'You lose your arm in the war?'
McManus lit up, and when John Lourdes got a scent of that tobacco he knew what it was. McManus offered the young man a draw.
'I'll stick with the beer.'
'Too bad Rawbone's not here. He's partial to the reefer. It's a little something we all picked up in Manila, besides the clap.' McManus set the cigarette down on the edge of the table. He reached inside his stained shirt and pulled out a necklace. Resting in his palm was this enormous snow-white human front tooth, root and all.
'I got into a stupid fight with a stupider drunk. I hit him so hard his tooth embedded in the bone of my middle knuckle. Right to the root it went. The fool must have had rabies or something 'cause I got an infection and the arm had to come off. I wear it to remember-don't never do anything stupid.'
He slipped the cigarette in his mouth and stood. He tucked the reel of film up under his arm. 'Let's go see about some goodwill.'
McManus threaded the projector in the dark. A charge of smoky light shot past where John Lourdes stood. Out of the dark a world opened. He was suddenly a traveler on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. From a sandy ridgetop a vast panorama of oil fields. Moments cut from one to the next-plumes of charred air rising from refineries, a legion of worker huts, a train moving off into a seared wasteland.
'These are newsreels President Diaz had filmed to show off the country. Prosperity and publicity. But mostly they're about him.'
He held the cigarette near his nose and snorted in the smoke. 'I like the world better in black and white. It seems closer to the soul of things that way. What say you, Mr. Lourdes?'
The scene shifted again. El Presidente in all his aging pomp and splendor was flanked by an array of dignitaries and businessmen and generals. He stood with hand on saber gesturing for the viewer to come and witness for himself a burgeoning world.
The camera cut from oil-soaked men at a huge derrick to an army of laborers constructing a pipeline to a tanker waiting at sea. The men smiled for the camera, but they were a poor, tired lot.
It was when the entourage with the president began to move that John Lourdes noticed Anthony Hecht. And who should be there just back and behind him?
The scene shifted again and John Lourdes asked, 'Can you stop the film. And go back. Just, I saw someone.'
The moment froze. The screen went white. McManus reeled back the film and as the scenes replayed John Lourdes stepped into the light and his arm's shadow reached out to point. 'There's Anthony Hecht. Do you know him?'
'Only by name ... Alliance for Progress.'
'And that man. Just behind him. Do you know him?'
'I do not.'
'Ever seen him?'
'I have not. Who is it?'
'James Merrill.'
In the film, Hecht leaned around and said something to Merrill, who nodded. As they moved past the camera, another man was revealed with Merrill.
Only this was no ordinary man. He had a nighthawk face that seemed at odds with his snowy white hair and mustache. He wore a gray suit and, in fact, was rather young. Somewhere in age between Rawbone and John Lourdes.
'I know the one with Merrill,' said McManus. 'The white-haired fellow.'
John Lourdes studied the man on film. He walked with his hands folded behind his back. He was polished and erect and he moved with an economy of motion and gesture.
'He used to be a Texas Ranger. College-educated. Washington, or a place like that. Was a professor before. Doctor Stallings is how he's called.'
The last of the film rattlesnaked through the sprockets. John Lourdes disappeared somewhere in that empty screen chasing yet what he did not know.
'The Ranger ... what does he do now?'
'Private security.'
McManus turned off the projector. The room went dark.
