“It’s the only one we’ve got. When all you’ve got is a long shot, you shoot it.”
“How about putting men on that road where they want you to make the ransom drop?”
Oakley poured a drink and said, “And suppose they were spotted?”
“Use a plane, then. A helicopter. A balloon. Hell, it shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Why do you think they picked that particular road? It’s a narrow dirt road that snakes through the woods like a slalom course. You can’t spot it from overhead at all — the trees mask it out. And you’d have to post an army in the woods if you wanted to cover the whole road from the ground — there isn’t a straight stretch of more than a hundred yards anywhere along it. It’s up and down through canyons and hills all the way.”
“You’ve got to give them credit,” Adams said.
Oakley grunted and carried his drink back to the office. Orozco said, “They’ll call back. I just talked to a guy in Nogales about a suitcase.”
“Why go that far? We can use one of our own.”
“Sometimes this new electronic stuff comes in handy. It won’t hurt to have a bleeper in the suitcase.”
“Bleeper?”
Orozco grinned without mirth. “One of them Mission Impossible gadgets. Small enough so you can hide it in the hinges of the suitcase. It gives off a radio signal. You use a direction-finder to pick up the signal, and you can keep tabs on the suitcase. After we get Terry back we can maybe catch up with them by radio.”
“It’s worth a try. But whoever they are these characters seem pretty hip.”
“Sure. They may ditch the suitcase first thing. But I figure to take the chance. Can’t lose much except the price of the gadget. It’ll get here tonight. I told him to get amove on.”
The phone rang; Orozco answered it. The conversation was brief. When he hung up he said gloomily, “Focking Air Force.”
“They won’t disclose the flight plans,” Oakley said.
“It’s classified information,” Orozco said with a straight face. “Nobody knows where their planes are except them. And of course anybody who happens to be looking up at the time when they fly over. Security, you know?” He shook his head in dumbfounded exasperation. “Shit. If we had more clout we could probably force it out of them but we can’t push it too hard unless we let them know what’s happening.”
“Which we can’t do.”
“Earle Conniston picked a fine time to die,” Orozco agreed.
“I know a general or two in Washington. Maybe I can exercise some leverage.” Oakley sat down at the phone and began to make calls. It took him twenty minutes, at the end of which time he sat back in disgust. “They’re both gone for the day. They’ll call back in the morning.”
“Long time to wait,” Orozco said.
Adams, in the doorway, said uncertainly, “On the tape he played over the phone. Terry complained about how it was dark and miserable. Dark, she said. You think that means she’s blindfolded?”
“I hope to God it does,” Oakley murmured. Unsatisfied, Adams drifted out of the room, his thin nostrils dilating, his fists contracting.
Oakley got up and stared out the window at a seventy-dollar cow wandering past the corral fence. Behind him Orozco said, “With Conniston dead, what’s going to happen about the chicano land claims?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Oakley said absently.
“They ain’t going to give up their demands just because he’s dead. In fact, time his will comes up for probate, they may just challenge the whole thing in court.”
“Let them. It’s not my problem.”
“You’re the executor, ain’t you?”
Oakley turned with a snap of his shoulders; irritable, he said, “Leave it be, Diego. Let’s get this thing ended first.”
Under the padding of flesh Orozco’s blunt jaw was set. “There’s people starving, Carl.”
“They’ll just have to go on starving until we get Terry back.”
“And suppose we don’t get her back? Alive, I mean.”
“I told you. We’ll discuss it afterwards. Now drop it.”
Orozco’s shrewd eyes studied him. “Okay, Carl,” he murmured. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Chapter Eleven
The slow sleepless night spread acid through Mitch Baird; it ate away his dwindling hopes. His nerves, drawn fine, twanged with vibration. The lamp flickered on low oil; darkness condensed from the amorphous shadows like wolves.
By the back wall Theodore stood looking down intently at Billie Jean. He had a rubbery leer. They had spent half the night outside somewhere together; incessant sex was to them what opiates were to Georgie. Lamplight shone faintly on the surface of Theodore’s half-closed trachomic eye.
They were all on edge. Mitch sat near the girl Terry and wondered in a dulled hopeless way what would come of her, and of himself. She had retracted into her defensive armor; she lay on her side against a rolled-up sleeping bag, her legs stretched out, picking at splinters in the floorboards with sick concentration. Staring at the lovely symmetry of her legs, Mitch imagined her — naked, pink, tender. Protective fantasies drifted in his mind, carrying him on vague sunny flights of dreams in which he vanquished all the others single-handed and spirited Terry away and was rewarded by Earle Conniston’s generosity and Terry’s passionate love.
He felt weight behind him and twisted his head back to see Georgie edging toward the door. Floyd, sitting by the lamp packing things away in knapsacks, said, “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Bathroom.”
“You just went half an hour ago.”
“I can’t help it,” Georgie whined. “Maybe I got a bug or something.”
“Have you got diarrhea?”
“Uh — a little, yeah.”
Floyd watched him with a poker stare; finally he said, “All right.” He cupped his hand over the lamp chimney and blew it out.
Mitch tensed in the sudden darkness. He heard Billie Jean chortle. The door was a brief pale rectangle; it closed and Floyd put a match to the lamp. Mitch glanced at Terry — still picking at splinters, indifferent to her surroundings — and went over to Floyd; he squatted down and said softly, “What happens in the morning?”
“I already explained it once. Do you need a blueprint?”
“I don’t mean about the ransom. I mean about Terry.”
“Indeed?”
“She gets away in one piece. We agreed on that.”
“That’s your problem, old cock. I wash my hands of it. Why don’t you discuss it with Theodore?”
“Look, at least let me have the gun when you leave.”
“Maybe. We’ll see when the time comes.”
Mitch tightened his stomach muscles. “How do we know you won’t just pick up the ransom by yourself and keep going with it?”
“Leaving you holding the bag,” Floyd said. The idea seemed to amuse him. “Of course there’s Georgie. Part of the money’s for him.”
Unsatisfied, Mitch brooded into the lamp flame. Footsteps thudded the porch and Floyd blew the lamp out; Georgie came in. Floyd said, “Shut that door!”
It scraped shut; a match in Floyd’s fingers burst painfully before Mitch’s eyes. When Georgie had settled down against the far wall Floyd said, “We’ll have to have a little GI party, Mitch — police the area before we clear out. We don’t want to leave anything behind. Not even a Kleenex. Am I making myself understood?”
“Yes, sure.”
“You can take care of that while I’m gone picking up the spoils.” Floyd smiled spuriously. “Relax, old cock. Don’t take things so hard.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Maybe I will let you have the gun.”
Mitch glanced at him quickly. There was no figuring Floyd. But then Floyd explained, “We’ll be better off all around if Theodore isn’t left behind to tell all about it. After all, we can hardly expect plastic surgery to do much good for Theodore, can we?”