The man's head lolled to one side like a great bear, slowly, and the eyes grew small as vapor drops. 'You're my fee.'
'Aye, brother,' said Rawbone. And just like that, before his derby hit the floor, he had wheeled about and fired his automatic repeatedly. The little man named Emmanuel had no business being behind a shotgun. He was driven back and crying out, jerked in half. The shotgun went off wildly. A gas lamp exploded, throwing stars of glass and sparks everywhere. The funeral drapes on the far wall were run with flames.
Before Rawbone could turn McManus plowed that slagheap of a body right at him and got a grip on his gun hand. He kept right on for the wall, churning his legs with Rawbone trying to break loose and the gun going off wildly. John Lourdes locked his arms around McManus's neck to pull him back, but he was too strong and using his shoulder flung the young man like he was nothing against the projector. The motor kicked on and there was the click, click, click, click, click, click of the turning sprockets and a rush of dusty light and Rawbone was battered right into the adobe.
An ugly sound came out of Rawbone as if he'd been staved clear through. He'd expended all his ammunition. The body of the dead Emmanuel lay a foot away. The shotgun angled upright across his corpse. Rawbone twisted and bent to try and get low enough to reach the weapon. John Lourdes again was right on McManus, this time bracing his arms up under the dense shoulders to pull him loose. McManus lost his footing briefly and Rawbone was able to score himself down the wall just enough for his fingers to crab around the barrel and take hold before McManus righted himself.
McManus began to yell out a pained and atavistic war cry. He used his prosthesis like a whip but he had Rawbone still in the clench of his one good arm and there wasn't enough space for a breath between them. The three were all tangled together now and they spun crazily, crashing over benches. The newsreel began to play and their shadows wraithed across the screen where President Diaz stood before an array of businessmen and dignitaries and generals and invited the viewer to come and see a burgeoning world.
The smoke from the drapes afire grayed the air. McManus now struggled backward. His boots clopped out a sidling but steady drum of steps. He was like a freight car to take down and the two men even together could not. Rawbone still had the shotgun in his grasp, working to edge his fingers down the barrel.
The three were entwined like some ancient statue from the shores of Troy within the light of the screen and across their bodies were flickering images of vast petrol fields on the Gulf and oil-slicked men with their tired faces and a lone train moving toward blanched and serrated mountains.
The drapes were a mural of smolder and flame. The men grunted like animals for each gasp of air. McManus now steadied himself and slammed John Lourdes against the adobe. He then leaned forward and the young man's boots scruffed along the wood. McManus slammed back again and the blood from the wound above John Lourdes's eye spattered over the side of McManus's face.
Rawbone gasped, 'Mr. Lourdes, can you hold my friend a bit longer?'
'I can ... hold.'
And now Rawbone drove the top of his head into that spur of a chin as he worked his hand down to the trigger. And John Lourdes got an arm around that bear of a head to wrench it back. And Rawbone snaked and squeezed his other arm across his body and finally he steadied up the weapon. McManus watched the barrel clock out inches till it was no longer if, but when.
Rawbone, near wasted with exhaustion, said, 'Let it go.'
McManus would not have it.
'Just give up and we'll be done with this.'
McManus opened his mouth and hissed.
'To what end?'
Rawbone confronted a harpoon stare.
'Mr. Lourdes, force your head back.'
John Lourdes bent away as best he could.
'Friend,' said Rawbone, 'let it go or you'll be this moment forever.'
The face above the gun barrel filled with floodwaters of defiance and contempt and a reverie to fearlessness and in the smoke and sweep of images flickering on the screen the moment saw Rawbone pull the trigger.
NINETEEN
HE FACE WAS there one moment, and the next it was a denuded
