That hit Dillinger between his eyes.
He managed to keep control of his voice as he said, “Folks, we have a saying in the States. You can take everything away from a cowboy except his horse. That automobile is my horse.”
There was a pause.
Then Santos said, “Perhaps you don’t realize the position you are in. A prisoner at present in custody here, an American just like you, insists that your name isn’t Jordan at all. Does that surprise you?”
Dillinger managed to look astonished. “You’ve got my passport, haven’t you?”
“Passports, senor, may be bought. Oh, I’m sure this is a nonsense, of course. The man concerned is an old drunk. He insists that you are the bank robber, John Dillinger, who recently escaped from prison in Indiana.”
Dillinger worked his way from an expression of total bewilderment to one of outraged laughter. “Jesus, this guy must be out of his head.”
Santos laughed sympathetically. “A drunken old fool, as I said. I forsee no problem in clearing the matter up, but you will, of course, have to remain in custody until we have an opportunity to check with our compadres to the North.”
There was silence. Santos lit a cigar and nodded to the Indian. The Indian touched Dillinger on the shoulder and motioned him toward the door.
The Indian took Dillinger out and along the corridor and down a flight of stone steps to an iron door outside which a guard was sitting reading a newspaper. He unlocked the door.
The room was about forty feet square, with only one small window high in the opposite wall, and contained twenty or thirty other prisoners. Through the door came the strong odor of urine, human excrement, and stale sweat. The Indian pushed Dillinger inside and shut the door with a clang.
Most of the prisoners were Mexicans in ragged trousers, shirts, and straw sandals. Several of them came crowding around to look at the strange new prisoner. Someone touched his jacket. He felt a hand slide into his pocket. Dillinger grabbed for the wrist and twisted it with an easy strength that sent the man staggering across the cell. The others moved back to a respectful distance. He pulled a drunk from a bench against the wall, sat down, and lit a cigarette, hoping it would counter the stench around him.
There was more to this situation than met the eye, he thought, more even than Santos confiscating the money to keep for himself. If Santos had simply wanted to do that, it would have made more sense to let him go.
A man got up to relieve himself in an overflowing bucket in the corner. The stink was terrible.
“Spare a butt, Mr. Dillinger?”
Fallon eased on to the bench beside him. A livid bruise stretched from the corner of one eye to the edge of the jaw.
Dillinger shook a cigarette out for him. “What did they use, a sledgehammer?”
“Sergeant Hernandez has an Indian sidekick called Valdez.” He rubbed his jaw. “Built like the side of a house.”
“You told them I was John Dillinger.” It was a statement of fact, not a question. Dillinger sat there staring at Fallon calmly, and the old man said, “They made me tell them, Mr. Dillinger, beat it out of me.”
Suddenly there was a scuffle between two prisoners on the bench next to theirs. Dillinger stood, and with a voice that cut through the commotion like a sword shouted, “Shut up!” Nobody needed to know what the words meant. The two scuffling prisoners returned to their places. The others stared at the gringo who spoke with an authority not even the chief of police had. Now, when they talked, it was in whispers.
“That’s better,” Dillinger said.
Fallon coughed. “I saw you with that man Rivera. Do you know who he is?”
“He offered me a job at his mine.”
“He’s the original walking bastard, that guy. When I first skedaddled into Mexico one step ahead of the cops, I went to work for Rivera.”
“You told him who I was.”
“I kind of let it slip that there was more to you than the name Jordan, but I wouldn’t tell him no more than that.”