The Creed of Violence - Boston Teran [40]
Doctor Stallings was expressionless. He pocketed the letter and started for the tent. As he did he called out, "Jack B, have the truck with its cargo put on the train. And get both these men security cards ... after a proper introduction."
Jack B, it turned out, was the young shark with that heavily inked arm. He motioned for the truck to follow. They drove down the length of those waiting cars where men played cards or loafed. On the roof of one, two men posed with their rifles as a young, wiry Mexican took photographs of them with a folding pocket camera.
"It might have been a mistake," John Lourdes said, "to bring the motorcycle. If Merrill and his men left from here the Doctor could have recognized-"
"Of course, he recognized it. Why do you think he asked. And as for bringing it here being a mistake, the mistake is being here at all."
Jack B had them pull up to the hoist and then he told the work crew this truck was going aboard with its loaded cargo. Both men were then ordered to step down from the cab. As they did the two security bulls from the tent approached with weapons drawn.
"You're going to be searched now," said Jack B. "Turn about. You, put your hands on the hood. You, hands on the truckbed."
Both did as they were ordered. The father glanced at the son. At the pocket where the notebook was tucked away.
Rawbone got his head shoved by a calloused hand into the truck siding and was told to look forward. His pockets were burrowed into and a wallet loosed. It had nothing in it save money. John Lourdes's wallet had no money, but it did have a photo of his mother and the cross with its chipped-off beam. The father kept trying to steal a look, edging his head a bit, angling his eyes sidewise. He caught a glint of sunlight on that crucifix but it didn't register a meaning. This was not where his ruin lay, or so he thought.
TWENTY-TWO
'E SWEATED OUT that other bull crabbing through the son's pockets, pulling them up and out one by one till they hung there in the daylight. But in the end, the damn notebook was nowhere to be found.
"You can both come around now."
The father eyed the son while he nonchalantly pushed the pockets back in place. Both men were tossed their wallets and personals. Jack B took security cards from his shirt pocket and handed one to each man. John Lourdes looked the card over. Rawbone wasn't the least interested and couldn't get it in his pocket quick enough. The card, as John Lourdes read it:
AGUA NEGRA
PRIVATE SECURITY
"The truck is your responsibility. You'll stay on the flatcar with it. You'll sleep there with it. Unless and until you are ordered otherwise."
Jack B was yelling orders now to the hoist crew about the truck when Rawbone asked, "Hey stars and stripes, where's this parade goin'?"
"What does it matter to you?"
Rawbone pushed his derby back and leaned casually against the truck. "If I knew I could write my dear old mom and tell her what kind of dresses she should send me to wear."
John Lourdes did his best to seem like he had not heard that. Jack B, on the other hand, said, "This ain't Texas."
He walked away to Rawbone whistling "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy." Then, the father's attention turned to the son. "The notebook-"
The son strode past the father and leaned down and reached in under the back of the cab. When he stood he had the notebook in his hand. He held it up, then slipped it back in his pocket. He'd hidden it away before they left Juarez as a precaution.
Rawbone leaned over the hood now and called to a roustabout who was carrying over a set of chains to hook to the chassis for lifting the truck. "Hey, gent, where's this parade goin'?"
The man wiped a gloved hand across his heavily bearded chin. "You're here and you don't know?"
"I'm here and I don't know and how much of an offspring of morons does that make me?"
"The Zone, brother. That's