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?'
