Maria had softened as she shared the wine. "And what of you, Ricardito?"
"I have my vines, my estate, my land."
"No man owns land."
"I own this land as much as any man owns anything. I have changed this land and these changes are mine. Its beauty is nature. Which I might add does very well without the help of a revolutionary committee."
"You no longer use your skill?"
"I use it in different ways. Now I create."
"When you left us, you worked for others also, no?"
"Sometimes."
"Against the revolution?"
"Of course."
"How could you?"
"Maria, I fought for the loyalists for the same reason many fought for the fascists. It was the only war around at the time."
"But you believed. I know you believed."
"I believed, my dear, because I was young. And then I grew up."
"I hope then that I never grow up."
"You have grown old without growing up."
"That is unkind. But I would expect that of someone who could pour a life into a hillside instead of giving it to mankind."
Guerner threw back his leonine head and laughed.
"Really. That is just too much. You ask me to kill a man for $70,000 and you call it serving mankind."
"It is. It is. They are a counter-revolutionary force that we have been unable to overcome."
"Does it not strike you as odd that they sent you to me with the money?"
"You once had a reputation."
"But why now?"
The woman cupped her harsh reddish hands around the goblet as she had done when she was young and soft and beautiful, when the wine was not that good.
"All right, Ricardito. We will follow your thinking because you are the only one capable of thinking. And everyone else, especially a committee, cannot match your wisdom."
"Your organization has many people who effectively eliminate others. True?"
"True."
"Then why after more than 20 years must they choose a mercenary? Do they think I would not speak if captured? Absurd. Or do they plan to kill me afterwards? Why bother? They could get someone else, for much less than $70,000. Someone more politically reliable and less likely to need extermination. True?"
"True," said Maria, drinking more of the wine and feeling its warmth.
"They obviously * chose me because they know they might not succeed with their own people. And how would they know this? Because they have tried before and failed. True?"
"True."
"How many times have they tried?"
"Once."
"And what happened?"
"We lost eight men."
"They seem to have forgotten my specialty in the assassination of one man. At the most, two."
"They are not forgetful."
"Why then do they expect me to attack a company?"
"They do not. It is a man. His name, as best as we can learn, is Remo."
"He killed eight men?"
"Yes."
"With what weapon? He must be very fast and select his range of fire brilliantly. And of course, he is accurate."
"He used his hands as near as we can tell."
Guerner put down Ms goblet. "His hands?"
"Yes."
He began to chuckle. "Maria, my dear. I would have done it for $35,000. He is perfect for my weapon. And easy."
Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner threw back his head again and laughed. "With his hands," he said. "A toast to a man who is fool enough to use his hands." They toasted again but the woman took merely a formal sip.
"One more thing, Ricardo."
"Yes?"
"I must accompany you."
"Impossible."
"They wish to make sure that everything is done neatly. There is a Chinese girl who is not to be killed. Just the man and possibly his elderly companion."
She withdrew a picture from the purse she had kept on her arm all the while, even while eating.
"These are the men to die. The Caucasian definitely. And this girl is to live."
Guerner took the photograph between two fingers. It was obviously shot from above, with a telephoto lens. Because of the absence of depth of field and the obvious fluorescent lighting which would allow an f.4 opening, "Guerner estimated the lens to be.200 millimeter.
The Oriental man was elderly, his wraithlike arms waving above Mm in gesture to the young girl. Behind him came the younger Occidental with the look of frustration. His eyes were deepset, his cheekbones slightly high, his lips thin and his nose strong but not large. Average build.
"The Oriental is not Korean?"
"No. She is Chinese."
"I mean the man."
"Let me see," said Maria, taking back the picture.
"I don't know," she said.
"No doubt they all look alike to you, my revolutionary friend."
"Why does it matter?"
"It would matter if he were a certain type of Korean. But that is doubtful. Keep the picture. I have it in my mind."
He whistled gently that afternoon as he removed a long tubular black leather case from the locked safe behind his family's coat of arms.
With a chamois cloth, he polished up the rich blackness of the leather, then folded the cloth and put in on the oak desk by the window. He placed the leather case beside the cloth. The afternoon sun made white flashes on the leather. Guerner placed a hand on either side of the case, and with a snap, it opened, revealing a Monte Carlo stock made of highly glossed walnut, and a black metal rifle barrel two feet long.
They rested on purple velvet, like machined jewels for the elegance of death.
"Hello, darling," whispered Guerner. "We work again. Do you wish to? Have you rested too long?"
He stroked the barrel with the tips of his right fingers.
"You are magnificent," he said. "You have never been readier."
"You still talk to your weapon?" Maria was laughing.
"Of course. Do you think a weapon is purely mechanical? Yes, you would. You think people are mechanical. But it is not. They are not."
"I only asked. It seemed… somehow… strange."
"It is stranger, my dear, that I have never missed. Never. Is that not strange?"
"It is training and skill."
Blood rushed to Guerner's aristocratic face, filling the cheeks like a child's coloring book.
"No," he said angrily. "It is feeling. One must feel his weapon and his bullet and his target. He must feel it is correct to shoot. And then the path of the bullet is correct. Those who miss do not feel their shots, do not carefully insert them into then: target. I do not miss, because I feel my shots into my victim. Nothing else is important. The wind, the light, the distance. All are meaningless. You would more easily miss picking your cigarette up from the ashtray than I would miss my target."
Guerner then began his ritual, leaving the weapon unassembled in the case. He sat at the desk and rang for his butler by pulling a cloth cord that hung from the high beamed ceiling.
He hummed softly as he waited, not looking at Maria. She could never understand. She could not feel. And not feeling, she could not learn how to live.
The door opened and the butler entered.
"Thank you, Oswald. Please bring me my supplies." Only seconds later, the butler reentered bearing another black leather case, similar to a doctor's bag.