“Santa, huh?” replied the deputy with a sparkle in his eye. “I know who she is, and I compliment your taste. You old dog, Jarameño! You hanging around with her? Tell me the truth!”

El Jarameño shrugged:

“Hanging around with her? No … well … yeah, I guess.” He stopped, truncating his answer.

“My dear matador, I'm sorry but you're too late. Santa has already gone to Morelos Hospital for the night.”

The bullfighter jumped up, muttering a curse. He was going straight to the hospital then! Santa was not going to spend the night in a hospital … “Moleros” Hospital or any other.

With benevolent superiority, the deputy calmed el Jarameño, explaining the intricacies of the administrative mechanisms involved, enumerating a list of reasons why the hospital would not only refuse to let him rescue Santa, but would, in fact, refuse to let him see her or even open its doors to him. It was risky to even try.

“Jarameño, no lie, if you knock on the door there more than once, a cop, or a bunch of cops, will grab you and throw you in the slammer … Don't go off half-cocked, man! … And if you promise not to tell anyone, I'll give you a way to get Santa tomorrow morning, no matter how sick she may be …”

He was interrupted by a complex of noises, people simultaneously entering the office and the courtyard outside. In the office, suddenly, a child was whining and a woman sobbing. One could hear policemen struggling to restrain someone, insolent protests from whomever they were restraining, and the precise questions of clerks. Horses' hooves echoed in the courtyard, where several men breathed heavily after depositing a stretcher and its groaning occupant on the pavement. One heard imperious orders given, quick footsteps, matches striking.

“Sir,” said Cedillo through the door, “we've a girl beat up out here, several fellows under arrest and one bleeding.”

“I'm on my way, Cedillo. Wake up the medic.” And to el Jarameño: “See? You can't even have a conversation here. Where was I? Oh, yeah. You go down tomorrow and offer to withdraw Santa from prostitution by making her your mistress. Hear? Your mistress! That's the magic word. Then you pay a doctor to cure whatever she's got, if she's sick, I mean. And then you take your sweetie wherever you want … How's that for a solution?”

The tumult inside the office was increasing, although less than the tumult in the courtyard. Cedillo stuck his head in again, without excusing his interruption.

“The wounded guy is dying, sir! He's refused to make a statement. The woman wants him to confess. Do you want to question him?”

“Okay, we're going to interrogate him. I'll be right there.” And turning to el Jarameño, who was stupefied by the proposed solution to Santa's problem, impressed by the talk of wounds and confessions, and intimidated anew at being in a police station, he added: “Another tequila, Jarameño? This stuff won't hurt you, even if you have a little too much. It's nice, know what I mean? Doesn't give you a crude one …”