The Creed of Violence - Boston Teran [35]
"He flat out perished himself," said Rawbone. "Why?"
The son was not sure the father expected him to answer. He had a sense of why, but his was an emotional verdict he meant to use at the appropriate time, with a vengeance.
Rawbone pointed to the reel of film. "What's so important about that?"
John Lourdes explained about the film and how he thought it might prove to be evidence connecting certain people and events. Rawbone offered a clipped and sarcastic laugh. "I guess the future will come in all shapes and surprises." Then he took from his pocket a slip of notepad paper and pencil the son had given him.
"Like I said before, Mr. Lourdes. You had some good luck tonight." He passed the notepaper and pencil to the son. "And your good luck tonight is my good fortune tomorrow."
The father was animated now and near grinning. "Tomorrow you'll be justice Knox's sainted poker hand of an agent and I'll be pleasantly off for parts unknown." To that he added, "With a clear conscience and a clean record."
Rawbone was able to cast aside what had just happened with absolute impunity and refocus on himself. It was a trait, though not noble, John Lourdes thought he'd better acquire.
He looked at the father's chicken-scratch handwriting. He saw names-the word railroad, underlined a number of times-and the Panuco River.
Rawbone described how the scam to get him into Hecht's good graces had played out even better than he could have imagined. And the note John Lourdes had written—
As they walked to the warehouse behind the funeraria Rawbone near mocked a reading of it: "Mr. Hecht, I've arrived with the makings of your icehouse-Will arrange for financial settlement tomorrow morning."
Each took a shed door to open. The hinges groaning as they went. Rawbone kept on, "It was a priceless way to word it, Mr. Lourdes. That note was delivered all the way up to the headwaters of his asshole."
Rawbone used his cigarette to wick up a lantern. Light filled that belly of a space and there was the truck, parked beside a hearse that was comely and elegant and covered with dust. The light rivered across its glass casement.
The father went on about the meeting with Hecht as John Lourdes, exhausted and still bleeding, put the reel of film on the cab seat then sat down on the runner.
Rawbone told how Hecht lived in a row house up from Customs. He'd invited the father along, believing him to be a friend of Merrill's. He'd been taken to the kitchen where the cook, an old Mexican woman, was told to offer him food and coffee. Then Hecht excused himself.
Men kept arriving, one and two at a time. There were what sounded like discussions in a far room. The voices were gray and controlled. What he wrote down was all he could pick up under the watchful eye of the cook. He carefully plied her with a few questions, but she was immune to either friendliness or flattery.
When the men left and all was quiet, Hecht returned to the kitchen and excused the cook. The two men had sat like old friends at an ornate table, drinking coffee spiked with gentleman's whiskey.
"He was all polite and full of shit," said Rawbone. "Poking me with questions to size me up. He's a wily bastard." The father looked at himself in the dusty glass paneling of the hearse. His image imprinted there on a glowy lantern dusk. He spoke to himself as if he were Hecht.
"I've to set an arrangement tomorrow to pick up a truck with the makings of an icehouse that is to be delivered south of the city. I was to entrust Merrill the job, but since he is not here and you are a friend ... and I say to him while I'm filling my cup with more of his gentleman's whiskey . . . `When Mr. Merrill comes back he'll tell you how I can be trusted, for no one knows me better