by Alice Orr
“It’s from Sax,” he said and pulled his hand away from hers. “Let’s go.”
They left the bottles of cola untouched on the table and hurried to the Jeep. Slater was already behind the wheel with the engine revving as Phoenix ran around to her side and hopped in.
“Where are we going?” she shouted over the engine roar as Slater’s foot hit the gas pedal and they jolted out onto the road.
He tossed the note into her lap as response. Phoenix read the brief message. It told them to continue along this road from the cantina for approximately five miles until they came to a brickworks on the right side of the road. It didn’t say what would happen then.
Chapter Eighteen
Slater didn’t like the feel of any of this. He had no idea where he was headed. All he was sure of was that there’d be trouble waiting. He wouldn’t have minded that so much. He might not even have minded being on a road the map didn’t mention, but Phoenix was with him. That made all the difference.
Slater had a cop’s natural love for the special kick a little danger carries with it. As long as he kept the odds pretty much on his side, he welcomed the occasional adventure just to keep his blood moving and his edges sharp. He didn’t welcome anything about this morning. He didn’t give a damn about Citrone Blue or want to be tearing around the countryside after him. In fact, he was tempted to fake a vehicle breakdown and abort this trip altogether. Too bad he couldn’t do that and his job, too.
Slater had belongings strewn across the landscape in three hotel rooms—at the Princess, Las Tres Marias and La Escarpadura—none of which they’d ever officially checked out of. He was accustomed to picking up and moving on at the spur of the moment when an assignment called for a quick change of venue, but this was ridiculous. Phoenix, on the other hand, appeared to take it all in her stride. Even now, she just sat there next to him without comments as the Jeep bounced over the rutted road to God knows where. Slater wondered what kind of history could have made her so cool while he was spiking toward the opposite end of the temperature scale. He’d once had a reputation for being quick-tempered, but over the years he’d learned to keep himself under control. These days, he thought of his hot-headedness as a secret weapon he could whip out of his kit bag of tricks when he needed extra firepower. This morning, however, he was feeling less and less in that kind of control. Part of that agitation came from not having a gun.
The situation ahead was going to involve a confrontation. He’d bet his badge on that, and no smart cop goes into a fight unarmed if he can help it. As if to second that thought, Slater’s right eyelid twitched tightly, the way it had a habit of doing when he was about to make a big mistake. Sometimes he heeded that warning. Sometimes he didn’t pay much attention to it at all. This morning, he knew he had to do the former. One gun was in a faraway hotel room. The other was currently being buffeted by surf and tide at Pie de la Cuesta and probably had buried itself deep under shifting sand by now.
They should have stopped at La Escarpadura to pick up his spare sidearm on the way out of the city, but he’d had a strong feeling Phoenix would take off without him the minute he was out of the car. Nothing could bring Slater’s anger to fever pitch faster than feeling frustrated, like he did right now. He had to do something, whether it improved their circumstances or not. The alternative—letting events roll over him like one of those waves at Pie de la Cuesta—was unthinkable for him.
Slater whipped the steering wheel to the right and skidded the Jeep onto the shoulder of the road.
“What are you doing?” Phoenix cried out.
She gripped the window frame on her side to keep from being bumped out of her seat as Slater wheeled into a U-turn.
“We’re going back to town,” he said.
“What town?”
“The last one.” The name of the place had escaped him for the moment.
“Coyuca?”
“Right. Coyuca.”
“What are we going there for?”
Slater didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to tell her in a way she’d be able to accept that he was about to troll the streets of an unfamiliar village in a foreign country for somebody who could sell him serious firepower. What he had to ask her, whether or not he knew how, was for the means to make that transaction happen.
“I need to ask you a favor,” he shouted as the Jeep rattled and banged in and out of the frequent ruts he was hitting entirely too fast.
“How big a favor?”
Slater glanced over at her. That wasn’t what he’d expected her to ask.
“I want you to give me every penny you have with you.”
“Is that why you’re heading in the opposite direction from where we’re supposed to be going? Because you need money?”
“You’re not the only one who likes to shop.”
She didn’t smile, but another glance told him her expression had softened. She reached into the beige leather purse she’d been carrying by a long, narrow strap over her shoulder ever since they left the Princess. She pulled out a bundle of cash.
“This is all I have,” she said. “I have credit cards, too, and a bank card.”
“I don’t think there’ll be a cash machine where we’re going.”
They’d reached the turn from the riverbank road onto Coyuca’s main street Shabby buildings and not too well heeled people confirmed Slater’s guess about the bank card machine. Slater pulled the Jeep to the side of the narrow, dusty street and yanked the emergency brake handle to make sure they didn’t slide down the slight grade. He hesitated to take the folded bills from her hand, but he had no choice.
“Thanks,” he said and pocketed the money. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Their arrival in the center of Coyuca had not gone unnoticed. A number of nearby citizens had been watching the Jeep closely ever since it pulled to a stop. Slater imagined they had also observed the cash changing hands between himself and Phoenix. That might explain why a perfect stranger wearing a too-wide smile was walking toward Slater now.
“¿Qué pasa, señor?” the stranger said. “Me llamo Miguel.”
Slater figured out that the guy was introducing himself. Slater pointed at his own chest and said, “McCain. Señor McCain.”
Beyond that, Slater had no idea how he was going to communicate well enough with anybody to complete his transaction. His Spanish was really bad.
“Tenemos dinero para una pistola.”
The voice came from behind Slater. He whirled around to find Phoenix smiling at Miguel. She spoke quietly to him for a while longer until he hurried away.
“What did you say to him?” Slater asked. He had a suspicion what the answer might be, but he found it too good to believe.
“I told him we wanted to buy a gun.”
Phoenix stared up at Slater with a subdued expression, and then she walked into his arms. Right there, in the middle of that village street with dozens of curious men, women and children looking on, Slater buried his face in the sweetness of her hair and wished he could save her from whatever lay ahead. That he would whisk her away from here to one of those wide, white beaches she liked so much. They would bask in the sun and make love at siesta time. He would protect her from all things dangerous, or even upsetting, forever.
Then, Miguel returned with a crumpled paper bag under his arm, and Slater’s fantasy of peace and protection evaporated on a breath of tropical breeze.
PHOENIX HAD MADE SURE Miguel understood that she wanted a powerful weapon. She knew enough about guns to recognize that a revolver wouldn’t do. Ordinarily, she hated guns, but she’d left ordinary considerations behind long ago. She’d decided to take up with a man who had to be a criminal, and she had helped him arm himself, with no less than a semiautomatic weapon. She should have been surprised that such a pistol was so readily available on the streets of a small Mexican village, but she was from New York City. She knew that just about anything could be made available to anybody who had the price. She’d apparently had
the price in Coyuca. Now, she and Slater were on their way to a showdown. Citrone Blue was only an excuse for this test of who would win and who would lose, the bad guys or the not-quite-as-bad guys, Slater being the latter. Phoenix could hardly believe how calm she felt, like the stillness before a storm.
She smelled the brickworks before she saw it. The acrid smoke of kiln fires drifted along the road and hazed the sky. Piles of bricks came into view as the Jeep jounced around a curve in the makeshift road which had grown less and less drivable the farther they traveled from Coyuca. Beyond the neat stacks of adobes in orange earth colors row on row near the roadside, were two outbuildings. The larger one, set at a distance from the road, had to be the kiln shed. Smoke from the brick chimney made that obvious. The second building, small and off to the side, must have been the office headquarters for this little operation. The ground was flat and dusty but well ordered, as if somebody must sweep it regularly. Wheelbarrows lined the wall of the kiln shed, and a hill of sandbags had been heaped up nearby. Someone took good care of this work site. Still, something was very wrong. It was the middle of the workday, not yet siesta hour, but the place was deserted.
“Where is everybody?” she asked as they crept out of the Jeep. “Shouldn’t there be a work crew here?”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
Slater signaled for her to duck down behind the Jeep. He had his weapon drawn and was crouched at the alert as Phoenix sidestepped to stand next to him.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked.
“We aren’t doing anything. You stay here out of range behind this Jeep and keep your head down. I’m going in there.” He gestured toward the headquarters building that really wasn’t much more than a hut. “If I don’t come out in five minutes, take the Jeep and go for the police. You can ask in Coyuca where the nearest police station is.”
“That’s not the way it’s going to be,” Phoenix said.
Slater turned toward her with what she was sure must be his most commanding gaze.
“Please, don’t give me a hard time,” he said. “These people mean business.”
“I have no doubt that they do, which is why I’m going in there by myself.”
“Are you crazy? You’re not doing any such thing.”
Phoenix gripped Slater’s arm and favored him with her own commanding gaze.
“My instructions were to come out here on my own,’ she said. “Whoever is inside this place may have seen me drive up with you. That could mean Citrone is in more trouble than ever now. I don’t want to be the cause of him getting hurt any more than they may have hurt him already. That’s why I’m going in first, and you can back me up.”
“You are crazy. You could be the one who gets hurt.”
“They kidnapped Citrone and made him lure me out here. I don’t think they’ll hurt me until they have whatever they may be after.”
Slater studied her with an unreadable expression on his face. She wondered if he was thinking the same thing that had occurred to her, that he was in fact what they wanted from her, that they’d only brought her out here because they figured Slater would follow.
“We’ll go in together, and that’s that,” he said at last.
Phoenix could tell she wasn’t going to be able to talk him out of this decision. She shrugged, then nodded and began to move around the Jeep along the side farthest away from the building.
“Keep your head down,” he said sharply.
“Of course, I’ll keep my head down. Do you think I’m stupid?”
Still, she took his advice and crouched closer to the ground. At every second, she expected bullets to whiz over her head, but none came. She could imagine Sax and his henchmen inside, biding their time, maybe until they saw the whites of her eyes. She swallowed over the lump of fear in her throat and continued around the Jeep.
“We’ll make a dash for the building over there,” Slater whispered just behind her.
He motioned toward the side of the building across the dusty, rutted driveway from the Jeep. Phoenix took a deep breath. They’d be in the open there. She peeked up over the Jeep hood far enough to see the window in the shanty wall. Nobody was visible there. They must have ducked down out of sight when they heard the Jeep pull in.
“I’ll go first,” Slater said.
He moved- to push past her, but Phoenix darted out from behind the Jeep as fast as she could go with her body crouched low to make herself as small a target as possible. She couldn’t help wondering if she’d feel the bullet hit her before or after she heard it fired. She struck the building wall much harder than she’d meant to and breathing as raggedly as if she’d run the length of the yard instead of only the few feet from the Jeep. Slater was next to her in an instant
“Sorry about slamming into the wall,” she said. “If they didn’t know we were here before, they know now.”
“Never mind about that Are you all right?”
Phoenix nodded. “I’m fine.”
“I told you to let me go first.”
Phoenix put her finger to her lips to shut him up. She’d already begun creeping along the side of the building.
“I said, me first,” Slater repeated as vehemently as was possible in a whisper.
He surged past her, rolling along her body as he pressed close to avoid leaving the shelter of the building’s overhanging eaves. Phoenix felt an electric connection through her thin, tropical clothing.
“Keep an eye on the brick pile,” he said, pointing toward the stack of adobes near the road.
He was right. Somebody could be lurking there. She watched the brick pile and tried to listen for sounds of movement over the pounding of her heart. They crouched lower still under the window to be as far as possible from the eye line of the sill. Phoenix’s expensive linen slacks dragged in the dirt, but she didn’t care. She’d let go of the hope of looking her best during this vacation way back when they were being shot at in the parking lot of La Escarpadura.
Slater was at the corner of the building and around it at the same moment. A sudden flash of terror for him made her reach out to hold him back, but her hand clutched empty air as the words, Don’t go, formed on her lips. She kept silent andhurried around the corner after Slater, hoping that if she moved fast enough she might outdistance this new fear. She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the brick pile, fully expecting a crowd of bandidos, wearing belts of spare bullets across their chests, to come charging at her with guns blazing. Nothing like that happened, but she could taste the terror in her throat as if it had.
Meanwhile, Slater was at one side of the doorway to the shack. He gestured for her to take the other side, and she obeyed by flattening herself against the wall. She was amazed that her body could move so rapidly when what she really wanted to do was freeze into a petrified state. Slater clamped the butt of his gun in both hands as he surveyed the yard, following the path of his glance with the aimed barrel of the gun. Phoenix saw him tense, the muscles of his neck taut above the open collar of his polo shirt, the large knots of his biceps gone suddenly hard and flexing beneath the rolled-up edges of his shirt sleeves.
Before she had time to conclude that he was preparing to spring into action, he leapt in front of the closed door and his foot shot out with the sole flat to strike the door surface hard. The weathered planking splintered beneath his powerful onslaught, and one more kick sent it crashing open. Slater leapt back against the wall with his gun pointed toward the doorway. Breathless instants passed, but Phoenix heard nothing at first from beyond the shattered door. She wondered if that might be because her breathing was so loud there would be no chance of hearing anything else. Then, the sound of a moan sifted through her fear, and she remembered all of a sudden why she was here.
“Citrone,” she breathed and lunged for the doorway.
Slater was after her in a shot, but not in time. She was through the doorway and into the room before she could think what peril she might be putting herself in. Luckily,
nobody charged out of a corner to attack her, no gunfire rang out. In fact, the only person in the simple, sparsely furnished room was Citrone, crumpled and bloody on the floor. Phoenix darted to his side.
“What have they done to you?” she cried.
Citrone didn’t answer. His eyes had gone very wide. He lifted a trembling finger to point beyond Phoenix’s shoulder at the spot where Slater was now standing.
“Don’t let him near me,” Citrone gasped. “He’s one of them.”
Chapter Nineteen
What Slater had dreaded most was now happening. Phoenix was about to find out the truth—or at least one layer of what was supposed to be the truth, the most damning layer of all.
“He’s one of them,” Citrone Blue said again, his face contorting with the effort.
He’d been shot. Slater knelt down to examine the extent of the wounds.
“You stay away from me,” the old man gasped. “Don’t let him touch me.” He gazed frantically past Slater at Phoenix. “I told you, he’s one of them.”
Phoenix hadn’t moved since the first time Blue said that. She’d knelt at his side, staring down at him.
“You must be mistaken,” she said now. “This is my friend Mr. McCain. You met him at my hotel the other day. That’s what you must be thinking of.”
Slater could hear the plea in her voice. He could see in her eyes how desperately she wanted what she was saying to be true. He could also see doubt there and what looked like resignation, as if she’d been expecting something like this all along.