Sarah's sister-or Lila's or Mary Jane's-was still kneeling there, numb and dazed. "But Sam, the man I was with-"
"The hell with Sam," I said. "Have you ever seen the inside of a Mexican jail, honey?"
Even in that moment, in that place, she didn't like being called honey. I was presuming on too short an acquaintance. I could see that we could spend all night there getting introduced properly, so I picked up her little white purse from the floor where she'd dropped it. I shoved it into my pocket and gestured to LeBaron. He got one arm and I got the other, and we set Gail on her pretty little blue high-heeled shoes and marched her towards the curtains at the rear of the stage.
"Left and out," LeBaron said. "Jesus had better have the cab waiting, damn his black Yaqui soul." After a moment, he said, "The portero threw the knife. I should have kicked him harder. I'm afraid he'll live."
"The M.C. was in it, too," I said. "He was searching the girl for something when we interrupted him."
"Searching? She didn't have much to search, just a bra and G-string."
"She had it in her hair, whatever it was. She got it from that American tourist, I think. I never saw his face, but she patted his black hair nicely as she went by, and he reached up to grab her, remember?" I glanced back and said, sentimentally and uselessly, "Poor kid."
"Yeah."
This wasn't all just idle chitchat, you understand. We were pooling what information we had, while we had the chance, in accordance with standard operating procedure in case only one of us got out to make a report. The woman between us tried to pull free and gasped with pain as we both clamped down-the cops used come-alongs made of chain and stuff, nicely chrome plated, but there are perfectly good grips that serve the same purpose.
"Let me go!" she protested. "Let me go!"
LeBaron was leading, since he knew the way. I was keeping an eye out behind us, so I was the first to see the Texas cavalry come charging to the rescue as we reached the curtains. Somebody had clobbered him good in the melee, but not good enough, and he stumbled up to the stage in his silly boots, with his face streaming blood from a cut over the eye.
"You there!" he yelled. "Get your cotton-picking hands off that lady, you sons of bitches!"
Then, so help me, he pulled a gun. In a place like that, with hell breaking loose already, he pulled a gun. A guy like that would light a cigar in a fireworks factory.
I shouted, using the name the woman had mentioned:
"This way, Sam! Make it snappy! We've been waiting for you!"
It didn't work. The invitation didn't register. We were strangers; we were hostile; we were manhandling his girl, and you can't do that to a Texan, suh. He took another step and stood there swaying, waiting for the weapon in his hand to settle down on something so he could shoot it.
"Left and out," LeBaron said quickly, urging us through the curtains. "Jesus will get you across the river. Never mind the cowboy, I'll take care of him."
He started back across the stage. I didn't wait to see what happened, but I heard a shot as I pulled the reluctant woman through the narrow passage and out through a door that stood open as if we weren't the first to escape that way.
I waited just a moment outside, but LeBaron didn't come. Maybe I'd see him again and maybe I wouldn't. Like I said, trained men doing a job. You don't have to love each other like brothers, but the next time, if there was a next time, he could talk about sex all he wanted, even if he had been a little slow in dealing with Elena.
"Cab number five!" a voice called softly.
We were in an alley of sorts. It was seemingly empty, the way certain parts of certain towns get when there's trouble, but you could feel eyes watching from all the shadows. I headed towards the voice. A man showed himself briefly, beckoning. I ran after him through the narrow space between two buildings, dragging Gail along with a grip that wouldn't let her resist without tearing some ligaments.
The parked cab on the street beyond was battered and ancient, but it looked remarkably like the promised land at that moment. I shoved my companion into the back and piled in after her. Jesus had the heap moving before I got the door closed.
A minute later we were on a street full of lights and people. It was hard to believe that there were still places in Juarez where tourists haggled innocently over so-called Swiss watches and native ponchos. Jesus turned off this street, driving circumspectly, and made some more turns that left me lost.
"There is the bridge, senor," Jesus said presently without turning his head. "I do not think they will stop us on this side, there has not been sufficient time for an alarm, but on the other side there will be the usual questions. The lady is a citizen of the Estados Unidos?"
"Yes. At least I think so."
"She must say it, senor. Remember that. They will ask and wait for the answer. They will act as if it is not important, but the words must be spoken, always."
"Thanks, Jesus."
It was nice to work with bright people. He had noticed that the third occupant of the cab wasn't really happy in my company. I glanced at Gail. She was rubbing her strained wrist. In the darkness of the cab, she did not look noticeably disheveled in spite of what she'd been through. Her fluffy, tumbled hairdo was only a little more so, her dress and furs and gloves seemed to be intact, and if all went well nobody was going to examine her shoes and stockings, so I didn't. But I did note that she had a tense, wound-up look that said she was only waiting for a chance to make trouble.
I took a ball-point pen out of my pocket without letting her see it. I couldn't risk being separated from her by chivalrous immigration inspectors, even briefly. Right then, I couldn't afford to let her out of my sight for a moment. I took her in my arms, rammed the pen into her side, and spoke softly in her ear.
"It's a gun, Gail," I said. "We don't want trouble. But if there is trouble, honey, you'll sure as hell get it first."
She didn't move or speak. I saw the bridge loom before us, and I laid myself against her and kissed her hard, holding the pen in her ribs. I claim no credit for originating the idea. It's been done before, in the movies and elsewhere. The thing about it is that it often works. The cab stopped. Money changed hands as Jesus paid the toll. There were sympathetic words in Spanish, and appreciative laughter. The cab drove on.
"We have passed the Mexican side," Jesus reported. "No sweat, si?"
My companion smelled nice, and she felt warm and feminine, but it wasn't really much of a kiss. There was a noticeable lack of enthusiastic cooperation, and I felt considerably like a fool, slobbering over the face of a woman whose main reaction was probably a strong desire to throw up. The cab stopped again, and somebody asked a question. I came up for air and saw a face surmounted by a uniform cap at the window.
"Oh," I said foolishly. "What was that, Officer?"
"Did you buy anything in Mexico, sir?"
"Not this trip," I said.
"What is your citizenship?"
"U.S.," I said.
"And yours, ma'am?"
The women in my arms hesitated. I nudged her with the pen. She drew a long breath.
"I'm American," she said.
The uniformed character straightened up, stepped back and waved us on.
I said, "Honey, you shouldn't have said it like that."
She glanced at me quickly, startled. "But-"
"Our neighbors don't like it," I said. We were driving away, but it seemed best to be heard talking naturally. "They're not our continents, you know, either one of them, although sometimes we act as if we own them both. Jesus is American, too, aren't you, Jesus?"
"Si, senor."
"You, Gail, are a citizen of the United States of
America," I went on pedantically, "but from Hudson's
Bay to Tierra del Fuego we're all Americans together…
It's the Hotel Paso del Norte, Jesus."
"Si, Senor."
A few minutes later, I was ushering Gail into my sixth floor room at the hotel. I locked the door behind us, and took my hand out of the pocket, leaving the ball-point pen there. I looked at the pretty, slightly rumpled woman standing in the center of the room.
"Now, Gail," I said gently, "you'd better give me what your sister gave you, and you'd better tell me what she told you, word for word."
"May I have my purse, please?" she asked.
She glanced at me sharply, and swung back to face me, settling the fur jacket about her shoulders.
"My dear man, let's stop this foolishness. You haven't really got a gun in your pocket, have you?"
It was my first opportunity to study her at leisure at close range in good light. She was a very attractive woman, slender and graceful, slightly above average height, but, unlike her sister, not conspicuously so. I've been calling her pretty, but there was more than prettiness in her face. She had very large, clear gray-blue eyes, skillfully accentuated by make-up. She had a slim, aristocratic nose. She had fine cheekbones, with that faint, delicately haggard hollowness below that the girls all try for.
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I said, "You thought she'd just hit the skids, is that it?"
"What else could I think? When some friends-friends!-told me, with that ghoulish kind of sympathy, enjoying every minute of it, that they'd just been to Juarez and there was something I ought to know but they didn't know quite how to tell me… Well, I couldn't go alone, not into a joint like that, so I got hold of Sam, and we drove down together. He didn't want to go, but I told him he owed her that much, we both did."
"Owed her?" I said.
Gail moved her shoulders slightly. "A pretty little family triangle. You know, the attractive older sister-if I may flatter myself a bit-and the big horse of a younger sister, awkward and shy, and the tall, handsome young man. Sam was just doing it for kicks, or maybe he had an eye on her money-we both got quite a bit when Daddy died-but she was desperately in love with him. To her, he was the first man to see the true beauty of her soul underlying the gawky…" She stopped abruptly. "That was bitchy, I guess. She's dead. I didn't mean to make fun of her. Strike it from the record, please."
I said, "So you took him away from her. To save her?"
She shrugged again. "Thank you, sir. I'm sure my motives were lovely, perfectly lovely. They always are. Anyway, she caught us and… well, never mind the details. I'll admit she scared me silly. I thought she was going to kill us both. She had a gun, and she'd always been good with horses and firearms and fishing rods and things. But she just threw the damn gun out the window. In the morning she was gone. I tried to find her, and I did catch up with her once, in New York, where she was doing some modeling, but she slammed the door in my face. After that, I let it go. If that was the way she wanted it…" Gail gave that little shrug again. "The next time I heard, several years later, she was in Juarez. The rest you know." She looked at me steadily. "If you're a government agent of some kind-I suppose that's what you're hinting at-show me something to prove it."
I said, "We don't carry badges. They have a habit of cropping up at inconvenient moments."
"I'm supposed to take your word for it?"
"It would make things easier on both of us," I said.
"I don't doubt it would make things easier for you!" she said scornfully. "But you're forgetting one thing, aren't you? I was there. I saw it. Mary Jane didn't want to give you anything. She didn't want to tell you anything. You were standing right over us, and she looked you straight in the eye and turned to me. How do you explain that, Mister So-called Agent?"
"I don't explain it," I said. "I don't have to."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
I said, "When we have finished in this room, please remember that I told you the truth from the very start. I told you that I am an agent of the U.S. Government. I asked you to turn over to me certain property and information given you by your sister, a member of the same undercover organization as myself. These are facts. I probably shouldn't have revealed them to you, and I may even catch hell for doing it, but I'm putting my cards on the table and asking you nicely-"
She said, "My dear man, if you expect me to believe you without any evidence whatever, you must think me an awful fool!"
"Oh, I do," I said gently. "I think you're the sophisticated kind of fool who'd rather play safe and assume all men are liars than risk trusting one and maybe have him make a sap out of you. But I had to give you a chance, if only for your sister's sake."
She said angrily, "Why in Heaven's name should I trust you, a man I've never seen before! A man who ran out and left his friend in the lurch!"
"Don't talk about things you know nothing about, Gail," I said. "When two men on the same team are running down a field, and one is carrying a football, does he lay down the ball when trouble occurs and go back to help his poor outnumbered teammate, or does he keep plugging for the goal?"
"It's not quite the same thing! This is… I don't know what it is, but it certainly isn't a game!"
"No, and you're not a football, either. But the principle remains." I looked around for something you find in most hotel rooms. It wasn't in plain sight, but I found it in a dresser drawer-a Gideon Bible. I placed my hand upon it and looked the woman in the eye. "What I have told you is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God."
I put the Bible away. There was a little silence; then Gail shook her head quickly. It was corn and she was no goose; she wasn't going to swallow it.
"Mary Jane obviously didn't want you to have it," she said. "I can't just take your word. If you had something to prove-"
I said, "It would take me anywhere from a couple of hours to a day or two to get proof here that would satisfy you. That's too long to sit in this room watching to make sure you don't do something clever with what you're carrying, or just something perverse to spite me. We'd both get pretty damn tired of it, not to mention such details as eating, sleeping, and going to the john. I'll tell you this. Mary Jane's feeling against me was probably personal. We got at cross purposes once, we got our signals mixed…" I told her about the incident in San Antonio. "That was before she was assigned a job that involved undressing in public and got over being embarrassed by the idea. I know of no other reason why she should have acted the way she did tonight."