In a side-street bar in Mexico City the partners of O’Hara and Gallagher, gun-runners, Chink smugglers, and lately copper miners, were having some after-breakfast drinks. Gallagher’s leonine head was swathed in bandages and his wiry little partner kept looking at him anxiously.
“You sure you’re feelin’ all right, Gallagher? You don’t look yourself, somehow.”
The big man nodded vaguely. “I—I’m all right.”
“That was a nasty crack you took. Don’t know why I can’t ever teach you to duck when these brawls start.”
His partner picked up his glass, frowned at it, and set it down again.
“Well,” continued O’Hara, “this time next week we’ll be on our way to the Straits Settlements. With a cool hundred thousand, American, in our jeans. We’ll let old man Anaconda do the mining and we’ll take the fun. Come on—let’s drink on it.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Ha, ha. That’s the best yet, Gallagher!”
“Why do you keep calling me Gallagher? That’s not my name.”
The little man smirked. “Well, now, if it comes to that—”
“Who are you?” His partner knocked back his chair and stood up. “What are we doing together? Where am I?”
O’Hara leaped up. “Now, take it easy, fellow. Everything’s all right. You just stopped a beer bottle with your bean last night, and—”
The big man looked incredulously at the calendar behind the bar: Octobre Tres, diez y nuevo catorce. Seven years!
“I’ve got to get out of here!” he yelled. “I’m Robert Dillon!”