Wild Country

Chapter Sixty-Two

Quantrill could not recall all the details of the evening that followed. His only explanation — there could be no excuse short of an insanity plea — was that in his own mind he had closed the case, assuming too much. Someone had said that riding a Thrillkiller was thirsty work, and no one had denied it. After a few Dos Equis drafts in an excellent hotel lounge, they had returned by stage to Faro and downed a couple of tequila sours. Then Quantrill had accepted another — perhaps several. He did recall one special insult to his gut, a boiler-maker made not with ordinary whiskey but with Gusano Rojo mezcal, the stuff with a caterpillar embalmed in state right there in the bottle where you could see it. After three hefty swigs, you would drink to its health. After two more, you would swear it was drinking to yours.

At some point, he had wisely decided against calling on any of the security managers that night. Hadn't he already covered the necessary bases? And besides, you didn't ask with a slurred tongue about the possibility of a backup for your own sidearm. That, and the decision to go to his room and stash the Chiller, were the last pieces of wisdom he used that night — with one exception. He avoided the temptation to let his good buddy Matthias in on his real reason for coming to Faro.

They had wandered arm in arm, after dark, to another saloon. They'd played cards; "bucked the tiger" in the game of faro; gone bust at "twenty-one," accepted still more drinks at the poker table. Had he finally lost, or won? Quantrill could not recall, but in any case the Mexican had put up the stakes, drinking less. Vigilant more. Some time after midnight, the little party separated. The best that could be said for Quantrill at the time was that his gait had been reasonably steady. He had long since ceased to talk much. Why bother, when his tongue was developing a Castilian accent?

Morning brought a wake-up knock that infuriated him. But he reached through the cobwebs to recall he had left orders for a wake-up when registering. He lay inert for a time, leafing through his memory, cursing at the blank passages. He could recall most of the previous evening until ten or so, and not much after that. Seems that Ernst Matthias had suggested they bunk together. Now, why the hell…? No, that had to be wrong, as wrong as letting the joy of a new friendship trigger a drinking bout. If it had been a bout. If it had. Matthias had sure as hell won it by pacing his drinks. One more sure thing, in a booze bout nobody won the morning after. Jess Marrow had said it once: If you got hangovers, you lost then and there. If you didn't get hangovers, you lost your liver eventually.

Quantrill's hangover was a surly brute of medium ferocity. Padding barefooted on a cold oak floor, he found the pitcher and enameled basin; cursed the cruel authenticity of Faro's rooms; spilled some of that cold water on his feet (!!) while pouring it into the basin. The icy shock as he washed his face nearly knocked him over, but it soaked through more of those cobwebs — enough to make him wonder whether he had licked out a bird cage or a fireplace during the night's festivities. He drank some of that hard water, then let himself sink carefully down into the bed again. One good sign, the ceiling was not spinning. His voice seemed borrowed from a bullfrog: "Stupid jackass." he said aloud. "How many times do you have to poison yourself just for fun?"

By nine AM he had dressed, couching the Chiller under the light jacket, fumbling a bit as he practiced a few draws. Sitting on the bed. he essayed a ring-finger exercise he'd learned in T Section of army intelligence. Your synapses that are under least conscious control, they'd taught him, were earliest affected by booze, drugs, or concussion. Control of one's ring fingers was normally fair to poor. If you could bend those fingers and only those to a quick rhythm when sober, loss of that mastery meant your reflexes were impaired. A poor sort of evidence to stake your life on, but better than nothing.

The charge suggested by that evidence was "wasted in the first degree." But he'd been hung over a half dozen times in his life and expected a quick recovery if only he could co-opt some coffee and stare down a pair of eggs, sunny-side. In the meantime, his companions could help him over the rough spots. By noon, he could put in a call to Jim Street with a clear head.

Quantrill eased down the stairs and, after only one wrong turn, wandered into the dining hall wearing a sorry smile. His companions were presiding over the remains of western omelets. He glanced at one plate in which "Cherry" had added catsup to his omelet. The plate looked as if someone had dropped a small animal into it from some great height. Quantrill swallowed hard as he looked away from it, sitting between "Collier" and the Mexican, where he could watch the door. No one, not even the waitress, entertained any doubts about his delicate condition.

When the waitress left with Quantrill's order, he managed to get a coffee cup to his lips with only one hand. It was a triumph of sorts, but Clyde Longo was not impressed. In a gravelly baritone, the man began to sing in a near whisper. The song had found fame in a holovision satire, ridiculing the essence of certain country songs that critics dubbed the "lyrics of loserism." But like Archie Bunker of the old days, the ditty had become a runaway success among those it mocked, as if its ironies were subtle rather than gross. The only proper way to sing it was badly, with tears in the voice, and Longo did it right. Its title was "Two Beers."

"I need your silence more than your sympathy," Quantrill said morosely to the singer beside him. The other Anglos were in only slightly better shape than he, while Ernst Matthias seemed disgustingly hale. Nevertheless, said the Mexican, he intended to spend a good part of the day recovering in his room. He did not say, of course, that he regretted raising such a high profile the day before.

Quantrill was chasing a fragment of egg with his fork when he saw the newcomer framed in the doorway. He grabbed his checked napkin and brought it to his face, coughing. The rugged, angular latino was gazing in his direction. Not so angular and rugged as he'd been a few years back, maybe, but Quantrill had no doubts. It was too late now to intercept his old friend, Lufo Albeniz. But they had shared T Section's hand signals once, and those signals composed a language you never forgot. He saw recognition in Lufo's face. The others turned casually to see the man passing between empty chairs to their table, and Quantrill lowered the napkin. He wiped his right hand across his face, saw something like consternation in Lufo's gaze, and wiped again. The gesture said. "I am wearing cover." There was absolutely no question that Lufo recognized him, dyed hair or no, because the big TexMex seemed ready to turn back toward the entrance. But now it was too late for Lufo, too; for now the barrel-chested Anglo at the table saw him and began to hum "Rose of San Antone."