Chapter 20
Posted: July 21, 2007 - 04:29:26 pm

I was a very busy boy for the next week, starting the day after we formed our partnership. On Thursday we all, minus a gimpy and grumbling Pen Smythe, took a walking inspection of the hotel with Wilfredo. It was nearly perfect as it sat. The only major changes I saw as being needed were converting most of the second floor to our gaming room, library, private meeting rooms and dining rooms.

The El Paso hotel was four stories tall. The first floor had the lobby, restaurant and a ballroom. After we converted the second floor we would be left with two floors and a total of twenty-two private rooms, including two suites. Each floor had two communal bathrooms set in the center and across from each other. One was for men and the other for women. There were also a dozen dormer rooms in the attic space for the staff. The kitchen was a wing off the side of the building behind the restaurant. The other side of the building had a similar wing that was used for storage and the manager's four room apartment. The apartment was empty now because the resident manager had moved to Las Cruces.

Behind the hotel was a courtyard surrounded by a high adobe wall. You could enter the courtyard from the lobby, restaurant or ballroom. The courtyard was paved with Mexican terracotta tiles and had a few benches, tables and chairs scattered around. At the back end of the courtyard was a men's and women's bathhouse. In one corner of the yard, a wooden fence screened off the steam driven pump that pumped water up to a series of one hundred gallon water tanks in the hotel attic and atop the bathhouse. The pump was run for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening to keep the tanks full.

Hector and Ramona were both in the kitchen when the tour took us in that direction. They were curious as to why I was there.

"I have fallen in love with all the Lopez women, so I am thinking of getting a job here to be closer to you," I joked in Spanish.

Wilfredo looked at me askance due to my rapid-fire Spanish, as it was the first indication he'd had that I spoke the language. He excused himself and pulled Hector aside. The two men talked earnestly for a couple of minutes, before Wilfredo rejoined us.

Wilfredo next pulled me aside for a private conversation.

"Tyler, if I had any doubts about you, Hector just put them to rest. He says you are a man of much honor, and that you attend church with them every Sunday."

When he paused, I acknowledged attending church with them. Wilfredo said "good," and continued toward making his point.

"Hector and his wife are the only reason I've kept this place as long as I have. I barely break even on the hotel, but the restaurant brings in a tidy sum each month. What will you do with Hector and his family when you take over?"

"Are you serious? I'm going to hire more of their family so the restaurant can also service the private dining rooms on the second floor. I will honor any arrangements you have in place with Hector, so an increase in the volume of food prepared will benefit him financially. I will also probably keep most of the other staff as well, based on what I saw of them when I was a guest here."

Wilfredo reached out and grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously.

"That's all I needed to know," he said jovially.

On Friday, I found me a master carpenter and we planned out how to re-divide the second floor to accommodate the fewer but larger rooms. We agreed on a price for the basic carpentry work, and he said that he'd start demolition on the following Monday. We jawed over a completion date for longer than we did a price for the work. He would only commit to having the work done in six or seven weeks. I was adamant he finish in three. In the end, I told him I'd pay him a five dollar bonus for every day less than forty-two.

Friday afternoon, I paid my weekly visit to Pritchett's Mercantile. I always tried to visit the store on Fridays, because they received new stock from back east every Thursday. The first thing I laid my eyes on were some Levi Strauss denim jeans, although, back then they were called waist overalls. I bought all three pair he had that fit around my waist. The jeans were almost identical as the indigo colored, button fly Levis I wore in nineteen seventy-seven, except they were not cut for as good a fit. The three pair set me back a whooping six dollars.

I returned to the Toro at about three in the afternoon and tracked down Liz. She and Pen were holed up in his room and it took her a while to come out and talk to me. I strongly suspected there was hanky-panky going on between her and her patient, and started teasing her about it. She blushed and stammered, but didn't deny my accusation a whit. Finally I let up on the teasing and asked her the name of a good tailor to alter my jeans. She turned me on to the seamstress that fitted her clothes to her impressive décolletage.

The seamstress had a small shop off a side street on the edge of Sin City, near the El Paso Hotel. She was a plump, bright and pleasant middle-aged woman named Naomi Singleton. Naomi was the female equivalent of Clem the barber, except she knew all the happenings amongst the female population of El Paso. She knew who I was as soon as I told her my name.

"My goodness, Mister McGuinn, you sure are creating quite a stir among the ladies," she said.

I just shrugged, smiled boyishly and showed her how I wanted my jeans to fit. She grasped what I wanted immediately. She sent me to a small side room and had me try on a pair. When I came out, she pinned the stiff denim from the thighs to the cuff of both legs. She said it would only take her a few minutes to have a pair ready for me if I wanted to wait and keep her company. I thought that was a great idea, because I wanted to see if I could gather some information about Belle Wilson and Feleena. As we sat and yakked, I mentioned meeting Belle the evening before. That opened the floodgates.

"Isn't she just the sweetest little thing?" Naomi gushed. "I could never imagine her doing any of the things that she's rumored to have done."

My mind flashed back to the vision of my pickup hurtling towards me in the Waffle House parking lot, with Crazy Cora Leigh behind the wheel, totally focused on running me down. That was a life lesson that taught me women were capable of anything. Still, I nodded my head as if in agreement, just to keep her talking.

"Belle arrived here about a year ago, not long after the rail line from Fort Stockton to Santa Fe was completed. She first worked at the Gold Nugget for Vidalia, but she caught Bill Braxton's eye and he hired her away. I'm told that he is quite smitten with her, but she doesn't return his ardor. As a matter of fact, I don't know of any man who she has fancied.

"She is one of my better customers because she is so easy to fit. The standard Butterick patterns fit her as if she modeled for them."

I asked her the same question about Feleena. I could tell it was a struggle for her not to say anything negative.

"I know that woman slightly. She is too beautiful for words. I haven't done much work for her, though. She uses a seamstress across the river mostly. I have heard that she is very popular."

While she talked, Naomi pumped the foot treadle of her I.M. Singer sewing machine, making short work of narrowing the legs of my new Levis. Sewing machines like the one she was using were plentiful, but expensive in the eighteen-seventies. The steep seventy-five to one hundred dollar price tag led to Singer inventing the installment purchase plan.

She held up the finished jeans for me to try on again. I changed and checked myself out in her mirror. The legs were fine now, tapered down to where they were just big enough at the bottom to fit over my boots. I also noticed that the jeans fit better in the straddle and seat, because Naomi had used one long stitch up one leg, across the crotch and down the other. I showed Naomi how well they fit with my shirt tucked into them. She blatantly stared at the tightened crotch and unconsciously licked her lips.

"They look a little snug now, Mister McGuinn."

I told her they felt fine and were actually more comfortable this way and less likely to chafe me when I was riding. She nodded and told me to change again so she could run another stitch and cut off the excess material.

While she was working on the pants again, I asked her about making me some shirts. I wasn't that thrilled with the ones I'd bought at the mercantile, they were just not cut loose enough to allow me a lot of movement. That was because they were dress shirts, not work ones. I wanted a work shirt, but fancy ones with two button cuffs and a pointed collar that buttoned down. Naomi was intrigued with my ideas, so after she finished my jeans, we sat down and she sketched out a design.

I okayed the design and picked out a bold black and white striped material, so she could make a test version. She said she'd have the shirt and other jeans finished by the following Tuesday. Before I left, she gave me a big, full bodied hug and kissed my cheek.

"I think you and Belle would make a handsome couple, Mister McGuinn. Do you mind if I tell her that?"

She made no mention of Feleena. I said, "not at all," and headed back to Molly's.

Agent Jones called me into Molly's parlor as soon as I hit the front door of the rooming house. After I was seated across from him, he handed me a stack of currency and an explanation.

"Information you provided led to the dissolution of the counterfeiting ring. Therefore, I am authorized to pay you this reward and pass on the thanks of my superiors. I checked out three of the land sales, and all of them were legitimate, so I'm heading back to Denver tomorrow. Oh, and you need to sign this receipt that you received the reward."

I signed for the three hundred dollars, stood up, shook his hand and thanked him for the reward and the reference letter. In return he wished me good luck and told me to look him up if I was ever in Denver. He said his office was located in the new Denver mint building and was easy to find.

That night Pen tired himself out before ten o'clock, so I had to take care of the large and thirsty crowd without him or Liz. Thankfully, the saloon staff was on their toes that night and I had lots of help. A couple of dancers at a time did double duty waiting tables the way I had shown them, and one dancer even slipped behind each bar to assist the tender if he needed help. We were becoming a good team. It would be great if I could move the entire crew down to the new club, but I seriously doubted if Pen would let that happen.

That night we also put into effect my new ticket policy, since we had just received the four big rolls of tickets I'd ordered from a catalogue. Here's how the tickets worked. A patron could buy tickets in batches of ten from the bartender or floor man for a dollar. Two dollars bought you lucky twenty-one. For five dollars, you received fifty five. The tickets could only be traded for dances or drinks. We did not buy the unused ones back, but they were still good on your next visit. A glass of beer was one ticket; a shot of whiskey was two. Dances were one ticket each. You could also tip the dancer/waitresses with a ticket. The women collected ten cents for every ticket they turned in at the end of the evening.

Within the first three hours, everyone was crazy about the ticket thing. Patrons thought they were getting a good deal, using tickets made things easy for the barmen, and the girls made better money by hustling drinks as well as dances. I talked Pen into giving the men working the saloon a raise, since they didn't receive tips.

The ticket thing also made my job easier, as now all I had to do for the bartenders was collect money from them once an hour and be in the room if they had to leave from behind the bar. The tickets were reusable to boot, as the bartenders sold ones they'd collected before tearing new ones off the roll. I figured conservatively that our take from the crowd increased at least fifteen percent. When you couple that with the crowd increasing by about a fourth, you can see that I was making Pen some money.

Also that Friday night, dancers from other clubs started approaching me about working at the Toro. I took their names and asked them to come back the next day to talk to Pen and Liz. We definitely needed a few more women at the Toro, and we'd need a lot more for our new place. I thought finding enough women to staff the gents club would be difficult, but Pen and Liz said they'd take care of that. I left it to them gladly; my only caveat was that the women needed to be intelligent enough to hold a man's interest in conversation. What happened after that was none of my business.

Belle stopped by that evening, but Feleena did not show up even though her cronies did. When I said hello to the crowd from Rosa's, they said Feleena was "entertaining" and wouldn't be joining them.

I guess I need to tell you that what Feleena did for a living didn't bother me in the least. I figured she had found a way to use the gifts she'd been born with to better her life. As near as I could tell, earning a living with her body was as honorable as earning it with her sweat and toil. I think one of the reasons that I was becoming so popular among the working girls, was that I didn't judge them for what they did. I treated all women with respect and courtesy, just like my Abuela Lopez taught me.

I took a ten minute break and asked Belle to dance. She looked pleased as punch that I asked. As we cut a path around the floor, we talked. Actually, I tried to keep her talking just to hear that marvelous drawl. She quickly steered the conversation into relationship waters.

"So, Mister McGuinn, I hear you spread yourself thin when it comes to women."

I knew her oblique observation was her fishing to see if I was serious about anyone, but I played dumb.

"My name is Tyler or Ty for short, and I don't understand what you are hinting at, Miss Wilson."

"Okay, Ty, you can call me Belle, everyone else does. I meant that I've heard you are seeing a number of women."

"Oh," I said, "you meant women friends. Yes, I have a number of them. They are all treasures, too. Heck, I even made another one today, a seamstress named Missus Singleton. I think you know her."

Belle gave a tinkling little laugh and squeezed my arm.

"Gallantry and discretion are rare qualities now-a-days, Ty. Is one of your friends that beautiful Spanish girl from Rosa's that was shooting me daggers with her eyes last night?"

"You mean Feleena? No, she is just an acquaintance. I'm not well enough behaved for her tastes."

She laughed again.

"Or well enough heeled, either, I imagine. I've heard that she likes her men rich."

It was my turn to laugh.

"Well that certainly leaves me out," I said with a theatrical sigh.

Belle felt good enough in my arms that I kept her out on the floor for one more song. The Hombres took a request to play Cucurucucu Paloma. Belle said she loved that song from the night before and she sang along softly as we danced. Geez, she had a beautiful voice! I asked her if she had ever sung professionally. She laughed and said, "Only in the church choir back in Mobile, Alabama. However, music lessons were part of my early education, so I do have some training."

I decided right then I was going to think of a song for her and try to get her to sing it. I thought it would be nice at the new place if we had a torch singer like the nightclubs used to have in the nineteen fifties. My father loved that music from the late nineteen-forties to the early sixties. He had a collection of records by Patti Page, Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney, but his favorite by far was Patsy Cline. I swear the old man must have worn three of her albums out playing them so often. Since Belle seemed to have a throaty, emotive voice like Patsy Cline, I thought "I Fall to Pieces" would be a good one for her.

As I walked Belle back to her friends, I asked her if she'd drop by tomorrow around noon and sing a song I wrote. She was much pleased by the invitation.

When I arrived home that night, I sat down and wrote out the lyrics I remembered from that scratchy Patsy Cline album. I am not ashamed to admit that I cried some as I remembered my dad tilted back in his Lazy Boy recliner, listening to Patsy and drinking a Lone Star long neck.

When I wasn't thinking about my father, I did a little cogitating about Belle. It was probably totally stupid to be thinking about spending time with her after my experience with Crazy Cora Leigh, but hell, I never claimed to be that smart anyway. Besides, I rationalized I knew about Belle in advance, so I would be careful not to do anything to set her off. I sat back and sighed as I put my pen and ink away. Who the hell was I kidding? I had watched four marriages and two engagements go down the toilet. I figured that made me the undisputed world champion at pissing off women.
Joe J & Wet Dream-Girl
Chapter 21