The Second Saladin

34

“Nada,” the boy said. “Nothing.”

“You’re sure?” Trewitt demanded.

“Sí. I said, nada. Nothing.”

Trewitt, stung, exploded. “Goddamn,” he said bitterly. “Goddamn. What’s wrong with him?” The fury cut through him. “Goddammit. You’re sure?”

“He said, didn’t he? Mother of Jesus,” said El Stupido, as Trewitt had begun to think of Ramirez, a great fat greasy farting boorish creep.

“All right,” said Trewitt.

But it was not all right. It was another day. How many now, five, six, a week? Trewitt could discover in himself no talent for waiting. He would have made a lousy sub skipper, bomber pilot, sniper. This sitting around, playing one of Peter Pan’s lost boys in the Never-Never-Land of this mountainside, yet with real guns and a pig like this El Stupido for companionship — he glanced over and saw his antagonist reading the same goddamn book! “A Smart-Alecky Young Lady Gets Her Comeuppance”! Ramirez could read it over and over and over, his lips forming the words in the balloons over the photographs of the actors, and still chuckle in deep and profoundly satisfying amusement when the little maid got swacked on the butt with a two-by-four at the end.

“Aiiieee!” He looked up happily. “Hey, come look at this one, Señor Gringo. They really give it to her. Right on the back bumper!”

“And no others? No visitors, no questions?” asked Roberto, fourth member of this hilltop Utopia.

“Nada. Not in El Plomo,” said the boy. “What’s for supper?”

“I can’t figure out why he hasn’t gotten back to me. What the hell is going on back there?” Trewitt said self-righteously. But he had deep suspicions. The El Plomo postman — he was also the mayor, the sanitary commissioner, the general store owner, the traffic cop — had been recruited, for a substantial fee, of course, to drive fifteen miles to the nearest town of consequence and dispatch another telegram via Our Lady of Resurrection to Trewitt’s own particular saint, Saint Paul.

“UNC,” the telegram had read, “FOUND BIG TACO BUT MUCHO OTHERS WANT RECIPE SPICY GOING SEND HELP EL PLOMO SIERRA DEL CARRIZAI

NEPHEW JIM”

But what if the public official had taken the money and said screw the gringo and his telegram and headed for the nearest whorehouse?

Trewitt shook his head. His rage, which was mostly self-pity, was inflating exponentially. Who the fuck knew what was going on back there anyway? Maybe Chardy had gotten the can. Maybe he should have sent his first message to somebody sensible like Yost Ver Steeg. Forget the cowboy; go for the corporate executive.

Trewitt began to pine, to mourn, for lost opportunities. Maybe it wasn’t too late, sure, even now, send an open wire to Yost, care of Langley, Va., dear Yost, it may surprise you to know that …

But —

But it was true Bill Speight had been murdered. It was true there were men trying to murder Reynoldo Ramirez. It was true all this began almost immediately after the Kurd, Ulu Beg, had come across the American border in a blaze of gunfire, assisted by Reynoldo Ramirez. And it was true that at any second an odd squad of gunmen might arrive. The linkages were not definite but they were certainly suggestive. Somehow it all fit together, though try as he might he could not exactly imagine how or why. Who was pursuing them?

There’s your key, Trewitt. Mexican gunmen, trying to rub out El Stupido for his nightclub, or for a past betrayal, or for …? Or some other force?

Trewitt shivered.

Behind the scabby line of mountains the sun collapsed into a great hemorrhage of purple swirls. Beneath, the valley was quiet and dark. Down there on those gentle slopes grew maybe fifty million bucks’ worth of marijuana. It was a wild country, bandit country, gun country. Around here everybody carried guns. It was a violent place.

Trewitt advised himself to deal with the reality of the situation, and forget the overview for the time being. Forget also his desperate prayers for Resurrection. He was going to have to get out of this one by himself.

He took the rifle off his shoulder, a Remington Model 700 in 7-mm magnum, with a 6X scope. Ramirez had two, for desert sheep, which once or twice a year the old Ramirez — prosperous vice lord and whoremonger — came up to stalk.

“Hey, some food is here,” called Roberto.

Trewitt reslung the rifle. Food meant more beans and rice, which meant farting all night, and he knew he had the two-to-six shift when the farting would be at its worst.

Jesus Christ, that was something Le Carré never wrote about.