Tomorrow the bidding would begin.
Chapter Nine
Remo woke refreshed and went in search of Sunny Joe.
"Sunny Joe couldn't sleep, so he lit off for Mexico," an Indian told him. He wore faded jeans, a flannel shirt that was once red and a face like a sandstone rain-god mask.
"Mexico? Just like that?"
The Indian shrugged. "Sunny Joe likes to ride down Mexico way now and again. Maybe he's got a señorita down there."
"Did he leave a message for me?"
"Not with me."
"Any particular place in Mexico?" Remo asked.
The Indian spit on the ground. "Why look? Sunny Joe'll be back when he takes a mind to."
"Does a straight answer cost extra around here?" Remo demanded hotly.
"Try Cuervos. He always goes to Cuervos."
"Thanks,'" Remo said, not meaning it.
"Don't mention it," grunted the Indian in a matching tone of voice.
Remo headed for town on foot. Before the women started to die off, the Sun On Jos had lived in a small strip of brick-and-clapboard buildings resembling an old Wild West town with a poured-concrete boardwalk. Remo had left his rented Mazda Navajo there.
The place had the look of a ghost town now. An old Sun On Jo woman worked a squeaky well pump, her iron gray pigtails rattling with every exertion. She paid him no mind as Remo claimed his jeep.
Remo drove south, windshield wipers lazily scraping the accumulation of dust off the windshield. Why had Sunny Joe lit off like that? Without a word. It wasn't like him.
Stopping on the banks of the Colorado, Remo bathed and caught his breakfast. The river was full of rainbow trout this time of year, and he snared one as long as his forearm with bare hands, killed it with a finger tap and made a fire by rubbing dry brittle-bush together at high speed.
As the trout—one end of a stick jammed into its open mouth and the other end screwed into the sand-slowly roasted over a cactus-and-brittle-bush fire, Remo wondered if his father could have a girlfriend. It made him feel funny to think about it. He was just getting used to thinking of Sunny Joe as his father. He had every right to have a girlfriend, especially after all these years. But Remo couldn't help wondering what his mother would say.
Squatting thoughtfully, he picked the hot, flaky meat off the bones with his fingers, cleaned them in cool river water, then got back into the Navajo. He headed south.
Near the border a white border-patrol utility jeep scooted out of the shoulder of the road and, siren screaming, tried to pull him over.
Remo's foot hesitated over the accelerator. He couldn't remember if his rental had expired or not. He wasn't in the mood to be arrested—or create trouble to avoid it.
Then he spotted a roadblock two miles ahead, and the point became moot. He decided to go with the flow.
Remo braked to a stop, and as uniformed border-patrol agents came out of their vehicles, he dug into his wallet for useful identification.
"What's the problem?" Remo asked, holding out a laminated card that identified him as Remo Durock, FBI.
"A Mexican Federal Army unit is camped on the other side of the border."
"So?"
"Mexican army units are taking up defensive positions from San Diego clear to Brownsville like they mean business. It's not safe to cross the border at this time, sir. We're going to have to ask you to turn back and go home."
"I'm looking for a sixtyish guy in a white Stetson. He came this way a few hours ago, driving a black Bronco."
"There's talk of a U.S. car matching that description that crossed the border just before the Mexicans closed down the checkpoint," one of the patrolmen answered.
"Talk. What kind of talk?"
"The individual was arrested by Mexican authorities."
"For what?" Remo asked.
"If we knew that, we'd know why the Mexicans are eyeballing the U.S. border the way they are."
"That's my father. I gotta get through."
"Sorry, sir. It's not advisable. At this time we must ask that you to turn around."
Remo frowned. Ahead two border-patrol vehicles had the road completely blocked. If Remo broke for the desert, they'd have no trouble following. But there was more than one way to get the job done. "Okay, if that's the way it is," he said softly.
Putting the Navajo in gear, he sent it spinning around in a circle and, flooring it, headed north.
The border patrol remained at the roadblock, unreadable, sunglassed eyes tracking him until he was a dusty smear in the distance.
Near a clump of pipe organ cactus, Remo abandoned his vehicle and stepped into the broiling desert.
His deep-set eyes retreated into his face like the hollows of a skull. His moccasins touching the sand made shallow dents the sun and the blowing sands soon filled…
Sunny Joe Roam sat alone in the Cuervos town jail, wondering what had gotten into the Mexicans. It had been hours now, and he was still locked up tight.
Getting up, he called through the bars.
"Hey, compadre. I'm known here in this town."
The Federal Judicial Police jailer ignored him.
"Name's Bill Roam. Maybe you seen my movies. I was Muck Man. Played a botanist who was transformed into a walking plant by environmental pollutors. The Return of Muck Man grossed forty million last summer."
"La mugre siempre flota," the man remarked in Spanish.
"I don't know that one."
" 'Filth always floats.'"