Chapter 8 8

Lucinda put bacon and eggs in front of Winchell on Remembrance Day in 1967, when the weather was warm and heading for heat.The roadside cafes in Colorado, Texas, are not air-conditioned, and the salt shakers are kept dry with rice in them so the salt doesn't clump.Flies were crawling on the partitions, and flypaper was hung from the ceiling by strings. A large electric fan by the door blew a little wind, and the flypaper was blown slowly.Winchell took off his jacket, folded the clothes and put them on the empty chair beside him.It happened to be between breakfast and lunch, so the place was pretty much empty except for four people who were checking out.

Lucinda settled her bills, made change, thanked them for coming, and walked back toward Winchell, who was buttering his toast. "Would you like jam? We've got some marmalade." "That's really nice," he said, liking the deliberate laugh that had just been hidden in the woman's voice. She reached under the counter and brought out a bottle of jam, then set the bottle in front of him. "Are you from Colorado? Local?" he asked, taking a sip of his hot coffee, which was refreshing and delicious, aware that he was a bit lonely all by himself, and didn't bother to talk to the poker players.

"Now I'm a local. Originally I came from up north near Muleshoe. Then I spent a few years in Rabac, where Buddy Hawley, America's most famous rock star of the 1950s , he paid great attention to the study of theory and was familiar with the characteristics of music. However, at the age of 22, he died in a plane crash during a tour. He became the saddest legend in the history of American rock and roll. Death. Birthplace." Winchell looked confused, the faces of the poker players had disappeared from his mind, and he wasn't sitting at a table somewhere. "Can't believe I heard... who is that? Buddy..."

Lucinda laughed undisguisedly: "Hey sir, where did you come from? After he and Ricky Vallance and Big Fat Bob died on a private jet in the winter ruins of Iowa Before the wreck, Buddy was almost as famous as Elvis aka Elvis Presley, America's most famous rock star. You know the song, 'Every day gets a little closer to you...'" Her contralto was so sweet . "Sorry..." Winchell grinned, "I don't have a musical talent." "You need a little more music in your life, bro. Learn an instrument, go dance, stuff like that." Winchell chewed a piece of bacon, the meat was just tender, just to his liking, then he reached out and took out two tissues from the tissue box, and wiped his hands and mouth. "Now you're starting to draw conclusions about me. Actually, I play the violin a little bit. I know six songs, and I'm learning the seventh—"Great Potatoes in the Sand"—haven't done it yet, don't know me If you can learn it someday. It doesn't matter, six songs is enough to live with, if you really like those songs. Think about it, if a song is really good, and you really like it, even if it's just one That's enough."

Lucinda tilted her head slightly, and a smile curled up at the corner of her mouth, and said, "At this moment, on a hot morning in the second half of May, this is quite a deep remark... a song Good songs are enough. I like the idea, I remember it when I need to improve a little bit, and it takes a lot of time to improve. Play the violin, huh?" A truck driver's air brake squeaked, he parked outside the store, walked in, and sat in the fifth seat below Winchell. The man coughed so badly that he closed his mouth with a fist and opened a menu. Lucinda went up to him and said, "Are you all right, Ralph?"

"Hi there, Lucinda. It's good to see your smiling face. Yeah, I'm fine, a bit of a fever from a long shipment, or something on my boobs ; they seem to refuse to go away, they insist on pestering me. I don't know why I bother to look at the menu, I know what I want." "Let's see if I remember," said Lucinda, arms folded, eyes rolled up toward the ceiling dotted with flies, "Ralph, for the Seminole Trucking Company." Drives a semi, comes in every few weeks and always orders... three hard boiled eggs, a large piece of buttermilk cake, a glass of tomato juice, a slice of ham toast. Coffee makes his stomach Not feeling well, so he just drinks tomato juice. Right?"

"Lucinda, you are unbelievable. You should enter a TV memory competition." Lucinda wrote the names of the dishes in her little green pad, tore off the sheet, and snapped it down on the raised platform that separated the kitchen from the rest of the café.A hairy man's hand reached over and snatched away the list. There was still a cigarette in his hand, but the owner of the hand did not show up. A few seconds later, there was the sound of egg roux falling into a hot oil pan from the kitchen. . "Would you like a copy of the Odessa American while you wait, Ralph?" Ralph nodded, and Lucinda slid a newspaper along the counter to him.She turned back to Winchell, who was swallowing the last piece of toast and sending it down with his coffee.He wiped his hands with two more tissues while Ralph of the Seminole Trucking opened his glasses and began studying the latest news.

"Well, what do you do, sir? Are you a traveler or what?" said Lucinda, smiling at him. Winchell never advertised himself as a professional poker player.It's not that he's ashamed of it; after all, a livelihood is a livelihood, and the way he makes a living is as respectable as any other, so long as you play hard and fairly.That was his way of thinking about it, that was his way of life.But for some reason, if you tell people you play poker as a career, they'll stare at you like you might grab their underwear and run away, and the conversation will move on to poker and Winchell's opinion on drawing straight draws and stuff, and he didn't bother to explain any of that.

So he tried to use his usual formula, saying that he was a gun and ammunition salesman.He knew enough about guns to be reasonably persuasive unless asked too deeply.But he never stays in one place long enough to get people talking about anything other than basic issues about rifles and shotguns, and he reads a gun magazine or two a month just to remember Those proprietary words. Before he could answer Lucinda's question, Ralph of the Seminole Trucking Company turned his head from his paper and looked over at Winchell through his glasses. "I'll tell you what that gentleman does, my dear. I think I recognized him the first time I came in, but I'll have to take another look to be sure. He's a professional gambler. I Saw him play poker at a truckers rally. He must have walked away with $10,000 after a weekend fight. I remember it because my boss was at a table with him and he said This guy is either cheating or he is the best poker player he has ever seen. So I sat back and watched him play in two different hands and thought my boss was right .This gentleman here will grind you down to paving tar and stick you to the pavement."

Lucinda tilted her head again.Winchell thought it charming how she tilted her head and smiled with the corners of her mouth curled up. "Well, well, here's a real gambler sitting in front of me. Is Ralph right?" Winchell took a sip of his coffee, feeling a little annoyed by Ralph's memories and comments. "No, I play poker for a living." "That's gambling, isn't it?" Lucinda asked. "That depends on how you look at it and how you play poker." Ralph couldn't help saying: "You play honestly, right? My boss thinks it should be like this. He said at least he can't see that you are cheating. My boss is quite observant. guy."

"I play the honest game," said Winchell, casting a sharp glance at Ralph. "If you know what you're doing, there's no need to play anything else." He was quite sure, too. , he could bankrupt Ralph's boss with an interactive cut shuffle or bottom deal, if he had to prove anything. "Well, it's probably a little better than driving a tow truck for a living," Lucinda said. "Using your brains instead of your arms and ass. Right, Ralph?" Ralph brought his eyes back to his newspaper, and took it up and moved into a cubicle in a far corner of the restaurant, as if Winchell was carrying some contagious disease. of. Lucinda glanced at Ralph's fat back as he walked away, smiled, and shrugged. "So, where are you going next, Gambler?" "Big Spring." Winchell usually wouldn't tell anyone outside the circle where he was going, but for some reason he wanted to tell the tall woman. "It's a little hard to ask—my nature isn't straightforward—but are you married? Or something like that?" He tilted his head slightly again, and another smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. "No. My husband was in the Air Force and his cargo plane crashed on a training mission over Uris Air Force Base in Lubbock. Almost nothing. That was two years ago. Yes. I came here six months ago, and I took night school in Sweetwater, learning how to keep accounts and how to be a legal secretary. Serving bacon and eggs in front of locals and bums isn't much Challenging. Why are you asking about my marital status?" "Well, I was wondering when I might ask you out to dinner sometime, if you're interested in dining with a so-called gambler. If you're running wild, I can tell you that I don't do coin flips or cash outs. Thousands to pay the bill." Lucinda folded her arms and looked directly at Winchell with the deep, penetrating gaze of a first-rate poker player probing a stranger who has just sat down at the table.He looked all right, a nice package wrapped in a modest bundle.No designer clothes or anything close to that, but a neat black suit of good quality, well-trimmed hair, a lean build, slightly sunken eyes, a strong and good-looking nose and chin.Though he looks like he could use another shave and some sun.She likes his blue suspenders. A gruff voice came from the kitchen: "Eggs, cakes, and ham and bread are all ready." While Lucinda went to serve Ralph's breakfast, Winchell got up and walked up to the cashier with the bill, fumbling for the ticket holder. Lucinda came back, met Winchell at her end of the register, took a five-dollar bill from him, and handed him the change. "Since you asked, I'd be happy to have dinner with you. I'm not often asked out in Colorado City. But it might be better if I knew your name." When he told her his name, she held out her hand to shake his, and said, "My name is Lucinda. I have to go to night school on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I am a free man other than these days." Yes. Which day do you prefer to go out?" "How about Thursday? I need your address and phone number . . . well, so I know where to pick you up. Seven o'clock?" "Yes." She scribbled a few words on the back of a green menu, and then handed the list to him: "Here is your name, address, and phone number." "I'll see you on Thursday night, then," Winchell said, smiling at her, folding up the wallet and stuffing it into his left hip pocket. "By the way," she said, "are we going somewhere more modest or classy or somewhere in the middle? I just want to know what to wear." "If you don't mind the distance, there are a few nice places in Big Spring. I guess by West Texas standards they'd be called genteel places, so let's go to genteel places." "Then go somewhere elegant." Lucinda said, with a smile hidden in her voice. Winchell tipped his Cadillac out of the restaurant parking lot and turned it again toward Big Springs, feeling better than he had in a long time, as if the music hadn't changed at all because of a guy named Buddy Holly. death of man. So the music came back, and twenty-three years after the anniversary in 1967, Winchell stood in the dark pool room playing "Silver Bells," thinking of Lucinda.The wind picked up, fast and furious, as it often does in the high desert, rattling the French doors on the south wall of the pool room with a fury. Across the room, far below the French doors, a two-meter diamondback was slowly moving along the foundations of the ranch house.The snake is not angry, nor sad, nor frustrated or afraid.It's just hungry.However, as is characteristic of the Rattlesnake, it can be a bit impatient and nervous. For some reason it senses that the wind is picking up, but it doesn't hear the violin's "Silver Bells" in the air, and the diamondback hunts at night, solitary, dark-eyed, searching.The violinist tapped his feet lightly on the wooden floor, and the sound traveled to a concrete pad beneath the floor, and from there to the ground below.The snake stopped, its body upright, staring at the French doors, spitting out letters from time to time.I don't know if it can see Winchell standing in the dark, and I don't know if its gaze is in the right direction, but the snake quickly returned to the hunting state.It swam through the door, moving along the foundations, alert for anything that might come along, and ready for its arrival.And, as before, it wasn't angry, or sad, or frustrated or afraid.It's just hungry.And by nature, a little impatient. Winchell adjusted the .38 in his boot, then picked up the violin again, and this time he played another song, this one about himself, a Las Vegas tune home written.While playing the piano and plucking the strings, he hummed a few lines: ... all of us dreamers know, This is not a win or loss, but a game. we've never changed, It's just those dreams that fade away. Peter walked around the foot of Mount Guipa until he came to the west of the main house, from where Sonia lived a hundred meters north.He climbed sixty meters along the low slope, and then stopped.From there, he could see both the main house directly below him and the silhouette of the house to the lower left, the woman's house looking smaller and darker. He packed his tools, walked through the darkness, and walked on the side of Guipa Mountain. As for why he did this, he was still not sure.Though anyone who was awakened by the sound of a shattering thud or footsteps in an imaginary hall would understand what had brought Peter through the night to this guarded place.We are all still driven by old fears, by the sound of the gasps of unknown creatures around the mouth of the cave, and we can only force our composure by leaning against the walls, the firelight, and the weapons around us.So, too, with Peter. And, there was something out there, it appeared this night, elusive, unforeseeable.For the past two hours, the wind had picked up and swept across the ground, and there was a certain smell in it, and with it an ominous atmosphere that Peter had been trying to put behind him, vague, but And lingering.Just feeling this, sometimes just feeling it, was enough, and he was going to defend what he had now, even if it was just a wood and canvas shed in Del Bro Canyon.But there are other things besides rocks and stones and wood and canvas.There is also the woman named Sonia, the man named Winchell, and him—Peter. They have reached a certain balance in this highland desert.And, at this point in his life, he was determined to maintain that sense of contentment.As far as Peter is concerned, he has nowhere else to go. Perhaps all that he had felt on the side of Guipa was unreal; perhaps the night would pass away and the day would come as it always had, without any ill effects.If so, he could look back and laugh at his own fears with a self-deprecating smile.Now, he is playing the role of a cautious sentinel, forming a one-man picket line among the cedars and mesquite trees that are blown to this side by the wind in this high desert. A group of wild boars ran aimlessly in his direction, snorting while arching.When they were still five meters away from him, he lowered his voice and yelled at them sharply, and the wild boars scattered and hid in the bushes. In the mud-brick house, Sonia rolled over on her bed and looked at the clock beside her.She was tired from the day that had just passed, and she hadn't been able to sleep at all for the past three hours, which was also exhausting.It's three o'clock and the alarm clock will go off in half an hour.On the other side of her bedroom door, Pablo's snoring was deafening, almost drowning out the wail of the night wind through the cedars.Sometimes, when the windows were left ajar and the wind blew in, it sounded like a woman screaming. She lay down again, letting her thoughts go up and down.In the wee hours of the morning like this, she usually thought of the child she had lost when she was fifteen.She had loved a young San Diego sailor, handsome, and during the few days she had known him, his red hair and lightly freckled skin contrasted sharply with her brown hair, a contrast that made her Fascinated deeply, and found a kind of sexual excitement from it.The boy would be thirty-eight now, and she wondered if he would be as big and strong as his father.She remembered the tangled forearm of the young sailor, and she could still remember the way he walked, and she had never seen feet that big—size EE, size thirteen.It was what he told her when she asked, and it was one of many random events that she kept in her memory. When she wrote for the last time to find out about her youngest son—perhaps she thought she could at least send him a letter—she was dissuaded by relatives still in Los Angeles who told her only that he already had a pretty Nice family, doing a pretty good job selling computer parts right now.On this night, as on many nights, she wondered where and how he had gone, and whether she would ever see him again. The driver slowed the car down to a near stop and hit the brakes.The headlights shone on the bridge sign ahead of them: "Slater Dale." "Okay, this is the destination," the driver said. "The gate of the ranch should be one kilometer away, or a little later. Read me the notes at the bottom of the map." Marty unfolded the paper they were given and read with a flashlight: "It says there are two houses in this area, and our target is a mud brick house very close to the main house. The mud brick house What the hell is it? Some kind of house made of cement or brick or something, eh?" The driver drove the Lincoln slowly on Route 90, looking for the gate of the ranch. "Yeah, that's what I think it is. I think it's some kind of old-fashioned cement and brick building." "How can we tell if it's cement or mud brick or something else in this black hole?" "Guess we'll have to use our flashlight, Marty, unless you have a better idea. Hey, we're here." He turned right and drove onto a junction with a ranch road.The headlights illuminated an iron ranch gate flanked by a "No Trespassing" sign. "What kind of lock is this, Marty?" "It's an electronic lock. You can't pick it because there's no keyhole. I might take a shot or two from the Beretta and knock it out." "I don't think so. You might be able to blow that lock off, but the bolt will just stay there when it's in. Plus, it's too much trouble making the gunshot too loud." Marty took out the hand-drawn map again. "I can't walk, if you try to make me walk again. I can't walk through this goddamn desert in such good shoes, where the wind is howling and it's pitch black. You're not thinking about that, are you?" "Marty, we're going to do what we have to do to get this job done. It's as simple as that. I remember the map said something else, about another entrance. What did it say?" Leaning forward, leaning on the steering wheel, considering how much time they have until daylight.Blowing the tire, then killing the cop and dumping his body in the sink delayed them for over an hour.The luminous dial on his watch showed that it was almost half past three in the morning. "It says here at the bottom of the map that there is another entrance a kilometer east from here. You have to turn left first, then go south under the main road and the railroad ties. It says, 'There is an old unlocked door near the ties' .I guess nobody knew there was a door there." "My God, it's been a fucking nightmare." The driver sighed again and wiped his right hand on his face. "Let's try that entrance. But we have to start now gone." A semi-trailer thumped across the road through the Texas night, roaring north at high speed. "Look, there's a road up the hill..." Marty pointed, "I think I can see the lights in the house flickering through all the bushes and cacti and trash. I guess someone's on this place at night." Is it time to go to bed yet?" "Probably some kind of yard light. There's something like that on the farm." The driver returned to the main road and picked up speed. "It's a ranch not a farm, right?" Marty put Beretta on his knees, getting into a killing mood. "Ranch, farm, it's all the same to me," said the driver, slowing down again, turning left off the main road, and steering the Coney onto a gravel road where the railroad ties just disappeared.According to the guide, he first went under the main road, then circled back under the sleepers, and drove to another gate, which was like a barbed wire fence. "Check it out, Marty, and hurry up." Marty got out of the car and stepped into a field of prickly prickly pear cactus, covering an area of ​​two square meters. "Jesus! Damn, I'm stuck in a thornbush and a pile of garbage. God, it hurts, and the thorn just went straight in my good pants. I think I rip my pants broken." "Hurry up, Marty. We're running out of time. It's going to be daylight soon." "Right away, fuck. I gotta get out of this thorn bush." ​​He shone his torch down and carefully pulled each thorn out of his skin, his pants, and rolled them up to his knees. At the entrance, he walked out of the cactus bushes from the side in a pretentious manner, and walked towards the gate. At this moment, the driver's palms were already sweating.The operation was managed by him.Marty was the sniper, and the sniper looked like a circus clown in the headlights with his trousers rolled up and his skirts blowing in the wind. Marty undid one of the chains and pulled the gate toward the Lincoln. "Do you think I should close the door after you drive in?" he yelled into the wind. The driver leaned out the window and said, "No. Just leave it on; we'll be back the same way. I'll pull over to the side so you don't have to fight the cactus." Marty got back in the car, picked up his Beretta, and put it on his lap. "Let's get our work done and get out of bloody Texas. I've had enough, how about you?" "Yeah, I've had enough of course. Now we just need to find the house. I can't see any lights from where we are. Now, before we hit the crossbar, the road bends a bit to the southeast Boy. When we got off the highway we turned north and then we crossed the log and turned back south. That means the house should be either straight ahead or somewhere on the right. No lights, I guess we must be On a slight downhill slope, the house should be on the other side of the slope. Maybe a kilometer or two away." On the other side of Guipa Mountain, Peter saw the headlights of the car parked in front of the rancher.He watched the lights as he drove east on Ninety and rounded back under the South Pacific Crossbar.Now those lights were heading across the desert toward the rancher's house below where he was sitting.He stood up, packed his tools, and began to climb down Guipa Mountain quietly, stopping every ten meters to check the position of the car, which was coming this way. When the alarm clock rang at half past three, Sonia got up and put on her bathrobe.Pablo was sleeping on a blanket in her kitchen. She shook him awake: "Get up, old man, it's time for you to go." "It's still night," grumbled Pablo. "I'll go at dawn. I hate stumbling around in the dark." "I'll make you coffee and fry your eggs. I want you to cross the border of the ranch and onto the road before daybreak. It's an easy ride, you go west along the road, and when you come to a line of fences to the west Turn north when you're there." "I've been there before." Pablo pushed himself up a chair and rubbed his eyes with the knuckles of both hands. "I need to use the toilet." "Then go and use it. That blue towel I left by the sink is yours." "I don't think my fever has gone away." "The fever will be gone by the time you get home. If all goes well and the Border Patrol gives you a ride, you'll be home before sundown." Ten minutes later, Pablo sat down at Sonia's kitchen table again.He ate tortillas topped with eggs and Mexican salsa.The coffee was strong and strong, too strong and too strong, so he asked for some milk and sugar. "Old man, you must be driving your wife crazy with all your whining about this and that. Are you driving your wife crazy?" "No, my wife loves me very much, and she also knows what kind of coffee I like to drink." Sonia looked out one of the living room windows and saw the lights in Winchell's room half a mile away.The old man must have stayed up all night; sometimes he does.She glanced to the east, where dawn was fading over Tallahassee, Florida, and sweeping menacingly toward West Texas.