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Orozco said stubbornly, “I got a cousin out in the back hills there livin’ on beans and bread. No meat, no milk. They get their drinking water from an irrigation ditch. Co
Oakley opened his eyes with a grimace and studied the fat man with cool mistrust. “If he’s your cousin why do you let him live like that?”
“Because he’s too proud to accept my help. I’ve offered him money plenty times.”
“But he’s not too proud to demand title to land he never earned.”
“That’s a redneck argument, Carl. I didn’ expect it from you. ‘Look at the lazy greaser, good for nahthing, livin’ on welfare.’ Only there ain’t no welfare down here to speak of. Just gringos complainin’ about the lazy nogood greasers.”
“Don’t call me a bigot, Diego. You know damn well when I’m in trouble I’d sooner go to you for help than any gringo I know.”
“Sure. And when was the last time you invited a chicano into your home for a nice sociable di
Oakley tipped his head back and closed his eyes down to slits. “You’re way out of line, Diego. Don’t start calling me names just because your chicanos just can’t adjust to the times. How can you try to bulldoze me with a fantastic pipedream like this? Co
“You don’ think much of me, do you?”
“I think a lot of you, Diego, but I think you got yourself roped into a mistake because you didn’t stop and use your head first.”
“You think I’m just an errand boy for some big-shot Mexican that runs the movement, hey?” Orozco smiled slowly. “I got news for you, Carl. I am the movement.”
Oakley scowled. “I’m not impressed. I gave you more credit for brains.”
“Did you? Did I mention I’m pla
“More power to you,” Oakley said with distaste; he was about to add a sharp remark when the phone rang. He grabbed it spitefully. “Hello.”
“Mr. Oakley, please?” A girl’s flat-chested chirp.
“Speaking.”
“Mr. Burns calling, sir? Of Cleland, Burns and Lee, brokerage? Hold on, please, sir?”
“… Hello, Carl? Jim Burns here. On that short-sell order of yours, Co
“What of it?” Oakley snapped.
“Well, just this. There seems to be a lot of short-selling in the stock and it’s disturbed the market. I feel obliged to remind you that you can’t complete a short sale unless there’s been an uptick since you placed the order. There has been no uptick. As of this afternoon’s close, New York time, the stock is half a point below the point where it was when you put through the order. In good conscience I felt I’d better warn you—you could easily be caught holding the bag.”
“There’ll be an uptick,” Oakley said curtly.
“Then you’re reconfirming the order?”
“Of course I am.”
“Fine—fine. It’s just that I felt a duty to make sure you understood that—”
“I understand everything,” Oakley said. “Good-bye.” He dropped the receiver onto the phone with a racket and muttered an oath.
Orozco was watching him with guileless blandness. Oakley picked up the phone and dialed a Los Angeles number; went through a switchboard and a secretary and finally got to the man he wanted. “Phil, I want you to place an order with the floor specialist for five thousand shares of Co
“It can be done—but why? Didn’t you just sell a hundred thousand shares short through our office?”
“I did. I trust you’re keeping that under your hat.”
“Your name hasn’t been mentioned. Oh—I see. You want to force an uptick to get out from under the short sales.”
“Will you do it?”
A pause; then, in a more cautious tone, “Why not? I get a commission, don’t I?”
“Thank you,” Oakley said. When he hung up his face was less taut.
Orozco said, “The market assumes that if a close insider like you buys a block of stock like that, it must be going up. So you get your uptick and then you a
“I didn’t know you followed the market.”
“I’d have to be pretty thick in the head not to follow what you’re up to,” Orozco said. “It ain’t no skin off my nose, except I won’t feel so bad about socking you with a king-size bill for the job I been doing here.”
“I won’t haggle over it,” Oakley said, and exchanged a guarded glance with the fat man in which there was the gleam of shrewd mutual understanding. Oakley leaned back in the expensive leather chair and put a cigar in his mouth and smiled. It was quite some time before he realized, not without dismay, that he hadn’t even thought about Terry Co
C H A P T E R Thirteen
Mitch’s right hand was swollen; clumsy and jumpy, he had pushed the red sports car out of the barn to get more light on the work but still the shadows beneath the dash conspired against him. He lay on his back like a contortionist, both legs hanging out the open door, the small of his back painfully braced against the ridge of the doorsill. His arms, lifted above his head, kept tiring quickly and he had to lower them to his chest and rest them. He had positioned the car so that by raising his head he could look past his knees at the porch of the abandoned store across the street; thus, at quick intervals, he kept surveillance on both the girls. He had let Terry keep the knife; it seemed to discourage Billie Jean from thoughts of assault.
He didn’t know what he wanted to do. Vague plans, half-formed, flitted through his mind. Maybe slip into some half-sized town in the Pacific Northwest, pick a common sort of name, slowly accumulate documentation for it and keep out of trouble so they wouldn’t have cause to fingerprint him.
Sudden agony bolted him out of the car. Terry came off the porch and walked toward him. He watched her: every move she made was vital and alive. Laced with hurts, he arched his back.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve got a goddamn charley horse.”
“I’m sorry—can I do anything?”
He straightened slowly and stared at her. “Look, I’m the kidnaper, you’re the kidnapee remember?”
She said, “I don’t think I’m afraid of you any more. If I ever was. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“You’ll take the car and run, of course. Leave me here. But I don’t want to be left here with her.” She gave Billie Jean, across the street pouting, a slantwise look.
“Okay, maybe I’ll take her with me a ways, put her off the bus someplace else.”
“That wouldn’t be too smart, would it?”
“Why not?”
“She’ll be found if you leave her alone on some desert road. She’ll be arrested and she hasn’t got the brains to keep quiet. She’ll tell them everything.”