“Where’s Miss Saybree?”
“She’s under guard. You can’t see her. We have plans for her.”
“She came in of her own free will, remember.”
“That’s something for the court to take into consideration, Sanson. We’re going to clear you if we can, just so we can get you out of the way. And if we can’t clear you, we’re going to see that you pay the maximum penalty the law allows. So don’t waste your breath and my patience trying to tell us our business.”
“I only...”
“For heaven sake, shut up, can’t you?”
Sanson looked down at his knuckles. He flushed. What this Tomkinton person said was unfortunately true. He had been the worst sort of fool. The Ranger behind Sanson stirred restlessly.
The door burst open and Felicia was pushed in. Her face was at once sullen and angry. She turned and tried to spit at the kakhi-clad Mexican official who had pushed her. He slapped her effortlessly and turned her around so that she faced Tomkinton.
She saw Lane at once. She ran to him, her eyes dancing. “Lane! I see again. I think never.”
“Get her away from him, Stan,” Tomkinton said to the Ranger. “You handle it.”
The Ranger pulled Felicia away gently. He questioned her in Spanish so fluent that Lane couldn’t follow it. She nodded energetically and answered in kind, pointing first to Lane and then to herself. He could almost follow what she was saying by her gestures. As she spoke she turned often to smile at him.
At last the Ranger held up both hands to stop the flow. He turned to Tomkinton. “It checks out. He got busted in the head because some of the boys over there working on the case mistook him for Charlie Denton and got over enthusiastic. This babe took care of him. Denton killed one of their plainclothes cops with a knife, visited this girl’s shack and made certain Sanson understood that unless he brought his car across the bridge, he could be framed for the killing of the cop.
“The girl says Sanson had to leave his car at a certain garage. Just about the time Sanson was leaving to cross the bridge they got Charlie, as we know. I can see how this fella wouldn’t want to take a chance on trying to cross Denton.”
Felicia gave out another long spate of Spanish. The Ranger nodded.
“She says that neither she nor Sanson knew what was in the package the men wanted. She says that Sanson is a good and honest man, but not very bright.” He grinned.
“Have her sit down over there and keep her mouth shut,” Tomkinton said. “It looks, Sanson, as though you might turn out to be lucky after all. Now get the Saybree woman down here and we’ll check her end of it again. Then you can take statements from Sanson and we can let him go.”
Lane turned and smiled back over his shoulder at Felicia. “Muchas gracias,” he said.
“Shut up, mister,” the Ranger said mildly.
Chapter Nine
Hamstrung!
Heat had gone from Christy. Now he had a chill so intense that he had to keep his jaw tightly shut to keep his teeth from chattering. When he had swum the narrow channel in the river, the cool water had felt good against the fire in his shoulder. But now he had the idea that it had done little good.
He moved through narrow stinking alleys, guided always by the blue letters in the sky which said The Sage House. The gun had been lost in the river, or else while he was running from the children. He couldn’t remember.
The river had washed away much of the filth, but his clothes still had a fetid odor. The swelling had spread down to his hand. It was visibly larger than the left hand, and of a darker shade.
He waited in doorways to avoid being seen. He was finding it hard to remember why he had to get to the hotel. It was all tangled in his mind. The girl was there, with the money. Shaymen had let him down. Then it seemed like he’d killed the girl back there near a fountain. It made his head hurt to try to straighten it all out. The only thing he was absolutely certain of was the great need to get to the hotel. He decided several times that when he reached the hotel he would remember why it was important.
And he wondered if he would ever be warm again.
It took time and planning to cross the main street. He had to go four blocks from the hotel and then wait a long time before he knew it was safe. Once he sat down in a doorway and, before he knew it, his eyes had closed. He awakened when he fell out of the doorway, his cheek against cinders.
Again there was the network of alleys and small streets. At last he came out into an open place which he recognized as the parking lot behind the hotel. He could not risk the alley entrance to the parking lot. Too much danger of a car coming in or going out, fixing him in its lights. The other wall of the hotel was separated from the wall of a store by a space so narrow that he had to turn his shoulders to get into it. He sidestepped along.
Soon there was a lighted window above his head. He jumped up and grabbed the sill and with effortless strength pulled his heavy body up to where he could look in. It was the dining room. He clung there, looking at the people at the tables. He knew none of them. He wanted to remember why he had come back here. Puzzled, he dropped back, continued his slow movement.
The next window was dark. The next window was lighted. It was a bit higher than the last one. He missed the sill the first jump.
On the second jump his fingers locked on the sill. He wondered vaguely why his right shoulder was so sore. He chinned himself on the sill and looked in.
It was a small room. An office. He saw her at once. Diana. Now he knew that she wasn’t dead. But her face had a funny dead look about it. The window was open from the top but he couldn’t hear what she was saying to the young round-faced man behind the desk because of the funny roaring sound in his ears.
And that man sitting beside her. Now it was becoming more clear. Diana and that man. He remembered the man throwing something at him. A great blow against his head. There was a Ranger, a Mexican girl and a Mexican official of some kind in the room. Christy gave them one quick glance. He wasn’t interested in them.
He dropped back to the ground to give himself time to think. George stood beside him, smiling the funny crooked smile.
“What the hell are you doing here, George?” he whispered.
George’s voice came from far away. It had a hollow sound. “I thought you might forget what I told you to do, Christy. I hear you’ve been crossing me up.”
“I wouldn’t do a thing like that, George. Honest!”
“You got to get in there and kill both of them, Christy. Diana and that friend of hers. You can do that.”
“There’re a couple of cops in there, George,” he complained.
“Remember, Christy, how strong you are? You can do it. If you don’t do it, I’ll know for sure you’re crossing me, Christy.”
“I’ll try, George. I’ll sure try. You know me.”
He glanced down the narrow space between the buildings to see if he was unobserved. When he looked back, George was gone. He blinked a few times and decided that George didn’t want to hang around. Besides, it was hard to see since he’d lost his glasses. He wondered where he’d left them.
Too bad about the gun. He could hang up there on the sill and pot both of them. Now he had to do it another way. He moved to the side of the window and put his back against the store wall, his feet against the hotel wall. He began to hitch his way up. It was slow work. Finally he was on a level with the window. Then, maintaining the pressure, he hitched sideways until at last his feet, spread wide, were on the sill.