A tremor of excitement traveled the length of her body, spreading from the warmth on her leg. She moved again, and the stout woman on her right shot her an angry glance, but the hand was taken from her leg.
The excitement in her ebbed.
She stood stock-still, wondering when it would start again. She almost didn’t breathe.
It seemed as if there would be no more. She moved her leg impatiently, but the excitement that had flared within her was dead, and now she felt only the oppressive heat of the train. The car jogged along, and she cursed her foolishness in trying the subway to begin with. She thought of the thousands of girls who rode home every night and then the heat overwhelmed her again, and she was sorry for herself once more.
The train rounded a curve, and she lost her balance. She lurched backward, felt the smooth, gentle hands close on her, then release her instantly as she righted herself.
The train pulled into 86th Street, and the door slid open. She was pushed onto the platform, and shoved past the man and woman who had been standing behind her in the train. The man was short and squat, and he wore a battered panama. His hands were thin, with long fingers that clung innocently to the lapels of his suit. She looked at the tall girl, and the girl’s eyes met hers sympathetically. She smiled quickly, darting her eyes away, and the girl smiled. The embarking passengers rushed by her, and suddenly everyone on the platform was scrambling to get into the car again. She stepped in quickly, moving deliberately in front of the tall girl, and away from the man. He pushed into the car behind her, and she felt the girl shoved rudely against her, too. She heard the door close behind them, and she sucked in a deep breath as the heat descended again.
She knew what was going to happen, and she waited expectantly. The excitement was mounting in her again, and she found herself wishing desperately for the warmth. When it came she almost sighed aloud. The hands were gentle, as before, as she knew they had to be. They touched her, and then held tight. She shivered and the hands moved slowly, deliberately. For a moment there was sudden doubt in her mind, and then she put the doubt aside and thought only of the moving hands, the deliberate pressure of the hands.
They became more insistent, strangely so, strongly so. A perplexed frown creased her brow, and the doubt returned, and she was almost tempted to turn and look. But that was absurd... that was...
The hands continued, moving feverishly, and suddenly she realized there was wild strength in the fingers. She looked down in panic. This wasn’t... couldn’t be...
The hand she saw was covered with hair.
Long slender fingers, but dark masculine hair.
“I thought...” she murmured, and then she began screaming.
When the train pulled into 125th Street, she was still Screaming. The tall girl who’d also been standing behind her left the car with the other passengers, all shaking their heads.
The policeman held the short, squat man firmly.
“He was molesting me!” she told the policeman. “A man. A man!” And then, because he was looking at her so strangely, she added, “This man, Officer.”
I promise.
Carrera’s Woman
This story carried the Richard Marsten byline when it was first published in Manhunt in February of 1953. As a twist on a Woman in Jeopardy yarn, it combines an exotic locale with a sort of action-adventure hero and a true bandito-style villain. It is an absolute coincidence that the bad guy in this story is called Carrera whereas the good guy in the 87th Precinct series, three years later, would be called Carella.
The Mexican sky hung over our heads like a pale blue circus tent. We crouched behind the rocks, and we each held .45s in our fists. We were high in the Sierra Madres, and the rocks were jagged and sharp, high outcroppings untouched by erosive waters. Between us was a stretch of pebble-strewn flatland and a solid wall of hatred that seemed alive in the heat of the sun. We were just about even, but not quite.
The guy behind the other .45 had ten thousand dollars that belonged to me.
I had something that belonged to him.
His woman.
She lay beside me now, flat on her belly, her hands and her feet bound. She was slim and browned from the sun. Her legs were long and sleek where her skirt ended. Her head was twisted away from me, her hair as black as her boyfriend’s heart.
“Carrera!” I shouted.
“I hear you, señor,” he answered.
His voice was as big as he was. I thought of his paunch, and I thought of the ten G’s in the money belt pressed tight against his sweaty flesh. I’d worked hard for that money. I’d sweated in the Tampico oil fields for more than three years, socking it away a little at a time, letting it pile up for the day I could kiss Mexico good-bye.
“Look, Carrera,” I said, “I’m giving you one last chance.”
“Save your breath, señor,” he called back.
“You’d better save yours, you bastard,” I shouted. “You’d better save it because pretty soon you’re not going to have any.”
“Perhaps,” he answered.
I couldn’t see him because his head was pulled down below the rocks. But I knew he was grinning.
“I want that ten thousand,” I shouted.
He laughed aloud this time.
“Ah, but that is where the difficulty lies,” he said. “I want it, too.”
“Look, Carrera, I’m through playing around,” I told him. “If you’re not out of there in five minutes, I’m going to put a hole in your sweetie’s head.” I paused, wondering if he’d heard me. “You got that, Carrera? Five minutes.”
He waited again before answering.
“You had better shoot her now, señor. You are not getting this money.”
The girl began laughing.
“What’s so damn funny?” I asked her.
“You will never outwait Carrera,” she said. Her voice was as low and as deep as her laugh. “Carrera is a very patient man.”
“I can be patient, too, sister,” I said. “I patiently saved that ten thousand bucks for three years, and no tinhorn crook is going to step in and swipe it.”
“You underestimate Carrera,” she said.
“No, baby, I’ve got Carrera pegged to a tee. He’s a small-time punk. Back in the States, he’d be shaking pennies out of gum machines. He probably steals tortillas from blind old ladies down here.”
“You underestimate him,” she repeated.
I shook my head. “This is Carrera’s big killing — or so he thinks. That ten thousand is his key to the big time. Only it belongs to me, and it’s coming back to me.”
“If you were smart,” she said, “you would leave. You would pack up and go, my friend. And you wouldn’t stop to look back.”
“I’m not smart.”
“I know. So you’ll stay here, and Carrera will kill you. Or I will kill you. Either way, you will be dead, and your money will be gone, anyway.” She paused. A faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “It is better that you lose only your money.”
I glanced at my watch.
“Carrera has about two minutes, honey.”
“And after that?”
“It’s up to him,” I said. As if to check, I shouted, “You like your girlfriends dead, Carrera?”
“Ten thousand dollars will buy a lot of girlfriends,” he called back.
I looked down at her.