Quintana Roo (8 page)

Inside, Earle had climbed only three stairs when a huge rough hand clamped over his face. His eyes bulging in terror, unable to cry out, Earle felt an arm that was thick as his own leg wrap around his rib cage. He was dragged back to the bottom of the stairs and lifted off the floor with no apparent effort by whoever, or whatever, had hold of him.

The big scaly hand across his face obscured Earle’s vision and made it difficult for him to breathe. He suddenly lost control of his bladder, and a small part of his mind recoiled in disgust as he was carried the length of the hallway and out the back door. He seemed to be in an alley of some kind. The smells were garbage and urine. His own.

The arm wrapped around his chest was abruptly removed, and Earle had a moment of wild hope that he would be set free. Then the second enormous hand clamped onto his head so he was held motionless in the double grip. Earle Maples knew several seconds of terrible pain, then his skull cracked and crumpled in on itself like an egg.

From overhead came the drone of the Stinson’s engine as the red and white plane flew south toward Yucatan. The huge figure in the alley, its hands covered with blood and brains, did not look up. Earle Maples would never look at anything again.

The air inside the Stinson’s cabin was warm and heavy with moisture despite the open ventilators. Klaus Heinemann kept a close watch on the instruments as the plane banked east to cut across the Bay of Campeche. The sky above them was a dull metal gray, reflected in the water below. Connie had removed her jacket and scarf and opened the top buttons of her blouse. Hooker, in the seat next to Heinemann, scowled out the window, straining to keep the coast line in sight.

“Does this thing float?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the drone of the engine.

“Oh, certainly,” the German said.

Hooker relaxed a little.

“For up to five minutes,” Heinemann added.

Hooker glared at him.

Connie used the scarf to blot perspiration from her throat. “You don’t like flying?” she said to Hooker.

“Not much.”

“Nolan loved to fly,” she said.

Hooker gave her an ironic look.

She smiled weakly. “I see your point.”

They flew on for a quarter of an hour with no sound but the pulsing roar of the engine and the rush of wind past the ventilators.

“How long will it take us to reach Campeche?” Connie asked.

“The entire flight will take three and a half to four hours,” Heinemann said. “Unless we pick up a strong head wind or tail wind. Right now we have neither.”

Hooker shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The normally roomy cabin was cramped with the equipment he had brought, Connie’s two pieces of luggage, and the big oil drum that had been converted into an auxiliary fuel tank. “Mind if I ask a question?”

“Would it make any difference if I minded?” Heinemann said.

“Why are we flying over the water?”

“It is the most direct route. Following the coast line would add another thirty minutes to our flight time.”

Hooker looked unconvinced, but he said no more.

Some three hours after the takeoff from Veracruz, the gray-green tropical coast of the state of Campeche could be seen through the murk ahead of the plane. Heinemann made a slight adjustment in their direction to the north. In a few more minutes, they sighted the low buildings of the town that served as capital of the state.

Heinemann turned to the others with a smile of satisfaction. “Right on the nose,” he said.

“You mean there was some doubt?” Hooker asked.

Heinemann ignored him and banked the Stinson into a slow descent toward the clearing that served Campeche as an airfield. Connie leaned toward the window for a better look.

“That’s
it?
” She did not try to hide her disappointment.

“If you wanted a resort, Acapulco is back in the other direction,” Hooker said.

“You don’t have to be sarcastic. It’s just not what I expected.”

Hooker sighed and said nothing.

Heinemann brought the plane in expertly for a landing on the uneven field. At the far end were some rusting machinery, an old Ford pickup truck, and several fuel drums outside a listing wooden shed. Heinemann taxied over to the shed and cut the engine. In the sudden silence, the three people in the cabin looked at each other with a mutual sense of relief.

Hooker squeezed back past the fuel tank and opened the cabin door. He jumped to the ground and turned to help Connie down. Heinemann came last, keeping a hand on the glistening fuselage, as though reluctant to lose contact with the plane. A short, bowlegged man in coveralls came out of the shed, rubbing his eyes sleepily. He woke up fast when he saw the gleaming red airplane. He walked slowly around the machine, making little humming sounds of admiration.

Heinemann talked briefly to the mechanic, then returned to Hooker and Connie. “I will have to spend some time here to see that all is in readiness as I asked. You two may as well go on into town and secure our hotel rooms.”

Connie looked around. “Go into town
how?
”

“I am told that a bus runs past here into Campeche. One is due within minutes.”

“My bags …” Connie began.

“The mechanic has a truck,” Heinemann said. “I will make some arrangement with him and bring the bags when I come.”

Connie looked doubtful, but Hooker took hold of her arm. “Let’s go,” he said, and led her across the field to the rutted road that ran alongside.

The air was hot, damp, and oppressive, the sky a joyless gray. Hooker could see Connie’s spirits sag. He made no effort to cheer her up. The woman might as well know early on that this was not going to be a pleasure trip.

The bus rattled into sight half an hour later. Hooker looked toward the shed to see if Heinemann might be ready to leave with them, but the pilot was in deep conversation with the mechanic. Hooker hoisted Connie aboard the ancient bus, then swung up himself. They rode the three miles into town with a minimum of conversation.

The bus driver let them off in front of the Azteca Hotel. Hooker and Connie stepped down into the unpaved street and looked at the building. It was a sprawling Victorian structure of weathered wood with a seemingly random clutter of porches, cupolas, gables, and balconies.

“Not exactly the Waldorf,” Hooker said.

Connie squared her shoulders and looked up at him. There was a hint of fire in the startling blue eyes. “Let’s get one thing straight right now, Hooker. I am getting damn tired of your little hidden cracks about the way I live and whether or not I can handle rough going. I wasn’t born into luxury, you know. I spent some goddam hungry years before I married Nolan Braithwaite. I’m tougher than you think I am, and until I start complaining, you can just lay off the veiled insults.”

Hooker looked at her for a moment, then grinned. “Fair enough. Let’s go in and check the accommodations.”

They had two rooms reserved on the second floor — a double for the men and an adjoining single for Connie. The rooms had a minimum of furniture, but they were reasonably clean, with no sign of insect life in the bedding.

“Not bad, all things considered,” Hooker said. “Anyway, we won’t be spending much time here. How do you feel about a drink?”

“That is a hell of a fine idea. Just give me a minute to clean up.” She stood uncertainly in the doorway between the two rooms. “Uh, where’s the bathroom?”

“If you mean for cleanup purposes, that pitcher and basin on your bureau is it. For anything else, you’ll find a device under your bed.”

“Swell,” she said brightly. “I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

“I’ll go see what the town has to offer in the way of hootch and come back for you,” Hooker said.

Smiling determinedly, Connie closed the door between the rooms. Hooker stood there for a moment shaking his head; then he went out.

• • •

The hotel, he discovered, had a bar of its own. It was a long, glassed-in porch that overlooked a lush tropical garden. The humid air inside was pushed around somewhat by an electric fan, the lighting was dim enough to be comfortable, and the shelves behind the bar held a good supply of liquor. By the time they were into their second drinks, Hooker and Connie had decided that Campeche was not all that unpleasant a place.

Connie swallowed some of her fruity rum concoction and peered across at Hooker’s glass of tequila. “You drink a lot, don’t you.”

“Now and again.”

“Trying to forget something? Or somebody?”

“Nothing as romantic as that. I just like the taste of the stuff.”

“Why don’t you tell me it’s none of my business?”

“Okay. It’s none of your business.” He watched her for a moment, then said, “Nah, go ahead and ask questions. As long as you don’t get insulted if I don’t answer.”

“You’re a funny man, Hooker.”

“I’m a regular Jack Benny.”

“I mean funny strange. I have no idea what you’re thinking ever. Or how you feel about anything. I can’t read your eyes.”

He signaled the bartender, who brought over another tequila. Connie covered her glass with one hand and shook her head.

“I don’t know now why I should care about how you feel. For most of my life, I’ve been completely absorbed with myself. What the hell did I care what anybody was thinking unless it directly concerned me?”

Hooker shrugged. He lit a Lucky Strike. He hoped she was not going to launch into a long confession.

“I’d like to know you better,” she said. “I’d like you to know me.”

“It sounds like fun,” he said, “but I’ve got rules about mixing business and pleasure.”

“Yes, I know,” she said sharply. “We’ve been all over that. I’m just making conversation, not trying to seduce you.”

“Hell, go ahead and try to seduce me,” he said. “Just as long as — ”

“I know. Just as long as I don’t get insulted if you don’t answer.”

They laughed together, and Hooker found he was growing a lot more comfortable with this woman. It was something he would have to watch, but later.

Gradually, it grew dark outside. On one of his trips to the table with refills, the bartender placed a candle between Hooker and Connie. Neither of them saw Klaus Heinemann when he entered and stood for a long moment regarding them. Hooker turned with a start at the loud “ahem” behind him.

“I arrive at a poor time?” Heinemann said.

Hooker kicked out a chair for him. “Sit down, Kraut. We were just telling off-color stories, which of course you wouldn’t get, being German.”

“Of course,” Heinemann said.

“Did you get the airplane put to bed?”

“As well as I could manage. Mr. Gonzales, the mechanic, agreed to sleep in the plane tonight. In fact, I think his feelings would have been hurt had I not allowed him to. It’s the grandest craft he has seen since Mr. Braithwaite’s Orion refueled here on the way to Panama more than a year ago.”

The bartender came over, and Heinemann ordered rye with a bottle of mineral water. Hooker took another tequila.

Connie yawned. “Can you two get along without me? I’m suddenly dead tired.”

“It would be a good idea for you to sleep,” Heinemann said. “We want to start early tomorrow, and the more alert we all are, the better will be our eyesight for the search.”

Connie got up. She held up a hand as the men started to rise. “No, stay put. I’ll get the room key from the desk. What time do we leave in the morning?”

“The light should be sufficient at six,” Heinemann said.

“I’ll be ready.” She gave them a salute and walked through the door that led back into the hotel proper.

“Interesting woman,” Heinemann said. “I have the feeling there is more to her than a casual glance would reveal.”

“So she was telling me,” Hooker said.

• • •

As she climbed the single flight of stairs to her room, Connie stopped suddenly. She had the prickly feeling between the shoulder blades that came when someone was watching her. Or following her. She continued for another two steps, then turned suddenly. Nothing there but shadows. Connie smiled at herself. It was not like her to jump at phantoms. She must be even more tired than she thought. She went on into the room, taking care to lock the door behind her.

• • •

Back in the shadows at the top of the stairs a pair of eyes watched her door close. When the lock clicked, a dark-skinned man, naked to the waist, slipped noiselessly down the hall toward her room.

After Connie left them, Hooker and Heinemann enjoyed a few minutes of comfortable silence that can exist between men who like and trust each other. Heinemann brought out a pipe, which he rarely smoked, and chewed thoughtfully on the bit. Hooker lit another Lucky Strike.

A sudden gleam of light in the garden outside the glassed-in bar startled them. The men looked at each other sheepishly.

“Someone on the upper floor has turned on a light,” Heinemann said. “We are jumpy, my friend.”

“It must be Connie,” Hooker said. “Our rooms are directly above the bar.”

The light on the shrubbery outside dimmed as the shade was pulled down in the upstairs window.

After a moment, Heinemann said, “Speaking of Connie, is there anything happening with you two yet?”

“We’re just pals.”

“I see.”

“When you say ‘I see’ in that tone of voice, I don’t think you see.”

“We’ll see.”

“Cut it out.”

Heinemann massaged his cheek with the smooth bowl of the briar. “The weather does not smell good for tomorrow. There is rain nearby.”

“How will that affect us?”

The German shrugged. “Very little. It will only make an extremely difficult task impossible.”

“You don’t think there’s much chance of finding the plane.”

Heinemann sucked on the cold pipe and shook his head. “Do you?”

“No,” Hooker admitted. “I’m even starting to feel guilty about taking the lady’s money.”

“We both know that was not your primary reason for coming,” Heinemann said.

“We do?”

“You had some idea you might learn the fate of your friend Kaplan.”

“That’s a big part of it,” Hooker said. “This may be the only chance I’ll have to find out what happened to him. You didn’t know Buzz, did you?”

“Not well. We met once or twice but never really became acquainted. Was he not some sort of radical?”

“We never talked politics.”

“Do you
ever
talk politics, Hooker?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“You would seem to be an ideal candidate for extremism.”

“Why? Because I got pushed around a little? Hell, everybody has problems. I’ll handle mine and let the rest of the world go with any
ism
they want to.”

“Maybe you would feel differently had you seen what I saw in Germany.”

“Maybe,” Hooker said, “but I doubt it.”

“The uninvolved man,” Heinemann said.

“That’s me.”

• • •

Upstairs in her room, Connie Braithwaite took a look at herself in the inadequate mirror over the bureau. She was wearing a blue silk nightgown that clung nicely to her body. A damn shame there wasn’t somebody there to see it, she thought. Somebody like John Hooker? a mocking voice asked. Hell no, she told the voice. What could she possibly see in that renegade smuggler, or whatever he was? Him with his shaggy haircut and perpetual five-o’clock shadow.

She snapped off the room’s single lamp and got into bed. All right, so maybe she was thinking about Hooker. He
was
damn good-looking, if you liked the type. Probably knew his way around a bedroom, too, from the satisfied look of the Mexican girl who came sashaying through the bead curtain in his apartment.

The sheets on the hotel bed were not as finely woven as Connie was used to. They had a stiff, crackly feel. But they were clean. They smelled of strong laundry soap. Connie closed her eyes. She pulled up the silk nightgown and touched herself. She thought about fucking. There hadn’t been any since Nolan’s disappearance, and precious little before that. Nolan Braithwaite had been an ardent lover when they were first married, but face it, he was fifty then, and he probably tried too hard. Whatever the reason, the fucking slacked off in a hurry.

She pushed the disloyal thoughts of her husband away but left her hand where it was. Connie had never been what the boys called a sexpot despite the way she looked. Nevertheless, she had a healthy appetite, and it had been a long time between fucks. Much too long.

A dreaminess crept over her as she massaged herself gently between the legs. Her lips formed a smile.

What was that?

A soft scratching sound came from out of the darkness of her room. Connie’s eyes snapped open. Had there been a strip of pale light down the wall just then, as though someone had eased the door closed?

She held her breath, listening. A floor board creaked. She sat up in bed staring into the blackness. Silence. Then a soft sound of movement.

“Who’s there?”

More silence. The floor creaked again.

Connie groped for the lamp beside her bed, found it, snapped it on. She blinked at the sudden light. Before she could react, a hand clamped onto her throat, stopping her breath, choking back any outcry.

She clawed instinctively at the fingers gripping her throat. There was no give at all. Her strength drained. As her eyes grew accustomed to the light, her brain began to buzz with the approach of unconsciousness. She saw a dark, high-cheekboned face above her. The eyes were set deep in their sockets; the breath was foul with rotten teeth. Then she saw the knife.

The man was squeezing her throat with his left hand while holding a knife with his right. The point of the blade pricked the blanket above her stomach. The man’s bare torso was slick with sweat.

The bastard is going to kill me!

The thought made her more angry than afraid. The idea that some half-naked Indian should come into her room in this godforsaken corner of Mexico and stab her to death was not acceptable. She tried to scream but managed only a miserable squeak. At the same time, she realized the pressure on her throat had eased. Then she knew why.

The horny son of a bitch was looking at her body. One of the shoulder straps had slipped down, and a plump, pinknippled breast was exposed. The man stared at it like a kid at an ice cream sundae. He licked his lips. His tongue had an odd purplish color.

The man slipped the knife back under his belt and used his freed hand to squeeze Connie’s breast. The other hand still held her by the throat, but his attention was elsewhere.

Connie lay still, letting him have all the tit he wanted. She even shifted a little to make it easier for him. As long as his mind was in his pants, she had a better chance of staying alive.

He threw back the sheet and blanket that covered her. His little eyes widened at the sight of her body. The blue silk nightgown had hiked up around her hips, exposing the soft mound of dark blonde hair and the moist flesh beneath it. The fingers gripping her throat slackened even more. That was what she had been waiting for.

She twisted vigorously away from him to the right and rolled out of bed, hitting the floor with a thump. She scrambled to her feet, yelling every foul word she could think of as the intruder came around the bed toward her. When he reached her, Connie was ready. She brought her bare knee up hard into his crotch.

The man grunted and staggered back, holding himself, looking more surprised than hurt. Women did not do that to men in his world. Not even if they were about to be raped and murdered. Connie kept yelling. She was out of defenses, and the bastard was between her and the door. The knife was back in his hand.

• • •

Downstairs in the bar, the eyes of the two men jerked toward the ceiling at the heavy thump. Then a woman cried out, and they were on their feet, running.

Hooker raced out past the startled desk clerk and up the stairs, with Heinemann a step behind him. When he reached the hallway, he could clearly hear the woman. It was Connie’s voice, not screaming but shouting a steady stream of profanity. Hooker reached the door in three long steps. He shoved it open.

Connie stood with her back pressed against the wall. In front of her was a sweating Indian, naked to the waist. As Hooker hesitated, the Indian whirled and lunged at him. Only then did Hooker see the knife.

A pistol cracked close beside him. So close that he felt the heat of the muzzle blast on his arm. The Indian stumbled and went to his knees. He looked down at the blood pumping from the hole in his chest as though wondering where it came from. Then his eyes rolled up under the lids, and he pitched forward on his face.

For a moment, the three of them stood there in frozen tableau, the two men in the doorway and Connie still backed against the wall next to her bed, eyes wide, hands to her mouth. And on the floor, the knife clutched in one lifeless hand, the shirtless Indian.

Then, with a sudden release from tension, Connie ran to Hooker. Without hesitation, he took her in his arms. He held her and stroked her hair, sharply aware of how fresh it smelled. Her body was warm and smooth under the slippery blue silk.

For Christ sake, Hooker thought, I’m getting a hard-on.

Connie pulled her head back a little and looked at him. He started to say something, but her eyes told him to save it. They moved apart almost casually, each reluctant to let go.

Hooker turned to Klaus Heinemann. He held a Luger pistol straight down at his side. A curl of blue smoke rose from the muzzle.

“I thought you didn’t like guns.”