“Where?” she asked.
“Him and the two Mexicans walked over a rise and just went poof, gone, just like that.”
“Did they have a car?” Hackberry said.
“I didn’t hear one. But the wind was blowing out of the north. Maybe I just didn’t hear them start it up.”
“What did Collins say to you?” Hackberry said.
“He said I had a choice. I could play Russian roulette or he’d pop me. When I told him I wouldn’t do it, he gave me directions to the highway. I cain’t figure it out. Maybe everything people say about him ain’t altogether true.”
“Don’t fool yourself,” Hackberry said.
“So why’d he cut me loose?”
“He told you to tell me something, didn’t he?”
“He’s got you on his mind, that’s for sure, but he didn’t send no message. No, sir.”
Hackberry looked straight ahead at the countryside and at the stars that were going out of the sky.
“Did I miss something back there?” R.C. asked.
Collins wants me in his debt, Hackberry thought. But that was not what he said. “You did just fine, R.C. Who cares what goes on in the head of a madman?”
“I do. He’s a scary guy.”
“He is. He kills people.”
“No, in a different way. His breath. It smells like gas. His skin, too. It doesn’t smell like sweat. He doesn’t smell human.”
The Mexicans say he walks through walls, Hackberry thought.
“Sir?”
“There’s a town not far away. You hungry?”
“A twenty-ounce steak and five pounds of fries and a gallon of ice cream would probably get me through till breakfast,” R.C. replied.
“You got it, bub,” Hackberry said.
BY DAWN HACKBERRY was back home. He called Ethan Riser’s cell phone and left a message, then slept four hours and showered and called Riser again. This time Riser answered. “I need you here, partner,” Hackberry said.
“I got your message about Collins. We’ve contacted all the authorities in Coahuila.”
“That’s like telling me you just masturbated.”
“Why do you go out of your way to be offensive?”
“Anton Ling told me she was involved in an arms-for-dope operation. The dope went into American ghettos, the guns went to Nicaragua. She says Josef Sholokoff was a player in the deal.”
“I’ve heard all that stuff before.”
“Is it true?”
“Maybe on some level it is. But it’s yesterday’s box score. Sholokoff is our worry, Sheriff. You worry about Collins and this guy Krill. It’s clear they’re both operating in your jurisdiction. Sholokoff is a separate issue.”
Hackberry could feel his hand clenching and unclenching on the phone receiver. Through his window, he could see his horses running in the pasture and yellow dust rising off the hills, plum-colored rain clouds bunching across the sun. He has cancer. He’s at the end of his row. Don’t insult him, he heard a voice say.