For a moment, I saw no one. Then Wegmann stepped past us and kicked at something in the corner.
"Don't play possum with me, Mr. Romero!" Wegmann shouted. "Here are some friends to keep you company. They'd like to ask you about an incident involving a gray Oldsmobile, haha!"
The bundle of clothing stirred and revealed itself to be a rather small man in a gabardine topcoat that was liberally smeared with the dirt and grease of the floor. His black hair, rather long, hung lankly into his face which- under the dirt-was quite pale except for some spectacular bruises. He had a small, black moustache. I was looking at the man who'd tried to run us off the road up in San Agustin Pass. I was looking at the M.C. of the Club Chihuahua.
XXIV
I didn't let myself try to figure it out. One thing you learn early in the business is not to waste cerebral energy trying to solve the problems for which answers are already available at the back of the book. Our cellmate, whoever he might be, would undoubtedly tell us his sad story in due time-if we lived that long.
In the meantime, flat on my face on the dirt floor, I was busy using all the old muscle-tensing tricks to get a little slack for my ankles, which Wegmann was busy tying up. He gave me nothing that could really be called an opening-which was just as well. It Wasn't him I wanted, but things were running pretty close now, and if I had seen a chance I'd have been very tempted to take it. There might be better ones later, but then again there might not.
"All right, Mrs. Hendricks," he shouted over the noise.
Gail hesitated and dropped awkwardly to her knees. Wegmann gave her a shove that dumped her on her face, yanked her legs out straight and lashed them up.
"So," he shouted. "Now, I will leave you… Oh, make no elaborate, self-sacrificing plans about sabotaging that generator as the hour approaches, Mr. Helm. There are fully charged storage batteries in reserve, adequate to operate our equipment over the critical period. Stopping this machinery will merely deprive you of light and heat in here."
He stood up and looked us over, went over and rechecked the bonds of the character named Romero and left us alone with the noise and stink. Well, at least we weren't freezing.
"Gail," I called when the door had remained closed a reasonable period of time.
She turned her head to look at me. There was dust on her cheek and a kind of hopelessness in her eyes. She said something, but I couldn't make it out. I rolled over once, which brought our faces close together.
"He had him killed!" she gasped. "Naldi. One minute Naldi was standing there and then… and then he was dec41 Like that!"
"Sure," I said. "Just like that. Now, listen…"
"You lied!" she cried. "From the start, you lied to me, tricked me, made love to me, used me…"
"Sure," I said. "And you lied to me, tricked me, made love to me and double-crossed me."
She stared at me for a long moment. Then she made a small, short, bitter sound that might have been a laugh. It was hard to tell with the noise.
She said more calmly, "He's going to kill us, too, isn't he? If we don't… What can we do?"
It occurred to me she'd come a long way from the pampered Texas beauty who'd frozen in panic in San Agustin Pass. Like most people, it had turned out, she had a lot of hidden talents, some good, some bad.
"Listen closely," I said. "Something Wegmann said makes me think we'll have company in here pretty soon, and I think I know who it'll be. When he comes, you blow your top. Flip it good, understand? You can't stand being tied up, you're revolted by this filthy floor, you're going crazy with the terrible noise, get it? Make a goddamn spectacle of yourself. Create a diversion. Okay?"
She hesitated. "Do you think… do you think it will work?"
"What will work? Don't worry about anything like that; that's my department. Try to be a real actress, glamor girl You're a woman in terror for her life. Don't think about your lousy pride, or your appearance, and don't, for God's sake, give one thought or look to me or what I may be doing. That'll wreck it instantly."
She was silent again. Her eyes studied my face for several seconds. Her tongue came out to moisten her lips.
"All right," she breathed. "All right, Matt."
I said, "And now let's get over and confer with the mysterious gent behind you. 1.1 you roll over twice, you'll be just about there."
"All right," she said again, but she didn't move at once. "Darling," she said.
"Yes?"
"You bastard," she said. "You lousy, calculating bastard."
I grinned at her. "You bitch," I said. "You dirty, double-crossing bitch."
She gave me a funny, shaky little smile, lying there, very close to me. Then she hunched herself around a bit, preparing for the awkward journey back into the corner. I saw her start and turn her head quickly. The man called Romero reared up just beyond her, having apparently made the trip while we were talking. His lips moved. I shook my head to indicate I couldn't hear a word.
It took us several minutes to get all three of us sitting up cozily, heads together, so we could converse above the engine noise.
"All right," I said to Romero, "let's start with you. You're a ham with a mike and a cheap tuxedo, telling the girls to take it off all the way. You're a lousy mountain driver. What else are you?"
"Listen-" he began angrily.
Then he checked himself, grinned and spoke one word.
I stared at him. I don't mean that it proved anything conclusively. In a government the size of ours, you can't supply a universal, reliable recognition signal for all undercover agencies; there'd be a leak somewhere. Anyway, I guess we just don't trust each other enough to put our lives in each others' hands, which is what it would amount to under certain circumstances. But there is a word of sorts, changed from time to time, and he had the current one. So, probably, did every foreign agent from Maine to California. As I say, it didn't prove a thing-except that it made a lot of things that had happened make sense at last. I gave him the proper countersign. His eyes widened slightly.
"Jim Romero," he said.
"Matt Helm," I said. We don't use the code names with outsiders. "Why the hell don't you watch where you're driving?"
"Why the hell don't you watch where you're kicking?" He grimaced. "My God, what a foul-up! Did you have any trouble with Peyton?"
"What about Peyton?"
"He's my boss on this job. I put him on your trail after I missed you in the mountains. He said, if he saw you, he'd have you watched until the time came, and then pick you up in the general round-up he was planning Just before the test."
"He won't thank you for the tip," I said. "He met with a kind of accident. I kind of had to jump on him with both feet."
"So he went for you himself? I figured he'd want the credit of getting those films back." Romero make another face. "Tough, aren't you? You and your damn big feet! Where was Peyton's Man Friday while this was going on?"
"Bronkovic?" I said. "Why, he was trying to kill me, but the lady, here, got to work with a blunt instrument in the nick of time."
"Bronkovic isn't a bad guy," Romero said. "Peyton you can jump on all day, as far as I'm concerned. I suppose you have guys like that in your outfit."
"Maybe," I said, "but we try not to give them quite so much authority. Just where did you come into this, anyway? What were you doing down in Juarez?"
He said grimly, "I was doing all right, until you people butted into the case, that's what I was doing. I had a swell cover as M.C. in the joint, and everything was going fine. Then, first, along came that girl of yours who went over-I suppose she was yours. We may have our Peytons, but at least our female agents don't fall into bed with the first handsome creep with a fast line… Well, never mind that. She was kind of a nice kid, but mixed-up as hell in both the sex and politics departments: a real naпve save-the-world type, fundamentally." After a moment, he glanced at Gail. "Excuse me, ma'am. I forgot. She was your sister, wasn't she? I heard you say so that night, up on the stage there."