Lines and Shadows (1984) by Wambaugh Jospeh

Author:Wambaugh, Jospeh [Wambaugh, Jospeh]
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-12-23T23:20:57.093000+00:00

Chapter THIRTEEN

LINES AND SHADOWS

THE BARFERS WERE BECOMING CONSUMED BY THE PUBLICITY blitz. They were spending their time giving interviews (that is, Manny Lopez was) and speeches (also handled by Manny) and the others were starting to feel like the character actor who never gets the girl. Some of them, Eddie Cervantes especially, were dying to become leading men.

"Hey, I can't help it if they wanted me at the Rotary luncheon," Manny Lopez would say defensively. "Listen, fuckers, you're free to make speeches or go on television or hire press agents if you want. Come with me next time."

But they never did, except once when Tony Puente tagged along to a Kiwanis speech. He was awed by the way Manny played to the audience. Tony became convinced that Manny could become police chief, or mayor of San Diego, or governor of California, for chrissake. Dick Snider may have dreamed up the idea, but BARF was Manny's baby. He shaped it, he sold it, he represented it, and if it ever died it would be he who killed it.

Eddie and the others might bitch and complain all they wanted about Manny getting the publicity, but a few of them had to concede that none of them could begin to do what Manny could.

Someone said, "Imagine Joe Castillo or Big Ugly having to address the Rotary Club? Sure. Like pulling teeth. Your own."

Manny had natural gifts. You only had to watch him sometime, up there in his disco suit and gold chains, the witticisms tumbling out of his impish, gap-toothed mouth, his pseudo-Asian eyes darting around the room to lock in on every chick short of menopause, his droopy moustache jumping under that pseudo-Armenian nose, and that eyebrow squiggling and crawling up his forehead into a perfect question mark. As he pointed his finger like a gun and told them how he drew one from the shoulder holster and one from the belt and smoked them down in Deadman's Canyon.

He could make them gasp or make them laugh as he chose. All you could hear was the click of ballpoint pens as local politicians started making notes about getting this little hardball son of a bitch on the campaign committee. There weren't any movie stars in San Diego and only a few big sports stars. And there sure as hell wasn't a genuine mythic hero before this dude came along. Who cared if he was a Republican or a Democrat? This freaking Mexican was the last of the Gunslingers!

In April their activity report showed that Manny was spending his thirtieth birthday re-creating bandit busting in the canyons for various television crews. The Barfers were in fact actors now, in more ways than one. But an actor better by God get in proper character when he's doing real-life bandit busting or somebody might get hurt. It was on their minds, but except for Eddie Cervantes and sometimes Ernie Salgado, they didn't argue very much with Manny Lopez about what made copy and what made sense.

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