by Sam Stewart
Billy stood erectly in the hall with the doors to the dining room closed behind his back. Billy said to Hector, “There’s a prowler in the yard. I took a shot. Take a look.”
He waved Hector out and went back to the dining room and closed all the drapes. Then he came out again and locked the double doors from the dining room to the hall. There was no sense in fucking up Hector’s morale and he wasn’t in the mood to have an argument with Jackie. So leave it. Later on he’d say, “Hey—where’s Consuela?” He ate another pill.
***
“Pay attention,” Mitchell said. “You have to walk—okay?” She nodded. “If I have to carry you, we’re cooked. So do it,” Mitchell said.
She was light-headed, loose. Like crashing into cobwebs when she walked around the room. There was substance to the air. “Keep going,” Mitchell said. Mack had his earlobe jammed against the door. Mitchell was standing to the side of the window with his back against the wall, peering over through the panes.
The courtyard below him was empty. Or anyway, appeared to be empty. He was staring at the Jeep. Did Joanna have the keys?
She shrugged. The keys were in her handbag, she said; she must’ve left it in the den.
“Keep moving,” Mitchell said. They were trapped here anyway. He raised the binoculars and panned around the court, the locked front gate about a hundred yards off. Garage on a clean right angle to the house, say forty from the door. A red Maserati and the little blue Jeep and a post with a light. Something glittered in the light and he fixed the binoculars and squinted through the lens. He grinned. Joanna’d left the keys in the ignition, and he whistled through his teeth.
“Keep moving,” Mitchell said, not looking at her, working it over in his mind because all they’d have to do would be to get down the stairs and get over to the Jeep. He’d get to the gate, unlock it, and Mack would be ready at the wheel with Joanna ducked down and they’d be out of it. Clean. And to hell with the rest of it. He didn’t want a chance of any shots getting fired, or not while Joanna was anywhere around.
She was walking pretty well. They could leave any second.
Mack said, “Billy’s at the bottom of the stairs.”
Mitchell said, shit!
“I can get him.”
“If you move out and get him,” Mitchell said, “his whole cavalry arrives.”
He turned to the pane again and squinted at the court. There were stairs leading up on the side of the garage … and a guy coming down. Jackie. He seemed to be heading for the house.
***
Billy chewed his cuticle and thought about the girl. Upstairs. With the big pink nipple on her tit. He remembered he should wait but there weren’t any shoulds. There were only his own rules. He could make them or break them. His home was his castle. His fucking castle in fucking Spain. He still had his pistol. His gun and his pistol. He could use either one … or both.… Why not?
He was heading for the stairs.
***
Mack had the stairwell landing in his sights.
***
Jackie said, “Hey! What’s the noise about?”
Billy was almost at the landing and he stopped, turned around. “I thought I saw a shadow on the patio and shot. I sent Hector out to look.”
Jackie looked suspicious. “Where’s Rocky?”
“I don’t know.… I don’t,” Billy said. “Stop looking like I’m lying.”
“I don’t look like you’re lying, Billy. You look like you’re lying.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” Billy raised the gun.
Jackie said, “No.”
Billy gave it thought.
Hector came in out of breath and said, “You’re ri’, man. The guy’s really here. You got a knife or something?”
“Knife? You got the Uzi,” Billy said. “What’s the matter? What’s out there?”
“Rocky,” Hector said. “They got him gagged up and tied.”
“Hah,” Billy said. “See? Did I tell you or did I tell you? Just tell me.”
“Oh Jesus on a candle,” Jackie said. “Hector—there’s probably a knife in the kitchen. Billy—I were you I’d want an update on the gun.”
“Where’re you going?”
“Up. To check the girl,” Jackie said.
***
He thought—a little late—like halfway up the stairs—that if anybody was in the house right now, they could’ve heard what he was saying.
He hesitated.
All he wanted to do was get out. Alive. Uninjured. And right this second. What the hell was he doing here—crouched on the landing with a Browning in his hand? He was never good at games. He was a lover, not a fighter. So why lose the edge? He had the keys to the red Maserati in his pocket and he almost turned around.
Except for the catch:
If anybody was in the house right now, they would have to be wasted. Starting with the girl because she’d seen him and the last thing he’d do was take a chance. It was just that simple, that clean across the board. He would never go to jail and he was damned if he’d have to spend his life in Chapultepec or Panama City, so he made it up the stairs. Low. In a crouch.
He thought—a little late—when he got to the top—that if anybody stood with a rifle at the door, he’d be dead on the target.
But so would the guy.
A trajectory, he thought, was a two-way street.
Jackie ducked down again and thought about the room—how the door opened in. Where the guy would have to stand. Jackie aimed in and then shot at an angle and the door whanged open.
Nothing.
No sound.
He waited on the stairs and then slowly, very carefully, headed for the room.
Nothing.
Empty.
There wasn’t any closet but the door to the armoire was open.
Empty.
The window was open.
Jackie went over and squinted at the court. Wait a second—three of them—three of them running and he leaned out and shot.
They didn’t even turn. Jackie shot again. A guy pushed the girl behind the fender of the Jeep and then swiveled: the window exploded into shards.
Jackie hit the rug. Jesus! another two rounds hit the wall. Jackie stayed down. He was bleeding from a cut and he wasn’t taking any more chances with a shot. He stayed where he was.
There was silence; a pause. He waited. He kept on cuddling the rug until finally, carefully; he lifted his head again and gambled with a look.
The courtyard was empty.
Billy and Hector came dashing from the house and started shooting at the air.
Jackie looked sideways and then he saw the rope that was knotted to the drainpipe and dangled to the ground.
***
Mitchell got an angle on Jackie at the window. “Get,” he said to Mack. He rose, shot again, shot twice, and saw Joanna and Mack go up the stairs. He stayed where he was and then covered their retreat, shooting at the lamp post; the light died noisily; they made it through a door. He turned and saw Billy and his chauffeur coming out, saw the Uzi going wild.
He ducked behind the Jeep, rolled under it, paused, heard Billy say abrasively, “Advance to the rear. Come on. Check it out,” heard two different patterns on the gravel, then zip.
He waited, stayed low.
Rule #9: When you’re hidden, stay hidden.
Mitchell looked around. He wouldn’t take a chance now of going up the stairs, he’d remain, give cover, a crossfire that wouldn’t be expected from the ground.
He could try something else.
He rolled from his position, then squatted, then ran. His leg buckled under him and tripped him on the grass.
36
It happened too fast. There was shooting and suddenly Mack started pulling her, yanked her up the stairs and the door closed behind them and Mitchell disappeared and she was standing in a lab.
Then a loud burst of fire.
Mack whispered, “Down!” and went over to the window and squatted at the side. He saw B
illy giving orders to a Spaniard with an Uzi and the other guy, the one they should have murdered in the yard. He looked at Joanna. They were safe for a while. Maybe five, ten minutes till somebody bright enough decided where they were. It was darker now too; the lamplight was gone and the moon was very suddenly entangled by a cloud.
Joanna said, “What’re they doing?”
“Spreading out.”
“You see Mitchell?”
“No. You want to be useful, check the window at the side. Stay down.”
“You want to give me a gun?” Joanna said.
He shrugged. “Could you use it?”
“I’m a farm girl,” she said.
He focused on the room, looked past her. There was one big window on the side and the other, where he’d settled right now, in the front. There were laboratory counters full of chemicals and weird-looking technical equipment, and a closet at the back. “Check the window,” Mack said, and looked over at the court.
He waited, a beat. Her voice came back to him, steady and aware. “I think Rocky’s in the trees.”
“Rocky?”
“The big one. The Spanish one’s Hector.”
“Oh,” Mack said. “You see Jackie there?”
“No.”
There was silence. He reached in his belt for the Magnum. “Farm girl,” he said. Joanna took the gun. “You want to tell me what you’ve shot?”
“Tin cans,” she said.
“Oh.”
“Small tin cans from a very great distance.”
He glanced at her again. “The Delmonte Desperado.—Check the closet now,” he said.
He saw Billy in the court. Billy with a .300 Weatherby Magnum. He raised his own rifle and captured him, neatly and cleanly, in the sights. He could do it right now. Shoot him, go down there and liberate the gun. Only Mitchell’d said, hold it. And now he had the girl. So he’d wait, have patience … and hope to hell Mitchell had an answer in his mind.
***
Mitchell was crawling for the cover of the hedge. He had the turf to himself now, a plan in his head but the flesh wasn’t willing. If somehow or other he could get to the gate while the guy with the Uzi was “advancing to the rear,” get back to the Wrangler, get Mack down the stairs.…
He thought about the actual odds of that occurring. He pushed it from his mind. Rule #10 had been Anything can happen, even something good.
He got over to the hedge; the cramp in his leg bit into him and made him want to chew the thing off. He worked it with his hand. Then in sudden frustration, took the butt of his pistol and pounded it. He felt it going numb with surprise.
***
It wasn’t a closet; it was a small room with a long white counter and a couple of machines. Joanna closed the door and then switched on the light. There were shelves above the counter. A couple of packages of Naturalite, loose, and lying on the shelf, the pale yellow packages with Naturalite/Natural Sweetness … and light! A cabinet: closed. She opened it carefully and focused on a roll of familiar-looking paper in a pale yellow stock. And then focused on the bottles: Superior Ink/ Verditer (Green) … Cadmium (Yellow) … Cerulean (Blue)…. She let out a whistle and grinned understanding, understanding the machines. Electronic scanner—thing about the size of a VCR labeled A.B. Dick. A laser printer. Something labeled Platemaker 156 and next to it, a portable offset machine—an entire print shop in five feet of space. There was one thing missing and she found it on the shelf. It looked like a squared-off electric stapler; what it was was a desktop heat-seal machine.
Billy hadn’t tampered with the packages at all.
He’d forged them.
Jesus, what a mind, Joanna thought. He’d done it the same way you’d counterfeit money. He could copy the label with a hi-tech scanner, he could find the right paper, he could mix the right ink, he could print up the packages and seal them in the lab.
She switched off the light and the laboratory suddenly exploded into noise.
***
Mitchell was at the gate, crouched in the hedges and looking at the boxed electronics on the wall, about five feet above him in a black metal shell, and how the hell would it open? He didn’t want to stand there fumbling at the box, he had to rise up and do it. One quick move. Okay. There was something that you pulled at the bottom. He rose up and did it, opened the box, then pulled down the lever, then dropped, because the motherfucker bellowed in alarm.
He ran in a crouch while the gate kept yowling at him, waa-waa-waa, and then the Uzi opened up.
***
Mack was at the window, saw Mitchell under fire, and started shooting at the gun. He missed him by an inch but succeeded dramatically in getting his attention. The guy turned rapidly and blasted at the lab.
***
The front windows were shot out within the first twenty seconds. Bottles and beakers exploded on the shelves. Joanna stayed crouched against the hard thin stuttering confusion of the fire. Mack, at the window-sill, fired at the court, then ducked and reloaded.
“What’s happening?” she said.
His answer was to turn again and fire across the sill.
***
Mitchell made a fast sprint forward to the wall.
***
Joanna went to the window. Rocky had his rifle up and shot towards the wall and she couldn’t see at what but she knew what he was doing. She picked up the Magnum and got him in the shoulder. Just like that. He turned, fired back, and she ducked behind the sill.
***
Mitchell made the yardage to the back of the garage, turned, fired again, got the wrestler in the shooting arm; the guy quit the war. He went over with the impact and stayed on the ground.
***
Mack held his fire. Billy and the Spaniard were ducked behind the Jeep. He couldn’t get an angle.
***
Mitchell reloaded. From the back of the garage he moved along the grass-covered alley to the house. Up ahead in the distance the Uzi kept stuttering, a dumb repetitive monotony of sound, a tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-that’s all, folks.
Jesus. It was all coming back to him fast. The dumb and deadly absurdity of war.
***
Mack checked his ammo; it was running pretty low. He had eight shots left. And the incoming kept on coming in a wave.
***
Hector wouldn’t stop. He was grooving on the rounds. Billy kept yelling at him, pounding on his arm to try and master his attention. Finally Hector ceased fire and said, “Wha’?” Pissed. Annoyed.
Billy said, “You hear that?”
“Wha’?”
“The alarm, you asshole. I gotta shut it off. I couldn’t hear it for the noise.”
“Oh,” Hector said.
“Cover me when I leave.—Okay?” He waited while Hector absorbed it.
Billy moved fast, but a couple of rounds winged over him. Shit. And then Hector opened up. About a beat too late, but he made it. Okay. And then, on the other hand, no wonder the Spaniards never made any conquests except over Indians. Maybe other spics. They were not very bright.
Billy made it to the den and then shut the alarm and went over to the phone. He dialed so rapidly he blew it, got his fingers all slippery on the dial and had to try the thing again.
A voice answered lazily, “Esta policia.”
“Yeah?” Billy said. “Esta McAllister. I want you to ignore that alarm that went off.”
“Momentito,” said the voice.
Billy had to wait. He put his pistol on the desk now and opened up the drawer. With the phone squeezed in between his ear and his shoulder blade, he lined up some coke.
Jackie came in. Billy said, sarcastically, “Where the fuck were you?”
“Upstairs,” Jackie said. “I was looking out the window.”
“You were looking out for yourself,” Billy said. “I know you. From when.”
“I was shooting,” Jackie said. “I had a bird’s-eye position.”
“Like a pig’s-eye position. Am I ri
ght?” Billy said.
Jackie ignored him and went to the gun case and pulled out a Remington. He started to load it, hearing Billy say, “The fucking police are all asleep.”
A voice on the phone said, “Señor? I speak English. How may I serve you?”
“You may serve me,” Billy said, “by ignoring that alarm that went off in your station. It’s an accident. One of my guests tripped a wire. Okay?”
“Si, si. No problem,” said the voice.
“Oh. And tell Captain Diego when you see him I’m expecting him to dinner. That’s Sunday—okay?”
“Sure thing,” the voice said.
“Dumb fuckers,” Billy said. He slammed down the phone and then reached for his pistol.
A voice from behind him said, “Don’t make a move. Not either of you.”
Mitchell was out on the patio, the Savage upraised.
Jackie stood frozen. Mitchell said levelly, “Mack says hello.”
“Oh shit,” Jackie said.
Mitchell said to Billy, “Now turn very slowly. Keep your hands off the pistol or you’re finished.”
Billy turned. “So now what?” he said.
Mitchell didn’t know. He could stand here forever, try to hold them at bay, or else kill them. That was all. Mack had been right.
Mitchell said, “Now … you’re gonna tell me all about it.”
***
Estanchez came into Diego’s office where Diego kept stalling the American cop, Diego saying, “Sorry.” He said it in Spanish. “This is nothing. This is air.” He looked up at Estanchez who was handing him the coffee. “Is it strong?” Diego said.
“Like iron, capitan.”
Ortega looked up. Estanchez had a deadpan expression on his face but his eyes hung steady when he looked at Ortega, then offered him a cup.
Ortega said in Spanish, “This is Probable Cause. You want to ask my opinion, it’s a Definite Cause.”
“Ah. Your opinion,” Diego said in English. “So. There it is. What we seem to be facing is a difference of opinion. What you offer is a story. A fictitious confession from … who?” He was reaching for the paper on his desk.
“Slovo Abdajanian,” Ortega said impatiently. Ortega was tired; he’d landed in New York on the overnight red-eye and two hours later, on the wings of a “story,” he was barreling to Spain; he was jet-lagged and revved, and his primary instinct was to get up and leave, go over there to Billy’s and cuff the little bastard and shove him in the car. But Ortega was alone, with no local authority, and nothing but a thin piece of paper in his hand, a kind of toothless “request,” which was being denied.