"How does one have authority over someone with his biography?"

"There's a way."

"You said a few minutes ago you would never allow your client-"

"To rely on the future goodwill of the government. I emphasized the word-future."

When John Lourdes heard justice Knox say "earned immunity" he wanted to vomit with rage. He stood in the light of that great dome trying to grasp the implications of the meeting with Burr.

"Now," said justice Knox, "there will be an operative with him when he goes into Mexico. That operative will have complete authority, or at least tactical control. I'm considering you for this a.s.signment."

"Sir?"

"You don't have the most field experience, but you're the only one who's truly bilingual. I'm going to be honest. I have reservations."

He kept hearing himself say, "Sir?"

"It's about character."

"Character ... my character?"

He could feel the anger coming through in his voice.

"Not a lack of character. It's ... I noted your reaction to Howell when we were interrogating the girl. I heard the anger in your voice just a minute ago when I told you what is going to happen. I do not question your dedication. But I need to be a.s.sured the operative I send can remain dispa.s.sionate and view this as ... a practical application of strategy. Just as I have to remain dispa.s.sionate in my judgments."

Dispa.s.sion had been an essential condition to John Lourdes's successes. And rulership of the self demanded extreme concentration and commitment, so in certain respects justice Knox was correct. He had failed.

"Once in Mexico, sir, I would have no legal authority over him."

"No."

"How do we control him?"

"He knows if he fails to live up to his responsibility by trying to desert, abandon or escape, your orders are to kill him. He knows if he should pose a threat to you, your orders are to kill him. He knows if anything happens to you, even if it's no fault of his, it will be the same as if he failed his responsibility. He must get you back here alive."

"Why should he follow through with any of this, if an opportunity arises?"

"Because we have something he wants."

"And that is?"

"The ability to erase his past ... earned immunity."

There was a selfish purity to that he could understand and believe of his father,) ust as he could feel it in himself.

"You mean he has his own 'practical application of strategy."'

Justice Knox's forehead furrowed deeply.

"Correct ... now, what about my concerns with regard to you?"

"Sir, I will go wherever the practical application of strategy demands I go."

A DUFFEL AND weapons lay ready on the bed. John Lourdes sat at the desk in his room. When he'd finished his last will and testament he folded the paper neatly and edged it with a thumb, then inserted it into an envelope along with his bank book. He sealed the envelope and wrote on it: To be opened in 4e eve/4 of my disappearance or dea4.

The truck was parked in an empty lot behind Burr's house. Justice Knox was to bring Rawbone there clandestinely. John Lourdes arrived early as he wanted to meet with Burr alone.

Burr sat at his desk. It was littered with open law books and longforgotten cups of coffee. The needle, as well, lay on a silk handkerchief. He wore the same ruffled shirt as the night before, and the air was spiked with marijuana smoke when Lourdes was ushered in by the silent female servant.

Burr's face took on an anguished look as he watched the young man rest his shotgun and rifle against his duffel.

"They're not here yet, as you are aware."

As John Lourdes approached the desk he removed an envelope from his coat pocket. Burr took to staring out the bay window. Across the river the red cut mountains stood out against the windless blue. He set the envelope down in front of Burr.

"What is this?"

"I'd like to hire you as my attorney."

Burr took the envelope and then turned it over. He saw what was written there.

"If I was your attorney I would advise against this quixotic nightmare."

"Are you my attorney?"

Burr nodded with despair; he would take on that duty.

A car pulled into the driveway. Knox and Howell and the murderer, turned recruit. They watched Howell walk with him to the guest quarters above the garage. Rawbone was still dressed in his suit and derby.

"He looks like a gent being escorted home after a neat bout of night prowling," said Burr.

"There's a bank book in the envelope." John Lourdes went to get his duffel and weapons. "I've signed over power of attorney. Take money for your fee. The rest is for my burial beside my mother."

Burr put the envelope down. His gaunt face looked across the room and back into a silent collection of years. "I remember how you used to sit in that chair."

John Lourdes's body arched. "So you know who I am?"

"Yes ... I have my own detectives when I need them. I remember slipping you money one night and telling you your birth was-"

"A crime of chance."

"I saw the look on your face and regretted having said it."

"If that's an apology, I accept."

"He should never have come back. I warned him."

"Some men just can't help themselves."

"I hope you're not one of those men, John."

EIGHT.

-AWBONE WAS BY the truck, giving it a close looking-over, when John Lourdes came out of the house. He still had on that derby, but now he wore a white Mexican shirt and canvas pants tucked into some hard-traveled boots. He had a bindle slung over his shoulder and his hands were pressed flat into a native sash around his waist. Knox and Howell flanked him and when he saw John Lourdes approach he tipped his hat and said, grinning, "Doctor ... something or other ... I presume."

John Lourdes walked right past and began to stow his belongings in the truck cab.

"What was his name?" said Rawbone to no one in particular. "I remember reading about it years ago in The Herald. This gent travels all of darkest Africa looking for some famous doctor and when he finds him he's living in some shantytown with a tribe of spades and he says, 'Doctor so and so, I presume.' What the h.e.l.l was his name?"

John Lourdes walked past him again. He joined Knox and Howell, who stood off a few yards, and they finalized plans. While he was alone Rawbone leaned around and tried to inconspicuously look down into the back of the cab housing to see if a weapon he'd nested away was still there.

The men finished their talk and shook hands. Rawbone eased away from the cab as John Lourdes approached him and said, "Get in the truck. I'll drive."

"Aye, sir," said Rawbone.

The truck rumbled out of the weeded lot, then down the driveway and past the veranda where Burr now stood watching. He had a gray stare for both men, and implicit at the heart of it was how flaws in the world so shaped human destiny.

Rawbone leaned out the cab window and called to his friend, "When I've done my penance I'll come back and then you and I can gent up and get some sinning under our belt."

He sat back and told John Lourdes, "If you ever need a righteous good attorney, he's your man. That son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h could have gotten Christ off."

"I can imagine," said John Lourdes, "as he seems to have done alright for Satan."

THEY DROVE IN silence through the city, then turned onto a road that led past Fort Bliss. Their destination, according to Rawbone, was somewhere in the Hueco Mountains where the arms were hidden away.

The truck scaled a rutted series of low and gravel-faced escarpments from which they could look back and see El Paso. The Rio Grande Valley had become a vast keep of civilization, with the thread of roadways and train tracks etching out in all directions and on into an ocean of heat. The valley, at that hour, on that day, so perfectly marked the years of Rawbone's wandering that he quietly cursed himself.

John Lourdes noted the vexed look on the father's face but checked it off as pure self-regard.

Rawbone turned away from the sight of El Paso. "Your name is Lourdes, right? John Lourdes?"

He eyed the father warily. "That's right."

"How do you like to be called?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It'll be Mr. Lourdes then." Rawbone reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. "As befitting our stations."

John Lourdes kept to the road. But he was thinking now, I'd forgotten the voice, the tones and inflections. He had the huckster's gift to make you feel, even as he was unfaithful to anything he said.

Rawbone looked the young man over as he lit a cigarette. The khaki pants and polished boots. The vest and cravenetted Mallory hat. He was strictly Montgomery Ward's. An escapee from that blue-collar catalogue. Except for the automatic he carried in a shoulder holster.

"Is that a Browning?"

"It's a Browning."

"Cigarette?"

"I have my own."

"You from El Paso?"

"I am."

"Lourdes sounds French. Is it a French name? Are you French?"

John Lourdes leaned into the steering wheel. "It's a French name."

"You have some Mexican blood in you. I heard that."

"I am part Mexican."

"How about Anglo blood? Or is being French now considered being Anglo?"

"I have Anglo blood in me."

"You're a mutt then."

"Why not."

Rawbone set his legs up on the door frame to stretch them out. He crossed his arms. "Of course, we're all mutts, aren't we? Except for the d.a.m.n Hun, who considers himself pure as some nun's n.o.ble parts." He used his cigarette as a pointer now, jabbing at the air. "Even Christ, he was a mutt. The ultimate mutt. Part man, part G.o.d. If you believe in such nonsense. What do you say to that?"

"I'm f.u.c.kin' overwhelmed."

Rawbone laughed right over that dark-eyed malicious stare and told the whole empty world around them in a booming voice, "Hey, we got a young man here who can bite without hardly opening his mouth."

HE HAS NO inkling, thought John Lourdes, not even a breath of remembrance that the one beside him in the truck is his son. John Lourdes was just another nondescript face in a tide of faces. This should have been his pa.s.sport to emotional indifference, but it was not. He wanted the hard features and steady gaze to be recognized for what they were.

Soon ahead upon the plain was Fort Bliss. First they could make out the three- and two-story barracks and then row upon row of newly pitched tents. The camp had increased dramatically over the last months and there were columns of mounted infantry and supply wagons making slow headway through a steady pall of dust.

"They're getting ready for the revolution to come."

"Is that what you think?" said Rawbone. "How old are you?"

John Lourdes stared, but did not answer.

"Take a look over there. See all that artillery."

Spread out over acres of sand and sage was an armada of caissons and heavy guns.

"The Mexican is just target practice. An inconsequential. These boys are down here to drill for the war to come in Europe against the Hun and his dago b.i.t.c.h. The agents of war need something to practice on. Who better than some filthy, ignorant peon."