The Creed of Violence (12 page)

"These are newsreels President Diaz had filmed to show off the
country. Prosperity and publicity. But mostly they're about him."

He held the cigarette near his nose and snorted in the smoke. "I like
the world better in black and white. It seems closer to the soul of things
that way. What say you, Mr. Lourdes?"

The scene shifted again. El Presidente in all his aging pomp and
splendor was flanked by an array of dignitaries and businessmen and
generals. He stood with hand on saber gesturing for the viewer to come
and witness for himself a burgeoning world.

The camera cut from oil-soaked men at a huge derrick to an army
of laborers constructing a pipeline to a tanker waiting at sea. The men
smiled for the camera, but they were a poor, tired lot.

It was when the entourage with the president began to move that
John Lourdes noticed Anthony Hecht. And who should be there just
back and behind him?

The scene shifted again and John Lourdes asked, "Can you stop
the film. And go back. Just, I saw someone."

The moment froze. The screen went white. McManus reeled back
the film and as the scenes replayed John Lourdes stepped into the light
and his arm's shadow reached out to point. "There's Anthony Hecht.
Do you know him?"

"Only by name ... Alliance for Progress."

"And that man. Just behind him. Do you know him?"

"I do not."

"Ever seen him?"

"I have not. Who is it?"

"James Merrill."

In the film, Hecht leaned around and said something to Merrill,
who nodded. As they moved past the camera, another man was revealed
with Merrill.

Only this was no ordinary man. He had a nighthawk face that
seemed at odds with his snowy white hair and mustache. He wore a
gray suit and, in fact, was rather young. Somewhere in age between
Rawbone and John Lourdes.

"I know the one with Merrill," said McManus. "The white-haired
fellow."

John Lourdes studied the man on film. He walked with his hands
folded behind his back. He was polished and erect and he moved with
an economy of motion and gesture.

"He used to be a Texas Ranger. College-educated. Washington, or
a place like that. Was a professor before. Doctor Stallings is how he's
called."

The last of the film rattlesnaked through the sprockets. John
Lourdes disappeared somewhere in that empty screen chasing yet what
he did not know.

"The Ranger ... what does he do now?"

"Private security."

McManus turned off the projector. The room went dark.

Sometimes there is only the vague outline of a thing moving through
an uncharted obscurity. What John Lourdes had suddenly was a sense
of pure exhilaration he was hunting down a truth that would hold all
this together. Yet, he also experienced a sense of pure dread. It seemed
unremitting and without cause, but it was there.

When light from the doorway fell long upon that room John
Lourdes saw he and McManus were not alone. The little man who'd
been sleeping on the desk who Rawbone had roughed up entered and
was carrying a shotgun. He made a wide berth around both men, keeping close to the wall. Where he was pointing those double black barrels
was clear.

MMANUEL, I'M GOING to relieve Mr. Lourdes of his weapon."

McManus eased around John Lourdes and with a meaty grip
lifted the automatic with slow care. He then slid it down into his belt.

He went to the projector and picked up the cigarette and took
another long hit of smoke and placed it back down. His eyes got watery and he grinned a bit. He began to rethread the film through the
projector.

"We're gonna see this newsreel again and you'll explain about
these people and what you're doing here and why there's a truckload of
weapons in my garage."

"What you're doing is ill advised."

"Is it! Well ... I smoked this marijuana just to keep me eased up.
'Cause I'm prone ... that's why I told you the tooth story. Oh, and that
notebook of yours. Put it on the bench there."

As he reached into his pocket, John Lourdes shot a cursory glance
at Emmanuel that McManus caught. He finished threading the film,
then walked over to the bench. He shook his head in coarse disappointment over John Lourdes. He picked up the notebook and in the same
breath of motion brought his prosthesis down like a bludgeon across
the side of John Lourdes's head.

The force drove John Lourdes back over the bench and he hit the
floor with a ferocious groan. The room and everything about it were
pure liquid. He struggled over onto his shoulder and tried to rise. He
saw he was leaving splotches of blood on the wood slats.

McManus set the notebook in the palm of his wooden hand and
thumbed pages with the other. John Lourdes used a bench to get to his
knees. Blood from a laceration at the corner of one eye left a dripping
red track down the side of his face. McManus remained impassive,
reading page after page, while Emmanuel stood watch by the wall with
the shotgun bearing down on John Lourdes. He was trying to collect
himself when from that downturned face the eyes of McManus rose
and they were telling.

"I see BOI written down here everywhere."

"This has nothing to do with you."

He took the notebook with his good hand. His great chest slowly
expanded. "A friend and me used to rob homes in San Francisco. I was
watch; he was the window jockey. We robbed this woman once who
was a piano player. This was her arm, that's why it's too short. And why
the thumb and pinky," he held out the prosthesis, "are so spread apart.
So she could hit the keys." He made like he was actually playing. "It
was built by a gent in Northampton, England." He turned his wrist as if
John Lourdes might like to see where it had been engraved. "It makes a
fine club. But nothing compared to what I got here in my pocket."

He wedged the notebook between two prosthetic fingers. With his
good hand he removed a short and shiny black billy stick. He slipped his hand through the rawhide strap. He started toward John Lourdes
and let it hang down at his thigh so he could get a good look at it.
Standing over him, McManus asked, "Does Rawbone know you're
with the BOI?"

John Lourdes did not answer and the billy came down on his kidney. There was a blinding charge of pain up his back. He was asked
again, and again his answer was silence. He was clinging to the bench
with one elbow when he heard a whoosh of air. The next blow landed
with flawless accuracy. A tide of bile came up into his mouth, but his
mind was curiously clear.

"Does he know?"

John Lourdes's head hung down as he tried to wrench himself
upright.

"Does he know?"

"Why don't you ask me yourself?"

Rawbone stood in the doorway with derby in hand, a burner of
light behind his shadowed features.

"He's with the BOI," said McManus.

Rawbone entered the room, approaching so Emmanuel and that
shotgun were always within his field of vision. He spoke directly to
John Lourdes. "It looks like you didn't do as I told you back at the
Mills Building. Where to keep those eyes."

The son picked up the leading tone in the father's voice and with a
slight turn of body saw Rawbone had his pocket automatic concealed
in the derby.

"Did you know he was with the BOI?"

"Of course, I knew."

"And you brought him into my life?"

"This has nothing to do with your life. And there was money for
you in it."

"You lied to me about him."

"I thought it was the most practical solution, knowing you."

McManus flung the notebook at the father. It hit his face and landed
on the wood floor near the son.

"You're a shill now for the BOL"

John Lourdes reached for the notebook. He gripped the bench to
stand. Rawbone helped to get him upright.

"That's right. Get him up, dust him off. You're a Goddamn butler.
A manservant."

The father looked the son over to see how bad the beating was. "By
the way, Mr. Lourdes, you've had some luck tonight."

The son, at that moment, was not so sure.

"Your note. It had the effect on Mr. Hecht you wanted."

John Lourdes nodded and wiped at the blood that was running
down his face and neck. "Pay your friend what it's worth. And let's get
from here."

"What do you want?"

McManus turned his attention to Rawbone. "What have you
become?"

"I'll need my gun back," said John Lourdes.

McManus disregarded him. "What have you become?" he
repeated.

"Call your fee," said Rawbone.

McManus ordered, "Emmanuel."

The little man with the shotgun took a step forward, kicking away
a bench that was in his path.

"I said, what have you become?"

"Don't do this," said Rawbone.

"What have you become?"

There was a furied determination to McManus about having that
question answered. The son studied the father; he noted the slightest
movement of the hand with the derby.

"We've been friends, how long?" said Rawbone.

"Answer."

"Alright. I came to this place as some would say, a common assassin. And I'll be leaving this place the same way. So now ... what's
your fee?"

"What have you become?"

"Jesus, man. It's about survival, alright. My personal survival.
And I don't want to hear you keep talking from the belt buckle down.
What's your fee?"

"McManus!" shouted John Lourdes. "The BOI wants nothing
with you."

McManus leaned into Rawbone and looked down at him and said,
"You're the hole in the shithouse floor now."

"What's your fee?"

"There's more than survival."

"So you say. Now what's your fee?"

The man's head lolled to one side like a great bear, slowly, and the
eyes grew small as vapor drops. "You're my fee."

"Aye, brother," said Rawbone. And just like that, before his derby
hit the floor, he had wheeled about and fired his automatic repeatedly.
The little man named Emmanuel had no business being behind a shotgun. He was driven back and crying out, jerked in half. The shotgun
went off wildly. A gas lamp exploded, throwing stars of glass and sparks
everywhere. The funeral drapes on the far wall were run with flames.

Before Rawbone could turn McManus plowed that slagheap of a
body right at him and got a grip on his gun hand. He kept right on for
the wall, churning his legs with Rawbone trying to break loose and the
gun going off wildly. John Lourdes locked his arms around McManus's
neck to pull him back, but he was too strong and using his shoulder
flung the young man like he was nothing against the projector. The
motor kicked on and there was the click, click, click, click, click, click of the turning sprockets and a rush of dusty light and Rawbone was
battered right into the adobe.

An ugly sound came out of Rawbone as if he'd been staved clear
through. He'd expended all his ammunition. The body of the dead
Emmanuel lay a foot away. The shotgun angled upright across his
corpse. Rawbone twisted and bent to try and get low enough to reach
the weapon. John Lourdes again was right on McManus, this time bracing his arms up under the dense shoulders to pull him loose. McManus
lost his footing briefly and Rawbone was able to score himself down the
wall just enough for his fingers to crab around the barrel and take hold
before McManus righted himself.

McManus began to yell out a pained and atavistic war cry. He used
his prosthesis like a whip but he had Rawbone still in the clench of his
one good arm and there wasn't enough space for a breath between
them. The three were all tangled together now and they spun crazily,
crashing over benches. The newsreel began to play and their shadows
wraithed across the screen where President Diaz stood before an array
of businessmen and dignitaries and generals and invited the viewer to
come and see a burgeoning world.

The smoke from the drapes afire grayed the air. McManus now
struggled backward. His boots clopped out a sidling but steady drum
of steps. He was like a freight car to take down and the two men even
together could not. Rawbone still had the shotgun in his grasp, working
to edge his fingers down the barrel.

The three were entwined like some ancient statue from the shores
of Troy within the light of the screen and across their bodies were flickering images of vast petrol fields on the Gulf and oil-slicked men with
their tired faces and a lone train moving toward blanched and serrated
mountains.

The drapes were a mural of smolder and flame. The men grunted
like animals for each gasp of air. McManus now steadied himself and slammed John Lourdes against the adobe. He then leaned forward and
the young man's boots scruffed along the wood. McManus slammed
back again and the blood from the wound above John Lourdes's eye
spattered over the side of McManus's face.

Rawbone gasped, "Mr. Lourdes, can you hold my friend a bit
longer?"

"I can ... hold."