He waited in the car while the fat man made his calls. He thumbed through the dossier on the Rymer group again but it didn’t hold his attention. He checked the time — just coming up on two o’clock — and twisted the radio knob to catch the news-on-the-hour. A plane crash in Indiana, an airliner highjacking in Greece, Russian rumblings over the Czechoslovak hippies, a Chinese H-bomb test in Sinkiang Province, terrorist bombings of government radio stations in Bolivia; and now on the state and local scene, Democratic gubernatorial candidate flays flabby record of incumbent Governor, newspaper strike continues, three-alarm fire in downtown Tucson slum dwelling. The newscast gave twenty seconds near the end to Earle Conniston; the tycoon had, the announcer said in his relentlessly smiling voice, “succumbed to a sudden illness during the night.”
Oakley switched it off, satisfied. Orozco came waddling back toward the car, got in and closed the door with a grunt. “Stay put a minute — I got to make one more call.”
“Qué pasó?”
“We’re gettin’ there... we’re gettin’ there. The Baird kid bought a ten-year-old Ford from a used-car lot in Nogales yesterday afternoon, not too far from where we found Terry’s car. The bleeper we planted in that suitcase showed up headed west on Highway Two across Sonora, toward Altar and Rocky Point. And here’s the funny thing. Terry Conniston went through the Mexican checkpoint five miles south of Nogales last night. Driving a ten-year-old Ford. Alone.”
“Alone?”
“By herself.”
Oakley closed his eyes momentarily. “I don’t get that.”
“Well, look here, maybe they planted the fear of God in her. They could have walked around the station while she went through it. Picked her up on the far side.”
“How in hell could they persuade her to keep her mouth shut?”
“I got no idea. Thing is, she did it. She can get anyplace in Mexico on that road, just about. It’s the main highway down through Hermosillo and Guaymas. Or she could turn right on Highway Two — the same road the suitcase took.”
Oakley tried to picture the map in his mind. “Where would that get them?”
“Eventually to Rocky Point. On the Golf of California. They could maybe hire a fishing boat there and head for just about anyplace. I sent a couple operatives down there in a seaplane. Meanwhile we’ve got two boys in a car at this end of Highway Two. That should bottle them up between the two ends of the road, unless they got through Rocky Point already and put out to sea — but there’s no sign they did. The bleeper ain’t showed up at Rocky Point. I’d hazard a wild guess they all rendezvoused together at some town along the road, Altar or Caborca, stopped overnight. They could still show up any time this afternoon at Rocky Point. Now I got to get back on the wire and give orders. You’re payin’ the bills, you’re the boss. How you want us to handle it?”
Oakley was still absorbing it. She’s alive. His contradictory feelings made him react sluggishly but finally he said, “We’ll handle it ourselves. The less your men know, the better. We’ll drive down there and follow their route — if we catch up we’ll deal with them and if they go on to Rocky Point then your men can keep tabs on them until you and I get there. I don’t want outsiders or police involved.”
“It’s your party,” Orozco said, and unlatched the door.
Oakley said, “Tell your people in Nogales to have things ready for us in an hour. We’ll need guns and a radio direction-finder to zero in on the suitcase.”
“Okay,” Orozco said. If he was displeased he didn’t give much indication, but he didn’t look overjoyed. He got out of the car and tramped to the phone booth. Oakley settled back in the seat. Whatever the outcome now, there was at least a measure of relief in the prospect of action.
Chapter Fifteen
In the heat Billie Jean sat with her legs wide apart, fanning herself with a folded roadmap. Mitch formed a loose fist, shifting his glance from her to Terry, who stood near the gasoline pumps under the concrete station awning.
Sleeplessness laid a semitransparent glaze over Mitch’s eyes; he had to keep blinking. Wracked by bruises and sore muscles, he contained his irritability badly. They had been stuck in this woebegone gas station seven hours.
The grease monkey came up out of the pit under the car wiping his hands on a filthy rag. He was a diminutive old man with the high-cheeked face of a pureblood Indian, the jet-black hair and old-copper skin. A broad grin showed the gaps in his teeth. “Oll ehfeexed,” he said happily. “Jew gonna pagar een dolors o een pesos?”
“Dollars.” Mitch’s hand plunged into his trouser side-pocket and crumpled a bill. “How much?”
“Eh?”
“Cuanto?”
“Oh. Sí. Cómo, cómo—” The mechanic counted on his grease-black fingers, his lips moving. “Cuarenta... dos... catorce... por ocho.” He frowned and shook his head, and suddenly threw his head back, beaming. “Doce dolares, por favor. Ees twelve dollars.” He added with an apologetic shrug, “Would be maybe not so mahch, bot hod to ehfeex the calceta and the pompa too, jew know? The, ah, the — chingadera, I donno the name een Eenglish, jew know?”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” Mitch muttered, and fumbled twelve dollars into the blackened palm. He wheeled past the girls and said crankily, “Come on... come on.”
He rolled the car on west through the rocky desert hills, wondering how long the old grease-monkey’s patchwork job would hold the water pump together before it burst again. He kept it down to forty-five most of the time, except on the downhill slopes, hoping the water temperature wouldn’t rise high enough to blow another hole by steam pressure. In the back seat. Billie Jean said crankily, “Jesus H. Christ. I never been so sticky damn hot in my life.”
“Shut up.”
Terry touched his arm but he gave her a stony look and she withdrew her hand. They limped west in silence after that.
According to the map they had picked up at the gas station, Caborca was a smallish town (población 5,000-7,500) on the Rio Asunción. There was, however, no sign of a river anywhere in sight when they reached the sign which said HEROICA CABORCA. The appelation, Terry explained, commemorated the occasion in the 1850s when a hundred Yankee filibusters had invaded Sonora, planning to capture it and annex it to the United States; they had been besieged here by the local populace, abetted by several companies of militia, and finally forced to surrender, whereupon the Mexicans had lined them up against the wall and slaughtered them with rifle fire, after which the corpses were stripped of gold teeth and rings and left naked to the village pigs and goats. According to legend it had taken more than a year for the stench to dissipate. It had been the high point, if not the only memorable moment, in the town’s four-hundred-year history. The severed head of the filibuster leader had been pickled and placed on display in a jar. It was probably around somewhere, still. The walls of the old Franciscan church were still pocked with bullet holes.