Then I was moving again, in the cool night air. I took a ride in a car. It bounced over the cobblestones, making my teeth ache. In front sat a pair of Guardia officers. April shared the back with me. My head sort of fell on her shoulder. She smelled very nice. Her lips brushed my temple. “God,” she said, “he was going to kill Ray. He could have killed you.”
I was very drunk. “April,” I said.
“We’re almost there.”
“May, June, July,” I said.
“Shh. Almost there.”
“Had it all planned. Tio Pepe and Fundador in the tent. Big seduction scene. Wanted to sleep with you.”
April laughed that laugh of hers that made you want to hear more. She patted my head. I went in and out of focus like El Macareno’s good eye when he was looking for me. The car stopped. There was more fresh air. Someone shook my hand, I was walking with April in the dark. I was in my tent. April was in my tent. I crawled into my sleeping bag. April crawled in beside me. She felt soft and smooth and warm.
I went to sleep.
FIFTEEN
I awoke once in darkness. Mine was the only body in the sleeping bag. I ached here and there but felt better than could have been expected. April called to me from the tent flap.
“Don’t get up. I’ll be back later.”
She blew a kiss at me and the flap dropped and she was gone. “Hey,” I called, not very loudly. There was no answer. I dropped back into a deep, healing sleep. That couldn’t have lasted very long because it still wasn’t light when I awoke again.
She had returned. She was leaning over me, her face a pale blur. I reached up and touched her knee with a tentative hand. Her leg stiffened. I was still woozy with wine and sleep but feeling very erotic. She was wearing stockings. Probably had changed in her own tent, I thought, and wondered why, and told myself what the hell do I care, and said offhandedly, “Anybody around here want to join me in this sleeping bag?”
It wasn’t the most delicate approach, but we had been fencing long enough. Either she did or she didn’t. In a moment she’d either be in my sleeping bag or outside the tent. I heard her breath catch. She laughed, a more throaty and knowing laugh than I had heard her use before.
“All right,” she whispered.
She crouched to one side under the low canvas roof of the tent, undressing quickly in the near-darkness. I heard the rustle of her clothes and saw the blur of her movements. Neither one of us spoke. I unzipped the sleeping bag and she slipped in. The pre-dawn air was cool. So was the firm softness of her body. I heard the faint rasp of the zipper. I turned to take her in my arms in the somewhat cramped confines of the sleeping bag.
It wasn’t at all what I had expected. April Foster, I had thought the day before, cataloging optimistically: big and stacked outdoor girl of languid movements, with long length of thigh and body, slow in her passion but thorough in a woman’s sure and knowing passive ways, taking delight in the knowledge that she was giving delight. That’s what I had thought. But in the sleeping bag she was all quick and darting movements, all hot breath and little groans and whimpers, all sharp teeth and nails and busy loins and grasping legs, exciting in her demands, as passive as a bull newly released from the toril into the bright sunlight of the arena. It didn’t last long. That kind of explosive lovemaking never can.
She whimpered and shuddered in my arms at the end, and in a strange voice she cried out, “More, oh please, more,” which is the most flattering thing a girl can say at a time like that. We lay together, spent, gasping slightly. I kissed her. She laughed that unfamiliar throaty laugh again and said, still in a strange voice, “I want a cigarette.”
I pulled the zipper, groped for and found my shirt. I lit one cigarette, took a drag and held it to her lips. She dragged deeply, and in the glow of the cigarette I had my first look at her face.
She laughed again. “What I wish you’d tell me,” she said sweetly, “is who you thought I was.”
Who she was, was Luz Robles.
SIXTEEN
If the life you’re living is that of an itinerant private eye, often close to the edge of danger and violence, either you are flexible and quickly adaptable to the unexpected or, before long or maybe eventually in any case, they will find your body in an alley or floating in a dark river. I’m lucky. I’m generally pretty quick on the uptake. The unexpected hardly fazes me at all.
What I did there in the tent on the municipal football field in Pamplona, having made love to Luz Robles under the mistaken notion that she was April, was unzip the zipper all the way and sit up.
Dawn light was shining through the coarse weave of the taut tent canvas. Suddenly in. the distance what sounded like a cannon boomed. “Seven o’clock,” Luz said calmly. “That’s the rocket going off over the corral near Santo Domingo Hill. Listen.” Pretty soon I heard another rocket. “The first one is fired right over the bulls’ heads. They stampede out of the corral. The second means they’re in the street and running.”
“That’s nice,” I said.
“If you could see your face. Were you in a fight, by the way? You look a little battered. Incidentally and for the record, you are very, very good in bed. Thank you.”
“I’ll tell Spade you approved of my technique,” I said.
She sat up unself-consciously. Her breasts were small but superbly formed and milky-white in contrast with her deep tan.
“Axel,” she said scornfully. “That’s all over.”
“You mean, no wedding tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow or any time. Does that surprise you?”
“You’re full of surprises this morning, Luz. Is it okay if I call you Luz?”
“Okay if—oh, I see. The man has a dry sense of humor. I like that.”
“Now that we’ve had our little roll in the hay,” I said, “what else is on your mind?”
She puckered her lips as though about to whistle. “Are you angry?”
“Just for the record too, you were pretty good in there. But I don’t like being used.”
“Wait a minute. Whose idea was it anyway?”
“I thought you were somebody else,” I said lamely.
“Who?” she asked quickly.
I said nothing.
After she got the idea I wasn’t going to answer, she said, “Never mind. I’m understandably curious, but it’s not important.” She was someone who had to control a situation, or think she did. In that way she was like Axel Spade. “I’m not interested in your love life, but there are a few things I’d like to know about you. For instance, you were in the back of the car when Antonio and I drove to the caminero, weren’t you?”
“With ears wide open,” I said.
“I thought so. That’s where Axel got his information. He wouldn’t say where, but it had to be you. I hope you realize you have no way of proving, not here in Spain and not with my uncle being who he is, that the kidnaping was my own idea.”
“I kind of came to that conclusion,” I said. “It could change if your uncle wound up dead one of these days. You might keep that in mind.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Luz said icily. “Your evidence might convince the Guardia if my uncle were murdered now.”
“Does that mean you’ll let him go on living a few more years? I’m glad to hear it.”
“Sometimes, Mr. Drum, your dry sense of humor can become infuriating.”
“Call me Chet,” I suggested, “seeing as you’ve already had my fair white body.”
She smiled and, reluctantly, so did I. It was one hell of an odd convexsation.
“You’re not rich by any chance, are you? No long-lost uncles who left you a pile so you’re free to gallivant around the globe poking your nose into other people’s business?”
“I can pay my rent,” I said, and added, “a good ninety percent of the time.”
That got another relaxed and open smile from her. After the way we’d started the day, it almost made me feel smug.
“Would you be averse to earning some mo
ney? Possibly a great deal of money?”
“Why me?” I asked.
Her lips shaped for a whistle again. “Because, damn it, there’s nobody else. It’s that simple.”
“Who would I have to kidnap?” I said. “Who would I have to kill?”
“I warned you about your sense of humor,” she said, not in a threatening voice. “Look, the long and short of it is that Axel suddenly got a case of bleeding-heart morality and Neil Hollister remains what he’s always been—a big baby in a soldier suit. That leaves you.”
“To do what? And what’s in it for me? And what makes you think you can trust the guy who put Spade wise to you?”
“What’s in it for you? Five hundred dollars for a few hours’ work—and the possibility of a great deal more than that, the possibility of a fortune. Would you happen to know any fences who work big, really big, on an international scale? I mean somebody who might be able to handle, say, twenty million dollars worth of precious stones in such a fashion that he could give us perhaps ten percent of their cash value right away?”
“That’s two million bucks,” I said.
“And ten percent off the top for you, Chet. I guess I could survive on one million eight.”
“I know a guy in Gibraltar,” I said, not quite improvising, “who’s the Iberian agent for something you probably never heard of called The Insurance. He could handle it if anybody could. But I think I could get twenty percent of market value from him.”
“Then that’s four million dollars, and four hundred thousand for you. Interested?”
“Not me,” I said. “I hate money.”
That earned another one of her relaxed smiles. “Then I take it you are interested?”
In what makes you tick, baby, I thought. In what makes you tick. I said, “You still haven’t told me what I’d have to do to earn it.”
“There’s your friend in Gibraltar for one thing. I haven’t any friends like that.” She leaned across me for the pack of cigarettes. I kissed the firm lower curve of her breast. It was an automatic response, but I could feel myself getting a yen for her again. “Stop that,” she said. “We’ve had our little case of mistaken identity for this morning. I came here on business. It was the only time I could come, when everybody went to the encierro. My brother Ray mentioned where you were, and I conveniently woke up with a frightful headache. Now what was I saying? Oh, yes. What you have to do. I’m driving to Madrid today with Ray to collect what he refers to as the family treasure. I need your—will you stop looking at me like that? Perhaps I’d better get dressed.”
She did. I watched her and climbed into my clothes too. “As I was saying,” she said, smoothing out her skirt, “I need your help.”
“That’s good for the ego,” I told her, “but hard on the digestion. After what happened in Zaragoza you ought to trust me about as far as you can throw a mounted picador.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You were working for Axel then. You did what you were hired to do, and you were just a little sharper than I was. If you go to work for me, why shouldn’t I trust you? You’re for hire, aren’t you? I found out the hard way what your capabilities are, and Axel said you’re very loyal. He also said you are a guy who can really think on his feet, and that’s good enough for me. If I don’t have any hard feelings, why should you? After all, you’re a professional. Anyway, when everybody’s at the bullfight this afternoon I’ll be on my way to Madrid with Ray. We’re going to see a man named Prieto y Azaña.”
“Prieto’s in Pamplona,” I said. “I saw him last night.”
“You know him? I wasn’t aware of that.” She waited. I didn’t elaborate. She went on, “Our appointment’s in Madrid in any event. Señor Prieto was my father’s best friend. He was instrumental in getting my mother and me to Caracas when I was a little girl. He was also, apparently, custodian of what my brother Ray refers to as the family jewels. He’s going to hand them over to us.”
“That’s pretty convenient for you,” I said. “It’s easier than having your uncle beaten to death to find out where they are.”
“I’m not complaining,” she said.
“Why’d Prieto wait so long?”
“He was waiting till my brother José turned twenty-one and came of age.”
“He’ll never turn twenty-two,” I said. “That’s a lucky break for you and Ray.”
“If that’s an insinuation, you couldn’t be more wrong. I didn’t kill José. Neither did Ray. And that smirk on your face is hardly the sort of thing to make me come crawling into your sleeping bag again, you know.”
“I’ll try to mind my manners,” I said.
“Give me a cigarette,” she said. I did, and she lit it with the butt of her old one. “As I was saying, Prieto got in touch with my brother. He’s going to hand over the jewels tonight.”
“What makes you so sure that’s what they are?”
“Jewels? I’m not. It’s what Ray calls them.”
“Because if you think you’re going to walk in on Prieto and he’s going to hand over a strongbox containing twenty million bucks worth of precious stones and just let you walk out with them, you’ve got another guess coming.”
“Well, it’s got to be in some form besides money. Twenty million dollars worth of pesetas issued more than fifteen years ago would create quite a stir. I can just see us trying to cash them. At any rate, we’ll find out tonight. Prieto stipulated that we each have someone along to protect our interests. That’s where you come in.”
“Who’ll be holding Ray’s hand?”
“Neil Hollister.”
“Your old boyfriend,” I said. “That will be an interesting menage.”
“Why? They were friends for years before I entered the picture. Besides, Ray’s in the same boat I’m in—he has no one else. Now would you please stop interrupting me? I’ve got to get back to the ranch soon. Ray’s staying there, of course, and so is Neil. If I don’t get back there before they do, they’ll miss me—and you still don’t know what I expect from you tonight. I said you get five hundred dollars for a few hours’ work, or possibly a great deal more than that, possibly ten percent of whatever I get. It depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On what form my father’s fortune is actually in and whether or not you can see a way to get all of it for me, Ray’s share included. Of course, that may prove to be impossible. It all depends on what arrangements Prieto’s made. I want you to walk in there with your eyes and ears open tonight, as sharp as Axel claims you are, and then we’ll see. If Prieto’s arrangements make it impossible for me to take everything, you’ve earned yourself an easy five hundred dollars. But if you see a way—”
“You must really love that brother of yours.”
Luz smiled sweetly. “I have nothing against him. It’s just that I love money more.”
I looked at her, waiting, and after a while she said, “All right, that isn’t exactly true. He’s a strange one, my brother Ray. You wouldn’t dream how strange.”
“Tell me,” I said.
“He gives me the willies. I can’t stand to be near him. He was jealous of Axel, and before that for a while he was jealous of Neil. Once in Caracas when he was a little bit drunk—he’s often a little bit drunk—he made a very unbrotherly pass at me. That’s brother Ray. Besides, he’s got a good career with the U.S. army. His needs are modest. Mine aren’t. He doesn’t have the imagination necessary to appreciate a fortune. I have. Ray would put his share in a bank or invest it conservatively and forget about it. For all the good that would do anyone he might as well leave it in Prieto’s safekeeping. But I know how to spend money. Believe me, nobody ever knew how to spend money the way I do.”
“Okay,” I said, “you don’t have to justify yourself. I get the idea. You love money.”
“Doesn’t everyone? If I can get it, I want all of it. Every cent. Ray gets nothing.”
“Except maybe a bullet in the gut, like José got?”
She had been right.
My attitude wasn’t exactly calculated to make her come crawling into my sleeping bag again, but what I wanted to find out now was what she had in mind for tonight. One way to get all the loot for herself, no matter what arrangements Señor Prieto had made, was to knock off Ray Moyers.
Her response was to haul off and slap me one across the chops as hard as she could. It was quite a wallop, and maybe in a way I deserved it. I touched the back of my hand to my lips. They were bleeding.
“I warned you about that,” she said evenly. “If all I wanted was a hired gun, I could have gotten one in Madrid for a few thousand pesetas and no questions asked. Get that through your head. You have muscle but you’ve also got a brain. I’m hiring the combination. I can’t stop you believing what you want to believe, but if you’re working for me you keep your mouth shut. Or are you working for me?”
“I help you get the jewels away from Ray if they are jewels,” I said, “and contact my friend in Gib and we sell them. Or, if they’re not jewels—and you can bet they won’t be—I help you try to figure out a way you can still go for broke. Yes, ma’am. What time do I meet you in Madrid?”
“That’s better. That’s much, much better. If you get to Prieto’s house around eleven, that ought to be fine.” She gave me Prieto’s address, which I already knew.
She stood up. I stood up. “Okay, it’s a deal,” I said. “But I’ve been thinking that maybe ten percent of the take is a shade on the low side.”
“No it isn’t. It’s fair enough and it’s all you get. Besides,” she said, with a smile and a nod at the sleeping bag, “you already got your bonus in advance.”
I grumbled an acceptance of her terms. My try for a bigger share of the take was probably in character, as she read my character, but I didn’t want to push it too far. I raised the tent flap to let her out and bumped into April.
“You should have seen the encierro,” she told me eagerly. “There was one bull that—” Then she saw Luz. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“I was just going,” Luz said, and she went. She was driving a blue Volkswagen, probably either Moyers’ or Neil Hollister’s.
Drumbeat Madrid Page 14