think they’re the fuckin’ PLO. Blindfolded when I got in the car. My guess is we went downtown. A lot of traffic noise. Drove for about eight minutes. Parked in what sounded like an indoor garage. Never went outside. Up one flight of stairs, straight ahead forty paces to office. Took off blindfold t talk. The four were back-lighted. Three thousand-watt floodlights behind them. Couldn’t see faces clearly. One did the talking. Tough talker, brown beard, left eye is kinda gray. Driver of pickup car wore ponytail and an earring in his ... uh, right ear. Looked to be about thirty. Office was small. Shades over windows, conference table, six chairs, telephone. Period. Not even an ashtray.’ He stopped and took a sip of his drink.
‘What did they ask you?’
‘Did I have the loot? The loot’s nice and safe, I tell ‘em. Are we ready to deal? I gotta know my man’s still alive, I says. They make a phone call. It’s this Lavander. English accent. Scared shitless. All he gets out is his name and “Please help me.” Deal is, we connect again at ten-thirty tonight. I bring the cash, they bring Lavander. Anybody follows me, they terminate the hostage, snatch another one, it’s the same ol’ ballgame but the price doubles.’
‘Where do you meet them?’
‘Same script as first time. They call with an address. I head into town, they intercept me somewhere along the way. They figure it worked the first time, why not use the same gag again. Stupid pipiolos.’
‘You did fine, Hinge,’ Falmouth said, ‘Sorry things got queered. Couldn’t be helped.’
‘Sure. Sorry I got my ass a little outa joint, there. There’s one other thing. The turkey with the weird eye? He’s mine, okay?’
‘My pleasure.’
Hinge smiled. ‘Okay, so... what’s plan Baker?’
Falmouth looked up at him and smiled back.
‘Gomez,’ he said, and handed Hinge a sheet of paper with the chauffeur’s address on it.
The house was a red hut among many red huts on the western ridge of the mountains that separate Caracas from the rest of Venezuela. Its main room was small and barren. The bed doubled as a sofa. A furniture crate beside it served as an end table. There was a small lamp on the crate but it was turned off. Posters of John Travolta, Rod Stewart, Blondie and Farrah Fawcett covered the walls, and a transistor radio, with the heavy beat of disco music pounding from its small speaker, was on the floor beside the sofa bed. The only other furniture was two wooden chairs near the windows, one of them stacked with dirty laundry. There was also a phone on the floor in one corner. A handmade rug covered part of the linoleum floor, its corners ravelled and dirty. Flimsy strips of cotton hung limply over the windows. Beside the lamp on the crate was a small-calibre pistol.
Gomez was getting laid on the sofa bed.
This woman is a noisy one, God, is she noisy, Gomez thought. My neighbours, they will think, I’m killing someone in here. But this tiger, this man-eater, she may kill me.
Todavia no, todavia no! she cried and he was trembling and he felt like exploding. She wiggled under him, squealing with delight, then screaming, then groaning. Her legs were wrapped around his hips, and each time he thrust into her she tightened them a little more, digging deeper into his back with her fingernails. Sweat dripped from his chin onto her forehead and she giggled and then shoved up hard against him, In the semi-dark room he could see her face under his, and her eyes were rolled back and crazy.
Mas, mas, mas,’ she demanded and he didn’t have much more to give and felt himself peaking and his ass getting tighter as he tried to hold back.
He barely heard the door crash open.
For the next few seconds, everything seemed to happen in confused, blurred slow motion: two grim figures framed in the doorway the girl, opening her mouth to scream
a faint sound
the woman, her chest erupting into pulp, slamming back against the wall the slugs, ripping into her, making more noise than the gun itself the girl falling on her side, her head dangling limply over the side of the sofa bed, her sweaty black hair hanging straight down to the floor red stains widening across the sheet toward him turning, finally, reaching for the gum again that dull sound, almost inaudible
the gun and the lamp and the crate vanishing in an explosion of splinters falling back on the bed, still gasping for breath, still erect, his eyes staring in terror at the form beside the bed, pointing a machine gun at his eye.
It was all over in a few seconds. What in God’s name!
In the semidarkness the finger of light from a flashlight led the other figure into the bathroom, then the kitchen.
‘Shut up,’ the one with the machine gun snapped. ‘And speak English when ye’re asked.’
He heard the sound of water running into the bathtub. The other one came back and he recognized his drawling voice.
‘Nobody else here. The sucker’s really big time. Got himself a fuckin’ bathtub. Running water. Goddamn new phone over there in the corner. I mean, look at that brand-new phone, I’ll bet there ain’t been five calls made on it yet.’
Hinge picked up one of the chairs and went back toward the bathroom with it. ‘Shit, ol’ Ray-fi-el, he’s dreamin’ of bein’ a fuckin’ millionaire, aintcha there, Ray-fi-el.’
Gomez said nothing. He looked at the girl, at the blood gushing from her butchered chest, like water pouring from an open spigot. He started to get sick.
