The Treasure OfThe Sierra Madre (7 page)

“You’ve got no idea, Cuts, for which company the contract was?”

“Not even a touch. Could just as well have been for an outsider, a private party that wants to try his luck in oil. What do I know?” Curtin said.

For a whole week Dobbs and Curtin had been running after Pat. He could not be found anywhere. At the Bristol Hotel, where he usually lived, the clerk knew nothing about him.

“He’s hiding out somewhere to get away with the money,” Curtin thought. “He knows that we can’t hang around here all the time. So he waits for the moment that we take another job; then he comes out of his hole.”

Dobbs, after another gulp of coffee, said: “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that guy uses our money to speculate with in some new well. He’s got tips all the way to the Alamo and to the Ebano sections.”

This idea made Curtin hot. “That guy’s going to learn something from me. Just let me catch him.”

At that very instant Pat McCormick strolled across the plaza, with a Mexican dame at his side who was flashing a new dress, elegant shoes, and a new colorful silk umbrella.

“What do you think of that?” Dobbs asked. “Rags paid for with our hard-earned money.”

“Let’s get him, right now,” Curtin hollered, “and let’s get him hard this time.”

As quick as the devil Curtin was at Pat’s side, and with him was Dobbs.

Curtin caught Pat by the shirt-sleeve, for he was wearing no coat.

“How are you, boys? Want a drink?” Pat tried to be friendly.

Then he noticed that these two men were deadly serious, so he said to the dame: “Perdone me, shiucksy dear, mi vida, I’ve got some business to attend to with these two gentlemen. I’ll take you over to that cafe. You wait there for me a while, honey.”

He steered her to the colonnades of the Light and Power building, ordered a sundae for her, patted her on the back, and said: “Just wait here, mi dulce, I won’t be long, only a few minutes, no mas que unos minutos, sure.”

Dobbs and Curtin waited only a few feet away.

Pat came strolling down the few steps and down the street along the plaza as though he were alone. Seeing that the two fellows did not leave him, but kept close by his side, he halted before the W.U. cable office and said: “Let’s have a drink, it’s on me.”

“Okay,” Curtin gave in. “Let’s have one. But you understand that’s not why we’re after you.”

They stepped into the Madrid cantina, and Pat ordered three shots of Scotch.

“Make mine a Hennessy,” Dobbs said to the bartender.

“Make it two,” from Curtin.

“Scotch is still good enough for me.” Pat repeated his order for himself.

When the drinks were before them Pat asked: “Now, what do you want? Sure, I take you on my next contract. Don’t you worry.”

“Don’t play innocent; you know what we want.” Dobbs came to the point.

“Look here, to make it short and plain,” Curtin pulled his drink closer, “where is our money? You won’t get away this time, I can tell you that. We worked harder than nigger slaves, you know that. Now we’ve waited three weeks for our pay. Let’s have it, and right here and now and no mebbe.”

The drinks were gone.

“Three habaneros,” ordered Pat. “No, Chuchu, make them big, make’m schooners.”

“Habaneros? Playing the miser, mister? Won’t do,” Dobbs sneered. But he shot in the drink just the same.

“Now, look here, boys,” Pat tried his game. “Fact is I haven’t got that goddamned contract paid yet myself. If I had the money, I’d pay you the first thing. You know that. I’ll take you both on my next contract, you can count on that. Sure shot. It’ll go through by Monday and we can set out Friday. Glad to have you boys with me again. Well, here’s mud in your eyes. Shoot.”

Curtin was not impressed by this soaping. He said: “Good of you, Pat, to take us with you again. But don’t you get the idea you can honey-smear us with this likker and with your oiled tongue. We know those speeches of yours by heart. They don’t work any more. Come across with the smackers, and no stalling either. Get me?”

“Damned son of a dog, get the money or you won’t leave this joint alive! Geecries, I am sick of that swashing of yours!” Dobbs yelled, and tackled him with his two hands and bent him hard against the bar.

“Be quiet, gentlemen, quiet please, this is an orderly place,” the bartender butted in. He didn’t mean it. He just wanted to show that he had something to say and that, should anything serious happen, he could claim that he had tried his best to calm the men. He took up a rag and wiped the bar clean. Then he broke in: “The same, gentlemen?” Without waiting for their answer he filled up the good-sized glasses with the golden habanero. Then he lighted a cigarette, put his elbows on the bar, and read
El Mundo
.

Pat could easily have licked Dobbs, and also Cumin, one at a time. To try to lick both of them at the same time would have been too costly for him. Since he had a new contract waiting for him, he couldn’t afford anything beyond two black eyes and a few bruises. He could see that Dobbs and Curtin were in a state of mind which would make them forget to fight it out in a decent way, and that he had every chance to land in the hospital and stay there for weeks, while the contract would go to someone else.

Realizing that it was the cheapest way out for him to pay them their money, he said: “Tell you, boys, what I’ll do. I gave you thirty per cent. I’ll give you another thirty now, or I reckon I can make it forty. The balance let’s say the middle of next week.”

“Nothing doing next week,” Curtin insisted. “Now and here every cent you owe us, or I swear you won’t go out of here. At least not alive.”

Pat drew up his lips in an ugly manner. “You are thieves and highwaymen. I should have known this before. I wouldn’t trust you to sleep in the same cabin with me, or I might wake up in the morning and find myself murdered and robbed. Take you again On one of my jobs? Not on your knees. If I saw you dying in the street, I wouldn’t even kick you to give you the last grace. Here, take your dough and get out of my sight.”

“Aw, shut up,” Dobbs shouted, “we know your church sermons. Get the money and be quick about it.”

While Pat was talking he must have counted the money in his pocket very accurately because now with one jerk he brought out a bunch of dollar bills, crumpled them in his fist, and banged them upon the bar. “There is the money,” he said. Then he winked at the bartender, threw a handful of pesos on the bar, and bellowed: “That’s for the drinks. I don’t accept drinks paid for by skunks. Keep the damn change and buy you a hotel.”

With this he tipped his hat back on his neck and left.

“Why are you living in the Roosevelt Hotel, buddy?” Dobbs asked Curtin as they passed the Southern Hotel. “You pay at least five pesos a day there.”

“Seven,” Curtin answered.

“Better come bunk with me in the Oso Negro. Fifty centavos the cot.”

“I couldn’t stand the dirt and living among that crowd of tramps, beachcombers, and damn bums.”

“All right, president, just as you like,” Dobbs said. “Some beautiful day when all the pretty money is gone you’ll land in that dirt, too. Bet you. Right now I could afford to stop in any swell joint for a while. But I learned my lesson. I keep my little buckies together. Who knows in which of the next four centuries another job’ll come along. It’s getting worse every day here. Say, four, five, or six years back you were begged to accept a job and make your price. It’s different now. To me it doesn’t look a bit as if it would change for the better during the next few years. Believe it or not, I’m still going to the Chink for my eats, fifty centavos each meal. I don’t mind. Nobody gives me anything when I haven’t got a dime.”

They had reached the corner of the plaza where the great jewelry house, La Perla, had its store. In the four huge windows was a display of diamonds and gold which could hardly be equaled on Broadway. There was a diadem on display priced at twenty-four thousand pesos. Never could there be any occasion in this port for a lady to wear such a costly diadem. It was not meant for wear in this town, as whoever bought it would know. A few hundred men in this town made such heaps of money and made it so quickly and with so little sweat that they simply did not know what to do with it. Luxurious cars were out, because there were no roads for them. And the streets were mostly still in such a condition that only the flivver could go everywhere. These men could invest their money, and they did. But the more they invested, the more money they made, and then they were faced with the same question again, only this time more urgently. What to do with that dough? The proprietors of La Perla knew what they were doing when they displayed such high-priced jewelry. Any piece that looked pretty to a newly rich oilman and that carried a fantastically high price was rarely in the window for more than three days. Then it was sold to a man who stepped in looking like a bum, without a coat on, soiled all over with oil. “Wrap this up for me and be quick about it; I’m in a hurry.” And throwing the money on the counter, he would put the elegant little case in his pants pockets as though it were a cake of soap and leave without saying “Thank you!” or “So long!”

Dobbs and Curtin looked at these treasures worth all together near a hundred thousand dollars, and a crowd of thoughts sprang up in their minds. Of stealing any of these jewels they did not think for a minute. During all the years the boom was on, there was practically no bank hold-up, no wholesale robbery in the port. The only bank hold-up that occurred left not one of the bandits reaching the curbstone alive, and the man waiting outside in a car had to be taken to the hospital, where everything possible was done not to let him survive. These jewels displayed behind windowpanes were as safe as inside a vault. It was not that people were any better here than anywhere else. There were pickpockets everywhere in town, American pickpockets of course taking the lead. But banks and jewelry were safe from bandits. Bandits could not make a get-away, as there were no roads on which cars could run. Only two trains left the port daily, and these could be watched successfully even by third-rate detectives. All ships, passengers and freighters alike, had their guards on the gangways. The port was protected on one side by the sea, on the other side by river, swamps, and jungle. The three or four dirt roads leading out of the port were watched by mounted police. Mexicans might have kept in hiding, but they were not smart enough to do a big job of this sort. American bandits had no chance to hide anywhere. Since all bandits knew from experience that no bandit if caught would ever arrive at a police-station alive, people—yes, even mere boys—could walk the streets with bags filled to the brim with gold coins on their shoulders without being accompanied, and they would bring home the money surer than in an armored car in the United States.

So it was not the thought of robbing the store that occupied the minds of Dobbs and Curtin.

All those living and working in the port at that time were concerned with oil and nothing else. Whatever you did had in some way or other to do with oil. Even when eating your dinner or drinking your coffee the smell of oil was about you. You might see a lady well dressed, perfumed and all; you would be sure to find somewhere about her a stain or a spot of oil—on the elegant dress, the white shoes, the umbrella, or the handbag— somewhere you would find traces of oil, you bet.

Now, looking at all the gold in the window, for the first time in months if not in years Dobbs and Curtin thought of gold and for a minute forgot to think of oil.

Then they stood with their backs against the post-office building, looked across the plaza, and saw the masts of the ships that were in dock. Only the upper parts of the masts were visible from where they stood, and the bow of a freighter. Seeing the masts reminded them of travels in faraway countries. So they came to think of other countries in the world and other possibilities of making money. Why should it be oil all the time? Wasn’t there anything else on earth? Take gold for instance, to name only one thing.

2

“Say, Curts, what’s your idea?” Dobbs asked. “I mean your idea about all this here. Hanging around all the time, waiting and waiting until you land a job again for a few weeks or a few months. Then you are on the bum again, waiting and waiting for another break. Forever dependent on the good humor of a contractor who may or may not take you in, and your money getting thinner every day. After a while you are broke and you begin once more pushing gents for a dime, sleeping in freight cars or under trees or what have you. I’m sick of it. Sick of oil. That’s it. Sick of oil. I want to see something different, want to hear somebody talking of something else.”

“Same here, pal. Exactly the same. In fact, I’m thinking now for the third time of pulling out of here. I know perfectly well how it goes. Into a job, out of a job. Polishing the corner of the Banking Company in the Southern and waiting for some guy to step up and take you on for another few months. Why not try gold-digging for a change?”

“You said it, buddy.” Dobbs nodded. “That’s what I was thinking as I stood before that lay-out of gold and diamonds. Prospecting—that’s the word! Come to think of it, it isn’t any more risky than waiting here for another break. Did it ever occur to you, old man, that this is the country where the heaps of gold and silver are just calling for you to help them out of their misery, help them out of the ground; make them shine in coins; on the fingers and necks of swell dames? Well, my man, we’re right on the spot.”

“Let’s sit on that bench over there,” Curtin suggested. “We have to figure this out. It’s a swell idea. We have to make plans. Just wait a minute. Let me think this over.”

After they were seated, Curtin continued: “Tell you a secret. I didn’t come to this here country for oil. Never dreamed of it. I’d had my nose full of it already in San Antonio, ol’ Texas. No, I came here just for gold, and nothing but. My idea was to work for a year or two here in the camps to stow away enough dough to buy a decent outfit and then go off to the Sierra, west and more west, and there look for the real thing that counts. But, damn it all, I never got the money. When I had five hundred bucks and was all set to make another five, then there was no job for months and the money went rolling away from me just like that.”