Free Candy Kid by Dorothy B. Hughes Page A

Beach was a true Aragon; he preferred the best.
    Jose was leaving the Caballo when he ran smack up against Tosteen. He could have said, “Excuse me,” and gone around him, the man wouldn’t start anything in a crowd. But Jose didn’t. By then he was sick of the sight of anyone connected with Senor el Greco. This time he blocked Tosteen and with mocking courtesy said, “I keep running into you, Senor.” Out of contempt for the man, he put on a Mexican accent.
    The big, sagging man looked twice as tired as Jose. He also looked startled, as if the last person he expected to run into was the man he’d been following, Jose Aragon. Or Jose Aragon carrying a bottle of rose perfume.
    “Or is it you seem to keep running into me, Senor?” Jose showed his nice white teeth. “I do not like it. I do not like you. Remove yourself.”
    He might not have been so bold in a dark alley but here in the safe din of the Caballo with the police only the roar of a fight away, he swaggered. Tosteen didn’t say a word. He didn’t move his hand to his armpit. He wasn’t interested in Jose, only in the package Jose carried. His eyes were damp on it. Almost eagerly he stepped aside.
    The encounter had revived Jose. He strode next door to the Cock. The old Cock had been a small place, away from the hurly-burly, a favorite spot. The new one was as popular, it coined money enough to live up to its name, but it was a Christmas tree not a comfortable beer parlor. Through the rhythmic shoulders of the rumba dancers he found the one head he was seeking. He started directly for it, gesturing aside the waiters who would have led him. It wasn’t until he reached the other side of the dance floor that he saw what ringside party Beach had joined. Actually he saw only one member of the party, Dulcinda Farrar. Beach wasn’t there by accident.
    It was too late to retreat. Beach was calling across the intervening space, “ Mira, Jose! I found your blonde!” With a firm hold on the brown-paper parcel, Jose reluctantly put one foot in front of the other until he reached the table.
    After what had been transpiring, he was more critical in his study of the blonde than he had been in the gay noon-day sun. But she was just as lovely as she’d been then, the patrician face wasn’t marred by the rigors of a night in Juarez, the eyes were as golden-brown, the mouth as bold. She was wearing something filmy in gray, something that dived daringly when you stood, as he did, above her. The mist color accentuated her suntan and she wasn’t wearing La Rosa. There was something about her that stirred his pulses, something that made the poetry he’d woven about her earlier no longer a joke. And it wasn’t the provocative dress.
    Her glance flecked over Jose as it would over any stranger. Beach made offhand introductions, “My cousin, Jo. Dulcy Farrar, Tim Farrar, Rags …?”
    “The name is Harvey Ragsdale.”
    “Jose Aragon,” Beach concluded. “Pull up a chair, Jo. Where have you been?”
    Dulcy continued to appraise Jo as if she’d not seen him before. “Your cousin has been searching everywhere for you,” she commented with faint amusement.
    A scrawny waiter had brought up another chair, inserting it between Beach and the girl. While Beach was ordering a new round, Jose slipped into it. “Make mine beer,” he put in. He set the package on the table, keeping it near hand touch. “I know,” he told Dulcy. “He has searched in every glass and in the eyes of every pretty girl. And he couldn’t find me.”
    Beach was sailing high and would be happy to soar higher. If he’d been drunk, Jose could have walked him out of here; if he’d been sober, a word under the breath would have been enough. Unfortunately, being neither flesh nor fowl, it would take some figuring. Unless Jose could procure allies. The two men with Dulcinda weren’t happy about the Aragon cousins.
    Tim Farrar must have been a younger brother. His face was very young, what he hadn’t