Letty waved Rodriguez over and he took the headphones and the mike. Letty walked over to the camerawoman and said, “I don’t know your name.”
“Candace. Not Candy. Not Cherry. Ochoa.”
“Like the town across the bridge?” Letty asked.
“No relation. You got a pretty cool job. Could you give us ten minutes when it’s over?”
“No. Anyway, I might want to use your link some more, so, if I come around . . .”
“We won’t turn you in,” Ochoa said. “Frankly, I think Rod-boy was an idiot to take this job. Though he’ll make a shitload of money from it, of which I will get maybe one-tenth of a shitload.”
She talked like a camerawoman, Letty thought. “How long ago did you know this was going to happen?”
“This morning, about five o’clock. Rod was told to be ready, and they might have sweetened the pot for him.” She rubbed her fingers together, meaning a cash payment. “We didn’t know what was going to happen, but Jael called Rod at five o’clock and said there’d be a big deal in Pershing and we’d be stupid if we didn’t get down here to cover it. There was nothing else going on, so . . . here we are.”
“Don’t give me up,” Letty said.
“We won’t. Listen, you got any chewing gum? My breath is like it’s coming out of a dragon’s asshole or something . . .”
Made Letty smile. Just like a camerawoman: world going to shit around her and she’s looking for a stick of gum.
Rodriguez came back, in maybe a lighter shade of pale. “That guy,” he said, “is somebody I never want to meet. Ever.”
“Did he identify himself?” Letty asked.
“No, but I know who he is.”
“Who is he?”
“You know those Romans who nailed Jesus to the cross and enjoyed it? One of them.”
“Good. As long as he made himself clear about your position in all of this,” Letty said. “Hey: catch you later, Rod-boy.”
She headed back down the hill.
TWENTY-THREE
Stepping back:
Gotta mosey. Just fuckin’ mosey, you can do that, for Christ’s sake, John. Relax your shoulders. You’re supposed to be here. You’ve taken over the town. Kick out those feet like some goofy fuckin’ clodhopper. Mosey!
* * *
Kaiser moseyed down the street, blades on his nose, blue cowboy bandanna over the bottom half of his face. Fifty yards out, he smelled barbecued hamburger, turned to look, saw a man cooking on a grill in his backyard, as if this were an ordinary summer afternoon. Smelled good.
Wearing jeans and a canvas shirt and bandanna mask, Kaiser looked more or less like the militiamen. He had the shotgun slung behind his shoulder, barrel down, so from the front, you really couldn’t see exactly what kind of weapon it was.
The two guards were sitting on black plastic chairs outside the single door into the jail. Kaiser had parked the Explorer a block away on a side street, out of sight of the guards. A pickup, with a gunman in the back, rolled past a block over, visible as a flash between houses. The guards turned to him as he moseyed up: they both had AR-15s sitting across their laps, hands on top of them, but not engaged with the triggers, and their eyes showed nothing but innocence. They had no idea.
Ten feet away, Kaiser reached back, caught the stock of the shotgun and swiveled it forward, the muzzle falling across their faces, and as they gawked, uncertain, he said, quietly, “I’m with the Department of Homeland Security. If you fight me, I’ll kill you both. I can’t miss from here. This thing is loaded with number-three buckshot.”