a veiled threat, his survival paralleling that of the oil fields, as both were vulnerable to acts of violence. He also insinuated the new regime might well have a different worldview of the oil companies and how they might be treated or taxed. He could not guarantee, under those conditions, the same kind of favorable treatment. Often, he used the phrase 'direct American intervention' as the means of security and control.
Creeley, the gentleman at the Southern, told the mayor a case for American intervention had to be built carefully, and to that end, he added, unofficially, an investigation on the ground could well be in the works.
Rawbone heard it all, and cold hard reason told him no good would come of this. It smelled of Cuba. And Manila. And the law of a black argument. All he said was, 'The shotgun.'
John Lourdes glanced at the shotgun across his lap. 'We're going to meet someone tonight about the weapons.'
THIRTY-TWO
LONG THE PANuco everything seemed touched by smoke from the refineries. The buildings packed in along the shore as far as one could see were shrouded in gloom. The tramway crossed a channel that connected the laguna to the Panuco. The country there was wild and dark. John Lourdes took the flashlight from his carryall and the notebook in his hand flared up.
'This is the place.'
The truck pulled off into the high reeds. Rawbone sat there vexed and checked his automatic. 'Who contacted you?'
'Would it make a difference what name they used?'
The question went to the very core of their being.
'No.'
They sat quietly for a bit.
'Why us, for this?' said the father. 'Have you asked yourself that?'
'I have.'
'And why didn't the good doctor just give us the weapons? To be delivered right off. Have you asked yourself that?'
'I have.'
'And do you have an answer in your gunsights?'
'No ... but I believe the answer may have me in its gunsights.'
The son shut off the light and lit a cigarette. The father got out of the truck. They waited.
'You were raised in El Paso, were you not, Mr. Lourdes?'
'I was.'
'The barrio?'
'The barrio.'
He could not see the son from where he'd walked to in the high reeds. There was only the glow from the tip of John Lourdes's cigarette.
'There was a factory,' Rawbone said casually, 'that sewed American flags. I had a place a few doors up a walking street. Do you know it ... the factory?'
'I seem to recall it.'
'It's only an alley now for telephone poles. There's a pawnshop on one corner and a gun seller on the other where I picked up this Savage the day before we had ... the good fortune ... of stumble-fucking into each other.'
He hesitated. There was only the sound of the water slipping down through the channel to the river and the Gulf beyond. As a man, the father felt completely boarded up, the shell that waited upon the wrecking ball.
'My wife is dead, but I have a son. What do you think, Mr. Lourdes? When I get back to El Paso . . . Do I try to find him? You know me. What I am. What do you think of the idea?'
The ash on the tip of the cigarette branded the dark intensely but never moved, never wavered. It held steady as a star in the night sky.
'I wouldn't answer, myself, Mr. Lourdes. A Chinaman is right. Silence is golden. Except, of course, when you're broke.'
They went back to waiting amongst the brittle dry weeds. Each man alone in the wilderness of his existence. From the laguna came the sound of an engine. They could hear it turn into the canal.
