I didn’t wait for more. Half a dozen partly-filled plates of food were on the table, some highballs. I lifted the edge of the table and the whole goddamn mess against Hammond’s belly. He tried to scoot back, but the plates and glasses slid off the table as it hit him, and food and liquor smeared his tan suit. The big goon on my left reached for me, but I was more concerned about Rath. His right hand jerked under his coat and before he had a chance to get whatever he was reaching for, I hit him with the side of my hand, hard, on his right shoulder. He yelled like a madman, his fingers spreading wide in pain, and then Hammond shouted, “Hold it! Rath! Kelly! Knock it off. Quick.”
I’d thought we were going to have a real knockdown brawl right there, but Hammond apparently didn’t want it that way. Rath hesitated, then obediently sat down. Kelly followed suit.
Hammond glared at me, eyes narrowed to angry slits. He brushed at the slop in his lap and said, “You’ll regret this, Scott. You’re gonna be goddamn sorry for this, you hear me?” He looked around the table and jerked his head, then got ponderously to his feet. The four of them left. Nothing else happened. It surprised me, but I didn’t worry about it. I went back to my own table.
A half hour later, after Vera had dazedly spoken with a track doctor in the emergency clinic and looked once more at Pete, we left. She didn’t break down till we reached Pete’s car. As we drove away she lay flat on the back seat, fingers clutching at the cushions and her body shaking with sobs. Vera didn’t want to go home, so we took her to her mother’s house where she’d be with her family. Then Elena and I flagged a libre, one of the taxis, drove to her apartment in Lomas Colony, and I took her to her door.
Before I left, she said, “Shell, you must be careful. It is very bad, I know, but go with care. Perhaps... another time we can be happier together.”
“Sure, Elena. I’ll keep in touch.”
She moved close to me, kissed me gently, lightly on the mouth, then went inside. In the cab again I told the driver to head toward the Prado. There were a lot of things I wanted to do, but first I was going to get my gun and strap it on. I knew I was going to get Hammond and Rath, one way or another, but I didn’t know how. Hammond had a lot of protection, power on his side, and you can’t convict a man for murder — or even fixing races — because he buys tickets on losing horses. I was still trying to figure a way to get Hammond when the cab driver yelled, “Madre Dio!” and grabbed for the wheel as if it were a life preserver. A big Packard cut close to our fender, ramming its nose ahead of the cab. The cabbie jerked the wheel all the way over to his right, jammed on the brakes so suddenly that I almost flew into the front seat. The cab skidded along the road, almost slamming into the Packard, and then shuddered to a stop.
We were on the Reforma, far from town still, and in a wooded section. Trees grew at the right of the road and there was little traffic here. One of Hammond’s bruisers was jumping from the side door of the Packard and starting back toward us, a gun in his fist. There were a couple other guys behind him.
I didn’t wait to identify them. I threw the cab’s door open and leaped out, started to run into the trees, but a gun cracked and I heard the bullet whistle by me. The guy yelled something at me from no more than ten feet away. I’d had it; there wasn’t a chance I could get into the trees before a slug hit me. I stopped.
I heard one footstep as I started to turn, but I never made it around. Probably it was a gun butt, but whatever it was, it was solid, and it landed on my skull. They were dragging me when I came to and when I tried to move they stopped and dropped me. Somebody told me to get up, and in a minute I made it. We were deeper in the trees, and my company was Kelly, the other strong arm man, and Rath. Rath stood in front of me while the other two grabbed my arms and slammed my back against a tree, pulling my arms behind me around the tree trunk. And then Rath started in on me.
He was methodical about it, but it seemed to give him a sadistic pleasure. First he looked up at me from his approximate five-nine and said, “You sure made a fool of yourself today, Scott. You sure made the boss mad. We oughta plug you, but too many people saw that beef. We’re gonna teach you to lay off us, though.” He grinned. “After this, we figure you’ll get a plane back to the States.”
He waited till he’d told me all that, then he hit me. He hit me in the stomach, but I was braced for the blow and Rath wasn’t an especially powerful man, anyway. The first time he hit me it didn’t hurt so much; but along about the tenth time in the same spot it was getting bad. Once, while I still had the strength, I lifted one foot and tried to kick him in what is politely called the groin, but he got out of the way. Then he took a gun from one of the guys holding me, and slammed it along my jaw twice. My legs suddenly weren’t strong enough to support me, and I sagged lower, my arms bending up behind me till it felt as if they’d pop out of their sockets.
Rath’s face filmed with perspiration and a little saliva drooled from the corner of his mouth. He kept grinning all the time, enjoying himself. He’d hit me and the air would gush out of my mouth; everything swam in front of me and finally Rath was just a blur of movement that meant pain.
I realized the blows had stopped. A hand ripped my shirt open and I tried to lift my head. Rath slapped me several times then said, “Look, Scott.”
My eyes focused slowly on the knife in his hand. I saw it move back and forth, then the point pressed against my chest. “See how easy to kill you?” Rath said. His voice was taut and excited, like that of a man in bed with a woman. “See?” he said. He pushed on the knife a little and I felt the point bite into my chest, slice through the skin and flesh.
I almost yelled aloud, tried to press back against the tree, suck in my chest and get away from that blade, and Rath laughed, pulled the knife away and held it before my eyes, let me see the red-stained tip. “So get out of Mexico, Scott. Or next time I push this thing all the way in.”
He ran the honed edge down the front of my chest, cutting the skin, not deep but painfully. Then he stepped back. The men behind me let go of my arms and I fell forward on my face, unable to stand. My cheek pressed against the dirt and I saw Rath’s pointed shoe leave the ground and felt it dig into my side, then there was a blow on my head again and welcome blackness swept over me.
I must have lain there unconscious for quite a while because it was nearly dark when I came out of it. When I tried to move I gasped as pain leaped through my stomach and chest. I bit my lip, grunting, as I got slowly to my feet and started trying to find the road. I could move only a few feet before I had to stop and rest. Finally I reached the Reforma and got a libre to stop.
“Get me to a doctor,” I told him.
Doctor Dominguez pressed the last wide strip of adhesive tape against my chest and said, “There. You don’t seem to have internal injuries, but we’d better get you to the hospital.”
“I told you I haven’t got time for that.” My brain was alert enough now; I simply hurt like hell. “Just so I’m not bleeding inside, doc, and nothing’s busted.”
“At least you should go to bed and stay there.”
I couldn’t explain to him that there wasn’t room in my mind for thinking about hospitals or beds. The fat face of Hammond and the thin features of Rath, and the white, dead face of Pete Ramirez took up all the room there was in my mind. I just wasn’t able to think about anything else even if I’d wanted to. And I didn’t want to.
Before he’d started working on me I’d given Doctor Dominguez the cube of gum still in my pocket, the Chiclet, and told him what I suspected. Half an hour after he finished bandaging me he had the other answer.