She thought that Perla had wanted to buy herself a man like Ulises, like she’d bought that expensive dress, to show the town that she could afford it.
“What would you do if you had money? Would you really waste it all on nightclubs and women?” she asked.
He knelt and snapped a photo of a pigeon that was bobbing its head and eating crumbs. “When did I say that’s what I would do?”
“You told me you’d have a reserved table.”
“I also said I might move to the countryside.”
“We’re in the countryside.”
“Puerco Ahogado is not the countryside. I want a fine house, with horses, and fancy furniture. And sunshine. It always rains here in the highlands.”
“Never for long.”
“That makes it worse. It’s like the weather can’t make up its mind,” he said, and they were walking slower, trying to stretch their minutes together.
They reached the gates of their “noble house,” as her aunt called it. Inés looked at the ancient iron gate with its sign that read:Rooms for rent, by the week or the month. Inquire inside.The sight of those words, juxtaposed with the slowly deteriorating house she’d grown up in, made her sigh.
She wrapped a hand around one of the bars of the gate and then looked at him.Never again,she promised herself.It was once and that’s it.
“We should go back inside,” she said.
“Yes, we should,” he said, replying with a sigh of his own.
—
Later that evening, when they headed to the café, Inés was careful to keep herself from looking at Ulises even though she wanted him to dance with her. How she longed to feel the pressure of his arms around her, to sway to the music while she stared into his eyes. He had a delectable mouth and that wicked grin.
Idiot,she told herself, and felt like kicking him for putting thoughts in her head, for stirring desires that ought to remain buried. But she couldn’t ask him to dance. No. Instead, she partnered with Bartolo, biting her lip when he stepped on her toes.
After she’d danced a couple of dances with Bartolo, Cándido offered to partner with her. She thanked him with a polite smile, and they moved to the sound of the marimba players wrestling the rhythm of a polka from the percussion instrument.
“I hope you’re having fun tonight,” Cándido said.
“Very much.”
“And no doubt you’ll have even more fun later, after the dancing is over.”
The sly way he spoke made her tense at once, and she looked cautiously at him. “Later I’ll go to sleep.”
“You mean you won’t entertain your lover?” he asked, and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I saw you in the alleyway with Ulises last night.”
Sheer panic made her want to rush back toward her aunt’s table, but Cándido held her tight in his grip and spun her around. She inhaled and gathered her courage, staring at him.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Don’t play coy, girlie. No wonder you never could find out anything useful about that rascal: you’re in league with him. That detective who came to town, he must have been on the right track. I bet Mr. Ulises Linares is nothing but a common thief. The detective left a card at Beto’s house, asking our friendly police chief to give him a ring if the man he was looking for appeared in town. Beto is lazy and doesn’t care for any investigative work, and he gave me the card when I said I was curious about this detective.”
“There was nothing to investigate. Mr. Linares explained to you that it was all a misunderstanding.”
“I know he did. When I spoke on the phone with this detective, he said the same thing, that it seemed to be a dead end. The detective was looking for a fiendish thief who tried to bilk a widow out of her savings. A postal lothario she’d met via one of those magazines for lonely hearts. There are many men like that, nowadays. Men who prey on the wounded and the weak, slipping away in the middle of the night with a lady’s hard-earned cash.”
Her throat felt dry and when she spoke the words were hoarse. “I don’t know what that has to do with Mr. Linares.”
“I can put two and two together, you viper. Linares is the man the detective is looking for. The magazine the lothario used to contact the widow wasConmovedor.It’s the same cheap rag your aunt likes to read.”
She didn’t bother to mumble any more denials. If he’d seen her, thenhe’d seen her. They’d been stupid and been found out. Now it was a question of determining what benefit he hoped to reap for himself. And knowing Cándido, he was thinking of how he would collect. He could have spoken to her aunt earlier in the day if he’d been morally outraged by Inés’s transgression, so it was fair to guess he was not tattling on her for a reason. The faster she could discover the reason, the better.