Treasure of Acapulco Page 5

  A few minutes later they chugged into Caletilla and Tony beached the Pelicano, Dropping into the water, he and Lencho pushed the launch far enough onto the sand so the tourists would not get their feet wet.

  "It's been so interesting," said one of the elderly ladies as Lencho helped her gallantly over the stern, onto the wooden step, and thence to the beach. "I'd like you to have—" She pressed a bill into Lencho's hand.

  He bowed and smiled his thanks, without saying anything, and Tony caught a flick of hard black eyes turned in his direction.

  He hopes I didn't see what she gave him, he thought

  as he continued handing the passengers ashore, courteously but without comment.

  The auburn-haired girl was last. She accepted Lencho's outstretched hand but when she turned and smiled, she was looking at Tony.

  "Thank you for a nice trip," she miirmured.

  Lencho watched her as she walked away and then turned to Tony, scowling. "If she goes with us again, you lay off!" he ordered roughly.

  "I haven't done anything to attract her attention and I'm not interested in her," Tony answered curtly. "I can't help it if she smiles at me! What did the little gray-haired lady give you?"

  Lencho's black eyes narrowed. "Ten pesos," he said reluctantly. "But I earned it, bursting my lungs to get that blowfish!"

  "Okay, keep it." Tony shrugged. All tips were supposed to be split fifty-fifty but he knew that if he argued with Lencho right then, his smoldering anger would burst into flame.

  He took a little package of tortilla-wrapped beans from under the stem bench. "Meet you here at three o'clock, after lunch?"

  "Yes. And this time see if you can get at least five passengers. I got eight of the eleven we just took." Lencho's voice was cold.

  Tony bit back the retort on his tongue and walked down the beach without answering. He hated Lencho; he hated himself; he hated everyone on the beach. . . .

  Everyone but Julio, he corrected himself, lengthening

  his stride in the direction of the restaurant on Caletilla where his friend worked. He felt he had to see Juho for a moment—now—and hsten to some of his hard common sense, or he'd never be able to get through the rest of the day!

  Ruled Off the Beach

  Julio was busy cleaning fish at his outdoor stand. He looked up as Tony approached and signaled, by putting his thumb and forefinger close together, that he would be through in a little minute.

  Tony nodded and dropped into one of the chairs at the outdoor tables. He ordered a limeade from a passing waiter and opened his package of food. But he was in no hurry to eat. He sat leaning his forehead on the palms of his hands.

  "Que te pasa, amigo?" Julio dropped into the chair beside him. "What's the matter? You look very sad. Is it Lencho?"

  "Partly." Tony's sigh came up from his bare toes. "What is there about that boy that makes one want to kill him?"

  Julio grinned in spite of himself. "His arrogance, of course. You are the first to stand him this long. I hear by the grapevine that Captain Garcia is very pleased at the way you work together."

  Tony grimaced. "But not pleased enough to raise my pay, I suppose."

  "It wouldn't be much, anyway. How are the tips now, Tony? Beginning the middle of December, more people come down. You should make a little more, soon."

  "He keeps more than his share," Tony said grimly, downing his iced limeade in one gulp, hoping it would cool his anger. "And I let him keep it for two reasons. One, it is true that he gets more clients than I do. I hate to drum up trade. The other reason is that I know if we start to really argue, I will haul off and hit him!"

  "Maybe somebody on one of the other boats will quit," Julio suggested without much hope. At the beginning of the good part of the season, it was unlikely.

  "I'm not sure—" Tony began.

  Just then one of the waitresses called Julio and he hurried off to prepare a coconut, whacking away at the outside green fiber and expertly chopping a small hole in the top. When he returned, he brought Tony three opened clams and a piece of fried fish on a plate.

  "To go with the tortillas," he said.

  "Thank you, my friend." Tony picked at his food and went on, "I'm not sure that another boat would be much better. The truth is I'm just not cut out for this business, Julio. I hate putting on shows for people. The whole thing seems phony to me."

  "Cararaha, I don't see why!" Julio remonstrated. "You're selling something the tourists want—the same as I am when I put a plate of oysters in front of them. It's no disgrace to sell your knowledge of the sea—and your ability to dive—to people who want it!"

  Tony turned the empty glass around in his fingers, looking at it with absent, troubled eyes. "I hate the whole

  mad scramble for money," he muttered. "It's disgusting." "Everybody has to work at making money, Tony!" "I'm willing to work, to earn my living, to help Marta, to satisfy my uncle," Tony said slowly. "But I'd like it to be honest, simple, dignified work—like my father used to do. There's something false about all this."

  Julio shook his head. "You're an idealist, my friend." Tony didn't answer for a moment and then he said, "You remember that tame bear we saw downtown last year, on our way home from school? With its leg chained to its owner? The man said 'March!' and then 'Lie down!' and then 'Dance!' And afterward he gave the bear his hat to take up a collection. I feel just Hke that bear." "Oh, come now!" Julio protested, laughing. "Exactly like that bear," Tony insisted. "It wouldn't be quite so bad if somebody else took up the collection. You know I love to dive. If I could take out one or two people, I'd dive for them all day and tell them everything I know about the fish and the sea, for pleasure. But doing it for a crowd—making a rehearsed show out of it—doing it to get as much money as can be squeezed out of them —I hate it! I—"

  He broke off and Julio followed his glance. The auburn-haired girl was walking by the table. Tony nodded to her stiffly and was silent until she was out of earshot.

  Julio raised his eyebrows.

  "A passenger," Tony explained wearily. "Another bone of contention between Lencho and me. He fancies himself a conquistador of all females, as you know, and she isn't paying him enough attention." He pushed back his

  chair. "Well, I've got to dance up and down the beach now," he said grimly, "getting customers for the next trip."

  "It isn't two-thirty yet," Julio remonstrated. "They're all eating or taking a siesta. Rest a moment, hombre!"

  Tony hesitated and then relaxed into his chair again. "I don't know what I'd do without you and Pedro," he said quietly.

  "Where is Pedro, by the way? I haven't seen him for several days now."

  "His father took him to Taxco last week. They were supposed to return yesterday." Tony's voice was a Uttle worried. "I hope his father doesn't like Taxco better and decide to stay there."

  "He won't. Not if Pedro has anything to say about it! I never saw a boy so crazy about Acapulco—except you." Julio smiled. "He's a little scrawny, your gringo friend, but he has a good head on his shoulders."

  "A good heart, too," Tony added. "He is a good boy. Almost too good. He trusts everyone. He thinks everyone is as generous and honest as he is. He loves Acapulco but he has really seen only the surface of it—the smiles, the eternal sun, the gay songs. He hasn't seen the treacherous side. Acapulco has two faces, like the ocean. One soft and peaceful and easygoing; the other—murderous. The big fish chase the little fish on land as well as in the sea."

  "Vayal" Julio mocked. "How philosophical you are becoming, brother! I take it back—you are a realist, after all."

  "Yes," Tony said soberly. "I love Acapulco and I love the sea, but I know that neither of them can be trusted."

  "Speaking of the sea, what about the fishing, Tony? Didn't you tell me a while back that you were going to take Pedrito out fishing in the deep water?"

  "Yes, I did." For the first time that day, Tony really smiled. "We went night fishing with Don Clemente about two weeks ago. Aijee, what a wonderfu
l night that was, Julio! The darkness, and the silence, and the big stars, and the lights streaming across the bay. Such peace! You feel in another world. Pedro decided then and there that he would be a fisherman, too."

  "Well?" Juho demanded. "Why don't you go oftener? Earn extra money?"

  "That was the idea," Tony said sadly. "But in the first place, Don Clemente already has a partner—his nephew. In the second place, the catch was poor, very poor. But the worst thing was that I found I could not fish all night and dive all day. I was falling asleep while I talked to the tourists. Unfortunately for me, the glass-bottomed boat pays better than the fishing."

  "What does the Senor Carson think about all these excursions Pedro takes with you?" Juho's voice was curious.

  "Pedro's father is a strange person," Tony said thoughtfully. "Rather absent-minded. I have seen him only twice, but I have the impression, from what Pedro says, that he also is a too-innocent person, though he has been around a lot and was a newspaper reporter. He said that he trusted Pedro with me—"

  "And why not?" Julio asked, surprised.

  Tony shook his head. "He should not trust anyone on sight, like that."

  "You know, Tony," Julio said kindly, "this deal with Lencho is making you cynical. What you need is a change. A neighbor of ours is giving a fiesta, day after tomorrow. Why don't you come? A Uttle music and good company will put new life in you/'

  Tony smiled gratefully but he shook his head again. "I'm dog tired when night comes," he confessed ruefully. "I better not, this time. But thanks, anyway. Now I really must be off. It's late."

  "Take it easy," Julio called after him. "It isn't a matter of life and death, you know—this job."

  But Tony had forgotten how to take things easy. To him, this job and making money toward a launch was a matter of life and death.

  When he left the beach that afternoon after three more trips, he was exhausted and frustrated and nervous.

  To one side of the beach there was a small hidden spot surrounded by high rocks, where he and Lencho sometimes cached small objects overnight so they would not be stolen from the boat. Peter had occasionally waited for Tony there, after the trips were over in the afternoon, and as Tony approached the place now, to leave his spear and extra bathing trunks, he found himself hoping that his friend had returned from Taxco and would be waiting for him today.

  But it was not Peter who was behind the rocks. As Tony neared the spot, he suddenly heard a girl's voice saying furiously in English, "Let me go! How dare you!" Then the sound of a slap.

  In a split second, Tony had scrambled around the crevice. Lencho, with an arrogant smile on his face, was

  holding the struggling, auburn-haired girl in his arms and was trying to kiss her.

  Tony rushed Lencho, hauling him bodily away from the girl and hurling him against the rock wall.

  "Get out of here!" he commanded the girl through clenched teeth. "Run!"

  She backed oflF, her gray eyes wide, but Tony did not see whether or not she left because Lencho was coming at him, his small eyes glittering with fury.

  "I told you not to interfere in my business!" he growled.

  Tony didn't bother to answer. He swung at the threatening eyes, the set lips. Lencho dodged and caught the blow on his ear, then lashed his own fist out like a sledge hammer and landed a wind-cutting blow on Tony's chest.

  Half turned by the impact, Tony caught a glimpse of a bleached yellow head bearing down on them and he groaned inwardly. Peter had returned, all right—at the wrong moment. "Pedro, go back!" he yelled. "Don't get mixed up in this. Go back!"

  But Peter had already plowed in, trying to wedge his thin body between the two angry boys and separate them. A stunning blow, intended for Tony, caught him full on the back of the head and he went down like a stone.

  Red rage blinded Tony. At the beginning of the fight, he had intended only to engage Lencho's attention until the girl had escaped. But now, with his friend knocked out and perhaps seriously hurt, all the frustrations and swallowed insults of the last month suddenly welled up in him. Fury possessed him and he began to fight in deadly earnest.

  His fist smashed into Lencho's nose and he could feel the cracking of the bone. Within a second, a retaliating blow to his eye made him stagger back, blindly shaking his head. Lencho followed up his advantage, charging like a bull toward Tony's solar plexus, but the boy wheeled just in time, half falling over a boulder as he did so. Lencho was on him at once, his hand at Tony's throat and his right fist raised. Tony jerked his knees up violently, catapulting the other boy off to one side.

  Both were on their feet instantly. Tony moved in swiftly and swung at Lencho's jaw with a force that made his knuckles ache. Lencho staggered back, snarling with rage, and at that moment, Tony suddenly felt his arms seized from behind in an iron grip.

  Thinking it was one of the other beach boys, he struggled angrily to free himself. It was against all the unwritten laws—interfering in a fight between two evenly matched men. But as he twisted and turned, he saw that the man who held him was in police uniform and that another policeman had a strangle hold on Lencho.

  He heard a voice of authority behind him: "Knock them both over the head and put them in jail! Bring the gringo, too. They're all ruled off the beach for good!"

  With his arms pinioned behind him, unable to move, Tony saw the billy descending on his head at the same moment that he heard the girl's shrill scream.

  Behind Bars

  When Tony recovered consciousness, he was lying on a cold cement floor, in almost complete darkness. His throat was dry and his head ached fm^iously. It throbbed even more as he moved to examine his surroundings so he lay still again, staring at a small patch of stars through a barred window high above his head.

  Recollection flooded in. He was in jail. The fight with Lencho . . . the police . . . Pedro. . . .

  Pedro! Where was he? Tony sat up too quickly and the stars outside the window seemed to come rocketing down through his head. He leaned back again, groaning softly. Pedro was not here, at any rate. Although Tony could not see much, he sensed that he was alone in the small cell.

  He remembered the gendarme saying, "Bring the gringo, too." But perhaps they had taken Pedro home when they found out he was the son of a visiting American writer. Tony devoutly hoped so.

  Hearing the scurrying sound of a rat, he lashed out with his arm and the noise receded. Thinking of the rats, lying flat became unbearable and he raised himself

  slowly, every muscle protesting, until he could lean his throbbing head against the wall.

  That girl—that gray-eyed, auburn-haired American girl—was the cause o£ all this. For a moment Tony thought of her bitterly but then, because he was innately honest, he admitted to himself that he would have welcomed any excuse to fight Lencho.

  However, if it hadn't been for the girl, they might have had it out in some less public spot where the poHce would not have interfered. Tony did not need to be told how the authorities frowned on beach brawls. It drew crowds and made a bad impression on the tourists. Sometimes it started feuds that went on and on interminably, even ending in murder.

  But it was done now. He had fought and he would automatically lose his job, just at the beginning of the best part of the tourist season when he might possibly have been able to save more money toward a boat.

  He was acutely uncomfortable from thirst, chill, his bruised body and his cut face. But it was mental pain that made him groan this time. He had wanted more than anything in the world to prove that he could earn the money necessary to stay in Acapulco. And this was the way he had done it—his first job over in five weeks and no way to get another, now, for months! Not on the beach, at least. The police and the boat owners had long memories.

  When Uncle Juan knew about this, he would be more determined than ever to take him to Mexico City and start him on a hotel career.

  Shivering with his thin-shirted back against the cold cement wall of the jail, he thought longingly of th
e clean, dark sea only a few blocks away, rocking peacefully in the moonlight. It was in another world from this dirty, smelly, rat-ridden jail.

  This was the other side of Acapulco—the side he had been talking about to Julio just this afternoon—or was it yesterday afternoon? The side Pedro hadn't seen. Tony hoped he wasn't seeing it now, somewhere in another cell.

  The merry-go-round of his thoughts made him feel more ill and thirsty than ever. He was about to try to stand and call the jailer, to ask for a drink of water, when he heard footsteps and then a light snapped on in the corridor outside.

  "Tony Castillo!" The voice was brusque. "Visitors!"

  Tony knew he had never in his life been so glad to see his sister Marta's slender, oval face and Aunt Raquel's plump one. He gave them a twisted grin of welcome and struggled to raise himself.

  "Don't get up." Marta pushed him back gently. "You are really hurt, Tony!"

  "It probably looks worse than it is." His voice was ragged from the dryness in his mouth. "The thirst is the worst part. That—and wondering about Pedro."

  "We brought water." Aunt Raquel took a clay jar from her basket. "Pedro is all right. A Httle bump on his head. He's in the other part of the jail and his father is with him. You can thank Senor Carson that we are here—these stupid guards would not let us in, the first time we came. But Pedro's father bribed them well."

  Marta was unwrapping other bundles from the basket. "Tacos" she said, "and some hot soup."

  Relieved about Peter, Tony gulped from the bottle of water. "Ayee, that is good! What about Sefior Carson— and Uncle Juan? I suppose they're both angry with me?"

  "I do not understand Americans," Aunt Raquel said shortly. "As for your uncle, he doesn't know about this yet. He was busy in the store when Julio brought us word of the fight. Later, he had a business appointment in town."

  Tony sighed. They were trying to protect him but of course Uncle Juan would know, sooner or later. News traveled fast in Acapulco.