Corbett felt his chin and realized for the first time that it had been punctured. “So one of those guys stole the cash?”
“It cannot be far away,” said the blond lobo. “I am sure it was Mateo, now. Jorge was not the kind of man who would learn to pick a lock.”
A late splash of direct sunlight, penetrating far into the shed, highlighted the body of the little man, who lay with legs drawn up, his head lying in trash, one hand clutching the side of his chest where blood had seeped from between the dead fingers. His lifeless eyes seemed to be studying the sand in fixed concentration. “Mateo fooled me,” said the blond, once more taking keys from his pocket. “He killed Jorge to make me believe he was furious at another man’s treachery.”
“Why did he come at me, then? I sure as hell wasn’t a suspect,” Corbett fumed, trying to wipe blood from his chin.
“Who justifies a madman?” For a moment the blond held the Uzi indecisively, then pulled Corbett’s weapon from his belt and dropped the larger weapon onto an old fragment of doped fabric.
That shit would burn like wildfire, Corbett thought. That’s the time to go for this guy. “You wouldn’t have a cigarette.”
“No. Get in the car. You will take me to the airplane before dark.”
“Why not wait until tomor” Corbett began, but grunted as the blond drove a fist into his face.
“Because of you, everything has changed,” the blond growled as Corbett sagged against the nearest car. “You want me to delay and delay, but I will not. I know my people can find Black Stealth One, no matter how well you have hidden it. But if you show it to me” He seemed lost in thought, chewing his lip, then nodding as if to himself. “I can and will let you go. It is expected.”
“With the money.” Corbett’s tone was rich with insinuation.
A backhand slapped Corbett’s head against the car, leaving a bloody smear. “Yes! Shut your mouth and get in the car.”
“Only you don’t have the money anymore,” said Corbett, rising unsteadily on knees that did not want to straighten. “And Black Stealth One has intruder systems, pal. Very high-tech. It goes up like an ammo dump if I don’t give the right password.”
“Then you will give it,” said the blond, breathing through his nose now, and no longer steadily. “Or I will kill you out of hand. Now, today, as the sun sets.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Corbett replied. “Money or no money, you borscht-swilling asshole, I’d never let you lay a hand on”
The man moved as if to pistol-whip Corbett and then, as Corbett threw up his hands, kicked him in the groin with appalling accuracy.
Corbett staggered back and fell into a two-foot mound of trash with the gasp of a child with croup, doubled over in agony.
“I will simply have to do without you,” said the blond wolf, raising Corbett’s own handgun.
The burst of gunfire spun the man half around, flung him backward as he fell. He lay on his side, firing aimlessly until Corbett, on hands and knees, managed to stop that flailing arm.
The blond, wheezing through sucking wounds in his chest, licked his lips and stared up at Corbett, their faces two feet apart, lit by a saffron sunset. “One man? One damned American?” His eyes seemed to be begging for a denial, or for absolution.
Corbett gave it: “No. Your luck just ran out, that’s all.” He took his pistol from the dying hand. “There’s some honor in you, mister,” he added, trying to get to his feet, and only then did Corbett fully understand that a man had risen from the pile of corrugated cardboard between the noses of the two automobiles, holding a mud-ugly automatic weapon in his hands.
Corbett’s arms failed; he fell back on his rump, staring at the man with the Ingram. He managed only to say, “I guess I owe you one, Speedy.”
FORTY-FOUR
Corbett needed his friend’s help to rise. He sat sideways, doubled over in the driver’s seat of the little Escort. “So it was you I took for a Russian sniper out in the brush,” he said, his voice still husky with pain.
“I hope so,” said Raoul Medina, glancing off toward the shrubbery. “I hot-wired a dead Mexican’s old VW to get here from Regocijo, left it a mile or two out in the boondocks.”
“I saw it,” Corbett said, unable to keep his hands from massaging his groin, though it only hurt worse when he did.
“Looks like a wreck, and it is,” Medina muttered, holding the Ingram ready. “You too.”
Corbett looked up, saw behind Medina’s dry commentary, into his sympathetic gaze. Corbett fingered the ragged edge of his earlobe. It too was beginning to hurt, now. “I flew over Regocijo today. What happened out there?”
Medina outlined the Regocijo disaster, adding, “Fucking frito bandidos severed a hydraulic line when the main landing gear collapsed. Damn red hydraulic fluid all over me, I looked worse than you do. Cancel that, nothin’ looks worse than you do, man. I’m a little beat myself, still got some spruce splinters in my shoulder. By the time I came to and crawled out from beneath the wing there were three bodies lying around, the place was an inferno, and my only help had taken off in his car. Probably thought I was dead. All I salvaged was this little Ingram. And the VW at poor old Julio’s, a mile away.”
“You knew I was coming,” Corbett said, staring at Medina. “Why didn’t you just wait?”
It was Medina who looked away first. “I didn’t know if you’d make it. And if you did, I wasn’t sure you’d come to Regocijo. That’s the long and short of it, Kyle.”
Corbett shifted against the pain still radiating from his groin, tugged at the crotch of his trousers, then managed a smile. “You really think I’d hand the hellbug over for money, Speedy?”
“Not after I took the stuff out of the trunk while those assholes were beating the bushes,” Medina replied, saying volumes by what he had not said. “That little fucker in the corner? He nearly caught me out there. I watched this Russki hotshot, or whatever he was, lug the money back after your last pass, and I heard the trunk slam. They went out on recon again when you didn’t come back, so I nipped inside. I hit the trunk release down there under your busted balls, but I didn’t have time to scoot back into the brush. Had to stuff the cash in that garbage in front of the other car.”
“So you had a ringside seat for all this.”
“No choice,” Medina shrugged. “That Russki would’ve seen me for sure, so I burrowed under the crap in front of the cars and tried not to breathe.” He fell silent for a moment, gazing at the body of Karel Vins. “You know what I think?”
“I’ve given up trying,” Corbett grunted, supporting himself on an open door as he tried to stand erect. “Oh, man; this has been one rough trip on the family jewels.”
“I think those guys didn’t know about the inside trunk release on an Escort. Not even the Russki,” Medina said. “He sure didn’t trust ‘em. Listen, Kyle, we’ve got to clean up this mess and clear out of here fast. Are you in shape to bring the hellbug here?”
Corbett’s grin was wry. “Yeah, and I’d rather you didn’t see just how primitive my booby trap really is. You sure you trust me not to just keep going?”
“With the hand I’m holding, I’d bet millions on it,” Medina cracked. “I’m wearing gloves, but you aren’t, man. I can wipe down the car, remove your prints. Make this look like a falling out of thieves.”
Corbett essayed a step, then another. “That means we’ll have to hide one body.” He interpreted Medina’s frown as perplexity. “One guy has to be missing, Speedy; he’s the one they’ll be looking for in every whorehouse in Acapulco.”