Have Gat—Will Travel

by Richard S. Prather

  Rath's face filmed with perspiration and a little saliva drooled from the corner of his mouth. He kept grinning all the time, enjoying himself. He'd hit me and the air would gush out of my mouth; everything swam in front of me and finally Rath was just a blur of movement that meant pain.

  I realized the blows had stopped. A hand ripped my shirt open and I tried to lift my head. Rath slapped me several times then said, "Look, Scott."

  My eyes focused slowly on the knife in his hand. I saw it move back and forth, then the point pressed against my chest. "See how easy to kill you?" Rath said. His voice was taut and excited like that of a man in bed with a woman. "See?" he said. He pushed on the knife a little and I felt the point bite into my chest, slice through the skin and flesh.

  I almost yelled aloud, tried to press back against the tree, suck in my chest and get away from that blade, and Rath laughed, pulled the knife away and held it before my eyes, let me see the red-stained tip. "So get out of Mexico, Scott. Or next time I push this thing all the way in."

  He ran the honed edge down the front of my chest, cutting the skin, not deep but painfully. Then he stepped back. The men behind me let go of my arms and I fell forward on my face, unable to stand. My cheek pressed against the dirt and I saw Rath's pointed shoe leave the ground and felt it dig into my side, then there was a blow on my head again and welcome blackness swept over me.

  I must have lain there unconscious for quite a while because it was nearly dark when I came out of it. When I tried to move I gasped as pain leaped through my stomach and chest. I bit my lip, grunting, as I got slowly to my feet and started trying to find the road. I could move only a few feet before I had to stop and rest. Finally I reached the Reforma and got a taxi to stop.

  "Get me to a doctor," I told him.

  Doctor Dominguez pressed the last wide strip of adhesive tape against my chest and said, "There. You don't seem to have internal injuries, but we'd better get you to the hospital."

  "I told you I haven't got time for that." My brain was alert enough now; I simply hurt like hell. "Just so I'm not bleeding inside, Doctor, and nothing's busted."

  "At least you should go to bed and stay there."

  I could explain to him that there wasn't room in my mind for thinking about hospitals or beds. The fat face of Hammond and the thin features of Rath, and the white, dead face of Pete Ramirez took up all the room there was in my mind. I just wasn't able to think about anything else even if I'd wanted to. And I didn't want to.

  Before he'd started working on me I'd given Doctor Dominguez the cube of gum still in my pocket, the Chiclet, and told him what I suspected. Half an hour after he finished bandaging me he had the other answer.

  "Yes, Mr. Scott," he said, "it was drugged. Crude, too; somebody merely hollowed out a small space inside the gum and filled it with the powder —"

  "Would it kill a man?"

  He frowned. "It might. Hard to say. It would at least make him sluggish, drowsy. Why? Where did you get this?"

  "Arthur Hammond gave it to a jockey who was killed today."

  He got slightly green. "Ah — no, you must be mistaken. Mr. Hammond is a well thought of man." It was obvious the name Hammond frightened him. He said, less warmly, professional now, "That is all I can do for you."

  It was also obvious he wanted to get rid of me. I paid him, asked him to call me a cab, and left. . . .

  I stood outside the Rio Rosa, a nightclub near Insurgentes, pain constant in my chest and stomach. I'd got a morphine surett from the doctor, but it was in my pocket; I might need it more later than I did right now. From the doctor's I'd gone to the Prado and picked up my gun; then I had started hunting for any one of the four men I was after. But now, three hours later, this was the only lead I had. I'd checked the phone book: no Hammond. A man with as many enemies as Hammond undoubtedly had doesn't advertise his address. I'd checked every crumb I knew in Mexico City, and plenty I didn't know. His address was a complete mystery. Almost all I'd learned was that a lot of people were afraid of Hammond and his thugs — and of Hammond's pal, Valdez. But I learned that a couple of months ago Jimmy Rath had paid the rent on an apartment for a girl named Chatita, who was now in the show here at Rio Rosa — and apparently didn't like Rath any more. I went inside.

  For fifty pesos the headwaiter let me knock on the door of Chatita's dressing room. When she opened the door, her eyes widened with surprise. I guess I didn't look very handsome, with my jaw swollen and a cut in the flesh over my cheekbone.

  I said, "May I talk to you for a minute?"

  She looked at my bruised face, frowning. "I am sorry. I must get dressed."

  Now that I took a look at her, she was right. She had on a silk wrapper thin enough so that the points of her full breasts showed through it. She started to shut the door and I took a chance. "It's about Jimmy Rath."

  I got more than I bargained for. "Jimmy!" she said venomously. She opened the door wide, looked at my face again. "Did he do this to you?" I nodded and she said, "Come in." She shut the door behind me, locked it, then turned to face me. "Sit down," she said, pointing toward a wooden chair. "You . . . do not like Jimmy?"

  "I hate him," I said. "I want to find him and tell him so."

  She smiled. It wasn't a very nice smile. "I hope you find him," she said. "I hope you beat him to death."

  This Chatita was tall, close to six feet in her high heels, and she would have towered above Rath. He was shaping up as a queer one. Chatita had the sensual, smooth-skinned face found on many of the lovely Mexican women, with large dark eyes and a mass of black hair. Her face had a hot beauty that went with her full-curved body.

  "Where can I find him?" I asked.

  "I wish I knew. How do you know I once knew him?"

  "I heard you were friendly. Not any more, huh?"

  She walked toward me, stood in front of the chair I sat in. "I am an exotica," she said. "A dancer." She meant, I figured, that she did a strip act. She went on, "My body, it assures me a living, a job."

  I didn't know what she was getting at, but I nodded.

  "My body," she said, "it is good. It is to be proud of." She had been holding the thin robe around her; now she parted it, slid it down from her shoulders as she faced me.

  She wore brief panties beneath, nothing else. And she did have a lovely body, full and voluptuously curving. Her breasts were large, firm, erect. I didn't know why she had so suddenly pulled the robe from her shoulders, but soon I understood.

  Her flat stomach was a criss-cross of scratches where someone had played there with a sharp knife. "You see," she said. "That is from Jimmy. I hope you find him." She bit her lip. "My body he has made ugly. Ugly!" She pulled the robe back over her shoulders.

  She sat in a chair before the dressing table and we talked for a few minutes. When she'd known Rath, he had lived in Arthur Hammond's house — but she didn't know where the house was. It seemed no one knew where the fat bastard lived. Except for that she couldn't help me, though she gave me a better picture of Rath himself.

  "He is evil," she said. "Insanely evil. He bought me expensive things, but I could not stay. I was with him one month. The cuts, they are from the knife he carries always." She hesitated, then went on, "Even in bed. He would hold it here —" she pointed to her throat — "when he . . . at the moment when . . . " She didn't finish it, but I knew what she meant. After a pause she continued, as if she wanted to share what she knew with somebody else. "He wanted me to hurt him. He liked to hurt and be hurt. Twice he gave to me the knife, asking that I hurt him with it. Carefully, he would say, carefully. But I could not do it and he would become angry, frightening. Then one night, he did this to me." She touched her stomach.

  She was quiet for a minute. I had already told her that if I found Rath I was going to break several of his bones, and she said, "If you do find him, remind him of this. Will you, for me?" Her fingers moved slowly over her stomach beneath her silk robe again. "It would help me," she said, "because there is inside me much ha
te for him."

  "I'll remind him, Chatita. If there's time."

  I started to get up normally, forgetting my bruises, and flopped back into the chair. The next try I made it moving slowly. Chatita stepped to me and took my arm, her face softening for the first time. "I did not know you were hurt so. You hate him as much as I, no?"

  "Maybe more, honey." Her robe had fallen open, baring her breasts. I put my hands on her shoulders, caressed her gently and said, "You probably make the cuts worse in your mind than they really are, Chatita. To a man, they mean nothing. Believe me. You're a beautiful and desirable woman."

  I could hear her breathing quicken as I continued to touch her. Her tongue moved over her lower lip. "Thank you," she said. "It is good of you, but it is not true."

  "It is true."

  Under different circumstances, I don't think I'd have got out of there before morning. But I left. Before she closed the door she smiled at me and said, "Thank you. Perhaps . . . perhaps it is true."

  I grinned, said, "You bet it is," and staggered out of the place.

  At two in the morning I gave up and went back to my room at the del Prado. I hadn't learned anything except what Chatita had told me, and by two o'clock I felt like a walking hamburger. I went to bed.

  Getting up in the morning and getting dressed was a solid half-hour of agony. It had been bad enough before I slept, but now my muscles had stiffened and every movement was torture. I was two-hundred-plus pounds of pain — and hate. But the hate was stronger than the pain.

  I walked around the room for another half an hour working my arms, bending, stretching gingerly, until I felt better. Then I had breakfast and started hunting again. I knew if everything else failed I could spot the men I wanted at the track, but there were no more races until Saturday. I checked the phone books again — no Hammond listed.

  At five o'clock in the afternoon I came out of a bar on Bucareli. I'd heard it was a hangout for Kelly, and I'd hoped to get some information. All I got was blank stares. But I found Kelly — and Rath.

  When I came out, they were waiting for me in the big Packard, a custom job with a low two-digit license plate which shouted that this was an important car and to keep out of its way. Kelly was behind the wheel and Rath stood outside, leaning against the door. When he saw me, he walked over to me.

  The street was crowded, but the gripe and fury and hate boiled up inside me when I saw him and I reached for him.

  He said sharply, "Hold it. You want the girls hurt?"

  That stopped me. "What do you mean, you little pile of —"

  "Watch it," he said. I didn't like the casual, confident way he was talking. He knew I could bend him till he broke, but he said, "We told you to beat it, Scott. You got no sense at all. Now listen. There's a plane out at seven. You be on it. You don't want nothing to happen to those girls, do you?"

  "What girls?"

  "Vera. And Elena Angel. You kind of like that Elena's pretty face — and things. Don't you, Scott? She's a real hot-looking tamale. Be a shame if something happened to her. It will, Scott, unless you get lost fast."

  I wanted to get my hands on this guy so bad it was hard for me to think, but that penetrated. When it did, I started cooling down. My heart slowed and thudded heavily in my chest. But finally I realized he had me over a barrel. If I kept nosing around, I might get Vera and Elena hurt or killed. The thought of Rath getting his slimy hands on either one of them turned my stomach.

  Rath said, "You get out tonight, and we leave the gals alone." He shook his head. "Sure hate to miss gettin' next to that Elena, though."

  I grabbed him, jerked him to me. "You little bastard."

  He swallowed, but he said, "So help me, they'll get it. Let go. Let go of me. They'll get it sure."

  "All right. I'll quit. But if you lay a hand on either of them, I'll kill you."

  He grinned. "Seven o'clock. There'll be somebody at the airport to make sure you blow." Rath climbed into the car and they left. I went back into the bar, got the bar phone and shooed the bartender away. It had occurred to me that Rath would hardly have been so cocky unless he already had one or both of the girls somewhere.

  Elena didn't have a phone, but I called Vera's mother, got Vera and made sure she was all right. I told her to stay put, not go out alone, then hung up, grabbed a cab and told the driver to step on it. Sick worry built up in me and I kept seeing Elena's face, the dark eyes; I could almost feel the caress of her fingers and the cool pressure of her lips.

  In lomas we stopped in front of the apartments and I ran up and banged on Elena's door. It was unlocked and swung open. The apartment was empty. One blue slipper lay inside the front door. One. Its mate was nowhere in the apartment. There didn't seem to be any sign of a struggle, but in the bedroom I found a blouse and skirt, bra and panties folded neatly on a chair under which were shoes and stockings. The bathroom door was open and I went inside. The floor was wet in and near the shower, and a wet towel hung from the rack.

  Elena had been here not long ago. But her clothes were still outside on the chair. They must have forced their way in and taken her just the way she was, maybe in a robe or coat from the closet, something to cover her nakedness. And I still didn't have any idea where they might have gone. I knew I couldn't trust Rath — or any of them. If I left on that plane tonight, no telling what would happen to Elena. But if I didn't leave . . .

  I went into the bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed. I'd already gone over half the town, asking questions, threatening, trying to buy or beg information, and I'd got nothing solid. There had to be some other way. I racked my brain — and thought of something. It was a two-digit license number that I remembered seeing on a custom Packard.

  It took me an hour, and thirty-five hundred pesos, which was a lot of money, especially in Mexico. Over four hundred dollars, but it was worth it. I paid the money to a police officer and learned that the license plates had been issued to Arthur L. Hammond at an address in Cuernavaca — fifty miles away over a curving, dangerous road.

  I rented the fastest car I could find and pushed the accelerator down all the way and kept it down except when not slowing down would be suicide. I couldn't be sure Elena would be at Hammond's, but it seemed likely. Chatita had told me Rath lived at Hammond's. I remembered the other things she'd told me too, and I thought with revulsion, almost with horror, of Rath's hands on Elena's soft body, his knife at her throat . . . his wet lips on her lips and flesh. I kept the accelerator down.

  It's usually more than an hour's drive to Cuernavaca from Mexico, but I made it in forty minutes. My watch said seven-fifteen when I cut the car lights and coasted to a stop near the big house where I knew Hammond lived. Three minutes at a service station, after I told the attendant the address, had given me the location, but three minutes were three too many. They'd know by now that I hadn't left on that seven o'clock plane. I took out my gun and checked it. Driving had loosened my muscles, but the pain that had been with me all day was even worse, and I wanted to be able to move fast, without pain slowing me.

  I took the morphine surette from my pocket, pulled up my sleeve, jammed the hollow needle into my arm and squeezed half of the morphine into my blood. I knew how it would affect me, that it would keep me keyed up, make me a little lightheaded, but it would kill the pain enough so I'd be nearly normal — and it wouldn't slow me down or blur my brain too much.

  I got out of the car and walked through darkness toward the house. The Packard was parked in the driveway. Lights burned in the lower floor of the house, and thick vines covered the walls. I walked to the rear of the house, feeling the morphine working, easing the ache. My skin tingled slightly.

  I heard a scream, suddenly stifled. It had come from the back of the house here, above me. On the second floor, light spilled from an open window and I heard a short cry again — from that room where lights blazed. Ugly pictures crawled in my mind as I stared at the lighted window, then I walked toward the wall beneath it. Vines covered the entire wall,
but I didn't know if they'd support my weight. Like a lot of the Cuernavaca houses, this one had small terrazas or balconies at many of the windows, including the one I wanted to reach. I pulled at one of the vines and let my body hang from it. It sagged, rustling and scraping slightly against the wall, but it didn't break.

  I was a bit lightheaded now, and buoyant. I felt incredibly strong, and I was completely unafraid of what might happen to me. I took off my shoes and pulled myself up the vines, finding spots to place my feet, straining upward with all my strength in my arms. It seemed to take hours instead of minutes, as if time had been distorted, but my outstretched hand touched the rim of the balcony and I wrapped my fingers around it, pulled myself up, and stepped over the rail.

  I could see into the room, see part of a bed, a bare leg in my line of vision. I moved to my right, taking the .38 Colt from its holster. Elena lay naked on the bed, huddled against the headboard. There was fear in her eyes, and revulsion. The muscles along her flat stomach rippled with terror, and her breasts heaved as she drew in a frightened breath.

  I couldn't see anybody else. With the revolver tight in my right hand I bent and went through the open window fast. Elena jerked on the bed and rolled to one side and I looked toward her as I stepped inside the room. But even as I looked in her direction I sensed, more than I saw, movement on my right. I spun around, bringing up the gun as Rath jumped toward me, his thin face twisted and ugly, and the gleaming knife in his right fist slashing up from his side toward my belly. Instinctively I thrust my hands at the slashing blade and felt the jar against my gun just before it slipped from my hand and fell to the floor.

  Rath jerked his hand back, thrust at me again with the knife, and I stepped aside. It seemed that I had all the time in the world and as the point of the knife leaped at me I slapped my hand past its arc and clamped my fingers on Rath's thin wrist. My other hand shot to his elbow, jerked as I pressed downward on his wrist, and in the slow motion of my mind I saw the knife turn to point at his chest, my fingers slipping down to cover his hand and imprison the knife there as he shouted in sudden pain. I gripped his elbow tight, then shoved with all my strength against Rath's hand.