by Alice Orr
“I’ll do that,” SideMan said with a sly laugh. Then, he hung up.
Slater hung up also and turned slowly back toward Phoenix. She was watching him with questions in her eyes. He was tempted to grab her right now and drag her out of here to somewhere she’d be safe, but what place would that be? Laurent would just find somebody like Slater to track her down again.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone our talk till another time,” he said. “I have some business to take care of.”
“Is that why you came to Acapulco? For business?”
She didn’t sound as if she were asking an idle question. Slater was becoming more certain by the minute that she had suspicions about him after all. She was studying his face intently, and that made him even more uneasy. He’d like to believe she’d come here to his room because she couldn’t stay away from him, but he knew better. He also knew he had to quiet her suspicions or she might not be here when he got back from his meeting with SideMan. Slater should want her to stay here because of his assignment, but what he really cared about was keeping her out of danger. He would do just about anything to make that happen, but he’d have to do it without letting her catch on. He walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders.
“Whatever I came here for,” he said, “all that matters now is that I’ve met you.”
This was true, of course. Maybe she heard that truth in his voice because he could see the hardness in her eyes soften just a little before he went on.
“I need to talk to you about us,” he said. “I need to talk to you about everything.”
She didn’t answer. She just kept staring into his eyes as if she might be trying to read something written there. Slater pulled her into his arms, partly to escape that probing gaze. He expected her to push him away, but she didn’t do that, not even when he stroked her hair.
“By the way,” he couldn’t help asking, “how did you get in here?”
“I have my ways.”
He thought about questioning her further. Instead, he said into her ear, “Then, now that you’re here, please, don’t run away.”
She leaned closer into his arms. “I won’t,” she said.
PHOENIX HADN’T RENTED a car when she first came here because she was trying to keep her expenses down. She didn’t have a job to go back to after all, if and when she returned to the States. She’d rented a ride for a day at a time whenever there were specific trips she wanted to take out of town. In between, she depended on the Volkswagen cabs that were everywhere on the streets of Acapulco, even out here. That was true in the daytime anyway. A phone call would be required to bring one to La Escarpadura at this hour, and she didn’t have time for that. She didn’t have time to change her clothes, either. She was a little too casually dressed for a woman wandering around downtown alone in late evening, whether this was an anything goes kind of place or not. Still, she had no choice. Besides, she had other things to worry about now, things far more important than what she had on.
She circled through the garden just as she’d done earlier, but this time she took the path that led to the parking lot. Slater had left her at the corridor to her room a few minutes ago. She’d stayed out of sight until he was on his way to the parking lot. Then she set out after him. She didn’t intend to let him get away without her following, no matter what she had to do. She’d seen him tense up when he got that phone call. She’d heard him arrange to meet the caller, and she was almost certain this meeting had something to do with the truth about why Slater was in Mexico. She also had the feeling that this something meant trouble for him. She couldn’t let him go to that trouble alone, even if she had no idea what she might do to help. Phoenix understood that these weren’t good enough reasons to break the law, but she was about to do that anyway.
She’d noticed that the gardener always left his truck in the far corner of the parking lot at the end of his day’s work. She’d passed by it more than once when she returned from the beach in town in the late afternoon, as she’d done every day until meeting Slater. She’d even noticed that the gardener always left the keys in the ignition. She’d chuckled at that. The truck was in such bad shape that apparently not even he thought anybody would steal it. Of course, the gardener hadn’t taken into account how desperate Phoenix would be tonight.
She crouched low on her way through the gardens.. Slater headed straight for his vehicle without ever looking in her direction. When she slipped out of the shadows near the gardener’s truck, Slater was already inside his rental Jeep. She waited until she heard his motor before she pulled open the truck door, which screeched even more loudly than she’d anticipated. She looked back at Slater’s truck and saw smoke coming from the exhaust pipe. The sound of his engine must have covered the noise of the rusty door opening. She yanked the door shut again past where it wanted to stick and felt for the keys in the ignition. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found them there. Phoenix pushed in the clutch, turned the key and stepped on the gas. The engine groaned but didn’t turn over. In the meantime, Slater was backing his Jeep out of its parking place.
Phoenix pumped the ancient gas pedal twice and hoped that would help. If she didn’t get after Slater soon, he’d be too far ahead for her to be able to follow. She whispered a wish into the night and bit her lip before turning the key to try the gas again. The same groan rasped beneath the paintless hood, but she kept on turning and pumping. The next groan led to another and then the engine caught. She had to crank the wheel around to get out of the parking space. Apparently, the gardener didn’t think he needed power steering. She approached the lower exit from the lot just as Slater drove by from the exit at the other end farther up the hill. The old truck bounced out onto the road as Phoenix did her best to accustom herself to the most decrepit vehicle she had ever driven. Luckily, there were enough old cars and trucks on Mexican streets to keep this one from being too conspicuous. No one would pay much attention to Phoenix jolting down the hill in pursuit of Slater’s tail-lights. No one but Phoenix would know that she had just undertaken what was maybe the most foolhardy thing she’d ever done in her life.
THE ESPERANZA CLUB was exactly the kind of sleazy dive Slater would expect SideMan to hang out in. The walls and ceiling were painted black with some red here and there. At least, that’s what it looked like through the near dark and the haze of cigarette smoke. The small tables and especially the bar area were fully occupied by the lowlifes Slater’s cop side was way too familiar with. He’d bet his last peso that if he pulled a raid in here right now he’d come up with a couple of dozen righteous collars out of this one room alone.
Slater threaded his way past women who looked him over and petty hoodlums who did the same. He avoided eye contact with all of them, while the hairs on the back of his neck prickled from how much he didn’t like being in this kind of place where trouble lurked in every corner and behind every tough expression. He was relieved to spot SideMan at a table near the wall. He looked as if he’d found his natural habitat, just as Slater expected he would. SideMan leaned back in his chair in a cocky posture that made him look as if he were swaggering even when he was sitting down. Slater felt his palm itch to slap the smug smirk off this creep’s skinny face. Slater had to remind himself to stay cool. He hated dives like this, where SideMan was obviously so much at home. That could give him an edge, so Slater had to be careful.
“The hot ticket has arrived,” SideMan drawled in his usual sneering tone.
He didn’t get up.
He would be too short to look Slater in the eye if both of them were standing. SideMan trained his disdainful gaze somewhere around Slater’s belt buckle for a fleeting moment then looked away with another sneer.
“Sit down,” SideMan said. “It must be a drag carrying that load around.”
Slater ignored the mocking reference to his height and breadth, except to say, “We all look the same size to a bullet.”
“Hey, there. You’re feelin’ tough tonight,” SideMan observ
ed with a snide laugh as Slater pulled out a chair and sat.
“That must be because I brought along my two pals, Smith & Wesson.”
“Did you really?”
If the suggestion that Slater was carrying a gun had any effect on SideMan he was sneaky enough not to let it show. Slater didn’t respond.
“Funny you should bring up the subject of packin’ heat,” SideMan said, “because I have a little present here for you from Mr. Laurent.”
“Oh, gee. And it isn’t even my birthday.”
“That’s right, big guy. And I ain’t the Easter Bunny, either.”
“So, what you got for me?”
Slater could hear how easily he slipped into sounding like a lowlife character himself. The job required it, and he had the talent. It was a talent he took no pride in. He continued to wonder how far he really was from being a piece of street garbage himself.
“I got something you’re going to need real soon,” SideMan was saying.
He had a package in his lap, something wrapped in a cloth. He tossed the wrapping off and picked up the gun that was inside. Slater’s hand shot instinctively to the back of his waistband.
“Relax, cowboy,” SideMan said with another sneering chuckle. “You really are on a short leash, aren’t you?”
He sounded arrogant and unconcerned as usual, but he turned the gun barrel away from Slater all the same before pushing it toward him.
“Don’t you think you should at least try to keep that out of sight?” Slater asked.
“In this dump?” SideMan shrugged. “I’d bet there ain’t half a dozen guys in here travelin’ light.”
Slater looked around. If anybody’d seen what SideMan had in his hand, they weren’t taking obvious notice. Still, Slater’s cop sense told him there were a whole lot of hombres watching out of the corners of their eyes. And, just like SideMan said, they most likely weren’t light on firepower.
Slater took the gun and slid it under the table. He’d gotten only a glimpse of it in SideMan’s hand, and Slater couldn’t see it very well in the dark under the table. He didn’t need to see it anyway. He could tell by the heft and the feel of its shape that it was a .38, the standard-issue police pistol. His fingers clenched around the taped-up grip. He knew how possible it was that this piece had been stolen off the body of a dead lawman.
“Clean as a whistle,” SideMan said. “Serial number’s been lasered off so deep not even the Feds could pick it up. It’s got no history anybody could trace anywhere we’d care about.”
Maybe it could be traced somewhere I’d care about, Slater thought.
“Why are you giving this to me?” he asked.
“A job needs doing here, and Laurent picked you to do it. Not my choice, but I do my job, too. So, like they say, a mechanic’s only as good as his tools. This here’s a really good tool.”
Slater knew what SideMan meant, of course. Slater had been hired to find Phoenix, then to kill her. He never intended to do that, but he’d had no personal feelings about it in the beginning. Now, to hear the suggestion again made him feel like yanking this creep up out of his chair and strangling the sneer off his face right here and now. Keeping cool was getting harder for Slater by the minute. He had to remind himself he was a cop first and foremost, and that undercover meant hiding his feelings as well as his identity.
“Laurent sent you all this way just to bring me this piece?” Slater asked.
“He wants to make extra sure you’ve got what you need.”
“I guess that makes you a really high-priced delivery boy then, doesn’t it?”
Slater knew it wasn’t particularly wise to rile this guy. Playing him along would be a better way to get the job done, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see SideMan’s face twist like it was doing now. The reaction lasted only a minute, then he was sneering again.
“You think you can get a rise out of me, don’t you?” SideMan said.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t think much about you at all.”
SideMan pounced forward out of his wise guy posture to put his face just inches from Slater’s.
“Well, you’d better think about me,” he snarled. His tone was low and evil, and his eyes were full of hate. “Because I’m going to be doing a lot of thinking about you.”
“That makes me feel warm and cared about all over,” Slater said in a calm, steady voice. “Now, get back out of my face.”
He didn’t say what he’d do if SideMan failed to comply, but the threat hung in the air between them anyway. SideMan held his ground a minute more, just long enough to protect his ego. Then he snorted his usual derisive laugh and eased back into his seat.
“I don’t need to pick a fight with you now,” he said. “I’ll just hang around and see what happens. There’ll be lots of time for fighting if you don’t do what the man says.”
“So, you’re not just Laurent’s delivery boy. You’re his watchdog, too.”
SideMan looked as if he were ready to pounce again, but he kept his cocky pose.
“Don’t push it,” he said.
“Why should I?” Slater pushed his chair back and stood up. “I’m like you. I don’t need to pick a fight right now. I’d rather do that at my own time on my own turf.”
“Name the place,” SideMan sneered. “I’ll be there.”
“You can count on it,” Slater said.
He’d slid the .38 into his jacket pocket before standing up. He had his 9 mm pistol in his waistband at the small of his back as usual. He could reach it fast if he had to but probably not if he was walking away. He backed off a few steps. Now he’d have to turn around and walk out of here. That was part of this macho standoff game he and SideMan were playing. Slater would have to assume it wasn’t in SideMan’s best interests to make Slater a corpse just yet. Still, he had his breath sucked in the entire time he was walking through the swarthy crowd of the patrons of La Esperanza. Slater didn’t breathe freely again until he hit the street.
He took a minute then to wonder why SideMan hadn’t mentioned the money Phoenix was supposed to have stolen and whether Slater had any clues to where it might be. Maybe SideMan was just too busy being a punk to remember the bottom line. He was a punk for sure. Even the torrid Acapulco night felt fresh and cool after breathing the same air as SideMan Sax.
PHOENIX HAD PARKED down the street. The Mexican kids who usually tried to get gringos to pay them for guarding their vehicles took one look at the truck and didn’t bother. She’d hesitated at the door of the club called La Esperanza. She could tell it was the kind of place she shouldn’t be in at all, and especially not by herself. She went inside anyway. She did her best to ignore the remarks coming from men on all sides as she maneuvered among them. When one of them offered to take her to a table and buy her a drink, she brushed past him. She spotted a stairway leading to a balcony and decided that would give her the best view of the room. Once she was up the stairs, she kept as far back as possible from the rail. She wasn’t likely to be seen here from the floor below. Most of the balcony tables were empty so she didn’t have to listen to males trying to come on to her, either, and that was certainly a relief.
She eased a little closer to the rail and peeked over. She spotted Slater right off. He was easy to pick out, even in this darkened place, maybe because he was the best-looking and the biggest man in the room, at least that was how Phoenix saw him. He was with a man who was sitting too far into the shadow of the balcony for Phoenix to see him clearly. Then, he darted forward. She was about to check him out more closely when something else caught her attention and held it. She’d thought he might have handed something to Slater a moment before. Now, she saw that something in Slater’s hand as he moved it out from under the edge of the table.
Phoenix stepped backward against the balcony wall. She didn’t want to believe what she had seen. The darkness could be playing tricks with her eyesight, but something told her that wasn’t true. This sleazy place full of dangerous-looking men, Slate
r in a late-night rendezvous with heaven knows who or what, the fact that Slater obviously hadn’t come to Acapulco to soak up the sun—it all added up to confirm that what she’d just seen was the glint from the barrel of a gun in Slater’s hand.
Chapter Ten
Slater had taken the gun with a desperate wish that, if he had it and SideMan didn’t, Phoenix might be safe from harm. That made no sense, of course, and Slater knew it. SideMan would have an untraceable weapon of his own, or maybe he wouldn’t care about whether it could be traced or not because it wouldn’t come back to him anyway. He’d obviously come here to watch Slater more than to give him the gun in the first place, to watch him and to make sure he did the job he was hired to do. Except that Slater was actually assigned by his real bosses in Washington to look as if he were following Laurent’s orders when he wasn’t. With SideMan in Acapulco, that would be a lot harder to manage, especially since Slater was coming to believe that his true boss had to be his own heart. His heart told him he must protect Phoenix from danger and everybody else be damned, if that was the way it went.
How he would go about protecting her was another problem. He could feed her some knockout drops and kidnap her, but he’d have a hard time getting her out of the country that way. Ordinarily, his D.C. contacts could arrange a back door exit from just about anywhere, even with a less than conscious travel mate in tow. Too bad they wouldn’t want to do that in this case. Their best interest was served by keeping Slater and Phoenix exactly where they were, and the types he worked for always served their own best interests first.
Maybe he should confront her straight on, tell her what he knew and why he was here and convince her to cooperate. He had a feeling that would be his only choice eventually. Then the hard decision would be whether or not to tell her everything, the official truth beneath the cover story about San Francisco and the undercover deal with Laurent. Slater had never thought seriously about blowing his cop cover to anybody before. As a matter of fact, he’d never even considered it half seriously. He could hardly believe he was doing that now. The difference was Phoenix. With her around, the undercover game and his attitude toward it had suddenly changed. He wasn’t even sure he still wanted to play.