Kiss and Kill (18 page)

Barney walked back along the highway and found other parts of the shirt and blouse. Their blood-soaked ends had neither been cut nor broken. He returned to the body.

“He was still tied when he went out,” he said. He examined the rear door. He pressed down on the lock, nudged the inside handle. The lock button clicked up. “He must have pushed the handle up with his head, then thrown himself out.”

Claire leaned out on the side away from Garner and was thoroughly sick. Both men avoided looking at her.

“You suppose he thought he could escape?” muttered Ed.

“Death is the only escape he had in mind.”

“Does this mean he lied about meeting Green and Brown?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

The distant sound of an engine made Barney stiffen. “Quick, drag him under the car. Claire, help me! You've got to!… Ed, get the spare out of the trunk and make like you're changing the rear tire.”

The approaching vehicle took the shape of an army truck. The body was safely under the car. Ed and Barney knelt beside the rear wheel and pretended to be jacking up the car. Claire stood near the front, looking greenish and unsteady. The truck slowed, and Barney waved it on. The truck speeded up; a half dozen soldiers, their rifles slung, waved at Claire. She smiled, and the men whistled and hooted. The truck passed and soon vanished in the distance.

Barney wiped his face. “Let's get this thing underground before anybody else comes along.”

They loaded the corpse into the trunk and drove out across the barren landscape. Barney searched for a gully, but there seemed to be none in this arid country. He stopped the car in a rocky depression.

“We'll have to dig. Ed, get the jack handle and tire iron.”

The ground was stony; with difficulty they jarred the earth loose with their tools. Claire was using a hubcap as a shovel to clean the trench. She worked feverishly, hair straggling over her eyes. Her nails broke, and her bare knees were scratched by the sharp rocks.

Finally Barney said: “You can rest now, Claire. We'll finish.”

“I don't want to rest.”

“Do you have to argue about everything?”

She threw down the hubcap and glared at him. “I want to help, don't you understand? I feel it's my fault.”

“Look, Claire, I'll say it again. He jumped out while he was still tied. He unlocked the door with his head. There was nothing you could do.”

“It could just as easily have happened while I was back there,” Ed said.

“So why can't I help?” Claire demanded.

“Because,” said Barney, “one thing I can't stand is women with bloody knees and broken fingernails.”

She stamped back to the car.

It grew more stifling as the sun climbed. The two men returned to the digging. When the hole was deep enough, they rolled Garner in, covered him up, packed the soil, and strewed stones over it. The dogs would find it eventually, and the vultures. The important thing was that the corpse remained buried long enough for them to get away.

Back on the road, Barney said, “Our decoy is dead. Suggestions, anyone?”

“You have to rub it in, don't you?” said Claire. She was still sore.

“Just stating a fact, Claire. It won't be mentioned again. What I need now are clever suggestions about how to get Liz away from Green and Brown.”

“If anything happens to her, I'll never forgive myself—”

“Drop it, Claire.” She fell silent. “I've thought of trying to sneak up on Brown and Green from behind, but I don't like the idea. It's true they might be thinking Garner's covering their rear, but the wolf has one advantage over the hunter. He can stay quiet and jump out at you unexpectedly. Garner showed us that.”

“Can't we do the same?” asked Ed.

“An ambush?”

“It was Claire's idea. She suggested Tula.”

“And the objection was that, if they found the money first, that would be the end of Liz.”

“What else can we do?” groaned Ed.

“It's your decision. We can try to catch up, or we can go ahead and lay for them.”

“What are our chances if we go ahead?”

“Good, I think,” said Barney. “They know Johnny spent several hours at the ruins. They know he left Tula without his suitcase. If I were they, I'd look under every rock. That should give us plenty of time.”

Ed's mouth became a trap. “I choose the ambush. Let's go to Tula.”

Claire maintained her silence all morning, in spite of Barney's attempts to get her to talk.

He stopped in Guadalajara, where he dispatched Ed and Claire to buy a week's supply of food. He himself went to a department store where he bought a canvas tent, high-power binoculars, a half-dozen sketchpads, and several carbon pencils. In the toy department he picked up several yards of camouflage-painted cloth. Claire greeted him with the same silence when he returned to the car.

“We'll be sharing a tent at the ruins,” said Barney. “No point in preserving the formalities at a time like this.”

“On the contrary,” said Claire stiffly. “That's when you need them.”

It was 4
A
.
M
. when they reached Tula. The streets were deserted. That suited Barney, for he wanted no one to know they were camped at the ruins.

“Keep going through the town,” said Claire suddenly. “The road to the archeological area turns off to the left across the river.”

“Ah,” said Barney. “She talks.”

She stuck out her little chin and looked straight ahead.

“My error,” said Barney.

The road climbed steeply to a plateau dotted with heaps of dark stone. Barney cut his lights and crept onto a plaza dominated by a five-tiered, flat-topped pyramid. He drove across the plaza and passed a pair of low mounds untouched by the archeologist's spade. Between these mounds they unpacked their provisions and carried them down the stepped slope. They pitched the tent under a pepper tree whose berries hung down like Christmas ornaments. Barney and Ed drove the stakes and laid on the camouflage, while Claire heated water on the butane stove.

By dawn the cool mountain air was aromatic with coffee and bacon; it filled Barney with optimism. He watched Claire over the skillet, her face shiny from the fire.

“When this is over, Ed,” said Barney, “I'm going to find a girl and haul this camping equipment down to the Costa Grande north of Acapulco. I know beaches where you don't see anybody for days. No need to wear clothes, either, unless you happen to be a prude.”

Claire looked up at Barney sharply, throwing the hair back from her eyes. Then she bent her head again.

After they had eaten, Barney slung the binoculars around his neck and tucked a sketchpad under his arm. “You two rest. I'm going to plan our strategy.”

He walked toward the pyramid squatting in the center of the plain. He stopped to look at a stone figure reclining on its elbows. The head was raised and the comic face mirrored surprise, as though he had been asleep and a cat had jumped on his stomach.

“That's a
Chac-mool
,” said Claire behind him.

He turned. “Oh?”

“They used them to hold braziers or something at the entrance to the temple.”

He looked at her, puzzled. Her voice held a note of strained gaiety; it was certainly not cordial. She had changed into white shorts that exposed most of her browned thighs, and a halter of some elastic fabric that required no neck strap.

Barney frowned and stalked on.

“Mind if I tag along,” she asked as she hurried to keep up with him. “I can fill you in. That's the pyramid of Quetzalcoatl you're headed toward. Those giant figures on top are called Atlantes. They're representations of Toltec warriors; they held up the roof.” As they climbed the steps, she continued, panting. “There used to be a great vestibule before the entrance. And on the other side is the Coatepantli, or serpent wall. It shows the plumed serpent devouring human beings.”

At the top of the pyramid Barney stopped and looked down at her. “You act as if you're all hopped up.”

“Do I?” she asked lightly. “It couldn't be because we're expecting to run into a pair of cold-blooded killers, could it?”

Barney asked quietly, “What's bothering you, Claire?”

She stared down at her sandals. “This was the last place I talked to Johnny.”

“My heart bleeds for you.”

“Do you have to be such a
rat
?” she cried.

Barney went over to the northwest corner of the pyramid. It commanded a view of the city across the river. Through the foliage, he could see the road crossing the bridge and winding up toward the ruins. There was a parking lot at the entrance, and a little complex of adobe buildings.

“What's that over there?”

She had come to stand beside him, the wind blowing her hair. “Barney, let's not claw at each other.”

“Who's clawing?”

“I had an affair with Johnny. It still hurts.”

“Okay, so it still hurts. What's that there?”

“The museum. They sell pamphlets and cold drinks. And a lot of artifacts.”

He opened the sketchpad and made a mark on it. With his pencil he pointed south, toward a sunken room shaped like a capital I. “And that?”

“That's the ball court. They had rings high on the wall through which the ball had to go. Sort of like basketball, except that the rings were vertical. They used a hard-rubber ball and hit it with their palms. It was a ceremony for the rain god, Tlaloc. Not commercial, like our games.”

“Didn't they want rain so the crops would grow?”

“Yes.”

“Then it was commercial.” Barney drew the ball court on his pad, then crossed the pyramid to stand at the northern edge. He indicated a small stone building in the center of a great square.

“That's the
adoratorio
, a small altar.”

Barney sketched it in, then pointed to a mound slightly higher than the pyramid, fronted only by a slope of talus.

“That's called the Great Pyramid,” said Claire. “They say the Aztecs built it.”

He marked it on his pad. “You've got a good memory.”

“I took notes on the tour.”

“What for?”

“I'm a photographer. I have to identify what I photograph.”

He had quite forgotten that she had a professional life of her own. For some reason it annoyed him.

When they got back to camp, Barney sat down and quickly sketched two identical maps of the area. He handed one each to Claire and Ed.

“Where,” asked Claire, making a face, “is the hidden treasure? I've seen better maps on first-grade classroom walls.”

“I never went to first grade,” said Barney.

“I knew that five minutes after I met you.”

“In kindergarten,” said Barney, checking his gun, “I got A in Resting.”

“How can you two joke?” asked Ed with a grunt. He was studying the map intently.

“What do you want us to do, chew our nails?” Barney slid the .45 back in the holster. “Keep loose, Ed. This is going to be no picnic. Let's rehearse. Ed, you take Garner's gun. Claire, you'll have to carry your purse. In that outfit you've got on, I don't see where else you could hide your peashooter.” He rose. “Let's go.”

When they reached the base of the pyramid, Barney said: “One of us will be up on the pyramid all the time, watching the road with binoculars. If you sight a black Buick, yell
‘Olé!'
Then everybody runs to the positions I've marked. The pyramid will hide us from the entrance, so we'll have time to get set. Both of you have low walls to get behind. They'll protect you and give you an aiming rest for your guns.”

“You won't have a wall,” said Claire, “according to the map.”

“I'm the decoy. Now Claire, go to the top of the pyramid and give the sign, then run down and take your position.”

As she started to climb, he stopped her and gave her the drawing tablet.

“What's this for?”

“It's our cover. We're artists sketching the ruins.”

They ran through it once, and Barney asked Claire if she could be seen as she raced across the top of the pyramid.

“I don't know,” she panted.

“Let's try it again. This time look. If you can see the road, it can see you.”

They did.

“I can't be seen. Let's don't do it again. My legs are in terrible shape.”

Barney looked at them. “The hell you say. Anyway, you have to go back up. You're on the first shift. Ed will sleep, and I'll watch you from outside the tent, so I can wake him up if you yell.”

Ed slept, Barney watched, and Claire sat on the pyramid and sketched. At sunset Barney went up. “You're relieved. I've eaten. Ed's got pork and beans waiting.”

“And I've got a sunburn.”

“There's ointment in my suitcase.”

He sat down and watched darkness settle. Lights came on in the city, and music drifted across the river. Gradually the sounds subsided; the lights blinked off one by one. At eleven Claire rejoined him.

“Did you sleep?” he asked.

“Enough.” She gave him the tube of ointment and sat down with her back to him. “You put it on.”

Barney smeared her shoulders and back while he watched the road. “Stomach, too?”

“Uh-huh.” She lay back on the stones. “Oh, they're still warm.”

He daubed her burned skin. The moon had dwindled to a crescent, but there was light enough to see the arching rise of her rib cage, the dark hollow of her navel.

“Legs?” he asked.

“Any time, Mr. Burgess.”

He tried to be clinical, but her flesh was hot beneath his palms. He got up and through the binoculars scanned the road carefully.

“Barney.”

“Yes, Claire.”

“Are you a man or a mouse?”

“I'm man enough,” said Barney, “for you.”