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Banister
    Forty miles west of Albuquerque on I-40, just south of the Tohajiilee Reservation. No cloud cover and approaching summer, it wouldn’t be hard to list places he’d rather be. Come midday and it would hit one hundred. Hell would be jealous.
    They’d provided GPS coordinates for the rendezvous. The machine in the rental knew the way. He followed a dirt road north off the 40. If you could call it a road. Just wheel ruts wending through the undulations. A gentle arc this way and the other, one slope to the next. What a landscape, might as well be Mars.
    He crested a shallow rise and below him he saw two vehicles parked nose-to-tail: a Bentley Continental coupe, and a Cadillac Escalade tight in behind. Black paintwork dulled by powdered grime. The Bentley’s driver’s door was open. A guy in the seat with a thumb hooked in the bottom of the wheel and one foot on the ground outside. Another guy in a T-shirt and wraparound shades leaning with arms folded against the rear door of the Caddy.
    Wayne stopped thirty feet away. The GPS unit lost his position. They must have been running signal jammers. He cut the motor. The dials all collapsed in unison. A short, expectant quiet, and then the guy by the Cadillac unfolded his arms and walked over. His gait didn’t fit him: a smallish man trying to fill a big swagger. Wayne wound down his window. A thin lip of dust accumulated at the sill. The guy leaned a hand on the roof and ducked his head to Wayne’s level. A big loop of sweat beneath his arm. Below the black lenses his cheeks were honeycombed with old acne scars. Shape of a gun on his hip under the T-shirt.
    “How you doing?” There was alcohol on his breath.
    Wayne said, “Good.”
    “You carrying?”
    Wayne nodded. “Shoulder and ankle.”
    “You’ll need to lose them before you see Mr. Frazer.”
    The guy beckoned him out of the car. “Just step out slowly and I’ll take them off you.”
    Wayne obliged. The guy patted him down and took the SIG from his shoulder rig and then crouched and removed the .22 from the ankle holster. He stood up and moved away a pace and sighted the SIG on the Cadillac, one-handed grip, frame tilted sideways.
    “Nice piece. Good weight on these things.”
    “Yeah.”
    The guy opened the rear door of the rental and tossed the guns on the seat. “Revolver guy, myself. Don’t have to worry about hunting for brass in the heat of the moment.”
    He smiled, as if all his heated moments got very hot indeed. A good spread of gold in his front teeth. Wayne didn’t answer. The guy gestured at the Bentley. “Go on round to the passenger side.”
    Wayne walked around in front of the coupe. The guy in the driver’s seat didn’t seem to notice. His trouser leg had hiked above his sock, revealing a thin band of flesh.
    Wayne opened the passenger door and slid in and closed it behind him. With the driver’s door open a warning tone was chiming patiently, but the man beside him seemed unaware of it. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Wayne wondered why he didn’t just seal himself in and run the air-con.
    The guy said, “So you’re the Dallas Man.”
    “That’s what they call me.”
    The guy nodded, as if taking the measure of the name. The Bentley’s interior was plush: all tan leather, sharply aromatic. “I like it. Got a certain something about it, you know?”
    He clicked his fingers gently. “Dallas Man, Dallas Man.” Not a local accent.
    Wayne didn’t reply. Ding, ding, ding, ding—
    The guy said, “You can call me Mr. Frazer.”
    “All right.”
    The guy smiled, hiked a thumb at him. “Kinda funny. You cleanup guys are always so paranoid about being seen or whatever. So why the fuck you go around in a suit like that, coming into summer?”
    “I could ask you the same question.”
    Frazer laughed. “Yeah. But I’m driving a Bentley. You’ve got that thing. People see the suit/car combo, they’re gonna think out-of-towner, you know?”
    “Out-of-towners are pretty