had done it before. He tossed the Popsicle away and smiled. "Okay. We're fine. Let's see the man."
We walked to the other side of the fountain where Ramon del Reyo sat on a little bench beside a couple of sculpted azalea, bushes. The azaleas were in profuse bloom, their hot pink flowers so dense and pure that they glowed in the blinding sun and cast a pink light. Ramon stood as we approached and offered his hand. He was about my height, but thin and scholarly, with little round spectacles and neat hair. Academic. He was smoking, and his thin cotton shirt was damp with sweat. He said, "My name is Ramon del Reyo, Mr. Cole. Let's walk along, shall we?"
He started off and I went with him, the others following alongside, some closer, some farther, and everybody keeping an eye out. I had seen presidential Secret Service bodyguards work public places, but I'd never seen anyone work a place better than these guys. You'd think we were in the middle of the cold war someplace, but then, maybe we were. Del Reyo said, "Sela Henried is my friend and so I will speak with you, but I want you to know that there is a man near here with a rifle in the seven millimeter Magnum. He is very good with this thing, you see? He can hit the running deer cleanly at five hundred meters." I nodded. "How far away is he now?" "Less than two hundred." Del Reyo looked at me with a studied air. "If anything happens to me, you will be dead in that instant."
"Nothing's going to happen, Mr. del Reyo." He nodded. "Please look here. On your chest." He gestured to the center of my chest, and I looked. A red dot floated there, hard and brilliant even in the bright sun. It flickered, then was gone. I looked up, but could not find the rifleman. I said, "Laser sight." "Just so you know." He made a dismissive wave. "Please call me Ramon." A guy tells you you're a trigger pull from dead, then says please call me Ramon. "Who is Donaldo Prima?"
Ramon took a deep pull on the cigarette, then let the smoke curl out of his mouth and nostrils. "He is dog shit."
"Seriously, Ramon. Tell me what you really think." Ramon del Reyo smiled gently and ticked ash from the cigarette with his thumb. A couple of beat cops strolled by, grinning at some college girls from Ole Miss. The cops were wearing shorts like the tourists, and short-sleeved shirts with epaulets and knee socks like they were on safari. Del Reyo said, "He is trying to be the big gangster, you see? El coyote. Someone to whom people go when they wish to enter our country." "Like you."
Ramon del Reyo stopped smiling and looked at me the way he'd look at a disappointing student.
"Donaldo Prima is a smuggler. Automobiles, cocaine, farm equipment, people is all the same, to be bought and sold, you see? To be taken advantage of if possible. I am a political activist. What I do I do for free, because I care about these immigrants and their struggle to reach our country."
"Sorry."
He shrugged, letting it go. "It is a nasty business. He is having problems."
"What kind of problems?"
"He used to work for a man named Frank Escobar. You know Escobar?"
I shook my head. "I don't know any of this, Ramon. That's why I'm talking to you."
"Escobar is the big criminal, the one who controls most of what is smuggled into and out of the port of New Orleans. El coyote grande. He, too, is very bad. From the military in El Salvador. The truth squads." Great.
"A nut."
Del Reyo smiled slightly. "Yes. A killer, you see? He make much money sending stolen American automobiles to Central America when the boat go south, then bringing drugs and refugees here for even more money when the boat comes north. You see?"
"How much profit can there be in smuggling poor people across the border?"
"It is not just the poor who wish to come here, Mr. Cole. The poor crawl under the fence at Brownsville and work as day laborers picking vegetables. The upper classes and the educated wish to come here, also, and they wish to bring their lives and professions with them. That is much more difficult than crawling under a fence."
"They want to buy an identity."
"Si. Yes. The coyote, he tells them that they are buying citizenship, you see?