I shooed them away—no easy job—and caught a bartender’s eye. He was a beefy, red-faced Irishman, with sorrel hair plastered down in two curls that hid what little forehead he had.
“I want to see Ed Bohannon,” I told him confidentially.
He turned blank fish-green eyes on me.
“I don’t know no Ed Bohannon.”
Taking out a piece of paper and a pencil I scribbled, Jamocha is copped , and slid the paper over to the bartender.
“If a man who says he’s Ed Bohannon asks for that, will you give it to him?”
“I guess so.”
“Good,” I said. “I’ll hang around a while.”
I walked down the room and sat at a table in one of the stalls. A lanky girl who had done something to her hair that made it purple was camped beside me before I had settled in my seat.
“Buy me a little drink?” she asked.
The face she made at me was probably meant for a smile. Whatever it was, it beat me. I was afraid she’d do it again, so I surrendered.
“Yes,” I said, and ordered a bottle of beer for myself from the waiter who was already hanging over my shoulder.
The beer wasn’t bad, for green beer; but at four bits a bottle it wasn’t anything to write home about. This Tijuana happens to be in Mexico—by about a mile—but it’s an American town, run by Americans, who sell American artificial booze at American prices. If you know your way