Juden wasn’t even listening. He had taken out his wallet and was fiddling with a bunch of cables. “Maddox’s has a job lined up for you, Millan,” he said. “I had a cable this morning. It looks like a copy of ‘Gone with the Wind.’”
“Maddox?” I sank further into my chair. “You don’t have to worry about him. He’s just a fallen arch in the march of time. Tell him I’m sick Tell him you can’t contact me. Tell him anything, but give me a break, will you?”
Juden sorted out a bunch of flimsies as the waiter brought the drinks.
“Well, here’s a clot in your bloodstream,” I said and lowered twp-thirds of the whisky sour.
“Here we are,” Juden said, waving the flimsies at me. “It certainly looks like a swell assignment to me.”
I waved them right back at him. “I don’t want ’em,” I said. “I want a little relaxation. I’m catching a train for New Orleans to-morrow. I’ve had enough of Mexico to last me a lifetime. Tell Maddox to send some other stooge out here.”
“Not a chance,” Juden said. “This is a rush job. Now, don’t waste time, Millan. You know you’ve got to do it, so why make things difficult?”
Of course, he was right. Was I getting tired of this newspaper game, or was I? I’d been chasing bandit stories for six broiling months and in this country, bandits were a dime a dozen. Ever since Zapata had started the fashion, every damn Indian who could grow a six-inch moustache had turned bandit. It had taken all my time to coach them how to do the job so that I could give the great American public a story worth reading. Well, I had had enough of it. Besides, one of these amateur Dillingers had tried to shoot me. It got so I began to think some other punk would get the same idea.
But Maddox was my bread and butter. If I turned him down, he’d become a piece of toast. You couldn’t argue with Maddox. He had the kind of nature that made snakes cross the street when they saw him coming.
“What’s the story?” I said. “Don’t ask me to read those cables. I want the news broken gently.”