Rivera would be capable of wiping out the town, Grant Vickers realized. The dealer would not lose a moment's sleep about a few more lives or deaths. How many people had he killed already in the name of "business"? Hundreds? Thousands?
Grant Vickers had an obligation to the town of Santa Rosa, to its people. He had abused their trust, but until this afternoon, the payoffs, lies and secret dealings with Rivera had done nothing to diminish his performance as protector of the tiny town. He had performed with honor, and if certain shipments of narcotics passed through town, northbound, without a second glance from Vickers, it was nothing to the people whom he served. The drugs would not be dealt in Santa Rosa, and it was not Vickers's job to second-guess the DBA boys by obstructing traffic at the border. If the Feds could not prevent Rivera from importing dope, how could a small-town lawman hope to stem the tide?
Rivera smiled across the table, and his grin reminded Vickers of a hungry shark. "Relax, amigo. We are partners, si?"
Grant forced himself to smile and nod as though he were buying it, when all the time he knew it was a crock of shit. Rivera had him measured for a box already, with the rest of Santa Rosa's citizens, and Vickers knew that he could never hope to save the town unless he saved himself as well. No matter that he didn't feel worth saving. It was simple: dead men couldn't fight, and they were way beyond negotiations with Rivera now.
He rose to leave and felt the dealer's weasel eyes like gun sights boring in between his shoulder blades. He reached the exit, waited with a hand out for his Python, while the sentry glanced back at Rivera for instructions. At a nod, the gunner shrugged and gave the Colt to Vickers, stepping back to let him pass. Outside, the noonday heat struck Vickers like a fist above the heart.
It was as hot as hell already, but he knew that it would be a damned sight hotter in the coming hours. When it was done, he might just have a chance to sample hell and make a real comparison. Unless he found some luck he didn't know about. Unless he found the nerve, the guts, to stand against Rivera's men and make it stick.
It was as good as suicide, but Vickers knew he had no choice. He owed the town that much, at least. He owed that much to Becky Kent.
Luis Rivera lit another of his cheroots and blew a cloud of acrid smoke in the direction of the diner's ceiling. Vickers would bear watching; he could feel the man about to break, and when it happened, Vickers might surprise him. Weak men sometimes found an inner well of courage, strength that they, themselves, had not been conscious of until a crisis brought it forth. Such men were dangerous, but only if you let them take you by surprise.
It would have been so easy to eliminate the constable just now. A simple gesture to his men and Vickers would have been cut down before he cleared the exit. Simple. But the dealer had more pressing matters on his mind, and Vickers was not going anywhere. His life was here, in Santa Rosa, and he clung to foolish hopes that something might be salvaged from the town. If nothing else, he cherished hopes of personal survival, counting on his past association with Rivera to secure his life. The gringo might not realize that their connection marked him as a liability; while Vickers lived, the secret of this day would not be safe. Rivera had not reached his present age and station by allowing loose ends in his business dealings. Careless errors were often fatal, and the dealer planned to reach a ripe, old age.
The peasants had refused to give up his quarry, but he was not persuaded by the lawman's arguments about the gringo dying in the desert, unobserved. Rivera felt his prey in Santa Rosa, knew that they were close, and if the people of the town would not cooperate, he would be forced to search the hamlet door-to-door until he found the soldier, trussed him like an animal, and took him home for the amusement of his troops. If he could not find out who had employed the man, Rivera thought that he might try another tack. It might be fun to issue invitations, bring his chief competitors together for a demonstration of his vengeance on the gringo warrior. One of them, at least, would get the message; all of them would realize that he was no one to be trifled with.
But first Rivera had to find the man.
He checked his watch again and saw that it was time. The townspeople had ignored his offer, spurned his generosity, and now the time had come for them to pay. It was a lesson Rivera knew he would enjoy.
He summoned Hector from his table near the diner's entrance, issued orders for the sweep to be initiated, starting from the north. Half of the gunners were to stay with him, securing the diner, while the others worked the street, checking every shop and home in turn. Before they finished, he would have his man in the bag, and then he would be free to finish with the peasants who had dared defy him.
Beckoning the waitress to his table, he requested beer and smiled at her, excited by the fear he saw behind her eyes. Again, Rivera thought that it might be amusing if she came with him to Sonora for a while. She would resist, but he would offer her an option: life or death. Reduced to basic terms, the most unpalatable notions grew persuasive, and if she resisted him in bed, so much the better. He enjoyed resistance, to a point; it made the ultimate surrender that much sweeter.
He waited for her to return and then ordered food. Rivera was not hungry, but he liked to watch her work, and he would have to keep his strength up for the test to come. They might be challenged yet, by one or another of the locals, and he wanted to be ready for the challenge, if and when it came. He might enjoy a contest, come to think of it... provided that the outcome could be guaranteed. It would not do for him to be embarrassed by the residents of Santa Rosa, not when so much was at stake.
He turned to face the diner's broad front window, watching Hector as he issued orders to the troops. The wholesale killing would not start until they had their man, but in the meantime, any obvious resistance would be dealt with harshly and irrevocably. If the townspeople wanted war, he would provide them with the opportunity for martyrdom. It was the very least that he could do, and it would be a pleasure.
And while he waited, there was still the waitress, curiously childlike and appealing in her linen uniform. Rivera teased himself with mental images of her, at home in his estancia. She might be good for more than momentary dalliance. She might...
But he was being foolish now. She was nothing, no more than a trifle in the scheme of things. Rivera might find time to play with her a little, but he dared not make more of her than she was. If he attached undue importance to the woman, he would have to think of her as human, and it would be that much harder to dispose of her when it was time. He could not let himself become attached to anyone or anything that he might later have to throw away.
Outside, his men were dispersing, moving out to start the sweep that could have only one result: the capture of his enemy and destruction of the tiny town that had inadvertently sheltered him. He felt no pity for the town; it had been dying over time, by slow degrees, and now Rivera had arrived to end its misery. He was performing something of a public service, eliminating what had come to be a laughingstock, an eyesore on the highway. In death the crossroads hamlet would achieve a fleeting place in history before it faded, out of sight and out of mind. Its fate would rank along with other legends of the desert: Superstition Mountain, the Lost Dutchman mine, the Seven Cities of Gold. For a time, men would speak the name of Santa Rosa with a kind of wonder, speculating on the perpetrators of amassacre that would make history. And gradually, when no answers were forthcoming, it would be forgotten like the desert's other unsolved mysteries.