There was a mist before Dillinger’s eyes. He felt as if he had little strength left in him. He picked up the knife and went toward Rojas, the knife held out in front of him.
He heard a voice say, his own voice like that of a stranger, “Come on, you bastard. If that’s the way you want it.”
Rojas, who had been prepared to fight knife-to-hands, not knife-to-knife, stumbled away into the darkness.
Dillinger swung around, the power in him like a white-hot flame. They were all there on the boardwalk, looking at him strangely in the lamplight, fear on their faces. Rivera stood at the top of the steps, and Dillinger went forward, the knife extended.
Rivera staggered back, almost losing his balance, and hurried into the hotel. Dillinger was aware of a grip of steel on his arm. Old Nachita took the knife from him, supporting him at the same time, and Rose appeared on the other side.
She was still crying, and Dillinger couldn’t understand why. As they led him forward, he frowned, desperately trying to concentrate, and then, as they reached his room, Fallon appeared and opened the door, his face ablaze with excitement.
“Jesus, Johnny, I never seed anything like that in my whole damn life. You really took that big ox apart.”
“Johnny?” It was Rose’s voice. “I thought your name was Harry. Who are you?”
He turned to her voice, smiling foolishly and trying to speak, and then the lamp seemed to revolve into a spinning ball that grew smaller and smaller and finally disappeared into the darkness.
This time J. Edgar Hoover had only one operative standing in front of his desk. He’d just finished reading the man’s report.
“You’ve got a pretty good fix on him.”
The man said, “He didn’t do the California job or the Chicago job. The woman we picked up in Kansas swore she’d seen a white Chevy convertible in Doc’s barn. If Doc didn’t take it to Florida, maybe Dillinger took it south.”
“You think it’s Mexico.”
“Mr. Hoover, if there was this scale manhunt on for me, I’d get out of the country.”
“Okay. Send a wire to Mexico City. Ask them to query the chiefs of police in all northern provinces if a white Chevrolet convertible has been seen driven by an American. Ask them to keep it confidential. Just say the car is stolen and the man who’s driving it is probably armed and dangerous.”
Eight
The desert was a dun-colored haze reaching toward the mountains, the canyons still dark with shadow. It was the best hour of the day, the air cool and fresh before the sun started to draw the heat out of the barren earth.
Dillinger, behind the wheel of the Chevrolet, Fallon beside him, seemed to ache in every limb. He drove slowly over the rough trail, both to spare himself and because Rose was cantering along beside them on a bay horse.
“How do you feel?” Rose asked.
“I guess I’m not very handsome today.” The right side of his face was disfigured by a large purple bruise.
“Do you think it was worth it?”
He shrugged. “Is anything?”
She said to Fallon, “Do you think he tries to commit suicide often?”
“Only on his bad days,” the old man replied.
The trail wound its way between a forest of great tapering pillars of rock and entered a narrow canyon. In the center it widened into a saucer-shaped bowl, then narrowed again before emerging once more into the plain.
At this point the track branched off in two directions, and Rose halted. “Here is where I leave you. I’m going straight to the mine. Father Tomas is staying at the village for a few days and I promised to take him some medicine. Perhaps I’ll see you later?”
Dillinger switched off the motor. “I think maybe we should have a talk first.”
She sat there looking down at him and then nodded, “All right.”
The horse ambled forward. Dillinger got out of the car and walked beside her, a hand on a stirrup. “I hope you don’t think I-well, you know, was too pushy last night.”
“As long as you understand that a kiss is not necessarily a promise of better things to come.”