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Did she say where she was? This is a West Texas number.
She just said it was Carla Jean and give the number.
He went to the sideboard and called. She and her grandmother were in a motel outside of El Paso. I need for you to tell me somethin, she said.
All right.
Is your word good?
Yes it is.
Even to me?
I'd say especially to you.
He could hear her breathing in the receiver. Traffic in the distance.
Sheriff?
Yes mam.
If I tell you where he called from do you give your word that no harm will come to him.
I can give my word that no harm will come to him from me. I can do that.
After a while she said: Okay.
The man sitting at the little plywood table that folded up from the wall onto a hinged leg finished writing on the pad of paper and took off the headset and laid it on the table in front of him and passed both hands backwards over the sides of his black hair. He turned and looked toward the rear of the trailer where the second man was stretched out on the bed. Listo? he said.
The man sat up and swung his legs to the floor. He sat there for a minute and then he rose and came forward.
You got it?
I got it.
He tore the sheet off the pad and handed it to him and he read it and folded it and put it into his shirtpocket. Then he reached up and opened one of the kitchen cabinets and took out a camouflage-finished submachinegun and a pair of spare clips and pushed open the door and stepped down into the lot and shut the door behind him. He crossed the gravel to where a black Plymouth Barracuda was parked and opened the door and pitched the machinegun in on the far seat and lowered himself in and shut the door and started the engine. He blipped the throttle a couple of times and then pulled out onto the blacktop and turned on the lights and shifted into second gear and went up the road with the car squatting on the big rear tires and fishtailing and the tires whining and unspooling clouds of rubbersmoke behind him.
VIII
I've lost a lot of friends over these last few years. Not all of em older than me neither. One of the things you realize about gettin older is that not everbody is goin to get older with you. You try to help the people that're payin your salary and of course you cant help but think about the kind of record you leave. This county has not had a unsolved homicide in forty-one years. Now we got nine of em in one week. Will they be solved? I dont know. Ever day is against you. Time is not on your side. I dont know as it'd be any compliment if you was known for second guessin a bunch of dopedealers. Not that they have all that much trouble second guessin us. They dont have no respect for the law? That aint half of it. They dont even think about the law. It dont seem to even concern em. Of course here a while back in San Antonio they shot and killed a federal judge. I guess he concerned em. Add to that that there's peace officers along this border gettin rich off of narcotics. That's a painful thing to know. Or it is for me. I dont believe that was true even ten years ago. A crooked peace officer is just a damned abomination. That's all you can say about it. He's ten times worse than the criminal. And this aint goin away. And that's about the only thing I do know. It aint goin away. Where would it go to?
And this may sound ignorant but I think for me the worst of it is knowin that probably the only reason I'm even still alive is that they have no respect for me. And that's very painful. Very painful. It has done got way beyond anything you might of thought about even a few years ago. Here a while back they found a DC-4 over in Presidio County. Just settin out in the desert. They had come in there of a night and graded out a sort of landin strip and set out rows of tarbarrels for lights but there was no way you could of flown that thing back out of there. It was stripped out to the walls. Just had a pilot's seat in it. You could smell the marijuana, you didnt need no dog. Well the sheriff over there – and I wont say his name – he wanted to get set up and nail em when they come back for the plane and finally somebody told him that they wasnt nobody comin back. Never had been. When he finally understood what it was they was tellin him he just got real quiet and then he turned around and got in his car and left.
When they was havin them dope wars down across the border you could not buy a half quart masonjar nowheres. To put up your preserves and such. Your chow chow. They wasnt none to be had. What it was they was usin them jars to put handgrenades in. If you flew over somebody's house or compound and you dropped grenades on em they'd go off fore they hit the ground. So what they done was they'd pull the pin and stick em down in the jar and screw the lid back on. Then whenever they hit the ground the glass'd break and release the spoon. The lever. They would preload cases of them things. Hard to believe that a man would ride around at night in a small plane with a cargo such as that, but they done it.
I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up somethin that would just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics. Maybe he did. I told that to somebody at breakfast the other mornin and they asked me if I believed in Satan. I said Well that aint the point. And they said I know but do you? I had to think about that. I guess as a boy I did. Come the middle years my belief I reckon had waned somewhat. Now I'm startin to lean back the other way. He explains a lot of things that otherwise dont have no explanation. Or not to me they dont.
Moss set the case in the booth and eased himself in after it. He lifted the menu from the wire rack where it stood along with the mustard and ketchup. She scooted into the booth opposite. He didnt look up. What are you havin, he said.
I dont know. I aint looked at the menu.
He spun the menu around and slid it in front of her and turned and looked for the waitress.
What are you? the girl said.
What am I havin?
No. What are you. Are you a character?
He studied her. The only people I know that know what a character is, he said, is other characters.
I might just be a fellow traveler.
Fellow traveler.
Yeah.
Well you are now.
You're hurt, aint you?
What makes you say that?
You cant hardly walk.
Maybe it's just a old war injury.
I dont think so. What happened to you?
You mean lately?
Yeah. Lately.
You dont need to know.
Why not?
I dont want you gettin all excited on me.
What makes you think I'd get excited?
Cause bad girls like bad boys. What are you goin to have?
I dont know. What is it you do?
Three weeks ago I was a law abidin citizen. Workin a nine to five job. Eight to four, anyways. Things happen to you they happen. They dont ask first. They dont require your permission.
That's the truth if I ever heard it told, she said.
You hang around me you'll hear some more of it.
You think I'm a bad girl?
I think you'd like to be.
What's in that briefcase?
Briefs.
What's in it.
I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
You aint supposed to carry a gun in a public place. Did you not know that? In particular a gun such as that.
Let me ask you somethin.
Go ahead.
When the shootin starts would you rather be armed or be legal?
I dont want to be around no shootin.
Yes you do. It's wrote all over you. You just dont want to get shot. What are you havin?
What are you?
Cheeseburger and a chocolate milk.
The waitress came and they ordered. She got the hot beef sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy. You aint even asked me where I was goin, she said.