by Lionel White
“There are five of them inside,” I said. “Two of them have been handcuffed together. One has been killed. The others are Morales and a second man I don’t recognize. They must have just finished with the hijacking. The second man is armed. Morales may be. We are going in.”
Angel started to move forward, but I held him back.
“I will go first,” I said. “I don’t know whether the door is locked, but it probably isn’t. In any case, I will crash through, and you follow. I want you to be free to use that gun if you have to.”
I turned then and once more crept toward the porch. This time when I crossed it, I made no effort to be silent. I covered the brief expanse in four, quick, running steps and then my shoulder hit the door of the lodge. Angel Cortillo was directly behind me as I crashed through and fell to one knee.
Morales and his companion swung around as they heard the door crash in. Morales had half drawn a revolver, and his companion was reaching for his holster. They froze as Angel followed me into the lounge.
For a moment it was a silent tableau, no one moving, no one speaking.
“Their guns,” Angel said.
Morales glared at me as I took his revolver. His companion’s holster yielded a.38 calibre Police Special. Cocking the.38, I pointed it at Morales’ stomach.
“The girls,” I said. “Where are they?”
Captain Morales spoke, his voice bitter.
“Senor Johns,” he said. “You are not only a criminal, you are a goddamned fool.”
I took a step forward and raised the barrel of the gun.
“I asked you where they are.”
“Your young ladies,” he said, and there was nothing humorous about the thin smile on his face, “are in a bedroom down that hallway to the left. They are tied up and gagged, but they are uninjured. It seems our friends here,” he nodded toward O’Farrell and O’Farrell’s stooge, “got to them a few minutes before we arrived.”
I wasted no time. I called over my shoulder as I started for the hallway.
“Shoot if they make a move, Angel.”
I found the hall-light, and then I was at the first door to the left pushing it open. The light was out in the room, and it took me a moment to find the switch.
Ann and her sister lay side by side on the double bed. Their hands had been bound behind them, and there were gags across their mouths. Both of them stared at me wild eyed as I stepped into the room and moved over to the bed.
I reached down and untied the handkerchief which had held the gag in place in Ann’s mouth.
She said, “Oh, thank God,” and then she started to cry. I untied her hands.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Stay here, don’t leave the room. Take care of your sister.”
I turned then and started back for the front of the lodge.
As I did, the silence was shattered by the crash of gunfire.
I pulled the revolver from my belt and ran forward.
Angel Cortillo was lowering the machine gun. Opposite him, Captain Hernando Morales was still standing, but the man next to him had suddenly slumped and fallen back into a chair. He was holding his right arm, and I could see blood spurting through the sleeve. I looked at Angel.
“What in the hell have you done?” I yelled.
Angel didn’t answer me, but Captain Morales did.
“What has he done?” he repeated. He looked at me bitterly. “Why, your friend has just shot a United States customs official in the performance of his duty.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.
“Exactly what I said,” Captain Morales said. “He has shot a United States customs officer. I expect in a moment that he will shoot me too. Are you surprised? I told you that your friend was a killer.”
I looked at Angel in bewilderment.
“Give me the gun, Angel. I’ll hold them. See if a phone is working. If it is, call the state police.”
Angel merely stared at me for a minute and then shook his head.
“I’m sorry, amigo,” he said. “But I can’t do that. You see, there is that package on the table. If it is what I think it is, why, it must be” worth a million dollars or more.”
I still didn’t think I was hearing right.
“Have you lost your mind, Angel?”
“No, my friend, but if you think I am going to walk away and just leave it, or call the police to pick me up, you are the one who is crazy.”
Captain Morales looked at me almost pityingly.
“You seem bewildered, Senor Johns,” he said. “Are you surprised that a man who is capable of committing murder should be capable of stealing?”
Angel Cortillo lifted the barrel of the gun and swung it toward him, and I could almost see his finger beginning to tense on the trigger. I took two, quick steps and pushed the barrel of the submachine gun toward the ground.
“For God’s sake, Angel,” I said. “Have you gone completely mad?”
For the first time, O’Farrell spoke out.
“Mr. Johns, if you and your friend want to continue to live, you will find the keys to these handcuffs and release us. And be quick about it. They have two others with them somewhere outside. You failed to arrive here as you were expected and are responsible for this situation. Release us, and perhaps it will be overlooked.”
“Release him, and we will none of us walk out of here alive,” Captain Morales said. “Those two are under official arrest.”
“What you do after I leave is your concern, my friend,” Angel said, looking directly at me. “But I am going and I am taking that box with me.”
He made a sudden lunge and knocked the revolver from my hand. Stepping back, he swept the submachine gun around so that it was pointed directly at my stomach.
“Don’t interfere, amigo. Don’t interfere, and you won’t be hurt. I have no desire to injure you. But I am taking that package and I am leaving. I have already killed one man and shot another. I will shoot more, if I have to.”
“You shot a United States customs official, Cortillo,” Captain Morales said. “That was a mistake. You won’t get a hundred miles.”
I looked over at Morales again. “Twice you’ve said a United States customs official,” I said. “Just what is this all about?”
Morales looked over at his companion, who was still holding his wounded arm. The big, blond man reached into the breast pocket of his khaki shirt and took out a silver badge and flipped it out on the table. He didn’t speak.
“You see,” Captain Morales said, “you have been very stupid all along, Senor Johns. What you haven’t realized is that I have been working secretly in collaboration with United States narcotics’ officials. You fell for my story that I was mixed up in the drug racket, because I wanted you to believe that. I wanted you to lead me to certain people. I even arranged to see that you were given marijuana to take into the States, so that you could make the correct contacts.
“You were stupid about that, but you were even more stupid about your friend, Angel Cortillo. You see, Angel Cortillo really did murder that girl. Something you were unprepared to believe. He murdered that girl and right now he’s considering murdering every person in this room, including you.”
O’Farrell was staring at Angel.
“Your name is Cortillo?” he asked. “Well, Cortillo, you and I can do business. You can take the heroin and you can get away from here, but you will never live to spend the money. You will never live long enough to sell the stuff.
“I have connections, Cortillo. You’re going to be a wanted man. A very-much-wanted man. As I understand, overhearing this conversation, right now you are wanted in Mexico for murder. I’m in a position to protect you. I think we should do business together.”
“Nobody can protect you, Cortillo,” Captain Morales said. “We have two men outside���”
“I have already killed one of them,” Angel Cortillo said. “And I don’t think the other one
���”
What had stopped him in mid-sentence was the sound that reached all of our ears simultaneously. It was the sound of dragging footsteps crossing the wooden floor of the porch outside of the smashed-in door.
Angel swung around, and as he did the dark silhouette of a man loomed up in the open doorway. Angel lifted the submachine gun and pressed his finger on the trigger.
I almost reached him in time, and I probably would have if I hadn’t leaned down to sweep up the revolver which he had knocked out of my hand.
He was still pressing the trigger as he swung around, and then the machine gun was suddenly silent. It didn’t stop him. He used the gun like a bat, and the steel barrel caught me across the forehead as I was raising the revolver.
It felt as though my entire head was exploding, and for one brief instant I could feel myself falling before I lost consciousness.
I could not have been out for more than two or three minutes at the most, but it took me another minute or so to orient myself as I came to. I was propped up against the table, and Captain Morales was leaning over me. There was a deep slash across his right cheek. Blood was gushing from it and soaking his shirt.
“Where-where is he?” I said.
“He’s in the room with the two girls. He has a knife. He got me after he knocked you out with the gun barrel. He ran out of ammunition, or we would both be dead.”
He was helping me to my feet, but from the amount of blood he was losing, he was going to need help himself before very long.
“He has threatened to kill the girls if we go near him,” Morales said.
I looked at him helplessly.
“See if you can talk to him,” Captain Morales said.
As I stepped toward the darkened hallway, Angel called out.
“Stay away. Stay away, or I will kill them. Both of them.”
“Angel,” I said, “it is hopeless. We have the guns now, and we can get you before���”
“I will have time for one of them in any case,” Angel said. “The older one. She’s your girl, my friend, and I will take her first. Unless you do exactly as I say. I want you to bring a loaded revolver and come into the hallway. The door to the bedroom will be partly opened. You will toss the gun in. You understand?”
Morales and I stared at each other for a moment, and Angel spoke again.
“You think I am fooling? I don’t bluff, my friend.”
As he finished speaking, there was a sudden scream from the bedroom.
“Oh, my God, don’t! Please don’t!”
The voice was Ann’s, but the terrified cry which followed a second later belonged to her sister, Lynn.
I started to rush for the hallway, but Morales grabbed me to hold me back.
“That was merely a pin prick,” Angel called out. “The next time it will be deeper. Much deeper. You have just thirty seconds to toss that gun-in here.”
Morales had retrieved the revolver which I had removed from his partner’s holster. Quickly he broke it and dumped the shells out in the palm of his hand. He handed it to me and then leaned close to whisper into my ear.
“It will fake him some five seconds to check to see that it is loaded,” he said. “Five seconds is all you will have.”
As he pulled back, he reached for a small.25 calibre automatic from a leg holster he had been wearing, concealed just above his left ankle. He handed it to me.
He was bleeding like a stuck pig, and his face was dead white. He was leaning against the table and gradually he began to slip to the floor.
“Your thirty seconds are almost up,” Angel yelled.
I could hear sobbing in the background as I started for the bedroom.
I was within two feet of the door when the light went on inside.
“Don’t come any nearer. Slide the gun up to the doorway.”
His voice halted me in my tracks, and I leaned down and pushed the unloaded.38 calibre Police Positive forward across the floor.
I saw his hand as he reached through the half-opened door to pick it up.
He was closing the door as I leaped.
Captain Morales had guessed right. Angel was holding Ann with his arm around her neck and he still held the bowie knife in the hand which held her. But the.38 was in his other hand, and he was flipping the barrel out to check and see if it was loaded as I crashed into the room.
There was no time to aim the automatic, no time to do anything but point it and keep pressing the trigger.
I wasn’t looking at Lynn, who was lying on the floor in a pool of spreading blood. I didn’t look at Ann, who was silently struggling to get free. I was watching Angel. I was watching his eyes as he stared at me and the lower part of his face began to disintegrate in a gory mass of smashed bones and flesh. There was surprise and an odd, strange questioning expression of disbelief in those eyes, as his arm fell away from Ann and the knife dropped from his fingers. Then he too began to crumble and fall.
***
“��� and so, Mr. Johns,” he said, “we will, of course, have to bring certain charges against you. But in view of everything that has happened, in view of your cooperation, your willingness to be a witness for the prosecution, I think you will be given a suspended sentence.”
Ann squeezed the fingers of my hand, but I didn’t look at her. I looked at Captain Morales. His face was almost totally concealed by bandages.
“One thing, captain,” I said, “I still don’t understand. I have given a statement. I have mentioned everything that happened. I can appreciate why it will be necessary to press the marijuana charge. But about the Hutchinsons. Why was it necessary for me to plant the narcotics in their car?”
“Well, you see, Senor Johns,” Captain Morales said, “that was another mistake you made. You assumed you were planting narcotics. What you didn’t realize was that you were planting an electronic device which gave out a beep which we were able to pick up, so that the car could be followed from the time it left Ensenada until after it crossed the border and entered the United States.”
I looked at him in amazement. “You had me plant an electronic device in their car. But why?”
“Why? Because, Senor Johns, the Hutchinsons were running dope. The background was legitimate enough. He was a retired college-professor. Of course, his wife was not actually crippled. They used a very clever method to get the narcotics across the border. She would keep it under her in the wheelchair, the one place no one would think of looking. No one would dream of asking a crippled woman to stand up and walk, while her chair was searched.
“We knew they were smuggling the stuff in, but we weren’t sure exactly how. What we most wanted to find out was where it was to be delivered. Unfortunately, the thing was bungled at the time that the delivery was made. It was to be a simulated hold up, but what happened was the people who were accepting delivery panicked when the FBI agents interrupted. Our plan failed, only because the key figure was killed and the other two made their escape.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“The Hutchinsons,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”
“You are a very naive man, Senor Johns,” Captain Morales said. “You couldn’t believe I was an honest cop. You couldn’t believe that it isn’t easy for an amateur to bring marijuana into the States. You couldn’t believe your friend Angel murdered that girl Sharon.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why?”
“We can only guess why. After you gave her his name, she was curious. She wasn’t afraid of me. But she knew you were mixed up in something, and she wanted to find out about it. And then too, she was also a bit of a nymphomaniac. Cortillo was a sadist. The first time he merely beat her up and then paid her off. But the second time he was drunk and he went too far. He probably started to cut her a little, and she panicked and began fighting back. So he went berserk. His kind do. It was not by accident I had the two of you stopped at the border.
But when you escaped, you almost became responsible for his committing two mor
e murders.”
He hesitated and then said, “Yes, senor, you may have meant well, but you have been very foolish. I think this young lady of yours had better take you in hand. You need a keeper.”
Lieutenant Carlton Mendal of the United States Narcotics Division stood up.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to break this up now,” he said. “Mr. Johns, we will have to hold you, but I’m sure that bail can be arranged.”
He turned to Ann.
“We will need a statement from you before you leave,” he said. “One from your sister, as soon as she is available. How is she?”
“She had to have a half a dozen stitches, but it wasn’t a serious wound,” Ann said. “She’s home now, resting.”
It took another hour before the lawyer Ann had brought in was able to arrange for my bail bond.
But we didn’t leave the courthouse immediately. We had another appointment. An appointment with a superior court judge, who had agreed to officiate at our very private wedding ceremony.
Captain Morales was our witness. I think he just wanted to make sure that I would have someone around to keep me out of trouble from then on.
