“I tell you how it is.
I got a couple of other propositions, that’s my trouble.
But I’ll think about it.
I sure will do that all right.”
Then I saw her.
She had been out back, in the kitchen, but she came in to gather up my dishes.
Except for the shape, she really wasn’t any raving beauty, but she had a sulky look to her, and her lips stuck out in a way that made me want to mash them in for her.
“Meet my wife.”
She didn’t look at me.
I nodded at the Greek, gave my cigar a kind of wave, and that was all.
She went out with the dishes, and so far as he and I were concerned, she hadn’t even been there.
I left, then, but in five minutes I was back, to leave a message for the guy in the Cadillac.
It took me a half hour to get sold on the job, but at the end of it I was in the filling station, fixing flats.
“What’s your name, hey?”
“Frank Chambers.”
“Nick Papadakis, mine.”
We shook hands, and he went.
In a minute I heard him singing.
He had a swell voice.
From the filling station I could just get a good view of the kitchen.
Chapter 2
About three o’clock a guy came along that was all burned up because somebody had pasted a sticker on his wind wing.
I had to go in the kitchen to steam it off for him.
“Enchiladas?
Well, you people sure know how to make them.”
“What do you mean, you people?”
“Why, you and Mr. Papadakis.
You and Nick.
That one I had for lunch, it was a peach.”
“Oh.”
“You got a cloth?
That I can hold on to this thing with?”
“That’s not what you meant.”
“Sure it is.”
“You think I’m Mex.”
“Nothing like it.”
“Yes, you do.
You’re not the first one.
Well, get this.
I’m just as white as you are, see?
I may have dark hair and look a little that way, but I’m just as white as you are.
You want to get along good around here, you won’t forget that.”
“Why, you don’t look Mex.”
“I’m telling you. I’m just as white as you are.”
“No, you don’t look even a little bit Mex.
Those Mexican women, they all got big hips and bum legs and breasts up under their chin and yellow skin and hair that looks like it had bacon fat on it.
You don’t look like that.
You’re small, and got nice white skin, and your hair is soft and curly, even if it is black.
Only thing you’ve got that’s Mex is your teeth.
They all got white teeth, you’ve got to hand that to them.”