The Spanish Connection

Sixteen

I pushed his eyelids closed.

I helped the Guardia Civil take care of Corelli's body and then left on my skis as some men with shovels began digging for Tina Bergson. I drew aside the man with the Fu Manchu mustache and informed him of Barry Parson's sad end.

It was pleasant under the shower to soak off all the strain and the tension of this Spanish Connection business. I toweled in my room preparatory to dressing and knocking for Juana Rivera. It was time I told her the last chapter of the story and started with her on the road to Malaga.

I checked my Luger in the shoulder holster hung over the bedpost, and reached for my robe. Since my feet were dry I taped on the stiletto and shrugged into the cool terrycloth. The mirror in the bathroom was clouded but I managed to comb my hair. I checked again and found that the strands of gray had not reappeared after I had pulled them out the week before.

I knew I would see more of them, not less, in the future.

My bags were all packed — I had done that before climbing in the shower — and I debated putting on my clothes before knocking for Juana, and then I thought, what the hell, and strode over to the door and tapped with my bare knuckles.

"Come in," I heard her say in a muffled voice.

"Are you ready?"

There was no answer.

I opened the door and walked in.

The door closed behind me and I turned in surprise to find Juana in a chair facing me. She was completely naked, with a handkerchief tied around her mouth and her hands spliced together behind her back and tied to the chair. Her legs were fastened to the legs of the chair. She was staring at me with mute, imploring eyes.

I reached back for the door knob.

"No, no, Nick!" a voice said softly.

The drapes near the window shimmered and Tina Bergson stepped out from behind them, holding a gun in her hand. It seemed enormous — for her. It was Parsons Webley Mark IV. She was dressed in ski clothes — the same outfit she had worn on the slope. She was wet and cold, but otherwise quite herself. Her eyes were burning with a land of frenzy.

"Hello, Nick," she said with an amused laugh.

"Tina," I said.

"Yes. I did not die in that avalanche you started."

"So I see."

I turned and glanced at Juana's naked body once again. It was then that I saw the cigarette burns on her naked breast. I shuddered. There were sadomasochistic strains in Tina Bergson, possibly the lesbian tendencies that had been channelized into nymphomania.

"You're sick, Tina," I said softly. "What good does it do to hurt people like Juana?"

Tina exploded. "Rico was a fool to try to break up the drug chain! He had the best money-making scheme in the world — and he wanted to get rid of it!"

"But it killed his daughter."

Tina sneered. "That daughter had become a slut just like all women — having every male at that silly college she went to."

"In your imagination only, Tina," I said. "You need a shrink."

She threw back her head and laughed. "You're a puritan, Nick! You know that? A puritan!"

I thought of the shoulder holster hanging on the bedpost in my room and cursed myself for being a stupid fool. I never go anywhere without it. All because of a silly sentimental interest in Juana Rivera I had exposed myself to death.

"Give me the microfilm, Nick," said Tina, moving away from the drapes where she had been waiting for me. "I saw you with Rico. You must have it. Give it to me or I'll kill you."

"No deal, Tina," I said. "If I hand over the film, you'll kill the two of us and go."

"No," Tina said, her eyes bright. "I don't care what you and the bitch do. You can leave and fly back to the States, for all I care. I just want the microfilm and I'll let you go."

I shook my head. "No way, baby."

Her eyes were bright and as blue as glacier ice. I thought of Scandinavian fjords, and grues of ice. And I thought of that beautiful body under those ski clothes.

Tina pointed the heavy British Webley toward Juana. I watched her with a fascination that was almost sickening. Juana's eyes rolled around fearfully. I could see her trembling. Tears began to slide down her cheeks.

"You're a monster," I said calmly. "Do you hear me, Tina? You could have taken me on, and not tormented Juana. What kind of an inhuman thing are you?"

Tina shrugged. "I'll kill her at the count of three if you don't deliver those films to me, Nick."

"I don't have the film," I said quickly. Suddenly, out of the blue, I had a plan. I wanted her to think I was protesting too much.

Her eyes narrowed. "I saw you with Rico. You must have gotten the film from him. He needed one meeting with you alone. That was all. And he got it. He must have given it to you. One, Nick."

I was sweating. "Tina, listen to me! He put the microfilm in the mail. He mailed it to Washington."

"Rico wouldn't trust the mails!" snorted Tina. "I know him better than that. Think up a better one, Nick. Two."

"Tina, it's the truth!" I moved toward her impulsively. "Now, put that gun down and get Juana out of that chair!"

Tina swung around at me. The muzzle of the heavy hand gun pointed at my chest. "This is a Webley.455 Nick," she snapped, her face tight. "It's as powerful as a Frontier Colt. Don't make me tear you to pieces. At this short range, there wouldn't be anything left of your chest or your heart. I'd have to hunt all through your things for the film. And I like that big rugged body of yours far too much to destroy it. Give it to me, Nick. The film!"

Juana was crying.

I moved around slightly.

"No!" Tina shouted, then turned the gun toward Juana's head, the muzzle only inches from her hair. "You give me that film, Nick. Or she dies!"

I stared at her in desperation.

"I've said one, and two, Nick! Now — here is the last moment…" She took a breath.

"Hold it!" I cried. "It's in the other room!"

"I don't believe it," Tina said with a small sneer. "No. You're carrying it on you. A valuable thing like that."

My face fell. "How can you be so sure?"

She smiled. "I know! That's all. I know!" She moved toward me. "Give it to me!"

I reached for the pocket of my terrycloth robe. "Tina…"

"Slow!"

She lifted the heavy muzzle and aimed it at my neck.

I backed off. "It's in — in my pocket."

She watched me, her eyes pinched, her mind working swiftly.

"Then take off your robe and hand it to me. Slowly."

I untied the belt, thinking furiously. I did not have the film in the pocket, of course. Yet…

"Off!" she snapped.

She was too far away to catch with the robe as I had hoped to do at first. I shrugged it off my shoulder and removed it from my body. I was standing there naked and exposed. If only she were nearer, I could flick out the robe, snap the Webley out of her hand, and…

"Throw it on the bed!"

With a sigh, I did so.

She moved toward it, keeping the gun centered on my chest and heart. With her left hand she fumbled inside one pocket. Empty. And then the other. Empty.

"Liar!" she screamed. "Where is it? "Where is it?"

I saw her eyes all blue fire as she stared at me, running her gaze up and down my body, and over my legs. I moved my foot slightly, flinching and trying to keep her from seeing the adhesive tape where it came around from the back of my ankle.

Involuntarily, my eyes drifted down toward my right leg. She noticed the way my glance had gone, and her eyes narrowed in thought She looked more carefully at my foot, then my leg, and she saw a tiny piece of adhesive tape coming around from the back of my ankle.

"There it is!" she snapped. "Taped to your ankle! Get it, Nick. Get it and…"

"Tina, I swear to you!"

"Do you want me to kill you and take that tape off myself?"

I knew that she would do it.

Feeling all naked and vulnerable, I bent over, reaching behind my right ankle. The tape was loose from the moisture of the shower when I had put it on, and I pulled the stiletto free instantly.

"Quick!" she called to me, leaning down over me and reaching out her left hand to take it from me.

I pulled the stiletto up and around and came toward her extending my left hand as if it held the microfilm. Her eyes flicked to my bunched-up fist and she reached out in a reflex action.

I pushed my fist toward her. She let her fingers touch it. I grabbed her wrist. At the same moment I drove with my right hand toward her body and slammed the stiletto into her neck just under the ear.

She fired the Webley with a gurgling scream.

The slug blasted itself into the hotel wall, penetrating through to the other side.

My chest burned from the fire of the exploding powder.

I fell back.

She went down and the arterial blood pumped out of her body onto her golden skin.

What a waste.

What a hell of a waste.

Shuddering, I got up and lifted her body and carried her to the bed.

She opened her eyes once.

"Nick," she whispered, and smiled a funny smile. "I'll never make it to seventy-seven, will I?"

"You picked the wrong profession," I said.

She went limp.

I attended to Juana, trying to comfort her as I untied her from the chair, then hustling her to the closet where she slipped into her clothes. Then I went to my room and got into mine.

I strolled back. I was holding my Rolleiflex now, looking exactly the way my cover story said I should look. Dear old Hawk.

Actually, I was happy to be dressed. It is always much easier to talk about mundane things when you have your clothes on.

"Where is that microfilm?" Juana asked me.

I lifted the Rolleiflex. "In here," I said. "A good cameraman always carries his film in a camera."

She stuck her tongue out at me.

I caught it on film. After all, I was one of the best photographers from the midwest, wasn't I? And Juana did not need to know that I had the microfilm in my pants pocket, like a pack of cigarettes or a key chain, did she?