“He’ll be here,” Ryan said now.

“He don’t know we’re going to take so long.”

“Then, what’re you blaming him for?” As he said it they heard a car door slam and saw the car backing out of the yard behind the brown house. It moved off in the other direction.

Billy Ruiz stood rigid. “Where is he going?”

“He’s going to get some mustard,” Ryan said. “They brought the charcoal and the hamburger and the paper plates, but his wife forgot the mustard.”

He was watching the car and saw it edge close to the side of the road as Pizarro’s panel truck, coming this way, squeezed past. “Here comes a friend of ours,” Ryan said. He heard Billy Ruiz let his breath out in a sigh of cigarette smoke and both of them stood waiting for the truck.

“You were supposed to be here,” Pizarro said. “I come by before, you’re not here.”

“It took longer than we thought,” Ryan said. “All right?” The first and last time, he was thinking, and said to Pizarro, “You wait here. If somebody comes, you still wait here.”

“What if it’s cops?”

“What if we forget the whole thing?”

“Listen, I want to be sure. That’s all.”

“Who’s sure?” Ryan said. He went to the back of the truck and brought out the beer case. The full bottles and empties had been taken out. He glanced at Billy Ruiz and the two of them walked away from the truck toward the brown house, Ryan still with the little stub of cigar in his mouth.

“What if somebody’s watching?” Billy Ruiz asked.

Never again, Ryan thought. He said, “Billy, what are we doing? We’re delivering beer.”

They walked past the cars parked in the road, cut between them, and were in the yard. “Here’s where you wait,” Ryan said. “You watch for the sign. If I don’t give you the sign, you don’t come. But if I give it to you, then you come now, you understand?”