Oakley’s solemn features had slowly lost their weariness; “By God. We’ve got the sons of bitches.”

“Maybe. Maybe all’s we got is an empty suitcase. We’ll see.”

“No,” Oakley said. “No. It’s them. It’s got to be. We’ve got ’em, Diego!”

Orozco only murmured, “Maybe ten miles away off to the right there. Let’s see if we can find a road goes in that direction.” He bent his head over the map and moved a stubby finger along it.

Mitch parked the Ford in front of the farmacia and sat for a moment brooding at the place, elbows curled over the steering wheel. Terry Conniston said, “Do you want me to go in with you?”

“No. Floyd won’t be too suprised if I show up alone. He will. be, if you’re with me.”

“What makes you think he’s in there?”

“I don’t. I just can’t think of anyplace else to look. Maybe he’s not here at all. Maybe Billie Jean blew the whistle and they both took off somewhere. Oh, Christ, I’m just stalling. You keep your head down, okay?”

He turned his solemn glance on her and leaned back, reaching around with his right hand to lift the door handle under his left elbow. Terry put out a hand to stop him; she slid closer along the seat and presented her face and he kissed her before he got out. Her eyes held him through the windshield when he walked around the front of the car and climbed the steps. He put his back to her and set his jaw, hooked his hand over the revolver butt in his hip pocket and swung the door open to beard von Roon’s den.

The woman behind the counter was the only person in the place that he could see. There was a laboratory behind the sales room, part of which he could see through an open door; there was another door at the back, closed, leading perhaps to a flight of stairs to the floor overhead.

The woman fixed her glance on Mitch as if she was waiting for him to serve a subpoena on her. She had a sagging jaundiced face, easy to take for an Oriental’s; by her cheekbones and black ropy hair she was evidently a mestizo. Mitch strolled to the counter, measuring the thud of his pulse against the casualness of his bearing; he said in his rusty guidebook Spanish, “Yo deseo a conocer al señor von Roon. “He added as an afterthought, “Por favor.”

“El doctor no está aquí.”

“Uh—dónde está, por favor?” He knew all his grammar was wrong but she obviously understood what he was trying to, say. He clutched the gun, out of her sight, and looked around nervously.

The Indian woman gave him a cool, contemptuous appraisal; she said, “Quíen sabe?” and began to move away.

With his left hand Mitch crumpled a five-dollar bill in his pocket and took it out. The woman paused, looking at him. He rolled the bill into a greenish wad, tight as a spitball, and let it roll casually across the counter toward her. “Es muy importante.” She probably thought he was a dope addict or a boy friend looking for an abortionist but he didn’t care what she thought.

She picked up the wad and smoothed it out. Her expression did not change. She said, “Está en la Ciudad México. Volveré martés.” He was in Mexico City: he would return Tuesday. She gave him an arch smile and pocketed the five dollars.

Shaking, he took another bill out of his pocket and looked at it. Ten dollars. Deliberately, he ripped it in half and pushed one half across the counter. “Por favor, dígame. Hay un joven Yanqui, muy duro, con pelo negro, tal guapo—con ojos muy—uh, malignos. Comprende? Estaba aquí?” It was a limp description of Floyd—young Yankee, very hard, black hair, perhaps handsome, with very evil eyes—and he hadn’t held out much hope of getting anywhere with it: but he saw the woman’s face change and he knew he had scored a hit. The pulse thudded harder in him; he made a vague gesture with the half of the ten-dollar bill. “Dígame—dónde está este Yanqui?”

She spoke slowly, frowning, saying yes, there had been such a one; he had come seeking the Doctor von Roon and he had been told the same thing, that el Doctor would not return from Mexico City until Tuesday, perhaps even later. She kept her eyes on the half-bill in Mitch’s fist and Mitch shook his head and pressed her: “Dónde está ahora?” Where is he now?

“El Doctor?”

“No. El Yanqui.” He waved the torn money at her, leaning forward, his face fierce and furious.

She began to speak and he had to stop her and tell her to start over again and go slower. She did; she said with unconcealed impatience with his linguistic limitations that the Yanqui had left word where el Doctor could reach him but that she was to tell no one this except el Doctor. But when she said this her gaze was fixed on the torn bill in Mitch’s fist. Mitch reached into his pocket for the third time and withdrew the last money he had—another fiver—and added it to the torn half of the ten in his fist. “Es todo. No hay más.” He turned out his pocket to show her.

She considered the money and she considered his face. She said, “Usted—está un amigo del Yanqui?”

Not exactly a friend of his, Mitch thought; but he didn’t know how to phrase it in Spanish and so he merely shook his head at her. She was watching him in a way that made him morally certain she had disliked Floyd violently: Floyd had probably frightened her. And so, taking a chance, Mitch took the revolver out of his hip pocket and showed it to her, and put it away again, implying—he hoped—that it wasn’t friendship that made him seek the Yanqui.

She took a while to make up her mind; finally she rattled off something decisive; he had to make her repeat it twice, at the end of which time she was exasperated with him and he was grimly satisfied. He left all the money on the counter and walked out of the place into the blaze of sunshine and said to Terry in the car window, “He’s hiding out in a shack south of here—up in those hills.” He went around and got in. She didn’t say anything; she only watched him. He took the gun out and snapped it open and stared at the six brassy new cartridge cases with their silver-colored primers. He had a pocketful more. He snapped it shut and put it on his lap and started the car.

They had to crawl the Ford through morning knots of pedestrians in the narrow curving streets. The early daylight streamed through the tall palm trees, its color very rich. They went past the old mission church at the edge of town and he saw distinctly the pocked bullet holes in its adobe façade. Small dogs ran yapping after the car until it cleared the last palms at the southern limit of Caborca. Mitch told Terry what had happened inside the pharmacy; he said, “Floyd probably threatened to kill her if she told anybody but twenty dollars was more money than she’d ever seen in her life. She saw my gun and she probably figures I’ll kill Floyd for her—I wish I was as sure of myself as she seemed to be. Down here they think a man’s got a hell of a lot of machismo and cojones if he sports a gun.”

“That was Floyd’s gun, wasn’t it? He hasn’t got another one.”

“Knowing Floyd, he’s got an arsenal out here with him if he thinks he needs one. Guns are easy enough to come by down here if you’ve got the money to pay for them. Everything’s for sale down here. Jesus, Terry, I’m just talking to keep from going through the roof—maybe we better forget this whole thing and turn around.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

He had been thinking about very little else; but now he thought about it yet again and he realized with startling sudden clarity that these past days had secretly created resolve inside him. All his life he had failed at things. He didn’t know whether it was hysteria or courage but whatever it was, even if he failed again this time it would not be for want of trying. It occurred to him, in a way he sensed but could not explain even to himself, that he might lose more by turning away from this than he stood to lose even if he failed against Floyd.