The Consummata

was silhouetted against the street-lamp and traffic glow. Five feet away was Tango’s room, and I could see the windows curtained with no light bleeding through at all.

If Bunny was right, the man-hating hooker was probably just asleep—the motel was where she went to relax and cool it. But I still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong with the play.

You can’t call it instinct, because it’s learned; but it’s nothing mental, strictly physical, as the back of your neck prickles and your belly tightens and your eyes narrow and your mind becomes a resonating space where caution calls to you in vague yet not uncertain terms.

So I just stood there, looking around again and sorting out the details until my inner warning system found the flaw for me.

Tango didn’t have a car. She always traveled by cab, Bunny had said.

Yet all the car slots were filled.

Maybe some of the partygoers down at the other end weren’t guests at the Vincalla, and the overflow had filled up some extra slots.

But down here on this very quiet end of things, a blue Mustang convertible was parked in the stall right outside Tango’s room, and its hood was still very warm. Hot.

I snaked the .45 out, cocked the hammer back and took a run at the door, smashing it open with a kick, then rolling inside just as the phut of a silenced gun poked two fingers of light directly over my head. I scrambled to my knees, brought the .45 up, and a foot kicked the gun out of my hand.

But I got that hand on my would-be assailant’s other leg, yanked hard, and a cursing, flailing heavyweight came down on top of me, the rod in his fist smashing against my back and shoulders trying to find my skull.

I gave him just enough leeway to think he had me nailed, then drove my head up against the point of his chin and, when he reeled back, grabbed him between the legs and squeezed so hard the scream that started in his throat never got anywhere, choking off into an anguished sob as he jackknifed forward with incredible pain.

That put me over onto my back, and I was under him, with no idea where my .45 had got to, and for all the pain he was in, he did still have that silenced rod in his mitt, he’d managed to hold onto it, so I glommed onto his gun hand before he could get his pain in check, and twisted my grip on his wrist, thumb slipping under the butt of the gun into the fleshy palm, digging my thumbnail in, hoping to make his grasp go away, but instead in the struggle I again heard that little phut and a bullet angled up and into him, his sob whistling off into a throaty rattle that had bubbles in it.

I pushed him off me, still wondering where the .45 had got to, and moved to where the door stood open, and peeked out to see if anybody had heard the noise of the struggle. But there was nothing out there, just the laughter and rock music of that party down the way.

Luck was still with me, it seemed.

Only it wasn’t—I never figured on a second man. Never figured the guy I’d tangled with, who was still giving off his death rattle on the floor, had a friend with him, a friend who would quietly wait in the darkness of the bathroom to see how the fight between his partner and the intruder turned out.

Those well-honed instincts had let down, and the only sign luck was still with me was when the karate chop missed the back of my neck, because I was just starting to turn, the blow hitting between my shoulder blade and spine, sending pain through me like a hot spear and maybe cracking or even breaking a rib, but not killing me, not hardly.

And when he shoved me into that open door, rattling my teeth and banging my head, damn near putting my lights out, he didn’t take time to try another karate chop—maybe he knew enough about me to want to avoid any direct confrontation— and just rushed past me.

In the second I needed to recover, I saw that almost handsome face fly by me, with its squashed nose and lightning bolt scar.

Jaimie Halaquez.

My .45 was M.I.A., but Halaquez had a gun in his hand, another silenced automatic that went phut phut, sending two chunks of doorframe exploding into splinters and flying into my face.

Then he was in the Mustang, squealing out, and flashing a white grin of adios at me—I wasn’t dead, but he’d beaten me. He had beaten me.

Me, with no gun. I didn’t even have a goddamn car, having returned Bunny’s station wagon.

Shit!

The only saving grace was nobody seemed to have heard or seen a thing. Only silenced shots had been fired, and the hand-to-hand had been brief if brutal.

But why hadn’t Halaquez waded in to help his partner?

Hadn’t wanted to risk exposing himself, I guessed. He’d figured his crony would take me out, no trouble, and if not, Jaimie boy would deal with me.

Heaving a disgusted sigh evenly divided between the unkindness of fate and my own stupidity, I went back into the still dark room, shoved the door shut, propped a chair against it, and flipped on the light.

Tango was sprawled on the bed.

What had originally been a pretty face was now a battered mass of welts and bruises; a strip of two-inch wide adhesive covered her mouth, another strip binding her hands behind her. The remnants of her pajama tops were tossed on the floor, and she was naked to her waist, pert perfectly-formed breasts exposed, but there was nothing remotely sexy or erotic about it.

Not unless you were a sick son of a bitch.

I felt my face tighten as I took in the ugly red pits that had been burned into the smooth tanned flesh of her stomach and breasts, the mark of lit cigarettes in the hands of her interrogators. I wished I could have taken longer with the bastard on the floor, given him a slower, more painful sendoff to hell.

And when I finally nailed Halaquez, I would remember this beautiful body made hideous.

But at least she wasn’t dead—not yet, anyway.

She was unconscious, probably a blessing at the moment, her pulse light and unsteady. When I yanked the tape from her mouth, she never even stirred. I cut her wrists free and released her arms, retrieved my .45 from under a chair, then went over for a better look at the dead man.

He wasn’t as big as Halaquez, but larger than the average Latin—Jaimie did not seem lacking in brutal henchmen from his native land. As the gurgling I’d heard had indicated, the bullet had caught the prick in the throat and exited at the back of his neck. The gun was still in his hand.

I went through his pockets, found nothing except his car keys, some loose cash, and a half-empty pack of cigarettes. His clothes were all well worn with labels common to stores in every big city, and the touch of the professional was there in every detail. Nothing but his basic appearance identified him as a Cuban, with or without a green card.

The drawers of the motel-room dresser were open, and had been tossed, but not much was there—no sexy working clothes, just casual stuff and underthings. She’d arrived, apparently, with a single suitcase, and what was left of it was shredded over by the wall, a blade having gutted its lining. Next to the dead suitcase was the woman’s emptied handbag, by a scattering of the usual female junk, the bag apparently tossed there in disgust.

Whatever Halaquez had been looking for, he hadn’t found it in this room. His next step had been to try to squeeze it out of the girl the hard way.

But now a peculiar little factor had popped up.

Tango wouldn’t have been the type to keep quiet under that kind of treatment. If she had anything to say, she would likely have talked, not been subjected to beating and burning.

That left just one answer. Whatever Halaquez wanted from her, she either didn’t have...

...or didn’t know she had.

Yet somebody thought she had it, or that she maybe knew something.

I picked up the bedside phone with my handkerchief, dialed the police, told them where to find the trouble, and to send an ambulance.

“I’m a guest here at the Vincalla Motel,” I told the dispatcher.