They passed out of the saloon into the gambling rooms. The adobe houses were arranged Mexican fashion about an inner patio. There was a wooden platform in the centre of this and little tables all about it. Healy hurried off to find Castro, and Stone stood looking out into the courtyard. It was well lighted with electricity and, under the bluish glare, the scene held a theatrical impression, the gaiety seemed unreal, even on the part of the drinking men.
These were mostly American. There were ranchers from the Imperial Valley, letting immense profits in grapes and cotton and cantaloupes melt, in one way and another, into the astute Castro's coffers. Men from the oilfields of Kern County, a few cowboys, tourists from Los Angeles, all sorts and conditions of men "seeing life." There were some Mexicans, swarthy, picturesque, cigarette smoking, seeming somehow as if they belonged behind the scenes, waiting, ready to come on at their cue.
Among the tables flitted the girls, cajoling, pocketing their liberal percentage of the price of the drinks, sitting at tables for payment, or dancing with bearish partners to the string band of guitars and violins; exchanging badinage, more or less coarse, flattering a wine-buyer, evading a close-fisted customer or one too insistent on amorous return. They were all dressed as Carmens, blonde and brunette alike, and Stone noticed that the music was good and the girls undeniably pretty.
If the games were square? Lefty touched him on
