by Tom Ardies
Marina looked at her date watch. It was only Tuesday. How could he have heard from Analysis?
“There were only two ingredients,” Prettyman said, answering the question for her. “One part hair tonic, the other part bullshit.”
Marina couldn’t find the words to reply. Prettyman had to be joking, and yet she knew, from the tone of his voice, that he very definitely wasn’t.
“I don’t know what went wrong,” Prettyman said. “I don’t even want to know. I’m just telling you, darling, that you have the rest of the week to get a proper sample to Analysis, or else I’m telling not only the Director but the Board. You’ll be out on your bony arse. Back at Bayer before you can say aspirin. Understand?”
“Wait,” Marina said. “Please. Let me …” The phone went dead and she sat staring at in disbelief. Bullshit?
Madly, she scrambled out of bed, running to the bathroom for her compact case. She opened it with trembling fingers and removed a vial containing a small backup portion of the sample air expressed to New York. She unscrewed the top and sniffed at it fearfully.
Yes. It was true. She hadn’t been imagining things before. The damn stuff did smell like it, and if Analysis claimed that’s what it was, then that’s what it had to be.
She slowly lifted her head to meet the ghostly image in the bathroom mirror. Who could have played such a dirty trick? Who had the filthy mind for it?
“Buchanan?” Marina whispered, already making plans for her revenge.
The face in the mirror nodded grimly. Who else?
In the swank Bamer, across from the Alameda, the second call interrupted Herbert, who was pulling the wings off a fly.
“Would you mind?” Herbert grumbled, passing the phone to Adele.
“Oh, up yours,” Adele said, thinking him a spoilsport. Why take out his frustrations that way?
The switchboard wanted to know if the Glasses were in for a Señor Terful, of Winkle, Herzog, and Terful in Hamburg.
“Sí,” Adele said, quickly putting her hand over the speaker. “It’s Terful.”
“Bully for you,” Herbert said. He ripped open another of the little bags and shook out the fly inside.
“This early? It’s only Tuesday …”
Herbert gave her a look. Wasn’t that wonderful of her?—knowing what day it was.
Adele took three fingers and made a dirty gesture.
“In your hat,” Herbert told her.
“Ziz iz Terful,” Terful said, coming on the line. “Iz zat you, Adele?”
Adele turned away—she would finish with Herbert later—and concentrated on the call. “Yes. How are you, Adolph?”
“Iz Herbert wiz you?” Terful asked, ignoring the pleasantries.
“Yes …”
“Goot,” Terful said. “I vant to ask you boz. Vy instead of ze medicine you zend me boolzheet?”
“I don’t understand,” Adele complained. “Would you say that again? More slowly?”
“I zaid it once already,” Terful said. “Twice times too much. Maybe you underztand vat I tell you now. I get ze real medicine ziz week or zomezing very bad happen to you. Zat zomezing very bad is you drop dad.”
“Now, hold on,” Adele said, but the phone had been disconnected, slammed down in her ear. She winced and tried to compose herself. Boolzheet? Terful didn’t make jokes, so the analysis was as he claimed, and what was much worse, he didn’t make idle threats.
Herbert waited until Adele let the phone drop back into its cradle. He could tell by the white mask of her face that they were in deep trouble. “How bad?”
Adele didn’t answer. She was trying to think. Who could have made the switch? Buchanan?
Yes, she decided. Wordlessly, she went into the bathroom, removed Herbert’s toilet kit from the medicine cabinet, and brought it back to the bed. She unzipped the case and removed his safety razor and unscrewed the handle and tossed it on the bedspread. Viewed alone it resembled the barrel of a gun.
“That bad?” Herbert asked.
Adele nodded and began to dismantle a toenail clipper with a nail file that was actually a screwdriver. Buchanan, she kept thinking, taking innocent bits and pieces and fashioning them into a lethal weapon. It had to be Buchanan.
The last call caused a plain black phone to ring in an otherwise vacant house in the Coyoacán colonial district.
“This is a recording,” a recording said in answer. “The Sandwich Shop is closed but the manager will be back shortly. You have exactly two minutes to leave a message. Beginning now.” Then a low hum started.
“Thiz iz Terful,” Terful said. “I vant you to lizten careful, Harry. I zuzpect ze doublecrozz in ziz boolzheet buzinezz. Your azzignment, if you vizh to accept it, iz az followz …”
A taxi squealed to a stop in front of the Geneve. Marina leaped out, threw the fare at the driver, and stomped into the hotel. She went directly to the desk and pushed in front of a guest who was registering. “Is Señor Buchanan in his room?” she demanded, her voice quavering.
The clerk confirmed that Buchanan’s key was missing from the mail slot. “Sí. He’s in 6B. The house phone …”
“I’d rather surprise him, thank you,” Marina said, pushing the phone away.
The clerk smiled knowingly as she marched across the lobby and down into The Jungle. You had to hand it to that Buchanan. As good as the high-priced girls. Entertaining at home.
Marina went through the bar like a soldier, eyes front, arms swinging, heels clicking on the tile. Halfway down the wide aisle she made an abrupt right turn, pounded up a short flight of stairs, and hit a swinging door full stride. It banged back and forth like a demented metronome as she continued her remorseless passage down a narrow hallway.
Noli, watching from his bartender’s post, recalled the drama of the previous Friday, when Buchanan had risen to such great heights before entering the lady’s service. Now he’d need all his wits about him, and more, Noli thought. It appeared someone wanted her money back.
Marina hammered on 6B. “Open up! I know you’re in there!”
Buchanan froze, his bag half packed, his meager possessions scattered across the room.
“Open up, damn you,” Marina said harshly. “I’ll smash my way in if you don’t.”
Buchanan edged toward the window. Why hadn’t he obeyed his base instincts and fled immediately? Now he had a mad killer at his door, blood on her hands, drooling for more. “Who is it?” he quavered.
“Ha!”
“I’m not dressed,” Buchanan said, desperately stalling for time. “Could you wait a few minutes? Meet me in the bar?”
“Ha,” Marina cried again. “You think you can trick me? I’m not sitting there while you escape.”
Buchanan eased open the window. “Escape? How … ?”
Marina hesitated. That was a good question. Here in the hotel’s old central core the windows of all inside rooms opened on air shafts. There was only one way the worm could get to the street. He had to come through The Jungle.
“Five minutes,” Buchanan prompted. “Relax. Order a drink. Is there any need to scream and break down doors? Surely we can discuss our differences like two civilized people?”
“Very well,” Marina said. “Five minutes. Not a second more.” She looked at her watch. “I trust you know what will happen if I’m kept waiting?”
“Five minutes,” Buchanan agreed. He slipped out the window and dropped the short distance to the floor of the air shaft.
Marina turned on her heel and marched back into the bar. She summoned Noli with an imperious wave. “Gin,” she commanded.
Oh, oh, Noli thought, disappearing down the stairwell. This was going to be rougher than he had imagined. Gin.
Buchanan worked feverishly, grabbing up all the rubble he could find, fashioning a precarious stepladder against the air shaft wall directly across from his room. He got it about four feet high and then clambered on top and lunged desperately for the windowsill of the room opposite his own. He locked his fi
ngers over the edge and laboriously pulled himself up and through. He fell inside and lay panting on the floor.
Marina took a table at the foot of the stairs leading up to the lobby. She positioned herself with her back to the wall and the whole bar covered. She opened her purse in her lap and fingered a newly purchased blunt-nosed pistol. Let him try to sneak by. Just let him try!
Buchanan finally found the strength to rise, slapping the whitewash from his suit, sucking at his bleeding fingers. He plunged out of the room and knocked on the door across the hall.
“Hello?” someone called sleepily.
“Sorry,” Buchanan said. “Wrong number.” He moved down to the next door and tried again. It was his only other chance. This—or The Jungle.
Marina swung around, alerted by footsteps coming down from the lobby, and found herself staring into two equally startled faces.
“You,” Adele and Herbert spluttered in unison. Having gone their separate ways in the Guerrero mountains, they had not expected to see her so soon again, if ever.
“You,” Marina said in rejoinder, wondering how two milksops had escaped without her guiding hand. She had imagined them still cowering under a rock.
This was followed by a long silence—further attempts at conversation seemed out of the question—and then Adele at last regained her composure.
“It’s, uh, good to see you again,” Adele said, smiling gamely. She moved down the stairs and glanced around the bar. “Mind if we join you?”
“I insist,” Marina told her. Did this mean what she thought it meant?
“Old times,” Adele murmured. She took a chair without waiting for it to be pulled out by Herbert. “You, uh, wanted to go to the little boys’ room, didn’t you, dear?”
Herbert was still trying to cope with the unexpected confrontation. “Oh, yes. I did, didn’t I?”
“Then why don’t you go now?”
“Herbert’s not going anywhere,” Marina said.
Adele looked surprised. “I beg your pardon … ?”
Marina showed her the pistol.
“Sit down, dummy,” Adele told Herbert. “There’s a banger pointed at your tool factory. You’re liable to lose a couple of nuts.”
Buchanan fiddled at the locked door with a plastic tab from his shirt collar. Why was it taking so long? he kept asking himself, sliding the tab back and forth impotently. Nothing else worked in Mexico. Why should a lock?
Finally, the door opened, so quickly that the momentum carried him into the room. He was about to cry out in joy—there was a proper window, the street beyond, escape!—when the door came slamming back and cracked him on the head.
“Oof!” Buchanan grunted, staggered by the blow. He had to grab onto the wall to stop himself from falling.
The fat Mexican who had been hiding behind the door was quite pleased to have things work out so well. He gave it another hard swing. Buchanan got another good crack on the head. This time he went down.
Marina drained her gin in one gulp. “Another,” she ordered, depositing the empty glass on Noli’s tray. “Anybody else?”
“Scotch,” Adele said. “A double. The Haig and Haig.”
“Make mine a double, too,” Marina decided.
Herbert shook his head. He wanted to keep it clear. Nothing.
Noli hurried away. Gin and a pistol. The makings of a disaster. He had to get a warning to Buchanan. Why wouldn’t the twit answer his phone?
“True Confession time,” Adele said, getting out her cigarettes. “I take it we’re all here for the same purpose? To nail that sonofabitch Buchanan?”
Marina nodded grimly. “He’s in his room and he’s had fair warning. One more minute and I’m going in after him.”
Adele lit up and shook her head. “No. We are going in, and I don’t want any arguments, dearie. Otherwise we shoot it out here.”
Marina fingered her pistol. “Remember I work for WHO.”
Adele laughed derisively. “Big deal. We work for WHAT.”
“Oh,” Marina said, the pistol suddenly damp with sweat. Winkle, Herzog, and Terful, the largest drug firm in Europe, and the dirtiest operator, too. WHAT would stop at nothing—it would use any means—to have first claim on Doña Otelia’s salve. “How did you get onto me?”
“Easy,” Adele said, still laughing. “One of WHAT’s Mexican contacts spotted you getting off the plane from New York. With your reputation, you had to be here for something big, so he got on the blower to Hamburg. Another telephone call, then a couple more, and Herbie and I got the assignment. We flew in the next day, and, knowing your modus operandi, which is to always use dupes as your cover …”
“I should have tumbled,” Marina said. “Everything was just too convenient. Our ‘chance’ meeting. The way we hit it off so well. The fact that you were so agreeably stupid …” She sighed heavily. “Why string me along? Why didn’t you just take over?”
“That was the plan,” Adele assured her. “You were supposed to be buzzard meat back in the mountains. But then you rang in Buchanan at the last moment and that made it one corpse too many. Yon gigolo isn’t the ordinary tourist. He’s been hanging around here forever. There’d be too many questions if he went missing.”
“So you decided to play it dumb all the way?”
“Why not?” Adele said agreeably. “There was no problem as long as WHAT got the drug sample at the same time as WHO. Who’s faster? WHAT.”
Marina had to admit that was true. She smiled faintly. “You must have been pleased with yourselves. Until Terful saw the analysis.”
“The shit did hit the fan,” Adele admitted. “How was it with Prettyman? Foaming at the mouth?”
Marina nodded and they both lapsed into an uneasy silence. What was so damn amusing?
“I propose a pact,” Herbert said after a while. “Instead of competing, what say we pool our resources, become partners? It strikes me as the only sensible thing to do. You know how these stories get around in the trade. None of us will work again unless we get the proper salve samples on their respective ways.”
Adele puffed thoughtfully on her cigarette. “Partners? Why not?”
Oh, sure, Marina mused. That would be fine until the samples were in the mail. Then—to ensure that WHAT kept its edge—they’d stick a knife in her back. “Why not?” she agreed.
“Then it’s a deal,” Adele said. “What say we go get the sonofabitch?” She started to stand and then sat down abruptly. “Oops. Too late. Here he comes now.”
Miguel Limón, the Geneve’s house detective, was marching Buchanan through The Jungle, his arm twisted cruelly behind his back. “I caught him!” cried Limón, who tended to the flamboyant. “I caught him in the very act!”
Noli came up from the stairwell and dropped his tray of drinks at the sight, his mouth sagging open, stunned beyond speech.
“Yes,” Limón told him, playing to the gallery. “Your friend here is the thief. There can be no doubt of his guilt. He broke into the room in which I was hiding.”
Noli shook his head. No.
“It’s true,” Limón insisted, increasing the pressure on Buchanan’s arm, twisting him around for all to see. “My persistence and patience have proved successful. The predator has been captured. Your rooms are safe again.”
Marina and the Glasses looked on helplessly. What could they do? For himself, Buchanan didn’t notice them, or anything else, his eyes shut tight against the pain.
Limón milked the scene for more than it was worth and then wrestled his captive up the stairs into the lobby. More glory awaited there, guests running from every direction, calling excitedly.
“It’s a trick, of course,” Marina said finally, taking command. “He knew I was waiting. He arranged this disturbance.” She cursed herself for a fool—never again would she trust the weasel—and started issuing crisp orders. “Quick! You two get on the street. I’ll cover this end. Don’t show yourself ’til he makes his break. Then hit him as hard as you can.”
A
dele nodded and pushed up from the table. Herbert scuttled after her.
In the lobby, all was chaos, Limón proclaiming his prowess, Buchanan protesting his innocence, the manager making more noise than both with his screams for silence. Adele and Herbert could hardly squeeze through the crowd to take up their positions outside.
Marina began to doubt her quick deduction. Surely the farce wouldn’t be carried this far? Now two burly police officers had been called in from the street. Now Buchanan was being handcuffed and dragged away.
No, Marina thought. No, no! The idiot couldn’t get himself thrown in jail. She’d never get the real salve if that happened. Desperately, she started running, fighting through the mob, but by the time she got outside, Buchanan was already in the back seat of a patrol car, being whisked away.
At the same time, Contreras arrived on the scene, complete with ambulance, psychiatrist, and two men in white jackets. What was this? Was he too late? Had his unbalanced patient already committed some crime?
“Follow that police car,” Contreras ordered, remembering his oath. Whatever Buchanan had done, the poor fellow was innocent, by reason of insanity.
Marina ran blindly to the first in a line of waiting taxis. “Follow that ambulance,” she ordered.
The squeal of its tires shocked Adele into action. She signaled for the next taxi and shoved Herbert into it. “Follow that cab.”
Harry, dragging his fake, built-up shoe, clambered into the third in line. Let’s see now, he thought. No mistakes. He had to get this straight. “Follow that cab following that cab following that ambulance following that police car.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Buchanan was propped on a stool under a harsh spotlight in an interrogation room at central police headquarters. Detective Lieutenant Guiot, head of the day shift burglary squad, hovered over him menacingly, his ferret face flushed with anger.
“You really expect me to swallow that?” Guiot demanded. “That’s why you broke into the room? You were being chased by a woman?”