“I didn’t mean—”
“You are strange, Six. I really like you. But you are very strange.”
“Yeah.”
Court was self-conscious for a while longer, even distracted when he heard footsteps in the hallway. But the footsteps melted away, and his inhibitions followed them down the hall.
He felt her small fingertips on his belt, then he felt it removed from around his waist. She unbuttoned his khakis, and he did not stop her — he just watched. When his pants were off, she began moving back up his body. She put her right hand on his left thigh, and he winced loudly.
“I’m sorry,” she said, then inspected his leg. Drew a delicate finger tip up and down the length of a deep cut that was, by now, nearly three weeks old.
“What happened?”
“Crocodile,” Gentry said, his mind a million miles from the Amazon tributary right now.
Laura laughed. “Crocodilo.” She said it in Spanish and laughed again. “I don’t believe you. So many secrets you keep.” She put her hand on his chest, over his heart. Then she moved it away and began kissing him there. “You can have your secrets, Six; you can hold them in your heart. But please make a little room in there for me, too. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said, and now he could resist no more. He sat up slowly, kissed her lips, and rolled her gently onto her back.
Her body felt warm and firm, but the tense, hard muscles were shielded by soft, compliant flesh. He felt her racing heartbeat, and it comforted him, made him realize that they were in this together, that she was not just dispassionately watching him like an instructor grading his actions. When he slowed down, she grabbed at him, pulled him forward. When he took a deep breath, she covered his mouth with hers. When he turned his head towards the door or the window, she took his head in her hands and turned it back to her. When he winced with the pain in his thigh, she just pulled him down on top of her and kissed him until the pain went away.
Until, finally, there was no more door and no more window. No more danger and no more pain. There was only the two of them, here, on a little bed and safe from all harm.
They made love for hours.
Gentry woke from a sleep deeper than any he had experienced in years. He felt the sun warm the bed around him.
She was there, wrapped up tightly against his body, her little face in the crook of his arm, her left hand flat on his chest. Her breathing, her body’s warmth, the smell of her skin. It was all amazing.
Court had not even known that skin had a smell.
She did not move. He looked down at her face and just saw her full lips and the tip of her nose. Her short, jet-black hair lay tussled; a small rubber band held the longest strands tight behind her ears.
He thought about Eddie, and a panic washed over him. Was this wrong? Emotions of romantic guilt attacked him from nowhere; he’d never felt this way in his life. He thought of standing at his friend’s burial plot, just there to say good-bye, and then, three days later, screwing his friend’s younger sister, the thing in this world his dead friend had most endeavored to protect while alive.
Her eyes opened, and she looked up at him.
“Are you okay?” he asked tentatively.
She kissed him. He forgot his panic.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Late. We need to get moving.”
“Where are we going?”
“We need a car. We need it gassed and ready to go. As soon as we meet with Pfleger and get the docs, we are heading up towards the border. We’ll sleep in shifts, go straight on through the night. We should make it by three p.m. tomorrow to meet with your family.”
“We are stealing a car?” she sighed. “You are going to have to help me find a job in the U.S. to pay back all these people for their vehicles.”
Court realized she assumed he’d be crossing the border with her family. He’d told them he didn’t have papers, but for all she knew that was something he’d arranged with Jerry.
Shit. He didn’t want to mislead her. But he could not tell her that he would be in as much danger in the United States as she was here in Mexico. New guilt hit him from a new angle. Did she only make love to him because she thought they would be together when this was over?
Was there any way he could be with her when it was over?
She squeezed him tight as she yawned and stretched.
“Do we really have to get up now?” she asked with a smile in her voice.
Court heard footsteps in the hallway. He tuned them out to answer her.
“Yes, we do. Grand theft auto in an unfamiliar city is going to require a little time.”
“Can we go across to la Iglesia de Nuestra Señora? Just for a few minutes?”
Court sighed. He should have expected that. Somehow with all the sex he forgot about her penchant for church.
“For fifteen minutes, no more, or we won’t be able—”
Court stopped talking.
“¿Qué?”
Silently he turned his attention towards the door across the room.
“¿Qué?”
He sat up quickly, grabbed the Beretta pistol on the side table. Aimed it at the door. It was half hidden behind the television and the chest of drawers. He cocked his head a little but said nothing.
All was silent for several seconds. Laura did not speak again, even her breathing stopped as she looked at the muscular back of the American sitting on the bed. She noticed a nasty scar on his left shoulder blade, but her heart was in her throat. Had he heard something?
Court did not move. Kept his weapon trained on the door, his head cocked for noise. He stood slowly, wearing only his boxers, turned his head to the right to get a look out the window at the street below. He kept his pistol trained at the front door.
He looked down onto Calle Donceles. A few parked cars, no traffic. No passersby. All was quiet. Too quiet for a normal—
Black boots in his face, dropping from above, swinging towards the window. He started to raise the pistol at the threat but he heard the door explode behind him. His gun barrel was swinging still, caught between the two threats.
The glass window crashed in; three feet from his bare chest and face, crystalline shards exploded, and the black boots swung in and hit him squarely.
Gentry flew backwards, the pistol left his right hand and he cartwheeled back. He caught a split-second’s glimpse of the federale who had rappelled through the window; the man had landed hard on his back but he recovered quickly, sat back up, and lifted an MP5 towards the man on the floor across the room.
To his left Court heard a second explosion, the TV and the chest of drawers flew across the room and crashed against the wall. Behind the wreckage Court saw men file into the room: two, then four, then six. Federales in masks and goggles with sub guns and body armor. They appeared more ominous through the haze of smoke from the charges that had blown in the door and the obstructions.
There was the crunching of glass as the rappeller scrambled back to his feet.
Laura was screaming.
Court raised his hands and spoke to her. “Don’t move! Do what they say! They’ve got us.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
It was hot on the floorboard in the back of the sedan. Three pairs of black boots on Court’s back, ass, and legs kept him facedown; the electrical tape over his mouth, the cuffs securing his hands behind his back, and the black hood over his head only added to the stifling conditions. A few times the sweat in his eyes burned so badly he cried out, muffled as it was by the tape. Each time he made this noise a boot heel in the back of his head quieted him. He felt the cuts on his chest from the window glass, felt the warm wetness of his blood and perspiration on the rubber floor mats under him. He tried to shift his weight forward to his shoulders to relieve the pain, but this just pressed his face tighter into his hood and made it nearly impossible to breathe.