(Excerpt from Coffee With Billy)
Meet Luis Ortiz…
by Colin P. Cobb
“Yes,” Luis Ortiz said as he smoothed his trim black mustache and leaned back in the massive leather swivel chair, “I guess that you could say I knew Billy the Kid, knew him far better than most, I imagine. I did not know him as long as many, but, nonetheless, I knew him well.”
Fresh from the barber, smooth shaven and redolent of hair tonics and after shave lotions, dressed in a pin-striped gray flannel business suit, Sr. Ortiz was ensconced in his mahogany paneled office on the top floor of Goldman & Ortiz Mercantile and looked every inch the successful Hispanic businessman of the twentieth century. It was hard to imagine this sleek man, not yet 70 years old and complete with a hefty gold chain draped across his flat stomach, consorting with a known desperado such as Billy Bonney. Of course, in Albuquerque in the booming spring of 1924 it was difficult to imagine that such infamous badmen had ever existed at all and the rumors of some shared history between Bonney and Ortiz were damnably persistent.
Luis leaned forward and removed the stopper from a brass speaking tube laying on his walnut desk. “Mrs. Reilly, please ask Raimundo, Edvardo, and Jacob to step in here,” he said into the tube. Then, turning his attention back to me, he continued, “I hope you don't mind my asking my sons to join us? I feel that if this story is going to appear in print, my sons should hear it from my own lips. Anyway, I sometimes like the boys to hear how it was around here when Goldman & Ortiz was still Goldman Mercantile, just a small, inconsequential business. Before all of the stores, the orchards, the mines, the cattle, the money... I think they need to hear something of their true roots, now that they are old enough to place such events in their proper perspective.”
Almost immediately the office door swung open and three prosperous looking men in their late thirties entered. All three men were somewhat larger than their father but they shared his dark good looks and smooth olive complexion. None of them wore a jacket, all were dressed in boiled white shirts and somber bow ties and they each carried pads of paper and several pencils. Just inside the doorway they saw me and hesitated, pausing uncertainly until Luis waved them toward a rank of stiff armchairs which sat against the wall to my left. They settled into their chairs and from that moment on the sons sat silent, notepads poised on their knees, still and attentive as an abbreviated jury watching the accused try to explain what really happened.
"You boys all know Mr. Webb of the Albuquerque Clarion?" Luis asked with a nod in my direction. "He has come this morning to interview me, to discuss with me... some ancient history which he believes will be of interest to his readers. You may disregard your pads and pencils, I am sure Mr. Webb's notes will be sufficient record for all of us....
“I was born in 1857,” Luis Ortiz began his tale, “So I was just 22 years old when I took my job with Jacob Goldman. Actually, in many ways I was much younger than 22 because so much of my life had been exceptionally sheltered. As an only child my dear mother and father cared for and protected me in every way until my thirteenth birthday at which time I was sent away to school, first to secondary school at Ciudad Chihuahua, then on to University in Madrid. In 1878 I was still in España, having just completed my studies when my father lost his wealth, lost everything. Some might say he was robbed of everything by the American courts.
“But, regardless of how it happened, everything was gone and, shortly thereafter, my father, Don Raimundo Edvardo Guzman y Ortiz was dead and my mother, Doña Ana Maria Ortiz, was left penniless. Of course, I came home immediately so that I might care for her. Once here I found, much to my surprise, that my education actually presented me with a number of options. Since I could not only read and write, but was quite adept with numbers and records, I had the opportunity to choose from a number of potential employers.
“I selected Jacob Goldman because... Well, to be perfectly honest, I elected to work for Jacob primarily because he was a Jew. My family had been 'hidden Jews' since the days of the Spanish Inquisition and I found myself inexorably drawn to open Judaism even though in those days I was unable to openly admit my own heritage. As you know, even today there are hundreds of Jews here in Northern New Mexico who masquerade as devout Catholics because they believe that their true faith must remain hidden if they are to survive. I shall be eternally grateful to Jacob Goldman for convincing me that I should cast aside the cloak of secrecy so my children could be raised in their true faith without subterfuge or apology. ...
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(Coffee With Billy excerpt ends)
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