"How come I can't hire a crew?"
"Man, you been away, in jail."
"Larry Mendoza hasn't. Last two mornings you turned him down. How come?"
"It's the time of the year. I got too much business." He poked at the eggs with his fork, yellow appearing, mixing with the brown. "Other people need crews too. They ask me first."
"All right," Majestyk said, "I'm asking you right now for thirty people tomorrow morning. Buck forty."
Julio kept busy with his eggs and didn't look up. "I got crews signed more than a week. Vincent, you too late, that's all."
Majestyk watched him begin to eat his eggs before turning his attention to the other man at the table. He was already finishing, wiping the yolk from his plate with a piece of toast.
"How about you?" Majestyk said. "You get me a crew?"
"Me?" With the same helpless tone as Julio's. "Maybe in ten days," the labor contractor said. "I can't promise you nothing right now."
"In ten days my crop will be ruined."
"Like Julio says, other people ask first. We can't help that."
"What is this, stick-up time? You want more money? What?"
"It's not money, Vincent." Julio's tone was sad as well as helpless. "How can we get you people if we don't have any?"
Majestyk pulled the chair out a little farther. This time he sat down and leaned over the edge of the table on his arms.
He said quietly, "Julio, what's going on?"
"I tole you. I got too much work."
"You'd drive to Mexico if you had to. Come on, somebody pay you, threaten you? What?"
"Listen," Julio said, intently now, his voice lower, "I got to work for a living and I can't do it in no goddamn hospital. You understand?"
"I'm beginning to. You could help me though."
"I'm not going to say any more. Man, I've said enough."
Majestyk stared at him a moment. Finally he said, "Okay," got up and walked away from the table.
Julio called after him, "Vincent, next season, uh?"
The contractor at the table with him, eating his piece of toast, said, "If he's still around."
Coming out of the place into the sunlight he was aware of the State Highway Department truck parked across the street and the deputy sitting in the cab, watching him. Tell him you're going back home, Majestyk was thinking. Put his mind at ease. He started for the street, through the space between the back of the school bus and the stake truck, when the voice stopped him.
"You looking for a crew?"
He saw Bobby Kopas then, leaning against a car with his arms folded, a familiar pose, a tight lavender shirt; sunglasses and bandit moustache hiding a thin, bony face. The car, an Olds 98, was at the curb in front of the school bus. Someone else was inside, a big-shouldered man, behind the wheel.
"You want pickers, maybe I can get you some wine heads," Kopas said. He straightened, unfolding his arms, as Majestyk walked over to him. "You touch me, man, you're back in jail by lunchtime."
Majestyk stared at him, standing there close enough to touch. All he had to do was grab the front of that pretty shirt and belt him. It would be easy and it would be pure pleasure. But the deputy was across the street and Majestyk didn't have to look over to know he was watching them. He wondered if Kopas knew the man in the State Highway Department truck was a cop.
"You dropped the complaint," Majestyk said. "Why? You want to try and pay me back yourself?"
"I do you a favor-Jesus, after you like to broke my nose, you think I'm pulling something." Kopas gave him the hint of a grin. "Man, I'm being a good neighbor, that's all."
"What'd you say to Julio Tamaz and the other contractors? You pay them off or threaten them? How'd you work it?"
The little grin was still there. "Man, I hope nobody's telling stories on me, giving me a bad name."
"They didn't say it was you. I'm saying it."
"Why would I do a thing like that?"
"So I'll lose my crop."
"I think you must be a little mixed up," Kopas said. "Don't know where your head's at. Here you are standing in deep shit and you're worried about a little dinky melon crop."
"You've been talking to somebody," Majestyk said.
"Who's that?" Kopas said, giving him the grin.
"I can fix it you'd have a hard time smiling again."
Kopas tensed and the grin vanished. "Listen, I'm not kidding. You even make a fist, man, you're back in jail."
"Are you working for him?"
"Who's that?"
"He get you to drop the complaint?"
"I think I'm tired of talking to you," Kopas said. He moved to the car door and opened it, then looked back at Majestyk.
"I'll tell you one thing though. Somebody's going to set your ass on fire. And I'm going to be there to see it."
The Olds started off as Kopas got in and slammed the door.
Majestyk caught a glimpse of the driver's profile-looking at Kopas, saying something-and for a moment he thought he knew the man or had seen him before. But the car was moving away and it was too late to get another look at him and be sure. Big shoulders, curly hair. Maybe he was one of the guys who had been with Kopas a week ago, the day it began. Or a different one. The car was different.
What difference did it make? He had enough people to think about without bringing in new ones. Faces to remember. Frank Renda's. Telling him he was going to kill him. Now Kopas and Renda. The man had already started to make his move. He didn't waste time. He found Kopas and hired him. That was plain enough. Now they were beginning to play a game with him. Let him know they were coming. Give him something to keep him awake nights. He thought of telling the deputy in the State Highway Department truck. Get him after them, quick, before they turned off the highway somewhere. Maybe they would lead him to Renda.
But Renda didn't have any reason to hide. He was free.
And what does the cop do, arrest them? For what?
No, whatever's going to happen is going to happen, Majestyk thought. So go home and pick your melons.
8
"I'mnot shittin' you," Kopas said. "I was thinking of dropping the complaint anyway, so I could take care of the son of a bitch myself."
Eugene Lundy wasn't listening to him. He was staring straight ahead, over the hood of the Olds 98, at the vacant land of dust-green mesquite and sun glare and bugs rising with the airstream and exploding in yellow bursts against the windshield. Like somebody was spitting them there.
"Load up the pump gun and wait for him," Kopas said. "Or stick it in his window some night. See him sittin' on the toilet. Bam. Scatter the motherfucker all over the room."
Lundy was counting the bug stains, more than a dozen of the yellow ones: some kind of bug flying along having a nice time and the next thing sucked into the wind, coming up fast over the hood and wiped out, the bug not knowing what in the name of Christ happened to him. Maybe they had been butterflies. Seeing the bugs suddenly, there wasn't time to tell what they were.
"I got to piss," Kopas said.
Lundy looked at the speedometer and up again. He was holding between seventy and seventy-five down the country road that rose and dropped through the desert, seeing no other cars, no people, not even signs.
"Man, I'm in pain," Kopas said. "All you got to do is stop the car."
"We're almost there," Lundy said. "I'm not going to stop twice."
"How long you think it's going to take me, an hour? All I want to do is take a piss."
"Hold it," Lundy said.
Maybe they were all different kinds of bugs, but all bugs were yellow inside. Like all people were red inside. Maybe. Lundy had never thought about it before. His gaze held on the stained windshield as he waited for a bug to come up over the hood.
He felt so good his eyes were watering, and kept going like he was never going to stop. Jesus, what a relief. Son of a bitch Lundy made him hold it twenty minutes, refusing to stop the car. He'd finally pleaded with him. Christ, just slow down, he'd piss out the window, but the son of a bitch wouldn't even do that. A very cold son of a bitch who didn't say much, sitting on two pieces under his seat, a Colt.45 automatic and a big fucking Colt.44 mag. He had asked the guy if he had been in on the bus job and the guy had looked at him and said, "The bus job. Is that what you call it?" And that was all he'd said.