Candy Kid by Dorothy B. Hughes

buzzer. As if he weren’t in a hurry, he ambled to answer.
    Pablo was bright as the new day. “Good morning, Senor Aragon.” There was no indication that he knew anything about trouble last night. He carried the large tray to the table, set it down, went out again without further conversation.
    Unasked, he’d brought along the morning paper. Chenoweth service. Jose snatched it with the closing of the door. There was no murder on the front page. He was opening the sheet as Beach appeared. He couldn’t appear anxious now. A casual scanning showed nothing. If Tosteen had been found, he wasn’t news.
    Beach began eating hearty. “Have you told Lou?”
    “Not yet. I haven’t seen her. I’m leaving the hotel with you, just as if—”
    Beach poised a forkful of ham and eggs in midair. “What is up?” Worry pricked his voice. “You’re not in trouble?”
    “No.” Not yet. Jose appealed to him, “I can’t tell you yet, Beach. Like I said, it’s unfinished business. As quick as I can settle it, I’ll give you a full report. It’ll hand you a laugh.”
    “I’ll bet,” Beach said wryly.
    “You’ll lose. But I don’t want anyone at the hotel to know I’m not leaving. I’ll tell Lou later on.”
    “What about Dulcy?”
    “Particularly I don’t want her to know.”
    She wasn’t around to know. When they went down to the desk, the lobby was the everyday thing, tourists waiting around for wives or husbands or the kids, and middle-aged business men in the big leather chairs, half of whom could have doubled for Tosteen. No one who looked any more suspicious than Tosteen had. Jose’s goodbye and thank you to Lou was as convincing as Beach’s.
    She might not know for a couple of days she wasn’t rid of him, unless he returned to tell her. The maid would make the room neat. It wouldn’t occur to her to say anything about the guest’s clothes even if no guest were around. An employee didn’t display curiosity about the boss’s friends.
    Clark made the package deal easy. “I believe you left this last night.” The same brown paper and dirty string. The same sweet stink. One thing different. A name penciled on the wrapping: Jose Aragon. Jose hadn’t put it there.
    The sun was climbing higher, no silver cool of morning remained in it. Today would be worse to endure than yesterday. A short walk took them to the garage where their truck was parked. No one stopped them on the walk, no one noticed them. Beach pitched his bag into the cab, climbed under the wheel. “Get in,” he ordered.
    When Jose started to demur, Beach repeated, “Get in.”
    He obeyed. Beach started the motor and rolled into traffic. “I’ll give you a lift to the bridge.” His eyes slid to Jose. “That’s where you’re headed?”
    Jose nodded. The truck was too noisy for conversation. But Beach continued, “I wouldn’t start anything over there, if I were you. It mightn’t be healthy.”
    Jose nodded again. When Beach let him out, the bottle of perfume remained on the seat where he’d left it.
III
    Crossing the bridge was easy. Like always, you simply walked across, paying your pennies, mumbling your citizenship declaration. Neither the Americanos nor the Mejicanos gave a second glance to a dark young guy in levis and blue shirt, a dusty hat keeping sunstroke off his head.
    He didn’t know exactly where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there. He was hunting a small girl who’d stolen a package, snatched it right out of his hands. But he wasn’t headed for Senor el Greco’s to find her, not yet. That was the way not to find her, unless it was to the Senor’s advantage that she face up to the man she’d gypped. And in that event, it would not be to the advantage of Jose Aragon.
    Someone had murdered Tosteen. He didn’t doubt that it was murder any more than he doubted that Tosteen was marked for it. Any more than he doubted it had happened in Juarez and the body taxied to the other side. How the dead man