T. Parker - The Famous and the Dead

“You had nerves enough for the many thousands of dollars I shared with you.”

“You bribed me for the use of my automobiles,” said Arturo. “Isn’t that more accurate? In addition, I will pay you back.”

“Don’t lose your bravery now,” said Caesar. “We’re almost finished here. Senor Herredia only has to fly us home in his jet tomorrow. You drink too much, Arturo.”

Arturo burped again and knocked back the shot. “When I drink too much the veil is lifted and I see the world for what it is-a cauldron of greed. I want to go home tonight. I want to sleep in my bed and wake in the morning without the stain of greed in my heart. I want to confess my sins to Father Patricio.”

“ Confess? ” asked Herredia.

“Fully and truthfully.”

“Fully and truthfully. I understand. But you can’t go home tonight. My pilot is drunk and sleeping.”

“We drove here. And we can drive home.”

“We cannot drive home the trailer loaded with new Fords,” said Caesar with a smile. “We have made a deal and they are going to El Centro. And we would look crazy driving back to where the cars were manufactured.”

Herredia studied Arturo in the short silence. “Go to the garage and choose a car to your liking,” said Herredia. “The keys are in the ignitions.” He gestured invitationally but in the candlelight Bradley saw the pronounced blackness of his eyes. Bradley sensed that he was reading a story that would end in blood. Herredia barked an order to the women and they trailed off toward the guest casitas, drinks in hand.

“You are coming with me?” Arturo asked his friend.

“No,” said Caesar. “But I will prevent you from driving in your condition.”

“I shall now be finding a car. Can it be a Ford, El Tigre? So that I can be assured of its quality?” Arturo swayed upright and zigzagged along the pool without falling in, then made it past the cabanas. Bradley heard the crunch of the drunk man’s feet on the dry desert gravel.

Caesar tried to rise from the table, but Bradley stopped him with a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I will stop Arturo from driving away,” said Caesar.

“You will sit and stay,” said Herredia.

Bradley watched old Felipe appear beside Herredia’s chair as if by magic, and lean down close for El Tigre to whisper in his ear. Then Felipe hustled off, bandy-legged, unslinging the shotgun from his shoulder.

“Caesar,” said Herredia, “we have arrived at a problem.”

“I know it. He will kill someone on the highway at night. Or be killed.”

“He will not get to the highway.”

Caesar’s hopeful expression had fallen away. He looked at Bradley as if for help.

“Everything Arturo has seen and heard here can be told to authorities,” said Herredia. “He is made rotten by fear and he cannot be trusted with our secrets. Do you understand this?”

“He is a harmless quality control engineer.”

“He is a foolish and greedy child. And you, Caesar? What are you?”

Caesar looked past Herredia, toward the garage, then back to his host. “I am interested in remaining alive.”

Bradley looked up the drive to see Felipe and Arturo walking back toward the pool. They were little more than faint apparitions but Bradley saw that Arturo was weaving drunkenly and Felipe was well behind him. Felipe’s cackle rode in on the breeze and the two men walked to the barbed-wire pasture fence and stopped.

“If I cannot trust Arturo, why should I trust you? You are as important a danger to me as he is. You have seen what he has seen. You know what he knows.”

“His courage failed. Mine has not.”

“But you are together. You two are a link in the chain. And the chain is only as strong as the weak link. Look how weak Arturo has turned out to be. He wants to go home and confess!”

“Yes. I see.”

“And you are a part of him.”

“But I am not weak.”

“You say you are not weak.” Herredia reached behind his back and set his Desert Eagle on the table, pointed at Caesar. It was a.50-caliber semiauto, bulky, gleaming, and incontrovertible. Herredia set his big brown hand upon it. “Your words are like drops of rain on the ocean. They fall and can never be found again. But this? This is how words are made to be real. You say you are not weak. This is the true maker of weakness and of strength. Not words.”

“Why is it pointed at me?”

“It is judging you.”

“What are the charges against me?”

“Weakness. Disloyalty. Betrayal.”

“I am none of these.”

Herredia lifted his hand from the gun and rested on his elbows, leaning toward Caesar. “Then use this tool to make your words real. You know what must be done.”

Caesar glanced at Bradley again and Bradley saw the panic in his eyes. “How? How am I to. .? I have never touched a gun.”

“It’s the only way to continue your life, you fool.”

Bradley followed Caesar’s gaze to the Desert Eagle as he drew his own civilian sidearm, a compact nine-millimeter. He set this on the table in front of him with both hands upon it, in case Caesar tried to shoot his way out of this predicament, unlikely though it was. He caught Herredia’s approving glance. Caesar placed both hands against his face and pressed against his eyes as if he could wipe this terrible moment from his vision.

Bradley looked out to the pasture fence. Arturo was haranguing Felipe but the old man, hunched and gnomelike, stood with his shotgun pointed at the quality control assistant manager.

“Murder,” said Caesar.

“Weakness and strength. Loyalty and cowardice. These are only words that stand for something. But they are not what they stand for. They are all equally without meaning. You choose which ones are to be made real and then you make them real.”

“He is a good man.”

“He has treated you very poorly. He has forced you to the edge of death with his own weakness and shame. Yet El Tigre has seen a way for you to live.”

Caesar looked toward the pasture. He wiped a tear from under each eye, then took a deep breath. “You just pull the trigger?”

Herredia offed the safety and placed the gun in front of the man. Then the tequila. Bradley tapped his fingers on the nine. Caesar drank deeply, then stood. “Only two months ago everything was good. There were no drugs hidden in our cars and my friend Arturo was not about to die.”

“Think about your debts,” said Herredia. “Think about a future that has great riches no matter how much your wife gambles and spends. Or how many degrees your daughter needs to have. Caesar, be a man. If you hesitate much longer I’m going to be very happy to shoot you both.”

Caesar took up the.50 caliber and walked past the cantina and the poolside palapas and onto the road. Bradley could see him stop and look back, and beyond him he saw Arturo still gesticulating and Felipe with the shotgun on him. Arturo’s voice, shrill and angry, came in fragments. Caesar trudged toward them and Bradley heard the road gravel rasping under his shoes.

“Will Felipe kill him?” asked Bradley.

“Only if he loses his courage.”

Bradley watched Caesar approach the two men. There were still fifty feet between them. Arturo turned and said something and Felipe didn’t move. Caesar answered, still advancing. Arturo spoke again and his voice ended on the upsweep of a question. Caesar began talking fast but Bradley could only catch a few words, something about the truck and getting back to Hermosillo and their esposas . Arturo exclaimed something to the old man and proudly slammed his fist to his own chest. He took one step toward the new Fords, then an orange blast from the Desert Eagle blew him like a rag into the pasture fence. He shrieked and thrashed awhile, then his head sagged forward with the great exit of his life. His coat sleeves caught up on the barbs so his arms and body slid only partially free and he hung there, half in and half out of his coat, with the dark liquid blooming on his white shirt.