Father and son looked to each other. What to answer? Rawbone was quicker. 'It was with the truck when we retrieved it.'
Stallings walked up the far side of the vehicle, his hands behind his back, checking the crates, the truck itself. Reaching the cab, he glanced at John Lourdes, but his attention went immediately to the other.
'I feel as if I know you, sir.'
Rawbone leaned on the wheel.
'I have an extraordinary facility for faces. Even if they are not particularly interesting or aberrant.'
'I believe we've done a round or two in Texas, if that's what you mean.'
'Name?'
'Rawbone.'
The Doctor's eyes rose and his mouth made a silent ahhh. 'The letter refers to you.' He jutted his chin toward John Lourdes. 'What is this one about?'
The son went to speak for himself, but the father put out a hand to stop him. He leaned past John Lourdes as if he were not even there and in a very private voice said to Stallings, 'Retrieving this truck was no easy matter, as Mr. Hecht can personally validate. And well, this young man may have that Montgomery Ward's look, but if it wasn't for him ... I wouldn't be here right now.'
The son picked up the acid mischief in the voice aimed at him and then the father's glance went from the camp to the train to that crew of thugs by the tent. 'Doctor Stallings, in expeditions such as these you are about to embark on, it has been my personal experience there are always ... casualties.'
Doctor Stallings was expressionless. He pocketed the letter and started for the tent. As he did he called out, 'Jack B, have the truck with its cargo put on the train. And get both these men security cards ... after a proper introduction.'
Jack B, it turned out, was the young shark with that heavily inked arm. He motioned for the truck to follow. They drove down the length of those waiting cars where men played cards or loafed. On the roof of one, two men posed with their rifles as a young, wiry Mexican took photographs of them with a folding pocket camera.
'It might have been a mistake,' John Lourdes said, 'to bring the motorcycle. If Merrill and his men left from here the Doctor could have recognized-'
'Of course, he recognized it. Why do you think he asked. And as for bringing it here being a mistake, the mistake is being here at all.'
Jack B had them pull up to the hoist and then he told the work crew this truck was going aboard with its loaded cargo. Both men were then ordered to step down from the cab. As they did the two security bulls from the tent approached with weapons drawn.
'You're going to be searched now,' said Jack B. 'Turn about. You, put your hands on the hood. You, hands on the truckbed.'
Both did as they were ordered. The father glanced at the son. At the pocket where the notebook was tucked away.
Rawbone got his head shoved by a calloused hand into the truck siding and was told to look forward. His pockets were burrowed into and a wallet loosed. It had nothing in it save money. John Lourdes's wallet had no money, but it did have a photo of his mother and the cross with its chipped-off beam. The father kept trying to steal a look, edging his head a bit, angling his eyes sidewise. He caught a glint of sunlight on that crucifix but it didn't register a meaning. This was not where his ruin lay, or so he thought.
TWENTY-TWO
'E SWEATED OUT that other bull crabbing through the son's pockets, pulling them up and out one by one till they hung there in the daylight. But in the end, the damn notebook was nowhere to be found.
'You can both come around now.'
The father eyed the son while he nonchalantly pushed the pockets back in place. Both men were tossed their wallets and personals. Jack B took security cards from his shirt pocket and handed one to each man. John Lourdes looked the card over. Rawbone wasn't the least interested and couldn't get it in his pocket quick enough. The card, as John Lourdes read it:
AGUA NEGRA
PRIVATE SECURITY
'The truck is your responsibility. You'll stay on the flatcar with it.
