“To whom shall I cable the money?”
“Send it to the Picayune National Bank of New Orleans, with instructions to credit account Number 246, J. E. P., trustee. In this little game we are playing, my friend, it is safer to deal in numbers and initials rather than names. The local cable office leaks quite regularly.”
“Very well, Ricardo, I'll attend to it first thing in the morning. Where are you going to armour that motor truck?”
“If you'll have it run over to the nitrate company's machine shop at the railway terminus the foreman there will attend to the job and keep the truck under cover until Friday night, when they'll run it back to Leber's warehouse for the machine guns Sunday morning.”
“Is Leber in on this deal?”
“He is not. What Leber doesn't know will not worry him. He doesn't live in his warehouse, you know. We're just going to take possession after dark, when the water-front is absolutely deserted. There's a concert on the Malecon that night, and everybody who can ride or walk will be out there listening to it.”
Webster nodded his approval of Ricardo's clever plans. “All right, old man, go to it and win, or there'll be several new faces whining around the devil, not the least of which will be mine. When you charge, remember you're charging for my forty thousand dollars—and go through with it. I worked rather hard for that forty thousand, and if I must lose it, I do not want to do it in a half-hearted fight. Give me, at least, a bloody run for my money. I'll have a reserved seat somewhere watching the game.”
“If you'll take my advice, you'll go aboard La Estrellita and stay there until the issue is decided. When the first gun is fired, it signals the open season on mining engineers who butt in on affairs of state.”
“What! And me with a healthy bet down on the result! I hope I'm a better sport than that.”
“You're incorrigible. Be careful, then, and don't get yourself potted by a stray bullet. When these brownies of mine get excited, they shoot at every head in sight.”