"This ... is a Mr. Lourdes."
"Really. One of those, heh. Did you serve in Manila, Mr. Lourdes? Is that how you came to be under the spell of this bugger?"
"Look at him, you brainless shit. He would have been a boy."
"They had boys fighting that were thirteen."
"Mr. Lourdes, would you mind," said Rawbone, "waiting by the truck."
The tenor of the two men's talk changed immediately upon John Lourdes leaving.
"Since when did you start running a boy's home?"
"Since I was ... engaged ... to work with a certain former railroad detective on a ... particular matter."
McManus jerked a thumb toward the outside. "That one?"
"That one."
"If he don't look like a lightning bug trying to pass for lightning."
"I got a truck outside that needs to be parked away in your warehouse till morning. You will be neatly compensated for your charity."
"By the lightning bug?"
JOHN LOURDES WAITED by the truck. The dead from the mountain and the river were with him in the dark, still in their assigned poses at the moment of demise. He wondered now, did God see man as this threadbare and vanquished figure infected with his own immorality? Yet, with all that on his mind and soul, the single overriding principle he clung to was-the practical application of strategy. The door opened and both men approached.
"You can be free with my friend here," said Rawbone. "I've told him you had been a railroad detective and . . . we were engaged in a particular matter. And there would be money for the use of his warehouse."
Stepping up into the cab seat, he added, "You wait here, Mr. Lourdes. I'm gonna bed down this truck."
The night had cooled and John Lourdes grabbed an old leather coat from the back. Rawbone drove off leaving him with McManus. They stood in the doorway shadowed together and watching the truck gear slowly around the corner. John Lourdes looked at McManus. McManus smiled down at the young man, but it was not a heartening smile.
"So, you were in the war," said John Lourdes.
"Part of the Texas Battalion. Served with Rawbone. In Manila."
"I didn't know that."
"They say the best soldiers are the biggest bastards."
"That would mean he'd qualify."
This drew a genuine laugh from McManus. "Two medals, and he's not even a fuckin' patriot."
The idea that Rawbone had ever fought for the country set off a run of thoughts. "Do you know a man named Merrill? He served in Manila. Was with Standard Oil in Mexico."
"No."
John Lourdes reached into his vest pocket. When McManus saw the notepad, he commented, "I make it a habit of not remembering names."
John Lourdes understood. "You won't even be a mention."
McManus answered, "Comforting."
But John Lourdes suspected he now wasn't so sure. The photo and business cards were tucked away in the notepad. He handed the weathered print to McManus, who set it in the palm of his wooden hand. Holding it close, he squinted. "I don't know this man."
"Are you familiar with the Alliance for Progress?"
SON AND FATHER walked obscure and wretched streets past beggars in doorways and broken-down bars and past children huddled up in makeshift boxes that were all they had for homes. Rawbone eyed the urchins and knew himself in their deserted stares. As they made for the appointed destination dragoons rode past in slow, watchful columns. The late-night patrols another sign Mexico was about to be taken by nightmare. He got out a cigarette and lit it.
John Lourdes still had the photo in his hand and kept tapping it against his shoulder holster as they went. He was making a determined inventory of the facts at hand to try and distill what he knew into a plan that would fulfill his orders.
"McManus said you were in the army."
"Yeah."
"He said you served with the Texas Battalion."
"Yeah."
"Were they posted at Fort Bliss or San Antonio?"
"Fort Bliss."
Rawbone was preoccupied. He blew the smoke out his nostrils hard. He wanted this night over, he wanted Mr. Lourdes out of his life, he wanted freedom.
"Did you spend a lot of time in El Paso during those years?"
"What is it with the questions?"
"You were asking me at the church about the barrio and did I know families there. I just wondered-"
"Yeah." The question went right to the pitiful bits of truth he did not want any part of tonight. Tonight was about survival. Fuck the agony of remembered ghosts-for now. "The army wasn't much," he said. "I needed time out of the States. The war, though. If you have the temperament for it, war can be a blessing."
"What were the medals for?"
He tossed the cigarette away. "Killing, of course."
THE VIEJA ADUANA was a block-long building with a clocktower above the main entryway. The facing was all Palladian windows and the interior lit so bright the Customs House seemed to be on fire. Son and father could see the lobby was crowded with men, so many they were spilling out into the street where frontier customs guards stood at the watch. Most of the men, be they nationals or foreigners, were of the business and mercantile class, suited and without guns. But there were also rough verdaderos hombres, "real men" as the Spanish liked to call them.
Around the entryway John Lourdes picked up on runs of conversation flush with panic. There were reports alleging Madero, the duly elected president forced into exile by Diaz and living in the United States, was about to declare himself president pro tem and issue a decree for the overthrow of the government. This was fed by rumors rebel armies were already forming to the west in Sonora and Chihuahua to the south. And from the way small armed bands of peons could be seen riding the roads, this had more than just the feel of a rumor. One thing was for certain, Ciudad Juarez would be put under siege. The war would be brought to the border of the United States, for the United States was the world. And U.S. companies, along with British companies, controlled near all the wealth from oil and mining in Mexico.
Rawbone kept on through the crowd, but John Lourdes had stopped at the Customs House entryway. Inside that vaulted lobby booths and tables had been set up by business organizations so concerns could be addressed and pamphlets handed out. On a makeshift stage men took turns speaking from a podium while others waited. Some were met with applause, others excoriation. It was a war of words dedicated to self-proclaimed interests.
Rawbone realized John Lourdes was not with him and went back to the entryway where he stood. "You know what you have here, Mr. Lourdes ... the practical application of strategy."
Each table had across it a flag naming the organization or association it represented. One read ALLIANCE FOR PROGRESS.
"Mr. Lourdes, this country is gonna burn. So let's get this done and be gone out of here."
John Lourdes heard the father well enough, but his mind was turning like the earth as he took dogged inventory of the facts at hand, trying to distill an answer-how one pawn of a truck, moving through a conspiracy of allegiances, meant to affect the world at large.
"Mr. Lourdes?"
The son stared into the Customs House. "This is where we're going," he said.
The father grabbed his arm. "What for?"
"The cause of things."
SIXTEEN
A cadre of businessmen stood around the booth. A flier was being handed out while a poised gentleman, with hands folded and a face near expressionless as a piece of paper, calmly spoke.
"As a member of the American consulate I can speak clearly to the one issue I am constantly asked about. If there is to be a revolution, and it certainly looks as if there will be, what can America do to maintain stability here? Of course, by that you mean, beyond diplomacy, military intervention. Now I know what I'm going to say you don't want to hear, but it's exactly what I have expressed to Mr. Hecht."