Sample from Trouble in Tucson
Nobody seemed to notice the delivery van parked in the brush. When only one car, a brown Volvo, remained in the parking lot, Salar opened the passenger door and started to slide out of the cab.
“What you gonna do?” Jorge asked.
“You two stay here until I get back. I’ll grab the driver of that last car, point my pistol at his head, and scare the crap out of him. He’ll tell me where the explosives are kept. Then I’ll go get them.”
“Wait,” Jorge said. He reached under his seat and pulled out a hunting knife. “Use this.” He handed it to Salar, hilt first.
Salar ignored the knife. “I have my gun.” He leaned back and patted the butt of his pistol, now tucked into his belt.
“You don’t scare Americanos with guns,” Jorge said. “They grow up on movies where a million rounds are fired and there’s no blood. But if somebody pulls a knife—then there’s blood. You want to scare a Mexican, pull a gun. You want to scare a gringo, pull a knife.”
Salar laughed and took the knife. He slid it, blade first, into the belt at the small of his back. “Wait here until I get back. What I need should fit in the car.” He stepped down from the cab and trotted towards the Volvo. He crouched down on the side away from the building and waited.
A few minutes later a short man in a rumpled suit came out of the office and walked towards his car.
When he was a few feet away, Salar rose.
Startled, the man stopped. A strained smile crept over his face, and he asked, “Can I help you?” He edged away a few feet. “I’m afraid we’re closed for the day.”
Salar smiled back and pulled out the knife. “Yes,” Salar said. He strolled around the car’s front end. “You can help me. Where do you store your explosives?”
The man’s eyes focused on the knife. “Explosives? What explosives? What are you talking about?”
“The explosives you use up at the mine. Where are they?”
“I don’t know about any explosives. I’m an accountant, not a mining engineer.”
Salar pushed the knife up under the man’s chin.
Tears welled up in the man’s eyes. “The dynamite’s in a shed up by the mine but it’s locked and I don’t have the key anyway so I can’t help you please don’t kill me I’m only an accountant.” A dark stain appeared on his left pant leg.
* * *
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