The Detonators (9 page)

I’d run out of reading matter and all I had to entertain me was the damn little screen with its funny men and women. They were funny standing up and they were funny sitting down. Lying in bed they were hilarious. Even the weathermen cracked jokes, and the local Spanish channel had them rolling in the aisles, judging by the facial expressions and the cackles on the sound track. It scared me a little, the thought of a whole continent shaking with the uproarious laughter emanating from a hundred million living-rooms. I’m not one of the highbrows who want TV to be forever uplifting and educational, and God forbid that naive, impressionable, young fellows like me should be exposed to sex and violence; but while comedy is all right in its place, whatever happened to tragedy, or romance, or just plain action and adventure?

It had been a long, boring wait, over twenty-four hours of waiting; and I had to check the impulse to make a wild lunge across the room and spear the jangling instrument on the first ring. Instead, I turned off the TV, walked over there deliberately, and sat down on one of the big beds. Even then I let the phone ring two more times before I picked it up.

“Ye-es?”

“Mr. Helm?”

I drew a long breath of relief, but I was aware of a little disappointment, too; a kind of final disillusionment. I guess part of my mind had been clinging stubbornly to my first impressions of a stuffy young lady who’d had a certain prickly, innocent charm in spite of being totally impossible. But this was the right female voice making guilty contact as predicted. At least it was almost the right female voice. The enunciation wasn’t quite as careful and ladylike as I’d remembered it. Stress, perhaps, or a deliberate imitation thereof.

“This is Helm,” I said.

“Oh, thank heaven! I was afraid you might already have left town.”

I said obtusely, “I’m sorry, I don’t recognize—”

“It’s Amy, Mr. Helm. Amy Barnett. I’m in terrible trouble and… Oh, dear, I’ve made such a fool of myself I’m ashamed to… But they snatched my purse and I haven’t got a cent and if the nice Spanish lady in this place hadn’t let me… You said if I… You said I could call you…”

“Are you all right, Miss Barnett? Your voice sounds a little strange. That’s why I didn’t recognize—”

She giggled, an odd sound from a girl who’d seemed opposed to laughter on principle.

“My voice probably sounds a little strange because I am a little… strange. Well, that’s one word for it. Very s-strange, for me… Oh, dear, I’ve been such a terribly tragic figure and I’ve made such an awful spectacle of myself and would you come and get me, please, I haven’t any place to stay and they snatched my purse so I can’t even take a taxi… It’s the Cantina Colibri on Abeyta Street, two-oh-seven Abeyta Street. El Colibri, that means “the hummingbird” in Spanish. Did you know that?” She gave that unfamiliar little nervous titter again. “Why would anybody name a bar after a hummingbird? Silly!”

I passed up the opportunity for an ornithological discussion and said, “Sit tight. Two-oh-seven Abeyta. Colibri. I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

Hanging up, I got the little five-shot revolver I’d laid aside for comfort and clipped the trick holster into place under my waistband and made sure my loose-hanging sport shirt covered the butt with plenty to spare. Doug’s theory was, of course, that the Preacher would let me run for a while before he tried to take me out, since he had me covered, or would have if the girl did her job right. Better a known pursuer than an unknown one. But I hadn’t survived in the business as long as I had by trusting anybody’s theories completely, not even my own. It could be a simple trap with Amy Barnett as bait. For the same reason, and because I was being led into a part of town with which I was not familiar, I took a taxi instead of getting the mini-Chevy out of the garage as I’d be expected to.

“Abeyta Street?” said the cabbie, a dark-faced man with a bushy black mustache. He gave a little shrug indicating that it was my money, and if I wanted to waste it going to Abeyta Street, it was my business. “
Sí, señor.
Two-oh-seven Abeyta.”

“Is something wrong with Abeyta Street?” I asked as he drove us away.

“
Calle
Abeyta not very good street,” he said. “Cantina Colibri not very good place,
señor
.”

I wondered what the hell the girl had gotten herself into, or wanted me to think she’d gotten herself into. As we proceeded farther from the hotel, I was glad I hadn’t tried to make the drive myself. Suddenly, it had become a foreign country—well, a foreign city masquerading under the name of Miami—and I found myself resenting it slightly. After all, my own parents had been grateful enough to the new land that had welcomed them to learn its language and customs and bring up their son, when he appeared a few years later, as an American, instead of ganging up with a bunch of fellow square-heads and trying to build a Little Scandinavia here for themselves.

“There is El Colibri,” the driver said at last.

“Park as close as you can and wait for me, please,” I said. “I should be right out. Here.”

I gave him a five on account and got out of the cab. It was one of those lousy situations where you have no guidelines. I mean, in my native New Mexico I’d have known what I was doing and what to expect, even in the Spanish-speaking section of town, any town. I can usually even get around in Mexico proper without starting a riot; but for all I knew these expatriate Cubans, or whatever the hell they were, reacted quite differently in spite of speaking the same language. Well, more or less the same language. I’d heard my New Mexican
amigos
poke fun at the clumsy Cuban manner of mangling the tongue of the Conquistadores.

It was a narrow, dark little street; and the place was shabby, with faded lettering on the front. If the awkward-looking hummingbird painted on the sign had ever gotten off the ground, it would have been an aeronautical miracle. A couple of loungers out front eyed me silently as I approached. Inside the bar a moment of silence greeted my appearance. As I said, no guidelines. It was not that I was afraid of them, particularly; I was just afraid of making a mistake, call it a cultural mistake, that would trigger an altogether unnecessary confrontation. I hadn’t come here to fight anybody.

The gloomy, narrow bar was off to the left of the door. There seemed to be some kind of a small eating place beyond, boasting slightly better illumination, like weak daylight at the end of a dark cave. Closer, there was a counter with a cash register and a case of cigarettes and candy. Behind it, a dark, hatchet-faced woman with severely pulled-back black hair streaked with gray sat on a stool making entries in an account book. She looked up inquiringly as I approached, a good sign. I had a hunch the bartender would have kept on polishing his damn glasses until I shot him through the left eye to get his attention, damn
gringo
that I was.

I drew a long breath and, by way of interracial diplomacy, summoned up some of my atrocious Spanish.

“
Señora, por favor
,” I said. “
Donde está la Señorita Barnett?
”

The woman smiled. “Ah, you have come! The
pobrecita
, she has much grief. Also she is
muy borracho.
But do not scold her,
señor.
It is not necessary. She has sufficient shame already. You will find her in the café, that way.”

I started in the direction she’d pointed, then stopped and looked back. “If there’s a bill…” I said in a tentative way.
“La cuenta?”

The sharp-faced woman gave me a look of contempt. “Do I appear as one who cannot afford to provide a telephone call and a cup of coffee for a troubled
niña!
” she demanded. “Go, take her home! But gently.”

So much for the bloody battle of the dangerous Cantina Colibri. I made my way through the cramped bar and entered the tiny café beyond. I was ready to be impressed by the show that had been prepared for me, if Doug had read his daughter correctly; but I didn’t spot her at once. Only one of the tables out in the room was occupied at this late hour, by a rather young boy and girl, slim and handsome in the Latin way, both dressed in sloppy jerseys and grubby jeans. I remembered when we used to dress up a bit for dates with the opposite sex. It still seemed like kind of a nice idea.

Then something stirred in the booth at my right elbow and I turned quickly with my hand instinctively moving toward the gun in my waistband. There she was, hidden away in the comer, slumped on the bench seat with her elbows on the table, holding a mug of coffee with both hands and staring into it dully. She was still, I saw, dressed a little too warmly for Florida, in the same suit and blouse she’d worn when I put her into a taxi airport-bound; but after two days and a night they were, of course, no longer the same suit and blouse, nor was she the same girl. In spite of everything I found myself unprepared for the way she looked now. She became aware that I was staring at her, shocked at what she’d done to herself; and she raised her head defiantly.

“So you came,” she breathed; and then she giggled. “I told you I was strange, didn’t I? Spelled d-r-u-n-k. Oh, I’m so very, very drunk, Mr. Helm!”

“It’s a good thing you told me,” I said. “Otherwise I’d never have guessed.”

“There you go, being sarcastic again!” She giggled once more. “Help me out of here, Mister Sarcastic Helm. You do want to see the whole dishaster… disaster area, don’t you?”

She gulped the remains of her coffee and, with another look of defiance, wiped her mouth crudely with her sleeve to shock me more and struggled out of the booth with a little assistance from me. Swaying there, she squared her shoulders with an effort, presenting herself for inspection with a certain inebriated pride that rather surprised me. It was as if she were admitting that it was all an act and asking me to admire the great drunk performance she was putting on for me and the great drunk costume she’d designed for it. I’d have expected phony shame—after all, she’d led the woman at the cash register to believe she was very much ashamed of herself. I’d have expected her to be, or at least pretend to be, painfully embarrassed by her disgraceful condition and distressing appearance; but maybe this was the clever way of doing it.

In any case, she’d really done a job on the neat and attractive young woman I remembered. Most of her fair hair was still pinned up after a fashion; but lank strands of it straggled down her neck and into her face, which had a soiled and red-eyed look. Her silk blouse sagged open untidily, limp and half-unbuttoned. It showed stains of old liquor and new coffee; and the built-in ascot tie hung untied, crumpled and grubby. She’d got ketchup, presumably from a forgotten hamburger, on the lapel of her now shapeless flannel jacket and a big spot of grease on the front of her now creased and baggy flannel skirt. Two days of abuse had pretty well demolished her fragile stockings. Her nice black pumps had become very dusty and badly scuffed.

Well, I’d seen bedraggled ladies before, they aren’t uncommon in the business—I’d seen plenty of bedraggled gentlemen, too, of course—but the fact that she would deliberately make such a clown of herself for my benefit changed my opinion of her in a fundamental way. I mean, I’d tried to kid myself that if she was collaborating at all with Minister and those who’d hired him, she was doing it reluctantly under duress, but to achieve this outrageous lady-lush effect she must have cooperated enthusiastically at the very least, if she hadn’t done it all to herself.

I had a disturbing picture of her, in the privacy of a hotel room, say, sending out for food and drink and then using it to paint ugly stains on her nice suit and blouse. After that, a nail file, perhaps, to start runs in her pretty nylons and scratch and scuff her handsome shoes. And then maybe even going to bed fully dressed to give her sabotaged costume an authentically creased and wrinkled look to fit the demeaning act she was now performing for me…

“Stand still,” I said. “You can’t go out of here looking like that.”

I found that I was embarrassed for her and trying to keep myself between her and the rest of the room to shield her, which was ridiculous since she’d got herself into this state deliberately. Besides, everybody here had undoubtedly gotten an eyeful when she’d come stumbling in. But after all, it went with my part in this scenario: the rescuing hero. I buttoned up the gaping blouse and arranged the soiled ascot as neatly as its condition allowed, tucked her in a bit, and buttoned her jacket tidily. I dipped a paper napkin into a glass of water and used it to clean off her lapel; the stained skirt was obviously beyond such simple remedies, and there were other smears and smudges she’d have to live with a little longer. She’d have looked better without her hopelessly laddered stockings, but I couldn’t see peeling them off her here.

She gave that giggle again. I remembered that I’d once wanted to see her laugh, hear her laugh; but that had been another girl in another lifetime. Now the intoxicated titter was getting on my nerves.

“Those kids are whispering about me,” she said happily. “‘See the drunk female
gringo
.’ I really look a fright, don’t I?”

I said, “If it’s female, it’s a
gringa.
Do you need to go to the john?”

“I’ve been to the john, I’ve been sick as a dog in the john. Bitch?” She tried for the giggle once more and choked on it. Her eyes were suddenly wide with the shame and embarrassment I’d looked for earlier. “Oh, I feel so awful and I look so dreadful! Please get me out of here, Mr. Helm.”

It was a genuine plea, a moment of honesty, I thought, as she realized fully, belatedly, the shocking condition into which she’d gotten herself. Perhaps she hadn’t intended to carry her performance quite so far. Perhaps she hadn’t lied when she’d told me she wasn’t accustomed to drinking. Perhaps, inexperienced, she’d had a few too many, trying to make her act look very convincing; and now she could feel herself losing control of the situation and becoming the sodden creature she’d only wanted to imitate for my benefit… I steadied her as she swayed, and guided her out of the place and across the street into the waiting taxi, where she promptly fell asleep against me. I had to shake her awake and tidy her up again after paying off the driver. Then I helped her out of the cab and supported her as she stumbled across the sidewalk and through the hotel lobby.