One for Our Baby

by John Sandrolini

  Between the swinging blinds I saw an enormous carved wooden bed in a lavishly decorated master suite. Someone lay in the bed, but I couldn’t tell who it was. Swallowing hard, I pushed myself up another foot, then shut one eye and looked toward the bed.

  There he was, Mexico’s own King Henry, manufacturing Zs under fine linens, a chambermaid under one arm. Bluish light filtered down through a large skylight, falling on Bravo’s kisser. Even asleep, he wore a smug, self-satisfied smile.

  I eased myself down, glanced over at the other rooms, and then slunk off toward the far end of the deck.

  Helen had to be in one of the other two bedrooms. Bravo said she had no interest in him, so she wouldn’t be in his room. But he would keep her close, voluptuous little piggy bank that she was, and that meant she’d be in a room down the hall. I just had to decide which one.

  Somewhere along the way, the night sky had scudded up, a layer of broken cirrus creeping overhead, blocking the light of the waning moon. This gave me some cover, but it also made it harder to see who was in each bedroom.

  I stopped in between them, looking around for any hint of Helen’s presence. There was a wooden recliner and a small table a few feet from me, an empty wineglass and a kidney-shaped ceramic ashtray atop the table. Several lipsticked butts littered the bottom of the tray.

  Helen had always liked a glass and a smoke for relaxation before going to bed. I zoomed in on the ashtray, noting that the rouged ends all faced the room on the left. It might have been Helen’s shade—I wasn’t sure—but it was as close to a sign as I was going to get.

  Moments later, I was pressing my nose against the glass and peering through the split louvers, just a few inches away from the handle on the sliding glass door.

  As my eyes adapted, I made out a woman’s form on a bed under a thin sheet that concealed little. Her face was turned, though, and it could just as easily have been another of Bravo’s concubines.

  I eyeballed the door handle, then the woman, then the other room. If I was wrong, I’d burn. But I was nearly out of time and down to my last card. I decided to shoot the moon.

  A gentle push was all it took, the slider floating silently on its tracks, opening up a good foot. Twisting sideways, I leaned in, the blinds fluttering lightly as I brushed against them. Then I slipped into the room, holding the swaying slats until they hung still against the sliding door. There might have been a note of Chypre hanging in the air. Sparked with anticipation, I turned to face the bed.

  Cold dark eyes behind a glistening chrome object froze me.

  The woman was sitting bolt upright in the bed, as naked as anyone Raphael ever painted—except for the gun in her hand.

  92

  The gun was a revolver. The woman was full automatic.

  Luminous light bathed her beautiful body and finely featured face. Even in my present situation, I couldn’t help but appreciate it

  Before she could speak—or fire—I whispered, “Helen … is that you?”

  She didn’t answer, just stared at me without recognition, still pointing the .38 at my chest. I began to think that I’d made the biggest mistake of the very short rest of my life. But then I smelled that perfume again. It was definitely hers.

  “Helen,” I repeated, “it’s Joe.”

  I placed a finger to my lips and moved in a step so she could see that it was me. She didn’t lower the gun—but she didn’t shoot, either.

  Finally, after what felt like a week, the icy stare melted, warming up by degrees to somewhere between astonishment and exasperation. Helen shook her head in disbelief, the revolver dropping down slowly, coming to rest on the inside of her thigh.

  I don’t want to go chasing all over the world to find you again.

  But you would, Joe, wouldn’t you?

  Bet your life on it, bambina.

  In two steps I was across the floor, my fingers pressed against her mouth, my eyes riveted on hers.

  “Don’t say anything,” I whispered. “Just listen. A team of assassins is about to assault this house. Whatever you’ve done, whatever you want from Bravo, whatever you think of me—it doesn’t matter. We have to leave this place right now. Your life depends on it. Understand?”

  Her eyes were emerald moons, big and bright and round. She looked up into mine a second, then nodded once.

  “Get dressed,” I said. “We have only minutes.”

  She stood, and I looked her up and down without feeling any shame. What I’d gone through to see that again.

  As she threw on a dress, I wondered for the first time just how in hell the two of us were going to get out of the house. I briefly considered crawling back out across the balcony and sliding down the pole. No way was that going to happen.

  “Is there an easy way out below?” I asked.

  She leaned into me, whispered, “Stairs are carpeted, just a few feet away. We can leave through the back patio. I’ll go first; no one will question me.”

  I didn’t like that last part, but the plan was good. We were on the razor’s edge now anyway, with no time for discussion.

  “Let’s go.”

  Helen grabbed a pair of sandals, unlocked the latch, and gently slid the door into the wall. She scanned both ways then darted out into the dark hallway.

  She went down the stairs on velvet feet and faded from view. Ten seconds later, she leaned up so I could see her, then waved me down. I pulled lightly on the door to close it, then snuck down the padded stairs, descending past the enormous living room on my right into the lower level.

  At the bottom, I made a double head swivel before slinking into a large, dimly lit foyer. There was an enormous glass slider leading to the back patio just a few feet ahead on my left. I moved toward it, then stopped when I didn’t see Helen standing next to it as I expected.

  I stepped back a few feet and looked around. A large walnut slab door to my right stood halfway open, offering a narrow view into a study or library. At the far end of the room, I made out Helen’s candlelit figure in the gloom. She was fumbling with something on the wall.

  Dumbfounded, I threw up my hands, then ducked behind the stairs at the sound of shuffling feet from the far side of the foyer.

  A shadow rose in the passageway then passed quietly across the open space, disappearing into an unseen hallway beyond.

  I waited another twenty seconds behind the stairs, gnashing my teeth into powder.

  Behind me, that first very faint orange sliver of daylight began flickering in the eastern sky. We’d hit the zero hour.

  My heart racing, I cut across the hall and rushed into the room.

  The first thing I noticed was the scent of leather and burnt wood, normally comforting smells, but nothing of the sort at that moment. There was a single tabletop candle burning in a back corner, its yellowish flame the only light in the deep chamber.

  As my eyes adapted, I made out thousands of books lining the walls on ten-foot shelves and all manner of horned things springing out from both sides of the room. Large leather club chairs and an immense carved ebony table cluttered the floors already bedecked with lush carpets and animal skins. It really was one hell of a library, but it was no time for the Good Housekeeping tour.

  Helen was still at the other end of the room, beneath a large mounted panther coiled for attack. I realized then that she was spinning the dial of a wall safe.

  We were well past pushing our luck. At that point, we were consciously trying to lose. It was not going to end well.

  I stormed over to her, lunging out to grab her arm. As I did, she flung the safe door open with a eureka! flourish and shoved her hand in. She pulled it out a moment later, clutching a black cloth bag, her eyes gleaming with excitement in the dim light.

  Furious, I snatched her other hand and pulled her toward me, gesturing toward the door with my thumb.

  At that moment, for the very first time, I noticed the pungent smell of a cigar in the room along with the other scents. Then a noise like no other in the world clicked in
the doorway, its echoes reverberating throughout the library.

  A shadow flipped on a light switch. And there stood Mario Bravo, sporting black silk pajama bottoms and a Thompson submachine gun, dark eyes glowing hot above a burning cigar.

  Two men flanked him, each with identical khaki safari outfits and mustaches, each pointing another tommy gun in our direction. My heart dropped like a runaway elevator at the sight.

  “It would appear,” Bravo proclaimed, a malevolent grin spreading on his face, “that for once the mouse has come to the hawk.”

  93

  We were finished.

  I had nothing left but scorn. “Tommy guns, Mario? Really? You’ve been watching too many gangster flicks.”

  One of the safari twins frisked me roughly, snatching my pistol and shoving me hard to the floor. When I looked up, the barrel of Bravo’s machine gun was six inches from my nose. Helen drew her breath in with a gasp.

  Bravo looked down at me with sad eyes. “Joe,” he began in the voice of a beleaguered parent, “was all this necessary? You gave me your word you’d play it straight at the plaza.”

  “And you gave me yours. How do I know he wasn’t your man?”

  “And would he have killed two of my men and risked Helen’s life if he were in my employ?”

  “Maybe he was a bad shot.”

  I stood up slowly. Bravo took a step back and lowered his weapon. The twins didn’t.

  “Well, it doesn’t make any difference now. You’ve seen your last sunrise, Joe Buonomo—and I’m afraid she has, too.”

  The words came down like anvils. Cold and very, very heavy.

  “You’ve got the money, Mario. Just let us go. If you do, I can tell you something that will save your life. At least let Helen go. She—”

  “She nothing!” he shouted, pointing his weapon at me. “She, who has brought all this misery upon us both, she who thought so little of my generosity that she tried to rob me and abscond away in the dark of night? I cannot brook this betrayal of my trust. Killing this vixen will be a service to mankind. Surely, you cannot disagree with that, sir. No, neither of you is going anywhere—except straight to hell!”

  Helen broke in. “That’s my money, Mario. That was the agreement. What right do you have to renege on our deal? I kept my end of the bargain, you lousy little grifter!”

  I just took a number. I no longer had any idea what she’d been up to, if I ever had. The only thing I still knew was that I’d bet my life on another losing horse.

  The torches flared behind those green eyes, searing the air around her as she tore into Bravo again. “You made fifty thousand on the deal—free and clear—for doing nothing! I only want what you owe me. And you fancy yourself a man of honor? You’re a five-and-dime chiseler—a cheap smut peddler with delusions about Spanish aristocracy. What a laugh! You’re as common as corned beef, Mario, and twice as greasy!”

  The words came hot and heavy, little pieces of shrapnel zinging around the room, ripping holes into everything they touched.

  I hated to interrupt the fusillade, but I had to ask. “Bargain, my dear? What the hell was all this about?”

  The great baritone erupted into condescending laughter across the room. “I told you, Joe, there is a great deal about Helen Castano that you do not know. Nor shall you ever.”

  A smaller fit of laughter book-ended the statement. Even the safari twins got in on the act this time.

  I turned toward Helen and gestured with an open hand, interrogating her with my eyes.

  “Baby, I’m so sorry,” she said. “When the plane crashed, I panicked. I, I was so scared … I thought you were dead.”

  “I get that a lot.”

  “I couldn’t go back to Frank after that, not after I thought you’d been killed. Besides, Spazzo wanted to come down here. He had a gun on me, Joe. He wanted to sell that movie. I figured Mario could help, he’s in the business. Baby, I didn’t want to hurt anyone; I just wanted to get away. It’s the truth, Joe.”

  “And Spazzo?”

  “I slipped away from him down here, took his car when we were at a restaurant. I guess he went back to Vegas.”

  I made a sad little smile, fatigue and heartsickness pulling at the corners of my mouth. “No, he didn’t, honey. Johnny Spazzo died four nights ago in Calexico, the same night we crashed my plane. Shot three times with my gun.”

  She recoiled a little, shot out a Stanwyck cringe. “Wh-who?” she said.

  “You. You Helen. You killed Spazzo.”

  “Nooooo,” she cried. “How could you think that about me, baby? How could—”

  “Enough!” Bravo roared. “Confession is over! I don’t care who did what. Say your good-byes and your prayers. You two are going to die.”

  He smiled grimly, then called to his gunmen, “Raúl, Antonio! Shoot them both! Wait—take them outside first. I don’t want any blood on my first editions.”

  Through jaded eyes, I watched as dawn light filled the room, chasing the shadows off into the corners. Then I heard them—the big piston engines of the P-38 echoing off the canyon walls, as clear and as loud as a freight train barreling through a small town at night.

  They sounded close. They sounded like death.

  Several pistol shots cut the air outside. Men began shouting in front of the house. Other shots followed from multiple guns.

  “It’s an attack!” Bravo bellowed. “Everyone up!” Then he turned toward me, pointing the Thompson at my head. “All your men are going to die now—while you watch.”

  “Mario,” I said in a low voice, “you’re the one about to die. Those aren’t my men; they’re mercenary commandos. Better throw everything you have at them.”

  Bravo took me on with a stare, flicking the machine gun once to motion Helen and me toward the doorway. Mario and the twins marched us up the wide main staircase to the living room as several of his men ran past, fumbling with their pants and their guns.

  Bravo strode over to the sheer glass wall at the front of the room, fuming like an ambushed general. More men came running half dressed from the far side of the house, rushing recklessly toward the shooting below.

  “Everybody out!” Bravo yelled. “To the wall!”

  Outside, the winding pitch of a war-bird in a dive grew louder. Helen wrapped her arms around my chest, digging in tight.

  “Joe, what’s happening?” she asked, her voice high and choked.

  I looked up through the glass, saw the Lightning knifing through the breaking skies as it lined up on the grounds in front of the house.

  “The end, Helen,” I said. “The end.”

  94

  I saw the play as the Lightning dove down. The attackers at the wall were a feint to draw Bravo’s men out into the open. The P-38 would cut them down like wheat. I watched as the aircraft hurtled closer, mesmerized by the sight. We all were.

  I pulled Helen close, trying to edge away. The safari twins raised their weapons in unison, blocking our path. I stood there helplessly, my eyes brimming with frustration.

  “Bravo,” I thundered, “let us go or give me a gun for God’s sake!”

  He cocked his head, then turned and marched toward us. “Here’s what I’ll do, I’ll give this bruja a front-row seat of the action.”

  He jammed the Thompson into my chest, backing me up against the massive floating fireplace in the middle of the room. Then he swung the gun sideways, raking me across the jaw.

  My legs buckled beneath me and I staggered backward. Helen tried to catch my fall, but Bravo seized her by the neck and yanked her away. He dragged her off toward the enormous windows in the front of the room as I mushed down against the bricks on legs of boiled linguini, struggling to remain upright. I slumped there, holding my jaw, unable to stand.

  Outside, the sound of heavy weaponry I hadn’t heard in many years opened up and closed in. It was a singularly terrifying sound—pulsating and mechanical, yet animate and vicious. You never, ever forget it.

  I rolled my head around to
ward the noise then looked on in horror as the attack unfolded.

  The Lightning was boring in at high speed, letting fly with all four machine guns and the twenty-millimeter cannon. Flashes of fire pulsed from the nose of the screaming aircraft, sand and rock erupting in dirty plumes amid a gaggle of Bravo’s gunmen as the slugs ripped their way through earth and flesh.

  Smoke puffed from underneath a wing, and a blur whistled across the compound, disappearing into the left side of the house.

  A deafening boom rippled through the air a heartbeat later as the rocket detonated inside, spewing a volcano of glass and fire out the front of the house.

  The concussion knocked me off my feet, toppling me over as a wave of machine-gun fire poured into the house, pulverizing the glass walls across the room and chewing parallel ruts across the birch and marble flooring. I covered up instinctively from the flying debris as the Lightning roared overhead in a hard pull-up.

  I lay there a second, trying to shake off the shock, the sound of automatic weapon fire from many guns stitching through the air amid the screams of the injured and the dying. The air was rife with the smell of gunpowder, scorched wood, and fear.

  I pushed up onto my hands and knees and shook my head several times to chase away the bells that were ringing inside. Ten feet away, a tommy gun lay on the floor. One of the twins was still holding it, but he didn’t need it any longer—not without his head.

  Bravo was standing defiantly among the shards of the demolished glass wall, laying down a stream of fire with his machine gun and hurling multilingual invective into the morning air. Fire from rocket debris burned below him in several places.

  The remaining twin was on the front balcony, firing through the gray-black smoke at the dark figures scurrying forward. Helen was curled up tight behind an overturned end table a dozen feet away. She looked stunned.

  I scrambled over to the khakied corpse and wrenched the machine gun out of his hand, then pulled my pistol out of his waistband and grabbed several extra machine-gun magazines from his web belt.