“Fallon tells me you’re quite an expert on the subject.”
The Frenchman shrugged. “I studied anthropology at the Sorbonne. I decided to do my field work for my thesis as far away from home as I could get. I meant to stay six months. But where in Paris could I get a job like this?” He laughed. “And such a nice boss.”
Dillinger felt the sting again, wondering if there were some kind of relationship between the Frenchman and Rose. She had ruffled his hair as if it were nothing.
When they had finished their beer, Dillinger took some of Rivera’s pesos from his pocket and slapped them on the table. “How about another round?” he said to Fallon.
“With pleasure,” the old man replied, and left.
Dillinger lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “This man we met on the road today, the one they call Diablo? Juan Ortiz. What do you make of him?”
“I honestly don’t know. When he was younger, he had a bad reputation. They say he killed at least three men. Knife fights, things like that. There isn’t much law in the mountains. I think in the old days he’d have made a name for himself, but that was before the Jesuits at Nacozari got their hands on him.”
“And you really think he’s changed?”
“What was your impression?”
Dillinger frowned, thinking about it. “I got the feeling he was trying to provoke Rivera in some strange way. It was almost as if he was inviting him to lose control.”
“But why would he do that?” Chavasse asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe to give him the excuse to strike back.”
“This is a country saturated in blood. First the Aztecs, then the conquistadores. In four hundred years, nothing but slaughter.”
“Yet you stay.”
“I stay.”
As Fallon returned with the beer, Dillinger spied Rivera sitting down at a small table. He wore clean clothes and smoked one of his usual cigarillos. When he rapped on the table with his cane, Chavasse got up and went across. He listened to Rivera and went into the kitchen. He returned with a tray containing a bottle of champagne and a glass. He placed them in front of Rivera and came back to the others.
“Champagne?” Dillinger said blankly. “Here?”
“Kept especially for Lord God Almighty,” Chavasse explained. “One of his favorite ways of publicly indicating the gap between himself and others.”
At that moment Rojas swaggered into the bar, looking as if he’d been drinking. When he saw Rivera, he pulled off his hat and bowed respectfully. Rivera called him over and murmured something to him. Rojas nodded and after a moment crossed to the bar and hammered on it.
“What about some service here?”
Before Chavasse could get up, Rose appeared from the kitchen. She walked round the counter and stood facing him, hands on hips. “In the first place, lower your voice. In the second, take that thing off and hang it in the hall with the others.” She pointed to the revolver strapped to his waist.
Rojas turned meekly and went outside. He came back without the revolver, and she placed a bottle of tequila and a glass on the counter.
Rojas filled his glass with tequila and swallowed it down, the spirit slopping out of the comers of his mouth. Dillinger looked at Rivera, who returned the gaze coolly, filled his glass with champagne, and sipped.
Dillinger drank some of the lukewarm beer and put the glass down firmly. “How much is that champagne?”
“Twenty-five pesos a bottle,” Chavasse said.
Dillinger sighed, pulled off his right boot, and extracted a folded bank note from beneath the inner sole. He pulled the boot back on and flicked the note across to the Frenchman.
“Twenty dollars American. Will that do?”
“I should imagine so.”
“Then get a bottle and glasses. Ask Rose to join us.”
Chavasse looked at Rivera and grinned, pushed back his chair and went into the kitchen.
“There goes my mad money,” Dillinger said ruefully.
Chavasse hurried back, followed by Rose with a bottle of champagne and glasses on a tray. Suddenly everyone seemed to be laughing, and there was an atmosphere of infectious gaiety. Dillinger glanced at Rivera, the Mexican returning his gaze.