Carla Jean and Agnes seemed to be followed by "well dressed" Mexicans who met Carla Jean and Agnes at the airport and helped them with luggage at the motel. They were then involved in a shoot out at the motel. Who were they? How did the know to follow Carla Jean and Agnes ? Who shot them?
They are the other side of the drug deal gone wrong, the dope suppliers. They didn't meet them at the airport, but at the Odessa bus depot where the cab dropped them. CJ's mom tells the man she is on her way to El Paso. He asks where she's staying, and the Coens cut before she tells him. We are meant to assume that the gang went ahead to the motel in El Paso where they had planned to meet up with Moss. They were shot at by Moss, who seriously wounded one of them, while the rest retreated. You see his shotgun lying on the motel room floor when Bell sees his dead body.
They don't say how the Mexicans knew to follow CJ and her mom, but it would be reasonable to speculate that they went to Odessa after figuring out that CJ's mom lived there. CJ joined her almost immediately after Moss went on the run. They would have staked out CJ and her mom to see if they went anywhere.
Since the filmmakers didn't include that particular information, for anyone there is no alternative but to speculate on it. It just seems a reasonable step to stake out a close relative's house.
Since the movie is based on a book I thought there might be facts in the book that were omitted in the movie. I hoped someone on this message board might know what the author originally said. (If anything) thanks
Ah, ok, I thought you were only referring to the movie. The book differs from the movie in this respect. In the book they didn't need to stake out Carla Jean's house because they tap the Sheriff's home phone. So they hear the conversation between him and Carla Jean when she calls him from outside El Paso to let him know Moss's location.
Which means there's also no moment in the book when a Mexican in a suit intervenes to help Carla Jean's mother with her bags. Her mother does tell the cab driver they're heading to El Paso, but they already know where to go from the wiretap.
I'm glad for your questions, because I think it's an interesting choice by the Coens to change this bit. Cross-cutting from Bell to the Mexicans eavesdropping and peeling out would have created suspense, but at the expense of shock from the seemingliy out-of-the-blue ambush/death, which prompts us to think back to how the Mexicans located Moss. It lets us have the "a-ha" moment instead of giving it to us. The shock the Coens' tactic created calls attention to the theme of "no one sees what's coming."
Anyway, here are the relevant passages:
When he got home she had supper waiting. He dropped the keys to the pickup in the kitchen drawer and went to the sink to wash his hands. His wife laid a piece of paper on the counter and he stood looking at it. Did she say where she was? This is a West Texas number. She just said it was Carla Jean and give the number. He went to the sideboard and called. She and her grandmother were in a motel outside of El Paso. I need for you to tell me somethin, she said. All right. Is your word good? Yes it is. Even to me? I'd say especially to you. He could hear her breathing in the receiver. Traffic in the distance. Sheriff? Yes mam. If I tell you where he called from do you give your word that no harm will come to him. I can give my word that no harm will come to him from me. I can do that. After a while she said: Okay.
The man sitting at the little plywood table that folded up from the wall onto a hinged leg finished writing on the pad of paper and took off the headset and laid it on the table in front of him and passed both hands backwards over the sides of his black hair. He turned and looked toward the rear of the trailer where the second man was stretched out on the bed. Listo? he said. The man sat up and swung his legs to the floor. He sat there for a minute and then he rose and came forward. You got it? I got it. He tore the sheet off the pad and handed it to him and he read it and folded it and put it into his shirtpocket. Then he reached up and opened one of the kitchen cabinets and took out a camouflage-finished submachinegun and a pair of spare clips and pushed open the door and stepped down into the lot and shut the door behind him. He crossed the gravel to where a black Plymouth Barracuda was parked and opened the door and pitched the machinegun in on the far seat and lowered himself in and shut the door and started the engine. He blipped the throttle a couple of times and then pulled out onto the blacktop and turned on the lights and shifted into second gear and went up the road with the car squatting on the big rear tires and fishtailing and the tires whining and unspooling clouds of rubbersmoke behind him.
How much work we are willing to do to create continuity for a feeling of satisfaction is probably determined by our expectations. "No one sees what's coming." is a matter of subjective vs objective: third person narration vs first person, the "experiencer." Maybe our experience from past movies determines what we expect in a new one. Artistic spheres differ in this regard.
Also the omission of the wiretapping skips the modern meme of being watched: No Country for OLD Men
So here's to the "well dressed mexicans" lurking in the shadows with their camo guns