Santa Fe Edge

3

It was nearly noon before the guard came for Barbara in her cell, and she had been getting nervous, thinking something had gone wrong. The guard finally opened the cell door, and she didn’t handcuff Barbara.

The guard took her down the corridors, let her into Alvarez’s office and closed the office door behind her. Barbara locked it herself.

This seemed to please Alvarez. “Would you like a drink?” he asked.

“Sure,” she replied, walking toward his desk, where a bottle of tequila reposed, along with some glasses. “Let me get you one.” She was unbuttoning her blouse as she walked.

“Good girl,” Alvarez said, unzipping his pants.

Barbara fished the two Valium tablets from her bra and ground them between her thumb and forefinger into the glass as she poured the liquid. She turned and walked over to Alvarez while reaching behind her and unhooking her bra.

“You’re not having one?” he asked.

“Afterward,” she replied. “I enjoy it more if I’m sober.” She knelt between his legs and began toying with his penis. “Salud.”

He tossed off the tequila, grabbed her hair and pulled her into his crotch.

She took longer this time, hoping the drug would work quickly, playing with him, bringing him to the brink of orgasm, then backing off. After fifteen minutes or so he came loudly, then sagged sideways on the sofa, as he had done the previous day. She continued to stroke him until he fell asleep.

Barbara walked back to the desk, took a swig from the tequila bottle, swished it around her mouth and spat it onto the floor, then went into the apartment, picked a dress from the closet and put it on. She took a scarf from a drawer to wear over her blond hair, then picked up the phone and dialed James Long’s cell number.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“Just driving down Camino Cerritos,” he said. “I was delayed by some roadwork.”

“Can you be under the window in five minutes?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“See you then.” Barbara hung up and looked around the room for something else but didn’t find it. She walked back into the office and looked around. In a corner was a silver-trimmed Mexican saddle, with a cowboy’s rope tied to it. She took the rope and started back into the apartment, then stopped.

She had nearly forgotten the safe. She knelt before it and pressed in the code she had found in the desk. There was a soft click, then she turned the handle and the door swung open. To her delight, the first thing she saw was two stacks of bills, one of dollars, the other of pesos. She took both. On a lower shelf, half a dozen pistols were arrayed. She chose a small Beretta semiautomatic and checked to be sure it was loaded.

At the bottom of the safe she found a cloth bag and put the gun and the money into it and tied it around her neck. She walked back to where Alvarez slept, thought about putting a bullet into his brain, then decided against it. It would just make the authorities angrier and motivate their search for her.

She went back into the apartment and into the bathroom, where she tied one end of the rope around the base of the sink, then she stood on the toilet, opened the window and, with one foot on the sink, raised herself and looked out. A car was just turning into the alley, with Jimmy at the wheel. Perfect.

Barbara tossed the remainder of the rope out the window, then, pushing off the toilet tank, got her upper half out the window and looked down. The car was directly beneath her.

Holding tightly to the rope, she allowed the rest of herself to fall out the window, breaking the fall with the rope. She landed in a sitting position on top of the car, then let herself to the ground. “Hi, there,” she said to Jimmy.

“Hey, babe,” he replied, smiling.

She got into the backseat. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, “but slowly. We have some time, I think.”

Jimmy backed slowly down the alley and into the street, then put the car in drive and headed back the way he had come.

Barbara kept her head down until they had cleared the town, then she crawled over the seat and into the front.

“How long until Acapulco?” she asked.

“A little over an hour.”

“How long before the roadwork?”

“Half that.”

“Stop well before it, and I’ll get into the trunk. We don’t want the workers remembering a car with a woman in it.”

“Good thinking,” he said. “How are you? Was it rough?”

“At times, but nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“What’s that around your neck?” he asked.

“Ill-gotten gains,” she replied.

Twenty minutes later Jimmy slowed the car. “I think the roadwork is just around the bend ahead.”

They both got out of the car and checked for traffic. Barbara climbed in the trunk. “I’ll let you out when it’s safe,” Jimmy said, then closed it after her.

He got in and drove away, while Barbara did her best to make herself comfortable. Shortly, the car stopped, then moved forward in little spurts, then they were finally past the work and at speed. Jimmy slowed and stopped again, then helped her out of the trunk.

Barbara put on the head scarf and took Jimmy’s sunglasses from him and put them on. “There,” she said. “Did you get the hair dye?”

“It’s in our suite,” he said. “Why don’t we go straight to the airport and get out of here?”

“No,” she said. “They’ll shut that down as soon as I’m missed. Let’s go to the Princess. We’ll check on the airport tomorrow. I don’t care if we have to wait for a few days, until the heat is off.”

“I don’t think the pilot will wait that long,” he said.

“Call him when we get to the hotel and tell him tomorrow. Where’s my suitcase?”

“In the suite,” he replied. “I had everything in it pressed.”

“Good.” As they approached Acapulco, Barbara put her head in Jimmy’s lap. “Wake me when we’re there,” she said.

Jimmy drove to the hotel, passing the main entrance, then stopping at a side door. He handed her a key card. “This will let you in through that door and into the suite. It’s number nine hundred, ninth floor, turn right out of the elevator. I’ll go park the car.”

Barbara got out of the car and let herself into the hotel, then followed Jimmy’s directions to the suite. It was spacious and sunny, with a terrace overlooking the Pacific. She undressed, went into the bathroom and began applying the hair color. By the time Jimmy got upstairs, she was a redhead. She dried her hair, and when she came out of the bathroom, Jimmy was in bed, naked.

“You deserve a reward,” she said, climbing in beside him.