The Silencers

V

I made no apologies for letting it happen. My job wasn't to protect her life, it was to get her out of an awkward situation alive or dead. I'd made sure that my instructions were quite clear on that point. If I'd been sent to preserve her from bodily harm, I'd have run the whole thing differently, and Mac would undoubtedly have worded his orders differently.

I heard two quick warning whistles, barely audible, from LeBaron, meaning watch at your right (three mean on your left and one means behind you), but I'd been in this business longer than he, and I'd already taken care of Dolores. Maybe she was just a nice friendly girl from Chihuahua City, but she'd been planted on us by the management and I wasn't taking any chances. She folded when I clipped her, and I laid her head gently on the table, tucked a five-dollar bill into the front of her dress by way of apology and looked around.

It was a nice hellish scene by this time. The long, dark room was in a turmoil as everybody tried to make it out the door before the police arrived. There were curses in Spanish, English and Texan. Meanwhile, on the brightly lighted stage at the other end, forgotten, the tall girl had gone to her knees in agony, feeling in back for the thing that hurt her. She couldn't quite reach it, and she fell forward onto her yellow-satin stripper's dress, spread out as if to receive her.

LeBaron had muffed it. Fat Elena knew judo, too, apparently, and she was giving him a hard time. I couldn't be bothered with them. I started for the stage, and somebody running past knocked me off balance. I caught a whiff of expensive perfume and felt soft fur brush against me.

"Janie!" a woman's voice gasped. "Oh, Janie…

I picked myself out of the chairs and tables, and made it up to the stage. The lady of the minks was ahead of me, but the M.C. was ahead of her, crouching over the fallen girl. She tried to pull him away so she could get in there, and he drove an elbow back and knocked her down. It was my turn, and I got him to his feet with a heave. He didn't weight much, just a little white-faced, black-moustached runt in a loose-fitting dinner jacket.

He spun to face me, snarling, and reached under his shiny lapel. I did something flashy with my hands, and as he prepared to duck or parry the blow, I kicked him hard in the groin. He doubled up and fell down, moaning. I heard the one-whistle signal for danger behind and dropped on top of him. Something went over me. I rolled aside to see the tall, scarred portero raising a blackjack for another blow, but LeBaron was in back of him now. LeBaron dropped him with a chop to the neck.

I glanced at mine while LeBaron made sure of his. Mine was nothing to worry about. They weren't going to straighten him out in less than half an hour with anything less than a block and tackle. LeBaron's was his business and I left it to him. I heard the thud of a kick as LeBaron made sure we weren't bothered for a reasonable length of time. I was already turning back to the girl on the floor.

The pretty lady of the furs was kneeling beside her. When I saw the two faces close together and the similarity of the bone structure, I knew, of course, what had caught my eye in the nightclub down the street. The girl opened her eyes.

"Gail!" she breathed.

The kneeling woman touched her cheek with a gloved hand, hesitantly, the way you touch the dying. "Don't talk, dear. I'm sorry for everything, Janie. We'll get you home where you belong…

The girl shook her head, almost imperceptibly. She licked her lips and spoke with difficulty: "Under my hair, in back… Here. Take it." Summoning all her strength, she reached for something at the nape of her neck, pulled it loose and passed it over. Her eyes looked up and found me. I thought I saw a sort of challenge through the film of pain. "Gail," she breathed, "bend closer, listen, it's important, the whole world… the whole world…"

Then she was whispering inaudibly, as far as I was concerned, in the older girl's ear. A moment later she was dead. Gail looked up at me quickly, shocked and unbelieving.

"She's dead!"

"Yes."

"But she's my sister. My little sister! When I heard she was working in this awful place, I came all the way from-"

"Sure," I said. "Come on."

"We can't leave her like this!"

"She'll be taken care of. Come on."

I glanced at LeBaron, standing guard. He jerked his head towards the rear. He was mopping his cheek with a bloodstained handkerchief. The portero hadn't touched him, but Elena bad got in at least one good lick with her fingernails. I looked around. The place was still bedlam, but our particular part of it wasn't popular. This was Juarez, where you didn't associate with dead bodies if you could possibly help it-you went elsewhere fast. LeBaron put his handkerchief away and looked down.

"What about it?" he asked. "The man in Washington said get her out."

I'd had a decision to make, but I'd already made it. It was a neat disciplinary point-there are certainly times when orders should be followed to the letter-but there are also times when a little judgment is advisable. I didn't think Mac really had any use for a dead girl, particularly when there was a live one handy.

"She's out," I said. "Whatever she had, she just passed it. Let's go… Come on, Gail."

Sarah's sister-or Lila's or Mary Jane's-was still kneeling there, numb and dazed. "But Sam, the man I was with-"

"The hell with Sam," I said. "Have you ever seen the inside of a Mexican jail, honey?"

Even in that moment, in that place, she didn't like being called honey. I was presuming on too short an acquaintance. I could see that we could spend all night there getting introduced properly, so I picked up her little white purse from the floor where she'd dropped it. I shoved it into my pocket and gestured to LeBaron. He got one arm and I got the other, and we set Gail on her pretty little blue high-heeled shoes and marched her towards the curtains at the rear of the stage.

"Left and out," LeBaron said. "Jesus had better have the cab waiting, damn his black Yaqui soul." After a moment, he said, "The portero threw the knife. I should have kicked him harder. I'm afraid he'll live."

"The M.C. was in it, too," I said. "He was searching the girl for something when we interrupted him."

"Searching? She didn't have much to search, just a bra and G-string."

"She had it in her hair, whatever it was. She got it from that American tourist, I think. I never saw his face, but she patted his black hair nicely as she went by, and he reached up to grab her, remember?" I glanced back and said, sentimentally and uselessly, "Poor kid."

"Yeah."

This wasn't all just idle chitchat, you understand. We were pooling what information we had, while we had the chance, in accordance with standard operating procedure in case only one of us got out to make a report. The woman between us tried to pull free and gasped with pain as we both clamped down-the cops used come-alongs made of chain and stuff, nicely chrome plated, but there are perfectly good grips that serve the same purpose.

"Let me go!" she protested. "Let me go!"

LeBaron was leading, since he knew the way. I was keeping an eye out behind us, so I was the first to see the Texas cavalry come charging to the rescue as we reached the curtains. Somebody had clobbered him good in the melee, but not good enough, and he stumbled up to the stage in his silly boots, with his face streaming blood from a cut over the eye.

"You there!" he yelled. "Get your cotton-picking hands off that lady, you sons of bitches!"

Then, so help me, he pulled a gun. In a place like that, with hell breaking loose already, he pulled a gun. A guy like that would light a cigar in a fireworks factory.

I shouted, using the name the woman had mentioned:

"This way, Sam! Make it snappy! We've been waiting for you!"

It didn't work. The invitation didn't register. We were strangers; we were hostile; we were manhandling his girl, and you can't do that to a Texan, suh. He took another step and stood there swaying, waiting for the weapon in his hand to settle down on something so he could shoot it.

"Left and out," LeBaron said quickly, urging us through the curtains. "Jesus will get you across the river. Never mind the cowboy, I'll take care of him."

He started back across the stage. I didn't wait to see what happened, but I heard a shot as I pulled the reluctant woman through the narrow passage and out through a door that stood open as if we weren't the first to escape that way.

I waited just a moment outside, but LeBaron didn't come. Maybe I'd see him again and maybe I wouldn't. Like I said, trained men doing a job. You don't have to love each other like brothers, but the next time, if there was a next time, he could talk about sex all he wanted, even if he had been a little slow in dealing with Elena.

"Cab number five!" a voice called softly.

We were in an alley of sorts. It was seemingly empty, the way certain parts of certain towns get when there's trouble, but you could feel eyes watching from all the shadows. I headed towards the voice. A man showed himself briefly, beckoning. I ran after him through the narrow space between two buildings, dragging Gail along with a grip that wouldn't let her resist without tearing some ligaments.

The parked cab on the street beyond was battered and ancient, but it looked remarkably like the promised land at that moment. I shoved my companion into the back and piled in after her. Jesus had the heap moving before I got the door closed.

A minute later we were on a street full of lights and people. It was hard to believe that there were still places in Juarez where tourists haggled innocently over so-called Swiss watches and native ponchos. Jesus turned off this street, driving circumspectly, and made some more turns that left me lost.

"There is the bridge, senor," Jesus said presently without turning his head. "I do not think they will stop us on this side, there has not been sufficient time for an alarm, but on the other side there will be the usual questions. The lady is a citizen of the Estados Unidos?"

"Yes. At least I think so."

"She must say it, senor. Remember that. They will ask and wait for the answer. They will act as if it is not important, but the words must be spoken, always."

"Thanks, Jesus."

It was nice to work with bright people. He had noticed that the third occupant of the cab wasn't really happy in my company. I glanced at Gail. She was rubbing her strained wrist. In the darkness of the cab, she did not look noticeably disheveled in spite of what she'd been through. Her fluffy, tumbled hairdo was only a little more so, her dress and furs and gloves seemed to be intact, and if all went well nobody was going to examine her shoes and stockings, so I didn't. But I did note that she had a tense, wound-up look that said she was only waiting for a chance to make trouble.

I took a ball-point pen out of my pocket without letting her see it. I couldn't risk being separated from her by chivalrous immigration inspectors, even briefly. Right then, I couldn't afford to let her out of my sight for a moment. I took her in my arms, rammed the pen into her side, and spoke softly in her ear.

"It's a gun, Gail," I said. "We don't want trouble. But if there is trouble, honey, you'll sure as hell get it first."

She didn't move or speak. I saw the bridge loom before us, and I laid myself against her and kissed her hard, holding the pen in her ribs. I claim no credit for originating the idea. It's been done before, in the movies and elsewhere. The thing about it is that it often works. The cab stopped. Money changed hands as Jesus paid the toll. There were sympathetic words in Spanish, and appreciative laughter. The cab drove on.

"We have passed the Mexican side," Jesus reported. "No sweat, si?"

My companion smelled nice, and she felt warm and feminine, but it wasn't really much of a kiss. There was a noticeable lack of enthusiastic cooperation, and I felt considerably like a fool, slobbering over the face of a woman whose main reaction was probably a strong desire to throw up. The cab stopped again, and somebody asked a question. I came up for air and saw a face surmounted by a uniform cap at the window.

"Oh," I said foolishly. "What was that, Officer?"

"Did you buy anything in Mexico, sir?"

"Not this trip," I said.

"What is your citizenship?"

"U.S.," I said.

"And yours, ma'am?"

The women in my arms hesitated. I nudged her with the pen. She drew a long breath.

"I'm American," she said.

The uniformed character straightened up, stepped back and waved us on.

I said, "Honey, you shouldn't have said it like that."

She glanced at me quickly, startled. "But-"

"Our neighbors don't like it," I said. We were driving away, but it seemed best to be heard talking naturally. "They're not our continents, you know, either one of them, although sometimes we act as if we own them both. Jesus is American, too, aren't you, Jesus?"

"Si, senor."

"You, Gail, are a citizen of the United States of

America," I went on pedantically, "but from Hudson's

Bay to Tierra del Fuego we're all Americans together…

It's the Hotel Paso del Norte, Jesus."

"Si, Senor."

A few minutes later, I was ushering Gail into my sixth floor room at the hotel. I locked the door behind us, and took my hand out of the pocket, leaving the ball-point pen there. I looked at the pretty, slightly rumpled woman standing in the center of the room.

"Now, Gail," I said gently, "you'd better give me what your sister gave you, and you'd better tell me what she told you, word for word."