CRIME THRILLERS-A Box Set (15 page)

She began to tremble. It radiated outward from inside where her heart could not pace itself. Her small arms shook, her back, her legs, her head on the fragile stem of her neck. He pulled her even closer, wrapped his big arms around her slight body so that she would not fall from his grasp.

"Sshhh. Hush. Hush. Get hold of it. Catch that thought that's trying to run away with you and hold it down. I brought you here so you'd understand. You cried so hard. So long. And for what? You didn't even know him. What if it had been me? Would you have cried that way?"

He didn't expect an answer. She couldn't have answered had she wanted. He knew what she must feel, must think. They were at the turning point now. If he'd let her stay in the hotel room without trying to reach her, she'd have been lost to him forever. Despite how the murder should have appeared to her, she had recognized something of his real purpose; she knew in an instinctive way that what he had done was not entirely connected with saving her from a savaging. She had reached conclusions he thought beyond her maturity. If she allowed it, he could forestall a disaster: her burial in this foreign ground.

"Molly? I'm not going to hurt you and I'm not going to let you be hurt. Do you believe that?" His practiced lies came so easily.

They were at the crossroads, her answer pivotal. In the next seconds what transpired depended entirely on the girl in his arms. He would either lift his hand to his hair and for the second time this night withdraw the knife, or he would loosen his hold and escort her back to the hotel. Life hung in the balance, in the eternity of time between his words and hers. If she knew the severity of the situation she'd not just tremble, but quake so hard she'd shake herself apart before his eyes.

"Molly? Do you believe me?"

A night breeze ruffled her hair. She had stopped breathing. He could still feel her heart throbbing against his body. Must he stop its beating? Must he do away with her so soon, oh, so soon before he had even found a way to know her? That would be such a pity, nearly more than he could bear. Only once before did a witness of his get to him the way Molly was now. He had wanted time with her, a relationship however strange and warped, however fated to end. But she had given the wrong answer to his question. And she had died sooner than she should have or needed to.

Molly let out her breath. She inhaled. She said, "Yesss."

Cruise smiled into the dark beyond the top of her head. He could feel the dead all around them sleeping in their graves, giving up a collective sigh. They would not be asked to welcome a new member among them tonight. Not until tomorrow when the family of Riaro brought him in a plain wooden casket and lowered his cold body into their company would they be disturbed in their slumber.

"Let's go back." He let her go, turned her from the cemetery, and pushed her gently on a path between the graves back the way they had come. She did not talk again on the walk to the hotel. He let it be. She'd passed his test and he was well pleased. He must not push his luck. It was jubilation enough that she'd just saved her own life.

"Get some sleep," he said at her door.

He stood in the hallway and stared down the corridor at a window opening onto the silver lightening of the morning sky. He felt a chill that raised goose bumps along his arms. It wasn't the night that should frighten people so much. It was those scorching, blinding sunny hours where everything was laid bare to the eye.

It had been a long night. He meant to sleep it off. If he didn't wake up for eighteen hours he wouldn't be a bit surprised.

In his own room he slipped off his shoes, took his belt from the loops of his slacks, and fell onto the bed without drawing back the covers. He couldn't sleep yet. His mind turned over the kill the way a farmer with a shovel turns over rich earth for spring planting. Down one row, up another until an entire patch of ground has been tilled.

His thoughts took him down the street, into the conversation with Riaro beside the Rockola, down the street again after his prey, then up close, tight shot of Riaro's look of betrayal, his comprehension of his dilemma, his sprint for freedom.

The fight. The suction of Cruise's fist as he withdrew it from Riaro's torso. The fall. The quick death. The blood...

#

Molly stood shivering in the dark just inside the door of her room. She listened breathlessly for Cruise to leave. Bands of moonlight marched across the floor from the far window--a ladder of yellow beckoning her to climb it, to escape by it.

He was insane. That's all she could think. It was the sole explanation for what happened tonight. Even though the Mexican had pulled a knife, it was Cruise who pursued him, Cruise who ripped open his belly and left him to die in the street.

Then that creepy little walk outside of town to the cemetery. All the weird talk of the dead being better off. The strange pledge of loyalty to his ideas that he demanded from her before he would let her go. She had been so afraid she thought she might wet all over herself. That or faint outright in his arms. She knew what he wanted to hear and suspected violence had she not said it. She knew she must agree with him.

If he wanted to make her feel safe and secure, he had gone about it like no other man would have. He committed murder without a qualm, apparently without any remorse whatsoever. He had been composed enough to enter the cantina afterward and wash his hands. His actions were like those of a mechanical man, a computerized automaton with a fairly intelligent brain, but a soul made of silicon chips and soldered connections.

What had she done taking a ride with him? She knew with a certainty that came from intuition rather than any past experience beyond the scene she had witnessed tonight that he was extremely dangerous. He inspired a fear in her that left her wordless.

She didn't know how long she had been standing next to the door straining to hear any sound. Surely Cruise had left by now. She must escape before he woke at dusk to drive them out of town. She had to call her father and ask what she should do.
She needed help
. She had to get away from Cruise before something terrible happened to her. Something fatal.

She wanted to reach out a hand to the door and open it, but for long seconds her arm felt paralyzed. She knew that uncontrollable desperation shimmered right at the edge of her thought processes. She also understood that if she wasn't careful, if she wasn't strong and diligent in containing that fear it could permanently disable her.

If she'd only not taken a lift from Cruise. If only she'd not fallen into his web.

Home.
She had to call Daddy. She had to ask him what she must do to save herself.

She made her arm move, forced her hand to close over the doorknob. She turned it, moved to the crack and peeked out, let out a breath when she found the hall empty.

Wait! She needed to take her clothes bag. She rushed across the room to the bath and snatched up her things. Colgate toothpaste, orange toothbrush, blue bottles of Finesse shampoo and conditioner. Secret solid stick deodorant. He'd said she smelled like baby powder. It caused her to shiver inside to think she'd been attracted to him because when he finally took her into his arms, she knew her life was in jeopardy. It repulsed her now that she had thought of him as a potential lover.
She must have been crazy.

Then in the bedroom she found her purse on the dresser, threw the hot pink hairbrush into it, snapped it shut. Stuffed her dirty clothes into the blue bag, zipped it, hurried again to the door.

Couldn't get her breath. Couldn't think
. Paused at the open door, clutched her purse and bag in her arms.
What if he was near the elevator?

She stuck her head into the hall and looked. No. He wasn't there. He had gone to his room and was asleep by now. If she didn't find a way to control her thoughts, she'd never make it out of the hotel.

She drew in a deep breath and stepped into the hall. Closed the door behind her. Walked along the carpeted hall to the elevator. Saw that it wasn't in use. Punched the down button. When the doors slid open she jumped. The noise was unbearable. Surely everyone in the entire hotel could hear the cables of the elevator working as it came to fetch her. She was ready to turn and run the opposite direction. For just a second she imagined Cruise in the elevator staring down at her sadly. Saying something crazy like,
"You're not going anywhere, little girl."
She must get her imagination under control.

She ran inside the elevator and pushed the button for the lobby. She had to find a phone, get someone to help her. She hadn't any idea how she was going to do that, but she must.

Empty lobby. No one behind the registration desk. She flew across the room, stood up on tiptoe to look behind the desk and into a hallway that led off from the area. "Anyone here?" she called. She looked behind her, saw the elevator doors closing. Had someone called for the elevator? Was it Cruise?
Oh, God. Oh, God.

"Hey! Anyone?" No one came forward. It was a ghost hotel. She didn't see a phone on the counter or behind it. She couldn't get high enough, even by standing on the brass foot rail, to see over onto the back of the counter.

In the lobby again she wandered around looking at the flocked wallpaper, beginning to feel disjointed. Where were the pay phones? Didn't they have them here the way they did in the States? She went a little ways down two separate hallways that must have led to the closed dining room and the bar looking for a phone or someone to ask.
Damn
. Nothing.

The doorman was missing from the door. Where had everyone gone? She ran out and down the long wide steps to the sidewalk. Sunrise painted the east a dusty pink-violet. Birds sang morning chorals somewhere along the red-tiled rooftop of the hotel. All the stars were gone and the moon was no more than a smudge in the sky.

She'd find something open. A store. A cafe. She'd beg them to let her use the phone.

It was eerie to listen to her lone footsteps on the sidewalks. Now that day was coming she could see what the town really looked like. It wasn't a place she'd want to spend any time. Weeds grew to the edges of the sidewalk. Paper cups and beer cans littered the curbs along the poorly paved street. The storefronts were dust-covered and looked hurriedly painted. Everything had a temporary look to it as if the people could pick up and leave on the spur of the moment. It was more of an encampment than a real town.

At the cafe where Cruise had told her to wait all the chairs had been turned upside down on the tabletops. A mangy gray cat sat beneath one of the tables eating something that looked green and moldy. The hungry feline hissed as Molly neared so that she had to go to the edge of the sidewalk to avoid an attack.

"Bitch," Molly whispered at the cat. "You're no help unless you happen to know where I can find a phone."

The cat growled and showed its teeth, hair rising along its spine. Molly went on down the sidewalk, eying the locked doors, the barred and shuttered windows. The farther away she got from the imposing structure of the hotel at the end of the street, the easier she found it to breathe.

But everyone was asleep. She hadn't yet seen a soul on the street. Every bar was closed. Curtains fluttered in open windows on second floors.

At the corner she turned left. More closed shops, cafes, bars. Ahead, though, she saw houses. Since this street ran north and south, on one side the houses were in shadow, on the other weak morning sunlight threw the shacks in relief. Some of them looked as if they might fall down when a strong wind came. The roofs were made of every imaginable substance from sheets of corrugated tin to raw planks in varying lengths and widths. She stepped up her pace. She'd knock on a door, find someone with a telephone, call her father...

...she thought she heard someone walking behind her. She whirled around so hard her hair covered her eyes. She pushed it out of the way and stared back where she'd come. She saw no one, but she was almost sure she wasn't alone now. Someone else was up, moving about the town. She waited for him to turn the corner and follow her to make sure it wasn't Cruise, but she couldn't hear footsteps any longer. She turned back to the task at hand. Might as well try any door, she thought. It was a good possibility that few of the Mexicans had private telephones, but she must try to find one regardless. Until the stores and cafes opened she hadn't any choice.

She crossed the street to the nearest house and knocked loudly. She heard animal sounds and wondered where they were coming from. It was a
hea-hea-hea
sound, not like a cat or dog, but some animal she didn't recognize.

She started to knock again when the door opened. It swung back on great noisy hinges. A little boy in white briefs stood looking up at her. His eyes were big, wide awake, black as soot.

"Please, do you have a telephone?" She pantomimed using a phone, holding the receiver in her hand to her ear. If they didn't understand her English she'd move on to the next house. She hadn't any time to lose.

The boy was moved gently aside by a man. His thick black hair rose in a three-inch pompadour and sideburns grew down each brown cheek. He was bare-chested, but wore a slouchy pair of brown pants that he held up with one hand. "Senorita?"

"I need a phone. A phone? Telephone." Again she pretended to be dialing a phone, lifting a receiver to her ear.

"I have to call my father in the United States. In Florida? I'm in trouble and I need..."

The man hadn't moved or given any indication he had understood her. She stopped talking when a gray and white spotted goat nudged aside the man's leg. It stuck its triangular head up at her and bleated plaintively. She saw the pink tongue, the white even bottom teeth, the black marble eyes.

"Shoo!" the Mexican said, pushing back the goat with his knee. "Come in, lady," he said to Molly. "I have a telephone for you to use, please. It's early, si? We were sleeping."

She wondered fleetingly why his hair had stayed so perfect even in bed sleeping.

"I'm so sorry to bother you, and I wouldn't except it's really important. But you do have a phone? That's'great. Thanks a lot. I couldn't find a pay phone anywhere in town..." Again her sentence trailed off as she entered the dark little house. A fetid smell assaulted her and she wanted to gag. The reflex hit her throat, the contraction came, but she forced herself to breathe, to control the urge. She looked down and saw the floor was made of earth. She had accidentally stepped into goat dung. She scraped her rubber-soled sneaker in the dirt to get it off. All around her swarmed goats. Big ones with horns. Smaller ones, the females, she supposed. Baby ewes, downy-haired, little perked ears, all those shiny marble eyes. There must have been a dozen of them altogether. Some were of one solid color, others were speckled, patched with browns or grays or blacks. When her vision adjusted to the lack of light inside the house she saw not only goats, but people--the man's family. A woman sitting on the side of a drooping cot in a cotton nightgown. Three children. All boys under the age of ten including the little one who had answered the door. They were trying to get the goats away from her and corralled into one corner of the room. An old man and an old woman, probably the grandparents, were buttoning shirts and fastening pants and skirts, slipping on sandals. The room was a circus, crowded, smelly, close, and disorderly. Molly couldn't speak.