by Jack Barnao
He looked at me and puffed smoke like a cartoon strip millionaire. If he hadn't been smoking, he might have come over and given me a leisurely kick or two, but it was siesta time and he was sitting down, why rush things. Later he would no doubt have to dig a hole for me somewhere. Now he was going to enjoy the good life. I had perhaps five minutes left.
Twenty
I lay and listened for the sounds of other life in the casa. Maybe somewhere a cook was working on the boss's supper, or the other gunny was nodding over his comic book, but if they were, they were doing it silently. It was time to make my move.
"Señor,” I said, and he glanced at me and narrowed his eyes, clenching his mouth over the cigar butt. Muy macho. I changed the record. “Amigo,” I said, “tengo mucho dinero.” I have a lot of money.
This time he stood up and came closer. “Qué?” What?
"Tengo muchos dolares para usted.” That got him. A lot of dollars, for him. He hadn't counted on any bonus. He took another step closer, coming about six inches to the right of my bound feet. Perfect. I pulled my legs up and slammed both heels into his knee. I heard the leg break, and he yowled and fell backward, writhing to hold his shin. I bumped toward him on shoulders and feet and then raised my feet and brought them down on his gut, three times. Advantage Locke.
I listened but couldn't hear any rushing feet. We must have been alone in the house. The other Mexican must have gone with the lynch party, looking for Amadeo. I had a little time.
He was carrying a switchblade. I could see the outline in his right pants pocket. It was tight to his thigh but lying where the handle was in a straight line to the opening of the pocket. I put my heels on the other end of it and forced it out of his pocket, like toothpaste coming out of a tube. It took about thirty seconds before the knife clinked out onto the tile. Then I rolled and grasped it and pressed the opening switch. It flipped open, and I lay and wrestled with the ropes on my hands, praying that he had kept the knife sharp enough to cut under the small amount of pressure I was able to exert. Thank God for machismo. That thing was like a razor. It took only a minute and my hands were free. The loop around my elbows was connected and it loosened as well.
I sat up and slashed the rope off my feet, then picked up his shotgun and checked the action. It was a Winchester pump, loaded with double-0 buckshot, heavy enough to take down a bear. There were five rounds in it, one up the spout and four in the unplugged magazine. I reloaded and went out of the room, carefully, not sure whether any timid soul had heard me and sent for reinforcements. Nada. The luck, as Big Ernie used to say, she was running good.
I went silently down the hall, checking in each of the rooms I passed and out to the front door. It swung open and I glanced out. Thurlbeck's van was still parked where he had left it, at the front of the house. There was nobody in sight, but the gates had been closed. That could mean a head-hunting dog loose in the grounds. I stepped out of the doorway, checking all around, still nothing. It didn't seem likely that an ex-cop would have left keys in a vehicle, but I checked the van anyway. Hot damn! More luck. The key ring was dangling from the ignition.
It started, first turn. I continued around the driveway and down to the gate. When I got out to open it, I took the gun. This much luck wasn't natural. There had to be a dog somewhere.
There was, a Doberman lying in the shade of a bougainvillea beside the gate. He launched himself at me in a snarling black arc but the shotgun flung him back against the pillar, spattering blood over the light blue paint. Four shots left.
Discretion was wasted now. I gunned through the gate and down the switchback road, grateful to Thurlbeck for buying a van with a manual gear shift. An automatic wouldn't have held half as well on those curves. At the bottom of the hill I turned back to town and roared back through a cloud of dust, scattering chickens like a whirlwind.
Within seconds I was at Las Tres Marias, the hotel on the beach, and from there on it was town. I slowed and drove quietly through the side streets to the main circle road, then cut around town, at sixty kilometers an hour, keeping up with the other traffic, not drawing attention to myself. Then, at the other end of Zihua, I cut across to the road that led up the hill to Cuatro Vientos and the place Thurlbeck had let slip, the Parthenon.
As I drove I planned my next move. I wouldn't get away with smuggling a shotgun past the armed guard on the gate. Even if I broke it down and wrapped it in a blanket, any serviceman would find it. I would have to get in empty-handed. But how? As I drove up the hill, I flipped open the glove box. There were some maps in there and a couple of letters. I pulled one of them out. It was a businesslike manila envelope, a bill probably, addressed to Thurlbeck in Flagstaff. It had been only lightly sealed and he had opened it without tearing the flap. Perfect. I licked the flap and pressed it down as I drove. It looked official enough to get past even an English-speaker who would read Thurlbeck's name on it.
I planned to flash it at the soldier on the gate and tell him I had a message for Señor García. If I straightened up and adopted the air of a British officer, he would be hard put not to salute me. Perfect.
But at the Parthenon I got the biggest surprise of the morning. The joint was jumping. The steep, washed-out driveway leading up to the side gate was jammed with cars and vans. There was even a Mexican copper on duty there, waving people past the place importantly.
I pulled up next to him and leaned down. “Buenos días. Qué pasa?” What's happening?
He grinned and answered in Spanish too fast for me to follow. But the move was made. He was anxious to talk. I got out of the van and slipped him a folded thousand-peso bill. “Estoy con los otros,” I told him, I'm with the others. He palmed the bill and grinned again. He was carrying an old automatic, so worn that all the bluing had been rubbed off the frame. For a moment I was tempted to drop him and take the gun, but I didn't know how long I would be inside, and I couldn't risk coming back and finding a posse of locals waiting for me. I had no friends on the inside, it would be good to have some neutrals on the roadway.
I had already shoved the shotgun out of sight behind the seats. Now I left the van unlocked. My amigo with the gun and the free thousand pesos would take care of business for me while I went inside. When I came back with the hue and cry behind me, he would question them, not me. If I came back.
I walked up the driveway to the top. Good. García's Continental was parked in the opening to the Parthenon, facing into the gate. As I approached I could see that the driver was behind the wheel. He had the windows open, and his hand was sticking out, the fingers tapping to the rhythm of the tune on the radio. He was smoking, which probably explained the open window. García didn't want his car stunk up with anything except his own Romeo y Julietas.
I came up beside him and slapped my hand on top of the car. He stuck his face out of the window like a little bird, and I hit him a solid left hand on the nose. He fell back inside, and I slid in after him and chopped him in the throat. He gagged and gurgled, and I caught him by the throat and pressed my thumbs into his carotid arteries. He went out like a light.
It wasn't permanent. At most it would buy me a minute of his valuable time, so I did what I had to do, clinically. I chunked him on both collarbones, breaking them both, turning his arms into chopped liver for a few weeks. That would stop him pulling any stunts when he came around. Then I frisked him and took his gun, a Police Special, a .38 Colt with a four-inch barrel. It was loaded in all chambers and was worn shiny but looked cared for. There was a trace of oil on the mechanism, and it was free of the fuzz that accumulates if you don't wipe a gun down regularly. Polishing it had been his equivalent of beadcraft, I reckoned. He'd worn out the bluing with excess care. Good.
I shut the door and got out, the gun in my waistband under my jacket. Then I walked the five paces to the gateway and my first clear view of the big stone veranda that had given the place its name. It was crowded with people, all of them looking away from me, out toward the lip where I had seen the guard stand
ing that morning as I came down the hill. And the bulk of the crowd seemed to be gringos, some tourists, but a lot of them in blue jeans and baseball caps, the semitechnical types you see around film sets. The guard, still holding his M1, was standing behind them, wishing he was tall enough to see over the top. And then I saw why. Debra Steen, wearing a flowered sunsuit, was reclining against one of the pillars, staring up into the sunlight like an ancient Aztec waiting for her cue to cut somebody's heart out and offer it in sacrifice. The client and a photographer were crouching in front of her. The guard turned and looked at me, then came over, bossily. He had that old M1 of his under his arm like a gamekeeper looking after his lordship's pheasants. And he was businesslike. If he couldn't groove on the gringa, then he would, by George, be the best bloody sentry in the business.
I could tell that he wasn't going to buy my envelope idea. He had the same look in his eyes you see in postal clerks when they're going to close the wicket as soon as you reach it. And I had only a few moments to get in before the driver came around and started groaning. Then the bread I had cast upon the waters a few nights back returned. Answering some call from the photographer, Debra Steen turned into a new pose that brought her eye to eye with me.
I waved and indicated my chest and then the area behind the sentry. She was working, alert to every signal, and she picked mine out of the air. She excused herself to the photographer and trotted over to me, stopping every male heart in the Parthenon.
I smiled at her and gave her my anxiety through the smile. “I have to get in, Debra, it's important."
"Of course,” she said. She turned her charm on to the soldier and he melted like an ice cream in the sun. “Mi amigo,” she said and gave me a theatrical kiss. The sentry stood aside instantly and I was in. She led me forward, holding my arm.
"Thank you, Debra.” I slowed her down. “It's vital I get into the building. Can you help me?"
"You helped me,” she said, and led me over to the big doorway where another soldier stood. He straightened up when she approached and she said, “Mi amigo” and pushed me forward.
I grinned at the man and waved my envelope. “Communicación para el señor García,” I said, and he frowned, then nodded.
"Donde está?” I asked him. Where is he?
He stepped forward and opened the big wooden door and pointed down the hallway. “Muchas gracias, amigo,” I said, and ducked in. So far, so good. My head was inside the same noose as Amadeo's. Wonderful. Now to get the sonofabitch out before somebody tripped the trapdoor.
Inside was an entrance hallway with a floor of the same marble tile as the exterior. At the other side was a doorway that led down a corridor. The soldier watched me as I crossed the room briskly, as if I knew where the hell to go, then turned back to the lightly clad lady. I guessed he would rather see her in a swimsuit than me in my Savile Row three-piece. Ah, youth.
There was another soldier standing outside a tall heavy door at the end of the corridor, and I strode toward him and nodded. He spoke to me, but I frowned at him, a king pestered by a commoner.
"Señor García,” I demanded coldly. He nodded and indicated the door. I nodded curtly and pushed it open, shoving my right hand inside my jacket and onto my shiny new pistola.
Homecoming week! All four of them were there. Amadeo was sitting in a high-backed chair, shoved as far back into it as he could squeeze himself, while Blackburn and García stood in front of him. Thurlbeck was off to one side, watching the pair of them as they questioned my poor bloody client. From the look of his face, which was streaked with livid finger marks, they had already started slapping him around.
Thurlbeck looked at me and laughed. But he wasn't holding his gun, so I ignored him. Then Blackburn turned. He was holding his automatic lightly in his left hand. His right had been too busy adjusting Amadeo's attitude. I guess inflicting pain makes you feel invincible. He raised his gun at me, and I shot him through the heart. The noise was deafening in that stone-walled room.
Blackburn flipped backward across Amadeo's lap. García scrambled away, and Thurlbeck still stood calmly, looking at me without speaking. “Come on, Greg, time to go walkies,” I said.
Thurlbeck spoke then. “How're you planning to explain the bang to our amigo with the M1?"
"That's your job.” I motioned to García with the barrel of my gun. “Bring the Prince of Darkness and let's haul ass. Any explaining to be done, you do it. And make it good. If I have to shoot you and the other two guards, I'm still taking this guy out."
Thurlbeck nodded easily and turned to the door. “First thing, though, take out your gun and set it on the floor, nice and gentle,” I told him.
He reached inside his shirt and drew out the little .38, holding it delicately in his fingertips. “Put it down and scoot it over to me with your foot.” He did, and I bent and picked it up, keeping him and García covered the whole time.
"Good. Now open the door and make a joke about the stupid gringo letting off his gun. Okay. I want it to be funny enough for the Carson show."
He opened the door a crack, waving his hand in front of his face as if the smoke were choking him. I could see the anxious face of the little soldier outside and watched it widen into a grin as Thurlbeck explained that el stupido had done something or other dumb. Then he closed the door. “Now what?"
"Now we all walk out together and get into the Continental. The driver's got a headache, so you get into the front seat, the rest of us will be in back. And no crap, or you're out of business."
"Okay. It's done,” he said. He spoke to García in Spanish and the little guy narrowed his eyes.
"What's he telling him, Greg?” I asked, and Amadeo said, “He just said not to make any fuss, just walk out like we were leaving normally."
"Good. And don't bother picking up that pistol. You don't need one. I want all the guns in here to be mine,” I said. I shoved Thurlbeck's gun into my left-hand jacket pocket, my own into my right. It didn't fit too well, the barrel was too long, but my hand concealed it and I could squeeze off at least one round without catching the hammer in the material. After that I would have to pull it out and play for keeps. After that I would have to. There were three M1s between me and freedom.
Thurlbeck was good. He put his arm over García's shoulder and chatted to him like an uncle as we came through the door. I came behind him with Amadeo next to me on my left side. I didn't think he needed any threatening to come along peacefully. I prodded him and he closed the door behind us. Thurlbeck paused for a moment and spoke to me. “Santos here has been taking care of us. I figure we owe him a few bucks."
"Very generous of you. Greg, give the nice soldier boy some cash."
Amadeo was moving like a sleepwalker, but he responded when I spoke and pulled out a roll of pesos and peeled off a thousand, which he handed to the soldier. The guy grinned and told him “Muchas gracias, señor,” and Amadeo nodded gravely and patted him on the shoulder. If the soldier noticed the zebra marks on Amadeo's face, he didn't comment. Money has a way of making even the best of us shortsighted.
The hallway seemed longer on this leg. It stretched out ahead of us like the last mile of the Boston Marathon, but we walked down it with Thurlbeck still chatting to García, who said nothing, and with Amadeo breathing like a sprinter beside me.
We reached the end and crossed the entrance hall and walked out into the deep shade of the balcony. And here things got difficult.
Debra Steen was standing in front of us, her back to us, one hand on the shoulder of the guard, the other holding his rifle loosely. Beyond her the photographer was down on one knee, with the fashion-house guy beside him and the mob of spectators behind them, all of them staring at the fair Debra the way good Catholics stare at chocolate during Lent. I recognized Beth and Kelly and Helen from ten thousand years before.
As we came to the door, the client exploded. “For Christ's sweet sake, can't you people keep still, we're working here,” he bellowed.
García ignored him
and walked on, then Thurlbeck followed, muttering, “Excuse me.” The client slapped his hand to his forehead. We walked a few steps, and then I heard the clatter of boots on tile behind me. Carlos had opened that door. I whirled to face him and at the same time Amadeo swore. I snatched a look over my shoulder and saw the driver I'd clobbered reeling beside another man who was carrying a shotgun.
It was a toss-up. I did what the book recommends, slapping a couple of shots in the general direction of the guy with the gun. He dropped, but I didn't think he was hit, and he still had the gun in his hands. Then I spun back and pointed the pistol at Carlos as he pitched through the door, his rifle in both hands. I didn't want to shoot him. He was legitimate, and he was doing his job. So I bellowed at him in a parade-ground voice, “Alto!” Stop. Not as direct as “Hands up!” or “Freeze!” but languages come second to survival.
He got the message anyway. He skidded to a standstill and dropped the rifle. And behind me, only a foot away, I heard the impressive crash of another rifle going off. I spun back and saw the man with the shotgun sprawled sideways, his head leaking blood. Thurlbeck was holding the M1. “Run,” he said. “I'll explain later."
The crowd was scattering, screaming in two languages, but Thurlbeck half dragged García, still carrying the M1 in his right hand. I came after them, with one hand on Amadeo's shoulder, the other on my gun.
We tumbled into the car, Thurlbeck throwing García across the front seat and jumping in, keeping the rifle beside him. I had Amadeo in the back and Thurlbeck backed down the driveway and out onto the road. He spun to the right and dived down the hill toward town. I sat and loaded three shells from the little .38 into the big one, not bothering to ask where we were going. I'm like an insurance company. I don't question acts of God.
Amadeo did it for me. “For Christ's sake, which side are you on?” he squeaked at Thurlbeck.
"Same one,” Thurlbeck said, whisking around the corner past a burro laden with jerricans of water. “Sorry about the game at García's house, John. I'll explain later. I figured you'd find us."