The street was crowded, but the gripe and fury and hate boiled up inside me when I saw him and I reached for him.
He said sharply, “Hold it. You want the girls hurt?”
That stopped me. “What do you mean, you little pile of—”
“Watch it,” he said. I didn’t like the casual, confident way he was talking. He knew I could bend him till he broke, but he said, “We told you to beat it, Scott. You got no sense at all. Now listen. There’s a plane out at seven. You be on it. You don’t want nothing to happen to those girls, do you?”
“What girls?”
“Vera. And Elena Angel. You kind of like that Elena’s pretty face — and things. Don’t you, Scott? She’s a real hot looking tamale. Be a shame if something happened to her. It will, Scott, unless you get lost fast.”
I wanted to get my hands on this guy so bad it was hard for me to think, but that penetrated. When it did, I started cooling down. My heart slowed and thudded heavily in my chest. But finally I realized he had me over a barrel. If I kept nosing around, I might get Vera and Elena hurt or killed. The thought of Rath getting his slimy hands on either one of them, especially Elena, turned my stomach.
Rath said, “You get out tonight, and we leave the gals alone.” He shook his head. “Sure hate to miss gettin’ next to that Elena, though.”
I grabbed him, jerked him to me. “You little bastard!”
He swallowed, but he said, “So help me, they’ll get it. Let go. Let go of me. They’ll get it sure.”
“All right. I’ll... quit. But if you lay a hand on either of them, I’ll kill you.”
He grinned. “Seven o’clock. There’ll be somebody at the airport to make sure you blow.” Rath climbed into the car and they left. I went back into the bar, got the bar phone and shooed the bartender away. It had occurred to me that Rath would hardly have been so cocky — unless he already had one or both of the girls somewhere.
Elena didn’t have a phone, but I called Vera’s mother, got Vera and made sure she was all right. I told her to stay put, not go out alone, then hung up, grabbed a cab and told the driver to step on it. Sick worry built up in me and I kept seeing Elena’s face, the dark eyes; I could almost feel the caress of her fingers and the cool pressure of her lips.
In Lomas we stopped in front of the apartments and I ran up and banged on Elena’s door. It was unlocked and swung open. The apartment was empty. One blue slipper lay inside the front door. One. Its mate was nowhere in the apartment. There didn’t seem to be any sign of a struggle, but in the bedroom I found a blouse and skirt, bra and panties folded neatly on a chair under which were shoes and stockings. The bathroom door was open and I went inside. The floor was wet in and near the shower, and a wet towel hung from the rack.
Elena had been here not long ago, had showered. But her clothes were still outside on the chair. They must have forced their way in and taken her just the way she was, maybe in a robe or coat from the closet, something to cover her nakedness. And I still didn’t have any idea where they might have gone. I knew I couldn’t trust Rath — or any of them. If I left on that plane tonight, no telling what would happen to Elena. But if I didn’t leave...
I went into the bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed. I’d already gone over half the town, asking questions, threatening, trying to buy or beg information, and I’d got nothing solid. There had to be some other way. I racked my brain — and thought of something. It was a two-digit license number that I remembered seeing on a custom Packard.
It took me an hour, and thirty-five hundred pesos, which was a lot of money, especially in Mexico. Over four hundred dollars, but it was worth it. I paid the money to a police officer and learned that the license plates had been issued to Arthur L. Hammond at an address in Cuernavaca — fifty miles away over a curving, dangerous road.
I rented the fastest car I could find and pushed the accelerator down all the way and kept it down except when not slowing down would be suicide. I couldn’t be sure Elena would be at Hammond’s, but it seemed likely. Chatita had told me Rath lived at Hammond’s. I remembered the other things she’d told me too, and I thought with revulsion, almost with horror, of Rath’s hands on Elena’s soft body, his knife at her throat... his wet lips on her lips and flesh. I kept the accelerator down.
It’s usually more than an hour’s drive to Cuernavaca from Mexico, but I made it in forty minutes. My watch said seven-fifteen when I cut the car lights and coasted to a stop near the big house where I knew Hammond lived. Three minutes at a service station, after I told the attendant the address, had given me the location, but three minutes were three too many. They’d know by now that I hadn’t left on that seven o’clock plane. I took out my gun, checked it. Driving had loosened my muscles, but the pain that had been with me all day was even worse, and I wanted to be able to move fast, without pain slowing me.
I took the morphine surette from my pocket, pulled up my sleeve and jammed the hollow needle into my arm, squeezed half of the morphine into my blood. I knew how it would affect me, that it would keep me keyed up, make me a little lightheaded, but it would kill the pain enough so I’d be nearly normal — and it wouldn’t slow me down or blur my brain too much.
I got out of the car and walked through darkness toward the house. The Packard was parked in the driveway. Lights burned in the lower floor of the house, and thick vines covered the walls. I walked to the rear of the house, feeling the morphine working, easing the ache. My skin tingled slightly.
I heard a scream, suddenly stifled. It had come from the back of the house here, above me. On the second floor, light spilled from an open window and I heard a short cry again — from that room where lights blazed. Ugly pictures crawled in my mind as I stared at the lighted window, then I walked toward the wall beneath it. Vines covered the entire wall, but I didn’t know if they’d support my weight. Like a lot of the Cuernavaca houses, this one had small terrazas or balconies at many of the windows, including the one I wanted to reach. I pulled at one of the vines, let my body hang from it. It sagged, rustling and scraping slightly against the wall, but it didn’t break.
I was a bit light-headed now, buoyant. I felt incredibly strong. And I was completely unafraid of what might happen to me. But there were no more sounds from the window above, and that scared me. I took off my shoes and pulled myself up the vines, finding spots to place my feet, straining upward with all the strength in my arms. It seemed to take hours instead of minutes, as if time had been distorted, but my outstretched hand touched the rim of the balcony and I wrapped my fingers around it, pulled myself up and then stepped over the rail.
I could see into the room, see part of a bed, a bare leg in my line of vision. I moved to my right, taking the .38 Colt from its holster. Elena lay naked on the bed, huddled against the headboard. There was fear in her eyes, and revulsion. The muscles along her flat stomach rippled with terror, and her breasts heaved as she drew in a frightened breath.
I couldn’t see anybody else. With the revolver tight in my right hand I bent and went through the open window fast. Elena jerked on the bed, rolled to one side and I looked toward her as I stepped inside the room. But even as I looked in her direction I sensed, more than I saw, movement on my right. I spun around bringing up the gun as Rath jumped toward me, his thin face twisted and ugly, and the gleaming knife in his right fist slashing up from his side toward my belly. Instinctively I thrust my hands at the slashing blade and felt it slice against my wrist, felt the jar against my gun just before it slipped from my hand and fell to the floor.