot sun.

“A very famous man,” the American said, and turned to clean up the broken glass.

“You stole something from him?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because he asked me to, and he paid me. Not much, but he couldn't afford much back then.”

“Why didn't you give it back?” Chavez asked. The American flinched as a shard of glass sliced open his finger. He wrapped it in a bar towel, and a small rose of blood bloomed over the white terry cloth.

“Love,” he said. He dropped the pieces of glass back in the sink. He clutched the towel in his hand as he climbed the stairs to his room. Chavez heard the door close, and he did not see the American again until he left two days later. He carried with him the duffle and the cardboard suitcase. Chavez's father had given him a horse to replace the bike. He didn't say good-bye.

Chapter Twenty-One

“That's my Hemingway story,” Chavez said. He told it well, I thought. Not a lot of embellishments. It was simple and a little sad, but there was no punchline. It was not a story to tell in a bar or on the golf course. It was a story you told late at night, sitting on the back porch with a good friend. I decided to believe him.

“I was expecting them to get in the ring, you know,” I said, holding up my hands like an old-time boxer. “That would have been cool.”

“But they didn't,” Chavez said with regret.

“It would have been cool.”

“I thought you would want the truth.”

“I know. I know,” I said, holding up my hands and offering him an understanding look. “I'm just saying.”

“Yes,” Chavez said with a commiserating grimace. “That would have been cool. Maybe from now on I will tell it that way.”

We spent a moment in silence, and I imagined what it would have been like for an aging Hemingway to take on the aging Ebenezer Milch. From the look on Chavez's face, I could see his mind was moving along the same lines. We sighed together at history's lost opportunities. It was a few more moments before I remembered one of the more important details.

“He said he kept it for love,” I said. “Love for whom?”

“I don't know,” Chavez said. His cigar had reached the band and he stubbed it out carefully and with reverence in a pewter ashtray. “I had heard of Hemingway, but I didn't really know who he was. His name was like, I don't know, don't you know some names that you don't know why?”

“Yes,” I said. “There's this guy Jasper Johns. I've heard of him. I think he's an artist, maybe a nineteenth-century politician. Anyway, I know what you mean.”

“Yes, like this Jasper Johns. I knew the name, but not the man. I didn't really realize the significance of what I'd seen until about half a year later. My father was reading the paper, and he commented to one of the fighters that Hemingway had killed himself. He had to explain to the fighter who Hemingway was. My father was an educated man, you see. It was then that I realized I had poured a drink for one of the most famous Americans in the world.”

“Did you tell your father your story?” I asked.

Chavez chuckled and shook his head.

“No. How could I tell him that the great Hemingway was here and he missed it? No, I never told him. And I never got a chance to talk to the American about it.”

“The American's name was Milch?” I said.

“That's what Hemingway called him.”

“Do you know what happened to him?

“A few years ago, I was visiting Tequilero and I told the story. It was at the end of the night. Only a few people left in the cantina, a
casamentero
I knew, a couple of whores, and a man I did not know.

The unknown man told me I was not the only man in the Madres to have met Hemingway. He said he knew another man who would tell stories in their camp, but these stories were from Paris, not Mexico. I asked him about the man and he described him. The man was the American, the one Hemingway called Milch.”

“Where was this camp?”

“Not far from here, but you cannot go. It is Elmo Booth's place and he does not take in strangers. Not anymore. You need to know someone from his band, and they are not as easily persuaded as my man at the door.”

“Elmo Booth?” the name struck a chord like a church bell in my mind. I had heard it only the day before. Levi had suggested we go to see an Elmo, and Digby had shut the idea down, but Levi wouldn't have suggested it if we couldn't go there. Was Digby a member of Elmo's band? Was this another brushstroke in the mysterious portrait of Digby?

“I might know a guy,” I said. The door behind Chavez opened, and Milch and Samantha poured in. She stood tall and poised, but Milch hung off her arm like an oversized purse. There must have been more drinks in the private box.