The Second Saladin

comes from this place.”

“It’s a very bad place,” said the younger boy.

The car ahead vanished. Trewitt slewed to a panic stop, skidding. But beyond him there was no dust.

“Oh, goddamn,” he said.

“She must have turned off.”

“Dammit.”

He looked back, forward. It was the same, the muddy little streets twisting up and down, the sheds, the wire coops, the TV aerials.

“Back up. Slow.”

He began to back. He could have used one of Le Carre’s four-man teams about now.

“There. There, I see it.” It was Miguel.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Trewitt, for he saw it too, pulled off at a funny angle halfway up a nearby hill.

He pulled ahead slowly, turning a corner, and parked near a small store, the Abarrotes Gardenia.

“Okay,” he said, breathing hard, “Miguel, you go on back to that house. You’re least likely to attract attention. Play it cool, huh? Nothing stupid. Just see what you can see, okay? Roberto, you drop on back to that little store. See what the guy behind the counter says. Don’t force it, just see—”

“Okay, is okay,” said Roberto, sliding out.

Trewitt waited. He slouched behind the wheel of the car, his cheap sunglasses slipping down his nose. He felt preposterous, a costumed clown playing games. It was hard to accept any of this. But he could accept Bill Speight, in the sewer: that was real. He wondered if any of the others ever had this sort of problem, ever felt themselves playing absurd parts among unlikely characters. He doubted it; they were trained men, and would think always in terms of their training, look for expediencies, for angles, for escape routes. They’d be so occupied, so busy, they’d have no time for the longer view. Trewitt had only the longer view. He’d never been trained in the clandestine arts; he was an analyst, a historian. Nobody had ever thought about dumping him into an op. Yet here he was.

The boy Miguel returned first.

Trewitt jumped as the boy slipped in. Damn, he’d been silent.

“I couldn’t get too close. There wasn’t much cover. I didn’t want to wreck the whole thing.”

“That was probably smart.”

“But I got into the garbage. Here.” His trophy: a crusty strip of gauze, pink-brown and stiff.

“That’s blood, all right,” Trewitt said, stomach queasy all of a sudden at the elemental essence of the artifact. “And lots of it.”

“Si,” said the boy.

“Now if only Roberto would get here.”

But Roberto did not get there. A long time seemed to pass. They sat in the car in the alley. Maybe the youth had decided to forget la venganza for the time being and had skipped out. Or maybe —

But Trewitt knew smart field operators didn’t sit around chasing maybes in their brains. No percentage, nothing but grief in it. Still, he couldn’t stop his mind running off. Maybe he’d run into a gang. Maybe he’d —

But the youth arrived suddenly.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“In the Abarrotes Gardenia.”

“You were in there an hour.”

“I had some trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” Trewitt had to know.

“Suspicious old men in there. They watch me close. Who am I, what do I want? So I tell them I was from down south, I was going to go to el otro lado tonight. The wire.”

“They buy it?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. But I did not think I ought to run out. So I had a Pepsi-Cola.”

“So you were drinking a—”

“But then two others showed up.”

“Americans?”

“No. Latins. Tough ones too, gangsters.”

Trewitt nodded grimly. He didn’t like the sound of this.

“They hurt him pretty bad, the owner. Hit him with a gun, a pistol.”

Trewitt turned, the boy leaned into the light, and Trewitt saw an ugly red swelling above his eye.

“Jesus, Roberto—”

“Hit me too, the cocksuckers. Tough boys, real evil ones.”

“What did they want?”

“They wanted to know about a wounded man. They’d heard there was a wounded man in the neighborhood.”

“Did he tell them? This old man?”

“It was that or die. He told them.”

“Dammit,” Trewitt said. He reached with a pale hand and touched the automatic in his belt.

“They must be there by now,” said Roberto.

“Fireworks,” said Miguel gleefully. “Fireworks.”

27

“Goodbye, Leah,” he said. “God will be kind to you.”

“Baby,” she said, “you be careful. Don’t you do nothing stupid. Don’t let no cop bust your head. Stay away from cops, you hear?”

“I do,” he said.

The city was huge. It was no Baghdad, nor even any of the other American cities he’d seen, but something, more America than he’d seen in one place, America piled high, America all over the place, America crazy, bewildering, America spinning itself out. There was no rhythm to this place. It was all one speed, which was fast, and one tone, which was loud.

“Don’t let no big-city boys take you to town,” she said. Behind, a cab honked. The traffic fled by. The air was gray and cold and dirty and smelled of exhaustion. He looked down a canyon of buildings and the details were too multitudinous to be absorbed. His head sang in pain; sullen men on the sidewalk looked at him.

“Jim,” she said, “honey, ain’t nothing here for you. Come on back. Come on back to Dayton.”

“I can’t.”

“You got that same look as the time you went up them tracks. You got Bobby’s look. You come back to me. You hear? You come back to Leah. You promise me that.”

“I will, Leah. By my eyes, I will.”

“Don’t know nothing ’bout no eyes, Jim. I just want you back.”

“I’ll come,” he said, and stepped to the curb and she drove away.

He was near the bus station and he found another small, dirty hotel. She had given him $100 and he paid the clerk $15 for the night. He stayed in the room for a long time, two days. The next part of the trip would be the most difficult.

It took him a long time to find the right place. He knew the name, the address even — from the telephone book — and one night, late, he found a black man.

“I want to find a place. This place.” He showed him the page ripped from a phone book.

“Jack, you talkin’ to the wrong man.”

“Tell me how to get there.”

“Man, you gotta take a bus. Make a transfer. Take another bus. Jack, that’s enemy territory. Ain’t no way I’m going