by Ed McBain
"Look, Carrera,” I said, “I'm giving you one last chance."
"Save your breath, senor," he called back.
"You'd better save yours, you bastard,” I shouted. “You'd better save it because pretty soon you're not going to have any."
"Perhaps,” he answered. I couldn't see him because his head was pulled down below the rocks. But I knew he was grinning, and I wanted to strangle him for it.
'I want that ten thousand,” I shouted.
He laughed aloud this time, and my fingers tightened involuntarily around the girl's wrist. “Ah, but that is where the difficulty lies,” he said. “I want it, too."
"Look, Carrera, I'm through playing around,” I told him. “If you're not out of there in five minutes, I'm going to put a hole in your sweetie's head.” I paused, wondering if he'd heard me. “You got that, Carrera? Five minutes."
He waited again before answering, and then his voice drifted across the flatland. “You had better shoot her now, senor. You are not getting this money."
The girl began laughing, a throaty laugh that started somewhere down in her chest and bubbled up onto her lips.
"Shut up!” I told her. I let her wrist go for a second and slapped her on the behind, hard, the palm of my hand smarting. I grabbed her wrist again, and bent her arm up behind her.
She was still laughing.
"What's so damn funny?” I asked her.
"You will never outwait Carrera,” she said. Her voice was as low and as deep as her laugh. “Carrera is a very patient man."
"I can be patient, too, sister,” I said. “I patiently saved that ten thousand bucks for three years, and no tin horn crook is going to step in and swipe it."
"You underestimate Carrera,” she said.
"No, baby, I've got Carrera pegged to a tee. He's a small-time punk. Back in the States, he'd be shaking pennies out of gum machines. He probably steals tortillas from blind old ladies down here."
"You underestimate him,” she repeated.
I shook my head. “No, baby, this is Carrera's big killing—or so he thinks. That ten thousand is his key to the big time. Only it belongs to me, and it's coming back to me."
She rolled over suddenly, pinning my arm under her back. She wore a peasant blouse with a swooping neckline, and a shadowed cleft was deep between her breasts. Her lips were a little too full, almost swollen looking. And her mouth was a little too wide for the narrow oval face. She looked up at me through heavily fringed eyes, smoldering brown, intense with the reflection of the Mexican sky—and with something else.
"If you were smart,” she said, “you would leave. You would pack up and go, my friend, and you wouldn't stop to look back."
"I'm not smart."
"I know. So you'll stay here, and Carrera will kill you. Or I will kill you. Either way, you will be dead, and your money will be gone, anyway.” She paused and a faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “It is better that you lose only your money."
I glanced at my watch. “Carrera has about two minutes, honey."
"And after that?"
"It's up to Carrera,” I said. As if to check, I shouted, “You like your girlfriends dead, Carrera?"
"Ten thousand dollars will buy a lot of girlfriends,” he called back.
I looked down at her. She seemed to be comfortable resting against my arm. I could feel the warm flesh of her back where it pressed against my hand.
"Did you hear your boyfriend?” I asked.
"I heard."
"He doesn't seem to give a damn whether I shoot you or not."
She shrugged, and her sudden motion did things to the front of her blouse. “It is not that,” she whispered. “He simply knows that you will not kill me."
"Don't be too surprised, baby."
She lifted one black brow against her forehead, held it bent there like the crooked wing of a raven in flight. The smile flitted across her face again, was gone almost before it started. “You will not kill me,” she said.
I didn't answer her. I kept staring at my watch until the five minutes were up. I was suddenly sweating all over. My shirt stuck to my back, and I could feel the perspiration trickling down my chest, oozing through the blond hairs that covered it. My brow was beaded with enormous drops of sweat that converged and slid down the side of my nose.
After a long while, she said, “See?"
That was all she said. I looked at her for a few seconds, and then I released her wrist, pulling my arm from under her. I held the .45 on her as I undid my belt. My dungarees were tight around my waist. I'd thrown them on the night I caught them both in my hotel room, Carrera and this wench. Carrera was fast for a fat man, but I'd grabbed his woman, and I'd kept her with me on the chase that led through the streets of Tampico, out past El Higo, Taniajas, Tancanhuitz, Chicontepac—Mexican towns as old as the Aztecs, towns with rutted cart roads that had raised hell with the tires of my ‘46 Olds. Carrera had driven an old Ford. He drove it recklessly, ditching it when we reached the mountains, stumbling forward on foot then, with the girl and me close behind him.
"Roll over,” I told her.
Her eyes opened in mock surprise, then narrowed lewdly.
"Why, senor!"
"Let's not get cute,” I said. I grabbed her shoulder and shoved, and she rolled over, her skirt lifting with the movement, lifting over a soft, browned thigh. She pulled it down quickly, and I grabbed her hands and crossed them behind her back. I wrapped the belt around them tightly, looped it through, and took another turn. She sat up when I was finished, and studied my face carefully.
"My feet, senor. Are you not afraid I will kick you to death?"
She was mocking me, and I was ready to answer when I realized her last statement had been a carefully calculated one. She was trying to shame me into leaving her feet unbound.
I pulled my shirt tails out of the band of my dungarees, and started to unbutton the shirt. I was going to tear it into strips and use these to tie her feet together. I thought of the sun overhead, and I realized how pleasant it would be with a blistering sunburn and that fat pig across the dirt alley with a .45 pointed my way. I buttoned my shirt again and let it hang outside my trousers. Then I sat down across her knees quickly, pinning her legs to the ground. A surprised look crossed her face, and her eyes grew saucer-wide as I took the hem of her skirt in my hands and began tearing.
She tried to kick, so I shoved her back with the heel of my hand, and she sprawled onto her back and lay still while I tore a wide band from the bottom of her skirt. It made the skirt a good deal shorter. Her knees were round and smooth, and her calves were muscular, like a dancer's calves, rippling with a supple, sinuous grace. She looked at me with unmasked hatred in her eyes. She was Carrera's woman, all right, clear to the marrow.
I tore the band of material into narrower strips and reached for her ankles. She kicked out viciously, aiming for my face as I bent over her. I threw one arm across her legs, looped the material under her ankles. I straddled her then, my back to her face, and finished knotting the cloth around her ankles. I did a good job. Not so tight as to stop circulation, but tight enough to prevent any running around. I got up then and lit a cigarette, tucking the heavy Colt into my waistband.
"Now what?” she asked. She was leaning back against the rocks, a loose strand of hair falling over one eye.
"What's your name?"
She didn't answer.
I shrugged. “Suit yourself,” I said.
"My name is Linda,” she said at length.
"Make yourself comfortable, Linda,” I told her. “We're going to be here for quite some time."
I meant that. I still hadn't figured out how I was going to get my money from Carrera, but I knew damn well I was staying here until I did get it. Crossing the open dirt patch would have been suicide. But at the same time, Carrera couldn't cross it either. Not unless he wanted a slug through his fat face. I thought of that, and I began to wish he would try to get across the clearing. Nothing would have plea
sed me more than to have his nose resting on the sight at the end of my gun muzzle.
Ten thousand bucks! Ten thousand, hard-earned American dollars. How had Carrera found out about it? Had I talked too much? Hell, it was general knowledge that I was putting away a nest egg to take back to the States. Carrera had probably been watching me for a long time, planning his larceny from a distance, waiting until I was ready to shove off for home.
"It's getting dark,” Linda said suddenly.
I lifted my eyes to the sky. The sun was dipping low over the horizon, splashing the sky with brilliant reds and oranges. The peaks of the mountains glowed brilliantly as the dying rays lingered in the crevices and hollows. A crescent moon hung palely against the deepening wash of night, sharing the sky with the sinking sun.
And suddenly it was black. There was no transition, no dusk, no violets or purples. The sun was simply swallowed up, and the stars devoured the sky with hungry white mouths. The moon grinned down like a bigger, lopsided mouth against the blackness, and a stiff breeze worked its way down from the caps of the mountains, spreading cold where there had once been intolerable heat.
Linda shivered, hunching her shoulders together, pressing her elbows against her sides, hugging herself against the cold.
"You'd better get some sleep,” I said.
"And you?"
"With that pig across the way?” I asked. “I'll stay awake, thanks."
She grinned. “Carrera will sleep. You can bet on that."
"I wish I could bet on that. I'd go right over and make sure he never woke up."
"My, my,” she mocked, “such a tough one."
"Hard as nails,” I said, a faint smile starting on my lips.
"You know, I don't even know your name."
"Jeff,” I told her. “Jeff MacCauley."
She rolled over, trying to make herself comfortable. It wasn't easy with her hands and feet bound. She settled for her left side, her arms behind her, her legs together.
"Well,” she said, "buenos noches, Jeff."
I didn't answer. I was watching the rocks across the clearing. Carrera may have planned on sleeping the night, but I wasn't counting on it.
She woke at about two A.M. She pushed herself to a sitting position and stared into the darkness.
"Jeff,” she whispered. There was the faintest trace of an accent in her voice, and she made my name sound like “Jaif."
I pulled the .45 from my waistband and walked over to her.
"What is it?"
"My hands. They're ... I can't feel anything. I think the blood has stopped ... “
I knelt down beside her and reached for her hands. The strap didn't seem too tight. “You'll be all right,” I said.
"But ... but they feel numb. It's like ... like there is nothing below my wrists, Jeff."
Her voice broke, and I wondered if she were telling the truth. Hell, I didn't want the poor kid to suffer. I held the .45 in my right hand and tugged at the strap with my left. I loosened it, and she pulled her hands free and began massaging the wrists.
She breathed deeply, and the moon sent silver beams dancing across her breasts. “Ahhh,” she said, “that's much better."
I kept the .45 pointed at where her navel should be. She looked at the open muzzle and sighed, as if she were being patient with a precocious little boy.
She leaned back on her arms then, tilting her head to the sky, her black hair streaming down her back.
"Oh, it's a beautiful night,” she said.
"Yeah."
"Just look at the moon, Jeff."
I glanced up at the moon, taking my eyes off her for a second. That was all the time she needed.
She sprang with the litheness of a mountain lion, pushing herself up with her bound feet, her fingernails raking down the length of my arm, clawing at my gun hand. I yanked the gun back and she dove at me again, the nails slashing across my face. She threw herself onto my chest, and her hands sought the wrist of my gun hand, tightening there, the nails digging deep into my flesh.
I rolled over, slapping the muzzle of the .45 against her shoulder. She curled up like a caterpillar for a second, nursing her shoulder, and then she exploded again, teeth flashing, nails bared.
I flipped the .45 into my left hand and brought my right back across my chest. I slapped out backhanded, catching her on the side of her face. She fell backwards and then lunged forward again. I slapped her twice more, and she went into the caterpillar routine again, curling up into a soft little ball, her head bent, her chest heaving.
She looked up at me suddenly, her eyes sparking. “You lousy bastard,” she mumbled.
"Sure,” I agreed.
"Hitting a woman!"
This struck me funny somehow, and I began laughing. I saw her eyes flare, and she bit her lip as I laughed louder. She pushed herself up from the ground, murder in her eyes. She hopped forward, and I backed away from her. She kept hopping, her feet close together, the material from her skirt keeping her in check. And then she toppled forward, and she would have kissed the ground if I hadn't caught her in my arms.
She kissed me instead.
Or I kissed her.
It was hard to tell which. She was falling, and I reached for her, and she was suddenly in my arms. I held the .45 in my right hand, and it felt like a cannon pointing out into the darkness. My left arm tightened around her waist and she lifted her head. There was a question in her eyes for a single instant, and then the question seemed to haze over. She closed her eves and lifted her mouth to mine.
There was sweetness in her kiss, and an undercurrent of danger, a pulsing emotion that knifed through me like an electric shock. She pressed against me, and her body was soft and womanly, and I forgot the marks of her nails on my arms and face, forgot that she could be as deadly as a grizzly. She was a kitten now, soft and caressing, and her breath was in my ears, and the movement of her body was quick and urgent. I lifted her, the .45 still in my hand, and carried her to the deep shadows of the rocks.
The stars blinked down in wonder, and the wind sang a high, contented song in the jagged peaks around us.
Sunlight spilled over the twisted ground like molten gold, pushing at the shadows, chasing the night.
She was still in my arms when I woke up. I stared down at her, not wanting to move, afraid to wake her.
And then her eyes popped open suddenly, and a sleepy smile tilted the corners of her mouth.
"Good morning, darling,” she said. Her voice was still lined with sleep, as fuzzy as a caterpillar.
"Hello."
She yawned, stretching her arms over her head in lazy contentment. She took a deep breath and then smiled archly, and I looked deep into her eyes, trying to read whatever emotion was hidden in their brown depths.
"Your boyfriend,” I started.
"Carrera?"
"Yeah."
"He's not my boyfriend."
Her face was serious, so serious that it startled me.
"No?"
"No."
"Well, anyway,” I said, “he's still got my ten thousand."
"I know."
"I want it back."
"I know."
"I want you to help me get it."
She was silent for a long while. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper. “Why?"
"Why? Holy Jesus, that's ten thousand bucks! You know how much work I did to get that dough ... “
"Why not forget it? Why not ... forget it?"
"Sister, you're crazy. You're crazier'n hell."
"Carrera will kill you. I know him. Would you rather be dead without your money ... or would you rather be alive without it? Alive and ... with me?"
I hesitated before answering. “Ten G's is a lot of money, baby."
"I'm a lot of woman,” she answered.
"Yeah."
"Well?"
I shook my head. “If you help me, I can have both. We can do a lot with that money."
She considered this for a moment and then asked,
“What do you want me to do?"
"You'll help?"
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want to set a trap for Carrera."
"What kind of a trap?"
"Will you help?"
She moved closer to me and buried her head against my shoulder. Her voice tingled along my skin. “I'll do whatever you say."
We gave the sun time to get directly overhead, laying our plan as carefully as the foundation of a cathedral. The idea was to get Carrera out into the clearing. Once he was there, I'd either get the money or put a big hole in his fat face. He could take his choice.
Linda and I crouched behind the rocks, our heads close together. The sun bore down ferociously, baking the earth, spreading heat over the surface of the land. The sky was as blue as a sapphire, streaked with spidery white clouds that trailed their delicacy across the wide wash. It was the Mexico of the picture books, bright and clear, warm, alive—and it should have been pulsating with the throb of laughter and music, wine and song, fiesta.
Instead, a funeral was being planned.
Carrera's.
And Mexico, the willing mistress, arched her crooked backbone, thrust up a solid barrier of jagged rock behind which we plotted while the sun watched with a bland, disinterested face. There was a sheer wall behind Carrera, rising like a giant tombstone for some hundred feet, terminating there in a jumble of twisted branches and fallen rock. A few feet from the wall, jutting up like an old man's browned, crooked teeth, was the outcropping behind which Carrera squatted with his. .45—and with my ten G's.
Once Carrera left the protection of that natural fortress, he was in my pocket.
We got to work. My watch read 12:45, and the sun was hot, probably as hot as it would get all day. The sweat spread across the front of my shirt like a muddy ink blot, staining my armpits, rolling down my face in steady streams.
Linda screamed, just the way we'd planned it. The scream tore the heat waves into shreds and clung to the jagged rocks like a tattered piece of cloth.
"Shut up!” I shouted. “Shut your goddamn mouth."
"Jose!” she bellowed, her head turned to Carrera. There was no sound from across the clearing. I kept low behind the rocks, wondering if Carrera was listening, wondering if our little act was having any effect.