Pattern for Panic

A Shell Scott Mystery

Richard S. Prather

FOR KEN

Chapter One

I rested what seemed to be left of my head against the comparatively cool steel door of my cell and cursed Mexico, Mexico City jails, Mexico City cops, and a sad old horse's behind named Shell Scott—me. My hair is blond, almost white, and usually sticks up in the air about an inch; now it seemed likely the cops had pounded it down into my skull. I felt again to make sure I still had it. It was there, among my bumps.

There is very little to be said for jails in any part of the world, but the charitable thing to say about Mexican jails is that they leave much to be desired. What I actually desired was to get out, but from all the signs this might be my home from now on—one hell of a home for a Los Angeles private detective. I couldn't even explain that I wanted a lawyer, or a writ, or a gun, because I talked in English and everybody listened in Spanish.

My cell was dark and damp, exactly three paces long and three paces wide, made homey by a rickety cot—complete with blanket and some odd little bugs—placed near one cement wall, a comfort corner that was about the most uncomfortable corner I'd ever seen, and one small round window six feet over my head in the back wall. I was lucky; I had a cot. The cell door wasn't barred; it was of solid steel with a foot-square opening in it through which I could look. I could hear evening traffic outside on Calle Londres; a newsboy was selling his copies of El Universal; a man laughed, then shouted something in boisterous Spanish. It was Saturday night, and happy people were out on the town.

I cursed everything some more, and about the time I got around to one particular cop, he came walking down the corridor that led from the front office and open-air patio outside back to the cell block here. He stopped before my cell and grinned in at me through my steel window. In the dim light from the one unshaded bulb in the corridor, I could see the empty space in his mouth where I had knocked out two of his teeth. Even with all his teeth he'd been no prize: tall and thin, with protruding eyes, the skin too tight over his cheekbones, and an expression that said more plainly than words that this boy was not bright.

“Hello, you stoop,” I said. “I hope you swallowed those teeth and they bite hell out of you. I hope you get the Tourist Disease and bleed to death. Come a little closer. I like to hit cops.” He couldn't understand English, so it was O.K.

“Gringo bastard,” he said. “Keep it up. I kill you."

I blinked at him. “How come nobody speaks English till now? And where in hell is the other guy, that slick-looking slob who started the whole thing? And how about letting me use the phone?"

He stared at me blankly and slapped a long wooden billy against the palm of his hand. I should have known better, after what had already happened, but I had one hand curled around the edge of my little window. I saw his eyes flick toward my fingers, but I was too slow. He swung the billy in a short arc and cracked it against the knuckles of my left hand. It felt like he'd busted something.

I stepped away from the cell door and said, “Friend, I won't be in here forever."

He moved closer, still grinning. “Yes,” he said, “you be in here forever. I make sure. You be here forever.” He wiggled his billy at me and walked back down the corridor leading to the front office.

I didn't like the confident way he'd said it, but I didn't like much of anything right now, including me. I should have known that not even six feet two inches and 206 pounds of ex-Marine was a match for seven cops and one civilian. That miserable civilian was going to be a dead miserable civilian if I ever got out of here. My head hurt and it was hard to think straight, but I still had the impression that those other six cops had thundered up in a surprising hurry. There was something screwy about it, about the whole mess.

I rubbed my sore hand and head, sat down on the cot and thought about Amador Montalba, wondering if he even knew I was in the can. Amador Montalba: licensed Mexico City guide, good friend, fun to be with, and a guy with more angles than a geometry professor. He could get you a date—with a man, woman, both, or neither—find a roulette wheel, cheap silver, expensive nightclubs or dim dives, dirty movies or clean food, and so on and on.

I'd met him here several months ago, after finishing a case which had taken me to Acapulco. With the case wrapped up, I'd stopped in Mexico City for a few days of rest and relaxation, but instead of rest and relaxation I'd met Amador and we'd had a ball for a week. He was half a foot shorter than my six-two and three years under my thirty, with a round young face, a black mustache over gleaming white teeth, and a bland, honest, dissipated expression. With a highball in his hand he looked like a slightly plastered cherub.

Since then I'd seen Amador once, when he'd made a trip to Southern California. Two days ago, Thursday, he'd phoned Sheldon Scott, Investigations, my Los Angeles office, and asked me to fly down and meet him here Sunday afternoon. He had a client for me—maybe. Amador left half of it unexplained, and his somewhat scrambled English disguised the other half, but I gathered that a wealthy woman named Mrs. Lopez was in trouble and wanted me to get her out of it. Apparently Amador had convinced her I was the guy for the job, rather than a local investigator, but I was to get the whole story when Amador and I met her tomorrow.

The only other thing that stuck in my mind from the conversation was that Amador had mentioned the “comunistas.” He knew I'd spent quite a bit of time investigating the activities of comunistas, or members of the Communist Party, in the States. After fighting a war as a U.S. Marine, I'd begun fighting hoodlums as a private detective; so it was natural enough that I had tangled with Communists. Amador knew all that, but had failed to clarify on the phone just what in hell comunistas had to do with his phoning me. Naturally I was curious. But I was even more curious to know if I'd ever get out of this Mexican Bastille.

There was a chance I could. A small one.

I'd flown in from L.A. Friday night, planning to get reacquainted with Mexico City before starting on the Lopez thing Sunday, and after checking in at the Hotel del Prado had headed for the beautiful Bar Nicte-Ha downstairs in the hotel. There I'd met three pleasant and entertaining people from the States, Dr. Jerrold Buffington, his lovely daughter Buff, and a tasty dish named Monique Durand. We'd hit it off well, and I'd invited them out for dinner tonight at the Hotel Monte Cassino. But after that dinner trouble had started, and I'd been hauled to jail. Just before being shoved back here to my cell, however, Monique had trotted in, and I'd yelled at her to get in touch with Amador Montalba, who was in the phone book.

If she'd heard me, and if Amador was available, and if he had about ten sticks of dynamite, maybe he could get me out of this can. A number of ifs and maybes, but it was Amador or nothing. There wasn't a thing I could do now but wait, so I lay down on the cot and let the bugs bite me.

Half an hour later, at seven p.m., Amador showed up. A strange cop brought him to the cell and Amador stopped outside and looked in at me curiously, shaking his head back and forth and making a clucking sound with his tongue. His black mustache wiggled as he smiled, entirely too happily, it seemed to me.

“Muy funny,” Amador said. “I laugh, ja, ja. You on the wrong side, ain't you?"

“Pal,” I said, “in spite of your perverted sense of humor, I'm glad to see you. Monique called you, huh?"

“Some gal phoned and yelped you were in the cárcel. I figure I have to see this.” He grinned at me and stuck out his hand.

I shook it through the window while the cop watched us. Amador was a real nice guy—at least from my point of view. Some might say his morals needed patching, but I figured he was just more uninhibited than most of us.

I said, “What the hell have they got me charged with?"

“Just about everything. What happened?"

I told him about the brawl with the smart civilian bruiser, the cop, and then the seven cops, while Amador shook his head. He was frowning now.

He said, “You had to knock out his teeth? You know who he is? This is Emilio, the Captain of Police. No matter who is wrong, the Captain is right."

“Not so good?"

“Not so good? Man, is terrible. I can't do nothing for you. Maybe the President could, but not me."

He got out cigarettes and gave me one. Mine were up at the desk with all the rest of my stuff, including belt and shoestrings. I hadn't been wearing my gun, not for a pleasant dinner at Monte Cassino with Dr. Buffington and two gorgeous gals. But remembering my conversation with the doctor, and the funny business before the fight started, I could feel uneasiness growing in me.

“Do me a favor, Amador,” I said. “Phone the Hotel del Prado and see if Doctor Buffington and his daughter are there. Tell them what happened to me, huh?"

“Sure,” he said. “Un momentito."

It took him about five minutes. He looked sort of puzzled when he came back.

“You get them?” I asked.

“Got the girl. What's coming off here, Shell? This Susan—that's her name?"

I nodded. Her name was Susan, but she was called Buff, which fit her better. The doctor's daughter was a doll.

Amador went on, “She was about to go off in many directions—all excited. She doesn't know where the doctor is, said he hadn't showed up. Wanted to know if you were all right, and if her dad was with you."

I didn't like that at all. Finally I said, “I've got to get out of this stinking jail. Hell, man, don't you know somebody—A lawyer can spring me, can't he? Get me a lawyer."

He shook his head. “Not tonight. Maybe not for many nights. This is straight from Captain Emilio—and don't tell me he can't do it. He dislikes you. I don't know anyone with enough pull...” He stopped. “Wait a minute. Maybe I do.” He grabbed the right half of his mustache and played with it, squinting. “We haven't talked yet about why I bring you down here—"

“The hell with that, Amador. First things first. After I spring out of—"

“No, is important. Could you find a sexy movie, a real dirty movie film, here in Mexico City?"

“Sure, I'll hire a guide and tell him I want to see dirty movies—"

He lifted a hand. “I'm serious, amigo. And I mean one reel of movie, one specific film, of one specific woman."

“How do I know? Hell, I don't even speak the language."

He shrugged. “So you don't want out."

“O.K.,” I said. “Get me clear of this trap and I'll find the missing link. You serious?"

“Sí. This gal has got the pull. Well, I go see the Countess.” He turned on his heel and started walking back toward the desk.

“Hey,” I yelled. “Wait a minute.” He stopped and I said, “What gal? What are you talking about? Countess? You feel all right, don't you? This is the jail, isn't it?"

He grinned. “It is the jail, all right. But I get you out—maybe.” He squinted at me. “Hey, you know, this Countess, she's what you call a classy vegetable."

“Tomato?"

“Sí. She's a tomato.” He curved his hands in the air and whistled through his teeth. “As you will observe—if she agrees to come to this dump.” His grin widened. “Oh, she is Mrs. Lopez, the one I bring you down here to see—she is the tomato in the pictures."

Then he walked down the corridor and out of sight.

I reached up and felt my head. Maybe I'd been hit harder than I thought. After a while I stopped trying to figure it out and flopped on the cot, thinking how pleasant life had seemed a couple of hours ago and how dismal it appeared at the moment.

How in hell had I got from the charming lounge of the Monte Cassino to this most uncharming clink?

Chapter Two

I remembered it had been about five p.m. and there was enough pulchritude at our table in the Monte Cassino Lounge so that my eyes shouldn't have wandered.

Buff sat opposite me next to her father, the Doc, and Monique was close on my right. Either one of the gals had plenty to occupy a man's attention for hours or years, but they were sitting still and I happened to see this cigarette girl in motion, which is an entirely inadequate word for the way she walked.

Instead of hip joints she apparently had ball bearings, and she oozed past the table calling softly, “Cigarettes? Cigarros? Cigarettes?” in a voice that could have sold hashish. The ball-bearing portion of her anatomy was only half of it, and it was a moot question which half was more interesting in motion, because the upper half was a staggering affair in a loose and extremely low-cut something which remotely resembled a blouse. She was carrying a cigarette tray in front of her, which seemed like a good thing, just in case.

Monique pinched my leg.

“Ah,” I said, “hello. I think I'm out of cigarettes. Anybody want cigarettes? Monique? Buff? Doctor? Pack of Belmonts?"

Buff rested her chin in a cupped palm and leaned forward, a strand of blonde hair drooping over one gray eye. “Shell, you've got half a pack left,” she said, smiling. “So pay attention. To us."

“Well ... I smoke fast,” I said, and glanced at Monique. She had her tongue stuck into one cheek and her left eyebrow was raised a quarter of an inch.

There was quite a contrast between the two gals. Buff was fair, soft, mischievous, a young nineteen. White skin and ash-gray eyes with a smile in them, long blonde hair and a bright red mouth with laughter always behind it. She wasn't really beautiful, just fresh and healthy and happy looking—and with a body you'd never see in Vogue but which would be right at home in Playboy.

In a way I thought of Buff as “light” and Monique as “dark.” It was more than Monique's short-cut, crisply waving black hair and the direct glance of her dark green eyes. It was a darkness and a kind of smoldering tension inside her, the droop of a heavy lower lip, the scarlet splash of those bruised-looking lips. And right now it was the way she looked at me, tongue moving against the inside of her cheek. If Buff made me think of spring, of young things swelling with life and growing, Monique made me think of summer, and all that heat. She just plain looked hotter than hell.

“You obscenity,” she said. “What were you thinking?"

“When?"

“You know when."

“Uh-huh. And you know what. Drink your milk like a good girl."

“It's Scotch. And I'm not a good girl."

I had a hunch she wasn't kidding, but I didn't know her well enough to be sure—yet. She'd come to Mexico with the Buffingtons, and though I knew she and Buff had met at a party in Glendale, California, and had known each other less then two months, they acted like sisters. Not, of course, my sisters.

The doctor, a biochemist and research worker specializing in the investigation of communicable diseases at the Southwest Medical Institute near my stamping grounds, Los Angeles, was short and thin, with a wrinkled face and stubby goatee that made him look older than his fifty years. He was bald, and the goatee made his face appear remarkably long and narrow, and as if all his hair had slipped down to his chin.

His wife had died two years earlier, of spinal paralytic polio, after receiving three shots of the Salk vaccine. Her death had had two effects on the doctor. He had concentrated all his efforts upon his own intensive investigation of poliomyelitis, and he had transferred all his love for his dead wife to their only child, Buff.

I grinned at her. “Hi, Buff. Where were we?"

“Oh, you and Dad were ignoring us, lunging at each other's throats."

She exaggerated. We had been arguing, but pleasantly. Doctor Buffington was well known in the States, not only as a man of science but as a peace-at-any-price pacifist, a modern “liberal” and egghead; and he was always shooting off his mouth on subjects he knew nothing about. Because he was a whiz at cooking gunk in test tubes, a whole gang of people assumed he was also a whiz in practically any other field—as though experts on the sex life of crocodiles automatically become experts on tapestry-weaving or bridge-building. But I once met an expert on the sex life of crocodiles, and he didn't even know beans about alligators.

I liked Buffington, though. He was eloquent, charming, literate, an easy and pleasant conversationalist, a nice guy. Despite the fact that I liked him personally, and despite his obvious sincerity and intellect, I considered him to be, like many eggheads of my experience, something of a fathead.

Perhaps because his work was concerned with saving lives, he had for years taken every opportunity offered him to protest armament races, the Bomb, international tensions, war itself. After one major speech a couple of years back, in which he had urged America to love its Russian brother, he'd made a Time cover. A few weeks later, Life had done four pages on him, praising his “courage and humble humanitarianism,” and it seemed to sort of unhinge him. Since then he'd raced about in near desperation, mounting platforms and shooting off his mouth like a toothy cannon. He had let go another salvo today, and that's what we'd been arguing about.

The doctor was combining a September vacation in Mexico City with the opportunity to make an address here before a meeting of the International Legion for Peace, the ILP. Earlier this afternoon he'd delivered that address at the Bellas Artes, and Buff, Monique, and I had been in the audience. His address had been on the necessity for “Peaceful Coexistence” with Russia, which to anybody with kindergarten knowledge of the Communist conspiracy is a contradiction in terms—and the doctor and I had been batting that around, too. He was on his fourth highball, and having at me quite freely.

“Doc,” I said, “it was sure a rousing speech. You really know how to sling the stuff around. But it was a golden voice and words of brass, the same tired old peaceful-coexistence garbage—"

He interrupted me, yanking on his goatee and glowering at me from pale blue eyes. “That's the trouble with you! Angry, always angry—violence—"

“Who's angry?"

“But must you always speak with such insufferable bluntness?"

“There's another way?"

“Shell, be serious. We must coexist—don't you believe Khrushchev sincerely wants peace?"

“Sure.” He blinked, surprised. I grinned. “Only he means something else by the word. Look, a Commie says to his neighbor, ‘I'm for peace, pal. Give me your house, money, wife, furniture, and old light bulbs, and we'll have peace. Otherwise I'll thump you on the head and take them.’ And if the neighbor won't go along with this jazz, the Communist yells, 'You are not for peace.’ Does it begin to filter through your skull that we can't talk a language of reason to Soviet psychos and liars—"

Buffington interrupted again, yanking on his goatee as if attempting to remove it. “There you go. Always you talk about the Russians as if the word were an expletive. And that is the real problem—the problem in depth. As long as there is such complete lack of brotherhood and understanding among peoples there will be war."

“Oh, nuts. Brotherhood and understanding again. Doc, how understanding can you get? Start with the little ones: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. Add the Poles, Czechs, Romanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians—there's understandable understanding for you. Add the half billion of China, plus North Korea, North Vietnam, East Germany, Tibet. Now Cuba. Not to mention the Communists—pretending to be non-Communists, of course—everywhere in the States, right here in Mexico, in Laos, Iraq, Uruguay, Bolivia, all through Latin America; in Japan, Turkey, Africa, India—hell, every place you can name. You can't play footsie with the Commies, Doc; they take the foot."

The Doc didn't say anything.

Buff said, “You made a speech."

I grinned at her. “I guess I did."

Monique said, “I don't know what you're talking about."

Dr. Buffington said, somewhat disgruntled, “Neither does he."

I laughed. “Incidentally, I wasn't talking about the Russians. I was talking about Communists. And Russia isn't basically Communist—less than four percent of the Russian people are Party members, Doc. Even fewer in the satellites. The Reds are in control, that's all. Hell, there's probably twice as many anti-Communists as that in Soviet slave labor camps."

“That may well be true. But our government deals with those few who are in control. And I still insist that the only weapon in the war against war is truth, complete truth."

“Nice alliteration, but it just ain't so. Truth is one weapon, sure, but it's only one—and it can't beat a clever lie that people believe to be truth. Especially when the lie is repeated over and over again. You're a scientist, Doctor. You know your Pavlov. Enough repetition and the dog salivates, enough skillful repetition and the man salivates—or believes. And don't forget, Pavlov was a Russian."

“Well...” He paused, scowling.

Buff patted her dad's hand, got up and looked at Monique, and they both automatically went off toward the rest rooms. It's a funny thing, but it seems that women are constitutionally incapable of going to the john alone. Whether two or more, they leave en masse, like a parade.

I watched them go, and had some of my drink.

Dr. Buffington stared intently at me and said, with the manner of a man who has solved a vexing problem, “Shell, I fear you have succumbed to McCarthyite brainwashing."

“Come off it. I've succumbed to facts. As for brainwashing, my friend, the shoe is on the other foot. We've got a very clever gang of pro-Red salesmen in the States—in the press, television and radio, publishing, movies, schools, government agencies—any place where spoken and written words can be used to shape opinion or policy. They feed us a whitewashed Red line, and we swallow it—"

“Nonsense. The American people have more sense than to be influenced by obvious Communist propaganda."

“It isn't ever called Communist, it's called American. And it isn't obvious or it wouldn't be effective propaganda. They don't hit us with a red club, just tap us lightly with a soft pink sap—over and over and over, like the ringing of the Pavlovian bell.” I paused. “It's all in knowing how to make the dogs salivate, Doc. And they know how."

He frowned. “As a scientist, I am fully aware of what can be done to condition animals, Shell. Even people. It could happen in a police state, perhaps, but not in the United States."

I sighed. “O.K. But the next time some fat issue involving Russia or Communism comes up, watch the same pink and pro-Red cats start shoving the Russia-Communist angle into the background and concentrating instead on America's errors, or Red hysteria, or McCarthyism—whatever the current Party line happens to be. Watch them play up Russia's successes and America's failures, while at the same time playing down Russia's failures and America's successes. With the natural result that a lot of people gradually start believing the Russian molehill is a mountain, and the American mountain is a molehill. Which ain't the truth, Doc—but which sure helps Russia's phony propaganda. As you did today, by the way."

“You reactionary imbecile. In my speech, I spoke from sincere and honest conviction, from the depths of my heart—"

“I would prefer more of your head—"

“—and not even an imbecile like you will deny that the Russian peoples, even the Communists, are human beings. Should we ignore this, like ostriches? They are our Russian brothers! And we are our brother's keeper!"

I grinned. “Maybe so, Doc. He sure needs a keeper."

His face started getting red, and he gulped the last of his highball. I looked around, hissed at a waiter and signaled for more drinks. The Mexican cigarette girl was across the room, facing away from me, bending over. Man, I thought, she looks almost as good from this end. The hell with Communists.

When I turned back to the doctor he was staring across the room, and for a moment I thought I'd jarred him. But that wasn't it. Buff and Monique were parading back, looking content. The girls sat down and Buff said, “Still jabbering away, aren't you?"

“Still jabbering,” I said. “But we are about out of jabber."

Dr. Buffington said, “Imbecile."

He said it pleasantly, but he still looked a little steamed up, so I said quietly, “Hell, you know what I mean, Doc. Shaping public opinion, whether it's in international relations or home-grown subversion is like the public relations business. Control enough of the words reaching people and you can make most of them believe damn near anything. You can make them believe—falsely—that Chiang is a ‘corrupt dictator’ and Mao Tse-tung is simply an agrarian reformer; that Batista is a ‘corrupt dictator’ and Castro's a Cuban Robin Hood; that Rhee and Trujillo are ‘corrupt dictators’ but Red dictators are democratic reformers—hell, isn't that what's happened, what's happening right now? Don't we sell out our friends and pay off our enemies? Man, control enough of those words and you can make the whole world go to war, or refuse to; make people afraid of the Bomb, or Fallout, or the giant Russian Molehill; practically make people strip naked in the streets."

Monique gurgled.

I looked at her.

“That last one,” she said, “should be interesting."

I grinned at her. “Yeah. Be fun trying, anyway. Might take a long time with the prudish ones."

“Like me."

“Yeah, like you, dear."

Then: “Cigarettes, cigarros, cigarettes?"

I turned my head. And there she was, it was, they were—the Mexican cigarette girl. She was leaning toward me over the tray of cigarettes, and it looked as if she were going to go up in smokes.

“Cigarettes?"

“Hello,” I said. “But of course."

We finally settled on a package of Belmonts. She pulled the little red strip, opening the pack, tore the top half open and pulled one cigarette partly out of the package. Service. All kinds of service. She cleverly stayed bent over while she made change for a twenty-peso note I gave her, and by the time I got my change I'd ripped the cellophane off the pack and badly bent one of the cigarettes.

When the girl left, Buff said dryly, “I'll bet she sells lots of cigarettes,” and Monique put in, “Shell, did you have to give her ten pesos?"

“Oh, that,” I said. “What's money? Eighty cents. Share the wealth. Poor hard-working girl—"

They ha-ha'd together. I let them ha-ha while I told them I was only kidding, I'd thought it was one peso. We batted the conversation around for a while, then ordered dinner. I had breast of pheasant. After some of the finest food in Mexico the conversation, which had entered a lull, spurted up again. The doctor held forth for a while about his work.

After his wife's death from polio two years ago, Dr. Buffington had begun compiling all available statistics on cases of polio, and deaths from the disease, among both vaccinated and unvaccinated victims.

He said, “I have since carefully investigated the Cutter incident, the epidemics in Massachusetts, Des Moines, Rhode Island and elsewhere, and the overall record, from 1955 to the present. It has become obvious to me that the Salk vaccine in many cases, rather than protecting the recipients against polio, caused them to contract polio."

I said, “Huh?"

He smiled slightly. “The usual reaction. It is my conclusion, however. The facts show clearly that a large percentage of those who have contracted polio—usually of the paralytic type—had received three or more Salk shots; some have died. The figures are impressive. Whether the vaccine caused the disease in those victims, or merely failed to give any protection whatsoever, might be argued by some; but if the rate of occurrence in those vaccinated, even three and four or more times, is a coincidence, it is an ugly coincidence. Moreover, the incidence of polio is rapidly increasing—particularly the paralytic type."

He went on to state facts and figures and medical theory, most of it over the rocks in my head, then explained that his own approach to combating the disease had been on a chemical basis. He was attempting to find a nontoxic chemical combination which, when introduced into the weakened body, would accelerate the body's own defense mechanisms temporarily, invigorating them sufficiently that they could throw off the disease in the same manner as a normally healthy body would.

His voice rose a little as he went on, “As my work progressed, it became evident that if such an approach proved efficacious in the treatment of poliomyelitis, there was no reason why it should not be equally effective against other diseases. The prospect is immensely exciting."

I let that sink in. “You mean—if it worked, that is—you could eliminate all disease?"

He smiled. “Not quite that exciting, Shell. But perhaps most cases of disease caused by viruses or bacterial invasion.” He paused. “Basically my approach is an attempt to strengthen—temporarily—the body's own natural defenses, chemically, rather than through the introduction of disease into the healthy body, or polluting a clean bloodstream."

“Well, you're the doctor, Doctor. But that makes sense even to an imbecile like me."

He grinned. I asked him, “How are you doing?"

“I'm close. Very close. I've seen amazing recoveries among animals. Another year or two, perhaps ... Of course, there have been many disheartening failures."

As he went on, I glanced around and spotted a big, good-looking Mexican ogling our table. With Buff and Monique here the table was worth ogling, and it occurred to me that maybe it was a little goofy for the Doc and me to be sitting with these two delightful dolls and talking about dead experimental apes. The peculiar way they'd died interested me, though.

A little over two months back, Dr. Buffington had shot some new gook into experimental chimpanzees. Their movements became jerky, disoriented; they blundered around their cages, banging into the bars, then fell, twitched a bit, and died. He'd followed up on that particular formula and found out what was wrong. I didn't get it all, but he gave me a lot of technical stuff about dendrites, and synapses becoming inoperable, and the nervous system rotting away. What it boiled down to, as far as I was concerned, was that the synapse is like a bridge the nerve impulse has to cross, and that the bridges were out; consequently no messages or orders could be transmitted between the brain and any affected part of the body. The Doc had some very jerky apes there for a while.

“Screwy,” I said. “This nerve gook knocked off the chimps, huh?"

“Well, they actually died of suffocation—couldn't breathe. They'd have died anyway from any of a number of other complications.” He paused. “You might say that the injection overstimulated the entire nervous system, burned it out, in effect—with the weakest or most susceptible links in the nerve chains succumbing first. In layman's language, a little like sending too much current through a wire."

I thought about a wire getting red hot and then melting; and millions of nerves overstimulated, writhing, dying. “Nasty stuff to have lying around."

He grinned wryly. “You may be sure none is. I destroyed even my notes on that particular experiment, once it was concluded. If I hadn't, it would have been much like leaving poison unmarked."

“Or poison gas. The stuff sounds something like the nerve gases you hear about. As possible weapons in war, I mean."

“Yes, somewhat.” He nodded. “But this was more deadly than anything I've heard of. I was using incredibly minute quantities.” He frowned. “What's in your mind occurred to me, of course. I learned enough about it to guess that it would make an unbelievably horrible weapon, relatively simple to produce. But I destroyed everything."

Buff broke in. “Not till he got a whiff of the stuff, though. Nearly killed him."

The doctor shrugged. “I was careless. Didn't realize how volatile the liquid was, how quickly it became gas at normal temperatures, and I got a—a whiff of it. The barest trace, fortunately, but I had a bad time of it for a few hours. Cold skin, cold sweat, I felt like a walking corpse. Fast heartbeat and shortness of breath, weakness, a terrible anxiety. And a panicky feeling out of all proportion to the real danger, even though I could do nothing to counteract the effects. That was really the worst part, the fear of ... well, not of anything specific. Just an all-pervading fear."

I shook my head. “Nasty stuff, indeed, Doctor. And you agree it would make a very nasty weapon. Lord knows what we'll have in the next war, besides the bombs. Or, more likely, instead of the bombs."

After a minute's silence he said, “I've thought a good deal about that. Naturally some of my colleagues knew about my experiments. Word got around, apparently, and I was twice approached by men from the Army and asked about psychological and lethal effects of the liquid. One man, a colonel, came all the way from Fort Detrick, Maryland—the U.S. Army Chemical Corps installation there, where so-called nerve-gas and other experiments have been conducted—and suggested that I return to Fort Detrick with him.” He sighed. “I told both men I had destroyed everything, that the effects were accidental and I could not reproduce my experiments."

“You destroyed your notes, Doc, but they must still be in your brain. It would drive me nuts carrying that around."

He nodded and said soberly, “That's true, Shell, but I told them what I tell you now. My life is devoted to saving lives. I refuse to let my brain father such a monster."

He had spoken in such somber tones that it was almost spooky, and I felt fine hairs wiggle at the back of my neck. “Hope nobody ever changes your mind, Doc,” I said.

Buff drummed on the table with red fingernails. “That's enough of your gruesome old conversations. Absolutely, bloody well enough. If this continues one second more I'll pick me up a Latin lover. Have you noticed how many good-looking men there are here? And women?"

“Ah,” I said.

“He has.” Monique pinched me again.

“Sure,” I said, “but you two tomatoes—"

“Don't call me one of your tomatoes,” Buff said.

“Ladies stand out, even in Mexico.” It was true enough, but my point was that nowhere else, not even in Hollywood or Las Vegas, had I seen so many striking women—and not a flat chest among them. I didn't quite know how to explain this to the girls, however.

I was glancing idly around while the conversation was cooking and I noticed an example of one of the “good-looking guys” Buff had mentioned. It was the same one I'd seen before, a regular Latin slicker with black wavy hair and a thick black mustache. He was barrel-chested and a little rough-looking. Sort of a Latin Hemingway type. He'd been gone for a while, but he was back again, and still ogling. He sat alone now at the next table and was staring at Buff, rather insolently, I thought.

A good many Mexican men are, while not insolent, merely more open and obvious in their admiration when they find something to admire than guys from, say, California or New York, Mexicans being quite sensible about such things. But this guy was insolent; it was the way he looked and where he looked, and the way be was wiggling his eyes and lips, and maybe ears, and no telling what all.

I didn't like it. I tried to ignore the guy. He wasn't to be ignored.

“Seems to like you,” I said.

“Or something,” Buff said. “I wish he'd go away."

He didn't. He kept ogling for a minute, then got up and came to our table. He leaned over Buff.

“Hi, baby,” he said thickly. “I'll buy you a drink, baby.” He sounded drunk, but his English was perfect.

Buff turned her head away from him. “No, thank you,” she said softly.

“Let's have fun,” he said. “Lots of fun. You and—"

“Beat it,” I said. “Vanish. Take a walk."

He turned slowly toward me. “You want to know what you can do to yourself? I'll tell you."

I could feel the slow flush, the blood creeping up my neck, the pulse-thud in my throat and wrists. I bit my lip and kept the heat down inside me; I sure as hell didn't want a big scene here in the Monte Cassino. Besides, I don't usually go around popping people unless it's absolutely necessary. This guy was about my height and husky enough, but unless he'd been stuffed with as much lethal training as I'd got in the Marines and as a detective, he simply wasn't in my class. That's no particular credit to me, but I didn't want to mess with the guy, even though I wasn't worried about the beef.

It seemed more than a bit peculiar for a guy to barge up to a table full of strangers and start throwing his weight around, but the thought barely brushed my mind. I took a long breath and let it out just as he started to tell me what I could do to myself.

“My slimy friend,” I said quietly, “get yourself the hell away from here. Go sit down and have a drink. Somewhere else."

He looked at me and said something in Spanish, then turned back to Buff. He put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing slightly while he spoke to her.

I didn't get what he said to Buff. My Spanish is less than fair, but I know some of the gutter language, and I knew I was going to flip clear up in the air in another minute. I stood up and looked around, thinking maybe a team of waiters would be converging on us, but nobody seemed to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. It had all been quiet. So far.

There is an exposed nerve beneath the armpit. Squeeze it with a little pressure from your fingers and it hurts like the slice of a hot knife. I grabbed the slicker around the biceps and dug four fingers into that nerve with plenty of pressure, and he jumped half an inch, squeaking. I turned him around and made him look at me. “Get this straight,” I said. “Now, and fast. Stop annoying the lady; beat it, or I'll shred you all over the Monte Cassino."

I let go of his arm and he started rubbing it, looking at my face, his lips twisted. He started to walk away, then paused as if waiting for me. I went over to him. “You get it?” I asked. “You understand? Comprende?"

“I'll see you outside."

“You'll see me nowhere. Don't be a chump."

He said something in Spanish that I didn't understand, then added, “Outside.” He pointed toward the door and went out through it. I walked back to the table and sat down.

“Well,” Monique said, “I thought for a minute we'd lost you. He leave?"

“I suppose.” I wondered if that fool was actually waiting outside. The hell with him.

“Thanks, Shell,” Buff said.

“For nothing."

“Shell,” Monique asked, “why was he pointing to the door?"

I looked at her. I didn't say anything. She let it ride.

The conversation slowly started again, but it had lost much of its life. I began to calm down, and then the fool came back inside, went over to the cigarette girl and talked to her for a few seconds, then gave her something. She nodded and looked toward our table, glanced at her watch. He left. The cigarette girl kept looking at her watch every minute or so.

The conversation staggered along for a few minutes, then the cigarette girl walked to our table. She had a note in her hand.

She stopped by me and said, “The man you were talking to asked me to give this note to the blonde lady."

I took the folded paper, thanked her, and she went away. I looked at the note. It was to Buff, and it was filth. She was to meet him outside; he had to talk with her, the note said. It said that and a lot more.

I tore the note into pieces, burned the pieces in the ashtray, and stood up. “I'll be back in a couple of minutes,” I said. They all looked at me, but nobody answered. I went over to the door and out onto Geneva Street, where the guy was supposed to be waiting.

The funny thing was, I thought I would be back in a couple of minutes.

Rain fell steadily, and it was nearly dark. But I could see him leaning against the side of the building. He straightened up when he saw me, grinning, hardly seeming surprised to see me instead of Buff. I didn't stop to think about it.

I decided not to clip him until I talked to him; that was a mistake. I stepped toward him and he didn't hesitate a second, just moved in close, his left fist driving at me in a straight, professional jab.

I jerked my head and felt his knuckles slam across my ear, then I buried my left in his gut, and as he bent in the middle I sliced the edge of my right palm over his kidney. I leaned aside, bringing my left hand across my chest; I started to swing and finish him off when something scraped my cheek and thudded into my shoulder. My left arm suddenly felt paralyzed.

The slicker was nearly out of commission, but for a moment I didn't realize the blow had come from behind me. When I did, I spun around with my right arm already swinging. I saw him just before my fist landed—a tall guy, with a big club-like nightstick raised over his head—and then my fist landed against his mouth with all the weight of my turning body behind it.

He went down on his fanny, not out but close to it, shook his head, spat out a couple of teeth and managed to get up. I hit him good, on the point of the chin, and he was out when he went down this time. I finally got a good look at him and saw the uniform. A cop.

I didn't have time to wonder about it, because I was worrying about the slicker behind me—and then it didn't matter because all the cops in the world were charging at me waving guns and clubs, and yelling things. Maybe it was only half a dozen or so, but it looked like the whole Mexican police force, and then they were clubbing me vigorously and it was all over except for a number of bumps on my head.

Chapter Three

I sat up on the cot, felt my bumps, and looked around at my miserable cell. The more I felt my bumps, the madder I got.

After the clubbing, I'd come to just before the million cops guided me into the Londres Street jail. At least Monique had gotten in touch with Amador—who was still out on his goofy errand about a Countess and naughty pictures of some kind. About half an hour after he'd left me, when I was beginning to think he must have returned to his opium den, he came back to my cell. Alone.

“Hello, Countess,” I said. I was in a nasty mood.

“She's here.” Amador grinned. “She's not really a countess. I just call her that because she looks to me like a countess ought to look. She's really the General's wife. You know General Lopez?"

I started getting interested. “Sure. I guess everybody in Mexico does.” He was one of the big boys in the Mexican Army, a brigadier general with his name often in the papers. He was a great advocate of a bigger army, constantly urged stronger laws against internal subversion, and spent most of his free time attacking the Communist conspiracy. Time and again he had stated the truth bluntly: that every Communist, wherever he might be found outside Russia, was part of the advance army of a foreign power, a member of the Kremlin's fifth column. Recognizing this, the General consistently advocated everything from horse-whipping to jail to execution for Mexico's open, and underground, Reds. Consequently, as with anyone who openly attacks the conspiracy, the General himself had been violently attacked—often from surprising and ostensibly respectable sources.

“What about the General?” I asked.

“Well, she's his wife, as I tell you—incidentally she'll be back here in a minute. I better make it fast, so here's the deal. General Lopez, he's a busy man, committees and stuff. He spends about four nights a week away from home, meetings and so on, and sometimes his wife goes out too. Only to different places. You follow me?"

“So far."

“Well, one night I meet her—I don't know who she is then, I'd have run if I did, but she's got that hungry look at me, see? So we go around. I spend most of the night with her. And then some other times also. Ah, she is a very classy señora.” He dwelt on her class for a minute, then said, “What it finally boils down to is she has me arrange for other guys—dates, you know—to be with her the same way. Guys she'd never meet ordinary, see? Guys in different circles."

I was beginning to see all too clearly. Amador filled in some details, then frowned. “What happens is, I get careless and meet her to a lemon. And this lemon takes her to his place and that's all there is to it—she thinks. Only it isn't. The guy had pictures of all of it—not little snapshots, but a movie—and so far it's cost her a hundred thousand pesos to keep the thing from her husband."

“Uh-huh. Messy. You know the guy, then?"

“Not exactly. That's where I get careless. We become acquainted in a bar and have drinks a few times. He seems a very lively fellow. Anyway, after the blackmail thing the Countess comes screaming at me—she thinks I am in with this guy. I swear on all the saints I am not, I am innocent. She is not convinced—I have introduced her to him, she says I am in it. I swear some more and say not only am I innocent but I know a most clever person who can dissolve all her trouble instantly, which will prove I'm not in it."

I nodded. “Yeah. And this most clever person..."

“You, who else?” He went on quickly, “She calms down somewhat, and even more so when I tell her you are from los Estados Unidos. This is good. She's got her kisser in lots of society pages, and the big shots and even enormous shots are friends of hers. Better that some stupid foreigner works for her, see? Somebody nobody knows here in Mexico."

“And I am this clever-stupid foreigner."

“Exactly. Besides, there is another item. Before coming screaming at me, she has paid once for the films and then done some checking on this fellow—he is one Jaime Guerara. He has been in jail many years ago for extortion, and both before then and since participated in many of these front things for the comunistas."

“He's a Commie?"

Amador shrugged. “Who knows? You ask a comunista is he a comunista and always he says hell no, you are crazy, I am a loyal Mexican. But he has been in many of the front things. Right now, he is nowhere to be found. No phone in the book, no address, no nothing. He has vanished."

“Is that what you were trying to tell me on the phone?"

“Sure. When I tell the Countess you are also an expert on the comunistas, she is sold on you and I phone you. Don't you recall? I explained it all clearly."

I let it go. “How come a movie? Why not snapshots? That's an old enough gimmick."

He shrugged again. “I dunno. Sometimes maybe you can fake the little pictures. But this is no fake, that's for sure. The General sees this he will chew off his chin, that's also for sure."

I sighed. “And that's the little item I'm supposed to find?"

"Sí. That's what you're here for, amigo. When the Countess say O.K., for me to get you here, we figure there's more time, we will all meet Sunday—but only today there is another call from somebody about the blackmailing. Time is vanishing rapidly.” He paused. “And, listen, I tell the Countess—I mean Señora Lopez—you are the best damn norteamericano detective in the whole hemisphere. According to me you are practically the whole U.S.A. F.B.I. You are so intelligent you find anything at all with no trouble."

“Like a cop's teeth. You didn't tell her I was J. Edgar Hoover, did you?"

“Not exactly. But you better convince her you're his assistant. I mean, if you want out of this cárcel. Unless you can do what she brings you down here for, why should she get you out?"

“Now that I think of it, I am J. Edgar Hoover's assistant."

He looked at his watch. “I better get up front and bring her back.” He frowned. “This maybe is kind of embarrassing for her."

“I'm not going to give her the holier-than-thou bit, Amador."

“Yeah, sure. How could you? I'm probably lucky you're not in the picture.” He grinned and took off. In half a minute a jailer unlocked the cell door and Amador came inside, preceded by my client. Potential client.

Señora Lopez, in high heels, was the same height as Amador, slim enough, and shapely. She was dressed in a black suit, and a black hat with a thick veil covering her face, and from what I could see, she was a classy vegetable. She paused inside the cell for a moment, standing very straight, as the jailer locked the three of us in. Then she stepped toward me, extending her hand.

I took it and said, “How do you do?"

“You are Mr. Scott, the famous detective?” Her voice was throaty, but soft.

“Fam—yes, ma'am. That's me.” I motioned toward the cot, the only furniture in the cell.

She sank down upon it, then patted a spot near her and said, “Sit down, please.” All her movements were easy, graceful.

I sat beside her and Amador leaned against the rough wall. The light was dim, but enough filtered in from outside so that we could see each other.

She said softly, “Señor Montalba has told you, I believe, of my—difficulty.” She didn't wait for an answer, but went on, “If you will help me, I shall arrange for your release. Señor Montalba has assured me that you are very—capable."

Amador broke in. “He is one hell of a detective, Señora. He is a legend in los Estados Unidos. A fantastic legend. You tell her, Shell."

“Well,” I said, “uh, yes, I'm, uh—"

“We shall see. The situation is this.” She talked slowly, softly, for almost five minutes. What it boiled down to was that she had been mailed four photographic enlargements and a film strip of ten frames, all depicting a scene with which she was more than somewhat familiar. She was advised by phone that the original film would be hers for fifty thousand pesos. The alternative was that the film would be made available to General Lopez, her husband. She paid, and received the roll of film by mail. But then the process was repeated. She paid again. Earlier today she had received still a third phone call—the same old story. This time she had balked at submitting to further extortion. The voice on the phone had calmly said that in that case there was no more to discuss. She could continue further discussions with her husband in the morning—or read the details in the papers. She had started to protest, even mentioned that tomorrow she could get the money, but her caller had hung up.

I said, “They didn't seem interested when you suggested you might pay later?"

“No."

“The voice on the phone. Was it a man or a woman?"

“A man. And I am sure he meant me threat. He did not really seem interested in further payment. It is almost as if he wished to destroy me."

I thought a minute. “Or possibly your husband? Would the General be—that is—"

“It would be tragic,” she said calmly. She paused, then turned more toward me. She raised her hands and lifted the veil from her face, laid it back over her hat and looked directly at me.

Her eyes were large and dark, with extremely long black lashes, her cheekbones high and prominent, the mouth wide, with a look of moist warmth. She had a subdued, exotic beauty, a faintly Slavic appearance. Looking at me, she said, “Mr. Scott, I should like to say this. My husband is much away from me, and often I believe there is no real need for him to be away—though he is very busy with his meetings and committees. I wish you to understand, at least a little. I should not have this difficulty, but it is not fair ... he has much of his life away from me, and it is all right because he is a man. In Mexico this is often so, but I am not Mexican.” She paused. “Can you understand?"

“I think so.” I smiled at her. “At least a little."

She bit her lip, frowning slightly, then pulled the veil back over her face. She sighed and said, “There must be truth and trust between a man and woman before they can be man and wife. Even though I have this trouble, I do love my husband deeply. It is of the greatest importance that you help me. If he learns of this, it will be a great tragedy, for both my husband and myself. Perhaps for you also."

I didn't get that last bit, but I said, “I believe I understand, Señora. I'll do anything I can."

We all spent another five minutes in the cell, during which time she told me the fifty thousand pesos she was to have paid the blackmailer would be mine if I could help her. Then she went out to the desk to pull strings, while Amador stayed behind with me.

I said, “I'm not out yet. But it looks like you produced."

“Is possible. I'm a great producer. Maybe I should be in Hollywood.” He licked his lips and played with his mustache again. “Is, uh, a funny thing, Shell. You better find that movie thing. Listen. The General plays around some, but he is one jealous general. You know, is O.K. for him, but not for the lady. Comprehend?"

I comprehended. The General was a normal male.

Amador said, “He'll do anything his wife asks him, just about. But once he sees that picture he's not gonna do anything except hit her over the head. So you better find this film."

“I don't follow you exactly."

“Well, the Countess, she hasn't got so much pull. But the General has an abundance, and he does most anything she wants. And it's the General that's gonna get you out, if you get out."

I blinked at him for some time while that sank in.

“Yes,” said Amador, “that's what she's doing now. The General won't know why she wants you out, that is apparent. If he did, no telling. He's got one terrible temper. Might shoot the both of you.” He laughed.

“What the hell are you laughing at? That's not funny."

“Is very funny,” he said. “What I mean, you better find the thing before he sees it—or you be back in here very quickly."

I nodded, dumbly.

“You have to work fast, too, because it looks like maybe he sees it tonight. One of his party things, pretty wild."

And right then, when I wanted to hear much more, a cop came down to the cell, unlocked it, and I was free to leave. The cop was my friend, Toothless—Captain Emilio. He looked very unhappy as he told me I could get the hell out.

He grabbed my arm as I stepped from the cell. “You,” he said. “You not going to be out long; I get you back in here for good. Nobody gets away with nothing with me. You understand?"

“Yeah,” I told him. “And I understand something else: you've still got some teeth. Let the hell go of my arm."

He glowered at me for a moment, then released my arm. “O.K., but you will be back.” He was glowering at my teeth. I'm sure he didn't realize it, but his right hand was so tight around his club that the knuckles were white; he was wiggling the club, rapidly, nervously, as he stared at my mouth. I had a pretty good idea what would happen to my chops late some night if I wound up back in Emilio's clink.

Amador and I left the Captain standing there wiggling his club. At the desk everything was smooth enough until just before I was ready to leave. I had all my stuff back except my cigarettes and matches which were on the desk in front of the portly sergeant. I put my belt on and began to breathe more easily, then reached for the cigarettes. I picked them up just before the sergeant grabbed my wrist. Gently, with two fingers, he took the pack out of my hand.

What the hell, I thought. I looked at the pack between his two fingers. The way the light fell, I could see the almost invisible smudge of my big thumbprint on the cellophane; did the guy want prints? A couple of bulky, loosely packed cigarettes were sticking up out of the pack. Maybe he just wanted a smoke.

“Give me my damn cigarettes,” I said. I'd already been shoved around so much I didn't intend to leave even a five-centavo piece here.

The sergeant grinned, even chuckled a little, then spoke to Amador in Spanish. The Señora, on my right, quickly turned her head and looked at me.

“What's he mumbling?” I asked Amador.

“He says that is comical—is what you call an exhibit. He got to keep the marijuana. He doesn't want you getting high again and hitting more people."

“The what? The what? Tell the comic to give me my Belmonts.” I looked at the pack again. It was the bright red Belmont package with the little horse and jockey in the corner, but those cigarettes sticking out of it did look too bulky; the tobacco seemed to be bigger and more loosely packed than it should have been.

“Amador,” I said, “ask him to let me look at those. Tell him I won't eat the exhibit or run away with it."

Amador talked a moment in Spanish, the sergeant looked from him to Señora Lopez, then shoved the pack toward me. The stuff was marijuana. I'd seen and handled and smelled enough of it so there was no doubt.

“These aren't mine,” I said. “These are damn well not the cigarettes I came in here with. Somebody—” I stopped. I'd been groggy when brought here, but I tried to remember who had searched me and emptied my pockets—Toothless. I leaned across the desk and started spitting words at the sergeant. “These are not mine. Somebody shoved them off on you as mine. Captain Emilio searched—"

Señora Lopez had said something to Amador and he nudged me. “She says we must go quickly. We have little time. And ... it is better to be away from here."

“Yeah, but—"

“Is true. What you care so long as you get out? I have more to tell you, anyway, and time is short.” I started to protest, then stopped. “O.K., Amador. But I still want to know about that weed."

“You have plenty of time if you don't get busy and—you know."

I knew. We left the desk. As we headed toward the door, somebody said, “Shell—Shell."

I turned. Monique was getting up from a chair against the wall. Her sensual face looked tired and drawn as she walked toward me.

“Monique, honey,” I said. “Have you been here all the time? Ever since you phoned Amador?"

“Yes, I was worried,” she said simply. “What is it, Shell? Can you leave?"

“Yeah. I'll tell you about it in a minute.” Amador and Señora Lopez were at the door. Amador wiggled a finger at me and when I walked over to them the Countess said softly, “Mr. Scott, I have just phoned my husband, and because of his influence you are free for now. But the General was very curious to know why I wished a man removed from jail. He asked many questions, but I merely told him you were a friend, unjustly accused, and he accepted that. At least for a while. However, if he should learn the truth—the real reason, there is no question that his influence would be withdrawn."

She added, “And of course you understand that I could not help you. I have not enough influence of my own, and I would be in—great difficulty myself. It perhaps seems cruel that I cannot help you unless you help me—but I am sure you understand."

I nodded. I understood entirely too well.

Amador took me aside. “I got to drive the Countess home,” he said. “Take me maybe twenty minutes to get to my place—and you come there quick, huh? We talk, and I show you the blackmail stuff, the pictures. The guy is in them too, and maybe that help you."

“Yeah, but listen, Amador. What's this about the General seeing that fancy movie tonight? You didn't finish."

“Looks like he sees it, all right. I learn already from the Countess that the General goes to another of his meetings tonight, and I learn from other people, it is no business there, except maybe monkey. This I know. So you better work rapidly. Could happen at this monkey-business party, you know."

“Where is this party?"

“I dunno yet. I don't even know how to find out. His wife doesn't know either, naturally. Hell, you're supposed to find out. Well, I see you at my place.” He left with the Countess.

I watched them go, feeling as if the walls were closing in on me. Then I called Monique over and we went outside onto Londres Street. The rain was still coming down as we flagged a libre, a new Ford, and climbed in. Lightning flashed in the distance and thunder rumbled softly. I told the driver to take us to the Hotel del Prado, then leaned back against the cushions thinking about the last couple of hours, wondering what had happened to the Latin Hemingway type, what those marijuana cigarettes meant, and why suddenly this whole mess smelled to high heaven.

Chapter Four

“That's about it, Monique,” I said. I'd told her the story, leaving out the part about the General and the Countess. We were just turning right, off Florencia into the wide Paseo de la Reforma. That is, we were trying to.

The Reforma is one of the world's truly beautiful avenues, lined with impressive statues and monuments, green trees, and some magnificent examples of modern architecture, but getting on and off the damn thing is often a bit trying. While it is true that more than half the cars in Mexico are in Mexico City, it sometimes seems that half the cars in the whole bloody world are there, all on the Reforma, the drivers with one hand on the wheel and the other on the blaring horn, speeding suicidally around the circular glorietas, or traffic circles smack in the middle of the avenues, and noisily past the signs which say "No use claxon"—don't use the horn.

Finally, though, we made it safely into the traffic stream and headed uptown toward Avenida Juarez and the Prado. I still didn't feel too chipper, and I rolled the window down on my side, letting the cool moist air wash over my face.

Monique said, “How did you wiggle out, Shell?"

“I've got pull.” I grinned at her. “Incidentally, thanks for phoning Amador. I'd still be in stir if you hadn't. Probably gumming my food. Hey, what about the Doc?"

“What about him? What do you mean?"

“Yeah, you wouldn't know. Amador phoned Buff, and she said Doc hadn't shown up yet."

She frowned. “That's funny. When you didn't come back right away at the Cassino, I went out just as the police dumped you in a car. I almost died. I got a cab as soon as I could and came to the jail. I don't know what Buff and her dad did."

“Well, Doc's probably with Buff by now. You got a cigarette?"

We lit up and I leaned back in the seat, smoking and thinking. The rain was really coming down now, the way it often does during the rainy season; one moment everything dry, and half a minute later it's like being under a waterfall. I couldn't see much through the windshield, the way the huge raindrops were beating down on it, but it didn't seem to bother the libre driver. Nothing bothers libre drivers.

I pressed my feet against the floorboards. Straight ahead of us, centered in the glorieta in the middle of the road, was the Cuahtemoc statue around which the Reforma circles. No less than nine streets empty their cars into and around that traffic circle like huge bullets, and our driver was another bullet who ripped down the highway and slammed on the brakes at the precise moment I had decided we were going to bleed on Cuahtemoc.

Most of the traffic signals in Mexico City used to be cops who waved lanterns, waved their arms, turned around, scratched their fannies, and blew whistles. But no more. I guess it's progress, but now traffic on the Reforma is controlled by automation, mechanical signals. Controlled—hah. There is some sort of secret communication between those signals and Mexican drivers. They know the exact instant when the light is going to change, and on that split second—or sometimes just a little bit ahead of it—the whole jammed fender-scraping mass of cars will take off like an exploding used-car lot, occasionally leaving a bewildered tourist behind blocking traffic and wondering what happened. The cab drivers don't care whether you get there alive or dead, just so you get there first.

There were three lanes on our side of the Reforma and we were in the middle one. There was a good two inches between our libre and the cars on our right and left—and an empty half lane on the right of the street next to the curb. At least I thought it was only half an empty lane, but it must have been wider because a big black Cadillac roared into the narrow space and crept up to the head of the line where we were. The Cad kept creeping forward and, not to be outdone, our driver crept forward a bit. It is one of the Mexico City games: never let anybody else in a car get ahead of you, or make you slow down, or make you turn; if he's coming at you from an angle, you keep going—bluff the other guy. Pedestrians don't count.

Lightning suddenly flashed and sizzled overhead and thunder crackled after it—and we were off and away!

Our libre man was an old hand at this sort of thing and the tires screeched as the car leaped forward, pressing me hard against the seat. I thought I heard a little crack, as if a vertebra had snapped. There was a stinging sensation alongside my neck at the same time, so it was probably a neck vertebra. I looked around to see if we were beating the Cadillac, or if we were going to hit it, but the Cad wasn't in sight—a couple of cars on our right were trying to turn and scream into one of the nine streets and they'd probably crowded the Cad. There was some more thunder, or the sound of cars crashing into each other, and then we were zooming around the glorieta in a mad hot-rod race with a car on our left and another one trying to squeeze in between us.

“I will never get accustomed to this,” I said to Monique. “This is chaos in tin cans. I'd walk, only I'm afraid to cross the streets."

She laughed. “Well, I guess we win."

We had outdistanced the amateurs and were around the circle, flying down the Reforma again through the rain, our pilot obviously navigating by instruments. My neck still burned and I put up my hand and rubbed it, then let out an involuntary yelp. It stung like hell. I pulled my hand down and looked at it. There was thick red blood on my fingers.

I stared at it. I must have looked at my wet fingers for five seconds wondering how the blood got there. Lightning flashed in the distance, and suddenly I remembered that little crack I'd heard back at the intersection ... the stinging sensation on my neck ... the black Cadillac edging ahead of us. I felt my neck again; there was a small, shallow furrow in the skin.

I put a handkerchief against my neck, felt the cushions behind me. In seconds I found the small hole in the seat.

“Monique,” I said slowly, “somebody just took a shot at me."

“Took a what?"

“Shot at me."

“Oh, Shell, stop—"

“I mean it. Somebody just tried to kill me."

I turned and looked behind us. There were a few cars, but no black Cad. Everything looked normal enough. We were almost at the Prado, so I tapped the driver on the shoulder and made him understand he was to drive once around the block. He did, while I kept my eyes busy trying to spot anything out of the ordinary; then the driver let us out at the side entrance of the hotel on Calle Revillagigedo.

I sent Monique inside while I paid the driver, looked around some more, then ran through the rain and up the stairs into the carpeted lobby. Monique stared at me when I walked up to her, concern in her green eyes. I was still holding the stained handkerchief to my neck.

She said, “I can't believe it. Are you sure?"

“Positive. That bullet sliced my neck. I don't get it—but I believe it."

We took the elevator to the fourth floor and I left Monique at her room, then went up to six and into my own room. After washing up and putting on a clean shirt, I pasted a Band-Aid over the small furrow on my neck, then got the .38 Colt Special and my spring shoulder holster out of my suitcase. I hadn't been wearing the gun, because there'd seemed no need for it. So I can be wrong. I strapped the gun and holster on, then went down to four again and to Buff's room, which adjoined the doctor's.

Buff opened the door almost immediately, took my hand and pulled me inside. The blonde hair was tangled and she'd eaten most of her lipstick off. “Shell,” she said, “I'm so glad to see you. For God's sake tell me what's going on."

“I got in a beef with that mustachioed slob and wound up in the clink temporarily. Where's the Doc?” Her gray eyes widened and her mouth went a little more slack. “Isn't he with you? Wasn't he with you? Shell—"

Her voice was rising, and I broke in, “Wait a minute. Don't get excited. I haven't seen him, but there's nothing to worry about. I thought he'd be here by now."

She swallowed and walked to a divan against the wall. I pulled a chair over near her and said, “What happened after I left the three of you at Monte Cassino? How come you didn't leave there with the Doc?"

She worried her lip. “Monique went out to see what happened. Finally Dad walked over to the window—you know, the big one in front—and looked out; then he told me to get a cab and go back to the hotel, that there was some kind of trouble. You know how he is about me, Shells, always worrying about me like I was still a baby—he's been that way ever since Mom died. Then he was upset about the way that man acted, too. I know he just didn't want me around if there was any more trouble—but he said he'd come to the hotel as soon as he made sure everything was all right."

“He's probably still trying to find out what happened; it's confused enough to take him a while.” I grinned at her. “He might even still be trying to add up the check at Monte Cassino—I'm afraid he got stuck with it."

She didn't smile. And this was a new Buff to me; she was always laughing, bubbling over with fun. “He hasn't even phoned,” she said. “I know he'd phone me if he was going to be late. He's maybe had an accident, Shell; maybe he's hurt."

I moved from my chair to the divan beside her and took her hand. “Buff, listen to me. You're getting all worked up for nothing. But we can phone Monte Cassino—and even the hospitals if you want."

“I have. He's not—anywhere."

I forced a laugh. “He can't be ‘not anywhere.’ Probably on his way here now."

I touched the Band-Aid on my neck. It seemed strange that the last time I'd seen Doctor Buffington was just before I'd been tossed in jail. And it was obvious that, without Amador and his Countess, I'd still be in—especially with slugging a cop tied to possession of marijuana. Marijuana. I knew I hadn't had any joints on me when I was picked up. And the Captain had searched me; maybe he'd had reason for wanting me in a cell for a long time, another reason besides his missing teeth.

Slowly I sat up a little straighter, remembering buying cigarettes at Monte Cassino from the well-stacked gal there, the gal whom I'd later seen talking to that barrel-chested slob. Maybe she had sold me hashish—but I'd seen her open the pack, even pull one out handy for me. I shook my head; there were too many screwy angles—and I had to get moving. I looked at my watch: eight-thirty p.m. I got up.

“I've got to take off for a while, Buff. I'm sure your dad will show up soon."

She looked puzzled. “Leave? Surely you're not going anywhere now, are you, Shell? When maybe Dad's hurt, maybe dying?"

“Now, wait a shake. There's no reason to think anything's wrong with him. I'll keep in touch. And I've got to leave—or wind up in jail again. I wouldn't be much help in a cell.” I thought of something. “Buff, remember your dad was telling me about his work—that gas stuff he got a slug of? You think maybe it was more than he figured? Could he have got some delayed effects or—"

She interrupted. “No. That was more than two months ago, and anyway he's completely over it. He came straight home when it happened, and it only lasted a few hours. He's had a thorough medical checkup since. No, it's not that. Shell, I'm scared. And I really want you to stay. Please."

“Honey, believe me, I can't stick around right now. I'd like to. Hell, I'd like just being with you, you know that."

“I thought I did.” Her voice was distant.

“You still do. I'll get back here as soon as I can—and if I get a chance I'll check the Cassino, nose around—"

“If you get the chance."

“You don't understand, honey...” I let it trail off. She wasn't listening. When I went out the door she was still sitting on the divan, looking after me, reproach and disappointment in her eyes.

Chapter Five

I sipped the drink Amador had made for me, and considered what he'd had to say so far. It seemed the General was an extremely jealous man and, with the lopsided logic of most extremely jealous men, felt that there was something innately superior or different about men as opposed to women, and he could thus raise all the hell he wanted to. This, of course, did not apply to his wife, who was not a man.

So I had a little picture of the General, who didn't know his wife was carrying on like a man, and I had a very good idea what would happen if he lamped the film. Amador, through his numerous contacts, had learned and told me that the General was given to kicking up his heels occasionally at small private gatherings of Army and political big shots—and one such heel-kicking episode was scheduled for tonight. Amador called it an orgy. While Amador didn't know where or when the so-called orgy was to take place, he was at the phone working on that angle now.

Among the miscellaneous info Amador had given me was the fact that Señora Lopez was Russian-born. That not only explained her Slavic appearance, but also helped me understand the anti-Communist activities of the General. Señora Lopez’ parents had been wealthy—until purged during the starving, and then bloody, Thirties in Russia, the years in which Stalin, ably assisted by Khrushchev, liquidated an estimated ten million or more men and women, through deliberate starvation or execution. After the insane “Moscow Trials and Purges,” in which her parents were among those murdered, she had come to Mexico with fleeing relatives, a small girl then. There was no taint of Communist affiliation about the General's wife, but there had been, solely because of her nationality and the General's anti-Communist activities, some unfounded rumors to that effect about her when she and the General were married nine years before, Mexican Communists themselves—hoping, through her, to discredit General Lopez—had initiated the smear campaign against her.

But this time their smear had failed, and in fact had backfired. Because shortly afterwards, the really vigorous anti-Communist phase of the General's life had begun. Since it seemed that the General, despite his occasional extramarital kicks, did actually love his wife, it didn't take a brain to understand at least part of the General's motivation. I rather liked him for that part of it, too.

Now, nine years later, the General was the outstanding enemy of Communist subversion in Mexico. And that would have put me on guard even without Amador's mention of Jaime Guerara's front record. Filthy pix for blackmail—or any kind of gimmick for blackmail—is an old Communist trick. As a matter of fact, every depraved and vicious trick I can think of is an old Communist trick. Of course, it's also a trick of many other unsavory characters.

Amador hung up the phone and started to dial another number. “How you doing?” I asked him. He'd phoned about a dozen people.

“Better,” he said. “I know there's a session for sure, and one other guy that'll be there—another General. Still don't know where, or who else, or when. But it's a real orgy. There's some movies first, then a show with a guy I know, Party Boy, and with two vegetables."

“Tomatoes. Wait a minute. Movies first?"

“Sure."

“You didn't miss that, did you?"

“Hell no, I didn't. Why you think I'm calling everybody except the President? It's movies, then the Party Boy—"

“Party Boy? You mean what I think you mean? Like New Orleans?"

“I don't know New Orleans. But that's what I mean. The boy is Alberto Sanchez—and I got to get hold of him.” He started dialing again.

While he worried the phone I took another look at the eight-by-ten enlargements and the film strip which the Countess had turned over to Amador for what help they might give me. There was a clear shot of the man's mug. Heavy-jowled, big-nosed, mustached—practically all the people down here except women are mustached—and with a huge pile of black hair, much disarranged. That was all, except, of course, a certainty that if General Lopez ever ogled these items he would go tearing off into space like a comet. They were the usual. Naturally they were interesting. One of the enlargements showed the Countess, facing away from the camera, black hair high on top of her head with a wide, sparkling comb stuck in the back of it, her hands just pulling a white blouse down from her shoulders. The guy, in a dark robe, was only partially visible at the left of the picture. The rest, and the film strip, were what you might expect.

“I got it!” Amador said suddenly. He had his hand over the phone's mouthpiece. “You know El Golpe?"

“The nightclub? With boxing and wrestling?"

“That's it. Sanchez is there—coming to the phone. Hold your hat."

In a moment he took his hand from the mouthpiece and started firing Spanish into it. Finally he hung up.

“Well? What's the score?” I asked.

“You'll have to go there. He's cautious—can't blame him, the work he's in.” Amador grinned. “I described you and he'll see you. Don't know for sure if he'll tell you anything; I don't know him good.” He paused. “Uh, probably it cost you some pesos, plenty."

“That's O.K. El Golpe, huh? What's he look like?"

Amador told me all I needed to know and I got ready to leave. Before I took off I phoned the Prado and got Buff. “Buff, Shell here. Anything?"

“No. You haven't—I mean—"

“No, Buff. I thought Doc would be back by this time.” It was almost nine o'clock, nearly three hours since I'd seen Doctor Buffington. There wasn't any doubt in my mind now; something was sure as hell wrong. The Doc would at least have phoned Buff if he were delayed—if he could.

“Honey, listen. The minute I can, I'll be there with you. And I'll check around before I come up.” A little worry flickered in my mind. “Incidentally, just in case ... maybe you ought to get a different room there—"

“I have to stay here. What if he should call? Or come in? And, why, Shell? You ... you do think something's wrong, don't you? But why shouldn't I stay here?"

“No reason, I guess. But, uh, I'd lock the door anyway. Hell, it can't hurt."

Her voice softened a little. “I wish you were here, Shell."

“I will be, soon as I can."

“'Bye, Shell."

I hung up, thanked Amador, told him I'd see him later, and left to meet Party Boy Alberto Sanchez.

To get to El Golpe, you turn onto Rosales at the Caballito, the huge statue of Charles IV on his horse, and drive to Camelia, then take a right. As soon as you turn onto Camelia you can see the square ring of white lights around the face of the club, and cars are usually parked for a block on both sides of the street. Ordinarily El Golpe doesn't begin jumping until after midnight, but this Saturday night the crowd had started gathering earlier than usual.

I got out of my cab and walked past a poster depicting two female wrestlers in action, then went through the club's entrance, stopped inside and looked around. A few couples were dancing in the roped-off ring in the center of the club, where later the boxers and wrestlers would put on one of the three ‘shows,’ and half a dozen couples were scattered around at the tables. Two young hostesses in strapless dresses sat in one of the big wall booths on my right, looking bored. And a man sat alone in a booth beyond them, his back to me. I walked to the booth. He fit Amador's description: dark, in his middle twenties, heavy-set, brown hair, brown suit. He got up as I reached him.

“Sanchez?” I asked.

He nodded. “You're Scott?"

I told him I was and sat down where I could face the club's front. He slid back into the booth, and we verbally fenced for a couple of minutes while I made it clear that it was important I learn when and where and who and all the rest of it. Amador had already explained to Sanchez everything I wanted to know, and he knew I knew it, but I didn't strike pay dirt until I said, “And it's worth money to me."

“How much?” His dark, sullen face didn't change expression.

“A hundred pesos?"

He looked disgusted. “I get a thousand from them."

“You still get your thousand. O.K. Plus five hundred—from me—for information that costs you nothing."

“What you want to know for?"

“For five hundred pesos."

He thought about it for a minute. “O.K. The place is on ... the money?” I fished five hundreds out of my wallet and slid them across the table. They disappeared in his fist and he continued, “On Calle Edison. Just a couple of blocks down from the Frontón Palace. You know?"

“I know. When?"

“Me and the gals at eleven tonight.” He frowned. “Listen, Amador told me you're O.K., wouldn't cause me no trouble. Either of you lying, you both get a knife."

“Relax. I'm not interested in your racket. I'm trying to find a guy."

“It better be that. O.K. Ten o'clock the place closes because of this party you're so interested in. Nobody in after that—you know it's a whorehouse, don't you?"

“I didn't. Go on."

“At ten, the last customer has to be out, and nobody else can come in after that except the guys throwing this brawl. That's so they'll have the place to themselves. They'll have the movies and drinks and that stuff first, see. Then my part. After that I don't know because I leave."

“The rest,” I said. “Who's going to be there?"

As I finished the question I saw four big guys come through the club's draped entrance and stop inside it. I might not have paid much attention, but they were doing a hell of a lot of eyeballing around the place. Some hostesses walked toward them, but they waved the girls away. They weren't interested in hostesses.

I slid over to my left, hidden by the wall of the booth and said, “Sanchez, take a look, huh?” I jerked my thumb and he craned his neck, looking toward the front of the club.

“The four guys. You know them?” I asked.

“No."

“You in here much?"

“Most of the time. Never saw them before, though."

I thought back. I'd been careful going from the Prado to Amador's, and I was positive I hadn't been tailed then. So maybe I was imagining things. Or ... it was possible I'd been followed from Amador's, though why anybody would have a stakeout on his place I couldn't figure. There was even a chance Sanchez had tipped somebody I was coming here. There was a chance I was nuts, too, and they just wanted a drink.

I rubbed the Band-Aid on my neck. That wasn't imagination.

I asked Sanchez, “They still there?"

“Three of them. One's walking down the far side, looking around. What about them?"

I swore. It didn't sound good. I glanced down the passageway leading to the back of the club. “Can we get through in back there? Empty room or something?"

“Yeah."

“Let's go. I don't want those guys to see me."

He frowned.

“Dammit,” I said, “for money."

At least he didn't ask me how much. He got up and jerked his head. I followed him, scooting out of the booth while I watched the front. There were dancers wiggling around between the three men and me now, but I spotted the fourth guy peering at the tables on the far side.

Sanchez took me into a small room at the back of the club. It smelled of sweat and liniment. I bolted the door. “Boxeadores use this before the fights,” Sanchez said. “You got some kind of trouble?"

“Yeah. Who's going to be at this party?"

“I ain't telepathic,” he said. “I know the General's gonna be there, Lopez, like I told Amador. And General Fernandez. A couple of big políticos. Six altogether, but I don't know their names."

That was enough for me. I stood up and heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall. Somebody knocked on the door.

I looked at Sanchez. He shrugged.

The knock came again. Good and loud.

I whispered to Sanchez, “Get over there. If that's anybody looking for me, you never heard of me."

He pinched his chin. The doorknob started to turn. I tapped my coat, over my wallet.

That did it. "Momentito," he yelled, then walked to the door and slid back the lock. There wasn't any place to hide, so I moved up against the wall where I'd be hidden when the door swung open. I slipped the .38 from its holster and cocked it as Sanchez opened the door.

A bunch of Spanish followed and I heard the other man say something about hombre and rubio. Rubio means blond. I'm as blond as you can get. Sanchez said something about a boxeador. There was more, then Sanchez shut the door and the footsteps went down the hall. I heard the faint sound of knocking when the footsteps stopped.

Sanchez was open-mouthed, staring at the revolver in my fist. No wonder; it was aimed at his belly. I pointed it toward the floor, eased the hammer down and stuck the gun back in its holster.

"Madre de Dios!” Sanchez said. “What the hell is that for?"

“Relax. What happened?” I remembered tapping my wallet and took it out. While I fished inside it, he gave me the translation.

“Looking for you, all right. White-haired guy, he said, husky like you. Little bit rough-looking. I told them I saw you. You came in, then left. I'm a boxer, getting ready for the show. What the hell is happening? I don't like that gun."

I grinned at him. “I don't like knives."

He swallowed strenuously. “Hey, well,” he said. “I was kidding, fellow."

“Sure.” I took a five-hundred-peso note out of my wallet and gave it to him. “Thanks, I didn't want to see that guy. Still don't, so how do I get out of here?"

He took the money, went to the door and looked into the hall, then waved for me to follow. I walked after him down the dim corridor to the door. He opened it. I went past him, out the side of the club, and put some distance between me and El Golpe.

Four blocks away I caught a libre and told the driver where I wanted to go. We passed me big brightly lighted jai-alai building, the Frontón Mexico, lined with parked cars that had brought fans to the games going on inside. I had my driver slow down on Edison while I checked the street numbers till we reached the one I wanted, then paid him and got out in front of one of those big mansions that look as if they'd been shipped over from Spain a hundred years ago. The house was two stories of cement and stone and marble, elaborate scrolls and grillework covering its front. Little balconies, or terrazas, projected from two of the wide windows open on the second floor. The place was set back twenty feet from the sidewalk, and green lawn filled the space from house to walk. I patted my gun, went to the huge, carved-wood door, and looked for a bell or buzzer. There wasn't any, so I lifted the heavy brass knocker shaped like a lion's head, and whacked the door with it a few times.

I was nervous. Maybe this was all in the line of duty, but I couldn't help feeling a little odd. I hadn't been in a whorehouse for years.

Chapter Six

I didn't hear footsteps or any other noise, but soon the door swung halfway open and a little man with white hair and a dark wrinkled face peered out at me. He didn't look particularly intelligent. His mouth was open and his lower lip hung down half an inch from stained teeth.

“Hello,” I said. “Friend sent me. Ha. You speak English? Habla inglés?"

He shook his head. He didn't invite me in, either. I glanced at my watch. It was a little past nine-thirty, and Sanchez had said they'd close the doors at ten p.m. Surely they had time for another customer. Customer? I groaned. But, hell, I had to get inside, didn't I?

I grinned evilly at the little man. He looked like a eunuch. Maybe he was. “Girlies,” I said. “I mean, muchachas. Muchachitas. Weemen."

He sucked his lower lip up and let it droop down again. Outside of that, nothing. I pulled out my wallet. Ah, now he was watching my every movement. I grabbed a ten-peso note, gave it to him, then pointed into the house behind him, nodding my head eagerly. And then I was inside.

The Spanish influence was even more pronounced here. Thick carpet covered every inch of floor space, and bright tapestries were on two of the walls. A curving stairway led up to the second floor; ornate, twisting grillework forming the guard at the outer edge of the marble steps. The little man held his thumb and index finger close together as he looked at me—it meant something about “a little moment"—then he went away through a door at my right. I looked around, letting the layout sink into my memory.

For a moment I thought about Doc and Buff, then a tall, gray-haired woman came to the door through which the eunuch had gone, and waved a hand at me to come inside. There was a little Spanish chatter between us. She said many things, including "cien pesos"—so I gave her a hundred—and something about "a las diez," or what I assumed was ten o'clock, and I said, "Sí."

She smiled at me and went out. In less than thirty seconds a cute little gal came in: mine. She was at most a couple of inches over five feet tall, which is a foot shorter than I am, but she had as many dangerous curves as the road to Acapulco. The curves were distributed on a foundation which couldn't quite be called plump, but would never get her a job in the States as a high-fashion model. Which was fine with me. She was dressed in a snug-fitting green satin housecoat, and high-heeled pumps. I guessed her age at maybe twenty, and like many Mexican women she had, in addition to those other dandy things, a healthy mass of black hair and hot dark eyes.

She walked to me, smiling sweetly, and took both my hands in hers, speaking in a low voice, and pulled me after her through a side door, into a long narrow hall, and off it into a small room containing a dresser, overstuffed chair, green carpet and green drapes on the window. Ah, yes, and a bed.

Naturally I hadn't understood a word this little doll had said. She was standing in front of me, way down below me there, and smiling very prettily as she carried on this interesting conversation. Her face was animated, full of life, and once she put both hands out at her sides, opened her dark eyes wide and wiggled her head back and forth rolling her eyes and looking cute as the dickens.

I said “This is all most enjoyable, little lovely, but I haven't got the foggiest idea what you're talking about. And I hate to say it, but I'm here under false pretenses. Just want to stay in here a couple of minutes. You understand me?"

She opened her mouth wide and blinked her eyes rapidly. "Es un norteamericano turisto, no?"

That much I could understand. I was an American tourist. "Sí."

She clapped her hands and winked at me. While I searched my mind for the few words of Spanish I might be able to remember, she walked over to the bed. I hunted around in my head for words meaning movies, or pictures, and came up with what I thought would do. Then I turned toward the bed.

She had the green housecoat off, and was facing me in her high heels, white pants and brassière, her hands behind her back.

“Ah, ah,” I said. “Whoops, no, no. Momentito, just a minute.” I held my thumb and index finger close together as the eunuch had.

She paused, dropped her arms to her side and walked toward me.

I shook my head, still holding my fingers close together. She turned her head sideways, looking at me and gurgling in her throat. She shook her head and held her hands wide apart, still gurgling.

“Oh, no!” I said. “You don't understand. Look.” She giggled, and that didn't help either. I spoke very slowly. “I do not wish to—I mean, yo no deseo—" I stopped. I couldn't think of the next word. I said, "Por favor, yo deseo—"

She nodded, winked, and took off her brassière.

“Oh, hell,” I said. “You don't get it, no comprende!” I shook my head back and forth and held both hands up in front of me. “Stop!” I said.

She liked that. She looked at my clutching hands and walked right into them. “Honey,” I said, "querida. Please, por favor, I can't, I don't, oh, man, pictures—pictures—"

She laughed, giggled, wiggled, and took off her pants.

“Oh, no, no, no, no,” I said. “No, no, no. Pictures, películas? I want to see the películas!” I was getting a little hoarse.

"Películas?" She appeared surprised. "Películas? Películas!"

“Sí. Los cines. Moving pictures. Moving. Mooooving pictures.” I put an imaginary camera to my eye and made clicking noises while I aimed all over taking pictures with my camera.

She clapped her hands some more and yelped a little, happily, and started dancing around the room.

Finally I grabbed her, pushed her over to the bed and shoved her down on top of it. I simply bad to make her understand.

I looked at my watch. It was fifteen minutes to ten. What was it I'd come here for? I sat down beside her and shook my finger at her. She sort of snarled back and shook her finger at me.

I said slowly, shakily, “Películas, cines. In this house. En esta casa. In what room are the pictures? En cuál cuatro? In which cuatro?"

"Cuatro?" She blinked rapidly. She held up four fingers and repeated, "Cuatro?"

“Hell no, not cuatro, not four. I mean cuarto. Room.

Cuarto. Listen, goddammit,” I shouted. “Where the hell are the goddam movies?"

I was losing my grip. I shut my eyes, counted to ten in English, and started all over. I must have said it in several old and new languages, but at last I got my point across. She finally understood me and pouted a little.

"Sí," she said. "Cines."

“That's what I said."

She got up and went slowly to the door. I felt like a heel. But I followed her outside into the hall and back to the room where we'd met. She began to climb the marble stairs, paused and waited for me. Then we started up together, strolling along hand in hand. I kept up a running fire of inconsequential chatter, just to break the silence. “Isn't that marble cold on your bare feet?” and things like that. She didn't say anything.

At the top of the steps we turned toward the front of the house and walked to a closed door at the end of another hall. She pointed to the door. "Los cines. Allá. A las diez y quince."

Movies at ten-fifteen. I tried the door. Naturally the damn thing was locked. I took the little doll by the shoulders, turned her around, then bent down and peeked through the keyhole. I turned her around because I didn't want her to see me. I didn't want anybody to see me. Peeking through keyholes in a cathouse is a good way to get yourself pointed at by giggling people.

I couldn't see much: black carpet, part of an extremely low couch, and the wide windows I'd seen from the street below, standing open. At least I didn't see anybody moving around inside. I stood up and had another of those dear conversations with my naked woman. It was mostly in sign language, opening the door with an imaginary key, but she nodded and said something about a key in her cuarto. I assumed that her room key worked this door, too.

When I thought she understood, I gave her a hundred pesos. She looked at it, then wadded it in her hand. She didn't have any other place to put it. I hoped. I put my finger to my lips and said, “Shhhhh."

She said “Shhhhh,” back at me, grinned, nodded her head and things, then tiptoed down the marble stairs. She glanced over her shoulder and nodded conspiratorially, laughed softly, and went out of sight. I just stood there trying to look like a customer. It was easy. Then she was back with a key and unlocked the door.

I gave her some more of the “Shhhh” routine, hoping she'd understand that she wasn't to tell anybody about the silly man, and she laughed and “Shhhh'd” me.

Then I said, "Gracias. Mil gracias."

"Por nada."

For nothing. Almost invariably that is the polite phrase Mexicans use when you thank them for something; this time, it was true. She looked up at me, seeming incredibly small in her bare feet, and said, "Es todo? Nada mas?" She kept looking at me, expectantly.

I shook my head. “Nothing else, honey."

She gazed solemnly at me for another moment, then turned and started to leave. She looked a little hurt.

"Momentito," I said. "Momentito, querida." She stopped and turned. “You won't understand this,” I said, “but I'm sorry I had to sort of use you. I did have to, though. And you're really a very lovely little gal.” I tapped my head, wiggled my fingers in circles and added, “Loco. I'm just plain loco."

She smiled then, nodded, turned and walked back down the marble stairs. I watched her go, wishing I were on vacation, then stepped inside the room.

As soon as I shut the door behind me I spotted the projector, near a mirrored wall on my right—the entire wall was a huge mirror. The front wall, next to the street, was covered with heavy black draperies, hanging loosely six inches or so from the wall on a projecting iron bar; they were pulled almost closed before the wide windows. The couch I'd seen through the keyhole was on my left, slanted into the room so customers could sit there and watch the pictures projected onto the silvered screen placed against the wall.

A similar couch was on this side of the room, and the whole wall above it, on either side of the door, was painted with two brilliant murals. One was of four women and three men with no clothes on, doing what might be expected of four women and three men with no clothes on, and the other was just as much fun. It was a bold, red and black painting of a semi-nude, black-skinned woman and a dark red satyr, the lascivious demigod of mythology, both under the gaze of a laughing, sharp-horned, scarlet devil. More huge silk-and-satin-covered pillows, plus two round black hassocks, were scattered on the carpet.

In another minute it would be ten o'clock. I walked to the projector, a new Bell and Howell sixteen-millimeter job, the Filmosound Model 385 with all the gadgets. Switches to start, stop, or reverse the film, a switch for showing single frames, the works. A rubber-covered cord ran from the base of the projector down along the carpet to the front wall and disappeared under the black drapery. One reel of film was already in place above the lens and threaded into the bottom reel, ready to go. Three tin cans of film rested on the table at the side of the projector. I picked up the top can, opened it—and heard noises, voices, outside.

As voices boomed practically in the room and a key rattled in the door's already open lock I shoved the top on the can and put it back with the others, then looked around for a place to hide. My eye caught the black drapes hanging a little way out from the wall and I jumped to the end nearest me, on my right close to the projector, pulled the drape out and slid behind it, turning around with my back to the wall as I heard the door open and somebody come in.

I could hear two men's voices, then a chuckle. I looked down to make sure my shoes didn't stick out beyond the drape. They didn't, but my body made a perceptible bulge in the heavy cloth. The cord from the projector touched my shoes, and my left shoulder was only six inches from the wall mirror. I pressed my face against the glass and pulled the drapes an inch away from it. I could see the projector but not into the room, and I wasn't about to expose myself further.

Footsteps slithered over the rug nearby and I held my breath. As I looked at the projector, a man's arm came into my limited area of vision. In his hand was another shiny round tin. A film case. I saw the arm move; the hand placed the can on top of the three others. In the moment before it disappeared from my sight I noticed a wide, red scar on the back of the hand, extending up out of sight under the dark sleeve of his coat. Then the hand was gone.

I took a chance and pulled the drape farther from my face; I wanted a look at that guy. But other men were just coming in through the open door, and I pulled my head back, held still for several seconds as the conversation and laughter grew louder inside the room. Then I slowly moved my feet, inching farther back from the mirror until, by holding the drape three or four inches away from the glass and looking at the reflection in it, I could see clearly into the room.

I stood motionless like that for several minutes. There were six men present now, four of them in dark suits and two in light-colored ones. I couldn't see if any of the men in dark suits had a scar on his hand, but I managed to get a pretty good look at all the faces. Amador had described General Lopez to me as a husky man, six-three, clean-shaven and with gray hair. He was easy to pick out because there were only two men without mustaches, and one of them was under six feet. So I was finally seeing General Lopez, who had sprung me from the clink. He looked like a pretty hard-boiled character, with thick brows low over dark eyes, a firm straight mouth, a wide square chin. It was a strong, I'm-in-command face, rugged and hard. It would probably, I thought, get even harder if he knew the guy he'd sprung from the can was behind this drape.

But nobody was paying any attention to drapes, understandably. Two girls had come in, both wearing only black, frilly step-ins and bras, and high-heeled pumps. So far nothing was going on except conversation and I checked the men's faces again. None was the heavy-jowled guy of the enlargements. It hadn't seemed likely he'd be here. The other clean-shaven man was a slim, pleasant-faced guy an inch under six feet, with a wide, full-lipped mouth and long sideburns; he was talking to the General. Now he grabbed one of the girls by the arm and jerked her to him. A rough guy. He talked to her, patted her fanny, then pinched her. She squealed and jumped and the men laughed loudly as the girl walked away, rubbing her cheek. He was a little too rough for her taste—and mine.

Then through the open door came a tiny gal with a whole mess of curves, and still no clothes on. Maybe she'd been too lazy to put them back on, or possibly she just didn't like clothes. That had been my impression when I'd been with her in the room downstairs, anyway. My little dark-haired cutie was carrying a tray with a number of highballs on it, and she went around giving out drinks and getting several feels in return.

After she'd handed out a couple of drinks she looked around, a little frown on her pretty face. She looked at all the men and the frown deepened. I started getting an awful sinking sensation in my stomach; undoubtedly she was looking for me.

She carried the drinks around and I heard her say something about "rubio." There was that damned word for white-haired again—me. The men laughed halfheartedly, apparently not thinking her question very funny. I didn't either. She took the last two drinks to the General and the other smooth-shaven character, who took a drink, then reached out and fondled the plump bare breast in front of him.

She wiggled her head back and forth as I'd seen her do once before; then that bastard pinched her, pinched her good. She yelled and dropped the tray, spilling the last drink onto the floor, then stood with both hands pressed to her breast, biting her lip. She backed away from the sonofabitch while he laughed louder than ever. He seemed to enjoy hurting people, and I felt like walking out there and kicking him between his thighs.

The General apparently hadn't liked it either; he tugged the guy's arm and spoke sharply in rapid Spanish. The long-sideburned sadistic sonofabitch just shrugged. My cutie finally picked up the tray and empty glass, cringing away from the guy with the General, then went out and came back with a full drink. The General took it, thanked her, keeping part of his body between her and his chum. Maybe the General was a horny old cat, but so far he was all right otherwise in my book.

And, if I was right, and the General was, with no previous preparation for the blow, going to see the film I was after, this was a lousy setup. I understood from Amador and Sanchez that all these men were big, powerful—and friends of General Lopez. I couldn't think of anything much more horrible for the General than to be sitting here with his friends and suddenly see, in place of the usual movie he expected, one of his wife with another man.

And right then my little cutie walked to the window and pulled the drapes closed, then went to the projector and said something in Spanish. Already she had a darkening bruise showing on her flesh. A couple more girls entered the room and they and the men sprawled on the couches and cushions. The little nudist turned on the projector, went to a wall switch and flicked off the overhead lamps, and the room was in darkness except for the beam of light from the projector to the screen on the far wall. The projector whirred, the film unwound past the lens, and pictures formed and moved on the screen.

I knew that nobody would be looking toward me now, so I pulled the drape away from my face, turned, and watched the screen. I put my right foot next to the wall beneath the projector cord plugged in there, and stepped on the cord with my left foot. If I saw anything in the movie that looked like the Countess, or like any of those stills I'd seen, that cord was coming out, if possible before the General or anybody else could recognize either of the stars. I'd started out thinking mainly about the effect of this on the General's wife; now I was also considering what it would do to the General. I slid my .38 from its holster and held it loosely in my right hand while I watched.

This film though, was obviously not the one I was after. I kept thinking about the tin case I'd seen in the scarred hand. It seemed likely that it was the one to worry about. The movie we were all watching was a bit more professionally done than I had expected, apparently made recently, and with a bit of a story to it. The story, as such, was about over now, though, and the men were seeing what they had come to see. The flickering light from the projector and the soft whir of the machine were almost hypnotic. I could hear faint whispering movements from the couches and cushions, occasional soft Spanish words, once the ring of ice on glass. The film ended, and I noticed motion on my left.

The little black-haired doll was moving from the wall to the projector, her nude body gleaming palely in the dim illumination. She busied herself momentarily beside the machine, and the film was quickly reversed onto its own spool. She took the filled spool off, then picked up the top can from the four on the table—the one that had been put there after I entered this room. She removed the film from the can, placed it on the projector, then nipped the switch and walked away.

I gripped my revolver a little tighter as I felt my throat get dryer. I turned toward the screen as movement danced upon it.

Chapter Seven

It started so suddenly I was caught off guard. The first scene flashed upon the screen was identical with one of the stills I had seen at Amador's. Standing here, I had told myself a dozen times that I had to be sure, couldn't take a chance on getting the wrong reel and messing up my one try, and I was so intent on the idea that I didn't act immediately.

I saw the scene I had studied in the enlargement, the tall, black-haired woman with her back to the camera, hair high-piled and with a sparkling comb in it, the man in a dark robe stepping toward her. As in the print, the Countess was just sliding the blouse from her shoulders, but then she dropped it to the floor, placed her fingers at the side of her dark skirt and moved her hand downward. She placed both hands at the top of her skirt, began to slide it from her hips, turning slightly to the side—and finally I moved. There had been only four or five seconds of the film in all, but in another second her profile would be visible. I kicked hard with my right foot, slamming it into the cord and jerking the plug from the wall.

The room was immediately pitch black, absolutely silent for a moment as I moved toward the projector. Somebody rattled Spanish and another said "Aí Chihuahua!" I shoved my gun back in its holster as I reached the projector; I'd need both hands for this. I had forgotten that with the plug out I couldn't reverse the machine, and I jerked the film from behind the lens and out of the feeding mechanism, grabbed the top reel, spun it backward by hand as I heard more voices and movement from the far end of the room.

Somebody spoke rapidly from almost beside me—a woman's voice. I spun that damn reel around, jerked it from the machine, pulled at the film remaining in the bottom reel as I stepped toward the windows; I had to get it all. It came free of the machine as somebody bumped into me and let out a startled stream of Spanish; a cigarette lighter sparked, then flared at the far side of the room. The man near me shouted and grabbed for me.

I held on to the reel with one hand, drove my other fist into the guy's belly and swung it in an uppercut as he bent over. He fell to the floor, then yelled aloud, trying to get up. I jumped toward the windows and pawed at the drapes, searching for the opening, grabbed the heavy cloth and yanked. Light showed through the open windows and I reached them, climbed through as I heard the guy on the floor crawling toward me, felt his hand on my leg. I kicked backward, felt a jar as my foot hit him, then I jumped out onto the terraza and threw one leg over the rail as lights blazed in the room behind me.

I went over the side, hung for a moment by one hand, and dropped to the grass, stumbled, kept on my feet and started to run. From the window above me a gun cracked and I heard the slug thud into the grass. I ran like hell, a drizzle of rain peppering my face.

As I ran down the street I clutched the reel, trying to wind the loose film around it. After nearly two blocks I stopped at the rear wall of the Frontón Palace, and listened. Feet splatted on the sidewalk. I looked back and saw headlights flare on a car in front of the house, then the car pulled out into the street, slewed around on the wet pavement and roared down Edison toward me. I could see the running man angling across the street, getting closer.

The Frontón entrance was around the corner to my right, up another short block. I ran around the wall of the building and headed toward the entrance, sprinting with all my strength. Tires squealed shrilly on the road as the car turned the corner behind me; its lights fell on me as I reached the entrance and ran up the steps. I dug for my wallet, jerked out ten pesos and shoved it at the girl in the reserved-ticket booth.

“Quick. Any seat, anything,” I said, as I heard a car door slam outside. She pushed a pale blue ticket at me and I grabbed it, jumped to the ticket taker and gave him the paper slip, not waiting for him to tear it in half. I pushed past him as he frowned and said something to me.

I hurried forward through milling men and women, then burst into the Frontón court itself and turned to my left, walking rapidly past the bottom row of seats. Noise slammed against my ears as if it were something solid, with that faintly hollow sound like men yelling in a gymnasium or indoor swimming pool. The long court was on my right, much like two handball courts back to back, with high green walls at each end, a red stripe painted horizontally across the front wall, three or four feet above the floor. Between the court and the spectators was a heavy wire screen, and on my left were ascending rows of seats filled with well over a thousand screaming jai-alai fans.

I spotted an empty seat seven rows up, between two shouting Mexicans, plowed through seated men and women, made the seat and plunked down in it. It wasn't the one I'd paid for, but I was in a hurry. I turned to look back at the spot where I'd entered, just as a man came inside. Long sideburns, no mustache: the bastard who liked to pinch.

He was looking over the crowd, his face not pleasant now, but contorted and angry—and bruised. Apparently he was also the guy I'd slugged and kicked in the face. He was a tough one to be chasing me after all that. Remembering the pain on the little cutie's face, I wished I'd kicked him harder. I turned toward the game out front, watching the man from the corner of my eye.

The two-man “Gray” team was leading the “Blues” twenty-eight to twenty-six, and betting was getting frenzied. Odds offered by the dozen or more shouting bookies change during the thirty-point game after almost every point scored, and everybody bets like mad. Now slit tennis balls carrying money and betting slips inside them were flying all over the place.

Another guy came through the entrance and stood beside Sideburns, who reached under his coat and seemed to touch his armpit. Eight to five he had a gun there—and better odds he was the one who'd shot at me. The two men spoke for a moment, then the one I'd slugged started walking along the pathway down in front of the seats, looking up at the customers, including me. I didn't think he'd been close enough to get a good look at me in the headlight's glare—but there was my damned white hair. It would have been like a beacon in the light.

And, suddenly, I realized that almost everybody around me was yelling and screeching and making bets, while I sat here gawking.

Down on the court the white pelota was whizzing back and forth, smacking the front wall and rebounding to be caught by one of the four players. A Blue man leaped high into the air, caught the hurtling ball in the long, curved, basket-like cesta strapped to his hand and wrist, then twisted his body as he came down and hurled the ball against the front wall; as it bounced back a Gray snared it, whipped it forward again. I glanced at the scoreboard; while I'd been gawking around the Grays had made another point. Now it was Grays twenty-nine, Blues still twenty-six.

I yelled, “Come on, Blues!” then swore. The long-sideburned slob heard the American voice and glanced in my direction. Only casually, so far. I waved my arms, yelled "Azul! Azul!"

There is something suggestive, contagious about a huge crowd yelling almost as one person, and the noise and color and action caught me up with it a little, and I almost started enjoying myself. Sideburns was still down front, maybe twenty-five feet from me.

I thought of the reel in my pants, looked down, knowing if a strip of the film was dangling out of me like a loose suspender, I'd probably have to shoot my way out to get out. Nothing was showing. The bulge was hardly perceptible. But I stopped jumping up and down.

The slob was looking straight at me now. I waved at one of the white-coated, red-capped bookies who take money and bets during games. As he shouted the 100-to-60 odds I yelled "Azul," and fished sixty pesos from my wallet, waved the bills. The bookie scribbled on a betting slip, tucked it into the hole in one of the white tennis balls and threw it to me. I caught it, took out the slip and shoved the money inside, tossed the ball back. He caught it expertly. I yelled "Azul!" some more.

Sideburns looked at the men and women around me, ground his teeth together, jaw muscles wiggling, then walked slowly along the pathway looking at every face. I wiped my forehead, surprised to find it wet with perspiration. The score was twenty-nine to twenty-seven now. The yelling kept up, more tennis balls were thrown back and forth, the pelota was hurled against the front wall and rebounded against the side wall and floor, the cestas cutting yellow arcs through the air. The ball hit the side wall as a Blue leaped for it, missed it. The game was over—Grays thirty, Blues twenty-seven. I threw my betting slip away.

Some of the fans were leaving, probably to stretch their legs or get a drink before the next game. I asked the guy on my left, “Where's the bar?"

He frowned. "Mande?"

“Cantina. Licores."

"Allá y a la derecha." He pointed out the way I'd come in, then around to the right, grinning and bobbing his head.

"Gracias." I left my seat and headed for the bar. Before I reached the exit. Sideburns came through it and walked toward me. He looked straight at me and when we were a couple yards apart he raised his hand. "Momentito, señor," he said. He stepped up to me and let his hand fall lightly against my coat, right over the .38, as he spouted something at me. Then he dropped his arm.

"Mande?" I said, screwing my face up. "Turista." I tapped one ear to show the words going in, and pointed away from the other to indicate them going out. I don't know whether he got it or not, but I merely wanted to look a bit like a harmless fool, which wasn't difficult. Anyway, he laughed a little, barely opening his mouth. One lip was split so I didn't blame him.

I nodded at him and pushed past, bumping into him a bit roughly. It was a gun. “Hell,” I told him. “Pardon me all to hell."

His eyes narrowed. I went on into the bar and had two drinks. When the place started emptying and I didn't see any familiar faces, I went out the front door, where there are always plenty of libres, hopped into one and told him the Caballito. There I changed cabs, switched to another on San Juan de Letran, and finally, sure I wasn't followed, gave the driver Señora Lopez’ address.

The film was in my coat pocket when I rang the bell. In a minute Señora Lopez opened the door. I'd been thinking of her as “The Countess” for half the night, and now I realized she did look the part. Only much more interesting than most countesses. She stood straight and tall inside the door, light behind her tracing the mature curves of her body, her face in dim shadow. When she saw me she didn't burst out in a rash of excited questions. “Mr. Scott,” she said. “Come in, please."

I went inside. She was wearing a gray silk dress, and the faint scent of perfume brushed my nostrils as I passed her. Then she asked me, “Did you—have any success?"

“Yes, Señora. At least for now.” I took the film out of my pocket and handed it to her.

She seemed startled. Then she said, “I thank you, Mr. Scott, I thank you so very much. I really find it difficult to believe ... how did you get this? Where? Do you know who—"

I interrupted. “I'd rather not say, if you don't mind. At least not yet. And there must be more of these around, Countess. Probably—"

“Countess?"

“I'm sorry. That slipped out."

She smiled. “It is what Amador calls me. I do not mind. Really, I like it much better than Señora.” Facing me, the light fell on her face and the large dark eyes seemed the only features in shadow, the extremely long black lashes darker smudges. “But come,” she said. “We should not stand here. Come with me.” She took my hand and led me into a large room a few feet away, one of four or five that lined a long, carpeted hall. Her hand was warm in mine; I thought she squeezed it rather tightly.

She turned on the lights as we went inside where white walls reflected the bright light. Heavy wooden furniture filled the room, a piano was near one corner, a big maroon divan sat on our right. There was a small bar against the far wall.

“Would you like a drink, Mr. Scott?"

I thought about Buff and the doctor. “I'd better leave, Señora—Countess.” She smiled. “There are other things I have to do tonight.” I looked around for a phone, but didn't see one.

“Come now,” she said. “I must know a little more. What—what can I expect tomorrow—or the next day? You will have a drink and tell me."

“One, then.” I'd already had a half-dozen or more so far this evening. Now that the tenseness and excitement had faded a bit I could feel the faint warm glow inside me.

I sat down on the couch and in a minute the Countess handed me a tall drink of rum and bottled Tehuacan mineral water. I rested my head against the cushions behind me, thinking about what had happened. The Countess was moving around behind the divan doing something. I sipped my drink and she said, “Mr. Scott, do you think this will end it, my difficulty?"

“Frankly, no. There must be other copies. I don't know where, or even who has them. I do have a couple of ideas, but I don't know—we may come out all right. I can't promise."

“Did you—” She hesitated. “Did you see, I mean—"

“Uh, no.” I gulped some more of the drink. “No, Countess."

“Then how can you be sure this is the one?"

“I, uh—” I had some more rum and Tehuacan. I couldn't very well tell the Countess I'd snatched it from under her husband's nose in a whorehouse. “I'm pretty sure, yes, pretty sure."

“I must be positive, Mr. Scott. There was a little doubt that my husband was to be given this tonight.” At least she'd said given, not shown. But there was something about the way she'd said it, a sort of purring softness, that made the hairs on my neck stand up and wiggle.

I looked around at the second projector I'd seen this evening. I finished my drink.

She said, “I purchased this after the first film was delivered to me. I had to know what, exactly, the man had to ... blackmail me with."

“Yes,” I said. “I see. That was smart."

“So it will be easy to tell if this is the right one."

I got up. “Yep. Sure will. Well, so long, Countess. I guess it's—"

“Please sit down, Mr. Scott. Please. Just for a moment."

I did. Just for a moment.

She leaned over the back of the divan, put her hand on my shoulder, and said softly, “A little moment. If you have made a mistake, then you must rectify that mistake, is it not so? You will still have work to do tonight if this is the wrong one. Is this not true?"

“Yes,” I said. “I guess so. It sounds very logical."

She leaned closer and smiled. “And tell me, Mr. Scott, Tell me the truth. Wouldn't you like to see it?"

I didn't realize I was doing it, but I sucked in my breath and it made one of those funny whistling noises. “Well,” I said. “Well..."

“Be honest.” Her mouth was parted, the moist red lips gleaming, curved in a half smile. The dark eyes looked directly into mine. Softly, “Wouldn't you?” Ever so softly, “Truthfully, wouldn't you?"

I said, “Well, I suppose so. Can't say I'd mind. No, can't say that."

Her smiling lips curved even more. “Let me fix us another drink, Mr. Scott."

“Look, you'd better start calling me Shell."

She moved around the divan, walking with the gracefulness which was the first thing I had noticed about her, hips moving smoothly under the silk of her dress. She mixed the drinks at the little bar, swiftly, her back to me. It was almost the same pose I remembered, except that she wore a gray dress now, and there was no comb in her upswept hair. Her waist was small, hips swelling from it in a smooth line that curved down into her long legs. I was wishing she'd hurry with that drink. My throat was parched.

She carried the drinks over, stood close in front of me as she gave me the highball. “Here, Shell."

I took it. I drank half of it. The couch faced the far wall, that bare white wall, and the projector behind the divan would cast the pictures on it twenty feet from me. From us. She turned out the lights and I heard her moving through the darkness. Then she switched on the projector and its beam leaped forward to the wall, the machine whirred and she walked to the front of the couch and sat down at its end.

My shoulder was partially blocking the beam of light, so I moved to my right. “No, Shell,” she said. “Please, over here. Sit by me."

I could have said, “No! I won't.” But that's not what I said. I didn't say anything. I moved over by her. In order to keep out of the beam of light, I had to sit pressed close against her. My arm was between us, so I put it behind her on the back of the divan. She reached up with her left hand and pulled my arm around her shoulders.

Still holding my hand, she said, “That is better. Isn't it, Shell?"

“Yeah."

On the wall, the scene was part of what I had watched earlier. The Countess had dropped her blouse to the floor, her hands were sliding the skirt from the swelling hips. Then she stopped, turned toward the man in the dark robe, apparently said something to him and waved her hand. He nodded and went out somewhere. She slipped the skirt from her hips, stepped out of it, stood for a moment in brief step-ins and brassière, her fingers at the brassière's clasp. She pulled it from her shoulders, slid the step-ins from her hips, then picked up all the clothing and walked out of sight. In seconds she was back, completely naked. She stood by the bed, sat on its edge facing the camera, and took the comb from her hair, touched the hair with her fingers and let the black mass of it tumble down over her shoulders. She stroked it, combed it.

On the divan, the Countess squeezed my hand, then pressed my palm tight against her shoulder. Her long, soft leg was mashed against mine. “It is the one,” she said.

“Uh-huh. Well, now that we know, maybe—"

She turned toward me, a cool finger covering my lips. “Shhh.” She moved against me, slipped lower on the divan, her head against my shoulder. “Is it so bad?” she asked me.

“No. Not at all."

“Do you mind?"

“Not—well, no."

“Then quiet, Shell. Quiet."

She sighed, moved slightly, pulled my hand farther over her shoulders. My fingertips touched the swelling softness of her breast, felt the heat of her body. Her fingers slid up the back of my hand, gently squeezed my wrist, and pulled my hand down to cup a full warm mound. She strained her body forward, pressing the soft, silk-covered flesh into my palm. She wasn't wearing a brassière.

“Finish your drink,” she whispered.

I swallowed what was left of my rum and she took the glass from my hand, put it on the floor. Then she leaned her back against me, pulling my arms around her. On the wall, the man returned. A minute passed in silence. The Countess moved against me, turned to face me. In the dim light I saw her hands go to her shoulders, fumble there, then like a shadow the gray dress moved down over her shoulders, was still for a moment; then slowly the shadow melted from the globes of her breasts and gathered in the darkness at her waist. Her hands took mine and pressed them against her flesh, and then her fingers touched my cheek, my lips. Her hand moved on my thigh as I put my arm around her and drew her to me.

She came toward me easily, lifting her head, and I felt the warmth of her breath on my face, smelled the faint perfume of her, then her lips were on mine, hot and moist, writhing, clinging wetly, devouring my mouth.

I thought I heard a bang. A kind of slamming sound. The film clicked through the projector, slapped as the end came free, and white light flashed against the wall. The room became brighter. I'd forgotten the projector. I wondered what I'd heard, or thought I'd heard.

The Countess was breathing audibly, her breasts heaving.

She said, “Did you hear something?"

“What?"

“Something slamming? In the house?"

“I thought I did."

“It must have been the door. Oh, God."

“The door?"

“Yes. Oh, God."

“Huh?"

“My husband is home."

“Hus-hus-husband?"

And then I heard the footsteps pounding down the hall, enormous, perfectly fantastic footsteps, like King Kong striding smack at us, clump, clump, clump.

“Oh, God,” I said. And I thought: Scott, you fool, you!

Chapter Eight

The countess was getting back into her dress one hell of a lot faster than she'd gotten out of it. I was sitting there with my mouth open. King Kong was getting closer.

The footsteps really couldn't have been so very loud, but at that moment it seemed they were right inside my head. Clump, clump.

They stopped outside the door. I fumbled on the floor for my glass wondering if I should say, “Ah, hello, old sport; just having a spot of rum.” And then the clumping started again and the monster moved on down the hall. I heard, very clearly, a door open and close nearby.

“You sure that was your husband?"

“Yes. He walks heavily."

Walks heavily? I thought. He must have been out there jumping up and down. Hell, Scott, pull yourself together; he's only a man, like you. Well, anyway only a man. He can't hurt you. You're tough—and smart. Yeah, oh, boy, am I smart. One thing was sure, I was in a hell of a shape. I could hear the General moving around in the next room. Thin walls, very thin. Well, that settled that.

“Ah, Countess,” I said. “Sweet.” I cleared my throat. It felt as if it had grown together. “Well, guess I'll run along."

“Damn,” she said.

The projector was still going clickety-click, and I started to tell Señora Lopez it might be pretty clever of her to turn the fool thing off and hide it, and then there was an odd noise from the next room.

The Countess swung her head around as I straightened up. It sounded like scuffling, banging, then there was a hoarse shout. Right after that there was a soft thump, like somebody falling.

The Countess put her hand on my arm. “Shell, that—something's wrong."

She started toward the door. I passed her on a run, yanking out my .38, jerked open the door and ran down the hall to the next door, slammed it open and jumped inside.

The light partially blinded me for a moment, after the dimness where I'd been, but I saw the two men near a big desk, the General seated in a chair, slumped loosely, his head hanging forward; and the other man holding the General up by the collar, a big automatic in his right hand. The automatic was pointed at the General's temple.

I started to flip my gun toward the guy just as the Countess ran up behind me, crashed into me, then let out an enormous scream right in my ear. I shot a hole in the carpet.

The guy swung around, flipping his automatic toward us and letting go of the General's coat. I had caught my balance and all I had to do was pull the trigger and plug him, but when I saw his face it jarred me enough to freeze my index finger for a moment.

The General slowly toppled to the floor.

It was just blind luck—that and the man's obvious shock and fright—that he didn't kill me then. He fired twice, the automatic bucking in his hand, but both bullets smacked into the wall near me. He broke and ran toward wide picture windows only partly open on my left. I snapped one shot at him and missed a yard, then steadied myself as he leaped through the air with his hands in front of his face. I pulled the revolver onto his back and squeezed the trigger just as he burst through the window in a shower of splintered glass fragments. Then he was gone. I might have hit him, but I couldn't be sure.

“Douse the lights!” I yelled to the Countess, but she either didn't hear me or it didn't mean anything to her. I ran after the guy, shoved the window wide and went through it, making a lovely target with the light behind me, and dropped flat on the ground. I heard him running. I ran toward the sound, but after half a dozen steps a car engine growled nearby and then roared; tires squealed as the car left in a hurry, the sound fading.

I stopped running. And now that the action was over I wondered about that face I'd recognized, wondered what the hell his being here meant. Because the guy who had just gotten away was also the slob who'd started me on my way to the can—my pal, the Latin Hemingway.

I didn't get anywhere trying to puzzle out why the guy who'd leered all over Buff at the Monte Cassino would now turn up here holding a gun at the General's head, so I went back to the house to see if General Lopez was alive.

When I climbed through the window, the General was still sprawled on the floor and the Countess was kneeling over him, mumbling, almost crying. I knelt beside him and felt for his pulse; it was strong. He was breathing heavily.

“He's O.K.,” I said. I felt for the lump on his head and found it just over the hairline. “Sapped. He'll be good as new in a minute, except for a sore head. A cold rag would help. And anything you've got for a bad headache."

She left the room, but the General moaned and started coming out of it before she came back. When she brought the cold rag I had her mop him with it while I looked around. There were drapes at the sides of the windows, so I pulled them together, then went back to the desk. It was bare except for a phone and a piece of white paper with pen-and-ink writing on it. I looked the paper over, but it was all in Spanish, so I couldn't read more than a word or two. It looked like a letter with “Nana” as the salutation, and “Toro” as the signature.

I asked the Countess, “You know anybody named Nana? Or a Toro?"

She looked up, eyes widening. “Why, Nana is a kind of pet name for me—my name is Natania. My husband calls me Nana. And I often call him Toro.” She paused, flushing slightly. In Spanish, toro means bull. She went on, “It is a pet name, from his name, Torres. You know, a pet name. Why?” She seemed a bit flustered.

I handed her the paper. “Here's something that was on the desk. Hope it isn't private, but I can't read it anyway. If it's anything that might help, I'd like to hear it, though."

She looked at it, then frowned, staring at me. “Why, this is silly,” she said. “It ... here, I'll read it to you. ‘Nana—you will know, and understand, why I do this, why I must do this. Forgive me, as I forgive you.’ And it's signed, Toro.’ I don't understand."

“I don't get it either.” And I didn't for a good five seconds. Then, naturally, I got it. It was a suicide note—and the General sure as hell hadn't been committing suicide when we'd barged in here.

“Countess—” The General moaned again and I started over—"Señora Lopez, does that look like your husband's handwriting?"

She frowned at the note. “Why, yes, I'd say it was his."

“Who knows your pet names for each other besides you and the General himself?"

“Nobody that I know of. It's—a private thing. What do you mean?"

“Let's talk to the General.” He was still on the floor, but he'd started blinking his eyes. He mumbled something. In a few more minutes he was O.K., sitting in the chair holding his head. Finally he said in a booming voice, “I am all right now.” He looked at me and then at his wife. “Who is this man?"

I had a bad minute there, but the Señora explained, rapidly and well, almost as though she'd planned it, that she had been worried about the General because of threats against his life and had without his knowledge hired me—a norteamericano detective—to try to learn who made the threats.

“What is your name?” the General asked me.

My stomach turned upside down. Undoubtedly the Countess had found it necessary to tell him the man she'd wanted out of jail was Shell Scott. If I gave him a fake name and he learned who I really was, the fat would be in the fire.

“Shell Scott,” I said.

He looked puzzled. “The man from the jail?” He glanced at his wife. My stomach did a hula. I opened my mouth but Señora Lopez kept carrying the ball and said smoothly, “Yes, dear. I wished a detective who is not known down here, one who could more secretly investigate. Your life ... is most precious to me. I did not tell you why I wished Mr. Scott removed from jail because I did not wish you to worry. You have too many worries already. And Mr. Scott has a wondrous reputation in the United States."

The General smiled. If a smile could look puzzled, this one did. But he said, “That is sweet, my dear.” He seemed a bit perplexed, but he appeared to accept the explanation: he was still groggy.

I broke in to tell him I'd gotten here just as his attacker had been about to shoot him, added the rest of it, then got his story.

The color was back in his face now, and except for wincing once in a while when his head throbbed, he seemed normal. His gray hair was mussed, but his dark eyes were clear and steady under the thick brows, his big square jaw firm. A rugged-looking, almost handsome man, he didn't look more than fifty years old.

He stiffly expressed his gratitude to me, then said, “I had just come in and was seated here, at my desk. Apparently the man came in the window behind me. I thought I heard a noise, and turned. I saw him almost upon me with something in his hand, a clubbing thing."

“Sap?"

“I guess that is it. We struggled, then he hit me. That is all I remember.” He shook his big head. “It is fortunate you came."

I took the note from the Countess and handed it to him. “General, if you don't object to my questions—"

“No, no,” he said. “Please be assured, I do not. It seems I owe you my life."

“You owe me nothing. But—this note—why did you write it?"

He looked it over, blinked, and shook his head. "Chihuahua! What is this? This I did not write. This I have never seen. What is it?"

“It's a suicide note, General."

He read the note again, then looked at me. “Fantastic."

“Who would want to murder you?"

He shrugged. “Many people. I have received threats against my life often in the last few years—as my wife knows, and must have told you. But nothing like this has happened.” He paused. “Do you know of my work, my public battle with the Communist criminals?"

“Yes, I do."

“Then there is your answer. I sincerely believe, Mr. Scott, that there is no man in Mexico the Communists are more determined to destroy. Perhaps that sounds immodest, but I think it is the truth. Tonight they have tried to kill me."

“Isn't that jumping to a conclusion?"

“Not at all. There have been others, many others. Accidents, heart attacks—several of those, Mr. Scott.” He smiled oddly. “Among the secret police of the Soviet, there has long been a saying: ‘Any fool can commit a murder, but it requires an artist to commit a good natural death.’ And the Soviet apparatus contains some very artistic men.” He paused. “Who is to say why a young man dies suddenly of a heart attack? There have been three men who once worked closely with me, good men, men who loved Mexico as I love her. They are all dead. Salvador, on the road between Mexico and Cuernavaca; his car went from the road where it was steep, and he died. Roberto is dead—of a heart attack, señor; once he had been a Communist, but he grew wise and turned against them. He helped me greatly, but he is dead. He was young, thirty-seven; his heart was as strong as it was brave. And only three months past old Golpez fell from a tall building; he had been much in the newspapers, the Communists had attacked him, his home, and his friends; they smeared his name. It was said he jumped to his death. And there have been many obvious murders and several dead of the snakes."

I squinted at him, wondering what snakes he was talking about.

He pursed his lips. “I had begun to think I was too big, too powerful, to be murdered. There would be a great public outcry."

“You were right to think that,” I said. “You weren't to be murdered.” I pointed to the note still in his hand. “You were going to commit suicide."

He stared at the note, nibbling on his lip. Finally he said, “It would seem so. But this is crude. Who would believe it? I have everything to live for; no reason to die."

The General was wrong, and if he had been murdered there would never have been an investigation of his death—only I couldn't explain that to him. It wasn't crude at all, but diabolical and clever. The General, present at an erotic party with five other powerful, important men, men whose words would carry great weight with the police, sees a movie of Señora Lopez with another man. The General is shocked, hurt, crushed—and horribly embarrassed by this thing happening in front of those who know him. So he goes home, writes a note to his “Nana” and puts a bullet into his brain. The five others understand, sympathize, shrug their shoulders. Open and shut, case closed.

This, clearly, was not a simple extortion case. I'd thought it strange that the blackmailer hadn't seemed interested in further payments, even of fifty thousand pesos. It looked as though that film was primarily part of a plan to get rid of the General. And, too, if it had been shown on Edison Street, and if I hadn't been here playing patty-cake with the General's wife, neither she nor I nor anybody else would have known the suicide note wasn't exactly what it seemed to be. The blackmailer hadn't been interested in further payments tomorrow, because tomorrow there'd be nothing for the Countess to hide from the General; tomorrow the General was to be dead.

“General Lopez,” I said, “perhaps it wouldn't be wise to assume automatically that it was a Communist plan. Possibly it was something or someone else entirely—"

He interrupted, shaking his head firmly. “No, Mr. Scott. This time it was the Communist criminals. I am sure. I told you that I saw the man."

That jarred me. “You know him?"

“Indeed. His name is Rafael Belchardo. He is a fanatical Communist. One of the worst of the worst."

“Are you positive?"

“Absolutely. It is well known among those of us who understand the simple truth that a conspiracy is in fact a conspiracy. I know much of him. Belchardo is a graduate of the Lenin School of Moscow. While there, like thousands of others from free countries, he studied the techniques of revolution and civil war—the making of demonstrations and disorder, street fighting, guerrilla warfare, methods of sabotage, ways to make big troubles of little ones. He is an expert with all firearms, and was a member of the Communist Abraham Lincoln Brigade which fought in Spain.” He rubbed his head and said casually, “Not all Communists are professional murderers, though all are of course accessories to murder; but Belchardo is himself skilled in the art. Of course, he is only a tool, a pawn, he thinks with another's mind, like all of them. But his finger pulls the trigger."

While he spoke, my thoughts had jumped from one disturbing conclusion to another. Worry built up in me, and I glanced around for a telephone. There was a dial phone on the General's desk.

He was saying, “So it is not Belchardo, really, it is Señor Culebra, this man who hides behind the name of a serpent. He is the man who tries to kill me, because he is the biggest, most powerful, and the worst of them all in Mexico—and I am his most troublesome enemy."

I shook my head. “Culebra? Who is he?"

The General shrugged. “I do not know, nor even how to learn. But he is the one I have most been after, because he is they leader, the man who thinks. If I could find him...” He paused for a moment, not looking at me, but through me, not seeing me. His face looked almost cruel as he finished: “...I would kill him. Myself I would kill him. Then the little ones beneath him would run around like the toy men you wind up. They would run down like toy men."

He was silent for a moment and finally his eyes focused on me again. “I am sorry. I feel it very strongly. But no one knows him, only of him—of him and his cruelties and his viciousness."

Señora Lopez had been sitting quietly near the desk, and now she got up and walked to him, put her arm around his neck and spoke softly in Spanish. He patted her hand, squeezed it.

I thought a moment more about the suicide angle. If it was true that this had been a Commie plan to knock off the General, then both ends of the deal, the film and the “suicide,” must have been set up before the party started. Since Belchardo had gone through with the murder attempt, he must not have known the film hadn't been shown. It also seemed obvious, following through that line of reasoning, that the film must have been brought to the party by another comrade in on the plan—the guy with the scarred hand. Then one of the six men I had seen there was a Communist. But the most disturbing angle right now was the fact that Belchardo, the Commie who had tried to kill the General, was also the man who had started the beef at Monte Cassino which put me in jail.

I asked the General, “O.K. if I use your phone? I'd like to call downtown."

“Certainly, Mr. Scott."

I dialed the Prado and got Buff's room. While I waited for her to answer, it occurred to me that the police department would be a very handy place to plant a Communist cop. Then I realized the phone had rung a dozen times but there hadn't been any answer. I let the phone ring several times more, then called the doctor's room, and finally the desk, thinking maybe the Doc had shown up and he and Buff might be having a drink, or be down in the lobby. But I had them paged and there wasn't any answer. I hung up, the worry growing in me.

“General,” I said, “there's something I have to do. I'd better leave.” There was a lot more I wanted to learn from him, but I had to get to the Prado.

“I would send you in my car, but the servants are not here at this hour. Would you like a drink—or some coffee—before you leave?"

“No, thanks, General."

He stood up, holding his lapel with his left hand and stuck out his right. “Then good night, Mr. Scott. And thank you."

I shook his hand. I don't know why I hadn't noticed before. On his left hand, running from the knuckles clear up his wrist, was a wide red scar.

Chapter Nine

I stared at the scar for seconds, confused, then said, “I will have that drink, if you don't mind. I—I'll have to wait for a libre to get out here."

He nodded and I called a cab, said I'd pay much extra for speed, and hung up thinking about that scar. I knew I'd seen that hand put the film on the projector table. The General's hand.

The Countess went out after I mumbled I'd have a rum and Tehuacan. I couldn't believe that the General, knowing what was on that film, would have taken it to the party. If he had, he was a strange fruit.

Moreover, my most recent brilliant deduction had been that the guy with the scarred hand must be a Communist. I was so confused I actually wondered if I were talking to the real General Lopez.

I hunted for the right words and said slowly, “General, so many people today are indifferent to the danger of Communism—or ignorant of it—that I respect those who don't shrug it off as merely a liberal philosophy or a political party. So naturally I'm—curious about your own opposition to the conspiracy."

“But it is simple. The Communists are raping the world. And my country, my Mexico. Could I stand and watch? Would I not oppose this rape—this subversion and treason—of my country by Mexican Communists pretending to be loyal Mexicans?” He had spoken seriously, leaning forward and looking at me with a directness that was almost unnerving. Then, suddenly, he relaxed and laughed softly.

“But the answer is in your question, Mr. Scott—because the Communist conspiracy is a conspiracy. My wife has told me that you are as I, opposed to the Communists. But even if she had not said this, your words would reveal it. Those who like to pretend the conspiracy is not a conspiracy seldom speak of it as a conspiracy. Verdad?"

“Verdad; true, General."

“As you say, they speak of this evil as a philosophy or, ridiculously, as a way of thinking or a political party. They will agree that a thief is a thief, a blackmailer a blackmailer, a liar a liar, but they strangely will not agree that a Communist—who is all these things and many worse things—is a Communist. I am not concerned with a man's politics, they say, or his political opinions. It is most peculiar indeed—but do not forget, Mr. Scott, while some are merely fools, many who do this are themselves secretly under Communist discipline.” He scowled. “That, of course, is how the Communist succeeds in transmitting the line from Moscow—by pretending to be non-Communist."

One thing was sure, scar or no scar, he talked like General Lopez. No Communist, not even a concealed member-at-large, would talk as sensibly and bluntly as that. I was convinced; so, for my earlier confusion, there had to be some other explanation.

Suddenly General Lopez smiled. “Forgive” me. I will, as you would say, talk off your ears. Have I answered your question?"

“Completely.” I heard footsteps in the hallway outside and said, “I'd like to talk to you a little longer alone, General, if you don't mind."

He nodded as his wife came in with the drinks, then he spoke to her in Spanish. She left. As the door closed behind her I had a swallow of my highball and said, “General, I think what occurred here tonight might concern ... something else I'm interested in. Something very important. I'm going to need to learn, from you, everything that happened to you tonight."

He frowned. I went on. “I want you to tell me where you were before this happened, what you did, whom you saw."

His frown deepened and he licked his lips. “I do not comprehend what—” He stopped suddenly and jerked a little, looking at me queerly. I had a hunch he was remembering the disturbance on Edison Street earlier this evening. And there was no help for it; pretty quick he was going to have a good idea that I had caused it.

I said, “I realize I sound nosy, but it's damned important to me—and also to you, maybe."

He leaned forward. “All right. I went to a meeting with some friends."

“What kind of meeting?"

“Hm. A business meeting."

“On Calle Edison?"

The General started looking green. He looked at me, thought some more. "Chihuahua!" he said softly. The General was now good and green. He glanced at the door through which his wife had gone, then looked at me and swallowed.

“You ... are working for my wife? To protect me, no?"

“Yes. However, I have nothing to report to her, since she already knows what happened here. But, just for my own benefit, I'd very much like to know what happened earlier."

He licked his lips again, thought for a minute, then took a deep breath and started talking; he spilled it all. Occasionally the General went to such gatherings—but he loved his wife. He loved her with a madness, he loved her with a passion, he loved her with a desperation. She, too, loved him with all these things. This other was nothing. Finally he told me the party had been arranged by one Villamantes, a wealthy import-export dealer. Also present were a General Fernandez, the president and the vice president of a large union—and the Jefe de Policía, the Chief of Police.

He went on through the whole story, including all that I had seen myself.

I said, “So there were movies. Now, were all of these movies the property of the management, or were some brought to the party?” I had my coat unbuttoned so I'd have a chance to shoot him first if he tried to shoot me. I didn't know quite what the hell I was getting into.

He blinked. “Hum. There was one, er, film brought to the party."

“By you?"

“No."

“What was the film?"

“I do not know."

“Was it put with other films near this projector?"

He blinked some more, rapidly. “Hey,” he said, “where the hell were you?"

I couldn't help grinning, but I shook my head.

He said, “I myself put this film on the table. It was given to me after we arrived at this ... place on Edison. I was told this one would be of particular interest to me. Why, I do not know. I was told to watch particularly for it. But it was never seen. This, ah, man, he stole it."

“Who gave it to you, General?"

“Why, my friend Villamantes."

“He isn't your friend. He is a Communist who expected you to be murdered tonight."

I was jumping a little at that one, but if Villamantes had given the film to the General, he undoubtedly knew what was on it. Also, if Communists were behind the attempt to kill the General, it followed that Villamantes was the Communist at the party.

The General was still staring at me. He said, “You must be mistaken. He is my friend."

I wished I could tell the General why I knew damn well that the man who'd given him the film was not his friend. But I couldn't; the relationship between the General and me was shaky enough already. Right now he thought I was working for him, but if he ever learned his wife and I had been working together, against him so to speak—not to protect his life, but for the real reason—the General would cool considerably toward me and I would be back in the clink. Forever. I remembered Captain Emilio. Forever was the right word.

I took another tack. “Who fought in the darkness with ... with this man?"

“Señor Villamantes."

So Villamantes was the chap I'd slugged and kicked in the face, the guy who'd followed me into the Frontón Palace.

“Who shot at the man?"

“Señor Villamantes."

“Who chased him?"

“The Jefe de Policía and Señor Villamantes."

It was the way it had to be if Villamantes had given the General the film. He was the only man present who knew its importance; when the lights went out he'd have been the only one to start worrying right away. He'd set up the party, brought the film—might even have been responsible for getting it made in the first place. He'd fought me, shot at me, chased me. He was my boy, all right. He was also the sonofabitch who'd had a ball pinching the pretties. A sadistic character like that would be just the type to enjoy being present when the General got it smack between the eyes.

I learned what I could about Villamantes, but even the General didn't know much. He was supposed to have won a million pesos in the National Lottery a few years back, invested it wisely and made a pile, which he'd sunk into his successful import-export business. There had never been any scandal connected with him.

I said, “General, where was Villamantes when ... the disturbance occurred? And what did he do?"

“He sat by me on the couch.” That figured. “When the darkness came he got up and went toward the projector."

“Immediately?"

“Why ... I do not remember. I think so. What is this film? Why did it cause so much disturbance?"

“Never mind the film.” I was starting to get a little green myself.

“But it was stolen. This was verified by its absence from the machine. It is strange, this—"

“Don't worry about it,” I said rapidly. “The film's only incidental.” He was asking too damn many questions. And he was getting that puzzled look again, the same one he'd had on his chops during the Señora's explanation of my presence here. I tried to keep him talking, turn his thoughts in other directions.

“General,” I said, “I've good reason to believe Villamantes is a Communist, and knew there would be an attempt on your life tonight. You've got to take my word for it and guard against anything he might do."

He didn't say anything. I went on, “If he is a concealed member of the Party, you—as an expert—know that even experts can be fooled. The Communists have experts, too."

He was silent for a few moments, then said, “That is true. The Communist does not achieve anything as a Communist, of a certainty. It is only by posing as a non-Communist, and thus influencing true non-Communists, that he is effective.” He frowned. “I have seen much of this—it was evident in the false stories about my Natania."

He repeated what I had heard from Amador, about the smears against his Russian-born wife. Then he mentioned the many attacks upon himself, and went on: “Often these came from good and honorable men who had swallowed the lie which one would think un-swallowable: that it is not Communists who are dangerous, but anti-Communists. It is one of the insanities of our times, as if to say criminals are not dangerous, but those who apprehend criminals are."

“You're talking my language, General.” I pulled at my highball. “I've met some of those imbeciles."

“Ah, but often they are intelligent men, Mr. Scott—merely uninformed, ignorant of Red techniques. Or, more often, misinformed. The difficulty is that the Communists have mastered the use of propaganda, have repeatedly sold the lie while we have not even been able to sell the truth.” He shrugged. “These Reds, they are few in number compared to honest men, yes; but they are effective because they are all clever liars, and when the line comes to them from Moscow they all lie at once. One on the television, one in a school, one in a union meeting, one in a newspaper, one here, another there. One and one and one and one—but it is the total of them, and the direction of them all at the same time, from the Kremlin, which is the great danger. The order, the Party line, comes down: work for Red China in the United Nations, or a Summit meeting; or make black the name of a Rhee, a Batista, a McCarthy—or General Lopez; make acceptable a Mao Tse-tung, a Castro; harass and revile the men and committees exposing the conspiracy."

He waved a hand in the air. “Suddenly, all over the land, often from high places, the same cry is heard, over and over. Thus a few shouting all at once make a great noise—as if an entire nation speaks. And many are fooled by this noise."

I nodded, thinking of my conversation with Dr. Buffington. And that made me think of Buff. I wondered when my cab would get out here. I finished my drink and said, “The hell of it is, a lot of people swallow the propaganda and then start squirting it out their big mouths again."

“Yes, they add their own voices, making the shout even louder. But this would not happen, Mr. Scott, if they knew that what they are saying had come from Moscow. As you are aware, the Communists get this direction, the Party line, in their newspapers and Party magazines, in their secret meetings. But if the loyal persons knew the Party line as soon as do the Communists—if our newspapers would print an analysis of it weekly, if radio and television commentators would speak it—we non-Communists would not be so easily fooled."

I jerked my head around to look at him. The General had just tossed off, casually, a simple idea which could negate the most insidious propaganda of the whole Communist apparatus.

He was going on, still casually, “We would know in advance what the concealed Communists among us were preparing to shout and write. Not only would we thus be forewarned, but more—we soon could identify those persons in our country who continue to propagate the Red line, who follow with marvelous consistency each twisting and turning of Moscow's instructions. Soon, therefore, they would have to stop this truth-twisting, this attack upon our minds—or be identified by us."

It sank in slowly, but when it did it hit me hard.

I sat up straight. “General, do you know what you've just said? Man, you've got it. It would be like Mickey Mantle knowing what the next pitch was going to be—"

“Mickey Mantle?” The General looked puzzled.

I grinned. “I was thinking in baseball terms, General—but I get your point. Why, hell, it's beautiful. The Commies get the line every week, every day, and put it over on us because we don't know what the next move is. But if we did know—"

He waved a hand, smiling oddly. “Do not become so excited, Mr. Scott. Truly, it would help greatly to cripple the conspiracy—but I have tried long to get this done. I have met with newspaper editors here in Mexico, with men of radio and the television. I say to them: Give us loyal citizens the Communist line as soon as it is given the Communists, and it will become useless to them. Print it in your newspapers, speak it on your radio and TV.

Then we will know where they aim the Red knife before they can stick it in us, know their plans before they can act to fool us.” He paused. “Can you guess what occurred?"

I nodded slowly.

“Sí, nothing. But is it any different in your United States, Mr. Scott?"

I thought about it. Except for Louis Budenz’ analysis, published weekly in Brooklyn's Catholic Tablet, to my knowledge there wasn't a single major U.S. newspaper which carried an expert summary of the Communist plan of attack—the current Party line—among the want ads, much less on its front page. “Nope,” I said. “No different."

“It will come, it must. In time. I have not stopped trying to accomplish this in Mexico, and I will not stop while I live.” He paused, and again it seemed that he was not looking at me, but at some spot far beyond me. He said, “I have had two love affairs, Mr. Scott, one with my wife, and one with my country. They are still my only loves. Mexico is ... like my flesh. I have watched it grow, and I have grown with Mexico. I am an indio; I was eleven before I wore my first shoes. Now I am General Lopez. I wish that Mexico should continue to grow, become more strong, more free. I wish my people all to have freedom, education, and food for their bellies. And we are achieving this, but the Communists will stop her if they are allowed to do it. There would be no freedom of mind or body, and hope would die; then Mexico would die,” He blinked, then came back to where I was. He smiled. “And I would not be General Lopez. The dead one, maybe."

That reminded me. I said, “About that forged suicide note, General. Who would know of the nicknames you and your wife have for each other?"

“I can think of no one. We rarely use them, except alone here.” He seemed slightly embarrassed by the thought of “General Toro."

“How about your servants?"

“I trust them. Two have been with me for many years, the cook and chauffeur. The maid not yet a year, but I trust her also."

“You trust Villamantes, too."

“Well...” He pursed his lips. “Yes, I see what you mean. But I cannot yet accept what you tell me."

“You don't have to. But Belchardo kind of meant to kill you."

He nodded. We talked a little longer and I learned some more about the so-called Culebra character whom nobody seemed to know except by reputation. He was also supposed to have a headquarters called simply El Centro—The Center—somewhere near Mexico City. It was as nebulous as the man. There were a number of conflicting rumors about both the man and the place, but the theme of death and cruelty and torture ran through them all. The Center was a house or mansion or old church or cave or God-knew-what, depending on the story, from which Culebra and other Party members carried on their work for the Kremlin. The headquarters was supposed to hide a printing press, paper supplies, inks, stencils, guns and ammunition, and was, as its name implied—so the story went, anyway—the physical center of the Communist conspiracy in Mexico.

The General told me, with that cruel look again on his face, that if he knew where it was he would take Army men, troops who were friendly to him, and loyal, and march upon it, destroy it completely.

He said, “Because of its great importance, I would level it to the ground. On my own initiative I would do this—and I believe I would be praised instead of reprimanded once the thing was irrevocably done."

“Troops—that sounds like war. General."

“But of course,” he said quietly. “Of course it is war."

I lit a cigarette. “General, you said something about men dying from the snakes, and this Culebra hiding behind the name of a serpent. What's all that?"

“His name, Culebra, means snake in my language. It was given him by those who know of him because at his headquarters, so it is said, he keeps deadly snakes, rattlesnakes."

My flesh crawled. I'm like anybody else; some things I enjoy and some I don't enjoy. There is absolutely no question about my feelings for snakes: I do not enjoy snakes.

I said, “Is the guy actually nuts enough to keep snakes around? He crazy?"

The General shook his head. “It is not that; perhaps he is a little crazy too. But this part is not crazy. It is said that he likes the ugly things, takes a twisted pleasure from them. But the important fact is that, of the men who opposed Culebra or attempted to betray him some have been found in the hills, dead from the bites of rattlesnakes. It is another accident, no? And who is to say the men were not accidentally bitten? If Culebra is crazy, he is also clever."

I swallowed. I don't like even talking about snakes. “That just another story, General?"

“I have seen the dead men, Mr. Scott, with the two little fang punctures in legs or arms. And perhaps others have not been found, and only their bones lie now against the ground."

We were quiet for a few seconds, then I heard the libre honk outside. I got up. “Thanks, General Lopez. Here's my cab."

He shook my hand and I left the room. The Countess met me and showed me to the door. I told her, “Listen, don't let him out of your sight; stick with him. Don't let anybody get next to him with a chance to slip him a copy of that film or any prints from it. If he lamps that, everything blows up."

“I know. I will try. I know how important it is."

“You got it, didn't you? He was supposed to see that film, then knock himself off. At least that's the way it was set up."

“Yes, I understand that; I do now. And I am terribly worried about him. This, tonight, it hurt my heart. That they would kill him—"

“Yeah."

Maybe the word, or the way I said it, sounded funny. I wasn't being sarcastic; my thoughts were down at the Prado. But she must have thought I was censuring her. She said, “It is true. Can you not believe that I love him? I do. Even though, with you, and the—"

“I know. Sure, I can believe it, Countess.” Hell, I was getting to the point where I could believe the moon was a meatball.

She stepped closer to me and put her hand on my shoulder, squeezed a little. “It is true. But at the same time I am sorry that ... you understand, the interruption. Perhaps—"

“Yeah,” I said, and left. I didn't even pat her fanny. The General seemed a nice enough guy, and I liked the old boy. But there was no point in making a big thing out of it, so I merely left her standing in the doorway and hopped into the waiting libre.

“Hotel del Prado,” I told the driver. “See if you can hit a couple hundred kilometers an hour."

At the hotel, I went straight up to Buff's room. I knocked, and the door swung inward. It didn't have to mean anything. I went inside. In two minutes I knew. Buff was gone. A couple of chairs were tipped over. There was blood on the floor.

Chapter Ten

half an hour later I'd learned the gimmick. I had checked the Doc's room, too, but I hadn't expected to find anything and didn't. I looked around the hotel, the bars, and the lobby, then checked the desk. There I got the story. Why, yes, Señorita Buffington, she became ill. Of the ABC Hospital, the ambulance it came. An hour ago, perhaps more. From here the men took her on the stretcher. No, the desk had not called the ambulance; the call must have gone out from the room.

Only I checked, and there wasn't any record of such a call. I phoned the American British Cowdray Hospital, and they'd never heard of Susan Buffington or Dr. Buffington—and they hadn't sent an ambulance to the Prado; nobody at the Hotel del Prado ever got sick. And that did it. I didn't have any idea where to turn or what to do. All I knew was that Buff was gone—taken, undoubtedly, by whoever had snatched the Doc.

I ran around like a nut for another half hour, trying to pull a thread out of the air, a thread I could follow to trace Buff and the Doc, but it was like wishing a needle out of a haystack. I even phoned the police station, tried to talk to Captain Emilio, because if he was there I was going to take the rest of his teeth out one by one until he spilled what connection, if any, he had with Belchardo, possibly a connection that could help. But he wasn't there and nobody would give me his address.

I even phoned the General and got him out of bed in an attempt to find out where I could reach Villamantes, thinking maybe, somehow, I could connect him with Belchardo or the cop, grabbing at straws. But the General didn't know where Villamantes lived. He seemed surprised that he didn't know his home address. Nor did he have any idea how I could get in touch with Villamantes at this hour of the night—though he tried phoning his other friends who had been at the party, with no luck.

So I was banging my head against a blank wall. It was one-thirty in the morning and I was tired. I'd had probably a dozen highballs during the course of the evening and they were wearing me down now, making me logy. I went into the Montenegro Bar and had a double. It warmed my stomach, mixed with the rest of the rum down there, and perked me up a bit. It also was apparently the “one too many.” Either that or my weariness, combined with my anger and frustration, ganged up on me with the liquor. I thought of Buff's gray eyes filled with reproach as she'd said, “Shell, I want you to stay ... I'm scared ... Please.” I tried to tell myself that I couldn't have done anything, that I'd had to follow up on the job for the Countess, that I couldn't possibly have known all this would happen—but it didn't help.

I had another double. Go ahead, slop it down. That's highly ingenious of you, Scott. Drink doubles and you can solve any problem; you can stop the world. I was having a helluva time stopping the world; it was going around faster. I steadied the bar, and right then I thought of something that damn near sobered me.

Monique! How had I forgotten Monique? I'd been so busy charging around since returning to the hotel that I hadn't even thought something might have happened to her, too. Maybe they'd got Monique, whoever they were. I left my glass on the bar, aimed out, and made it to the elevator. I went to four, then down to Monique's room and knocked. No answer. I knocked again, tried the door. Locked. The door wobbled slightly in front of me. I felt horrible. Everybody gone, everybody kidnapped, maybe everybody dead.

A bellhop got out of the elevator and started to walk by me. Two minutes and fifty pesos later he had unlocked the door for me and left. I went inside. The room was dark, but light showed under a door on my left. I could hear water running.

I stood in the darkness, looking at the crack of light and listening to the water running in the bathroom. The room wobbled a little. Poor Monique. Everybody gone and dead. She was in there, I knew. In there dead. Lying in the tub with her hot green eyes staring and the sensual red lips slack. The classic “accident.” I walked toward the door, stopped in front of it. I hated to open it. Monique, who had been so alive, with so much fire and passion in her eyes and smile and lips and hormone-packed body. Dead. Everybody dead. Probably pretty quick, me dead. I felt terrible.

I pushed open the door and walked in.

And there she was. Monique. Dead. Soaping her left arm, her lovely slim body glistening ... soaping. Soaping? She was not dead.

Monique turned her head and looked at me, startled for a moment, possibly by the way my chin was hanging down. Then she said, “Why, Shell. You naughty."

“Well,” I said. “What do you know? I thought you were dead."

She held up a washrag in front of her breasts. “Don't you ever knock when you walk into bathrooms?"

“I thought you were dead,” I said, perhaps a bit stupidly.

“What are you talking about? You can see I'm not dead.” She smiled. “You'd better get out of here."

“Yeah, sure.” I said. “Just wanted to know if you were all right."

She was still smiling. “Don't I look all right? Go on. Wait out there."

I backed out, shut the door, and turned on the living room lights. I started pulling myself together. At least I was getting back more confidence in myself as a detective. I had found out that Monique was not dead.

In a few minutes she came into the living room, a towel wrapped around her.

I was a little more sober. “Listen, all hell has busted loose. Doc's still gone—and now Buff is, too."

The smile slowly faded from her face. “What do you mean, gone?"

I told her what had happened since I got back. She didn't have any more idea what had happened than I did. She said, “Why, I talked to Buff not long ago."

“When? How long ago?"

“I don't know. What time is it now? It was about eleven, maybe half past, somewhere around there. I went down to her room, she was so upset. After that I read a while here, then ... took a bath."

A couple more minutes of talk didn't add anything new, except that the towel she was wearing was not conducive to straight thinking. Her short black hair was in damp ringlets all over her head.

“Get some clothes on,” I said. “You're going to get out of here."

“Why?"

“Why? Use your noodle. Both Buff and her dad have been grabbed off by somebody; you've been with them all the time, you're their friend. Maybe you're the next one. How the hell do I know? I'm not even sure what's going on yet—but you'd better get the hell out of here and hide. Me too, for that matter."

“Maybe you're right.” She frowned. “I'll get dressed."

She turned her back to me and walked into the bedroom.

She came back fully dressed in a white blouse, brown jacket and skirt, and high-heeled brown shoes. “What'll I take along?"

“Nothing for now. Keep the room. We'll find another till this mess clears up."

We went downstairs and down the steps from the lobby onto Juarez, grabbed one of the cabs in front. The driver spoke good English and I told him to head toward the Reforma.

Passing the Caballito Monique said, “Damn, I'm getting jittery now that you've got me thinking. I'm getting scared."

“You'll be O.K. when we find another place. Maybe you were all right at the Prado, but no sense sticking your neck out."

“I need a drink."

“I could use one myself, but I'm afraid we can't go night-clubbing tonight."

It took her a minute of argument, but we wound up getting a bottle and a quart of mineral water. Monique had a drink while I looked out the windows, including the rear one. During the night I'd come to expect being followed. I didn't see any black Cads, though, or any other cars that looked suspicious. I kept looking. Monique handed me the bottles.

“I needed that,” she said. “I really did."

“Well, cheers,” I said. I had a sloppy highball.

“Where are we going?"

“I don't know yet.” I hadn't spotted anybody following us, so I told the driver to pull over to the right and park for a minute while we figured out where to go. “There are some good small hotels on Insurgentes near here,” I told Monique. “I guess any place besides where you were would do.” I was looking out the back window while we talked, and I saw something that stuck in my mind. There wasn't anything really fishy about it, just another car parking and dousing its lights. But I noticed it.

The Paseo de la Reforma is a wide street with three lanes for eastbound traffic and another three for westbound cars, the street bisected by a ridge in the middle. But in addition, there are two other small strips of highway clear over at the right and left of the Reforma itself, these separated from the main drag by plots of ground a few feet wide, with trees growing in them. The small drives are called familiarly “Little Reformas,” and it was on the Little Reforma to our right that the car had stopped.

It hardly seemed worth checking, but I'd been shot at twice tonight. I checked it. “Move up another block, driver."

He was still accelerating slowly when the parked car's lights came on and the car pulled away from the curb. It stayed clear over on the Little Reforma, about half a block back, sometimes less. The Independence Monument, the “Angel,” was up ahead in the middle of the circular glorieta, the highway going clear around it in a circle at the intersection of the Reforma and Tiber.

“Driver,” I said, “go around the glorieta. Clear around it. I'll tell you when to turn off. Keep it slow."

I kept looking out the back as we reached the tall Angel monument and started around. It would look as though we were going to turn left onto Florencia, and I watched the car as it slowed where the ridge ends to allow cars to pull over onto the Reforma itself, and when we were headed toward Florencia the car speeded up and swung onto the Reforma, then angled into the circle around the glorieta behind us. It followed us clear around.

“We've got a tail,” I said to Monique.

“A what?” she giggled.

“A tail. A car's following us."

“Shell, please. Really?” Her voice was suddenly strained.

“Yeah. I'm not trying to scare you, but you might as well know."

“Oh, Lord. What'll we do?” I was watching that car, but I saw movements as she tilted the bottle again and washed the drink down with mineral water. She coughed.

We weren't far from Chapultepec Park. I said to the driver, “Keep going down the Reforma. At the Diana Statue pull this again, around the glorieta, then light out like mad into Chapultepec Park once we get around. Drive like hell.” He started to give me an argument but the handful of pesos I shoved over his shoulder ended the argument. “Remember: push that accelerator clear down to the floorboards,” I told him.

He said, "Sí," and headed toward the Diana.

Monique said softly, her voice frightened, “I don't like this at all."

“You think I do? Don't go to pieces. You may have to do some running. Take off your shoes."

She took them off. We started around the statue. The other car slowed, almost stopped, about fifty feet from the entrance to the Diana. We went all the way around.

“O.K. Step on it!” I yelled, and the guy dug out. He must have shoved the accelerator clear down, because we started picking up speed fast. We got a little head start, but then I saw the other car jump forward and take off after us.

“Baby,” I said, “get this. We've got a tail back there for sure. I don't know how many in the car, or who, but they're on to us."

“Oh, Shell!” she squealed. “I'm scared. I'm sick."

“Shut up. When we get into the park I'll have the driver stop fast at the first chance, dump us, and go on. If we're lucky, that tail won't notice. And then, Monique we're going to light out. I hope you can run fast."

“Don't leave me! Shell, don't leave me."

“I won't. But I don't want to have to shove you."

We ripped between the big metal lions guarding the park's entrance and somewhere a cop blew his whistle as we roared into the darkness of the park itself. We had a good lead on the car behind us, but I noticed its lights flick out as it passed between the lions. I couldn't see the car any longer and I turned to face the front. I explained to the driver what he was supposed to do, and as we rounded a curve deep in the park I said, "Now!"

He slammed on the brakes and the car swerved, slowed. “Out,” I yelled at Monique. “Don't wait till it's stopped."

She swung the door open and jumped, with me right behind her. I slammed the door as I went out, and the driver gunned the motor. I started to run and almost stepped on Monique, who'd fallen flat on her face. I swore and yanked her up and gave her a shove. If she hadn't been with me, I could have stuck around to shoot the guys following us. but I couldn't take a chance Monique would get a hole shot in her. I started to run after Monique as soon as I shoved her, but we were just too slow. I heard brakes squealing and didn't even have to look. The other car was stopping.

I was running like hell when I heard a car door slam. I looked back over my shoulder and saw the glare from two flashlights, bobbing after us. I also ran into a tree.

I should have known. The goddam park is full of trees. I was flat on my back with lights going around in my head, and I hurt everywhere.

Monique had stopped. “Shell! What happened?"

“Don't ask stupid questions. Just run like hell. And look out for the damn trees."

Fifty yards farther I grabbed her arm. “Whoa, stop a minute. Listen."

We could hear them running, but I couldn't see the flashlights. Then one winked on, was sprayed around for a couple of seconds, and went off. It was close. Even after running into that tree, I'd kept hold of my gun. I cocked it. Monique heard it and said, “Shell, don't! We'll get killed!"

“You go on."

“No, I'm scared. Please, Shell!” Her voice was trembling.

I saw a flashlight wink on again. “Well, come on then,” I said. “Keep close to me.” I started trotting. As I remembered the park, we were almost at the lake. In half a minute we came to the edge of it. Boats were drawn up on the shore. At Chapultepec Lake there are always boats; the people here are fruit for boats. But that gave me an idea. The damn flashlights were close enough behind to give me the willies.

I went along the edge of the lake. There was a little boathouse ahead, but before we reached it I spotted a canoe pulled up on the shore. It was just as well; there was a dim light burning at the boathouse.

“Come on, kid,” I said. “Get into that thing."

She didn't argue. She walked by me and went clink. That was peculiar, I thought. “Hey,” I said. “What was that noise?"

“What noise?"

I let it go. There wasn't time to argue. She sat at the far end of the canoe, facing me, and I shoved the canoe into the water, then gave it a big push and jumped in. We almost capsized right at the start. I had seen better canoes. There were no seats, no cushions, nothing, just the slightly rounded wooden bottom. I had to sit flat on my fanny with my knees practically in my face. But we stayed on an even keel and I'd given the thing a good push, so we coasted along at a fair clip for a while. I started pawing around in the bottom of the boat.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Looking for the paddle.” I whispered. I stopped pawing for a moment and glanced back at the shore. We were only out about twenty yards, and the flashlights blinked almost at the lake's edge. I pawed some more.

Then I swore nastily.

“What's the matter?” Monique asked.

“Guess.” We were up the goddam creek without a paddle.

“Paddle with your hands,” I said softly. “Keep this thing moving. If we can get out far enough we ought to be O.K."

She went clink.

“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered. “Did you clink?"

“Hmmm?” Clink.

“What the crud are you doing up there?” I said. I carefully scooted forward a couple of feet, banging into a thwart or whatever canoes have. The moon was behind thick storm clouds in the distance. But there was a little illumination and I could see the dim moon glow glimmering on Monique. It was gleaming on her hands. No, it was gleaming on something in her hands. Bottles.

“You didn't run nineteen miles with those damn bottles, did you? Did you?"

“These?” Clink. “I didn't even think about them. I just ran. When you're running, you don't think about bottles."

“Yeah. I guess you're right. Well, paddle."

We paddled. We didn't seem to be going much of any place, but it took me half a minute to catch on. “Well, woman,” I said, “I know you're sitting facing me, but you don't have to paddle at me. We're killing ourselves standing still. What the hell are you, a Communist? You want to go back to shore? Paddle backwards."

We finally got coordinated. I kept looking around toward land, but I didn't spot any more lights. We made pretty good time, considering the silly way we were traveling. Finally we got close to the middle of the lake and just coasted.

“What do we do now?” Monique whispered.

“I don't know,” I whispered back. “I don't know where those guys are; might be anywhere around the shore. Might even be in a boat on the lake."

“Oh, Lord.” She tilted the bottle and I heard it go glurk, glurk. She scooted toward me, moving carefully down the middle of the boat. I met her halfway.

“Here,” she said. “You might as well have a drink."

I had a drink. We passed the bottle back and forth a few times, not saying much. Finally Monique gave me the bottle and it was empty. I threw it and the mix bottle away. I felt pretty good.

“How you feel?” I asked her.

“Wonderful."

“You know we almost got killed? Still might.” My tongue was floppy.

“Doesn't worry me like it did."

“Wish I knew where those guys were on shore. Wish we had a paddle. Well, here we are. Alone at last."

“It's kind of peaceful,” she said.

“Peaceful, ho. Bullets cart stumming at you, start coming at you, it'll be peaceful. We're still in trouble. Don't you realize?"

“It's kind of nice. Look, the moon's coming out. Isn't it pretty?"

“Great. That's all we need. Moon's coming out. Only thing worse is for the sun to come out."

“Oh, how silly. The sun can't come out at night. You sound so silly."

“You sound like a real brain, yourself. Running around with bottles. Oh, boy, we're a pair. How in hell did we get out here? You ‘member?"

She didn't say anything. I looked around the shore. I couldn't see any lights. As a matter of fact, I could see very damn little of anything. The moon was fairly bright now, and I looked back at Monique. I squinted at Monique.

“Don't sit like that,” I said. “Please ... don't sit like that."

“How else am I going to sit? And why not?"

“Just don't ask me, see? If you knew what I've been through tonight—just don't, that's all."

“I can't sit any other way. What do you think this is—a yacht? It isn't very comfortable, either."

“Oh, hell,” I said, “sit any damn way you want. What do I care how you sit? But sit still, will you?"

“I told you it's uncomfortable. I've got to get comfortable.” She moved around for a few seconds. “Ah, there, that's better."

“The hell you say. That's worse. That is—oh-h, that's horrible. Hey, listen, Monique. I've known guys to go clear off their trolley from less than this. I've been through hell tonight. Hell. You're asking for it. Listen. Dammit. Pretty quick I'm going to jump in the water. Have a heart, Monique. You doing this on purpose?"

She laughed. “Uh-huh. Didn't you know that? You're awfully cautious. Shell, how did I look in the tub?"

“Well, I thought at first you were dead, you know. That didn't help, right off. But you looked pretty good."

“Pretty good?"

“You looked fine. You looked terrific.” Come to think of it, she didn't look half bad right now.

She said, “Shell, isn't this funny? We're in the park on the lake, in a boat."

“You call this a boat?"

“All alone. You could at least kiss me. You never have. But you've looked at me like you wanted to kiss me. Kiss me."

“Look, will you stop sitting like that? I tried to tell you. And if I try kissing you this damn boat will turn over."

“Oh, silly.” She slid forward and got her knees under her, leaned close to me. “I feel so good,” she said. “There now, you can kiss me easy."

“I better kiss you easy. I kiss you hard and we'll sink."

Her mouth covered mine as I got the last word out. Even under the circumstances, the kiss was everything I had imagined Monique's kiss would be. Everything about her, her eyes, lips, body, was fiery hot, and this was like kissing a branding iron. I could feel the boat rocking. I was getting to the point where I didn't care.

Her lips left my mouth and caressed my neck. “Mmmm, Shell,” she said. Minutes went by. “Mmmm.” She whispered in my ear.

“Don't be silly,” I said.

She kissed me some more. All this was a little difficult, what with the canoe rocking, but I was doing very well, I thought. I was fairly proud of myself.

Monique whispered in my ear again.

“Well,” I said, “it sounds impossible."

“No it's not. Put your foot there."

“Oh, now look. I can't do that. I'll turn the boat over."

“No, you won't. I'll ... lean on this side."

“How the devil you going to lean on that side? You know what you're saying?"

“It's the only way."

“There must be another way."

“Oh!” she said. “Well, we can try it, can't we? If it doesn't work, we can try something else."

“But we'll be all wet."

“Oh, Shell! You'll make me hate you."

“Well ... can you swim?"

“My God. Can I swim, he says! At a time like this he wants to know can I swim. I never saw such a cautious man."

I said one last time, “O.K., but don't blame me if I turn this stupid boat over."

“You won't."

“I will."

“Shut up. Now, put your foot there."

I put my foot there. I moved maybe three inches and the boat turned over. As the water closed over my fat head I remember thinking: I knew it; I just knew it.

I was pretty well looped from all those drinks, anyway, and I couldn't get oriented for a few seconds. I was paddling around but I wasn't sure where I was going. Pretty quick my hand scraped bottom, though, and I got my directions straight and shot up to the surface. It wasn't much of a shot.

Monique was standing there about a yard away with a very sad expression on her face, and her hands on her hips. I guess they were on her hips; they were out of sight under the water, which only came up to her chest.

“Now you've done it,” she said.

“Now I've done it? I did it? Listen, whose idea—"

“And what did you think you were doing down there? The water was swirling around like crazy."

“I was swimming up."

“Oh, goodness. Up. It's only four feet deep here."

“O.K., I was fighting an octopus. What you think I was doing? Down there laughing?"

She sighed. “What a mess,” she said. “Where's the boat?"

I told her what impossible thing she could do with that damnfool boat.

She moved a little closer. She looked odd. She looked just like a bust floating over the water. “Damn, damn,” she said. “Oh-h, damndamn."

Then silence fell between us. A pretty sticky silence. I heard the rumble of thunder. Lightning flashed—and then, the way it usually does, it suddenly started to rain. In ten seconds it was coming down like a waterfall.

“Oh, it's raining,” Monique said.

“That's a clever remark. Yeah, you're a very clever girl. Your conversation keeps opening up new vistas."

“Oh, shut up."

“It's raining, she says. Hell, it could be worse. We might be dry."

“Oh, shut up."

“Well, I suppose we could walk around and see if there's a way out of ... hey, I'm sinking."

“I'm pretty stinking myself."

“Look, stupid, I'm sinking. Going to sink."

“Go ahead and sink."

“Ah, Monique, don't talk like that. My feet are stuck in this muck—"

“Oh, shut up."

I seesawed around in the gunk underfoot and finally got up onto terra firma, or whatever the stuff was. “You ready?” I asked Monique.

She wasn't speaking to me.

We started slopping out. Oddly, my gun was still in its holster. That didn't surprise me. Nothing would ever surprise me. From now on I was Unsurprisable Shell Scott.

Slop, slop, we went, and finally we were out. Nobody shot at us. We walked through the park to a road and caught a cab. The driver charged us extra for dripping.

Monique came out of the shower. “You can use it now,” she said a bit frigidly. She was in a towel again.

I went on in, undressed and stepped into the warm stream. This wasn't much of a hotel. When we'd come in, we hadn't looked very well-heeled, but we had our lodging for the night. I soaped up and showered, then went out into the one room, also wearing a towel.

“Clothes are still wet,” I explained. Monique was sitting on the bed.

She glared at me. “You weren't going to put them on, were you? You weren't going to run out on me! You're not going to get away with it!"

“Don't get hysterical, I—"

“You got me in the bathtub!” she shouted. “You got me in the boat! You got me in the lake—and you never got me!"

I grinned at her. “Relax, honey. I'm not going anywhere."

“You serious?"

“Sure, I'm serious."

She looked at me for a while, her face softening. “Well, that's better.” She raised a dark eyebrow; her tongue started to move around inside her cheek.

I told her, “I'll admit I said some slightly—unfriendly things back there in the lake. But that ... sort of dampened my spirits. And we are no longer in the lake.” I paused. “So can't we be friends?"

She moistened her scarlet lower lip, looked at me from heavy-lidded eyes, smiled slowly. “Maybe we can,” she said. Her fingers rumbled at her side, then she lifted her body from the bed, slid the towel free, sank down on the bed again.

“At least,” she said, “we can try."

Chapter Eleven

I woke up suddenly, cold perspiration on my body, the sheet clammy beneath me. Sunlight streamed through the open window. Half awake, half asleep, I still could see shadowy figures moving in the nightmare, fantastic and unreal, unearthly, as nightmare figures are.

I had been looking into a sterile, gleaming laboratory filled with curved retorts and huge glass beakers and flickering Bunsen burners, and great vats filled with a slimy, molasses-like brew, a bubbling lava with tenuous, misty threads wriggling from its oily surface and floating through the air like writhing worms. Shaggy, misshapen apes reeled about the white and gleaming room, moving jerkily. The disembodied head of General Lopez hung in the steaming air, a jagged hole gaping from one bloody side, the gray brain hanging, Daliesque, from it to the floor.

Dr. Buffington stood, twice as tall as life, in the center of his laboratory, bending down to peer at first one and then another of the apes, examine the pendant brain, stare at the bubbling vats. A tiny, doll-sized girl danced mechanically, clapping her hands and rolling her dark eyes, head rocking back and forth as if in time to a metronome. Buff lay silently in the corner of the room, her face bloodless, her staring eyes the solid white of boiled eggs.

The apes moved jerkily, crashed into the tables, overturning them as glass shattered noiselessly in the total silence of my dream. The apes fell, one by one, and rolled and shuddered, then lay still, their bodies melting into black putrescence. The boiling vats melted to the floor, the slimy lava pouring endlessly. The gray brain twitched and writhed, pulsed slowly like a feeding snake.

I sat up in bed, rubbed a hand across my cold forehead, and shuddered. Monique stirred restlessly beside me. I got up, washed and dressed, checked my .38 again. I'd cleaned it the best I could before going to sleep, and it was O.K. I awakened Monique.

She blinked at me drowsily, stretched. “Oh-h, did I sleep!” She blinked some more and frowned slightly. “Hi. You look sort of sick."

“I had a dream, a nightmare. Haven't snapped out of it yet, I guess. Look, I'm going to take off. You want anything to eat, or are you going to sleep some more?"

She yawned. “Sleep, I guess. Where are you going?"

“I don't know yet—but don't you go anywhere. I'll call you later.” I remembered there wasn't any phone. “I mean, I'll drop back when I can. I'll see you later, honey.” She nodded and I went out.

While I grabbed some fried Vienna sausage with toast and coffee, I thought about what I'd do today. Last night's events had followed one another too quickly for me to fit them together into any real pattern. I was slowly coming wide awake and I felt good enough, my thoughts clear.

How closely tied together the attempted murder of the General and the kidnapping of Dr. Buffington and his daughter were, I didn't yet know. But there was no longer any doubt in my mind that both events were the work of the same man or group—and that man or group was Communist. For quite a while I had wondered why the doctor would be kidnapped, taken forcibly, and held against his will. I thought of my dream. I remembered the doctor saying, “I refuse to let my brain father such a monster"; and my reply, “Hope nobody ever changes your mind, Doc."

The memory of that nightmare clung to me, like a stain upon my thoughts, and I found myself becoming filled with an urgency to find the doctor—and Buff; a need to hurry. The other thing seemed almost unimportant now, but there was reason to believe if I found the doctor I'd also find the person or persons responsible for the movie of the Countess, and the General's “suicide.” Or conversely, if I found those responsible for the film, I'd find Doctor Buffington. It was a belief supported not only by logic but by Belchardo's part in both; the parts of the puzzle were too closely interwoven for simple coincidence.

I thought of everything that had happened last night, and when I finished I knew, at least, where to start. There were four people who might conceivably be leads to the Doc and Buff. One, Belchardo, obviously; but I might never see him again, particularly after he'd recognized me at the General's. Two, Captain Emilio. The cop with the missing teeth had been almost uncannily handy when Belchardo had started to slug me outside Monte Cassino, and Belchardo had acted as if he knew he had nothing to worry about, knew that help was nearby. Three was the sadistic, smooth-faced Villamantes, who seemed the most important—and dangerous—of all. And fourth, a possibility, the bosomy cigarette girl who had sold me cigarettes and chatted with Belchardo in Monte Cassino.

I gulped the coffee and left, bought a new suit and a cheap watch to replace my muddy and wrinkled gabardine and my muddy and inoperative watch, and added a lightweight trenchcoat. I phoned the Hotel del Prado and Buffington's rooms, but learned nothing new. Then I called the General's house. His wife answered.

“Shell, Countess. Is everything all right?"

“Yes.” She spoke softly. “But I—another one of those ... packages came this morning. By messenger. It was addressed to the General, but I took it and destroyed it. He was still asleep."

“Has the General said anything about me? Any questions?"

“No. Since last night there has been much to occupy his mind, but if he should learn I wanted you free because of the ... blackmail, there is no question; you would be returned to jail—and Captain Emilio has already phoned this morning."

“Emilio? He's damned anxious. What did he want?"

“He wished to speak to the General, but I spoke for my husband. The Captain wished only to know if there had been any change—concerning you. I assured him there had not been."

“Did he phone before or after the package arrived?"

“Afterwards, perhaps half an hour."

“I see. Thanks, Countess. You take care of your end and I'll do what I can here. Is the General handy? If he is I'd like to talk with him a moment."

She told me she'd get him. In a minute his deep voice said, "Bueno?"

“This is Shell Scott, General Lopez. I wondered if everything was O.K., and I thought of a couple things to ask you."

“Good morning, Mr. Scott. I have thought much of what you said last night. I will think more of it."

“General, I have thought much, too. Is there anything else you can tell me about Culebra or the supposed Center?"

“It is not supposed, Mr. Scott, that I know—but it is all I know. It exists. It is a kind of headquarters for this Culebra, and for others of the criminal conspiracy, but I know not where it is."

“I'm reaching a long way for this one, General Lopez, but if I should somehow learn where that headquarters is, could I count on your help? I couldn't very well go to it by myself."

“Of a certainty, Mr. Scott. If you recall what I said to you last night, you will be assured of my help. There are many loyal to me—and Mexico—who would also help."

I remembered his words, and the cruel look on his face. “I just wanted to be sure. One other thing. You remember I wanted to talk with Villamantes last night. I still do. Can you tell me where to find him?"

“His office is downtown on Juarez. Except for that address I do not know where he would be. If what you told me last night is true, it might be dangerous for you to see him."

“I know.” He gave me the address and I wrote the number on a card, then hung up after he told me he would “exercise great caution” during the day.

I checked, but neither Belchardo nor Emilio was in the phone book. After what had happened last night, it didn't seem wise for me to walk into the police station and ask for Captain Emilio. Doctor Buffington had disappeared while I was in jail, and I was convinced now that I'd been framed into jail, probably to have me out of the way when the Doc was snatched.

So I called Amador. I got him out of bed and his words were at first punctuated by yawns. In a minute, after briefing him on what had occurred, I said, “So I need a check on this screwy cop, but if I go down there he might shoot me and claim I attacked him again. It could happen."

“Yes. I think he liked those teeth. But I see what you mean, besides. You think he is in it, huh?"

“Yeah, I'm almost positive. Is there some way you can check and see if there's anything else fishy about him? You've got the contacts. And I'd like to know where the bastard lives, some place I might get him alone."

“Hell, I go down there, Shell. O.K. for me to go to the jail; I didn't hit him."

“But you helped spring me."

“What can he do? All the cops down there, I know good. Where I see you?"

“How about your apartment?” It was now almost eleven a.m. “Say noon?"

“Está bien. I see you. What you gonna do?"

“I don't know for sure. Ask some questions. I'll see you at your place.” We hung up.

I spent ten minutes and a few pesos at the Hotel Monte Cassino, got the cigarette girl's address—and name, Sarita—and by eleven-thirty was waiting for her to answer the door of her hotel room.

I heard soft footsteps, and a "Momentito," then the huge knob of the door turned, the door was cracked, and her tousled black hair and one dark eye peeked out at me."

“You may not remember me, miss,” I said. “I was at Monte Cassino last night with three others."

“I think I remember."

“You brought a note to the table."

“Ah, sí. I recall. What do you wish?"

“I'd like to talk to you, if it's all right."

“Is all right. I am not dressed. Momentito."

She left and in a little moment she called, “Is all right. You come in."

I went in and shut the door. She apparently lived in one room with adjoining bath. There were two chairs in the room, a dresser, and a bed. She had jumped back under the covers before calling to me, and now she said from the bed, “You will excuse. It would take time to dress—and I sleep for much longer."

“I'm sorry to bother you. It's very important."

“Is no bother. Bring the chair.” She pointed.

I pulled the chair up next to the bed and said, “It's about last night. I want to get in touch again with the man who gave you the note to bring me. Señor Belchardo."

She reached behind her and pulled the pillow higher against the head of the bed, sat up a little straighter, holding the covers in front of her. Her black hair was loose and framed her face in a wild tangle, and her face had the typical striking Mexican beauty, with her own individual difference. The eyes were dark, almost black, the lips full and well-shaped, though unpainted. She had no makeup on, and still she looked good. Not sultry and glamorous as she had last night, but fresh and pretty. Of course, I couldn't see everything I'd seen last night. She was young, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two.

She said, “I remember you well now. You purchased cigarettes from me. Your eyes were bold.” Her voice sounded as if she were trying to sell me more Belmonts.

“Yes, that, uh ... the man?"

She shook her head. “I do not know him, I have seen him before, I think, but I do not know who he is."

“It's urgent that I see him. If you could give me any idea where he might be—"

“I am sorry, but I do not know who he is. Nor where I might have seen him before. I go with the cigarettes to other nightclubs, perhaps at another I saw him. I do not know."

“He gave you the note..."

“Sí. He gave me it, and some money, asking me to pass to you the note at exactly six o'clock."

“But you said the note was for the girl."

She frowned. “Is true. I did only what he asked. What is the matter with it?"

“Well, I wound up in jail last night."

“I know. You fight with him, no? I hear of it. He was not very nice."

“Yeah. I fought the whole police force. And a funny thing. I bought some cigarettes, Belmonts, from you. When I got to the police station, the Belmonts were marijuana. How would that happen?"

Her frown deepened. “You are joking.” Then her face brightened and she laughed. “How funny. You are making a joke."

“I am not making a joke."

“Then you are crazy.” She spoke more sharply, black eyes narrowing. “What is it you come here for? To find a man, or to speak cruel things to me? I do not know what you talk about. I think I do not like you any more."

“Miss, I don't enjoy saying cruel things. But the cops found the marijuana on me, in a Belmont pack."

“Then you got it from another. Maybe you are a dope-head. How do I know? I am tired of talking."

“Miss, a number of unpleasant things have happened to me in the last few hours. If you should not tell me the truth, it could—"

“Caramba! You tell me I am lying?” If eyes could flash fire she'd have burned me to a crisp. She forgot about holding the covers, and bounced straight up in bed, spitting words at me. The covers fell to her waist but for a moment she was too angry to think about that.

How can I keep her mad? I thought. Think of something infuriating! But hell, I knew now she was telling me the truth. She wouldn't lie. She had an honest face.

“Dog!” she spat. “I do not lie with you."

That, I thought unhappily, seemed certain now.

“I tell to you the truth! Go away! Out of the door, go!"

I guess I was looking at her with a simple, half-pleased expression on my face, because suddenly she snatched the covers and yanked them up in front of her. She almost flipped them over her head. Then she pressed them under her chin and said a whole mess of things at me in Spanish which, even though I didn't understand them, made me sad.

“Whoa, wait, simmer down. Honey, look. Wait.” I held my hands in front of me and finally the words slowed and stopped. She glared at me. I stood up.

“I'll leave now, but—"

“Good!"

“—but first I want you to know I had to ask these questions. I've been shot at a couple times lately, certain people have a large desire to kill me, and I'm merely trying to learn enough so I can stay alive. There's more, but believe me, I had to find out if you could help. Thanks, and I'm sorry.” I turned around and walked to the door.

I had my hand on the big doorknob when she said, “One moment. It is true? Your life has been shot at?"

I turned around. “Is true. They almost hit it."

Her eyes flashed that fire again, momentarily, as she said, “You are not lying with me?"

I grinned. “No.” I tapped the Band-Aid on my neck.

She moistened her lips. “Is different. And I am not angry for what you thought of me. If I see this man, I will tell you. Tonight I am at Monte Cassino again."

“Fine."

“Goodbye, then. How do you call yourself?"

“I call myself Shell Scott, Sarita."

She smiled slowly. The covers drooped, slid down a little farther. Not as much as before. Enough. I was still holding onto that little bit of doorknob. I turned it, opened the door, and made myself go out.

The cab driver let me out at the corner of Juarez and Luis Moya, half a block from Villamantes’ office. The sun was shining, as it usually does mornings during the rainy season, and the street was alive, brilliant with color. Far down on San Juan de Letran the steel skeleton of a new skyscraper reared high in the crisp air above the other buildings. An old, brown-faced woman sat on the sidewalk around the corner on Luis Moya Street with her wicker basket of tortillas, calling "Grandes ... grandes," in a high, cracked voice. On Juarez another woman, like a twin to the first, squatted on her haunches beside a small metal pan filled with chestnuts, fanning hot coals beneath the pan to keep the chestnuts sizzling.

I walked past sidewalk tables and stalls loaded with bright silver jewelry, necklaces, rings, hammered cigarette cases, pins and charms, maracas with the death of the brave bull painted on them. At one stall the salesman haggled over the price of a tooled-leather wallet with a well-dressed tourist carrying a rainbow-colored serape, a miniature camera hanging from his neck. A dozen times in the half block I walked, I passed men or women or children selling the inevitable lottery tickets. Ten million pesos was the top prize this time, eight hundred thousand U.S. dollars. A young Mexican took my picture and handed me a printed ticket. A parrot squawked in one of the stores, and a cat inside the entrance dozed at the edge of the sun. It was a lovely morning, brisk, bright with color, one of those days when it's enough just to be alive.

Villamantes’ office was in the Edificio Real in the middle of the block. I walked past a blind man holding a card of Gillette razor blades before him, went inside to the elevator. At the third floor I walked down to number 18 and stopped before the door. Villamantes: Exportadora e Importadora, S.A.

I went inside.

Chapter Twelve

There were two desks in the room—one inside the door, one in the corner on my left. A young Mexican man sat at the far desk scribbling on some papers. In the back wall near him was a closed door with a plain frosted-glass window. I stopped inside the entrance. A woman about forty years old, with a face like a prune biting a lemon, sat behind the desk. She glanced up, adjusted rimless glasses and looked at me.

I said, “I'd like to see Mr. Villamantes, please."

She shook her head and answered in English, “He isn't here."

“It's important. When will he be back?"

“Not for at least a week. He is taking his vacation."

“I see. Thanks. Where can I find him?"

She stared blankly at me, lips pursed. “I don't know. He is on vacation. Perhaps he went to Acapulco. Perhaps to Fortin de las Flores. I am not sure."

“It's a very important transaction, I've spoken to him."

“What is your name?"

“Bloom.” I said the first thing that popped into my mind. “Sam Bloom."

She squeezed her lips more tightly together and opened a drawer. She fingered through some white cards. “You have not spoken to him, Mr .... Bloom."

“He must not have mentioned it to you."

“He would have.” She bit harder on the lemon.

I looked at the closed door in back. The guy at the other desk got up and walked over to me. “What you want to see him for, amigo?"

“Business.” I looked from him to Sourpuss. “It's so important I'm willing to pay well for any information. I'm anxious to settle the deal."

The young guy smiled slightly and shook his head. “Can't help you,” he said. “Come back in a week."

I looked at that frosted-glass door again. I took a breath and walked toward it. The guy grabbed my arm.

I stopped. “Get out of my way."

He stared at me, mouth tight, then he shrugged and let go. So I figured the next office was empty. It was. I went back into the front office. The man and woman were both at their desks. Just for hell I said, “Thanks, comrades.” The guy started to get up, then sat down and smiled stiffly. Pruneface swallowed her lemon, I went out, onto Juarez again. At the corner I looked back, up three floors in the Edificio Real. I could see the guy standing at a window, looking down at me. I flagged a cab.

It was already after noon, and I was a few minutes late for the meeting with Amador. I hoped he'd done some good; the threads, the leads, were melting away. Emilio was the last one. I paid the driver and got out on Zaragoza, then went inside the building, wiggled a finger at the middle-aged gal behind the desk, and trotted up the cement steps. Amador's apartment was up one flight, down the hall and around the corner. I reached the top of the stairs and turned to my left, started walking down the long hallway.

I saw him come around the corner at the hall's far end, maybe fifty feet away. At first I wasn't sure it was Amador; then I got closer and recognized him. There was something a little funny about him though. He stood for a moment a few feet from the corner, one hand outstretched and pressed against the wall, then he swung his right foot forward and brought his left hand up against his chest. He took another step, stumbled and almost fell.

I ran toward him. “Amador!” I yelled. “What's wrong?"

He had stopped and was standing in the middle of the hallway, both hands pushed out in front of him like those of a blind man finding himself suddenly in a strange place. His hands twitched, jerked a little. I reached him and stopped in front of him, fright making my heart beat faster. There was a lumpy gash at the side of his head, a little trickle of blood congealing there.

“Amador! What's wrong with you?"

There was an expression on his face that I had never seen on anyone else's face before, fear, panic, a gagged but screaming horror like a scream that shrieked only in his brain, echoing, crescendoing there behind his staring eyes. His mouth was open and his eyes were stretched so wide they seemed enormous in his head, staring, staring, staring. His hands pawed at my coat, flapped loosely against me, and breath hissed from his mouth; there were noises in his throat as if he were gagging. His knees buckled and he started to fall.

I grabbed him, tried to hold him up as he went to one knee. I could feel his body twitching, shaking, jerking in my hands. His head rolled loosely to the side, hung like a dead weight against his shoulder, and he rolled the staring eyes up toward me.

“Amador,” I said, “Amador.” I eased him down to the floor, laid him on his back and loosened his tie and belt. His knees came up from the floor and flopped down again; his hands slapped once together; there was a last faint rasping sound in his throat. He didn't move again.

I ran back to the stairway, shouted down it, “Get an ambulance. Quick. Understand?"

“Sí. What is it?"

“Quickly, quickly. A man is dying."

Her startled gasp followed me as I ran back down the hall. But Amador wasn't dying. He was dead. He had no pulse, no breath. I knew it was my imagination, but it seemed that already his flesh had begun to lose its living warmth, to cool, grow cold and clammy. And his eyes still stared, as now they would always stare, even after his lids were closed. I think the worst of it all was looking at his eyes, knowing they would continue to stare against his closed lids, until even those lids rotted and fell away within his grave, until the eyes themselves were gone.

And now I would never really remember him as the nice, smiling guy who had said, "She is one classy vegetable, you will observe—no matter who is wrong, the Captain is right—" Whenever I thought of Amador I would remember his eyes, the look that I had seen there. It had been like seeing a scream that shrieked of panic and strangeness and the knowledge of death.

I shut my eyes and pressed my hands against them, trying to think. I'd first seen him come around the corner; he must have been coming from his room. I thought of the gash on his head, as if he'd fallen—or someone had struck him. I straightened up, pulled out my gun, then walked to the corner and around it. The door to his apartment stood open.

I stepped to the door, gun ready. There wasn't anybody in sight. I looked around inside the room, inside all the rooms, but I was alone here now. In the front room again, I saw a chair tipped over on its side; near it on the carpet there was a small, dark spot. I got down on my knees, looked at it, touched it. It was blood. This must be where Amador had fallen. But he hadn't got that gash from falling; he'd been hit, his head cut, and then had fallen here on the carpet.

A few inches from the spot of blood, something glittered in the light. I bent closer, looked at it. It was glass. Little slivered pieces of glass, some powdery, some with curving sections, as if it might once have been a small tube, or tiny vial.

I felt dizzy all of a sudden. I got to my feet, shook my head. The dizziness went away, then came back again. My skin felt cold and I could feel perspiration clammy on my forehead. I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them, wiped my hand across my forehead and looked at the moisture on my fingers. My little finger trembled nervously, independently of the others, as if a tic were there, the muscles making it twitch erratically.

This was crazy. I felt weak, a little nauseous. All of a sudden, without reason. And a thin thread of fear wound itself in my thoughts. The dizziness swept over me again and I could feel my heart pounding rapidly, the blood hammering at my temples. What was wrong with me? What was happening to me? I tried to fight down the irrational fear but it swelled like a bubble in me, a bubble that burst and sent coldness all through my body. The coldness coursed over my skin, clutched at my throat and made it difficult to breathe. I looked at the tiny bits of glittering glass on the floor, backed away from them until my shoulders were against the wall, my hands pressed flat upon the plaster behind me.

I shook my head again. I was acting crazy, letting my imagination run away with me and fill me with imaginary symptoms, unreasoning fears. It was the strangeness of this, of watching Amador die, seeing that frozen scream in his eyes and the contortions of his face. It was that and my dream, my nightmare, and listening to the doctor tell me crazy things, crazy things that he had felt, the shortness of breath and coldness of skin, fright swelling into panic, faintness and dizziness, that and the death of shaggy apes, staggering and falling, suffocating and dying, and their bodies melting into black putrescence.

I couldn't think. It was as if my brain were ice and thought was frozen there. I couldn't remember now what was dream and what was true. And, unreasoning, I felt the fear growing in me, eating at my will. I fought it, on the edge of panic, held it with an intensity of effort that twisted my mouth, pulled my lips back against my teeth. Suddenly I realized I was staring blankly across the room, and that my eyes must look now as Amador's eyes had looked to me.

I slid along the wall and reached the door, went out and walked around the corner. My entire body was cold, as if coldness seeped from my flesh down into the marrow of my bones. I rounded the corner and stopped as I saw Amador again. He lay quietly, his arms loose at his sides, mouth hanging open and his head still almost touching his shoulder. Revulsion rippled in my stomach, slid in my throat. I went by him and down the hall, fighting to keep myself from running.

I heard voices when I reached the top of the stairs, and I looked down them feeling the dizziness growing, mounting, as if to make me fall, plunge down the cement steps. Below me, at the desk, I could see men, police. I heard a siren moaning outside, probably the ambulance. And then I recognized the policeman at the desk: Emilio. Captain Emilio.

He turned and started up the steps and I whirled around and ran the length of the hall. I didn't even stop to think. I just wanted to get away from him, not let him see me. I went down the back stairs and out of the apartment building, and in the sunlight I felt better. I leaned against the rough wall of the building for a minute, my heart pounding, breath short, dizziness still with me. I told myself that it was because of my running, and my fright. But my legs were weak. The back of my legs seemed almost liquid.

I flagged a libre and climbed in, told the driver to go around to the front of the apartments on Zaragoza. Air blowing in the open window helped, made me feel less faint. Out front I could see the police cars and the ambulance from the American British Cowdray Hospital. I told the driver to park half a block away, remembering that Buff had been taken from the Prado in an ABC ambulance—but that didn't have to mean anything. The ambulance had undoubtedly been a fake.

Then I saw white-coated men bring out the body, covered with a sheet. A small crowd of the inevitable curious ghouls had gathered and were craning their necks for a look. Policemen came out and climbed into their cars, then they and the ambulance drove away.

“Follow the ambulance,” I told the driver.

I thought I knew now what had been wrong with Amador, what had killed him—and what was wrong with me. But I had to be sure.

I waited at the end of the hospital corridor, the heavy odor of ether, medicines, the almost indefinable hospital smell, in my nostrils. I could see Captain Emilio sitting in a chair tilted back against the wall down near the visitors’ desk, a big gun in the holster at his hip.

The ambulance had come here to the ABC Hospital—and so had Emilio, alone in his police car. He had spoken to the doctor briefly, then sat down in the chair. The doctor was an Englishman, James, who had given me a couple of prescriptions for the usual tourist disorders shortly after I'd hit Mexico City, and had taken fifteen minutes from his busy schedule for a little conversation. So he knew I was an L.A. detective—if he remembered.

He had gone into a room only twenty feet from where I stood, and I wanted to talk to him. I wanted it bad. The doctor was in there now with what was left of Amador. I'd been waiting more than an hour, keeping an eye on Captain Emilio, when the door opened behind me and I turned to see the doctor come out.

I walked up to him. “Dr. James. Pardon me."

“Yes?” He was a short, serious-looking man with brown hair and mustache, a preoccupied expression on his face. He wore a white medical gown which was a little stained. “Oh, hello, Mr ...."

“Scott. Amador was a very good friend of mine. He's the man you've just been—"

He shook his head. “I'm sorry. It was too late when the ambulance got there. The officer had him brought here, in case there was a chance. But there wasn't."

“Why the policeman, Doctor? The Captain in the hall."

He was peering at my face. “You don't look well yourself, Mr. Scott. Are you all right?"

“I'm O.K. Why the cop? Hope you don't mind my asking."

“No, I suppose it's all right. Captain Emilio is anxious to get a written report, which is why I've just been doing an autopsy—I'm sorry, perhaps I shouldn't have said that."

“Forget it. I'm familiar with autopsies. Something funny about this one?"

“Yes—it's outside my experience. I'm going to have to call in some help."

“If you can tell me, if you will, I'd like to know what you found."

I'd spoken with more intensity than I realized. The doctor seemed startled and peered at me again, then he said, “I'm not sure what I've found. It's new to me. Something has happened to tissues and nerve pathways. I'm not sure just what; have to check further. Some nerve parts have been destroyed."

“I see,” I said slowly. “Doctor, what, precisely, was the cause of death?"

“It's complicated by many factors, of course, but death was actually caused by suffocation.” He paused. “Mr. Scott, are you sure you're all right?"

“Just a little dizzy. There's—nothing you can do. Thank you, Doctor.” I stopped to catch my breath. “You say Captain Emilio asked for a written report?"

“Yes."

“Isn't that unusual?"

“A little. It's happened before. And this is an unusual case."

“Yeah.” I wondered how Emilio had known so quickly that it was an unusual case. “Thank you, Doctor."

Well, I'd found out. I knew what Buffington was doing now, even if I didn't know where or all of the why. I remembered again Dr. Buffington talking to me that night—only last night in the Monte Cassino. I thought of my dream.

It was clear now, and almost too horrible to seem real or even frightening. The good doctor had fathered his monster.

Chapter Thirteen

I leaned against the wall for long minutes. Part of the time I was thinking about Doc and Buff, part about the different things that had happened, and part about me. I forced myself to calm down all I could. I still had the dizziness, the cold skin, the shortness of breath, but it seemed to remain fairly constant; at least I was still alive. The thin panic was the worst thing; I couldn't fight it completely down, much less get rid of it. But I'd had all the symptoms for more than two hours now and the first shock was gone.

Captain Emilio still sat in his chair. Every once in a while he pushed a wide thumb up against the space where his teeth used to be. My mind wasn't as clear or sharp as usual, but I knew he was my last chance, the last thread. If I lost him, I lost it all. But I knew damned well I wasn't going to lose him. I went outside. I knew where he'd parked his car and I walked to a spot fifteen feet from it where I'd be partially hidden behind a tree. I waited.

The skies were getting murky and it seemed unusually cold, even for September. There was still cold sweat on my face and body; my clothes felt damp and sticky against my skin. I wrapped the trenchcoat more tightly around me, my .38 in the pocket of the coat, my hand around it.

I saw him come out of the side gate of the hospital, pushing his thumb up between his teeth again. My heart beat faster. I glanced around. A little kid in ragged clothes was playing across the street, and a young woman was walking toward the Reforma. A man was walking this way, a block and a half from me. Nobody else was in sight. Traffic wasn't heavy.

When Captain Emilio was almost at the car I looked quickly around, took the gun from my pocket, then walked toward him with the gun in my fist, pointed at his middle. He didn't notice me, preoccupied with getting out his keys and opening the car door. I stopped a yard from him.

"Bastardo!" I said.

He swung around, face flushing. He saw me and his face froze in its expression of anger for a moment, then slowly, like an ice-cream face melting, his features went slack, lost their sharp outlines. He got paler and his hand moved half an inch toward the gun at his hip, then he held his hand motionless and started shaking his head back and forth. His lips moved, but he didn't say anything.

“Go ahead,” I said, “open the back door.” I grinned at him. “I'll kill you in the car."

“No!” he blurted. “No, no. Señor, por favor, please—"

“Shut up. Open the car."

He could hardly get the key in the lock but he made it and swung the door open. I pushed him into the back and climbed in behind him.

“Get clear over on the far side,” I told him. He squeezed against it. “Now,” I said. “Please do something clever, bastardo, like jumping me, or trying to get your gun. I hate to shoot a man when he's cooperating."

“I cooperate. Please, señor, what is it? What is wrong?” His protruding eyes bulged even more than usual.

I didn't answer him; he knew what was wrong. “Emilio, unbuckle that flap on your holster and take out your gun and slide it over the seat to me.” I pulled back the hammer of the .38. When it clicked, his eyes dropped to the gun, his lips wiggled. I said, “And do it rapidly, Emilio. Don't be careful. Just jerk it out, maybe put your finger on the trigger. You understand. Be as careless as you like."

He moaned something or other. “Go ahead,” I said. “Now."

He nodded his head. I thought he was never going to get the thing out. He unhooked the flap, then lifted his gun with his thumb and middle finger. His hand was shaking so that he almost dropped the gun. I wanted his heavy .45 automatic; my .38 Colt Special weighs only twenty-one ounces, and Emilio had a lot of hair.

He dropped the gun on the seat near him.

“Shove it over here, Emilio. Carelessly."

He pointed his index finger at it, pushed it to me, then pressed himself back against the side of the car.

“You're one brave cop, bastardo.” I picked up his gun in my left hand. “Now, tell me all about how I was framed into your stinking jail last night. Tell me about Dr. Buffington and his daughter. Tell me about the planned murder of General Lopez. Tell me about Amador and what brought you here. And tell me who your Communist friends are."

His face was pasty, but he said, “I do not comprehend, señor."

I heard somebody whistling, faint footsteps. Maybe the guy I'd seen earlier. I said, “Close your eyes, Emilio. The first one you open—” I wiggled the short-barreled .38—"will be the last one you open. It will be gone away.” He was already squeezing them shut. “I will mean only to shoot your eye away, but it may happen that part of your brain will go with it."

I took a quick look around. The guy was approaching the car, paying no attention to us. Nobody else was near. The kid was playing a little farther down the street.

I waited till the guy had passed, then said to Emilio, “Open the eyes.” He opened them and I told him quietly, “I know damn well you comprehend, mister. And, believe me, Emilio, you are going to tell me. You're going to spill your slimy guts. You can have it either way; you can tell me now, or you can tell me later. Only it will be more difficult for you to form the words later."

“Señor, please. I do not know what you mean. I speak the truth."

“O.K., tell me later. Turn your head and press your face against the window. Right now."

He did it. “You know what I'm going to do, don't you, Emilio? I'm going to hit your head. With a gun. I'm going to beat you very soundly. You want to start talking?” I had the .45 reversed in my right hand.

“But please, señor. I speak the—"

I hit him. He spoke nothing. His face mashed against the window, then slid down it and rested awkwardly against the side of the car. I rolled him to the floor, got his keys and climbed up front. I drove only a few blocks away, but the spot where I parked was deserted enough and I pulled up in the shade of a tree, then hopped in back with Emilio.

I broke out one of his teeth and fished it from his open mouth, then waited for him to come to. It took about ten minutes. In the meantime I wrestled him over on his back, used his belt to bind his feet, and the belt of my trenchcoat to tie his hands beneath him. I searched no him, got the doctor's medical report and another paper, a report apparently made out by Emilio and signed. “Guillermo.” Nothing of importance to me was in his wallet. When I finished, I was drenched with perspiration. My shirt was wet through and I felt weak, nauseous.

He moaned. I kept looking at him while his eyes opened and focused. I let him whine at me for a minute, then I said, “Shut up, Emilio, I have something for you. Belongs to you, anyway.” I held my hand down where he could see it and let him look at his tooth.

He didn't seem to understand at first and I held it between my thumb and index finger, right in front of his bulging eyes. “Recognize it, bastardo? It is a tooth. Actually, it is more than just a tooth. It is your very own tooth. That makes three. We have twenty-nine to go."

He burst into an absolute torrent of Spanish. I let it subside and said, “I'm in no hurry. It will take a long time to pull out twenty-nine teeth. On what tooth would you like to start answering those questions I asked you?"

He was sticking his tongue into the now very wide space at the front of his mouth. I gave him just time enough to realize the truth about his tooth, then I grabbed his .45 by the grip and held the heavy barrel over his face, a few inches above his mouth.

He squirmed, rolled his head from side to side, lips pressed together, grunting.

“Hold still, Emilio. Let's be reasonable. Don't make me hit you on the head again."

He stopped and looked at me. I let the .45 barrel fall against his mouth. I didn't put any force behind it so it didn't do much damage. But the spot where I'd split his lip last night peeled open and blood welled from it, trickling down the side of his chin onto his neck. “Please, my God, have mercy."

“Speak, Emilio. Speak the truth.” He licked blood from his lips, his eyes frantic. There was silence. I grabbed the gun by the barrel and raised it over his face.

“I will speak! I tell you. Mercy—"

“O.K. And I make you a promise. For every lie you tell me, you get more gums to play with. Start it."

“What do you wish?"

“For a beginning, you are a Communist, are you not, Emilio? A member of the Party?"

He hesitated. "Sí." The air whistled over his tongue.

“Where is Dr. Buffington? And his daughter?"

“I—now wait, señor. Please. Do not hit me. I speak the truth, I promise—but many things I do not know. I am permitted to know little."

I felt the dizziness swell up momentarily and his face blurred in front of me. Then it subsided again; I could see his features clearly. “Go on."

“This I do not know.” He added rapidly, “All I know is that you were with them last night, and were to be removed so there would be less possibility for trouble to occur. I was instructed by Belchardo.” He kept his eye on the gun.

He told me a little more. The rest was how I had figured it: Emilio was to club me and haul me to the can when Belchardo started the beef; Emilio had arranged for the presence of other police by phoning them shortly before—which explained why Belchardo had cautioned Sarita to deliver the note to me at exactly six p.m.

“And Amador?"

“I knew there would be a death, a strange one. I did not know it would be Amador. I was to investigate the strange death and get the medical report."

Neat enough. The Captain of Police, I thought, would be in a perfect spot to get information about any peculiar homicides. Emilio didn't know who had killed Amador, he knew nothing other than what he had said. Most of the rest was unimportant now, the way he was notified by his superiors in the underground apparatus, through an elaborate, typically Communist system of passwords and secret meetings.

Last night he had known I was to be released by Señora Lopez—though he swore he knew nothing of her or the “suicide” of the General—and had phoned a number to be used only in emergency. He called, said twice that he had the wrong number, and hung up. Soon a man—he did not know who—had gotten in touch with him. Emilio told him the situation, and that was all he knew. I knew the rest. I was still wearing the Band-Aid.

“Emilio, this next is very important. Be sure to speak the truth. Who is the man called Culebra and where is his Center, his headquarters?"

“I swear that I do not know."

I wiggled the gun.

“It is truth!” he almost screamed. “I know of both, but that is all. Culebra is the name for the most important of us in Mexico, he is the closest to Moscow, has been much honored. This I know—but no more. Nor where El Centre is. I ... do not even wish to know."

“Explain that further, Emilio."

“It is where we are sometimes taken if we succumb to the lies of the imperialist warmongers."

“You're not at a club meeting; just explain."

He looked puzzled, and that puzzled me until I realized he was just mouthing words he'd been taught. He said, “It is told that some of us, those who betray the Party or succumb to the chauvinistic lies of the Wall Street warmongers, are taken to El Centre and do not return."

I asked him again what in hell he was talking about, but he merely said exactly the same thing. I asked him a question, I rang the bell, and the dog salivated.

I kept after him for another ten minutes, tapping him only lightly with the gun, but got little more of interest. I went over it all in my mind, trying to flunk straight. It seemed that I'd squeezed all I could out of Emilio, but I was still no nearer to the Doc and Buff. Then, finally, I thought of something.

“You haven't spoken freely enough. You answer questions, but you should volunteer information. For example, the medical report, your report on the death of Amador.” I tapped him lightly. “Where does that go?"

“I will tell you, gladly. I had not yet thought of it. I deliver it at five o'clock to another."

“To whom?"

“I do not know. Only that it is at Los Turcos."

I knew the place, a dark, exotic nightclub on Diagonal San Antonio. Emilio was to go to Turcos, into one of the back rooms, and there meet the other courier. In the Communist underground, when it is necessary for couriers who don't personally know each other to make contact, advance arrangements are made so the comrades can identify each other. In Emilio's case, the recognition signal was that he would say “It has been a long time.” The reply would be, “Only ten days,” and he would say, “It has seemed longer.” Just simple, ordinary conversation preceding the passing of information about an extraordinary murder.

There was one other typical method of identification. In Emilio's pocket, he told me, was a matchbox that Belchardo had given him, which matchbox was to be handed to the other courier. I'd seen it when I searched him, but hadn't thought anything of it. I looked it over. It was one of the thirty-five-centavo boxes of Mexican wax cerillas, the Clásicos de Lujo. On the back of every box there is a reproduction of some famous painting. This one was Diego Velasquez’ El Bufón Don Antonio, the painting of the long-haired man in fancy costume, his left hand resting on the back of a huge dog beside him. Only on Emilio's matchbox the paper had been torn, it seemed carelessly, and the man's hand and the head of the dog were missing. The other courier would have the missing part as identification, in addition to the words of conversation.

Even now, actually listening to Emilio, a hardcore member of the Communist underground, explain all this to me, and knowing the purpose of the meeting, the elaborate spy-and-counterspy ritual seemed infantile and childish, as though adult adolescents were to play at war. But I knew it was truly war, and this was merely one tiny, isolated knot in the bloody web of conspiracy fashioned in the Kremlin and covering the entire world. I knew it was a war to the death, conducted by criminally insane fanatics who walked and talked like honorable men—winning daily battles while some of the very imbeciles and fatheads under attack prattled about “freedom to think” and a man's right to belong to a “political party” of his choice.

But I also remembered the words of General Lopez last night. I remembered, too, that when Klaus Fuchs first met Harry “Raymond” Gold, through whom he would later pass to Russia America's most vital atomic secrets, he had for identification carried a tennis ball in his left hand; and Gold had carried a pair of gloves and a book with a green binding. I remembered that when Communist Julius Rosenberg, later executed as a Soviet spy, sent Gold to see Sergeant David Greenglass, who gave him “secret” details of A-bomb construction, Gold had identified himself with half of the side of a Jell-O box, the other half of which was in Greenglass’ possession.

And I knew that tens of thousands of other unsuspected Communist puppets—pretending to be non-Communists—had been then, and were at this very moment, engaged in just such “infantile” ritual in every major area and city of the tree world. And with great success, because men refuse to believe that a conspiracy is conspiratorial.

I gripped the .45 by its barrel. I was going to club Emilio again, and I was going to club him very hard, and I had a hunch it might crack Emilio's skull. It was four-thirty; I'd gotten all I could from Emilio. He'd said that probably the other comrade didn't know Emilio was the courier; but it was possible Emilio was wrong, he had no way of being sure. It was a chance I had to take, because the courier I was going to meet might well know where Culebra was, or his headquarters, because that, Emilio believed, was where the information was eventually to go. There might even be other couriers, but the chain had to end sometime. All I had to do was follow it to its end. If I could.

And it was time I got going, so I sapped Emilio hard enough so he'd stay on ice for a long, long while, left him in the car and locked it, and threw the keys away. It was just beginning to rain.

I parted the drapes hanging from the low entrance to Los Turcos, bent over and went inside. I still had five minutes, so I stopped inside the main room of the club, the Arabian Room, letting my eyes get accustomed to the dimness.

A number of nightclubs in Mexico City are much more dimly lighted than any public nightclubs I've seen in the States. Usually, the waiters carry pencil flashlights so they can see the customers and add up the checks. Los Turcos was so dark you needed a flashlight, and it was, of all the clubs I had seen in Mexico, the most ideal for lovers.

Turcos is straight out of the Arabian Nights, with nothing Mexican about it, but rather Eastern motif and architecture. The Arabian Room is filled with tables and a small dance floor at the back with a recessed niche for the orchestra half hidden behind a gauzy, semi-transparent drapery. At the rear of the main room are small, half-hidden booths, with veiling like the cloth of harem pajamas covering their entrances and concealing the people inside from occupants of the main room. Low hassocks rest on the floor around a foot-high table in the small rooms, and it seems they need only a water pipe or hookah to make them actually a part of the land of minarets and spires, muezzins and prayer rugs. Four other rooms complete the club—the Egyptian, the Kasbah, the Moro, and the Persian Room. The Persian Room was the one I wanted.

A waiter walked up to me, but I told him I was meeting a friend. I did have him get me a phone book, though, and in the light from his flash I checked the Villamantes Exportadora e Importadora on Juarez. The number Emilio was to call only in emergencies, saying he had the wrong number, was the number of Villamantes’ office.

This early in the afternoon there were only two couples in sight at tables in the big room, barely discernible in the dimness. I walked to the dance floor, then along its edge to the small pointed archway in the wall, through which was the More Room. The entrance was only about four feet high, and I had to stoop down in order to squeeze through, then I straightened up and stood inside the low entrance for a moment.

Here there were no couples, no one. Later tonight the lovers, the young, dark-skinned Mexican men and their lissome, red-lipped señoritas would dance, and sit at the small low tables or in the tiny duplicates of the larger booths out front. But now the room was empty. The Persian Room was through the low archway on my left. Someone would be in there, waiting for me in another small booth, like these here, hidden behind the concealing drapery. I felt in the pockets of my trenchcoat; in the right one was my gun, in the left the box of matches with the torn El Bufón Don Antonio. A folded newspaper, with Emilio's reports inside it, was under my arm. I could feel my heart thudding, but whether as part of the dizziness and faint constant fear that was still with me, or from anticipation, I didn't know, I walked ahead, went through the archway. It was darker here.

The room was long, narrow, with the little booths beginning near me on my right and extending to the wall ahead of me—five of them. The fifth booth, Emilio had told me. At this hour the draperies were parted before all the booths, showing their interiors, the small seats and round tables—except at one of them, the fifth. Behind its gauzy curtain the light of a candle flickered.

If the person behind that veil was a complete stranger, one who had never seen me, I'd probably be all right. If it was somebody who knew me, or what I looked like, there could be trouble. I shook a cigarette from my pack, held it in my left hand, put the matchbox in my right pocket with the gun, and walked toward the fifth booth.

I had to bend over to step inside. I parted the drapes with my left hand, stepped through into the cramped space and let the drape fall behind me. For a moment I was too startled to speak, then the exclamation burst from my lips.

“My God,” I said. “Monique!"

Chapter Fourteen

I was stunned temporarily, staring at her less than two feet from me. I could reach with my fingers and touch the sensual lips I had kissed last night, lips that had whispered tender and savage words to me in the darkness.

She didn't speak, but there was an expression compounded of amazement and shock on her beautiful face, a face made even more lovely by the candle's soft light. And as I looked at her, with my throat drying and a hollowness swelling in my stomach, I wondered why I hadn't thought of this before. I remembered that she had met the Buffingtons two months ago—only a short time after the doctor's deadly experiments; that she had been with them constantly, had come with them to Mexico, knew of their every movement.

And finally I understood other things: almost every time I had been shot at, or followed, I had just left Monique or was with her. Even last night when I had taken her from the Prado, she could have—she must have—phoned from her bedroom the men who had followed us. Even in the flight from them, while acting superbly, it now seemed that she had done her best to help them and slow us down: falling, delaying—but always in the clear herself in case we got away.

Finally I found my voice. I didn't know what to say, but I went through with it the way I'd planned it, watching her face.

“It has been a long time,” I said. It didn't sound silly or melodramatic any more.

She licked her lips, bit the lower one. Then she pressed a hand against her throat and answered like an automaton, “Only—ten days."

“It has seemed longer.” I felt sick. The dizziness and nausea were becoming worse. I put the cigarette in my mouth, lit it, then slid the matchbox over the small table to her.

She was still confused, uncertain. Her left hand was clenched into a fist, and slowly she opened it. The torn part of the Velasquez was wrinkled in her hand.

“I didn't—I didn't expect—” She left the sentence hanging in the air.

She had spoken dully, as if dazed. I tried to think. There was a chance, maybe one in a hundred, that if Monique could have been a Communist all this time without my knowledge, perhaps she might, at least while shocked by my sudden appearance here at Turcos, believe the same of me.

My brain started working again; actually my chances were pretty good. The Communist is accustomed to deceit and dissembling, undercover agents, the ritual of Communism, the passwords and shadowed meeting places. While the normal up-at-six and to-bed-at-ten guy will almost never believe that next-door-neighbor Joe, who “looks just like anybody else,” could be a Red or a spy or a saboteur—which is the basic reason for Communist strength—the Communists themselves have been conditioned to accept such things as part of their everyday existence. And they live in a constant atmosphere of fear and mistrust, with the knowledge that they are watched by others. I might bull it through—unless Monique knew she was to have met Captain Emilio. But the code words and recognition signal indicated she hadn't known.

There wasn't much help for it now; I had to try.

Only a few seconds had passed. I said slowly, “I'm surprised, Monique. I didn't expect to contact you."

She looked straight into my eyes for the first time. “I ... I hardly knew what to think.” She took a deep breath. “Did you, I mean, have you—"

“Yeah. I've got it.” I hoped I knew what she'd started to say. I handed her the folded newspaper and took a chance. “It seems the good doctor is cooperating."

She had removed Emilio's reports, was reading them in the light from the candle. “Yes,” she said, eyes skimming over the medical report. “This is excellent.” She looked at the other paper, then opened her purse and started to put them in it. I caught her wrist.

“I'll keep them."

She frowned. “But they were to be delivered to me."

“I know, Monique. But they go to Culebra.” I took the papers from her.

“Yes, but—"

“We're to take them to him at the Center."

Her eyes narrowed, then she shrugged. “There is no difference,” she said.

I looked at my watch. “We'd better leave."

“We? But I was supposed—"

I pasted on a grin. “No, both of us, Monique. I've already told you. We're both to go out to the Center—with the reports. Those were my instructions."

It didn't sound good, didn't ring true. There was too much I didn't know. But I couldn't let her out of my sight, even if she tumbled—or was already sure I was lying. Monique was, again, the last thread, the only thing I had. The coldness of my skin, my weakness, reminded me that no matter what happened I had to stick close to Monique, perhaps even hurt her, make her tell me what I needed to know. But as long as there was a chance she might believe me, accept me, I'd play it like that. I didn't know if I could go through with it the other way.

“Let's go,” I said.

We went through the dimness of the club and out the draped front entrance, Monique ahead of me. The rain was steady now, big drops splattering heavily on the sidewalk. The gutters were beginning to fill. I pulled my trenchcoat around me, holding it together with my hands.

Monique waved, said, “There's one; run,” and darted into the street as a libre, a new green-and-black Plymouth, slowed and stopped. I jumped inside the car after her, leaned back against the seat—and kept my mouth shut. I didn't have any idea where to tell the driver to go. I got out cigarettes.

I breathed easier when Monique leaned forward and said, “To the Reforma. I'll tell you where then."

We turned left off Diagonal San Antonio into San Juan de Letran and headed toward town. “Cigarette?” I asked her.

She smiled. “I can use one."

I tried to keep the conversation going so she would have to talk instead of think. Rain drummed on the top of the cab and the tires hissed on the street. I talked about last night, about the rain, about everything except Doctor Buffington.

We turned left at Juarez and followed it into the Reforma, passed Chapultepec Park and kept going. We passed the Hipódromo de las Américas and drove on for miles. Finally I stopped talking. The conversation had probably kept her from thinking, but it had kept me from thinking, too. The way I felt made thoughts move sluggishly in my mind, but I began remembering things: that I'd been shot at in the taxi last night, while with Monique, in what was an obvious attempt to kill me; that Monique had been present at the beef with Belchardo, though there was a chance she didn't know he was on her team; and my conversation with Doctor Buffington had hardly been the words of a good Communist. And there was something else bothering me, something I had forgotten.

Often the unconscious mind will warn a man when he has seen or heard something of potential danger which the conscious mind has ignored or forgotten. Often it has happened to me, and the prodding uneasiness alerts me, makes me search my mind, hunt for the missing piece. But there had been uneasiness and that strange fear in me for hours now; I couldn't separate the natural fear from the induced, artificial anxiety and alarm. I told myself that even if Monique had only pretended to believe me, was planning even now to trick me some way, I could handle her, guard against any sudden or strange action.

I looked around. We were far from the city and there were no houses here; many trees and shrubs grew at the sides of the road. The countryside was becoming more dense, more covered with greenery, but there were no signs of civilization, not even the small villages of mud-and-stone huts with their packed-earth floors since the last one, Tlaxpacin, we had passed through ten minutes ago. The uneasiness grew.

I thought back. Our conversation, then leaving—Leaving Los Turcos. Even if Monique believed me and we were headed for the Center, perhaps near it now, she would hardly—the idea skittered in my mind, wavered. I concentrated on it, thought around it. The Center was secret. A Communist going there would hardly hail a cab, any cab, to take her to the place. The thought got clearer. I remembered that Monique had flagged the libre which had come by almost as soon as we stepped out of the entrance, had run to it as I followed. I glanced toward the front of the car, my eyes falling on the rearview mirror. The driver's eyes looked back at me, straight at me, widened slightly, as an involuntary shudder rippled down my spine.

I looked at Monique again as lightning hissed like a million snakes no more than a hundred yards away, crackled in the air as it struck the earth and the thunderous, snapping rumble roared in my ears. I jumped, startled. The car was climbing—laboring up the slanting road. I was shaky, nervous. I didn't like what had happened to me, the way I felt. It was foreign to me, strange, unnerving. I couldn't concentrate, couldn't calm myself; and it seemed that when fright started building in me it grew of its own accord. It wasn't like me and I had to fight it constantly.

Lightning flashed farther away, and it was seconds before the booming rumble of thunder reached us. We crested the top of the grade and started down the other side. For just a moment, from the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a gray building to the right, perhaps a mile from us. It was only a blur, the short flash of something looming there in the murk of gathering darkness nearly obscured by the mist and falling rain.

I could feel tension rising inside me, tightening in my belly. I put my right hand on the gun in my pocket, slipped my finger through the trigger guard. Then Monique spoke. I jerked my head around toward her, too quickly, too suddenly for the simple words she spoke, my nerves jangling.

“I'd like a cigarette, Shell."

She was smiling, the smile a caricature painted in red on her white face. I told myself to stop it, relax, take it easy, stop it. Weakness licked at my arms and legs. She kept smiling.

“Sure, Monique. Just a minute."

Something was going to happen. It wasn't thought, or a hunch, but knowledge. I could feel it building, growing, getting closer. I looked at the rearview mirror. Nothing. His eyes weren't staring back at me; he peered through the windshield as the wipers clicked back and forth, monotonously. I remembered suddenly the tiny girl in my dream, her head rocking back and forth like the arm of a metronome. The wipers swished back and forth, and clicked, and clicked.

I felt for the cigarettes, thinking, talking mentally to myself. The gun, keep your hand on the gun, maybe she's not doing anything, maybe it's your imagination. I had put the cigarettes in my right coat pocket I could feel them against the hand holding my revolver. I shook my head, let go of the gun, pulled out cigarettes and transferred them to my left hand, started to put my right hand back into my pocket. The steady, fixed smile was still on Monique's lips.

And then it happened, suddenly, as Monique raised her left hand and touched the driver's shoulder.

The driver slammed on the brakes and the car slowed and swerved as tires caught at the road. I was thrown forward against the front seat, unable to reach my gun. Monique threw herself against me, her hands clutching and scratching, slicing across my face and gouging at my eyes, her lips still pulled away from her white teeth in a parody of that smile.

The car stopped as I smashed my fist against Monique's jaw, knocking her away from me. The driver spun in his seat, a gun in his hand swinging toward me. I shoved my hands toward the gun, felt the jar and pain as the metal hit them, grabbed the gun and twisted it; then Monique was clawing me again, her fingers clutching at my arm. As the driver raised up in the seat, facing me, I lunged toward him and shoved him backward. The gun slipped from my grasp as he fell against the steering wheel, the horn braying for a moment, and then the gun clattered as it dropped to the floor boards in front.

I swung my elbow with all my strength into Monique's belly and she gagged, bending over. The driver pawed toward the gun. I reached for him, got my fingers in his coat and jerked him to me. He tried to turn but I sliced the edge of my right palm along his jaw, a glancing blow. I jerked at his collar as I bent forward over the front seat, spun him partly around, my right hand held high and spread open, blood thundering in my head. He turned toward me as he brought his hands up, digging for my throat, and I swung at his face. My palm sliced his nose and red squirted from it over his mouth as the thin bones crumpled. But I'd struck too low to kill. He was stunned, sagging momentarily—and his face was a foot from mine, the bare, unprotected bridge of his nose suspended before my eyes. I swung my open hand toward it, felt it strike and his body tug against my fingers. I swung once more and dropped him, dead, upon the seat.

Monique was trying to straighten up, her mouth smeared and twisted, eyes fixed on me. I grabbed her throat and slapped her across the face, then back, again, and again. “You bitch. I ought to kill you."

I let her go and she buried her face in her hands. I grabbed her purse and went through it but there was nothing of importance, at least no gun. In a minute she took her hands from her face, looked at me.

I felt hollow, sick inside, drained and empty. “My God, Monique, why?” I said. “Why?"

She stared at me, her face frozen.

“Why?” I said again. “I liked you, Monique; I liked to be with you. You were—hell, I don't know. It was good to touch you, talk to you, kiss you. Like last night. You can't be two people, that had to be you."

“You wouldn't understand."

I didn't answer her for a moment. “Maybe I wouldn't, Monique. Make love to me one night, be wild and warm and savage, even sweet and tender, in bed. And kill me the next."

“We—weren't going to kill you. Shell."

I laughed at her. “You weren't, huh? Maybe not. Maybe you were going to let someone else do it. But you knew damn well I was as good as dead.” I looked around, at the darkening sky, the rain still falling lightly. “What difference does it make who kills me?"

“I'm sorry. Shell."

“You mean you're crazy, you're out of your mind. I think I'm a little crazy myself.” I stopped, let my breathing slow down. “All right, Monique. I guess I didn't fool you for a minute, did I?"

She shook her head. “Not for a minute."

“Where did I slip?"

I didn't really expect her to tell me, but she answered with sudden heat and contempt that surprised me. “A dozen ways. The very first thing you said to me in Turcos was ‘It has been a long time.’ You were supposed to ask, ‘How long has it been?’ I knew you were a dirty spy the moment you opened your mouth—and as soon as I told the driver to go to the Reforma instead of Juarez, he knew too.” Her lips curled. “You were easy to fool."

She didn't even sound like Monique any longer—and that thought gave me another small shock. Undoubtedly she wasn't Monique, at least that was, almost surely, not her real name. But she had tricked me—and Emilio had, too. Even the not-very-bright cop had easily crossed me up; the passwords and “childish” ritual had served their intended purpose after all.

I felt the nervousness and anxiety building up in me again. I knew most of it was due to whatever had happened to me in Amador's room, but even knowing the reason couldn't stop it from tearing at my confidence, filling me with unfamiliar doubts and fears. And I knew, too, that if I was going to help the doctor and Buff I couldn't go on making mistakes, letting myself be out-maneuvered. The next mistake might be, literally, my last. So, what I didn't know, Monique would have to tell me.

I looked at her, wondering if even now I could hurt her, torture her, fill her with pain until she had to speak. I looked at her lovely, sensual face, beautiful even with the lipstick smeared and her cheeks red where I had slapped her. Then I got the dead man's belt and strapped Monique's wrists and ankles together, pushed the driver to the floor, lifted her to the front seat, and climbed behind the wheel.

As I started the car she said, “Is he—dead?"

“That vanguard of the proletariat you've got your feet on? Yeah, he's dead."

I drove ahead until I could turn off the road, then bumped over rough ground until we were among trees, hidden from cars that might go by. I got out and looked in the Plymouth's trunk, found a piece of fine wire and some tools. I bent and broke the wire, then used it to bind Monique's hands behind her and her legs together. She didn't speak. I carried her out of sight of the car and placed her on the wet ground beside the trunk of a tree. Rain still fell in a drizzle through the limbs above her. I went back to the car and got the dead man, carried him to where Monique was and dropped him heavily in front of her. She shrank back from the limp corpse.

I talked to her, questioned her, but she wouldn't say a word. I was sure that if I could leave her alone with the dead man, as night fell and it grew darker and more quiet here, she'd finally break. But I didn't have that much time, and I had to make her talk. I went back to the car, out of Monique's sight and took off two of the hubcaps.

In a few more minutes I had taken out the car's battery, poured part of the acid from its cells into one hubcap, and replaced the battery. Into the other hubcap I put a mixture of gasoline that I'd squeezed from a rag dipped in the tank and water from the radiator. The diluted acid was strong enough to burn, to blister.

Monique couldn't see me as I carried both hubcaps back behind her. I put one of my improvised bowls behind the tree near which she lay, close enough so I could reach it with my hand, then squatted beside her with the other one.

“Look, Monique. That's acid in there, battery acid. You understand?"

She turned her head toward me, anxious, frightened now.

I said, “Monique, you have one of the loveliest, sultriest, sexiest faces I've ever seen. I know you're proud of it, proud of your beauty. And you should be. Few women are lucky enough to have beauty like yours."

“Shell,” she spoke finally, breathlessly. “What are you doing? What's all this?"

“You know what I want to find out from you. Culebra, his headquarters. Tell me about that, about the Doc and Buff, where they are and what's going on—everything you can possibly tell me—and all this means nothing. This is just in case you won't tell me without coaxing."

She licked her lips. “Don't, Shell. You know I won't tell you anything. I know I'm right, and I won't say anything to help you. You know I won't. Shell, you said you liked me, liked to touch my skin, kiss me, love me."

“That was last night, honey. Will you tell me? Now?"

“No. I will not, Shell. I won't.” She spoke positively, with conviction.

“All right. Then listen, Monique. Here's what you'll have to be able to stand. I'm telling you first because I really don't want to do it. Not to you. But I will."

I looked around. The weather would help. The fact that she had been tense for quite a while, and had just gone through an emotional shock would help, too. And she seemed tired, which was good. The defenses of her mind would be down more than usual. The time was made to order for a little repeated suggestion.

As I had told Doctor Buffington, almost anybody can be made to believe anything in the world, if he's properly prepared, kept in a state of fear and tension, properly conditioned; and if the right weapons—the right words—are used. It's the Soviet method of mind attack, perfected during years of use against its own and enemy peoples. I'd have to do the best I could with what I had at hand; but at least the weather was perfect, the mood was right.

The sun was just a dim glow in the gray sky behind heavy clouds. Rain pattered monotonously on the leaves above and dropped down upon us; lightning flashed far away while thunder rumbled occasionally, faintly, like great whispers. It was nearly dark here in the shadow of the trees.

I pulled the dead man closer to Monique, held her head so that if she looked she'd have to see that waxen face; and if she closed her eyes it would be even worse for her, because the imagination always paints more frightening pictures than the eyes can see.

I held her head in my hands and spoke from behind her back. “Monique, listen,” I said. I spoke very slowly, deliberately letting the words drag while my voice got lower, softer, deeper. “First I'm going to strip you naked, and strip the dead man naked. I think he's dead. I'm almost sure he's dead. And I'll bind you both together, your warm body pressed against his own and your face against his cheek. I'll tie his arms around you, and yours around him, and I'll leave you here alone, like lovers. You'll feel his body cooling, the flesh becoming cool and damp while darkness falls. And then it will be night, dark night, and you'll hear rustling all around you, in the grass and in the branches of the trees. Right now you think you'll know it's only wind, or crawling things, but when it happens you won't know. The sounds will crawl into your mind like worms."

I talked to her for minutes more, softly, as the darkness deepened, and finally I said, “And then, Monique, you'll feel the dead man moving, stirring, his body dead, and yet not dead, against you. It won't be anything unearthly, just rigor mortis, but you'll begin to wonder when his cold arms tighten against your back, pull you close against him like an obscene rape by Death. You'll think he's dead, you'll know he's dead, but still you'll wonder. Look at him, Monique. You can almost see the lips moving now, moving toward your mouth. Later—you'll have time to think, imagine. When it's dark and something rustles near you, when you're here alone with him, when he pulls you close and his body arches and his flesh crawls against your own, you'll know his lips are moving in the blackness, reaching for your mouth—"

"Stop it! Stop it!"

She was almost screaming, and the sudden piercing shriek of her voice startled me. I swallowed, kept talking softly. “But that's not all, Monique.” I fumbled for a leaf, dipped it in the acid and brushed it across the back of her hand. I kept talking till I knew she could feel the acid stinging, then brushed the leaf across her hand again. “Feel that, Monique? The acid? It's burning now, already eating at your skin. Before I leave, leave you here alone with him, there'll be acid on your face to eat your loveliness away, to eat the flesh, dissolve it from your bones. You'll feel it biting, burning, tearing out your eyes. First you'll go blind, and then—"

“Please—Shell—please—please—I know you won't. I know you wouldn't. You're just frightening me, trying to frighten me."

Without her seeing me, I took the acid away, pulled over the other mixture of gasoline and water, picked it up in my hand. “I will, Monique.” I held the bowl over her face, rolled her onto her back. There was only faint illumination now, but she could see the bowl above her.

“Shell, take it away. My God, Shell, you couldn't do it—"

“Then tell me the truth."

She didn't speak. I tilted my hand and let the liquid spill. She started to scream even before it hit her face. She screamed in horror, rolling, trying to get away as I held her with my other hand. The liquid hit her cheek, splashed against her eyes. And all the time she screamed.

“My eyes, my God, my eyes! Stop it! Shell!"

“Will you tell me?"

“Yes. Just stop it, Shell!"

I put the hubcap aside, wiped her face with my handkerchief, pressed it across her eyes.

She was sobbing, crying. “Will it blind me, Shell? Oh, will it?"

“No,” I said. “It's all right now.” I felt as if I'd done something evil and unclean, and perhaps I had. It was her voice, the sob in her voice when she asked me if she'd be blind that got me most of all. To me, Monique was still the girl I'd held last night, and whispered to, and kissed. I hadn't had time yet to adjust to the other, stranger part of her, the evil in Monique.

She started talking. I didn't have to threaten her again. I just listened while she talked, and finally I had it all.

And when I did know all of it, I stopped feeling quite so sorry for Monique.

Chapter Fifteen

I understood most of the mess after Monique finished. When Doctor Buffington had accidentally stumbled on what I now thought of as his nerve gas, at first there hadn't seemed any need for secrecy. Consequently, most of the others at the Southwest Medical Institute understood vaguely what was going on; most of them considered the episode merely another failure on the difficult, experimental road to success. But at the Institute, as at virtually every other place where important or secret work is conducted, a handful of Communists also were employed, and the Communist mind is different from the free mind. The Communists there, one of them at least, saw the doctor's failure as, possibly, a success—in that it had killed. Killed horribly.

That one, a Doctor Philip Cranston, was a concealed Communist of long standing, and leader of the five-member Communist group at the Institute. He kept an eye on Buffington's experiments, coming to see in them, as they progressed, a potential military weapon of the utmost efficiency—and the visits by the Army men who had talked with Buffington increased Cranston's interest. If the doctor's discovery should turn out to be suitable as a weapon, that weapon, naturally, should be shared with the peace-loving Soviet Union. He passed the word along to his superior and was instructed to steal or photograph any and all of the doctor's pertinent notes and records. But then, before Cranston could get started, Buffington destroyed all of the notes and abandoned that particular line of research.

The plan to kidnap Doctor Buffington had started then, two months ago, because though the notes were destroyed the facts were still in the Doctor's mind. To the men in the Kremlin, from whom the order came, the solution was simple: snatch Buffington and force him to continue the work he had abandoned. Monique, who had been well trained at open and legal Communist schools in New York, and at other secret CP schools in the States, was assigned to get next to the Doc and Buff, worm her way into their confidence. She'd been able to accomplish that goal with ease, and had learned how thoroughly the Doctor was devoted to his peace-at-any-price doctrines, and that he was scheduled to make his ILP address in Mexico City in September.

Mexico had seemed an ideal place for the abduction to come off; everything could be well planned by then. The Doctor would be in a land strange to him, without his friends around him, and it would be nearly impossible to determine who had kidnapped him—or even that he actually had been abducted. Perhaps equally important was the fact that Culebra, a high-ranking Communist, was here at the Center, which would be a good spot to hide the Doctor. So the Commies started making their plans, which included fixing up a completely equipped laboratory at the Center, following Cranston's suggestions and the suggestions of others, and after the Doc's ILP address they grabbed him—and later grabbed Buff—and took them to the headquarters.

That was what I was interested in—the fact that both of them were now held prisoners at the Center, the gray building I'd seen momentarily, just before the driver and Monique had jumped me. It was about half a mile from here and Culebra was there. Culebra—Antonio Villamantes.

Monique had been at the Center for an hour during the afternoon and knew what was going on in there. Dr. Buffington was being forced to work in the laboratory by the threat of torture or death not only for himself but for his daughter. Buff was his Achilles’ heel, and Monique had known it; she had told Villamantes he could most easily force the Doctor to work by torturing Buff. So the Doctor was working. I'd seen the evidence of his success: Amador.

A Commie working under Villamantes had sapped Amador, carefully crushed a tiny sealed vial of the Doc's liquid on the floor near the unconscious Amador's head, then got out, fast. In a way it was crude, but in another way it had been clever enough: Amador's murderer would be far away when Captain Emilio visited the body, got the medical report and passed it on to Monique. And it had worked; Amador was dead.

It had worked on me, too, though to a lesser degree. When, on my hands and knees I had stared at those glittering bits of glass on Amador's carpet, there still had been enough of the gas remaining near the floor so that I'd inhaled a trace of it. Not much—but enough so I knew a little of what Amador must have felt before he'd died.

At this point in the experiments, what Villamantes was mainly interested in was knowing that the stuff would kill not an ape, but a man, quickly, efficiently; and that the Doctor was cooperating. If it appeared the gas was really effective, a potential weapon that the Russians could mass produce, the Doctor would eventually disappear completely—somewhere in Russia, like so many others before him. I knew from Dr. Buffington himself that the gas would make a terrible weapon, a monster. And I knew too, that he was “cooperating."

I asked Monique, “Why pick on Amador? Why him?"

“It didn't have to be him. It might have been General Lopez or one of many others."

“Yeah. Including me, I imagine."

She didn't answer for a while. Then, “We knew Amador was responsible for getting you out of jail, and that led to much trouble for us. I had to phone him for you, otherwise you might have learned I hadn't, and become suspicious. But I didn't think there was the slightest chance he could help you. We knew that if you were released from jail, and learned Dr. Buffington was missing, you'd look for him, try to find him—and whoever might be involved in his disappearance. We couldn't allow that. Then, when you got out, we knew you must be working for General Lopez’ wife, and of course we knew why. That was also very important to us. Obviously it was extremely important that you be—removed."

“Then you recognized Señora Lopez at the jail?"

“Of course."

She kept talking and cleared up one other thing that had puzzled me—after Amador helped spring me, one of Monique's chums had watched Amador's apartment, spotted me entering and leaving it shortly after the first attempt to kill me, and had tailed me to El Golpe, picking up three more bruisers for help.

She added, about Amador's death, “We couldn't be sure how much he knew of Señora Lopez’ difficulties, and we couldn't take any chances. Anyway, the test was up to Villamantes."

“A test. Amador the guinea pig. Or whoever else was handy."

“We had to know if the Doctor was betraying us or not; it had to be tried on a man."

I could barely see the outline of her face now. “Monique, I guess I'm lucky you didn't get word to your pals last night. It would have been me instead of Amador then, wouldn't it?"

She hesitated. “I—couldn't tell them, Shell, not—not after that, last night."

“The hell. If you could have gotten to a phone without my tumbling, I'd be dead now. You weren't thinking of last night an hour ago.” I thought of something. “When were you supposed to deliver this stuff—the medical report—to Villamantes?"

“By seven o'clock, at the latest."

I squinted at my watch, lit a match to be sure. It was seven p.m. already. I started to mention the time, then stopped. I said, “It's almost six-thirty now. What happens if you don't get there by seven?"

“I'm—not sure. God knows what he'd do. He's almost crazy sometimes. He'd know something was wrong, he might think the Doctor had only pretended to cooperate, made something harmless—I don't know."

“What would he do to the Doctor? He wouldn't kill him."

“No, not till Villamantes is sure he has the formula. There is another man there, a chemist who duplicates the Doctor's experiments. But—Villamantes whipped Buff before, to make the Doctor cooperate. He might do anything to her. He doesn't like—opposition to his plans. He gets very angry when things go wrong."

“It's after seven,” I said.

She started to laugh suddenly. She stopped and said, “I was telling the truth about him. He'll be furious, crazy. I know him. He won't hurt the Doctor. Not at first.” She laughed again.

I stood up. I didn't know what the hell I could do alone. If I could get in touch with the General, get his help—but he was too far away. It would take me too long to reach him and get back here. And there was no place where I could phone. Perhaps near the last village we'd passed through, where there'd been a Pemex gas station. But even if I phoned it would take the General too long to reach here with any help he might scrape up. And I didn't even have time to go back to that village.

I talked to Monique for two or three more minutes and learned how the Center was set up, where the Doctor and Buff were. The Center had once been a church, but it had been abandoned for many years. Then Villamantes took it over, acting for the Party. The Doctor was inaccessible in the lab. Buff was in a room at the northwest corner of the building. An armed guard stayed in the yard outside her room; another patrolled the grounds, which were behind a ten-foot stone wall that enclosed the building. About twenty people, mostly men, were out there now.

I made up my mind. “Monique, I'll have to leave you here. If something happens to me, and I don't get back to you, you can thank your friends."

“You can't leave me here alone."

“I have to. I can't take you with me. I don't owe you anything now, Monique."

“My face. Will my face be all right?"

“Yeah. It was only some gasoline and water, nothing to worry about.” I paused. “It wasn't really acid, Monique; it was enough that you believed it was acid."

She was quiet for a minute, then she said, “Don't—don't leave me here with that."

“I'll get rid of it.” I hoisted the dead man to my shoulders, carried him fifty feet away and dumped him. At the Plymouth I rumbled in the trunk again, got the rest of the fine wire, bent one end of it and made a noose, then climbed behind the wheel. Monique called after me. I started the car and drove toward the Center.

She had told me how to get there and I turned off on a narrow, rutted dirt road angling to the right. As I drove, I tore up the reports Villamantes was to have received and tossed them out into the rain. Lightning still flickered occasionally.

After almost half a mile I turned off the lights and was forced to crawl along at less than twenty miles an hour. It was nearly seven-fifteen. Villamantes would have been worried when Monique hadn't arrived by seven; he'd be getting frantic now. I still felt weak, but the dizziness, the cold perspiration, were almost gone. Maybe the effects of that whiff of gas I'd gotten at Amador's apartment were wearing off. I hoped to hell they were. The car swerved in muddy ruts lighted once in a while by lightning. I knew I must be close now and slowed the car's speed even more.

I almost missed the curve in the road, blackness looming ahead of me as the earth slipped downward; how far or how precipitous a drop I didn't know. I jerked the wheel and swung to my right, skidding slightly—and then I saw it, saw the Center.

At first it was only a dark mass below me at the end of the narrow road, perhaps a hundred yards away. I stopped, the car engine idling, windshield wipers swishing back and forth. Then lightning trembled momentarily, like glowing nerves in the sky, and for that fraction of a moment I saw the building clearly before darkness fell upon it again.

I knew that evil lived here in this lonely spot, and perhaps that was much of the reason for the chill that touched my spine when I saw the Center clearly. But I think at any time I would have felt some dread seeing that walled building alone, far from any other life. It was crouched in the hollow of the earth beneath me, squat, ugly, a great gray pile of stone enclosed by the high square wall. It made me think of the House of Usher, haunting, brooding, gray and ghostlike in the cold, drizzling rain, like El Greco's View of Toledo or a tomb erected over a buried giant.

I drove forward another fifty yards, then carefully turned around in the road and left the car parked facing back the way I had come. I took out the car's back seat and carried it with me as I walked toward the building, feet squishing and slipping in the mud. The dead man's .45 and my own .38 were in my coat pockets. I carried the wire noose in one hand. I reached the wall towering four feet above my head. A great wooden gate, closed, was in the wall at the dirt road's end. I walked to my left another twenty yards and stopped. Buff's room should be inside here, across the grounds beyond the wall; the guards somewhere nearby.

I had seen, during brief lightning flashes, the glitter of reflections on the wall's top where sharp, jagged parts of broken bottles were imbedded in the cement. I put the guns in my hip pockets and took off my trenchcoat, folded it into a two-foot-square bundle, then leaned the car seat on its side against the wall and in a few more seconds I stood on the top of the seat and placed my folded coat across the shards of glass.

I still couldn't see into the grounds, but my hands easily reached the surface of the wall, now only an inch or two above the top of my head. I felt along the fragments of glass, searching for a level spot, then jumped up, pulling with my hands and arms, and fell forward across the wall's top, my chest against the folded coat.

Glass sliced the base of my palm, nicked my wrist. I drew up my feet, swung them forward, and dropped, sprawling full length in the mud. I was inside; but the car seat which had helped me over was still outside the wall.

I hugged the ground, peering toward the old church and waited for the next flash of lightning. In a few seconds it came. I saw two figures, one on the left twenty yards away walking to my right toward the building's other end, the second figure motionless at the side of the building, leaning against its vine-covered wall straight ahead of me. Near him, above his head, light glimmered faintly from a covered window. Behind that window Buff should be, only a few yards away. I counted to twenty, hoping the walking man would keep on going, then started crawling forward toward the place where I had seen the other man.

I angled to my right, flattened against the mud as lightning flared again when I had covered half the distance; then I started crawling once more. A cigarette glowed in the guard's cupped hand. I wrapped the end of the wire noose around my wrist, the coat sleeve protecting my skin. I reached the side of the building; the glowing cigarette arched through the air and died in the rain.

I could see his shadowy bulk nearby as I stood up and pressed against the thick vines covering the building's rough stone. I moved toward him, raising the noose in my right hand above my head. He was six feet away, then a yard. I held my breath, staring at the barely visible outline of his face as I lowered my right arm toward him, the circle of the noose, its arc inches from my fist, descending toward his head.

I moved swiftly, carefully, but as the arc of wire descended over his head I felt it brush his face.

"Qué—" he started to gasp, but the gasp died forever as I jerked my right arm backward, the noose tightening around his neck and cutting off his breath. He lunged away from me, the wire jerking around my wrist, and as I pulled it toward me he fell. I slammed my foot against his head, pulled upward with both hands tugging at the wire; and there was no sound except a grunting noise that rasped from my throat, the drizzle of the rain, and the soft sound of his heels and hands beating at the mud. Then the only sound was the rain's soft whisper.

I knew the other man would soon come past. I felt the vines against the wall, touched one as thick as my arm, then unwound the noose's end from my wrist, stooped and lifted the dead guard, straining to hold him up as his legs dangled uselessly beneath him. I held him with one of his arms over my shoulder, managed to loop the wire around the vine above my head, pulled down on it while lifting the man higher, then twisted the wire tight. Finally he hung there against the wall, knees sagging slightly, his head bent awkwardly to one side.

Above me, a few feet away, I could see the light still shining faintly. I wondered if Buff was in the room, or if she had been taken from it. Or if, perhaps, one or more of Villamantes’ men were inside there now. Monique had told me how Buff had once been whipped, Villamantes watching with twisted pleasure in his eyes as the whip cut her soft bare flesh; and how Buff's father had cried out, then done as Villamantes asked, his former resistance, even to his own pain, completely gone.

A shadow moved in the darkness; a man came around the corner of the building and walked toward me. I pulled the revolver from my pocket, crowded my body behind the dead man, and wound my fingers in his hair, twisting his head erect. The guard trudged slowly by and I let out my breath.

The vines held my weight as I climbed the few feet to the window. The two halves of the window met in the middle, thick wood bisecting the small panes crisscrossed with metal ribs. For a moment I hung there, then I raised myself another foot, grasped the vines tightly with both hands and kicked at the wooden casing, kicked again as the window gave and the glass splintered; then I stepped through, brushing the curtains apart.

Chapter Sixteen

For a moment I thought the room was empty; then I saw Buff standing in the corner, her back against the intersection of the walls, mouth stretched wide.

“Buff!” I said. “Take it easy."

She stared at me, not speaking. Then she walked forward, still staring, unbelieving. “Shell?” she said softly, “Shell?"

She walked up to me, eyes fixed on my face, and then without her expression changing, tears spilled from her eyes and slid down her cheeks. She pressed against me, threw her arms around me. When I put my arms around her I could feel welts across her back beneath the smooth cloth of her dress.

“Buff, honey,” I said. “Listen to me. Snap out of it; we haven't much time."

She drew away from me. “What—how did you—"

“Forget that. What's going on here? Where's your dad?"

She shook her head. “It's awful."

“Damn it,” I said sharply, “pull yourself together. There's a dead man, a guard, light outside here. If he's spotted we'll never get out. Now tell me! Where's the Doctor? Can I get to him?"

“No. He'd be in the room where they make him work. It's clear in the center of this place; they've taken me there to—to make him—"

“Listen. There must be—” I stopped, hearing footsteps outside, a key in the lock. I grabbed Buff and shoved her roughly toward the door. “Do something,” I hissed. “Fall down, anything, get his attention."

I jumped over to the wall, grabbing the barrel of the 45, as the door started to open. Buff stared at me. I shook my head frantically, waved my fist at her. The door opened and she looked at it, then moved sideways, her hands at her throat, moving away from me.

A man came in, eyes following Buff, his head turned toward her. I took one step and slammed the butt of the gun against his skull, reversed the .45 as he fell. There was no one else behind him; I glanced out the door, shut it.

“O.K., get smart, Buff,” I said roughly. “This does it. We're leaving, trying to anyway."

“I can't leave Dad—"

“You're leaving if I have to clip you one. There'll be more here when this one doesn't show up. We probably won't make it now. Use your head!"

She bit her lip, stared at me, then nodded. She nodded again. “Yes, Shell. I'm sorry."

She was better, the first shock wearing off. I said, more softly, “If we make it out of here, we'll get help, come back. That's all we can do now. Get over to the window.” I turned off the lights, followed her. “Listen, there's the guard hanging against the wall. Don't get scared, or yell or anything. I'll go out first. Use the vines."

I drew back the automatic's slide, made sure the gun was cocked and ready to fire, then went out and dropped to the ground. I turned to help Buff. She jumped down beside me, stumbled, and a man shouted something in Spanish, a few feet to my left. I shoved Buff back against the wall, dropping to one knee and bringing the .45 around as a flashlight beam fell on my face.

I snapped a shot at the light and the .45 roared and bucked in my hand. The light wavered, a gun cracked and flame licked toward me. I fired twice more and heard the hammer blow of slugs slamming into flesh. The flashlight fell to the mud.

I swore aloud, then yelled at Buff. “Run! Straight to the wall. And run like hell."

She raced by me. I followed after her, looking over my shoulder. Suddenly lights blazed from the building, flooding the grounds. Buff was almost at the wall. I spotted the pale blur of my trenchcoat still on the wall's top and veered toward it.

“Buff,” I shouted. “Here! Quick!"

Her white face swung around and she ran up alongside me. “Listen,” I said. My mind was jumping, racing. “Bend over, baby. I've got to step on you to get up to the top of the wall. Stoop over, brace yourself—and for Pete's sake don't fall on your face till I get up there."

She was alert now, scared half to death, but she bent over without question, hands braced against her knees. I heard shouts, a gun cracked and the slug smacked against the wall. I planted my right foot just above Buff's shapely bottom and jumped, shoving with the muscles in my leg, hands reaching for the top of the wall. I grabbed at it, clutched it as the glass sliced through my coat and into my arm. I almost dropped the .45, but I clung to it, strained to haul myself up as Buff's body dropped from beneath my foot.

A gun cracked again, and I heard the bullet sing through the air past my head. I pulled myself to the wall, twisted, bringing up the automatic. I could see Buff flat in the mud below me, just struggling up—and two men running across the grounds, another coming around the corner of the building. I snapped one quick shot at the first running man and he tried to stop, his feet skidding. The other dived to the ground.

My coat was a foot away and I flopped over on it, stretching my left hand downward inside the wall. “Grab it, Buff. Hurry."

I kept looking down as she jumped, her hands clutching at my coat sleeve. I grabbed her wrist, fingers biting into her skin, then looked back into the enclosure. A shot blazed from my left and I saw a man kneeling there, I fired twice at him, unable to do more than point the .45 in his general direction as Buff strained against my arm, her feet pressing against the wall.

I got a knee under me, straightened up with the muscles protesting in my back, my arm quivering. One of her legs slid over the wall and she screamed as the glass cut her. I jerked, roughly, brutally, as a gun cracked and the bullet chipped stone between us and screamed away, the stone chips stinging my face and arm. But that last pull sent Buff tumbling over the wall, down to the ground. I fired the last shot from the .45 at the man still kneeling in the enclosure, then shoved myself backward, landed on my feet.

“Up the road, Buff. Fifty yards maybe. Car there. Run."

“My leg."

“The hell with your leg. Run, crawl, but get there."

I yanked her to her feet and we stumbled to the road. When we reached it I pushed her toward the car. “Run, baby."

She didn't say anything, started off. I stood fifteen yards from the big gate, the cocked .38 in my fist. The gate was still closed. Buff had only a few seconds’ start when the door cracked and light from inside spilled through it.

My gun was on the widening crack from the moment the gate began opening. When I saw me first movement inside I aimed carefully, squeezed the trigger. This was my gun, like an extension of my arm, and as flame spurted from the muzzle I steadied it and squeezed again. A man slumped as other blurred figures moved near him. I snapped two more quick shots, then with one bullet left I turned and ran.

Buff was just climbing into the car when I reached it. I pushed her over, flopped behind the wheel and switched on the ignition. The starter grated, ground. The noise rasped my nerves, then the engine coughed and roared. The wheels skidded and then caught; we moved forward, accelerating rapidly and swerving in the mud. I flicked on the lights with one hand, then gripped the wheel in both fists and kept the accelerator pressed down. A car's lights flashed in the rearview mirror, one headlight dimmer than the other. I could feel blood seeping from cuts in my arms and legs.

I slowed down for the bad spot in the road, then speeded up once past it. The lights stayed about the same distance behind. We reached the main highway and I swung left, heading back toward the city, and shoved my foot all the way down. I almost went off the road when I looked at the speedometer and saw the needle hanging at 120, but then I realized the figures were in kilometers. Still, we were hitting over 70 miles an hour. I kept my foot down, peering through the rain-splattered windshield. Neither Buff nor I said a word.

The same lights were behind us, a hundred yards back at most. No other cars were in sight. We went around a curve. I couldn't get any more speed out of this crate, and the car behind had gained a little.

“Baby,” I said, “if praying makes you feel better, pray like hell—and hang on.” I took my foot off the accelerator, put it on the brake and eased it down slowly. I pulled as far as I dared to the right of the road, trying not to look at the muddy, steeply sloping embankment. If we skidded down that, it would all be over. The Plymouth slowed and I jammed on the brakes. The steering wheel pressed against my hands as we started skidding—a little to the right at first, almost off the road, and I let it slide, my mind almost blank. Then the front wheels veered slightly to the left and I pushed off the lights with one hand as I whipped the wheel to my left with the other.

The car spun, slid sideways with the tires screaming on the wet asphalt. For a moment I thought we were going over, but then the rear wheels slid all the way around and we shuddered to a stop clear over on the far side of the road, off the asphalt, the right wheels in mud, but the car facing back the way we'd come, angling slightly toward the road's center.

The engine died. I swore; I said words I'd never said in front of a woman and words Buff probably hadn't even known existed. I kept on saying them as I cocked the .38 and ground the starter. The lights of the other car swung around the curve, wavered as the car skidded, then straightened out and raced toward us.

The starter growled but the engine didn't catch. I quit trying. The car was almost upon us now and its one bright and one dim headlight dipped as the driver slammed on the brakes, slowing as he neared us. He must have been hitting at least seventy. I stuck the .38 out the open window, aimed at the spot where the driver would be, pulled the gun around as the other car skidded alongside, then squeezed the trigger when I saw the man at the wheel. The car went on by, the wheels hit the mud at the road's edge; it was still going forty or more miles an hour when the wheels went off the asphalt. The car swerved and pitched down the embankment, crashed over on its side. I ground the starter till the engine caught, put it in gear and slowly turned the Plymouth around.

There had been at least two men in the car; they'd have a hell of a time chasing us now. I pushed the speedometer needle up to the 120 mark.

Buff was babbling over in the corner. I felt like babbling back at her. “We're all right,” I said. “Hang on, honey. Don't flip on me now."

Finally she did calm down, scooted over to me and started telling me a lot of pleasant things about how sweet and brave I was, and how wonderful, and I told her it hadn't been anything much, just suicidal. I glanced at her once in a while, and even with the blonde hair wet and matted against her head, she looked good. She looked even sweeter and lovelier now that I knew what Monique really was.

I told Buff about Monique. She couldn't believe it at first, but I convinced her. I said, “I'll have to do something about her—after we get you stuck away somewhere."

“Shell, what are you going to do? About Dad, I mean."

That was a good question. I only go crazy about once a year and I wasn't about to go back to that miserable Center without an Army. Army—

I said, still feeling a little giddy, “We are going to fix bayonets and attack."

She shrank away from me. I added, “I mean, I'll try to get General Lopez out here with a mess of help."

“Who's General Lopez?"

“I forgot you wouldn't know. But don't worry; we'll figure something."

We were almost at the little village I'd passed through earlier. I asked Buff, “How's your Spanish?"

“Fair."

“Then it's better than mine. Listen, Buff. All hell is probably twirling around back there at the Center. Those guys may even pull up stakes and go somewhere else, so there isn't much time.” She bit her lip and I added, “I honestly don't think they'll hurt the Doc, honey, not while he's working for them. But I can't drive you clear into Mexico City. Can you manage if I dump you in this burg up ahead?"

“Yes. What are you going to do?"

“I'm not sure, yet. Mainly get in touch with the General, if I can. Incidentally, what all went on back there? And, Buff, I'm sorry I didn't stay with you at the del Prado. I couldn't, really, it—ugh."

Right then a stinking thought struck me. I would have a dandy time enlisting the General's aid if I phoned him and he roared, “I'll kill you, I'll kill you.” And if he'd seen that movie he might not be anywhere around; he might be running screeching through the hills, or out in the darkness beating his wife.

Buff was telling me that it was all right, nobody could have known all that was going to happen. She didn't know the half of it. But she went on to tell me details I didn't know. In the beginning, the guys in white coats had knocked, told her it was about the Doc, that he'd been hurt and was at the ABC Hospital; she was to go with them. She had just called the place again and drawn a blank, so she was suspicious. When she attempted to phone once more they grabbed her, and finally sapped her. That explained the blood I'd seen on the floor of her room. She'd come to at the Center. Her dad had refused to work for Villamantes, but after Buff showed up he cooperated. She almost skipped over the treatment she'd gotten.

“He really whipped you?” I asked.

“Yes. They—took my clothes off and whipped me. With a black whip, like a long snake."

I shuddered, not only because of what she must have suffered, but at the thought of a snake curling around her full-curved body.

“Villamantes do it?” I asked.

“No. He just looked, watched me. I never saw such an expression on a man's face before."

I turned right at a road leading off from the highway at the edge of the little village of Tlaxpacin. There was one expression I wanted to see on Villamantes’ face. It was the one I'd seen on the libre driver's just after I hit him; or the one on Amador's face. We drove a hundred yards and I parked. We spent a couple minutes checking the spots where glass had slashed us. Buff had a long gash on one calf, two or three other small cuts, none serious. She'd twisted her knee and it was hurting a little, but she'd be all right until morning. The cut on my hand had stopped bleeding, but I had a couple of beauts on my fanny and leg, the fingers of my left hand were chewed up a bit, and I needed a new pair of pants. I wasn't kicking.

A few feet to the right of the dirt road was a small hut made of mud bricks and a few pieces of board. The roof was grass.

I said, “If we can rent a corner, can you put up here till I get back? It's not the del Prado."

“That's all right."

We got out and walked to the little one-room house. There was a tallow candle burning inside, and an old lady with a face like wrinkled brown clay was sitting on a homemade stool weaving pieces of straw together. A naked boy sat on the earthen floor, and a black, bristly-haired pig ran out the door squealing as we walked up. An older boy, about sixteen, barefooted and wearing only a discolored rag around his middle, looked out at us.

In a few minutes, mostly with the help of Buff's Spanish-class conversation, which the boy found very humorous, we arranged for her to stay for a while, perhaps overnight. The accommodations weren't the best, but this was no time to be squeamish. It was the best these people had ever had, and they offered it freely, with many apologies, and a polite graciousness that was heartwarming.

Before I left I gave the kid a handful of pesos and a "mil gracias." It wasn't much, but his face lit up like a searchlight and he ripped off happy Spanish more rapidly than anybody could possibly talk. Then I said good night, called so long to Buff, and turned to go back to the car.

She called after me, “Shell, wait,” ran up to me and said a little breathlessly, “Where are you going now?"

“Phone. Then keep an eye on that old church, see if anybody leaves."

They wouldn't be sitting still back at the walled building. There was a damned good chance they'd haul the Doc, at least, away from the place. If they did, I wanted to be in a spot where I could see them go, maybe tail them. Some spot not too close. Some spot like a balloon, say. I looked at my watch; it was eight-thirty.

“Be careful, Shell. Please be careful."

“Honey, from here on in I'm going to be the most careful man in Mexico."

“There—aren't any right words, Shell. For saying how I feel. But I can't tell you how much, how awfully much—"

“Don't spill over, honey. The Doc's still back there. Don't worry, I'll come galloping over the hill on a sway-backed horse—"

This time she stopped me. “Idiot,” she said softly. Then her arms went around my neck and she lifted her face up to mine and her lips caressed my lips, clung with perfumed softness to my mouth. She kissed me gently, for a long time, and it was sweet and good and a little sad; then her fingertips glided across my cheeks as her mouth left mine. She turned and went back into the hut.

I waited for the phone to ring in the Pemex gas station on the side of the village opposite from where I'd left Buff. The Plymouth was being gassed, the battery checked, while I waited for the operator to ring me. I'd phoned the General, but it was taking a little time to get the call put through. There was one hell of a lot of noise in the damn station—guys banging on things, yelling back and forth. I was keyed up, still tense, but the dizziness seemed to have left me. I hoped it was for good. I remembered the Doc had said he'd suffered for only a few hours and he'd been O.K. since then.

But there was something troubling me, that feeling I get when I've forgotten something. I thought for a moment of the shock I'd felt when I saw the red scar on the General's hand. That wasn't it, though; that business had been explained completely now that I knew where Villamantes fit in and the kind of sadist he was. I couldn't pin down the troubling thought. I looked at the libre out front, attendants moving around it. Even if the two men who'd chased us hadn't been killed in that crash, I was sure they couldn't have seen the Plymouth clearly enough to identify it as the one they'd been chasing. But there was something—the phone rang.

I grabbed it. There were some growls and clinking and twanging sounds, then a feminine voice said, "Bueno?"

“Hello. Countess?"

"Mande?"

“Is this Señora Lopez?"

“Oh, no, is not here, señor. What is it?"

“She's not there? The General there?"

“No, señor."

“Who's this? Who is speaking?"

“This is Carmelina. I am the maid."

The maid. What the hell had I heard about her? The General had said he trusted his servants, I remembered now; but the maid was relatively new, been with him less than a year. Probably she was a fine maid—but I couldn't take the chance she was more than that. And the longer I thought about it the more likely it seemed that a guy like Villamantes would plant somebody near the General.

“Nothing's happened, no accident or anything? They'll be back soon maybe?"

“No accident,” she said. “One half hour, perhaps. I do not know. Who is calling here, please?"

I tried to think. A guy was yelling something out the door to another man in a car, his voice booming practically in my ear. I couldn't tell the maid the whole story and have her relay it to the General—anxious as I was to get away from here and stake out near the Commie headquarters—because, if Carmelina was chummy with Villamantes, that would be all. But I couldn't just sit by the phone all night, either.

“Listen,” I said, “I've got to get in touch with General Lopez. It is life or death, you understand? Life and death. Muy importante. Find out where he is, phone any place he might be, and tell him—tell him Shell Scott phoned, must speak with him. You got that?"

“Sí. Shell Scott to speak with the General."

“Yeah, tell him to call—” I looked at the number on the phone. Maybe I was being unnecessarily careful; the maid could well be O.K., probably was. But already too many people had turned up chummy with Villamantes: Monique, Emilio, and God knew who else. Guys kept yelling around me; somebody banged away, straightening out a fender or putting dents in it.

I changed my mind. “Tell General Lopez I'll call back. Very soon. You must get in touch with him. Have him wait by a phone."

“It is well,” she said. “I try."

I hung up. I had to get out of here. At least, if they moved the Doc, it would take a little time—and they'd have to come back for his test tubes and chemicals and whatnot. I called several places I thought the General might be, but nobody knew where he was.

Ten minutes went by like an hour. I couldn't wait any longer. If the maid hadn't gotten in touch with General Lopez it might be hours before he showed up. Hell, he might be dead while I stood here like a dummy at the phone. He might even be screeching through the hills. I groaned. But maybe the maid had found him by now. I dialed again.

"Bueno?"

It was the same voice. “Did you find the General?"

“No, señor, I am sorry. He was not to be found. I called many places."

“Yeah. Thanks.” That did it. I'd have to tell her, let her relay the word when she landed the General. I told myself she'd undoubtedly do exactly that, tried to believe it. “Listen, Carmelina, I want you to take a message for the General. Give it to him when you reach him. All right? I will give you many pesos when I see you. A thousand pesos."

“Sí, sí, sí, I tell him very good."

“Write this down.” She was gone a moment, then said she was ready. I told her, “Write this: Villamantes is Culebra. The Center is five kilometers past Tlaxpacin, and right on dirt road. Villamantes and twenty others are there. Get there pronto. Bring the whole Mexican Army. That's it; sign it Shell Scott."

She said she had it, and I asked her to read it back to me. Then she said, “I am sorry. I called every place. First I phoned—” She went on telling me some spots she'd called. I listened, wondering why she was telling me all this. “Fine,” I said. “Take care of that. I have to go."

“But wait,” she said. “I read the note again, make sure it is right."

“You already—” I stopped. And suddenly that idea teetering on the edge of my brain fell into place. Now I knew what had been troubling me, the little thing I'd forgotten. The maid's attempt to keep me on the line had pushed the memory into place—but it had nothing to do with her.

I had forgotten the libre. My thinking had been all right a few minutes before—as far as it went. Nobody could have recognized the car I'd been driving; but maybe they didn't have to. The thoughts raced through my mind: Monique's pal had been driving the libre, headed toward the Commie headquarters; he was of course another Commie, and could often have been at the walled building in that car, or the car might even be kept, ordinarily, at the Center. If so, many there would know it by license, color, make, everything. All they'd have to do would be to drive the roads looking for that green-and-black Plymouth. And they would when Monique didn't show.

And that was the part I should have thought of: Villamantes must have known Monique was coming out in that particular car and when she failed to arrive he'd have started checking to find out why she hadn't. And naturally Villamantes knew, now that Buff was gone, that somebody had learned the Center's location and raised hell under his nose. Most of it would add up. Enough. There'd be men driving around now looking for that car—the Plymouth ten feet from me under the bright blaze of service station lights. And I was still damned close to the Center.

The maid was talking, had just started to read the note again. “Never mind,” I said.

“But I must! I think I have it wrong. It—"

I hung up and ran to the Plymouth, pushed some pesos into the attendant's hand and wheeled out of the station.

I slammed on the brakes at the edge of the street to let a big truck zoom by, then eased forward. That damned maid, I was thinking. She didn't have anything to do with the car business, but she'd sure seemed to be trying to keep me on the line.

A few blocks ahead the truck had pulled into a cross street, was backing out to turn around. Maybe the maid was just conscientious, wanted to be sure. I was jittery. The truck was on the way back toward me now, picking up speed. I thought about what I'd do. Actually I wouldn't have to go down that dirt road to the Center; it was, I knew, the only road in or out of the place, so I could hide somewhere off the main road and watch its exit. I wanted to stay as far from the evil-looking spot as I could. From here on in I was going to be careful, extremely cagey—the cagiest man in Mexico.

I pulled to the right a little. That big truck was over pretty far toward the center of the road, maybe thirty yards away, burning up the highway. Its lights blinded me. I pulled over almost to the muddy shoulder, but the fathead was still edging over onto the wrong side. My heart started pounding as I squinted at the blinding headlights.

That damn fool was either drunk or—I yanked the wheel hard to the right, those huge headlights growing in front of me as the truck loomed bigger, closer, obviously trying to hit me now. My car went off the road and the front wheels slid in mud as the roar of the truck's motor swelled in my ears and lights blazed in my face, seeming only inches away. I let go of the wheel, jumped for the far side of the car as everything dissolved in the crash and scream of metal and a flash of light, and the world tilted crazily in roaring bedlam. And then there was wrenching pain, and swirling, brilliant light before the sudden blackness.

Chapter Seventeen

I came to before we drove through the wide wooden gates of the Center, but wasn't fully conscious until the men had dragged me across the muddy grounds and through the front door of the old building. My head throbbed continually and the blaze of light as we went inside hurt my eyes, sent sharp pains lancing through my skull.

My hands were tied with rope behind me, but my legs were free. Inside, one of the two men who'd brought me here, neither of whom I'd ever seen before, shoved me forward, sent me stumbling into the room. It was an enormous, high-ceilinged room that must have occupied nearly one-fourth the area of the entire building, and it was cold, the stone walls hard and ugly. There were three doors in the far wall, two of them close together on my right. The men hauled me toward the nearest one, stopped before it and knocked.

And I was meeting Villamantes again. He looked out, saw me, his wide lips curved slightly in a smile. He nodded to the two men, then said to me in excellent English, “I've been anxious about you, Mr. Scott. I've been looking forward with much anticipation to—talking with you."

I'll bet he had. I didn't say anything.

“Bring him in.” He spoke curtly to the two men, then stepped aside. They shoved me from the back, tripping me at the same time and I plunged forward on my face. That gave me an idea of what to expect. Well, I'd known what would happen if this bastard got me.

It's difficult to get on your feet with your hands tied behind you, but I managed it, muscles aching. Villamantes was watching me with interest. It was the same face, clean-shaven, with the wide, full-lipped mouth, the long sideburns and thick black hair. He was dressed in a black suit, neatly pressed. He looked ready to go out on the town, a normal, fairly pleasant-looking Mexican man. Knowing what I did about him, his cruelty, his sadism, that he was a Soviet agent, I looked at his face thinking something revealing must be printed mere, something to give his thoughts away. But there was nothing, nothing even in his brown eyes. He looked normal, jovial, decent. And that made it all the more frightening. The man who thinks he is the Messiah often looks normal, too, until he tells you he is God.

There was only casual interest on Villamantes’ face as he said, “You know what I wish to learn, Mr. Scott. So tell me now. You understand."

I understood. I'd said nearly the same words to Emilio, to Monique. I hadn't spoken to him and still didn't.

He went on, a bit angrily, brows pulling downward, “Be sensible, Mr. Scott. I detest speaking to a man who does not answer."

He looked as if he meant it. I knew, too, that he might be able to make me talk one way or another. The strong, silent man who stays strong and silent while his feet are toasted or his eyes poked out is most often found in fairy tales or vivid imaginations. I could make him work for what he got, but it probably would be only a matter of time—and I wouldn't enjoy any of it.

I said, “There's not a hell of a lot I can tell you."

“Where is the girl, the Buffington girl? The lovely Monique? Captain Emilio? Tell me more about your interest in Frontón. Oh, there is much, Mr. Scott. So begin."

The only question that really worried me was the one about Buff. That was one thing I couldn't, wouldn't, tell this bastard; I knew what would happen to her if I did.

“Frontón, I can tell you. But that's about all."

I looked around the room seeing it for the first time. I heard Villamantes saying, “You are foolish to be stubborn,” but I was looking at his room, his office. The only word that popped into my mind right away was “creepy.” It wasn't much at first, just an impression, helped by a few objects in the room. Things an ordinary guy wouldn't have around.

A couple of them were pictures on the stone walls. One, a nude woman on a cross, with spikes in her hands and feet, the mark of knife wounds in her body, one breast slashed nearly off and hanging down on her stomach, blood streaming from it and a dozen other wounds, her mouth stretched wide. The other one I didn't get at first, couldn't figure. It looked like a modern thing, one of those surrealist idiocies, but then I saw the detail, saw what it was. It was scores of tiny figures, dismembered, arms and legs and thighs and heads and breasts and bits of bloody flesh, all thrown together like the Polish corpses buried by their Russian murderers in Katyn Forest. It made my insides crawl to look at it.

He was studying my reaction. I interested him immensely. “That is my favorite,” he said. “And this is pleasant, too."

It was one of the other things I'd seen, a statue no more than four inches high sitting on his desk next to a dial phone that looked out of place here. It was a plaster snake rising in coils to its distended head with the forked tongue flicking out of the red mouth. You had to look closely to see the body crushed in the coils, the hand and leg oozing from the metallic scales like toothpaste from a tube.

And then I saw the real ones, the rattlesnakes, the living ones of which General Lopez once had spoken. They were in a box on a stand against the wall on my left. The box was about three feet wide and deep, and half that high, with one glass-walled side. It was like an aquarium with polished wooden sides and one glass face, but inside the box, curling and writhing behind the glass like eels or maggots, were the ugly snakes, a dozen or more of them. I shut my eyes involuntarily, a chili running up and down my spine, like snake scales crawling there.

He chuckled. “You don't like my pets, Mr. Scott? They have killed eleven men. It is not a nice way to die. But I like this one even better.” He caressed the statue with his hand. The guy was mad, insane. Normal, maybe, in most ways, with sanity in his appearance and his voice, but still insane.

His voice got sharper. “Now perhaps you'll tell me. Quickly, Mr. Scott."

“Well, like I said, I can explain about the Frontón. Perhaps you already know.” Maybe if I gave him a little at a time, I could drag it out. Man, I thought, I've really had it. There wasn't a prayer that I'd get out of here by myself; the solitary hope was that the General's maid was on my side and would get word to the General who could fly over with an atom bomb or something. This was assuming the maid was O.K., and the General still loved me, and enough other things to just about make my position impossible.

“I mean,” Villamantes said, “where is the girl? This Buff?"

“I thought you had her."

Villamantes glanced at the two men who were still behind my back. “You don't have to stay. You may leave Mr. Scott with me.” He smiled. “You see? I am not so bad.” For just a second I thought: maybe this bastard is so nuts he's not going to poke my eyes out. Then he looked again at the men and, still smiling, said, “Of course, I would not wish you to be very active, Mr. Scott.” He said something in Spanish.

Oh, oh, I thought—and that was all I thought. I felt the first blow, maybe the second, but no more than that. When I came to it wasn't with a sense of complete disorientation; I knew where I was. I was on the floor of Villamantes’ office. My face was resting on the carpet. The simple way to say it is that I hurt. It wasn't localized; I hurt all over, everywhere. Villamantes must really have gotten some kicks watching his boys work me over.

I must have moved, because Villamantes’ voice reached me. “Get up, Mr. Scott. Try it.” And for the first time I noticed something different about his voice, an added tenseness, excitement maybe, even twisted pleasure. Unless I was imagining it. Then he spoke again, and it was there all right.

I moved my head, started to push myself up. I couldn't make it at first. Pain darted through my left shoulder; they must have twisted hell out of it. Finally I got my right hand under me, surprised that I wasn't still bound, pushed a little, rolled over on my side.

I got my knees under me. “You sonofabitch, Villamantes.” I looked around, noticed we were alone in the room. Good. He had a gun, but I'd jump at him and knock him down and kick him, then run out and knock down ten or twelve guys and high-jump over the wall and float off into space strumming my harp. All this after about six weeks in bed. “You insane sonofabitch, Villamantes."

“I thought you knew my name. Now, where is the girl?"

I shook my head as if dazed. I was dazed. “Monique?” I asked thickly. “I dunno. Just a minute.” I shook my head again, got to my feet. My left shoulder hurt like hell. I could still use the arm, even wiggle the fingers, but I wasn't going to be cutting up with any fancy left jabs.

He looked at me for a moment. “No, not Monique. That later, but first the Buffington girl.” He paused. “You are not stupid, Mr. Scott. Observe this. I know that Captain Emilio has not reported at the police station—or to me. Nor has Monique arrived, nor the man who was with her—driving the car in which you so unfortunately were in a collision. Observe only that—and there is much more about which I will let you guess for now. Naturally you know where the girl is—the conclusion would be obvious even for a stupid man. And I speak frankly; I am extremely intelligent.” He paused. “And inventive. I know many ways of persuading you to tell me what is in your brain.” He smiled. “Must I open your skull and tickle your brain to learn what is in it?"

Somehow I didn't think that was just a figure of speech. I thought of little round saw blades buzzing, slicing into my skull.

Suddenly he shrugged and what he said next surprised me. “Well, I shall let you think of that. And rest, Mr. Scott. Perhaps when you have rested you will speak freely.” He walked over and banged on the door. The two guys came in. I thought they were going to beat me up again, but he spoke to them and they led me out. Maybe he really was going to let me rest and think. But he had to have some kind of angle.

The men led me out of the big room, down a narrow hall to a door which they opened and shoved me through. A light burned in the room and I saw another man sit up on a cot in the corner as the door slammed behind me. It was Doctor Buffington.

For a moment neither of us spoke, then he said, “Shell! My God, how did it happen?” He looked older and terribly tired. His eyes were red and his clothing wrinkled, the goatee straggled. He got up from the cot and hobbled toward me, moving painfully.

“Doctor,” I said, but he interrupted.

“My baby, my Buff. Have you seen her? Is she all right? What have they done to her?"

“She's—” I stopped. I thought I'd figured out Villamantes’ angle. “I'm sorry. Doctor,” I said quickly. “I don't know. That insane bastard Villamantes asked me the same thing. He's mad.” I looked around the room for pictures, big ashtrays, anything that might hide a mike. Maybe I was dreaming, but Villamantes hadn't put me here for fun.

I hated to see what happened to the Doctor's face, though. When I told him I didn't know how Buff was his face sagged, his shoulders drooped. Then he frowned. “What—what do you mean, he asked you the same thing?"

I shook my head. “He did, that's all. I've been in his hair and he seems to think I know the answers to everything. As a matter of fact, I do know some answers. Did you know Monique was one of the bastards. Doctor?"

He didn't even hear me. He was wringing his hands. “I haven't seen her tonight. They may have killed her. My baby, my baby."

It was ugly to see, but his emotion was real and deep. And he had, I knew, been through his own particular hell here. Then his face twisted and the tears rolled from his eyes. He started crying audibly, sobbing, a broken old man, tired, worried, sick and hurt. “My baby,” he sobbed, “my Buff. Oh, my God, my God.” He put his hands to his bald head and squeezed, his thin face contorted.

I couldn't stand to see the old guy going to pieces right in front of me. “Sit down. Doctor,” I said. I walked to him and put my arm over his shoulder, led him toward the cot. I put my mouth next to his ear and whispered, “She's all right. Keep your mouth shut. They might be listening. She's out of here and O.K."

He straightened suddenly, started to speak, then saw my finger on my lips. “Sit down,” I said. “Don't go to pieces. Talk. Tell me what they've done to you, made you do."

He just stared at me, hope in his moist red eyes. I nodded my head frantically and said, “They made you do their filthy work for them, didn't they, Doc? Did they hurt Buff?"

That snapped him out of it. “Yes. They did.” He started talking steadily.

They left me with him about fifteen minutes. He told me they picked him up outside Monte Cassino, when he got into a too-handy cab. A block away the cab stopped, two other men got in and they'd brought him here. Slick, easy. He told me about the formula, that his work now was to concentrate the stuff, make it more deadly, squeeze more death into smaller quantities—and to simplify the formula if possible—make it more suitable for mass production.

He added, “And they want me to alter the structure a little, if I can. So that all the symptoms will still be induced in the victims, but without permanently disabling them, without killing them. I don't know why, and I'm not at all sure I can—"

He went on talking, but I didn't hear the last words. Maybe the Doctor didn't know why, but I did—suddenly, with the clarity and certainty of absolute conviction. Because today I had experienced those chemically induced symptoms, had known the fear approaching panic, the weakness and doubt, the confusion and nagging anxiety—all of the things the Russian leaders and their Communist fifth column in the United States had for decades been trying to instill in the people of the United States. They had been trying to do it through the spoken and written word, with threats and rocket rattling, bluff and bluster, lies and distortions, the attempt to substitute collectivist weakness and one-worldism for American individualism and patriotism. They had been trying, through subversion and propaganda, to do the things which Doctor Buffington's drug could do chemically.

I told him that and more, speaking in a rush, keyed up and pacing back and forth in the room. Then I turned to him and added, “It goes clear back to Lenin, Doctor, one of the Communist gods. An idol with head of clay. He said the enemy must be weakened, softened up in advance—paralyze the enemy's will to resist, saturate him with defeatism, confuse him, keep him off balance, demoralize him. Then you can win without firing a shot or dropping a bomb. And that's what they want—they want the loot intact, including the people. And we're the enemy, we're the enemy people. Up till now they've tried to win the war by filling us with fear—of the bomb, phony fallout and radiation scares, lies about Russian strength and achievements, smiles followed by threats. It's the art of modern revolutionary propaganda, Doctor, moral and mental subversion, a planned and deliberate pattern for panic—and surrender."

I stopped pacing, sat down by him again. “What they hope you can do is make it easier for them. And quicker. That's all."

He blinked at me. “I—don't know. I haven't had time to think—"

“Well, think of it now. Think of your drug placed in a nation's water supply. Openly, like fluorine, or by acts of sabotage. Or even into the nation's bloodstream, by brainwashing the people into believing it's a cure for Abyssinian itch. Or in rocket warheads, insecticide bombs. Any way, just so it reaches the people."

His face looked gray. “I see,” he said. “Yes, I see."

“Then you see you can't go on with it, can't make it easier for them. No matter what pressures they use on you."

He swallowed. “I'm afraid—” he said. “I'm afraid I already have. Enough. Enough."

We were silent for a full minute. The nervous energy that had been a stimulus during these last minutes drained out of me. And I thought of Villamantes again.

If he wasn't listening to this, it didn't make any difference what I said. But if he was, I decided I'd better let out a few trickles of information from time to time. Not only so he'd leave me in here, but also in the hope that he would believe I was talking freely—and that I'd told him the truth when I swore I didn't know where Buff was.

Besides, the longer he left me alone the less chance he'd have to torture the truth out of me, and the more time the General would have to get here—if he was coming. I didn't relish the idea of men sawing at my brain, anyway.

So I repeated what I'd earlier said to Buffington. “Monique's one of them, Doctor."

His reaction was delayed. Then he said, “Monique?"

“Yeah. She was apparently in it from the beginning, Doc. Clear back in July."

He smiled wryly. “It was only about a week after my chimpanzees died that she met Buff. She did ask me many questions, I remember. I enjoyed talking to her; she was intelligent, attentive."

“I'll bet she was attentive."

And then the door opened behind me. Villamantes said, “Are you rested, Mr. Scott?"

Chapter Eighteen

The next half hour, or however long it took them, was a blurred and ugly, pain-filled fragment of time. It was like the moment when the truck had smashed against my car, turning it over, a whirling, crashing, drawn-out second, only this time pain distorted everything, confused everything.

After the beginning I was never fully conscious. I was aware enough to feel the hurt, hear the questions and speak, but never in possession of all my senses. I remember once, after a wrenching pain in my left shoulder, yelling and cursing Villamantes, cursing his pleasant, interested face hanging nearby in the air above me.

I was in the big room I'd entered first. I wasn't bound; even if I could have gotten to my feet, I couldn't have walked to the front door, much less run. And several men were near, a few men in business suits contrasting oddly with the slow-moving, dark-skinned, blank-faced indios, their bare feet silent on the floor as they walked past, like zombies, their faces expressionless.

Villamantes kept saying at intervals that I could rest now, there would be no more questioning for a while—and at first I believed him, let my hopes rise. But always it was a lie, and my spirits would plunge even lower than before, my depression deepening. It was like his telling me in the beginning that the men would leave me alone with him, then having them beat me up; raising my spirits and then dashing them lower than before until I expected nothing more and was grateful for the slightest concession or respite. It was an old Pavlovian trick, a Russian technique, as effective in torture as in summit talks.

In a momentary pause I tried to gather my strength. I would have to tell him something soon, or I'd be so weak, my mind so befuddled, that I might say the things I was determined not to say. The time to speak was when Villamantes thought I'd broken, but while I still had control of my words and thoughts. I saw Villamantes nod, and it all began again. I felt the pain in my shoulder, felt fire sear my right hand and arm. I was naked except for my shorts and I felt pain writhe my body, and then there was more of the pain, and finally I told them to stop.

I talked, but I kept one thought in my swimming brain: that I didn't know where Buff was, that I honestly didn't, that I couldn't tell him where she was even if I wanted to, because I didn't know. All the time I talked, in a wonderful relief from pain, I repeated that one thought over and over to myself. But I told him all the rest: Amador, Emilio, Monique and the driver. But I said that the truck had hit me then. I had never seen the Center before I was brought here. And almost as much as the thought of Buff, I kept the thought of my phoning General Lopez out of my mind. I didn't tell Villamantes of that either; it was the only hope I had to cling to. It was difficult to remember now if I had talked to the General or to someone else. I recalled Lopez saying I could be assured of his help. But that had been this morning; tonight I had talked to someone else—the maid. I remembered now. She must have told him; that was the thought, the hope I clung to.

Villamantes never touched me, only watched, but his men finally overdid it and I fell into blackness. When I came out of it I saw Monique with Villamantes, talking to him. Captain Emilio, his head huge and white from the bandage around it, squatted near me. I ran my tongue along my teeth. I still had them all. Emilio noticed my movement and grinned. I saw a heavy-jowled face, a man with a thick shock of black hair, and it took me a long time to realize it was the man I'd seen in the Countess’ movie. Jaime something or other—he must have been hiding out here at the Center. Monique and Villamantes continued to talk, occasionally looking at me.

I remember that Doctor Buffington was brought through the room, two men holding him, pulling him. And he shouted violently at Villamantes that he wouldn't work for him any more, that they could kill him, but he'd do no more work for them.

My mind functioned sluggishly, but I knew what that would mean to Villamantes. The threat of torture to Buff had been used to make the Doctor work; he now refused to work—so he must know Buff was safe.

Villamantes walked over and squatted near me. “I thought you must have told him, Mr. Scott. Even though you were clever, careful in the room with him. Can you hear me?"

“I can hear you."

“Do not feel depressed that the Doctor gave your secret away. It is all right."

I was used to the bastard now. I waited for him to go on.

“You see,” he said, “it was obvious that you were the man who took her from here. I had only to look at your trousers, your hands. Torn on the glass of the wall. I knew what that meant as soon as I saw you. Tell me where the girl is."

I should have thought of my torn pants and the rest myself. He must have known all the time. But I had to keep pretending he was wrong.

He left for a moment and Monique walked over to me, bent down with her face near mine. “We have our turn, Shell,” she said.

“I've told that madman everything I know."

She smiled. She still looked lovely, and even now I couldn't hate her. I couldn't understand her, and maybe that was part of it. If I ever understood her completely, I might hate her.

She said, “He doesn't think so. I don't either, Shell. He says you're very strong—and foolish. But you know, don't you, that there are snakes here at the Center? You know what he uses them for, don't you? They're his pets, like other men have dogs for pets."

I felt a slow, rippling shiver in my belly, in my groin. This was a different kind of torture, not pain, but an anguish of the brain. I remembered General Lopez telling me of dead men found lying in the hills, the two little punctures in their skin, the venom in their blood. I could hear again his deep voice saying, “—perhaps others have not been found, and only their bones now lie against the ground—"

Villamantes stepped close to me and there was a sudden sharp pain in my arm. I jerked away, saw light gleam on the hypodermic syringe in his hand. “You bastard,” I said thickly. “You lousy Communist sonofabitch, you psychotic pile of—"

He smiled. “You don't understand, it won't hurt you. It's to make you feel better, give you strength."

“Sure."

Monique touched my shoulder. “It's true, Shell. It's a stimulant. You'll feel better, stronger. It will make all your senses sharper, your mind clearer."

I rubbed my arm, felt the puffy blisters there where I'd been burned. I waited, wondering if cramps would grip my belly, but nothing happened. In a few minutes I was actually feeling stronger, my mind clear.

Villamantes went into his office, came out and left the door standing open, carrying something in his hands. It was the glass-walled box, snakes moving inside it. I thought I knew now why I'd been given a stimulant, why they wanted my senses sharp again. Villamantes thrust the box at my face and involuntarily I shrank back, turning my head.

Villamantes laughed, the first time I'd heard him laugh. “Now you will tell us where the girl is. That is the last thing, Mr. Scott. Then you can rest."

“I told you I don't know. I don't know anything about her.” My voice was thin.

“Can you stand up?"

“Hell, yes, I can stand up.” I got up, not feeling too weak, but pain jumping in my body. Three men stood near me; one held a gun in his hand. Villamantes walked by his open office door and ten feet beyond it to the other door I'd seen when I'd first been dragged into this big room. He opened the door and waited by it as men pushed me forward. Inside, steps led downward into darkness.

“This was once a church, this building, Mr. Scott. Beneath us is what you might call a tomb, a catacomb, where long ago dead priests and holy men were placed when they had died. Their mummies are still there. It is a most unpleasant place, cold and damp. But fine for snakes.” He laughed again.

They took me down the steps. The darkness was black, almost palpable below, and the air was chilly and moist. Someone brought a lantern and in its red glow I could see the silent, dried brown figures that lined the wall: mummies with skin like parchment, brown bony hands folded, faces blank and withered. The men held me, bound my hands and feet, placed me on my back on the damp earth. Then all left but Villamantes.

In the light from the lantern on the ground, his face looked distorted, shadows slanting upward above his cheeks and between his eyes. He left and came back with the glass-faced box; I could see writhing movement in its shadows.

He held the box near my face and shook it as the hissing, rattling sound grew in my ears and mind. One snake struck at the glass, fangs clicking against it, and twin streams of orange-colored venom slid slowly down inside the glass like tiny snakes themselves.

“Spare yourself this, Mr. Scott,” he said. “Observe.” He put his hand at the top of the box, pulled gently and the glass wall slid upwards a quarter of an inch. I almost shouted at him to stop. “Observe,” he said, “how simple to release the snakes all around you. One man placed here went mad before he died. So tell me now where the girl is, and you will be spared this."

I couldn't believe he would kill me until he knew he had all that he wanted from me. I couldn't believe he'd actually go through with it, couldn't believe that he would leave those ghastly things free in this tomblike place to slither into corners and wait for any other who might come down here. I shook my head.

He stared at me solemnly, then turned the flame of the lantern out. The last thing I saw before complete darkness fell was light glimmering on the glass face of the box.

I heard him moving in the blackness and finally I heard the other sound close by me. It was the sliding as of wood rubbing, as if he were lifting that glass wall of the box to let the ugly things crawl forth upon the ground. I heard his footsteps rapid on the steps, then light flashed briefly as he opened the door above me and slammed it shut—and something stirred, moved near me, before blackness enveloped me again.

I held my body motionless, my mind shocked. I told myself that this was only mental torture, a psychological technique to soften me up and make me talk; that Monique had told Villamantes of what I had done to her, and planted the idea in his brain that this was the way to make me break, turn back on me the treatment I had given her.

But I heard, or thought I heard, the soft, slithering sound of snakes crawling, gliding nearer me over the cold ground, feeling for the warmth of my body. I strained my ears, tried to peer motionless through the darkness, my eyes the only part of me that moved. I thought I heard that sound again and I couldn't stop the ripple of movement on my spine, tension growing in me until I wanted to shout.

And then I felt a touch, a faint, cold touch upon my skin.

I held my breath—and then I knew. I felt the touch again, felt the thing crawl upon my skin, the slow, ugly, sinuous movement of a snake that glided upon me. My mind seemed to freeze inside my skull, like the horror that had been behind Amador's dying eyes—then there was another ugly crawling thing upon my naked flesh, and then another and another as I bit my lips until I tasted blood. The blackness all around me writhed and boiled as cold seeped deeper into my bones. Cold, rancid sweat oozed from my body like poison, mingled with the touch of the snakes’ bodies, became a slime mat covered my skin.

I could see again that vision from my dream, my nightmare, the great, ugly brain pulsing; and it seemed as if that vision roiled my brain, and that my own brain moved, pulsed, as that great snakelike brain had pulsed.

I lay for minutes or hours, my thoughts frozen, and then suddenly light flashed against my eyes, blinded me. I couldn't move or think. As if still in a nightmare I saw the light float closer, held in his hand, Villamantes’ hand, and then my arms and legs were free and other hands dragged me to my feet and pulled me forward. My bare foot pressed against something that squirmed beneath it and I leaped toward the light, crying out.

In the big room, faces were a blur around me. Villamantes’ lips were moving as he spoke softly to me: Buff, the girl. Or did I want his pets to crawl on me again? At first I couldn't understand what he was talking about. Then a little of the blankness in my mind dissolved, thoughts moving slowly.

“The girl?” I said. “Buff?” My voice was thin and weak. “You've found her?"

He seemed to be quiet for a long time. Then he said, easily, “Yes, Mr. Scott. We have found the girl. So there is no further need to worry. We found her where you left her."

“In Tlaxpacin? She's—is she all right?"

“Of course, Mr. Scott. We found her there in the home of—” He paused, waiting.

“Home?” I said. “No, the little hut near—” I stopped. The thought of Buff, of General Lopez, of writhing snakes, twisted together in my mind. I remembered General Lopez, remembered that he would soon be here, and truly believed it as I stared at Villamantes.

“Near what, Mr. Scott?” he said.

Finally the alarm rang in my brain, faintly, but enough. I held my tongue. He spoke again, questioned me; but I refused to say any more.

I saw him turn, speak, saw others leave me room. There was movement, but it had no significance. It didn't yet mean anything to me. Someone put a chair behind me and I sat down, and finally, after long minutes, I separated the blurs into recognizable figures. Monique and Villamantes were together. Others walked around the big room. The door to the place below where I had been was closed; near it on the floor I saw the ugly cage, snakes writhing behind the glass, two thin threads of venom still glistening on its inner side. Revulsion was my only emotion for a while; then slowly it was replaced by disbelief and wonder.

I had heard Villamantes slide the glass door up, release the snakes. And there could be no doubt that snakes had crawled upon me, on my stomach and thighs and throat. But these were still inside the box, not slithering in darkness down below.

Villamantes walked toward me. “How are you now, Mr. Scott? Do you like my pets?"

“The snakes,” I said. “I thought—"

“My pets are still below,” he said. “And they were real enough. But harmless things.” He turned, walked to the door and went down the steps. He came back in a moment with a black thing wriggling in his hand. “You see?” he said. Then he flipped his arm forward, threw the snake at me.

I yelled and jumped without thinking, sprawled from the chair and landed on my hands and knees, pain shooting through my left wrist and shoulder. Villamantes laughed gleefully as the snake wriggled away over the floor. I got to my feet as Villamantes stepped closer.

“You were very difficult,” he said. “I almost believed you were never going to tell us enough. But we are through with you now, Mr. Scott."

I knew what that meant. I had nothing else to tell him, so there wasn't any reason to keep me alive. I wondered if he'd kill me like the others, with the snakes—the rattlesnakes this time, the ones in the box on the floor. I thought again of General Lopez. At least there was a chance that he'd get here in time.

Villamantes was watching me. He said, “You know of course how we found you, don't you?"

I remembered the Plymouth, the truck. “I think so."

“It was the car, of course. When Monique and her driver failed to arrive with Emilio's reports, the logical deduction was not too difficult. I reasoned that whoever had upset my plans—you, as it turned out, and as I had reason to suspect—might be driving the car. It was, at least, a possibility I could not overlook."

He smiled. “But how did it happen that we found you near the service station in Tlaxpacin? There was much noise there, señor. The sounds of pumps, men shouting, asking and answering questions. Or so the General's maid told me when she phoned. Your General is not coming, Mr. Scott."

Chapter Nineteen

For a moment I wouldn't let myself believe him. Then I realized it must be true. And I understood, finally, that I had told Villamantes enough so he could easily find Buff. Now he knew every bit of it. And the maid had, after all, been one of Villamantes’ plants—General Lopez would never even know I'd phoned him. The thread had been thin all day; I'd almost lost it before; finally it had broken. I felt washed out, empty. But in me a small hot core of anger fluttered, grew.

He said, “You were stupid even to oppose me, Mr. Scott. You should have known you had no chance from the beginning. We have organization, strength—"

I cut him off, swearing filthily at him, the anger bubbling inside me. I had killed men—even wanted to kill men—before, but that had always been in sudden passion, fighting, or when they had been trying to kill me. Now, though, simply standing here and looking at Villamantes, I wanted to kill him, murder him. I looked around. There were at least ten men in the big room, most of them armed. Even Villamantes had a gun under his coat. But he was several feet from me. On my left a man stood near the open door to Villamantes’ office, a big automatic dangling in his hand. Near me, against the wall, the snakes moved silently behind their wall of glass.

I held my breath, my mind swinging slowly from one thought to the next. I knew I couldn't get out of here, much less completely away. But my mind was racing faster, grabbing at every hope. I was as good as dead already, so anything I might try, anything at all, was better than simply waiting to be killed.

I turned to Villamantes and started swearing at him again. I called him mad, insane, depraved. I called him a woman, a stupid man. And while I talked I put my hands in front of me, pain flickering through my sprained left arm and shoulder. I pressed my hands together, wincing as torn muscles pulled in my flesh. I'd have to chance it anyway.

I said, “Villamantes, you stinking sonofabitch, nobody but a completely crazy man would have stuck me down there with those snakes—"

“It was effective."

His face showed a growing anger. He hadn't seemed to mind before when I had sworn at him dully, but I'd pulled out all the stops this time.

“Yeah,” I said. “It worked, up to a point, but it backfired, too. I'm not afraid of them now. Not even the real ones.” I pointed at the box, three yards away on the floor. And I was lying in my teeth. But I kept it out of my voice. “Hell, you sonofabitch,” I said. “I'm a snake charmer from here on in. I eat the things. I bite off their heads.” I made the first step then, and every nerve in my body jumped and jangled. I stepped toward the box, and kept the words squirting out. “I can kiss the ugly things—"

That was at my second step and Villamantes woke up. He shouted something in Spanish and from the corner of my eye I saw him leaping toward me. I jumped forward, bent toward the box and got my right hand curled around its side, my left palm pressing the other corner as pain ripped up my arm. I squeezed my hands together, heard Villamantes shouting as he rushed toward me, and I whirled, swinging the box around with all my strength.

I heard a shot crack out somewhere in the room and then all I could see was Villamantes’ contorted features a yard from me, and I kept spinning, shoved the box squarely at him, and heard him scream as it crashed, splintering, into his face.

I whirled, sprinted toward the man near the open door to Villamantes’ office. He was staring past me, his mouth open, but in that instant he jumped backward, flipping up his gun. He fired once, the bullet burning across my hip, then I crashed into him, my right hand grabbing, fingers curling around the barrel of the automatic. I twisted the barrel away from him, drove my knee between his legs and jumped past him, clutching the gun, as two shots cracked in quick succession behind me.

The open door was right in front of me. I jumped through it, whirled around and started to slam the door with my gun-weighted fist. I caught a brief glimpse of the big room, snakes squirming on the floor and men running. But one of the flat-faced indios was looming in the doorway, empty hands reaching for me.

He crashed against me, spinning me around, and then his momentum carried him past me into the office. I shoved my shoulder against the door, slammed it shut and banged the bolt home as the indio leaped on my back. His arms whipped around my throat and I bent forward, trying to throw him over my head, but he grimly clung on. I fell to my knees, trying to protect my left arm, and the gun slipped from my fingers.

His legs wrapped around my waist, the arm cut into my neck, and spots started to whirl before my eyes as I strained forward toward the gun. My fingers touched it, slid along it. I got my hand around it, my finger on the trigger as a roaring grew in my skull. I pressed the gun flat against my side, its muzzle pointing toward the man behind me and pulled the trigger.

The gun boomed and he jerked violently. Slowly his arms relaxed; I heard him gasp, then heard the sound of his body hitting the floor. I struggled to my feet and looked down at him. He was alive, his hands pressed against his side, blood welling between his fingers. I jumped to the phone, jerked it from the receiver and let it clatter on the desk top while I dialed General Lopez’ number. A weight crashed against the door. I put the phone to my ear, the automatic in my right hand. There was another bang at the door and I fired through the wood. Somebody yelled outside. The indio's voice rattled in his throat. He coughed, moaned.

The phone buzzed in my ear. I was sweating. Then there was a voice. A man's voice. "Bueno?"

It sounded like something from another world, that casual "Bueno?" I shouted, “General Lopez?"

"Sí. Aí, my ear, it—"

“Shut up. This is Scott, Shell Scott. I'm at the Center, El Centre."

“The Center? What is—"

“Shut up Sand listen! I'm five kilometers past Tlaxpacin, dirt road to the right leads to the Center. Culebra is here. Villamantes.” There was another bang at the door; it moved inward perceptibly. I slammed a shot through it and the General chattered in my ear.

“For God's sake,” I yelled, “get out here. Bring a cannon, anything. Ten-foot wall around the place. Wooden gate. You hear me?"

“Sí, but—"

“Listen, it took me nearly an hour to get here. But coming fast you can make it in half that, even less. These bastards are gonna kill everybody—"

“But I must get help."

“Get anybody, but hurry."

His voice got brisk, businesslike. “Sí, I understand. I come."

I said, “General, there is a girl in Tlaxpacin. She's—General!” The line was dead. He hadn't heard what I'd started to say about Buff—but he could hardly have reached her soon enough, anyway. I jiggled the receiver. There was no sound from the phone; the line had been cut.

I wondered why there had been no further attempt to force the door. Then I remembered the snakes. A dozen or more deadly snakes were squirming around out there. The men would have to get them out of the way or killed before they could move around with any freedom. That would help. Every minute helped.

I checked the automatic, took out the magazine. Two cartridges in it, one in the barrel chamber. Three shots left. I went to the indio. He was dead. There wasn't any weapon on him, and there were none in the room. I saw the coiled-snake statue, slammed it against the wall and shattered the obscene thing into bits. Then I shoved the desk against the door and waited.

My watch was broken. This was the third time I'd looked at it, nervously, forgetting it was useless. I had to guess at the time that had passed since I'd phoned the General. Ten minutes. Maybe more. Villamantes knew I couldn't get out of here, and maybe he didn't think I'd phoned. At least he couldn't know. Another minute went by; I could hear noise out in the big room, sporadic gunshots, occasional shouts and rapid Spanish. The inside of my right arm was stinging, and I found the spot where one of those bullets, fired at me as I ran for the office, must have sliced along my biceps. I hadn't felt it then.

Suddenly there was a loud crack and splinters flew from the inside of the thick wooden door. Three more shots slammed through the wood as I ran to the side of the room where I'd be protected behind the stone wall. Then I saw the bolt jump, ringing as another shot banged outside. They were shooting hell out of the bolt, ripping it off. A dozen shots in rapid succession finished the bolt, left ragged holes in the wood around it.

They'd be charging in before many more seconds passed. I raised the automatic, slid along the wall till I stood close to the spot where the door would swing open. I'd get three of the bastards. There was a crash and the door slid halfway open, halted only by the desk. A brown face appeared in the doorway a foot from my upraised gun and I pulled the trigger. The face jerked back as if somebody behind the man had yanked on a rope around his neck. His face disappeared, a hole in it under one eye.

There was quiet outside, then noise swelled. The words were Spanish, but I recognized Villamantes’ voice screaming. More silence, then. Villamantes screamed some more. I tried to place him by the sound. If I could get one good peek at him, he'd be a dead man. I edged closer to the half-open door, then knelt so my face would appear close to the floor, started to peek around—and jerked my head back as what sounded like nineteen guns blasted. I thought a bullet swished through my hair. I got the hell away from the door, held my gun on it.

Something funny was going on out there. It was completely silent. I didn't get it and I didn't like it. I moved backward and my foot banged into the dead indio's leg. I grabbed his feet, pulled the guy over to the wall, then got my arms around his waist and lifted him from the floor.

I grunted as I edged along the wall toward the door, the dead man projected in front of me, his head dangling. I took one more step and his head passed beyond the wall's edge. I felt his body jerk in my hands as the guns roared outside. When I jumped backward, several chunks of his head were gone. I dropped him, waited.

I heard them coming, slowly, and I jammed my teeth together, aimed at the open space through which I could see the far wall of the big room. I heard them right outside the door and my finger tightened on the trigger. Then I saw movement, pulled the gun toward it as blonde hair appeared in the space in front of me. A frightened face, filled with pain, and the red lips pulled back from her teeth. I recognized Buff's twisted face as the gun roared and bucked in my hand.

Chapter Twenty

It was reflex, pure instinctive, unthinking reaction that jerked at my hand a fraction of a second before the gun roared. Buff slumped in the doorway and for an awful moment I thought I'd killed her. But the gun had been jerked away in time. She had been released by whoever had pushed her forward, and she slumped against the desk momentarily, then was dragged back out of sight.

I stared blankly at the partly open door as Villamantes said smoothly, “It is your choice, Mr. Scott. My men are perhaps a bit afraid of your weapon. Throw the gun out, then step outside, and the girl will live. We do not need her as much now as we did before."

I knew that none of us would live very long anyway. But I had only one slug left in the gun. I hesitated. Then I heard Buff scream.

“All right!” I yelled. “Stop it, Villamantes."

“The gun."

I threw it out the doorway.

“Come out, Mr. Scott."

I slid the desk back, kicked the door all the way open. I heard Villamantes rattle something in Spanish. Then he said in English, “Quickly, Mr. Scott."

I stepped out into the big room. I saw them all, Villamantes and a man holding Buff, other men with guns pointed at me, two men lying nearby in pools of blood, some dead snakes on the floor. Nobody was shooting. Not yet. I didn't know why they weren't.

Villamantes told me with a question. “Whom did you phone, Mr. Scott?"

I said, “What the hell are you talking about? I've had a lot of time to phone people, haven't I? You silly son—"

His face flushed and he nodded at the man holding Buff; the guy twisted her arm behind her. Her mouth opened. I calmed down. “O.K.,” I said. “I'll keep a civil tongue. But I didn't phone anybody."

“I don't think I believe you."

I shrugged. Villamantes barked orders and men started scurrying around. In a minute one man brought the Doc in from somewhere. When he saw Buff he jumped toward her, but the man yanked him back.

Villamantes said to me, “I think to be safe we will leave for a while. All of us but you, Mr. Scott."

I didn't like that. I wanted to go with them.

Men were scurrying around, some carrying boxes outside. They were getting ready to take off, all right. A man walked up to Villamantes with a thick sheaf of papers. He took them and put them in the inside pocket of his coat.

Doctor Buffington was standing with his guard a few feet from me. He said dully, “That is my work—my work. That is what he forced me to do for him. I should have made them kill me."

The guard shoved him forward. Villamantes shouted instructions to the men again and I recognized "pronto," quickly. Then he turned toward me and took the gun from under his coat.

He didn't say anything dramatic, just pointed the gun at me. He didn't want to talk to me; he wanted to shoot me. The gun was pointed at my belly almost before I could tense my muscles, but even as I started to jump, Buff screamed as she jerked free of the man's hands holding her and dived toward Villamantes.

I started toward him as he whirled and slashed the barrel of the gun across the top of her blonde head. She crumpled, fell to the floor. And then, at one of the few times I hadn't been thinking about General Lopez, all kinds of hell broke loose. There was a steady rattle of gunfire outside, a hell of a booming roar followed by what sounded like machine guns or automatic rifles.

Villamantes knew what that uproar meant as soon as the first rattle of guns reached us. He stood absolutely still for a moment, his mouth open and eyes wide; then suddenly he turned and ran toward the door leading below. I ran after him, flopped to the floor as he whirled in the doorway and fired twice, the bullets singing over my head. Then he was gone.

I got up and ran to the door, jumped through it onto the steps and slammed the door behind me so I wouldn't be outlined in the light. But there was no shot at me, nothing.

I went down the stairs, stumbled and fell, then rolled frantically in case he fired at the first sound, brushing against something cold and wriggling on the earthen floor. I crashed into the mummified bodies of the holy men, felt them crumble, felt the powdered dust of death in my nostrils. But there was no other sound.

I stayed motionless on one knee, listening, trying to hear him breathing, but there was nothing. Lightning flashed outside and flickered momentarily, faintly, here on the dried brown faces, but I didn't see Villamantes.

Lightning—the thought picked at my brain. I shouldn't have been able to see it here, underneath the building. But then it flashed outside again, and a hundred feet ahead of me, down the mummy-lined corridor, rain splashed on the earthen floor. It was an exit. I ran down the corridor and felt wet air against my face, saw the lightning squarely ahead of and above me. Then I followed the dirt steps which Villamantes must have used. I climbed up out of the corridor, saw a wooden panel lying on the ground at my right and the mound of earth that must have been above the panel before he pushed it away. The wall was behind me now, and beyond it noise still bubbled and I heard the crack of gunfire. I turned and ran into blackness, rain falling heavily, beating against my face.

A minute dragged by, and then another. I stopped, not knowing which way to go. And, too, I realized that I'd run after him unthinkingly, without a weapon, and with the muscles of one arm badly torn and crippled. But I couldn't go back; he'd soon be gone for good—if he wasn't already gone. A great sheet of lightning hurtled from sky to earth, almost upon me, followed immediately by a sharp crackling roar, almost deafening. And in the sudden blinding flash, even as it seemed that the earth shook beneath my feet, I saw him.

He was on my left, no more than twenty yards away, struggling erect. He had stumbled, slipped and fallen in the mud. I ran toward the spot and as I neared him he must have heard my feet pounding through the mud, because flame spat at me in the darkness and a bullet snapped past me through the air. I lunged at the flash as he fired again, unable yet to see me but firing at the sounds I made; and then I crashed against him, swinging my open right hand like a cleaver toward his face.

My hand thudded against his upraised arm and then we fell in the mud, sliding, his body beneath me at first, then slipping away from me. I clutched at him, felt his clothing in my hand and jerked him to me, slashing with my right hand for his nose, his throat. His palm smacked against my wrist and his fingers clamped around it with a grip of desperation. The gun thudded against my shoulder and I threw up my other arm, grabbed his biceps in my fingers as we rolled in the mud, then slid my hand down to his forearm, trying to keep the barrel of his gun away from me.

The gun cracked in his hand and the bullet raked my side. I squirmed, pulled him on top of me, then shoved him over me and against the ground, his fingers still tight around my right wrist, my left hand on his arm that held the gun. I inched my hand down further and he jerked his arm, nearly ripped it from my grasp.

For a long moment we lay almost motionless, straining with our arms, neither able to gain an advantage. He was on his back and I was sprawled halfway on top of him, my chin upon his chest. He was strong, and I could feel the strength draining from me. The beating, torture, all the rest of it had sapped my strength and it was ebbing from me. I couldn't jerk my wrist from the strong grip in which he held it. I squeezed my fingers tightly around the arm that held the gun, but slowly I felt him forcing it toward me, bringing the gun's muzzle around to bear on my chest. I strained every muscle, felt the veins standing out on my forehead from the effort, and for a moment I held his arm rigid. But then it moved again; I felt the weakness growing in my arm, the torn muscles agonized as he forced the gun toward me.

Both of us were grunting and snarling like animals, and that is what we were then. The nearness of death, its sharp edge, sliced away the layer that was human, and we were animals rolling in the slime of earth. One thought possessed my mind, that I must kill him, kill him. It was the only thought that existed, it was my world, my brain.

I felt his arm force mine back further, his muscles like stone under my fingers, and I knew in seconds the gun would be against my side. That he would get away, that he would take with him a horror almost past believing, that he would live even after all the cruel and evil things that he had done, meant nothing to me now. And even the fear of losing life, of dying here in the mud, was only a small part of what I felt. The thought that I must kill him swelled so large that there was room for nothing else inside me.

Lightning flashed above us and I saw his contorted, unhuman face close to my own, his head thrown back with the intensity of his effort, the lips peeled wide and his naked throat inches from me. From somewhere out of the darkness in my mind, I remembered a conversation with a friend, a soldier in Korea, struggling for his life like this in a foxhole with a Red Chinese; and on the edge of death, he had ripped the enemy's throat with his teeth, killed him, and lived.

The lightning flared again and I saw the white throat, the corded neck of Villamantes. From somewhere came an extra breath of strength and I inched higher on his body, straining my arms to hold the gun away, and then I felt his skin against my lips, and then—his flesh upon my teeth.

I heard his cry, but it was like an imagined sound, for it was mingled with the pulse of his life, and it seemed the rain was red blood gushing upon me from the sky, covering my body and mixing with the mud beneath us and around us until we were drowning in a great, thick lake of blood. My mind was empty except for that one thought of red rain steadily falling, and then finally even that thought grew dim and there was stillness all around me.

I crawled on my hands and knees away from him and sprawled on my face, then rolled over on my back and let the rain beat against my flesh, against my mouth. My brain was stunned with shock, and nausea gurgled in my stomach. I felt, insanely, as if I were inside the walls of an enormous beating heart, the blood hissing and rumbling through the arteries, pouring from the veins, the great pump booming in my ears and the raw red walls swelling and then closing in upon me.

And, finally, after a long time, my mind was blank, squeezed dry of any thought or memory or sensation, and there was only the sound, or absence of sound, a strange half-deafness with silence beating in it, that was yet a sound in my mind. And, a long time after that, I heard the rain again, felt it cool upon my skin, cool, not warm and thick, as it had been before.

I got to my knees, and stayed like that for minutes more. I rubbed mud against my mouth, ground it against my lips, then caught rain in my hands and slapped it against my face. And finally I got up, walked back to Villamantes.

I searched him, took everything from his pockets, then stood up. Lighting flashed and I saw him for the last time, on his back in the mud, rain beating on his face and on the torn, ripped redness of his throat. I left him there, walked back toward the Center. The sound of guns had stopped. It was finished, over.

Chapter Twenty-One

Now it was Wednesday afternoon, too early for the rain to start. The sky was beginning to darken, but sunlight still filtered through the gathering clouds.

We were at the Mexico City National Airport—Buff, Doctor Buffington and me. We had a few minutes before their plane took off, headed for L.A., Hollywood, the Sunset Strip, home. I'd follow them later, on another plane, but it was better that we didn't leave together; whatever we might have talked about, there'd have been something else in our minds.

We must have looked like three tourists, chatting about our souvenirs, and the show at El Patio. The Doctor and Buff looked about the same as before; if they had any scars, they didn't show.

The Doctor shook my hand. “I think we've said it all, Shell. No need to go over it again."

“Sure, Doc. See you in L.A."

He squeezed my hand a moment longer, then released it. “Don't forget. I'll hold you to the promise.” He paused. “You remember our talk that night in Monte Cassino, Shell? When was it? Less than—four days ago. It seems a lifetime."

“I remember."

“I just wanted to say—I won't be making any more speeches. About the need for understanding Communists.” He smiled bitterly. “I'm beginning to understand them myself, finally."

I smiled back at him. “Make all the speeches you want, Doc. Just, uh, change them a little, huh?"

“I'll have to. In these last few days I've learned something else I didn't know before. I've learned—” he hesitated, “—what peaceful coexistence is."

The loudspeakers again announced the flight for Los Angeles. Buff had been standing silently alongside us. She said, “I'll be there in a minute. Dad."

He took the hint, walked away.

She turned to me. “'Bye, Shell."

“So long, honey."

“You will see us again, won't you? Soon?"

She looked lovely. Gray suit that matched her eyes, blonde hair smooth, lips red and tempting. She still looked tired, not quite herself. But it wouldn't be long; she'd look like spring again.

“Pretty soon,” I said. “We've got a date."

She smiled, put her arms around my neck. “I'll be careful of your arm,” she said.

I had the arm in a sling, but it was almost healed. I didn't really need the sling any more.

“Don't worry about it.” I grinned at her and slipped my arm from the black cloth.

She pulled herself against me, lifted her lips and pressed them gently against mine with a wonderful softness and clinging and warmth. It was like a first kiss, or a last kiss, and then she was running across the field away from me; there was the tiny wave of a hand and she was gone. I watched the plane until I couldn't see it any longer, then I left. I suddenly felt lonely, washed out, and very tired.

I sat in the Monte Cassino drinking my third highball. I didn't even know why I'd come here, except perhaps because the four of us had been having fun that night until everything started falling apart. Even fun with Monique, I remembered. And she was dead now. Monique, Villamantes, Emilio, the heavy-jowled lover, Jaime Guerara, and most of the others who had been at the Center when the General arrived that night, blew up the gate and charged inside. He'd had only eight other men with him, but they'd carried submachine guns, revolvers, rifles. When it was all over, two of the General's men were dead and only seven of the twenty-odd at the Center were left alive. Monique wasn't one of them.

I guess it was a lucky thing that Villamantes had clubbed Buff, knocked her unconscious, because when Lopez and his men started shooting everything in sight, she'd been on the floor, the Doc beside her, holding her in his arms. I'd been practically out on my feet, my brain drugged, when I'd walked back inside; but I'd stayed on my feet long enough to help mop things up.

The Doc handled his end gladly, destroyed the papers I'd taken from Villamantes, destroyed all traces of his work. In Villamantes's safe I found the films of the Countess's another now-dead lover, six reels of film in shiny tin cans. I took care of them—with gasoline and a match. The Countess had been grateful when I phoned her, even asked me to tell her all about it over a highball. But I had seen General Lopez in action, with a submachine gun, and I'd told her I would be grateful myself if she showed her gratitude by mailing that fifty-thousand-peso check to me at the Hotel del Prado. Then I had hung up.

All the odds and ends were cleaned up. The General had handled most of it: Belchardo; the maid, Carmelina—who naturally had been the one who gave Villamantes the nicknames “Nana” and “Toro” to be used in the General's suicide note—the tag ends. There was nothing left. Me, I'd probably be on a jet headed for L.A. tomorrow.

I finished my drink, feeling mean, tried to push the black thoughts out of my mind. They kept coming back. It was night outside, rain falling softly through the darkness. I felt lousy.

“Cigarettes? Cigarros? Cigarettes?"

“Hell, no, I've got—” I raised my head suddenly, almost spilling my drink, and there they were, swaying gently back and forth in front of me. They looked like the same ones; I was sure they were the same ones. I didn't feel so lousy. Hell, I felt pretty good.

“Well, Sarita,” I said.

“Ah, Mr. Scott."

“Not Scott, Shell. Shell Scott. Call me Shell."

“You wish cigarettes?"

I leaned back in my seat, looking at her, and finally I remembered something, perhaps because now there wasn't any pressure on me and my mind could single out the little things. I remembered that when I'd been leaving jail that first night, I'd seen my Belmonts on the sergeant's desk, spotted a fingerprint or something on the cellophane around the pack. The thing was, that while I'd waited for this tomato to make change when I bought the Belmonts, I'd ogled her strenuously and pulled the cellophane off, crumpled it, and damn near torn a cigarette or two in half. So the pack with cellophane couldn't have been the one Sarita had sold me. Anyway, she had an honest face.

She was still waiting for an answer and I said, “Cigarettes? Yes. Sure. I'll try some new ones, several different kinds. Stoop over here so I can see them."

Her smile broadened. She stooped.

I said, “I'll have one of these and one of those and one of those—"

She interrupted, laughing softly. “Did you really wish cigarettes?"

“Not really. I, uh, I'm still suspicious of you. What I really want is to ask you some more questions."

“Like last time?"

“Sure."

“But last time I was in bed."

“What the hell do you think I want to ask you?"

She chuckled. Then she frowned. “The arm. What is it wrong with?"

“Why, the arm,” I said slyly, “is broken. Several places. I can hardly move it. The pain is agonizing. I am harmless—I mean, helpless."

She nodded. “I see. From a man with one arm I can fear nothing. No?"

“No—yes. When do you get off?"

She shrugged. “Oh, any time now. I go, I come."

“Well, let's go."

She looked at me. “Is serious?"

“Is serious as hell."

"Momentito."

She was gone for a minute, then came back without her cigarette tray, a black coat tossed over her shoulders.

“Come,” she said.

I dropped money for my bill on the table, got up groaning a little. We walked to the door. As we went outside she said smiling, “What is it you wish to ask me?"

“Oh-h—things."

“Well,” she said, “no matter what, I do not worry about a man with broken arm."

I laughed as we walked down the street. The rain had stopped.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1954, 1961, 1982 by Richard S. Prather

Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

ISBN 978-1-4804-9860-0

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One