The Garbage Man

By William L. Prentiss

The best year of Robert Walkers life is his nineteenth, but whether there would be another, depended on his ability to defend himself with a special knife, slingshoot bombs, foil kidnappers, avenge vicious killings, and hijack stolen marijuana, all to help prove himself innocent of murder. It all began with Roberts escape to Mexico from a southern Texas home for forsaken boys, where as a twelve-years old he was a bright but disruptive influence. After slaving on a farm for seven years, he swims the Rio Grande to escape false charges of murder, then after huge self-discovery and the promise of major success in joint American-Mexican enterprise, he swims back to clear his name.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499052824

William L. Prentiss

William L. “Bill” Prentiss wrote no fiction during a 40-year post WW II career in journalism, advertising, and public relations. The itch to write novels during his retirement has produced five in which dangerously troubled people find their way to redemption and fulfillment in normal social endeavor.

Book preview

Prologue

Three men were sent to kill the gringo youth known only as Mozo. Rudolpho Gamez was to lead his fellow thugs to the kid’s hut in the stunted hills behind the village, but first they stopped at the one-street town’s only cantina to drink to their easy task. Double shots. Tequila. Gamez paid. Taking out a skinny gringo kid would be a party.

The gangster, Carlos Menendez, ordered the kill. He had been embarrassed in the knife fight with the nineteen-year old American, but there was more weight behind the command than his itch for revenge. Someone much more important than Menendez wanted the kid shut up before the policia stuck their noses into last night’s killing in Pomona. It was a simple job. They should be wiping their blades on the boy’s shirt in an hour.

1

The thin asphalt strip twisting down from the surrounding hills widened only slightly as it edged into the hub of a farm community noted for its self sufficiency. The basic services were aligned along the street much like non-matching coat buttons sewed off line. Of these a general store was the most prominent, its wide front porch usually sprinkled with village elders settled in from mid morning till dusk on hard benches or ancient rockers.

The current day’s panel of watcher-gossips observed silently as a slender gringo teen-ager, a thatch of dirty blond hair spilling from under his sweat-stained straw hat, swept past their station herded by a band of young farm workers. It was a laughing, jostling group, but serious about their mission to flood their bellies with cool refreshment after a day in the cotton fields. The elders had heard the youth, known only as Mozo, was out of a job. He had been fired by his farmer boss, Garcia Sebastian, and was living in a self-constructed shack in the nearby hills.

He got caught fooling around with their treasured daughter, someone said.

It was a rare visit to the village by the boy. He had few needs there, and very little cash for acquiring them. He had never visited the cantina. Nearly all shopping errands for the small Sebastian farm were done by Sebastian or his wife, Maria, sometimes accompanied by her only child, sixteen-year old Rosita. The Sebastians wanted as little public exposure for their American worker as possible. He was just twelve years old when Sebastian found him sleeping behind his fruit shed. Giving the woefully skinny boy food and shelter in exchange for work in his fields and orchards was an easy arrangement. The boy spoke no Spanish but quickly understood what he was supposed to do with a hoe. That he was a runaway was as obvious as his nationality. Sebastion was an educated man, spoke English very well and only a few questions were needed to learn the boy’s fear of being turned over to the authorities with guaranteed shipment back to the states.

The first question, What is your name? was answered carefully, as if the boy wasn’t too sure of it himself.

Mozo.

Sebastian smiled, guessing correctly that the boy got the name from a Mexican source. He decided he wouldn’t press for more identification until he learned whether the boy could furnish some much-needed help on his small but productive farm. He and his wife agreed they would not attempt to formalize the arrangement. The local school system was far from stringent in maintaining its rolls. If the runaway showed he didn’t want to be returned, and if he proved a satisfactory worker, they would shelter him but try to limit his movement to the farm and environs.

They would learn more about him in the weeks ahead. He would continue as Mozo, they decided, no last name necessary. Fear of being shipped back to where he came from would keep him under control.

Their daughter wanted more than Mozo. The school bus had barely dropped her off the day after the boy had been conditionally accepted by her parents when she ran to the door of the fruit shed where he was stacking boxes. She had already been told by her mother she was not to be alone with him.

He’s a runaway, with no family. He may have done something bad.

I’m Rosita Sebastian, she called into the semi darkness. What’s your name?

He turned to see the little girl, backlit and framed by the door. He would tell not her. She would tell her parents.

What if the farmer decides to turn me in?

Mozo.

She stamped a foot and ran for the house. Robert J. Walker would withhold his identity as a runaway from a Laredo, Texas home for unwanted boys.

Several days before, Robert, three days in Mexico and starving, plodded eastward along a non-paved country road when he heard before he saw a farm vehicle approaching from his rear. He dove for a roadside ditch, landing hard, fortunately on the flat side of the razor sharp table knife under his shirt. He had converted the knife, stolen from the home dining room, into a shiv as described in television prison drama.

He hoped he hadn’t been seen. Discovery, even by someone helpful, could be trouble.

Not from this teen-age driver who murmured, Madre de dios when he looked down on the frail and badly burned victim of a ruthless Mexican sun.

Two hours later the boy had been fed and led to a makeshift bed in a small out building. His rescuer’s family had showered him with questions he could not understand. Their son interrupted.

Hey, the mozo (youth) is surely a gringo. He can’t understand us. He needs a lot of rest. We can learn who he is and what he is doing in Mexico tomorrow.

Robert never learned the family name, nor did he give his benefactors another chance to learn more about him. He slept well on the straw cama, but as at the Laredo home, he awoke early, even before any of the family members. It was still pitch dark as he slipped from the crude bed. He needed to get farther away from Laredo.

The late summer night was still warm and well lighted by northern hemisphere stars as he walked and ran eastward on the two-lane road on which he had been found. Getting as far east as possible was the idea. He sneaked aboard trucks, walked when he had to, and ate when roadside farms showed anything edible, mostly tomatoes and barely ripe corn ripped free by his makeshift knife.

Finally arriving desperately hungry and exhausted in the tiny village of Esperanza he looked for a farm from which he could beg or steal a meal. The Sebastian place was the first he encountered. Esperanza, Hope in English, was in the state of Nueva Leon. It would be his hometown for the next seven years.

The Sebastians provided all of the boy’s needs, usually replacements for hard-worn work clothes. When a kick from the farm mule broke the boy’s arm, Sebastian drove him into border town Reynosa. Rare dental work was also done in the city bordering the Rio Grande.

Over the first two years with the Sebastians, Robert rarely visited the simple village, but only in Garcia Sebastian’s company. He told the farmer his birthdate and when he was fourteen Sebastian paid him the same as neighboring farmers paid their under-age help. Robert spent very little of his pay, caching every remaining peso for what he knew would be a return to the states,

He was nineteen a few days before his visit to the cantina. He could have slipped back into the states a year ago. He knew he could not be forced back into the orphanage after he reached eighteen. He told himself another year with Sebastian would provide extra cash for some good clothes and help him find a job in his home country. Another reason for the delay was Rosita. He adored the girl who had become beautiful, but hopelessly unattainable.

The party seekers found morose Mozo hacking weeds along a fence line not far from the Sebastian farm. He had easily found new employment. Area teen-age boys, girls too, with no commitment to education, or little chance for city jobs, were in demand by the short-handed farmers in the state just south of the Rio Grande. Adult workers tried for better money in the border factories. Those yearning for Yankee dollars, tried to slip into the states.

Come along, Mozo. We’ll make you feel good again.

Having never been in a bar, but curious, the boy permitted himself to be led inside the noisy ill-lit room. At a round table he was shoved into a chair where a glass of dark liquid was shoved into his hand. Minutes later the cheap but potent pulque had its effect. Mozo’s companions cheered as the usually unsmiling youth joined their laughter. He even threw his head back and roared after a huge belch. The simple act caused him wonderment. He could not remember when he had laughed aloud, and he had never enjoyed himself among such company.

Sourly observing the scene from the crowded bar was a tall, well-dressed figure known to most of the area residents as a pimp and gambler, but also as a smuggler of his countrymen into the United States. He was Carlos Menendez who was about to demonstrate a side of his character often influenced by a few drinks. Sneering toward the gaggle of merry makers, he tossed off the dregs of his tequila and shouted loud enough to still the room.

Who let this dirty American piglet in here? Or should I call him what he most probably is, the whelp of a Boy’s Town whore.

The target for the slur might not have heard it had it been delivered a few seconds later. The hard drink after a day’s labor under a broiling Mexican sun was putting Mozo to sleep. His head was drooping to within a few inches of the table, but the word whore revived him instantly. It had been directed at him only once before, as a four-year old, but it triggered the same explosive reaction. His head spun as he tried to find the source of the insult.

Menendez helped him. He pushed himself away from the bar.

Here I am gringo. Did you want to punish me for calling you a piglet, or the spawn of a whore?

He played the moment, brows knitted, as if some thought on the matter was needed. Wait. I know. You are both.

The boy felt drowned in the laughter joined in by his tipsy table mates. He swung his eyes around the group in confusion. The liquor had made him feel he was among friends. No, not friends. He could not remember ever having a friend. At the Texas home, most of the boys, even the older ones, were cowed by his temper and stony fists. Teachers and the administrative staff found him much brighter than their other charges, but they shared a common dislike for the boy and his seeming indifference to them or school discipline. Now, in an environment as strange to him as the home on his first day, he reacted to the insult with the same blind outrage. Shoving his chair behind him with backs of his knees, lowering his head, and as indifferent to danger as a provoked bull, he charged, closing the gap between the men in a couple of seconds.

Menendez had barely time to raise his hands before Mozo’s first wild punch bounced off the side of his head. Stung and outraged, the self-acknowledged caballero had no intention of being humiliated by a worthless farm brat. He was able to land a solid punch to the boy’s stomach, then warded off more blows until he could reach the knife sheathed under his jacket. He had enough of this. He would not kill the kid and bring the law down on him, but he would stop this embarrassment, and leave a scar or two to be remembered by. Shoving the boy away, he cleared the blade and held it before him as if it was a dueling sword.

Are you ready to bleed, you son of a bitch?

Robert stared at the knife and backed away. The two dozen men encircling the pair sucked in their breaths. They didn’t expect bloodshed, but the flurry between the slender youth and the town bully was more exciting than anything they had seen in months.

The witnesses were not all Menendez friends. One person in the crowd could not have dreamed of a better opportunity to inflict embarrassment, better yet pain, on a long-term enemy. It was the town barber and packing house butcher, who was certain his wife had succumbed to Menendez’s attentions. Confident his skills with a knife would enable him to punish the forty-year old womanizing gangster, he had come to the bar to pick a public fight. He saw an improved opportunity for revenge and pushed to the front of the rough ring. He grabbed for the boy’s arm.

Here, kid.

Robert swung his head to see a knife’s handle extended between two onlookers. He had never seen nor held such a weapon. The gleaming blade seemed as long as a tine on one of the farm’s pitch forks. He reached back for it, not taking his eyes off Menendez. The handle felt cool in his hand. He turned back to face his newly aware opponent. Pointing the blade at arms length he again flung himself across the room.

Menendez had shot two men, and strangled a woman who had refused to abort his unwanted child, but he hadn’t been in a knife fight in years. Even then he and his opponent resorted only to theatrical slashing in the air and wisely ended the scrimmage when first blood was accidentally drawn. This maniac kid was trying to kill him. He sidestepped the rush, as if playing a young bull, then flourished his knife in a wide arc that drew a burst of laughter from the excited crowd. Robert, trying to brake, bounced off the large belly of an onlooker, spun around and charged again. Menendez danced away, again flailed his blade, still expecting to dissuade the youth, but the boy’s eyes were wild. Enough of this. He would kill the kid and claim self defense.

Robert saw only a blur of faces. The room sensing Menendez’s new purpose was hushed except for the voices of several of his supporters.

Cut off the gringo’s balls, Carlos, one called out. The rest of the ring, including the boys who had brought their innocent friend to the cantina, and those among the crowd who disliked the bully, remained silent.

Robert’s charge carried him to the tip of Menendez’s blade, but a flicker of light glancing off the mirror-like steel probably saved his life. He jerked his head right and took a slash to the side of his neck instead of a killing thrust to his throat. He was inside Menendez’s defense, his head down, knife aimed at the bully’s chest.

Menendez spun away from the blade, but their collision sent them both to the floor with Robert squirming to get on top. Menendez, his upper body soft in comparison with his stringy but rock-hard opponent, was already winded from the unusual exertion. He tried to use his knife, but could only wave it weakly as Robert instinctively clamped a hand on his arm at the elbow. Menendez was able to pound his free fist into Robert’s ribs, but Robert ended the numbing blows by straddling the larger man with a knee on each of his arms. The bully was helpless as the boy, with a look of someone later described as possessed by the devil, reached back with his knife. Then, with most of the roomful of observers screaming, No, no, someone grabbed Robert’s arm as he was about to hammer the blade into his horrified opponent’s chest.

Even watchers who disliked Menendez didn’t care to see him die on a bar room floor. As Robert was pulled from his body the shaken and cursing Menendez, no longer sneering and contemptuous, was lifted to his feet by friends. He was shepherded from the building by several men, one of whom pointed a finger at Robert, then drew it across his throat.

Robert didn’t feel the pats on his back or hear the voices of approval. He stumbled from the building into the remnants of daylight and sat on a porch bench, sick to his stomach from the potent pulque.

Robert had been driven by rage before. At the Laredo school, his home for eight years, he had honed a table knife stolen from the dining room, into a deadly blade with which he intended to attack a nighttime dormitory guard. The middle-age pederast, a pickup for a short-handed staff, had fondled one of the younger boys who told Robert.

He said he would kill me if I told on him,

Robert was moved by his memory of cruelty he had suffered before his admission to the home. He would stick his new weapon into the guard’s stomach and then flee on one of the supply trucks that visited the home daily.

His plan was foiled when the guard resigned the day before Robert planned his attack and escape. Robert fulfilled his plan of leaving the home, however, hiding in the back of a fruit truck. He did not know its destination was across the Rio Grande into Mexico.

Now, head in hands, stunned at the depth of his rage he fought both his nausea and guilt.

The encounter also left him with a new resolve. To somehow get a weapon comparable to the one with which he had just fought. It had been taken from his hand by its owner as Robert was pulled from Menendez. Robert was sure he would need a comparable weapon, and soon. The looks of the men who left with Menendez were scalding. They could very well come after him.

Cops were now on the scene. The village didn’t have a police officer, but two state cops, both short and stubby, hovered over Robert. One reached for Robert’s arm as if to arrest him.

Come on, kid. Knife fighting is illegal.

Why arrest him? asked one of the men surrounding Robert.

Menendez started it.

Another said, It wasn’t the gringo’s fault. You should let him go.

"He’s right, Menendez was asking for it, said a well-dressed man Robert didn’t remember seeing in the cantina. The officers turned to him respectfully.

The conversation was brief. The civilian stepped into the background, but the interference apparently had saved Robert from jail.

All right, kid. We aren’t going to take you in, but we’ll be back if Menendez makes a formal complaint. But from now on, stick to beer.

Put him in jail? You should bring him a medal, muttered another of the onlookers.

There was a general cheer from the crowd which Robert ignored. He had already resolved to take the warning about liquor seriously. The drink had provided only momentary enjoyment and had made him sick and caused him to go crazy.

He also had been hurt in the fight. His ribs ached from the hard blows Menendez managed to throw, but the cut on the neck below his left ear was his most serious injury. His shirt was soaked with blood. The cut needed attention, but no one volunteered aid. The cantina owner, wanting no more blood on his floor, had tossed him a rag. The alcohol soaked in it might have helped prevent infection.

Robert had never before been injured in a fight, but he had never before fought with a weapon of any kind, if his attempt to brain a male teacher with a baseball bat could be discounted. The man had laughed at him after he had struck out in a school ball game. After the near assault by the twelve-year old, the teacher called him an incorrigible wild thing.

Now, sitting alone, holding the rag against his cut, Robert congratulated himself for his luck in not getting killed or going to jail. He could continue to add to the pesos he had saved for returning to his homeland. He no longer needed to hide in Mexico. Sebastian had been a hard boss, but the farm had been a home for more than seven years. He missed it, especially Rosita. She had been kind to him, discovering his need to read. She brought him reading materials of all kinds from her father’s library. It led to no more intimacy than a trading of smiles. He recognized the danger of making any kind of overture to the girl. Actually, he wouldn’t have known how. So why did she tell her parents something that infuriated Sebastian.

2

He was at a work bench packing fruit after helping Sebastian with some blasting for an enlarged water impoundment. His head was still buzzing from the explosions when Rosita slipped unnoticed behind him and tapped him on the back.

He jumped at her touch and spun to face her.

You shouldn’t be in here, Rosita. You are breaking your parents rule.

Tell me, Robert. Will you get rich back in America?

She was standing so close he could smell her fresh clothes and some scent she was wearing. Her pretty face held a look he had never seen. She had teased him since she was a little girl. But there had never been physical contact. He ignored her question, forcing himself to turn back to his task, but she was pressing against him. He turned back to her. His face was burning up. She was much shorter than he, but she stood on her toes as she reached for the back of his head with one of her hands and pulled his face to hers.

Robert could never remember being kissed by a woman. His back was pressed against the work table. The softness and taste of the girl’s lips made him faint. His knees nearly gave way from the smell from her hair. He kissed back, but then his own urgency ruined the interlude. He knew nothing about this. In all his servitude with the Sebastians he had barely spoken with women on neighboring farms or in the village, and hardly anyone his age. He was aware of, but had yet to visit the border community’s Boy’s Town whore houses. To Rosita’s incredible overture he responded clumsily, clamping his hands above her waist and pulling her close to him, crushing her lips with his own.

He must have frightened her with his urgency. Whatever. She had changed her mind about any objectives she may have had when she came into the barn. She stiffened in his arms, then tore herself away.

She ran from the building into the nearby house where her mother must have seen her confusion and disarray. In tears and unwilling to confess her own transgression, she said she knew Mozo was leaving for the states and went into the barn to say goodbye.

The father, armed with an ancient shotgun—he no longer felt he could intimidate the strong and growing young man as he had years before—found a dazed Robert sitting on his straw petate and ordered him to get out.

Right now you filthy ravisher.

Robert, still in a glow over the more pleasurable aspects of the encounter, looked up dumbly at the tall furious man. He could not summon a word in his defense. Whatever Rosita had told her parents was beyond their limits of forgiveness. Feeling much more confused than guilty he gathered his meager gear and cleared out, stunned by the sudden disruption in his simple life. Days later in his rustic hut he wondered if he could somehow earn forgiveness, but he shook his head in doubt. Rosita’s mother would probably be insistent against lifting the ban. She had never shown him the slightest sign of warmth, and if she heard of the fight in the village bar, it would strengthen her resolve to isolate him as much as possible.

He spent little time in the one-street village, and after buying some food in the village general store on a warmish morning, he was on his way back to the shack that had been his home for the past several weeks. He waved a response to greetings from the porch when he saw Rosita walking alone near the store. He had to talk to her. The girl, probably on some errand for her parents, saw him but when he waved and trotted after her, she just continued walking, but not faster. He caught up to her in a few quick strides and grasped her arm, not too gently.

Why, Rosita? What did you tell your parents that made them throw me out?

She tore herself free, ran a few steps, then stopped, looking back at him. She might have said something, but then shook her head and turned away, just as her mother left another building farther up the street.

Rosita! It was a command. She had seen Robert. There would be no further exchange between Mozo and her daughter. The chance meeting convinced him he would not be forgiven. The sixteen-year old who had acted so aggressively wouldn’t look at him now. What a story she must have told the doting parents. He had been a fool to trust her, to tell her of his plan to return to the states, to reclaim his identity as Robert J. Walker.

He felt more ashamed because the episode had been witnessed by the grizzled veterans on the porch. He would have followed her, and risked their open derision, but he was now convinced Rosita would not take his side in front of her mother.

He took his lunch to the shade of some yucca trees at the edge of the village while he brooded over the injustice she had caused him. Now that he was about to get out of Mexico, forever he hoped, the misjudgment by Rosita’s parents added to his frustration. He still hoped that someday he could make the Sebastians know he was innocent.

3

Robert hadn’t lost a days work despite the cut on his neck and was yanking weeds on a farm near the Sebastians when he saw the new American-built luxury car pull up alongside the field. He recognized the well-dressed man who stepped from behind the wheel and held up a hand to attract his attention. It was the caballero who convinced the cops to let him go after the cantina brawl.

Hello, the tall man was smiling. Do you remember me? From the cantina?

Robert had needed to say thank you voluntarily only a few times in his life, but he thought it would be appropriate to do so now.

The visitor smiled his acceptance of the boy’s gratitude.

"I was pleased to put in a word for you. Menendez is a leech on the community. Putting him on his back was a well deserved punishment. His giant ego was well bruised.

But let me introduce myself and ask if you might consider helping me with a personal problem. I am Domingo Carrera. I own a business in Rio Bravo. Also in Monterey. Could you give me a few minutes of your time?

Robert had never before been addressed so respectfully. He covered his surprise with a nod, and Carrera reached back in the car for a carafe.

He said, Let’s step over in the shade of that Juniper and I’ll pour you a cooling drink?

Without waiting for Robert’s answer he led the way; then he removed the cup which formed the top of the carafe and filled it to the brim. He handed it to the clearly reticent boy. When he saw Robert’s hesitation, he chuckled. He said, It contains no alcohol. Only lime.

He watched while Robert quaffed at least half the cupful, then said, I am a man in grave discomfiture over a wrong done to a member of my family. I refer to the crime of rape which was inflicted upon my innocent and beautiful daughter.

Robert drank more of the refreshing liquid. What does this have to do with me?

There is no doubt about the identity of the rapist. He is Felize Alderone, a minor state bureaucrat who lives in Pomona, a village about ten miles to the north from where we talk. I have not taken up the matter with the district police because it would cause my beloved daughter and our family much embarrassment. And it would take months for a resolution in the matter. Also, Alderone is not without influence. The police might try to evade making an arrest, take the position my daughter was somehow at fault. If I should attempt to attack the filthy beast I might end up in jail. I am desperate and cannot rest until this bastard is dead.

Dead! Robert remembered how Sebastian had snarled ravisher and ordered him into exile. Rape, per Robert’s often consulted Larado home’s dictionary, meant having sex with a woman without her consent, sometimes leading to female injury, even death. Sebastian had called him a ravisher. He surely would have done more than ordered him to leave had he thought Rosita had been raped.

Seeing Robert’s quandary and possible ignorance of the crime he was describing, Carrera explained.

He lured my child to his office after hours on the pretext of offering her employment. She was a student of agricultural science in Monterey, and had hoped to get some experience in Alderone’s department. But he attacked her, tearing away her clothes, forcing himself upon her against his desk. It was horrible and I want revenge. I saw what you did to that bastard, Menendez. Would you consider helping me avenge this crime against my beloved child?

It was all coming too fast. Robert could only stare at the man, who, interpreting Robert’s look as interest, continued.

It would mean a great deal to me if that bastard was cut to shreds. I mean I would pay money to have it done. In American dollars. I presume you wish to get back into the states. You could go now with the cash I can give you.

Robert looked at the handsome, mustached forty-five year old in wonder. The man had seen him in a single fight, when he was made crazy by drink, and now he wanted to pay him to kill a man. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to ask how much his revenge was worth.

After all, he had prepared himself to kill that bastard at the home on the night he ran away

He said, How much?

Carrera hoped the question was not rhetorical. He had guessed the youth had never held more than a few highly inflatable pesos in his hands at one time. The boy obviously had the ferocity to kill. Sebastian had fired him, and he surely didn’t want to spend the rest of his life grubbing in Mexican produce. Where else could he go? He couldn’t have saved enough on barely subsistence wages to exchange his shack for a room. Right now the question was how much would it take to assure that the boy would take the job and not back out.

He said, I’m not a rich man, but I could pay three hundred dollars to have justice done.

Robert took another few seconds to finish off the drink. He then stared into the face of the man whose thin lips were now shaped in a small smile. He needed no special instinct to suspect he was being taken advantage of. Prices for hit men on the television shows he watched at the home were much higher than three hundred dollars. He decided he didn’t like the man. He reminded him of that rattlesnake pederast at the home.

Carrera was in a bind. He had to do something about Alderone. The minor official was showing too much interest in his business activity, using his post with the state’s bureau of agriculture to query local farmers about their possible inclusion of marijuana in their crops. In a call to Carrera, Alderone had suggested a meeting with view to doing some business together. Impossible

Alderone had said, Carrera, I think you and I share some common interests, besides employment for your beautiful daughter, and we should meet soon.

He had stalled the bureaucrat, but they were to meet the next week. Then he had the luck to witness the cantina fight while meeting and having drinks with one of his area marijuana growers. The idea of a foolproof way of silencing the bureaucrat was formed.

There was no way he could entrust the job to anyone local. He had considered Menendez, but had discarded the idea even before the bully was shown up by the gringo kid. He was considering importing a killer with the help of American contacts when he witnessed the fury of the farm boy’s attack in the cantina. The kid obviously needed money. He had only to inspire him with the lie about Alderone, and it seemed to be working. There had been no rape. Alderone had interviewed the girl as her father described, but her report sounded a different kind of alarm. She said the government functionary had shown more interest in her father than in learning about her job qualifications.

He is a nasty man, father. I didn’t like the way he looked at me. He seemed to know a lot about you, and he asked questions about your business interests.

Carrera put a hand on Robert’s shoulder. I am prepared to make sacrifices to avenge my daughters dishonor. I will raise the money somehow and pay you five hundred dollars.

Robert forced himself to remain impassive. He didn’t care for the man’s touch, but the guy was talking about more than enough money to get him back in the states, find a place to stay, and buy some decent clothes. But the price for getting people killed was much more in the television drama. In Mexico, people got killed for the price of a good meal and drinks.

This smooth talking bastard knows I want to get out of the country. He would then have his enemy out of the way and the killer would have disappeared.

He had to be careful, but why not try for more? He had worked deals back at the home, with the older guys, with the staffers, too. He was given extra food, and sometimes candy or a supervised trip downtown, often in exchange for promises to behave himself.

He had learned to cancel a deal, and switch to another with an even better payoff by raising more hell with a teacher, or with another kid. Usually he got what he wanted by simple threats. A few punches from his swift fists brought holdouts into line.

He had been a thief, too. Food from the kitchen, candy from his fellow students. For accusers he had a hard unblinking stare. Me steal? No way.

He had been caught, and punished, but he took it well. To his youthful peers he quoted a television gangster. He said. It’s the price of doing business.

He needed to stall this guy Carrera. He pulled his bandana from a pocket and wiped his face to help remain calm. This was dangerous stuff. In Mexico they executed murderers younger than he was. He considered the possible victim, too. He must be a piece of shit, but did he deserve to die? The episode with Rosita flashed through his mind. Maybe Carrera’s daughter might have been more willing than either she or her father would care to admit.

But five hundred dollars! Twenty minutes ago having that much cash was inconceivable. He had hesitated to buy a skillet to warm refried beans at his shack. That much cash meant starting life over again.

And there was the other reason to get out. The bastard Menendez and his friends.

He stared into Carrera’s eyes. Not enough. Make it a thousand.

Carrera concealed his satisfaction behind a frown of indecision. He looked at the boy helplessly.

Really, that amount would be hard to raise on short notice. I could sell something to raise a little more. Would you accept seven fifty?

Robert looked into the man’s eyes. Carrera really wanted Alderone dead. It was crazy, but it would mean he could stop living like an animal.

No, I want a thousand. And I’ll need a knife. Bring me a good knife.

He thought later Carrera would probably have brought him a gun had he asked, but he had instinctively asked for a knife. He had never fired a gun.

Carrera waited a couple of beats, then nodded. All business now. After all, it was just another business agreement. Alderone was sleaze. He would arrange to kill a dozen like him if they tried to interfere with his plans. He tried to appear thinking the matter over. Would the boy go through with it, or run off to America with his fee. He would chance it. The boy was his best bet for getting rid of the bureaucrat. If he ran, he would still have Alderone killed, and blame the boy who would be lost in America.

Very well. I’ll bring you five hundred dollars and the weapon tomorrow. The rest when the pig is dead.

He could have taken the cash from his fat wallet, but it would have created the wrong impression. Five hundred would hold the boy. Pay him any more now and he might be tempted to welsh on the deal.

It was cool enough in the shade, but the sweat was pouring under Robert’s shirt as Carrera described how they would meet for Robert’s final payment, On the festival day in Reynosa next Sunday.

Robert managed to keep his face frozen as he nodded. Then he turned away from his visitor before Carrera could see the distaste in his eyes.

Another fitful night on his straw and branch bed in the shack, this time with fantasies on how he might spend all that money. It jelled his decision. He would do it. The rapist deserved to die, for that and other crimes he must have committed. Carrera was a coward for not punishing the man himself, but if it meant that much to him, then he would be his agent for revenge. All that money. It was hard to believe.

He was certain he could get away with it. How could anyone suspect the kid gringo whose only scrape with the law, so far as anyone knew, was in a fight with a generally disliked bully? Was it right to kill a man who, for all he knew, was innocent of the crime Carrera charged?

Fuck it. Was it right I should be practically starving and living like a pig?

The next morning he and Carrera sat in the cool of the businessman’s luxurious sedan. Robert accepted his partial fee with no comment. He counted the money which was in American twenties. He had never held a tenth of such a fortune. He was rich by any standards he had ever known.

Carrera held out a newspaper bound package.

It’s a very good knife, with a very long blade. It’s one of a kind, never used before, hand-made and untraceable. You may want to keep it as a souvenir.

Carrera’s handsome face broke into a slight smile when he said souvenir.

He held out a pair of rough drawings, one of the victim’s village, with Alderone’s home marked appropriately with an X. The second sketch was a floor plan of the bureaucrat’s casa. Robert didn’t have a notion when he would commit the act, but he made no comment as he folded the documents and slipped them into a pocket.

He thought he would ask. Have you been there?

No, but the drawings are accurate enough.

Carrera had final instructions. Take any money you can find on him. And his watch. It should look like a robbery gone sour.

4

With his expulsion from the Sebastian home also ending his informal indenture to the farm family, Robert had become a simple day worker. There was nothing to stop him from taking a day off to scout Alderone’s home and working out a plan for his attack.

He had never left the area on his own in almost seven years, and he had no intention of calling attention to himself by using something as public as a bus. Carrera, too, had advised him to walk the ten or so miles, and the rough map he provided, enlarged from a section of an automobile map of the area, was all Robert needed to plot a route.

The strategy he had adopted for making indirect approaches to his own hut helped him avoid notice of villagers or field workers as he slipped away from the village. The Pomona walk took nearly three hours over the mostly treeless but rough land. He first saw Alderone’s village from the crest of some low hills that surrounded the tiny community. It was almost dusk when he found a perch for himself among some boulders high behind the Alderone home. He rested and ate his piece of stale bread and dried beef.

He was sure he had been unobserved making his approach. The house was at the end of the hamlet’s only street, and he was able to look down on the simple adobe block structure with a red tile roof, probably the best house in town. Its toilet facility was a privy, separated from the house by about twenty-five yards. He also noted that the house was at least one hundred yards from its nearest neighbor.

The thought of another round trip over the rough terrain changed Robert’s mind. He decided against waiting for another time. He would do the job that evening; that is, if his target would convenience him by waiting until dark to use his outhouse.

Carrera told him Alderone had a small family, a wife and three children, but only a daughter still lived with her parents. Carrera couldn’t say for sure if there was a dog, an important consideration. Dogs in Mexican villages are noisy and often vicious. Robert was relieved when he neither saw nor heard signs of the animals

The temperature sank quickly when the sun slipped behind a patch of woods and hills to the west, but Robert had broken into a greater sweat than he experienced during his hard work in the fields or during his walk that afternoon. He thought perhaps he should come back after further planning. What could he do now if his victim did not use his outhouse that night? Or how else would he be able to do the job? He again examined his new knife, drawing it from the rough canvas scabbard he had made to prevent the blade from cutting him as it rested inside his shirt.

Its blade was at least three inches longer than the knife he used in the Menendez fight. The steel gleamed back at him in the fading light. The wicked point was shaped like the bow of the sail boats he had admired on television. The haft was pitch black and hard. Robert, with his knowledge of farm tools, judged it unbreakable. It was like no knife he had ever seen, razor sharp at both top and bottom, its handle riveted to an extension of the blade, the bound metal thick under the dark wood. Carrera said it had never been used before. Maybe, He shuddered at the thought of the blade entering a human body. Could he do it? The five hundred stashed near the hut would get him safely into Texas and buy him some clothes. It might be enough to support a brief job search.

He had almost decided to give up his vigil when he heard the bang of a screen door. There was the glow of a flashlight and Robert could make out the figure of a young woman making her way to the outhouse.

This had to be the daughter. She was an extremely fat girl who used the flashlight for several seconds to assure herself there were no snakes, rats, or other hateful things in the small building. At least she didn’t linger. She was barely back in the house before an older woman made the same journey. Robert felt sweat run down the back of his neck. Would his target be next? He felt slightly ill. New doubts. Who would Carrera complain to if he welshed? Let the man get someone else to do his dirty job.

But the five hundred was barely enough to get started in the states.

After the woman returned to the house thirty minutes passed and Robert shifted his body in preparation to getting up from his hiding place. The man wasn’t coming out. He was probably constipated.

I’m not coming back. Fuck Carrera.

Another bang from the screen door froze the thought. The man he had been paid to kill was silhouetted against an inner house light. He was of moderate height, in his mid forties, Robert judged, overweight with rolls of fat bulging from his waist. A tee shirt covered his upper body,

He, too, carried a flashlight, and as he walked to his toilet the beam flicked toward Roberts rocky aerie. Robert ducked and the move somehow restored his original resolve to earn his total fee. The man would die. Robert gave no further thought to failure or possible punishment. He shifted his hips to a more comfortable position and when a piece of rock dug into his back it somehow made him think of the beaches of Padre Island along the southwest coast of Texas. The home had once chartered a bus and taken a load of the kids to the Gulf of Mexico playland. He longed to see the area again. With a thousand American dollars he could see a big chunk of the whole United States.

He slipped out of his hiding place, careful to avoid disturbing any loose stones. In few seconds he was at the rear of the out house. He could hear the politician’s grunts. The odor from the building made him hold his breath. He held his knife with his right hand as he went over his plan of attack. It has to be done from the rear. There must be no yells for help, and there wouldn’t be if he could shut off the wind pipe with a forearm around the neck. Robert knew next to nothing about human anatomy, but no person could survive a cut throat. His mind suddenly pictured the blood gushing from the neck of a Sebastian hog. The revulsion he had then, and now, made him squeeze his eyes closed. He could not do that. He would have to grab Alderone around his neck with his left arm to stifle any yelling. Then he would stick his knife in the man’s back as many times as needed.

He again felt a faint nausea as he visualized his victim sprawled in the dirt dead. He tried to think of his target as a mean, vicious person, just like the pederast at the Laredo home. He wiped his mind of concerns about Alderone’s family.

The bump of the outhouse door startled Robert into movement, but too quickly. Alderone was refastening his belt when he heard the snick of a dislodged rock. He spun around and grasped the situation in a second. Robbery, although holdups sometimes turned worse. There hadn’t been any violence in the area for more than a year, except for the occasional brawls in the cantinas. Alderone was known to carry money with him, but he’d be damned if he’d surrender it to some tanked up gorron. He would not panic.

He swung his light upwards to identify the intruder. Robert’s knife was caught in the beam. Jesus. If he hadn’t just relieved himself he might have soiled his pants. The goddamned blade looked like a small sword, but when he saw it was held by a scared kid, a gringo by God, he exploded.

What do you want, you son of a bitch?

He had the beam flush in the kid’s eyes. The youth may have been blinded but he still charged, fast, with the huge knife aimed at his chest. My God, the kid wanted to kill him. For a fraction of a second he froze, then he raised the flashlight to ward off the attack. He should have screamed, but the kid was on him before he could draw a breath for a yell.

When his plan for a silent attack was foiled, Robert could have run, probably should have, but the same instinct that caused him to charge Menendez was triggered when Alderone cursed him. Even then Robert might have given up the effort and fled. He would have if Alderone hadn’t remained silent throughout the short struggle.

Alderone did not call out. It was instinctive, a fear that the crazy gringo kid might also slaughter his family should they put themselves in a position to identify his attacker.

Still partially blinded by the light, Robert lunged forward, thrusting his knife as if it was a sword in a duel. The victim squirmed and the long blade went between his arm and his body, ripping only his thin shirt. Before Alderone could make another defensive move, Robert crashed against the smaller man, knocking him off his feet. Scrambling astride his victim, whose wind had been knocked from him, Robert forced his knee over Alderone’s left arm. With his other arm the downed man could only manage a weak and ineffective blow with his flashlight which had somehow been extinguished.

Robert raised the knife into almost the same position it had been held in the Menendez fight days before. Then he paused. The situation was not the same. This man, however mean and corrupt, had done him no harm. Neither had he screamed