by Tom Ardies
“Woosh,” Marina gasped, finally finding her voice. “That was an awful shock. Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I didn’t know,” Buchanan explained weakly, equally stunned by this unexpected development.
“Then who did it?”
“Brmf,” Adele mumbled, fighting against her gag. Fear—or was it a warning?—showed in her eyes.
“I did it,” Harry cried, leaping off the stack. He reached into his shorts and yarded out Mendoza’s huge automatic. “Okay. Both of you. Inside and up against the wall.”
Buchanan was going to protest, but the black hole of the muzzle, which seemed to be a foot across, quickly changed his mind. He did as instructed—and raised his hands for good measure.
“Don’t just stand there, ninny,” Marina complained. “Do something.”
“I am,” Buchanan told her.
Marina couldn’t accept this sudden flush of cowardice. Where was the man who had piled that stack in the other room? Trounced two bully policemen and this painted pansy to boot? “You’re not going to hit him?”
“No.”
“Wise of you,” Harry said, smiling, fondling the automatic. “This hits faster—and harder.”
Buchanan was painfully aware of Marina’s disdainful look. “The great equalizer.”
“Is it?” Harry asked, the smile blinking off. He tossed the gun on the bed and backed off so that he was the same distance from it as Buchanan. “Come on. Let’s see who needs it most.”
Buchanan didn’t move. This must be some kind of trick.
“Grab it!” Marina shrieked.
Buchanan still didn’t budge. Even if it wasn’t a trick, Harry might very well beat him to the gun. He’d heard of fast fairies.
“What’s the matter?” Harry taunted. “Afraid … ?” His eyes flicked over Marina. “Why don’t you get yourself a man?”
“I thought I had one,” Marina said bitterly. Only good manners prevented her from spitting on Buchanan. “Obviously I was mistaken. He’s much more your type. Why don’t you take him out and fit him for pantyhose?”
Buchanan felt his neck turn red. That was the worst kind of cheap talk.
“Well?” Harry demanded of him. “You heard the lady. What’s your answer? You going to try for the gun or not?”
“Hah!” Marina said, thoroughly disgusted. “Buy him frilly panties while you’re at it. A garter belt.”
Buchanan’s neck turned from red to purple. Would the wretch never cease? She’d be suggesting sanitary napkins next.
“Your last chance,” Harry told Buchanan. He backed off two more steps. Any advantage he might have had was gone. The gun was Buchanan’s, not his.
“For God’s sake, grab it,” Marina screamed.
Buchanan was sorely tempted, but a sixth sense, an animal instinct, kept him frozen against the wall. He mustn’t listen to Marina. Her thirst for blood was insatiable. She’d never be satisfied ’til she saw him dead.
Harry laughed. “We’ll never know, will we, Slick? Are you yellow or smart?” He reached into his shorts and produced a second automatic, this one removed from the house detective, Ramirez. “You’d never have made it, of course.”
Buchanan turned pleadingly to Marina. See?
Marina turned away in disgust. She saw nothing.
“The ladies,” Harry said, still laughing. He swept Mendoza’s gun off the bed and motioned to the strips of torn bed sheet piled next to Adele and Herbert. “But you won’t have to listen much longer. Bind and gag her. Same as them.”
Marina submitted stoically as Buchanan followed Harry’s orders. Her only comment was saved until just before the gag. “And you call yourself a man?”
Buchanan made no reply. What was the use? One couldn’t win an argument with the shrew. Not even with her too wide mouth taped shut.
“Nicely done,” Harry said. “Now it’s your turn. Strip.”
“Strip?” Buchanan repeated dumbly. Did his captor have foul designs?
“To your shorts,” Harry ordered. “I want my clothes back. Yours are rather drab for my taste.”
Buchanan sighed with relief. His fair body was safe from abuse after all. He hurriedly complied, not unmindful that Marina’s thick envelope, still stuffed in his jacket pocket, came with the exchange. If he ever got out of this fix, he had plans for that money, and they didn’t include the present owner.
“Let’s make a deal?” he suggested, presenting himself in his underwear. “Partners? Fifty-fifty?”
“Uh, uh,” Harry said, shaking his head. He set to work with the last of the ripped bed sheet, binding expertly with his left hand, the right holding Ramirez’s automatic at the ready. Buchanan soon found himself tied back to back with Marina.
“Eighty-twenty?”
“Uh, uh,” Harry repeated, the gag still to come, “but I’ll tell you what. You’re free to go if you talk. Fairy’s honor.” There was a loud click as he released the automatic’s safety. “First—who do you work for?”
Buchanan stared unhappily down the muzzle’s black hole. “I’m self-employed.”
“Like hell,” Harry said. “Not on a caper this big.” He inched the gun closer. “I strongly advise you to change that answer. One last time—who do you work for?”
Buchanan cringed at the pressure of the cold steel. He was dead unless he produced some name. But who. Who?
No. Wait a minute. That employer was already taken. Remember Marina’s incoherent babbling at Guevara’s? She worked for who and the Glasses for what? Code names, obviously, and that left him … ?
“Well?”
“When,” Buchanan cried, forgetting where and why.
Harry lowered the automatic. “WHEN? I never heard of them. They a new outfit?”
“Yes,” Buchanan admitted.
“Goddam,” Harry complained. “That’s the trouble with this business. Too much competition. You can’t keep up …” The automatic slowly returned to its menacing position. “Okay. So WHEN ordered you to infiltrate WHO. Then what?”
Buchanan nodded eagerly. “Yes. Both of them.”
“Don’t get smart,” Harry warned. “We’ll skip the preliminaries. Just give me your salve sample—and no bullshit.”
“I would if I could,” Buchanan said earnestly. “But I don’t have it any longer. It’s gone.”
Harry cursed. He was afraid he might be too late. “WHEN?”
“This morning.”
“Goddam,” Harry said. “I’m warning you one last time. Don’t get smart!” His finger tightened on the trigger. “How come you didn’t keep a backup supply?”
“Too much of a risk,” Buchanan explained, remembering the foul smell. It could have got him kicked out of his room. “You know Contreras? The house doctor at the Geneve? He’s got it all—the whole jar.”
Harry whistled softly. Contreras, huh? That was neat. Very neat indeed. What better courier than a doctor? His finger squeezed harder on the trigger. “One last question. Pray you have the right answer. Do I have time to catch him?”
Marina knocked heads with Buchanan as a sly signal. Keep your stupid mouth shut.
“I-I don’t see why not,” Buchanan stammered, ignoring her. “He’s not going anywhere. You know the Nuevo Mundo Sanitarium—the psychiatric hospital?”
“Yes. But what’s he doing there?”
“He’s, uh,” Buchanan began, the word a stone in his throat. “He’s a patient.”
Harry lowered the gun. How the hell did you like that? Neat. Very, very neat. Imagine hiding your courier at the funny farm until the heat was off. WHEN might be new at the game—but it sure knew how to play.
“May I go now?” Buchanan asked hopefully.
“Sure,” Harry said. He taped Buchanan’s mouth and then ripped out the telephone and tossed it in his lap. “Just call the desk and ask for a bellhop.”
Buchanan stared at him in hurt disbelief. Why this cavalier treatment? Had he not co-operated fully?
“Oh, by the way,” Harry adde
d, pulling on his clothes. He held up the automatics with their butts showing. The ammo clips in both of them had been removed. “I never play with loaded guns. Someone might get killed, and nothing’s worth a murder charge, is it?” He was laughing again as he limped out of the bedroom in his fake built-up shoe. “So long, sucker.”
“Stpd bstrd,” Marina mumbled, immediately starting to thrash about, straining to break her bonds.
Stnnd cnt, Buchanan thought, rolling over heavily, squashing the fight out of her. How was he to know? Did one pause to ask if it was loaded when a gun was shoved up his nose? But he had learned an invaluable lesson. Never trust a fairy.
After a while, he rolled onto his side, permitting Marina to breath, but she started her thrashing again, making the bonds tighter. He had to squash her on three more occasions before she finally gave it up and remained still.
By that time, Buchanan was beginning to enjoy her slim body beneath him, braced and angry at first, then slowly surrendering to his manly weight and pressure. He sighed at the injustice of their being tied back to back. Oh, he had been taught a lesson, all right. Never trust a fairy.
Meanwhile, down in the lobby, Harry immediately went to a pay telephone, calling the secret number of a secret government agency, the Secreto Policía. Using a phony English accent, he asked for his usual contact, Vencedor, meaning Victor.
“’ello,” he said. “Bulldog here, and with jolly good news, I must say. Six Communist plotters—how would you like them on a platter?”
“Sí,” Vencedor said, turning on his tape recorder. Plotters on a platter? Someday he must learn English.
“Four are foreigners, two men, two women,” Harry continued. “The others, your countrymen, traitors. They, of course, will deny it, but don’t be misled, old boy. You will find damaging literature on their persons. You’ve heard of the Saturday Review?”
“Sí,” Vencedor said. He always said sí.
“The plot,” Harry went on, “is, or rather was, to disrupt the Tlaltelolco Conference, embarrassing your Presidente Echeverría. Stink bombs were to be used.” He paused, unhappy with that, wondering where he could buy stink bombs at this time of day. “I say, are you getting all of this, old boy?”
“Sí,” Vencedor said, Echeverría’s name having pricked up his ears. He cupped a hand over the phone and instructed his secretary to put her pants back on. This could be important. Emilio the translator, gone to a porno movie, must be located. What was the name of it? Dip Threat?
“Good,” Harry said, deciding not to worry about the stink bombs. The Secreto Policía was not totally inept. It could buy its own evidence. “If you hurry, you can catch them, old boy. Suite 1006 at the María Isabel.”
“Sí,” Vencedor said.
Harry hung up and went outside and threw a fit on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, thrashing around disgustingly, frothing at the mouth.
After he had quieted down for a while, the doorman came over to investigate, whereupon he found a large note pinned to Harry’s sweater.
“This man is a mental patient,” the note said in Spanish. “In case of fit please return him to the Nuevo Mundo Sanatorium.”
Buchanan tried to think. There was little time to lose. He must make his escape before Mendoza regained consciousness. But how, dammit? How?
Ten stories up, the window was no exit, and if he so much as showed himself there, gagged and bound to Marina, some busybody would call the police. The wrong kind of help.
What a sorry fix. He couldn’t even hop around the room looking for a sharp edge for fear of being spotted by a Peeping Tom. Dusk had gathered, the bedroom lights were on, the venetian blinds were up …
Wait a minute. Was he so helpless that he couldn’t draw the blinds? What if he hopped over and got his nose in the cord and gave it a good hard yank? There was ingenuity for you. Yank ingenuity.
A start at least, Buchanan decided. He rolled off the bed and struggled to his feet, Marina a dead weight, doing nothing to co-operate. Four hops brought him to the window, but it was, naturally, the wrong side. He had to drop down out of sight to the floor and roll over several times to get to the proper end.
By this time, Marina, not having grasped his grand design, was a definite hindrance, flapping about in protest. Still he managed to get to his feet again and place his nose in the correct loop of cord. One swooping pull and the blind came clattering down.
Buchanan congratulated himself on this success—could Cyrano de Bergerac have done better?—and used his nose once more to lift one of the slats. Just a quick peek to see if anyone had noticed. Then to work …
Hold on. He had been unaware that this was the east side of the hotel. He was across from the U. S. Embassy, and though it was only five stories high, the angle was such that he could see in the windows. It was well past five, most of the staff gone home, but on the top floor, the executive level, at least one official was still hard at work.
Buchanan could see him quite plainly, though only from the top, back. An older man, receding hairline, conservative dark suit. If he could attract his attention and get a message to him. An old embassy pro, years of overseas mission experience, resourceful, unflappable, he’d know what to do, would he not?
Wistfully, Buchanan’s gaze moved to the embassy roof, a maze of aerials and antennae. Through that complex communications network the man in the dark suit was in direct and secret contact with Washington. He could get help from the Pentagon. Perhaps even the White House.
As Buchanan watched, racking his brain for a way to reach him, the man in the dark suit pushed up from his desk, disappeared from sight, and then suddenly reappeared, this time to stand at his office window. He lit a cigarette and stood there smoking thoughtfully.
Was it? Yes, it was! Buchanan could hardly believe his good fortune. Henry Kissinger himself.
There was no time to waste. Buchanan quickly stuck his nose back in the looped cord and tugged as hard as he could. He had to get the blind back up, pound on the window, attract Henry’s attention. Let Marina fail to be impressed by this coup. The Secretary of State summoned to the rescue.
But already the plan was going awry. No matter how hard he tugged, nothing happened. The blind was stuck, jammed. With a loud twang, the cord finally snapped away, looping itself over the valance, out of reach.
Buchanan stared up at it in disbelief. How could this be happening to him? Was all to be lost by a wayward piece of string? His eyes began to smart with tears. The rope burn under his nose, surely. Men didn’t cry.
Oh yes, they did, Buchanan thought, tottering on the brink of an unseemly gush. Thwarted, frustrated, denied—a harridan riding on his back—even the strongest could be expected to break.
Then, at his darkest hour, an inspired solution struck. Thank God for his Boy Scout training. Ignoring Marina’s willful gyrations, Buchanan hopped madly to the other side of the window, where he located his nose in the looped cord controlling the angle of the blind’s plastic slats.
He labored feverishly. Up, down, up, down. Open, close, open, close. The Morse code message flashed to the U. S. Embassy.
H-E-L-P C-A-P-T-I-V-E A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N-S
H-E-L-P C-A-P-T-I-V-E A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N-S
Exhausted by the effort, Buchanan barely had the strength to get his poor nose under a slat, permitting him to see if his plaintive appeal had been received.
Yes. It obviously had been read. Across the way, Kissinger lowered his venetian blind, flashing back his answer.
I-C-A-N-T R-E-A-D M-O-R-S-E C-O-D-E
Buchanan sank to the floor in despair. He’d write to his Congressman about this matter. The State Department’s policy of non-involvement had been carried too far.
Emilio the translator, located at last in the Cinema Filthé, sucked loudly on a back molar, trying to dislodge a popcorn kernel. “You realize I am off duty?” he said.
Vencedor’s secretary, Tansy, who was basically a modest young woman, carefully kept her eyes averted from the screen.
Frankly, she’d had Dip Threat, down to here. “Sí. But this is importante.”
Emilio was unmoved. “So? But this is the best part.”
“The call was from the English informer, Perro Dogo,” Tansy said. “Some of the words used were Comunista, Tlaltelolco and Echeverría. Now will you come?”
“Not if you keep interrupting,” Emilio complained.
Tansy wondered. Was that his price and her duty? There was a sigh that masked the sound of a zipper. The things she did for love of country.
Meantime, back at the María Isabel, fortune was smiling, at last, on our doughty Buchanan. By an incredible stroke of luck, it was not Mendoza, but Ramirez, the hotel detective, who first regained consciousness.
Innocent of the pertinent facts, his condition dazed at best, Ramirez was putty in Buchanan’s hands when he staggered into the bedroom, inquiring as to what had happened.
“Rmv m gg, fl,” Buchanan mumbled, “nd I wll tll y.”
Ramirez zigzagged across the room and dutifully removed the gag. “Perdón, señor. I will put the question again. What has happened?”
“I will tell you,” Buchanan told him. “My wife and I—the woman on my back—have been beaten and robbed by a gang of scoundrels. We naturally wish to report this to the proper authorities. Would you be so kind as to summon the hotel detective?”
“I am the hotel detective,” Ramirez said.
“Well, that is service, I must say,” Buchanan observed. “Now, if you will be just as prompt to untie us, por favor.”
Ramirez hesitated. He was not so dazed as to have forgotten what originally brought him. A man had taken the key to the suite—and it was registered to a single woman. “You are a guest here?” he asked obliquely.
“My wife only,” Buchanan said. “I wasn’t scheduled to join her until tomorrow. Then, unexpectedly, a business deal was concluded earlier than anticipated, so I decided to surprise her.”
Ramirez still hesitated. The story sounded reasonable enough. But what of these other two? “What of these other two?” he asked.
