Tonight, obviously, Ramón Solana-Ruiz was a Mexican official on Mexican soil, and we were a bunch of lousy Yankee interlopers, a different and inferior breed of cattle. But he was still Latin enough to take a moment out for courtesy.
“I apologize again for being forced to desert you, Mrs. Lujan,” he said to Carol. “I hope you had a pleasant dinner.”
“Very nice, thank you,” Carol said. “Mr. Solana, what about Gregory Henderson? Have you found him yet?”
Solana regarded her for a moment without expression. “There is a certain problem as regards Mr. Henderson. The gentleman seems to be armed. In making his escape, he shot to death the man I had left to watch him. One shot, señora, in the back. It was careless of the guard, of course, but at the time Mr. Henderson was not technically a prisoner.”
“I was going to ask about that,” I said. “How did you happen to have a guard on him in the first place? Did you suspect him right from the start, even before you came down here?”
Solana shook his head. “No, señor. I did not suspect him, not until after we’d had our little talk with him. He is not a young man who inspires trust, would you say? Listening to him, I was fairly certain he was lying; the evidence at Bahia Choya pointed the same way; and the medical report confirmed it. But I had already given instructions to have him guarded, for the simple reason that these witnesses seem to be, shall we say, rather ephemeral. They do not seem to last very long. I wanted to be sure of preserving Mr. Henderson for interrogation. Unfortunately, I failed.” He paused and looked from me, to Priscilla, to Carol, and spoke deliberately: “However, there are compensations. Once I have determined which one of you gave him the gun, I may be able to learn more from that person than I could have from Mr. Henderson.”
I heard Carol gasp. Priscilla, being a pro of sorts, made no sound, and neither did I. Solana, still standing, looked down at the three of us bleakly.
“Let us understand each other, my gringo friends,” he said. “Henderson was brought into town with his clothes half burned off. Nothing was brought with him but what was on him. His clothes were removed, he was treated for his injuries, and pajamas were provided for him, also a dressing gown and sandals. In other words, the man was stripped and thoroughly examined by a doctor, after which he was given new clothing and transported to the hotel. Such possessions as he had had on his person remained behind. If there had been a gun among them, he would have had no further access to it, and there was no gun. It follows that the weapon must have been smuggled into his hotel room after he was established there, by someone who came to visit him.”
I said, “Henderson told us he was beginning to feel like a monkey in a cage. That would seem to indicate we weren’t his only visitors by a long shot.”
“True, Señor Helm, but I have just finished investigating all others who entered that room, and while it is not possible to be legally certain they can all be eliminated, I am morally certain that is the case. Remember, it was not just a matter of slipping a message on a scrap of paper from hand to hand. A gun is a fairly bulky object, not something the hotel maid, for instance, could readily have concealed on a plate of food, or under it. But it could have been concealed in a camera case, Mrs. Lujan.”
Carol looked startled and indignant. “Really, Mr. Solana.”
He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “And it could easily have been transferred to Mr. Henderson, señora, by you or one of your companions, while he was being posed for your pictures—the pictures he was so strangely eager to have taken despite his recent, sad bereavement.”
I said, “Hell, that guy was a lens louse from the day he was born. You can’t prove anything by that.”
“Perhaps not, but the fact remains that of all the people who entered that room, you three were best equipped to smuggle in a pistol, and you had the best opportunity to deliver it to Henderson unseen.” He looked down at Carol. “I regret this very much, señora, but I must ask you to consider yourself under arrest.”
Carol’s eyes were wide and shocked. “But you can’t be serious! Why—”
“I am very serious.”
“But why me?”
Solana sighed. “It has to be you, Mrs. Lujan, by a process of elimination. Whether or not you are aware of it, Miss Decker and Mr. Helm are both U.S. agents. Both were introduced to me by their superiors; there can be no possibility of mistaken identity. Treason is always possible, of course, even among the most carefully screened operatives, but in this case it seems unlikely. Both were given the highest recommendations. You, on the other hand, are an unknown quantity. Who vouches for you, señora? Does Mr. Helm?”
Carol turned quickly towards me. “Matt, for heaven’s sake tell the man—”
I said, “You’re making a mistake, Solana. I’ve known this lady a good many years. I’m sure she’s okay.”
Solana had turned to look at me intently. I had a hunch he was trying to tell me something. He said, “You speak in your private capacity, señor. Are you not willing to vouch for her officially?”
I looked at him for a moment, trying to read his expression. Then I glanced towards Carol, but turned back to Solana, since that was the more comfortable direction. Actually, of course, there was no real problem. Mac’s instructions could have been tailored specifically for this situation. You will maintain your cover story, he’d said, with a perfectly straight face even if circumstances conspire to render it totally ridiculous.
Whether he’d been right or wrong in saying it, he’d said it, and he was the boss. I’d acted on my own in Mazatlán and he’d backed me up. Now it was my turn to back him up by following his orders to the letter, silly though they might seem—and as a matter of fact, they kind of fit in with the vague plan to which I was working. Maybe they even fit in with the plan to which Solana was working, which seemed to involve getting Carol away from us, either by buying her a dinner or arresting her. What he had in mind, I couldn’t guess, but I could try to find out.
I drew a long, harassed breath, therefore. “Here we go again,” I said to Solana. “I’ve been telling the lady for more than a thousand miles, and now I’m telling you: I have no official capacity. I don’t know who’s supposed to have vouched for me—” I looked him in the eye as I said it. “—and I don’t know why the hell you all want to turn me into a secret agent. I’m perfectly willing to give Mrs. Lujan the best character reference in the world, she’s a wonderful girl, but when it comes to providing her with a security clearance…”
“Matt, really! You’re running the gag into the ground. But if that’s the way you want it…!” Carol got abruptly to her feet. She spoke stiffly to Solana: “Will you let me get a few things from my room before… before you take me away?”
“Of course, señora.”
“Then let’s go right now, if you don’t mind!”
She marched to the door, very straight and dignified in her jaunty skirt and jacket, before Solana could respond either way. He glanced at us, shrugged, and followed her out. I heard Priscilla laugh a trifle maliciously.
“I don’t think she likes you any more, Matt.”
I said sourly, “Hell, even if I’d wanted to break cover, I couldn’t have given her a clearance because she hasn’t got one. Washington’s still checking her out.”
“Okay, but you could have said so. And what’s with this cover bit, anyway? If you had a scrap of it left after my loudmouthed performance this afternoon, Solana just blew it for you. Who are you trying to fool?”
I said, “You, sweetheart.”
She looked at me sharply. “What do you mean by that?”
I grinned. “Honey, I’m under strict orders not to give Mr. Leonard’s people one single thing they can use against me in a security way. That means you, doesn’t it?”
“Matt, you’re being ridic—”
“Am I? My chief doesn’t think so. Anyway, ridiculous or not, you will not catch me revealing secrets in front of any person unauthorized to hear them, even if they’re secrets every
body knows, like the identity of one M. Helm. You can spill them, Solana can spill them, but my lips remain firmly sealed. I am a harmless publicity gent on vacation until I’m told otherwise.”
Priscilla laughed and put her hand on my arm. “So that’s the reason for the comedy routine! Well, maybe you’re right, at that. Mr. Leonard would certainly like us to get something on you, after what you did to us in Mazatlán. Just between you and me, he’s a vindictive, stupid little pipsqueak with an ego as big as a house.”
I grinned at her. “What a way to talk about your employer!”
“Am I supposed to love him just because I work for him? Do you love the man you work for?”
I said, “Not exactly, but he’s not a pipsqueak.”
“So I hear. Incidentally, I don’t quite get your strategy, partner. Are you really throwing the Lujan to the Solana, or are you by any chance throwing the Solana to the Lujan? Personally I never trust those healthy-looking, clean-looking, pure-looking blondes. Is she really a professional photographer? She looks—and acts—like a movie star just playing the part.”
I said, carefully, “She’s sold a few pictures over the years. Quite a few.”
“But maybe that’s not all she’s sold, you mean?”
I laughed. “Don’t put words in my mouth. Frankly, I’m betting Solana’s the one to watch, but I wouldn’t make the bet very big. We’ll just have to let them sort it out between them and see what happens.”
“Well, we don’t have to do it here,” Priscilla said, rising. “I’ve got some mescal in my room. That’s the bottle with the pickled bug in it—the maguey worm, to show the stuff is made from the genuine maguey plant, whatever that may be. I haven’t been brave enough to sample it yet, but with a little moral support from you—” She paused as I helped her on with her ski jacket, and glanced up at me over her shoulder. “Or even a little immoral support,” she murmured.
I laughed, holding her lightly. “What do you think I am, Decker, just a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, from blonde to brunette? Hell, the love of my life has just stalked out that door, presumably forever. Give a man time to catch his breath.”
She smiled. “You don’t need much time. A few days ago the love of your life was lying dead on a hotel room floor, but you seem to have made a pretty good recovery from that passion. If we walk real slow, maybe you’ll have caught your breath from this one by the time we reach my room. It’s way up near the end of the compound.”
I said, “You’re a callous, disrespectful bitch. Just give me a minute to pay the bill…”
I left a generous tip for the little Mexican girl with the ready song. Outside, the wind still blew cold and sharp off the Sea of Cortez, carrying fine grains of beach sand with it. The leaves of the scattered palm trees in the parking lot rattled and clashed over our heads as we made our way towards the waterfront units in the dark, avoiding the black shapes of occasional parked cars.
Priscilla slipped a hand under my arm for support, as we fought our way along the buildings, buffeted by the wind. The other hand was trying to preserve her elaborate hairdo from total destruction. She stopped at a door and fumbled in her jacket pocket for a key, checked herself, and laughed.
“That’s right, the lock doesn’t work, like most things around here. Just open it, Matt.”
As I opened the door, I had the sudden feeling I’d seen this show before. There had been rain in that other scene and not so much wind, but this wasn’t the first time recently I’d come to a woman’s door by invitation on a stormy night…
“Just a minute. I’ll get the light,” Priscilla said, stepping past me to find the switch. I saw her recoil abruptly as the light came on to show the interior of the shabby room; then she’d thrown herself aside and down, shouting: “Matt, look out, he’s got a gun!”
It was Henderson, in badly fitting work shirt and pants he must have stolen somewhere; and he had a gun all right, one of those tiny derringers that are just about as low as you can get on the firearms ladder. Still, they are compact, and as one U.S. president found out the hard way, they will kill. The one Lincoln met was, as I recall, a single-shot job; this one had two stubby barrels, one above the other. That was about all that could be seen of it. The rest was pretty well covered by Gregory Henderson’s bandaged hand.
Well, I had a gun, too. After years of this work, you learn it’s bad business to ignore your hunches. I’d been slow in Mazatlán under similar circumstances, but I wasn’t making the same mistake here. I’d had the weapon drawn before Priscilla switched on the light—but another thing you get from experience is a feeling for when a man is going to shoot and when he isn’t.
Henderson didn’t have that cocked-and-ready, here-goes-everything aura. It was a dangerous gamble—my instincts aren’t infallible—but we wanted the man alive and talking, so I held my fire, and he didn’t shoot. We faced each other like that, at point-blank range, for a second that seemed much longer; then a gun crashed to my left and Henderson’s knees buckled and he fell.
I looked at Priscilla, crouching in the corner, holding a short-barreled .38 revolver from which trickled a wisp of white smoke. Her face was white, too.
“Were you paralyzed or something?” she snapped. “He was going to shoot, couldn’t you see it? Another second and you’d have been dead!”
I said grimly, “Considering the way your boss feels about me, I think it’s wonderful the way you people keep saving my life.”
“Well, that’s a fine way to talk after—”
“That will do!” It was Solana’s voice, behind me. “You will please throw your guns on the bed, both of you, and raise your hands!”
17
His voice said he had a gun, too. Everybody had guns in Puerto Peñasco tonight. I tossed mine on the faded coverlet—well, Vadya’s: the little 9mm Browning I was still carrying. After a brief pause, it was joined there by Priscilla’s .38 Colt.
Priscilla scrambled to her feet, and I moved over to join her, since it makes a man nervous to try to cover two people standing apart, and I had no designs on Solana’s nerves at the moment. Later, a little psychological warfare might be indicated, but right now it was more important to learn what the man knew, and what he was planning to do about what he knew. It looked to me as if he had just made a great big mistake, moving in too soon when there was no reason for haste, but perhaps I was doing him an injustice.
He entered the room cautiously, holding a pocket automatic very much like my Browning, except that the workmanship looked Spanish or Italian rather than Belgian. It’s hard to say what makes the difference, but it’s there. Behind Solana was Carol, her blue eyes wide at the sight of death—her second such view that day.
Solana gestured us aside, and came forward to take the guns from the bed. Pocketing them, he stepped back again, and spoke to Carol without looking around.
“Come in and close the door, Mrs. Lujan. Wait over in that corner, please. If anything should happen, lie down on the floor; you will be safer there.” His dark eyes seemed to be focused on a point halfway between Priscilla and me. “I sincerely hope that nothing will happen. There has been enough violence in this room tonight, don’t you think?” His glance touched the dead man on the floor for an instant, and swung back to us.
Priscilla said quickly, “He was lying in wait for us, Ramón. He was going to shoot. We had no choice!”
“We, Miss Decker? I heard only one shot. Did you fire, Mr. Helm?”
“No, but—”
“Why not?”
I said, carefully, “Maybe I’ve had a little more experience along these lines than Miss Decker. I had a hunch he wasn’t quite ready to throw the big, black dice. Besides, with that derringer, there was a good chance he’d miss if he did shoot. Those little things won’t hit a manhole cover at ten feet unless the shooter’s had lots of practice. I didn’t think Henderson had.”
That was a mistake. It’s always a mistake to show any intelligence in a situation like that; it’s much safer
to act totally dumb.
Solana pounced: “What made you think so? I thought you did not know the man, except for your brief encounter with him at the hotel. How could you know anything about his marksmanship? After all, he did manage to kill a policeman with one shot.”
“It must have been a lucky shot,” I said. I indicated the derringer on the floor. “If he’d known anything about guns, to amount to anything, would he have come here with that?”
Solana frowned. “I do not understand. If that was the weapon that was smuggled to him—”
I said irritably, “Hell, amigo, use your brains. Your man, the one who got himself killed, had a great big .45 auto on his hip, didn’t he? It was probably loaded with eight 230-grain slugs, real firepower. So why was this character running around with a lousy little .22 derringer holding two lousy little 40-grain loads, one of which he’d already fired? Why didn’t he throw the toy away and grab a real weapon from the dead man’s holster?”
Solana said, “I see your point, but—”
I went on without letting him finish: “It’s only movie and TV actors who run off leaving effective firearms behind so they can have their rousing fistfights without being hampered by a lot of embarrassing hardware—actors with bad scripts, and people with very little experience, who don’t think in terms of guns at all. When I saw that derringer, I knew that, murderer or no, he was just a scared duffer who didn’t really want to shoot anybody else. If he’d had more killing in mind, he’d never have passed up the .45.”
“I see your point, my gringo friend,” said Solana. “But am I to believe that you reasoned all this out the instant you found yourself facing an armed murderer? That is very quick thinking indeed, señor.”
I shrugged modestly. “And is it a crime to think fast in Mexico, Mr. Solana?”
He smiled thinly and didn’t answer the question. Instead he said, “Very well. To sum up: you thought Henderson wouldn’t shoot; Miss Decker thought he would. If he did shoot, you thought he’d miss; Miss Decker thought he’d hit.”
The Menacers Page 12