“Go ahead and talk. Get it off your chest,” I told her. “I know that you and Joe Talley planned to hijack Torran’s take and you crossed Torran by sending the wire to Brankis. I know which bus Torran took dressed as a fat lady, and I know the place he tossed the getup out of the gray Buick, and I know how you honked at the bus.”
It was meant to shake her. It did. Her face went white again. She sat down beside me on the bed.
“Who are you?”
“I’m just a guy interested in three hundred and seventy thousand dollars, sweet.”
She ran her fingertips along the back of my hand. “If I could trust you, mister.”
“How do you mean?”
“Wouldn’t I be a damn fool if I steered you to that money and then you took it all?”
I nodded gravely. “You’d grab it all for yourself if you could, wouldn’t you?”
She looked at me. “I need help. Joe was going to help. I’m afraid he talked to the wrong people. I’m afraid he was killed by somebody who wants the money.”
“Where’s Torran?”
“How can I trust you?”
“You can’t. But I think you’re on a spot where you’re going to have to trust somebody.”
She turned into my arms and caught her hand strongly at the back of my neck and kissed me. She could be considered an expert. The kiss was as smarting hot as the sauce that came with the one meal I had in Mexico City.
“It’s nice,” I said casually, “but it isn’t worth three hundred and seventy thousand.” I blocked the slap she threw at me and watched her as she went over to the bureau.
She picked up the bottle and tilted it high. Her throat worked convulsively for five long swallows. She lowered the bottle, said, “Haaaah”, tilted it high again and took three more swallows. She wiped her wet mouth on the back of her hand, leaving a smear of deep red.
“I’ve got to tell you,” she said, “because I’ve got to have help. Torran is sick. He got sick in National City, and he’s been running a hell of a high fever. He’s out of his head sometimes. That made it simple for me to contact Joe as soon as we landed. Joe made the arrangement for a house up the beach, a small place walled in and private. Torran’s there. The bad thing was not knowing how to get the money away from him. It’s all crammed into a huge money belt. Even sick like that, I couldn’t risk it. And I’m not killing anybody, even for that amount of money.
“Joe has contacts. He got some sedative and handed it to me early this morning. I couldn’t get it down Torran until noon.
“When he was out, I got the belt off him. I know it isn’t safe to stay here. I can’t get it out of Mexico without Joe’s help. So I hid it in the house and came to get Joe and tell him. Now I’m afraid to go back there, because if Joe talked to the wrong people and there’s another group after that money, they’ll be at the house now. If you come back with me and help me get the money, and help me get it to El Salvador, I’ll give you seventy thousand.”
“Half, sweet.”
“One hundred thousand. No more. Final offer.” The liquor had gotten into her bloodstream. Her lips looked swollen and she weaved slightly.
“Half, and be good, or I’ll take it all.”
She leered at me. “Maybe we could stick together, huh? Your money is my money?” She laughed. It looked funny to see her standing there laughing, because behind her I could see Joe Talley’s hand, palm upward, the steam curling around it.
She turned toward the bottle. I got there first. She cursed me. She clawed at my face and I slapped her so hard her eyes went off focus. Then she turned sweet. “You gotta help me, honey,” she said. “Gee, I don’t know your name.”
“Russ, sweet. Be good. Stand by the door. There’s prints to get rid of. That heat is going to make time of death tough for them to determine.”
I cleaned up and we left. A man was standing up the walk talking to a woman who stood in front of the neighboring cabaña. I turned back toward the door, waved, and said, “See you later, boy.”
Her face and eyes were empty as we got into the cab. She gave the address “Ocho Calle Revocadera.”
“You know the language?”
“Twenty words, Russ.”
I held my hands low and took a look at the automatic. It was a toy. Twenty-five caliber. Curly designs etched into the steel. The clip was full. The cab took fifteen minutes to put us by the gate in the wall around the house. She sat in the cab and started to tremble. “I’m scared,” she said in a low tone.
I held the door and she got out. I paid the driver and the cab went away from there. I looked at the gate. There was a chain for a padlock, but no padlock. I slipped the catch and pushed it open. The lawn was deep green, unkempt. Flowers straggled in wild confusion along the side of the pink stone house.
“What room is he in?”
She was shivering again. “In . . . in the back.”
“Did you lock the place up?”
“Yes.”
I took a look at the side door. The wood was splintered and pieces of the brass lock lay on the stone step. I pushed her to one side, kicked the door open and went in fast, whirling on balance, the way I had been taught. The hallway was empty, dim. I listened. The house was silent.
“Come in,” I whispered. She came in obediently. She was chewing on her lip. The liquor was sweating its way out of her.
“Where did you hide it?” I whispered, my lips close to her ear.
“You’ll take me with you, Russ?”
“Of course.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
“Come on, then.” She walked with extreme caution. I followed her. It was hard to walk silently on the gayly patterned tile floor. She peered into the next room and then walked in. Suspended from the ceiling was a huge fixture, like a fruit bowl. She pointed up at it. I picked up the antique Spanish chair from its position near the door and put it silently under the fixture. She put her hand on my shoulder and stepped up onto the chair, reached her hands up and around the edge of the fixture.
The flick of movement was off to the side. I turned, firing as I turned, my snapping shot drowned by the resounding smash of a heavier weapon. He stood gaunt in the doorway, wearing only pajama pants, his eyes glittering and feverish, black stubble on his face, his lips cracked and caked with white.
As the muzzle swung toward me, I saw the tiny holes appearing in his naked chest, all left of center. His left. The little automatic shot well. He tried to hold onto the doorway and steady the weapon. He trembled with effort but he could not stay the slow sagging of the muzzle. When he fired it, it was aimed at the tile. It smashed tile, whirred by my head and chunked into the wall behind me. His knees made a clocking sound on the tile and he folded awkwardly onto his face, getting one hand up but not far enough.
I turned toward Anne Richardson. Both her hands were clamped on the rim of the light fixture and her feet were still on the chair. But her knees sagged so that all her weight was on her hands, and on the fixture. It pulled free of the ceiling and she came down with it, hitting cruelly against the heavy arm of the chair, tumbling off onto the floor while the glass splashed into all corners of the room.
I knelt by her and turned her over gently and saw where the bullet had entered, just below the bare midriff, dead center, ranging upward. She gave me an odd little smile and said, “Tell . . . tell them I . . .” Then she chopped her heels at the floor so hard she broke the straps of both cork-soled shoes and they came off. She arched up a few inches and dropped back and died. I wondered what I was supposed to tell them.
I went to the front door and listened. There was no traffic in the road. The nearest beach house was four hundred yards away, and the sound of the surf was loud.