"A generous guard," he suggested. "A dumb, generous guard. Right?"
Mr. Rebeck was a neat man and a respecter of property. The man's attitude pained him. "Damn it," he said, "for all you know I might be a thief. How do you know I'm not trying to steal something?"
Deep, rum-warmed laughter chugged out of the man. "Nothing to steal. Thieves don't come messing around cemeteries. What for?"
"Body-snatchers do," said Mr. Rebeck, unwilling to concede the point. "Grave-robbers do. Maybe I'm a grave-robber."
The blue eyes inspected him seriously. "Have to be a pretty small grave. You only got one pocket."
Somebody was going to have to awaken this man to a sense of his responsibilities. It was lucky that he had come along, Mr. Rebeck thought. He set his feet firmly and tapped his open palm with a forefinger.
"You're not supposed to make decisions," he said patiently. "You're not supposed to decide who's a thief and who isn't. That's not your job. Are you listening to me?"
"Yeah," said the man. He shook the bottle in Mr. Rebeck's face. "Look, you want this or you don't?"
"Give it to me," Mr. Rebeck said warily. He was glad that the man did not seem about to arrest him, but the man's cavalier dismissal of his duties saddened and faintly disgusted him. He thought of all the nights when he had sneaked fearfully into the lavatory, tiptoeing, desperately willing the door not to squeak, hearing his doom in every echoing step he took, afraid even to glance at the lighted building on the other side of the road because he might somehow draw the guard's attention. I could have come marching down in army boots, he thought bitterly, singing drinking songs and throwing rocks at his door, and he wouldn't even have turned in his sleep. He realized now that he had enjoyed the furtive excursions and was sorry that there would be none ever again.
He drank from the bottle, not choking, although it was his first drink in nineteen years. The chocolate-charcoal flavor of the rum warmed the back of his throat as it went down. "Thank you," he said, and offered the bottle to the big man.
The man shook his head. "Yours," he said, shoving the bottle back at Mr. Rebeck with enough force to send him staggering. "Until I finish mine."
"Well, that's fair enough," Mr. Rebeck said, and drank again. Then, remembering his manners, he held out his hand to the man. "My name is Jonathan Rebeck," he said.
"Campos," said the big man. He shook Mr. Rebeck's hand with the taut gentleness of a man who knows his own strength and released it almost at once. "Let's sit down somewhere with this stuff."
"Very well," Mr. Rebeck said. "But I want one thing clear. You're a fine fellow, and you set a fine table, but you are the worst guard I ever saw. Let there be no pretensions between us."
"None," Campos agreed. "None of them. Only I always thought I was a pretty good guard."
"You're a terrible guard," Mr. Rebeck said earnestly. He touched Campos's arm. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you. But some things must be said."
"I'm a terrible guard," Campos mused aloud. He shrugged lightly. "Well, learn something new every day. Come on, sit down."
They sat down together in the grass in front of the caretaker's office. Campos immediately jumped to his feet and dashed into the office, returning almost instantly with a leather-covered portable radio clutched against his chest.
"My music," he explained. He put it down on the ground, turned it on, and tuned it until he found a station that played classical music. Then he leaned back against the wall of the building and grinned at Mr. Rebeck. "Great stuff," he said. "Listen to it all the time."
Mr. Rebeck settled himself beside him. "It's very pretty," he said comfortably. He held the bottle in his lap, rolling it between his palms.
"Listen to it all the damn time," Campos said. "Ever since I been working here."
"How long has that been?"
"Year now. Walters got me the job."
Mr. Rebeck was uncautious. "That's the man with light hair?"
"Yeah." Suspicion flared for a moment in Campos's blue-ink eyes. "How come you know what Walters looks like?"
The light-headed feeling of reprieve that Mr. Rebeck had been allowing himself died in his stomach with a reproachful murmur. A trickle of rum got into a cut on his lip and stung.
"I've seen him," he said, "when I was here before. I saw him driving in the truck. I think you were with him at the time."
Campos was not to be put off. His huge hand closed on the bottle that Mr. Rebeck held and jerked it away. "Don't go slopping my rum like that. How come you're in here this time of night anyway? We close at five."
"I got locked in," Mr. Rebeck said promptly. He smiled appeasingly at Campos. "You know how time flies when you're visiting someone. And before I knew it—"
"You didn't come in here running around in no bathrobe," Campos said. He pointed at Mr. Rebeck's feet. "Nor in no carpet slippers. Walters wouldn't let you. I might, because I might be listening to my music and not noticing things. You might get past me, because I don't notice things sometimes, but Walters wouldn't let you in here dressed all like that."
He ended on a triumphant upbeat, and Mr. Rebeck twisted the hem of the terrycloth bathrobe and knew himself trapped. There was nothing for it now but to throw himself on Campos's mercy, and it had been Mr. Rebeck's experience of mercy that it had a tendency to buckle under the weight of a human soul. But he was tired, and it was three in the morning, and sitting side by side in a cemetery with this strange and suspicious man was aging him rapidly. If it must be, let it be now, before the rum and the appearance of friendship were quite finished.
"I live here," he said evenly. "I live in an old mausoleum and have for a good while. Now either call the police or give me back that rum. I'm too old for this sort of thing."
"Sure," Campos said. "Didn't even realize I had it." He gave the bottle back to Mr. Rebeck, who stared at him for a moment and then drank with painful-sounding gulps. Campos patted his back when he finally choked, and helped him to sit up straight.
"See, I knew Walters wouldn't let you in," he explained, "so I figured it was something like that." He reached out to finger the material of the bathrobe. "Catch cold running around in that. Catch a real mean cold."
"No I won't," Mr. Rebeck said. "It's a very warm night."
"All the same," Campos said. He turned the radio up louder and listened intently to a string quartet. It was a Mozart piece, or a Haydn. The little Mr. Rebeck had ever known about classical music he had utterly forgotten. But he saw Campos looking at him for approval, and he closed his eyes and hummed softly to indicate that he was following the music.
"Great, huh?" Campos's face was eager for endorsement of his taste. "All them fiddles. They make me feel loose."
"Loose," said Mr. Rebeck. He was a little afraid to make a question out of it. "Yes. Loose."
"Like I was twenty and not working for anybody and I could fly," Campos said. "Like that, loose."
Together they listened to the string quartet. The music was happy on top and sad on the bottom, and it warmed Mr. Rebeck's stomach as much as the rum. He lay back on the grass with his hands beneath his head and the bottle of rum balanced on his chest and looked up through the trees at the few stars there were.
This is very pleasant, he said to himself. It seems unusual to me because I haven't done very much of it, but this may be what a man is for. It may, of course, not be. It may be simply a very nice way to spend time, with music and something to drink and a friend—although he did not know if he could honestly consider Campos a friend. He was much too unpredictable, even for a friend—no more good or evil than the wind, and just as trustworthy. Still, there was a debt between them now, and drink shared, and this often makes a good friend-glue.