“He’s billed as an escaping wonder, on or off the stage,” Longarm said. “I’m wondering just who’s escape we’re talking about right now, though.”
The Great Costello said, “I don’t think I’d want to be an outlaw in Mexico. I don’t speak the lingo and I can’t abide the food and water. But you’ll never get your pal out of Mexico without my help.”
Longarm said, “He ain’t my pal. But if Diaz wants him dead he can’t be all bad. Why do you want to save him, Costello? What’s in it for you?”
His prisoner shrugged and asked, “A sporting chance?”
“You know I can’t just let you go. Can’t you do no better than that?”
“Here’s my deal. I help you two save Valdez, no tricks, until we all agree he’s safe. Then you and I shoot it out man to man and, win or lose, I don’t have to hang.”
El Gato said, “Take him up on it, Longarm. Nobody can beat you in a fair fight!”
“You ain’t seen this old boy move with his hands cuffed and a hangman’s hood over his fool face. Even if he was a mite less deadly, I ain’t sure it would be lawful. Out-and-out dueling has been outlawed for some time in every state I know of.”
The Great Costello suggested, “We could have it out in Mexico, where there are no laws at all, if you insist on being picky. Suppose I give you my word I’ll work with you until your young friend here has Valdez safely out of Mexico. Then the two of us can settle the matter as men of honor.”
Longarm asked, “With what? I’d be a fool to let you get your hands on a gun, even to rescue Don Julio.”
The prisoner nodded and said, “I probably won’t need one to misdirect the rurales. But do I have your word I can have one, when the time comes?”
“That’s a mighty tall order,” Longarm said. “I’d have to study on it, some.”
El Gato snapped, “Think about it as we ride, then. Vamanos, companeros! Let’s go kill some rurales before we worry about killing one another, damn it!”
They paused in the El Paso Mexican Quarter long enough to outfit Longarm and the Great Costello with charro jackets and less gringo sombreros. Then came the less amusing task of fording the Rio Grande, or Rio Bravo; it was a bitch by whatever name one wanted to call it.
During more usual late summer weather, the river was shallow enough for domestic help in El Paso to cross on foot, regular. But thanks to the recent rain the river was a brawling flood. They had to swim their mounts across and, as Longarm helped both the Great Costello and his livery stable nag buck the current, he was glad El Gato had argued him out of returning the ten dollar plug and mounting the magician on something more seaworthy. He almost lost both of them, and while drowning the Great Costello sounded fair, he’d have had to pay for a more expensive horse out of his own pocket. He’d no doubt owe the livery extra, in any case, if they didn’t make this trip to Mexico short and sweet.
In hopes of doing that, they rode into Ciudad Juarez from the east, lest someone mistake them for Apache in the darkness. Like El Paso, Juarez consisted of a compact inner city surrounded by more sprawling suburbs. Mex ‘dobes sprawled better than the frame housing most Anglo-Texicans preferred. A mess of dogs fussed at them as they rode in, but there were no street lamps, so nothing the dog owners threw at them came close enough to worry about.
The hour was late, but since most Mexicans slept the heat of day away in order to work and play at night, the narrow streets of downtown Juarez were crowded and, again, they had that shifty romantic light to move about in. Longarm and of course El Gato could answer questions thrown at them in Spanish, so they had the Great Costello ride between them. Longarm told him to just shrug and sort of sigh, “Quien sabe?” if he couldn’t get out of talking to someone. While it literally means, “Who knows?” it could mean “None of your damn business,” “I don’t feel like talking to you,” or “Leave me the hell alone.” It was better to be taken for rude and surly than for a gringo in Ciudad Juarez after dark.
El Gato led them to a posada he knew of, near Police Headquarters and across the street from the bullring. They only held bullfights on Sunday afternoons, so they didn’t have to worry about the blank brick wall across the way. The innkeeper El Gato was no doubt related to said he’d worry about their mounts, and suggested they’d feel more comfortable if they ate upstairs instead of with the other guests, since at least two of the sons of unwashed nuns and depraved priests were police informers.
As the three of them moved up the dark stairs the Great Costello protested that he wasn’t hungry. Longarm explained, “I ain’t, neither, but never miss a chance to bust bread with a Mex. It makes him feel like a real shit if he has to turn on you.”
El Gato knew where they were supposed to wind up. He led them into a corner suite that smelled like corn husks and old wasp nests, and threw open the jalousied doors leading out onto a balcony. He pointed across the mostly flat rooftops at a dark mass rising a story higher and growled, “That is the rurale outpost we have to break into and out of.”
The Great Costello asked, “How do you know?”
Before the young Mex could hit him Longarm said, “That’s a fair question. Los rurales are a sort of highway patrol, not city police. Don Julio could just as easily be in the civil jail, here, you know.”
El Gato shrugged and said, “Or the army garrison, if those raiders turned him over to los federales. I see the point. You two wait here while I take a stroll among my people, eh?”
Longarm knew better than to try to stop El Gato. He never sounded too serious, but he never said anything he didn’t mean. So he was alone with the Great Costello, a few minutes later, when a short, plump but pretty mestiza brought them a huge tray piled with chicken, rice, beans and pulque. The only thing they hadn’t put too much pepper in was the booze.
She asked where El Gato was, and when Longarm assured her he’d be back she sighed and said, “I hope it shall be before his food grows cold. It is such a great honor for to cook for a hero of the people.”
Longarm reassured her and she left. As he and the Great Costello sat on the floor of the balcony with the tray between them, the magician took an experimental bite, grimaced, and said, “This stuff couldn’t get cold if you put it in an ice house in January. What’s this stuff in the clay cups? It smells something like flat beer and tastes like warm spit?”
