by Boston Teran
Rawbone told how Hecht lived in a row house up from Customs. He'd invited the father along, believing him to be a friend of Merrill's. He'd been taken to the kitchen where the cook, an old Mexican woman, was told to offer him food and coffee. Then Hecht excused himself.
Men kept arriving, one and two at a time. There were what sounded like discussions in a far room. The voices were gray and controlled. What he wrote down was all he could pick up under the watchful eye of the cook. He carefully plied her with a few questions, but she was immune to either friendliness or flattery.
When the men left and all was quiet, Hecht returned to the kitchen and excused the cook. The two men had sat like old friends at an ornate table, drinking coffee spiked with gentleman's whiskey.
"He was all polite and full of shit," said Rawbone. "Poking me with questions to size me up. He's a wily bastard." The father looked at himself in the dusty glass paneling of the hearse. His image imprinted there on a glowy lantern dusk. He spoke to himself as if he were Hecht.
"I've to set an arrangement tomorrow to pick up a truck with the makings of an icehouse that is to be delivered south of the city. I was to entrust Merrill the job, but since he is not here and you are a friend ... and I say to him while I'm filling my cup with more of his gentleman's whiskey . . . `When Mr. Merrill comes back he'll tell you how I can be trusted, for no one knows me better than he.' Of course, Mr. Hecht has no idea the last I seen Merrill he was leaking oil out of his skull."
Rawbone turned to John Lourdes. "And then he baits me out even better. He says if I do right there'll be a job for me with the men who work with Merrill. Now, Mr. Lourdes, do you see the whole play from his side?"
The father drew down on his cigarette and waited as the son made a silent catwalk through the dark corners of human motive. He'd been holding the bandana to the wound along his eye but now he stood. He looked into the hearse glass to see if the blood had stanched. Rawbone was beside him now. He noted the son beginning to smile and then outright laugh.
"He's throwing you to the wolves."
"There you go. I get the truck, I come back, alright. But if there's chicanery I'm the perfect ignorant fool who ends up in a ditch somewhere."
He put his hand on John Lourdes's shoulder and leaned in to talk as if they were lifers conjoined in criminal plans. "Now, let me tell you how I think we play this out and finish it."
"I can see what you're thinking as far away as forever."
"Is that so?"
"You bring the truck back," said John Lourdes, "and you keep the money. In return you'll deliver it for Hecht but I find out through you where and to whom. Then I go home and you, maybe you take Hecht up on that job. As you say, with a smile and good cheer. You know, you may have accidentally stumbled on a future down here."
"Ah, Mr. Lourdes, you can be a racehorse son-of-a-bitch."
"A pure thoroughbred."
But the son wasn't done yet. He took the cigarette from the father. His mood locked down as he considered a more daggered attack. "You're going to deliver the truck," he said. "But what if you brought a body back with it. To show you had to kill for the truck."
The father drew in closer and eyed the son through the dusty paneling of glass from where he stared back.
"Even the money should have blood on it," said John Lourdes. "Think how much trust you'd have earned. How indebted Hecht would be to you."
In the half shadows of the warehouse the father raised an eyebrow. "A man who can breathe a thought like that has to have a black mark in his life somewhere."
"You have no idea."
Reflection to reflection. The father now cocky and self-possessed. "There's a notion that a hearse should never be cleaned or repaired unless it has a firm booking. Otherwise, if it is readied, it will find itself work. Are you superstitious?"
"No."
"Well, I am. So keep your damn hands clear of it."
RAWBONE WAS SITTING at the kitchen table just as he had the night before, when the phone rang down a hallway. Mr. Hecht entered the room a few minutes later and excused the cook. He had written down the appointed place, the appointed time. He was carrying a leather packet which he set on the table before Rawbone.
West of Calle de la Paz was a ravine that ran all the way to the Rio Bravo. It was also where garbage was dumped. Hours later Rawbone left an urgent message by phone for Hecht to meet him there.
Gulls drifted on the thermals or picked away at the trash. Rawbone smoked and waited alone as a single vehicle struggled its way down that worthless stretch of road.
Mr. Hecht was alone. He looked Rawbone over as he got out of the car. He looked the truck over. "I don't understand," he said. "Why are we here?"
"I'll show you why."
Hecht was led to the rear of the truck, where a tarp was pulled back just enough for him to view what remained of McManus. The old man kept his head at the sight. The leather packet was positioned beside the body. Rawbone held it for Hecht to take. It was blood-stained.
"This one had a different idea about the transaction than you did."
Mr. Hecht waved away the packet.
"THERE'S NOTHING LIKE a finely worked `fuck you,"' said Rawbone. He removed a thin band of hundreds from the packet, then tossed it aside and pocketed the money.
John Lourdes had watched everything from a stand of trees, joining the father only after the dust trailing Hecht's vehicle had passed away. He was looking over a note Hecht had written on his personal stationery. Addressed to a Doctor Stallings, it was about a job and was to be brought to a railroad siding at the junction of the road to Casas Grandes.
"You know who the doctor is, don't you?" asked Rawbone.
"I do. He's in that film."
The father put out a hand to shake, but the son was preoccupied with that letter. "Mr. Lourdes, you have fulfilled your obligation and I, mine. It is time we part ways."
The son looked up. He did not take the father's hand. "I'm sure you feel we're both the richer for our time together ... but we're not near done yet."
TWENTY
AWBONE STOOD IN the wind with gulls sweeping overhead and stared at the son as if a mountain had dropped down on him from heaven.
"You better just enlighten me to what you meant."
"You speak the same language I do. We are done only when I say we are done."
"Are you trying to roll me into a ditch?"
He grabbed the letter and started to walk away.
"Where are you going?" said John Lourdes. "Not back."
The father held up the letter. "I'm gonna go get introduced to my future."
By the time Rawbone reached the truck John Lourdes had drawn up behind him with his weapon pressed against the back of the father's neck. With that he stretched his arm and took the automatic Rawbone carried.
John Lourdes stood back. He pointed to the rear of the truck. "McManus ... you killed him. I know and Mr. Hecht ... he knows. You might even say he's your accomplice in this. Now if justice Knox went to Mexican intelligence, well-?"
The son now circled the father. "What you said to me back at the river when you ... poisoned ... those three customs agents. `Mr. Lourdes,' you said, `it's a means of holding you to the cross."' There was a flicker of dark accomplishment in his eyes. "We're done only when I say we're done."
"Back there on the street," said Rawbone. "When we were walking to the Customs House and you had that photo. And the note to Hecht. You were plotting then."
"This moment here?"
"This moment here."
As if mocking the father, he said, "Aye. Something pretty close, anyway."
"It does seem like you're a couple of steps up from Montgomery Ward's."
John Lourdes grabbed the letter. "You're gonna deliver this truck and you're gonna get yourself a job and I'm gonna be right there with you and we're gonna find out where this truck is going and who it's going to and why, if it means driving it all the way-"
"I'll be arm-wrestling death first."
Rawbone changed his tactic. He took out a cigarette and lit it. He leaned back against the truck, stretching his arms across the hood as if he were one broad tendon. "I think I'll just relax here and enjoy the view."
"Listen to me now," said John Lourdes. "I'm not some empty street you're going to walk down and be done with. There is you, there is me, and there is that truck. And that's all. There's no past, there's no future. There is only now. Do you understand?" He pointed his gun at the truck. "That is our world. See the writing there on the sideAMERICAN PARTHENON-that's our world. Nothing else. You ... me ... and this truck. And we're going to drive through to the end .. . together. Wherever that end is. Till all that's left are our bones and a chassis, if need be." He was near out of breath and he could feel his whole body in every branched vein running with rage.
He fought to calm himself. "And when we're done. When I see we're done, then you'll have your immunity. Now . . ." He started toward the back of the truck. "Help get Mr. McManus off the truck and to somewhere more ... befitting his present station."
"What is this really about, Mr. Lourdes?"
The son stopped. His head and shoulders tightened down. He turned.
"Maybe it's that black spot you're carrying around. Or maybe you're desperate to prove what you're not. The ladder is always taller for the small man."
"The teachings of a common assassin."
"I've survived this long because there's legitimacy to me." Rawbone walked to the cab for his bindle. "And what this is really about ... is the practical application of strategy. As seen through the eyes of one John Lourdes."
Rawbone slung the bindle over one shoulder. He took to walking away. The son saw him and called out, "You think you're leaving but you're not."
The father kept on.
"What about your family?"
Rawbone stopped. His face drained of expression. The son had heard himself say the words but there was no thought to them, no preparation, nor plan. They came out as squalls of pure anger, fully formed. Ready, willing and able to draw blood and serve a purpose at the same time.
"You do have a family, don't you?"
Rawbone flicked away his cigarette.
"In El Paso?"
The father did not move. He only swung the bindle up on his shoulder as if he were getting ready to start away.
"Could it be those questions you were asking of me at the church about the barrio, and did I know families there-"
"I have no idea where you're going," said Rawbone. "But I'll send you my regrets once you get there."
John Lourdes approached, his weapon in one hand, the father's in the other. Both were barreled to the ground.
"What if I told you someone at BOI knows of your family. I might even say justice Knox has spoken to a member of your family. Would it mean anything to you?"
The son could see something incubating in the eyes and the jawline of the man before him. I have put the knife to him, thought the son. I have found a place that bleeds. Thank God.
"Take a look out there," said John Lourdes.
He meant the ravine so lined with trash along that runnelled pathway that ran with water when the season warranted.
"That's your life." He slapped Rawbone on the back. "And you know what else? When it's your time, McManus will be out here waiting on you. With his wooden arm and marijuana." He even pretended he was banging away one-armed on the ivory keys with those oddly splayed fingers.
Rawbone stood in hard silence watching the display. Then he said, "Mr. Lourdes, I believe I'm going to kill you."
"You mean you're not sure."
John Lourdes took Rawbone's weapon and stuffed it into the front of his trousers. "Now," he said. "You've at least got something between your pockets." He started toward the truck. "I'm going to find Mr. McManus a good spot to watch the sunset."
The father did nothing. He'd been caught off guard and he now evaluated his situation thoughtfully. He looked up that ravine. From Juarez came a carreta pulled by a mule. An old man sat in the box seat. A boy ran alongside, sifting through the trash, holding items he thought valuable aloft and every now and then the old man would nod and wave, yes, yes, and the boy would run to him with an air of pride and achievement at his discovery.
The father removed his derby and wiped at the sweat on the inside brim with his bandana, the one he'd given the son to hold against his wound.
He should have taken his own advice back there on the road to El Paso when he first had the truck. He should have heeded Burr. He should disappear now into a landscape more hostile and befitting his station. Pay intelligent attention to what your insides tell you, for they are ever true. Yet even so—
He set the derby back on his head all cocked and rugged, then called out in that tone of voice he was best known for, "Mr. Lourdes ... save a seat in the truck for me!"
PAT II
TWENTY-ONE
IRE ROAD TO Casas Grandes lay to the south. The father drove to occupy his time; the son fought to keep at bay the rising pain from the beating with the black stick that the road made all the more merciless. When he stopped to urinate, the dust around his boots ran wet with red.
"McManus knew his trade," said the father. "You'll be fine in a day or two. Or you won't."
They drove on in the shadow of barren mountains and the son came to see and understand they were being stripped down, mile after mile, one as much as the other, till there would be nothing left between them but who they truly were.
Out of nowhere the father said, "Hammer and anvil. Each will have its turn."
THEY FOLLOWED THE line of the rail tracks for hours and finally came upon Spartan columns of smoke rising above a stand of cottonwoods clinging to the banks of a sorry creek. The siding that was their destination came complete with water tower and warehouses and a repair shed for locomotives.
Approaching the river, they could see through the trees a camp had been established with well over a hundred men. Two trains were being outfitted for a journey. Spanning the narrow river was a slat bridge that had been retrussed to support the weight of trucks with cargo. A couple of wretched-looking gringos on the far side flagged them to stop. When asked their business, Rawbone handed over Hecht's note. One of them read it using a finger on each word before passing it back. He pointed with a filthy hand toward a campaign tent that had been set up in the dry grass beside where the trains were being readied. They would find Doctor Stallings there.
It was a formidable collection of ruffians they encountered driving through the camp and looking over those trains left no uncertainty wherever this expedition was going would be a long way and one should expect violence. The first train had a 0-6-0 locomotive and tender and an open coal car that was out front. The interior of the coal car was being rigged with a shooting platform. The second train had an imposing 4-8-0 Mastodon. That's what the son said the locomotive was named, as he had worked on them at the railyard in El Paso. Built for pulling heavy freight over mountains like the Sierra Madres, it would haul two passenger cars behind the tender, a boxcar after that for mounts, then three flatcars where tanker trucks were being hoisted up and lashed down and lastly another passenger car.
A campaign tent had been set up beside the last car, where about two dozen Mexican women were preparing a meal and setting it out on long tables.
Rawbone downshifted as he pulled up to the tent. The flap was pushed aside and stepping out into the hard daylight was the man John Lourdes had viewed in that flickering newsreel the night before at the funeraria.
Doctor Stallings was recently shaved and neatly attired in a gray suit. Behind him were a pair of security bulls and a young shark brandishing an army gunbelt. His shirtsleeves were cut to the shoulders and one of his arms was tattooed from the wrist all the way to the bladebone with the stars and stripes of the nation.
Before Rawbone shut off the engine, he said u
nder his breath, "Quite a menagerie, hey, Mr. Lourdes."
Doctor Stallings approached the truck. He looked it over with patient care. He saw AMERICAN PARTHENON painted on the side. He was handed the letter. Stallings took it, yet now seemed inordinately curious about the father. He read the letter, then began to walk about the truck. When he was all the way around back, he called out, "The motorcycle ... whose is it?"
Father and son looked to each other. What to answer? Rawbone was quicker. "It was with the truck when we retrieved it."
Stallings walked up the far side of the vehicle, his hands behind his back, checking the crates, the truck itself. Reaching the cab, he glanced at John Lourdes, but his attention went immediately to the other.
"I feel as if I know you, sir."
Rawbone leaned on the wheel.
"I have an extraordinary facility for faces. Even if they are not particularly interesting or aberrant."
"I believe we've done a round or two in Texas, if that's what you mean."
"Name?"
"Rawbone."
The Doctor's eyes rose and his mouth made a silent ahhh. "The letter refers to you." He jutted his chin toward John Lourdes. "What is this one about?"
The son went to speak for himself, but the father put out a hand to stop him. He leaned past John Lourdes as if he were not even there and in a very private voice said to Stallings, "Retrieving this truck was no easy matter, as Mr. Hecht can personally validate. And well, this young man may have that Montgomery Ward's look, but if it wasn't for him ... I wouldn't be here right now."
The son picked up the acid mischief in the voice aimed at him and then the father's glance went from the camp to the train to that crew of thugs by the tent. "Doctor Stallings, in expeditions such as these you are about to embark on, it has been my personal experience there are always ... casualties."
Doctor Stallings was expressionless. He pocketed the letter and started for the tent. As he did he called out, "Jack B, have the truck with its cargo put on the train. And get both these men security cards ... after a proper introduction."