Free Westlake, Donald E - Novel 43 by High Adventure (v1.1) Page A

Mexico. The aristocrat couldn’t take back
a mortgage on account of taxes, so the price was right because I could pay all
cash.”
                 “Fat
man?” Tommy asked. “Happy with himself?”
                 “That’s
Innocent St. Michael,” Kirby agreed.
                 “It
was his land,” Tommy said. “He’s been looking for a first'dass fish for years.”
                 “I
appreciate that information, Tommy,” Kirby said.
                 “So
you’re a rich man, right?” said Luz. “You can afford a mistake.”
                 “Rich
men,” Kirby told him, “don’t risk their ass and twenty years in jail flying pot
to the States. That’s how I got the money. Oh, Jesus,” he said, remembering.
                 Tommy
swigged home-brew and puffed pot and said, “Something else, huh?”
                 Kirby
swigged and puffed and swigged and puffed and said, “I just gave the rest of my
money to a guy in Texas for some cows.”
                 Luz
laughed. Tommy tried to look sympathetic, but he was grinning. Kirby swigged
and puffed, and then he too laughed. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’m not as smart
as I think I am.”
                 “Nobody
is,” Tommy said. “But what the hell, we can still enjoy ourselves.”
                 They
enjoyed themselves. Various anonymous foods—some animal, some vegetable—were
consumed, all liberally laced with hot peppers and other explosive devices. The
home-brew cooled the throat while the marijuana cooled the brain. A plastic
radio picked up a salsa station from Guatemala, fading in and out while the sun
went down and the breeze whispered funny stories among the leaves in the upper
branches, to which the stream chuckled and giggled below. Various people showed
what they looked like dancing on uneven ground while both drunk and stoned.
Night fell, and so did many of the villagers. Fires were started; in the
orangey-red light, black ghosts whipped by, and people spoke to them in their
native tongue.
                 Kirby
lay on the cooling ground, head propped on an empty inverted clay stewpot,
half-empty jug in one hand and faintly smoldering joint in the other, as he
watched the moon come up over his mountain. Seated cross-legged beside him,
dark face stony and rough-sculpted in the moonlight, Luz Coco told his story:
“I was a kid,” he said, “my Mama took up with an oilman.”
                 “Rich
oilman?”
                 “That’s
what he said.” Luz spat at the fire,
which spat back. “Just a ragged-ass geologist, is all, wanted somebody with him
in his sleeping bag. Looks for oil in these hills around here, works for Esso.
They called it Esso then.”
                 “There’s
oil here?” Kirby was trying to find his mouth with the unlit end of the joint.
                 “Lotta
good it does,” Luz said. “Oil’s got to be in lakes, down underground, or it’s
no use. This limestone around here, the oil’s just in millions of little
bubbles, not worth shit. Cost too much to pull it up.”
                “You know all that, huh?”
                 “I
grew up with it,” Luz said. “That’s the story. The village threw my Mama out,
we went to Houston.”
                 “Back
up a little bit,” Kirby said. “I don’t think you touched all the bases.”
                 “These
assholes around here,” Luz said, waving an arm to indicate each and every
resident of South Abilene, “they’re very strict, man. Specially about sex. You
fuck around the wrong place, you’re in trouble .”
                 “I
get it,” Kirby said. “Your mother was sleeping with this geologist—”
                 “And
my Daddy wasn’t dead yet,” Luz pointed out.
                 “So
the tribe threw her