Thin Air

Chapter 41

Gunfire started popping in the house as Deleon's troops started firing back from the sandbagged window positions. There was the occasionally heavier boom of a shotgun and occasionally the rippling bursts of a light automatic weapon. Stooping low to take advantage of the sandbags, in case Santiago's gunners lost track of what they were supposed to be doing, we moved into the hallway. A man with a handgun stuck in his belt pushed past us, carrying a clear plastic bag full of shotgun shells. We moved along the interior wall, feeling the wetness where it too was soaked with muddy water.

The staircase was empty, everyone was hunkered down at a gun port by now. I wondered where the women and children were. Probably in the central yard where the bullets wouldn't reach them. As we went up, I could hear the building groaning like a ship in a storm. The walls of the stairwell were wet, and the remnant of stairwell carpet was soaking as we walked on it. Above us I heard the sound of wood twisting.

"It's the goddamned roof garden," I said to Chollo.

"The roof garden?"

"Yeah. It's been raining for three days. All the dirt on the roof. It's soaked full of water. The house is caving in under the weight."

"That makes it nice," Chollo said.

At the top of the stairs we turned left and back past the stairwell toward the front room. In the corner of the hallway, where the right wall joined the front wall, a man was crouched by the window, staying low, trying to see what was happening. He looked up at us as we came down the corridor, and frowned. We didn't look familiar. His hand went under his coat. Chollo said something in Spanish and jerked his thumb at the stairwell behind us. The guard had his gun out now, a big, stainless-steel Colt.45. He looked past us down the corridor where Chollo had pointed, and I hit him just above his right ear with the sap. He grunted and dropped the gun and staggered against the wall. I hit him again, same place, and he sighed and slid down the wall and lay still on the floor. The water running down the walls was already beginning to soak into his shirt.

"What'd you say?" I asked Chollo.

"I said, `Luis wants you right away,"' Chollo answered.

There was a gun in his hand now, but otherwise he looked as relaxed as he had when I thought he was falling asleep in front of Deleon. I looked at the door to Lisa's room. It was padlocked. I stepped back against the far wall, feeling the wetness soak through the back of my pants where the leather jacket didn't protect it, then I lunged a kick at the door and heard the hasp screws tear in the door. I stepped back and did it again and the hasp tore loose and the door flew open. The room was completely dark. Chollo produced a small flashlight and shone it into the darkness and there was Lisa St. Claire in jeans and a tee shirt, holding an iron bar like a baseball bat, her eyes wide and startled like a deer caught in the headlights.

The gunfire sounds increased. In the wet darkness she heard someone at the door. She turned to face the door when it burst open. The light outside the door was dim, but it was too strong after the pitch darkness of her room. She squinted, trying to adjust. She could see someone in the doorway, two someones-a big man, very broad, and a slimmer man with balletic movements. Both of them had guns. Everywhere water dripped from the ceiling and slithered down the walls. He spoke. She backed into the room a little, crouching. Maybe she could get past them as they came in to get her. She spoke, without knowing what she said. Her voice sounded to her like the snarl of an animal. He spoke again. She knew him. He was Frank's friend. He'd been at the wedding with his girlfriend. She spoke without hearing herself. He spoke to her and she didn't hear him. Her world was no longer one of discourse. She felt his arm around her. She went with him, the dancer man ahead of them. The house creaked as they moved through it. The sounds of stress in the house were nearly continuous. The walls were slick with water. Holding onto the banister with her free hand, because the stairs were slippery with rain water, she went down with him. Her heart pounded. She struggled to control herself. Calm, she thought. Ready. I'm not out yet. On the stairs Luis was there. She shrank in upon herself. Words in Spanish. Then they were in the hall. Jostled. Gunshot. Out into the rain-wet, bright-black night street. Rain smell. Headlights. Silence before her. The house groaning behind her. The big man's arm still tight around her. Headlights. Her breath shallow. She felt a ripple of agoraphobic fear. She could barely breathe. Calm. Ready. She felt the rain in her face. The armed men clumped around her. The big man continued to hold his arm around her. The street seemed vast and unstructured, the figures across the street seemed remote and unreal. The buildings next door seemed distant. She felt a little dizzy, as if the earth were unstable and things might suddenly turn upside down. Luis was talking to the big man. I have to be calm, she thought. Behind her she heard the thud of something, plaster maybe, sodden with water, falling to the floor. A timber somewhere in the house gave way with a twisting screech. I have to be ready.