last, and Wilson set our course for the whorehouse. The only military thing I saw en route, aside from the ever- present uniforms, was an array of dull-gray tanks in a parklike area behind high-strung barbed wire.
Portal to portal, the round trip took us seventy minutes. Once again we were passed through the reinforced doors. When we emerged into the second-floor hallway, the noise surprised me. There was the babbling sound of many high-pitched conversations. “This is the businessman’s shift, their real moneymaker here,” Wilson explained. Passing the doorless rooms, I had opportunity to observe that the Cuban businessman was an uninhibited type.
I heard a man’s and a woman’s laughter blended in our room. Erikson and Melia were sitting together on one of the cots. Empty coffee cups rested on a nearby hassock. I had never heard Erikson laugh before. Wilson, behind me, pushed forward when he saw the pair. His face was scarlet. “You can goddamm well leave her alone!” he snapped at Erikson. He reached for the girl’s wrist and jerked her to her feet. His expression softened as he stared at her. “Come on,” he said in an abrupt change of mood. “I’ll buy you that dinner I promised you.”
“It is too dangerous for me on the street,” Melia said.
The opposition refueled Wilson’s anger. “Don’t say no to me, you whore!” He dragged the girl toward the door.
“Stay off the street unless it’s necessary, Wilson!” Erikson called after them.
Only an unintelligible growl answered him. “What did you find out?” Erikson asked. He had already dismissed the incident.
“The museum is a piece of cake.”
“It can’t be,” Erikson said flatly.
I explained about the inoperative alarm system. “Besides my own kit, all we need is a sign painter’s ladder.”
“That might not be too easy,” Erikson frowned. “Although a little money — what’s the exact setup?”
I told him about the shielding tamarind trees at the rear of the building. “The second-floor windows have no grills, and I’ve had a good look at their locks. We’ll go up the ladder, get inside, intercept the guards, slip down to the basement, retrieve the cash, and take off.”
Erikson sat in silence. “We’re going at this too fast,” he said finally. “If we had time to study the guards’ movements — but we can’t take the time.”
“We should have cords and gags for the guards.”
Erikson nodded. “Now give it to me again step by step how it will go.”
Slater wandered in, yawning sleepily. He stretched out on a cot. Erikson and I were still at it twenty minutes later when Melia rushed into the room. She had on a street dress and her features were pale. “Wilson is in trouble on the street!” she said with her words running together. “At the corner!”
I hurried to the window. “Easy!” Erikson said as I started to pull the shade to one side.
“He insisted that I go out with him,” Melia continued in a dull tone. “And I–I am not allowed to refuse. We passed a squad of soldiers — there were remarks — then an argument — he told me to run—”
Erikson was crowded in beside me as we stared out through the slitted shade. Slater had left his cot and his chin was pressing on my shoulder on the other side. There was no difficulty in seeing Wilson. He was half a block away, trying to walk toward us at the same time he argued nose-to-nose with a chunky man in uniform. There was much gesticulating. Half a dozen more uniformed men partly encircled Wilson.
Slater drew in his breath in a quick sucking sound as Wilson suddenly punched the chunky man, broke through the group, and ran for the doorway below us. The pack took up the chase. Two outdistanced the others. Wilson actually had his hand on the outside door when they collared him. They spun him back up the sidewalk, where he was engulfed by the second wave.
A knife appeared in Wilson’s hand. He slashed left, then right, and arcs of blood sprang up on the faces of the men closest to him. A soldier jumped on his back, bearing him to the sidewalk, and the rest piled on. For ninety seconds the sidewalk beneath us was a seething, writhing mass of humanity before movement ceased.
“He’s brought ‘em right to the door!” Slater said hoarsely.
It was like watching a silent movie. Wilson was hauled to his feet. Half his uniform was gone and one side of his face was streaming blood. Two men held his arms. His knife was on the sidewalk. One of the slashed men picked it up and tried to get at Wilson with it. The chunky man who seemed to be the leader of the squad stopped him. “They want him alive,” Erikson said softly. “If they suspect he’s American—”
The leader turned to look suspiciously at the door Wilson almost reached. He said something to Chico, who glared at him defiantly. The leader took two quick steps and struck him heavily in the face. Wilson bridged himself in the grasp of those who held him and tried to kick the leader in the throat. He was at once clubbed to the sidewalk. The leader made an encircling gesture to indicate the squad, then pointed to the doorway.
“That does it,” Erikson said calmly. “Melia, how do we get out of here except by the front entrance?” He picked up the backpack radio and slipped his arms through the straps.
“The doors will stop them for a little while,” she said. “But if Wilson admits he is American, the Elite Guard will appear.”
“What will our money buy us then?”
“Nothing. They are fanatics. These animals here will sell you to protect themselves.”
Slater cursed.
“So we’ll move first.” Erikson’s voice had a hard edge. “Slater, check the street.”
He went to the window again. “There’s two of ‘em posted in front of the door,” he reported gloomily.
“There is a door on this floor that leads into the next building, which is empty,” Melia said quietly. “That beast Ramirez has the key.”
Erikson studied her. “What about you if we make it out of here?”
“I would not like to be found here.” Her high-cheek-boned features spoke eloquently of how much she would not like to be found there. “No one has lived in my aunt’s apartment since she was taken away. I can hide you there if you take me with you.”
“You’ve got a deal.” Erikson started toward the door. “Get me close to Ramirez,” he told Melia.
She moved into the corridor ahead of him. I jerked my arms into my haversack straps and followed Erikson. I could hear Slater’s footsteps right behind me. I had my.38 under my shirt with the shirt button above my belt unbuttoned. “Ramirez,” I heard Melia say in a honeyed tone at the reinforced door.
The pockmarked guard turned from peering down the stairway through the small window in the door. A puzzled expression on his dark features gave way to anger when he saw Erikson with the radio on his back. He shook his head and pointed back up the corridor. Erikson closed with him, but the fireplug build of the guard made him a formidable adversary. They wrestled in a tight circle for a moment, then lunged in unison against the steel door.
There was a crunching sound as Erikson’s back collided with the door. He rebounded from it and hit Ramirez so hard that the pockmarked man did a full half-turn before he collapsed upon the carpeting. Slater dropped to his knees and began going through his pockets rapidly. “It is a flat silver key,” Melia directed him.
I was watching Erikson. He had slipped out of the straps supporting the backpack radio and was looking at the unit. The combined weight of the two men had smashed the radio like a two-dollar watch. Erikson started to drop the mangled remains on the floor, then changed his mind.
The sound of Ramirez’ body hitting the floor had brought a wave of big-eyed, transparent-shirted girls into their open doorways. I raised an arm threateningly and the girls scattered like crows at sight of a shotgun. Slater rose to his feet and handed Erikson a key. Erikson gave it to Melia. The girl moved around him, placed her high- heeled shoe upon Ramirez’ upturned face, put her considerable weight on the shoe and face, and made a 180- degree turn. Slater grunted as blood spurted from under the shoe.
Melia moved along the corridor without a backward glance at the man whose face she had destroyed. She inserted the key into an almost invisible lock in a wallpapered panel that gave no sign of being a door. She motioned us through it and, when we were inside, threw over a barred arm, which would block pursuit for a time.
We were standing in a rough-framed passageway that had obviously been built for the sole purpose of providing a bridge to the next building. Melia again took the lead. Despite the semidarkness between the walls, I could see tiny dots of red left by her heel on the planking.
She used the key again on a door at the end of the bridge. We entered an apartment damp with the humidity of disuse. “Down these stairs to the alley,” Melia said. “But carefully. They may have posted a guard behind the
