“How could it?”
“Your death has been a matter of sport to Frank Pastor. It’s inconsequential. He’s gone through the motions, he’s honored the traditions to which he’s obligated, but he hasn’t yet devoted extraordinary energies to pursuing you. The attacks on you may have been engineered by a subordinate — perhaps Ezio Martin — and they were incidentals in Frank Pastor’s life. Your demise is something he desires. But it’s hardly a vital issue to him. Now if you should carry your attack directly to Pastor and do injury to him, then he and his family would drop absolutely everything in the rush to avenge themselves on you. Where a relatively insignificant proportion of their energies heretofore has been devoted to your harassment, now you would find that the entire force of their violent resources would be brought to bear in an intense concentration against you and your family.”
The tractor sputtered to a stop. In the abrupt silence he could hear the breath whistling through Roger’s nostrils.
Vasquez said, “I doubt you’d stand one chance in a million. You and your wife and son would not merely be tracked, found and taken. You’d very likely be subjected to punishments of agonizing painfulness before you were eventually slaughtered. As for Mr. Gilfillan and his family, one can’t be sure whether their hunger for vengeance would stretch that far but it’s possible.”
Mathieson pulled out a chair and sat down slowly at the table. He laid both arms out flat along the tabletop and looked at the backs of his hands. Beside him Roger reached out; he felt the solid grip of Roger’s fingers on his shoulder.
Vasquez was behind him and Mathieson did not look around. Eventually it forced Vasquez to walk around the table and stand on the far side looking at him. Mathieson raised his head.
In a kinder voice Vasquez said, “I have a responsibility to force you to think these things right through before you decide on a course of action. You resent it, of course — it would be unnatural if you didn’t. I’ve thrown a few of your assumptions off the track. I’ve managed to depress you. I’ve made what already appeared difficult become all but impossible to conceive.”
Roger’s hand fell away; his chair scraped and Mathieson heard him stand up. “Tell you what you’ve done to me, you’ve made me start wondering whether you’re getting a case of cold feet.”
“I intend going all the way with this,” Vasquez said. “Make no mistake about that.”
“How do we know that? So far all I’ve seen is some athletics and some smoke screens.”
Mathieson looked up at Roger in surprise: the anger in Roger’s voice was unmistakable.
“I signed on to do something — not just set around and look at pictures and listen to your long-winded flapdoodle and wait on our butts for these four fire inspectors to come find us hidin’ in the hayloft. So far all’s I’ve seen you do is spend a lot of Fred’s money on man-hours for your own operatives compiling these here beautiful plastic-bound Xerox dossiers, and now you’re trying to tell us we can ignore Deffeldorf and Tyrone, just throw all that money and time away. Hell, the way you go at it we could all set around here waitin’ for inspiration until we got long white whiskers on us.”
Vasquez scowled. “We can’t fight from ignorance. We’d get nowhere. Surely you can understand that. We need facts before we can move. We’ve got the facts now. We’re sorting through them. In time we’ll find facts we can use. It takes time — I’m sorry, I won’t be held accountable for that, or for your impatience.”
“You make it sound right reasonable. But somebody else might take a look at all this and call it foot-draggin’.”
“In other words you don’t trust me.”
“Why should I? Why should Fred, for that matter? Just because you say out loud that you aim to go all the way with this, we supposed to believe you? Vasquez, I been listening to producers and directors talk real sweet to me all my life, and the only thing I really learned out of all that was that ninety-nine times out of a hundred those old boys are just yakking to practice their lying.”
Vasquez looked at Mathieson. “Do you share your friend’s distrust of me?”
“I’d like to know what your intentions are. I’d like to know your reasons — why you took this on in the first place, especially if you thought it was such a poor gamble.”
“My reasons are personal.”
“Something between you and Frank Pastor?”
“No. I’ve never had dealings with the man.”
“Then what is it?” Mathieson sat up straight. “I realize it’s an impertinent question.”
“Impertinent? It’s personal. But then the only things that matter are.” Vasquez thrust his hands into his pockets. His face drew back defensively, chin tucked toward the plaid collar of his open shirt. “Call them my private demons. Matters of vanity and eccentric conviction. I’d prefer to leave it at that.”
“Ain’t enough,” Roger said.
Mathieson said, “I agree with Roger. I’m sorry to pry but we’ve got a right to be satisfied on this. I don’t want to be crude — but it’s my money you’re spending.”
“And my time you’re wasting,” Roger said. “All of us, our time.”
“An extraordinary amount of my own time as well,” Vasquez said. “Do you know how many other cases I’ve had to turn away or set on the back burner?”
Mathieson’s fist hit the table: “Why? You’ve got to tell us why.”
Vasquez blinked. His shoulders rolled around and settled; his chin poked forward until he looked querulous. “Are you religious, Mr. Merle?”
It took him aback. “What? No — not particularly.”
“You?”
Roger shook his head.
Vasquez said, “People who believe in God can leave the ultimate sortings-out to Him. Rewards and punishments. Heaven and Hell. When one has no faith in that, one must pay some attention to justice here and now. Otherwise it’s all meaningless chaos.”
Roger snapped at him: “We didn’t ask for a course in philosophy.”
“You’re going to get one. You asked a question. I’m answering it.” Vasquez’s eyes swiveled bleakly toward Mathieson. “My reasons have to do with the fact that I lost my faith in God a long time ago. Do you understand at all? I’m a Chicano, Mr. Merle, I have experience of injustice.”
Roger said, “You don’t talk like no ignorant barrio slum.”
“Nevertheless I was born in one. I was born on the south side of Tucson, Arizona. An adobe slum.”
“So now we get into ethnic stuff?”
Vasquez shook his head. “I believe with Edmund Burke that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. You see I may have lost faith but I still carry the burden of absolutism — I was raised in the Church. I believe in absolute distinctions between good and evil. It would have been easier if I’d been able to adapt myself to the current fashions in flexible morality. But I can’t — I won’t be corrupted, it would make my existence so complicated it would be impossible.”
Mathieson stared at him. Was it possible Vasquez’s reluctance had been caused solely by a fear of ridicule?