“Big Sam!”
“Who is he?”
My mind put it together in a second. My wire had been tapped. They’d traced the call to Revita’s house. Right now I could hear a distant, tinny voice on the wire:
“Open up. In the name of the law!”
There wasn’t time to explain to Revita. I broke the connection instantly, dialed the operator.
“Get me the Santa Carlita County Sheriff’s office. It’s an emergency.”
She made it quick, and I told the deputy:
“A woman is being kidnapped from 1127 Troviglia Road. That’s south of town just this side of Wayside Highway.”
“1127 Troviglia Road,” he repeated it as he wrote. “Who is this calling?”
I hung up.
Ten minutes it would take at the outside for the sheriff’s car to get there, but I knew almost certainly that it wouldn’t be soon enough. Why had she been so slow about leaving? Now it was too late.
It was a mess from here on in.
The party was starting, but it was starting too early, and it was starting all wrong from the way I’d planned it. I stood up, shoved the gun in my pants pocket, put on my coat, and left. Wherever they took her, whatever they did to her, one man would know.
Ernie Fidako.
Ernie Fidako’s house was north of town, and it was a long low ranch-style setup, with almost enough land around it to make it a real ranch. There were lights burning and three cars in the parking area.
I didn’t try to sneak up. I was through sneaking up on anything. I barged right up the driveway, left my car in the middle of it, and started for the house. The veranda was dark, so I didn’t see the guy there, until he stood up fight in front of me.
“Who did you want to see?”
He was close enough to touch, but it was dark, and he didn’t see my hand until it was swinging. The gun muzzle hit the side of his head, and I guess he had his mouth open to yell, but all that came out was a long sigh. I caught him and eased him to the porch.
I didn’t put the gun back in my pocket.
I tried the front door, and it wasn’t locked. The front hall was lighted only by the reflection from the door of another room. I cat-footed along the hall, looked into a den where nobody was, then a big voice from another part of the house hollered:
“Hey, Max. Who came in?” Ernie Fidako’s voice.
I tracked it.
“Max, dammit—”
“Okay, Boss, I’ll see.”
I thumbed the safety off the gun. Chances were we were going to meet in this hall, Max and I.
I backed six or eight feet to where some drapes framed the entry to what was probably a living room; and now I could hear Max’s feet coming along the hall, moving my way — and that’s the last thing I did hear.
Something like a brilliant light went off inside my head; but I didn’t hear a thing, or feel a thing. Just the blaze of light that was swallowed up in darkness, and after that nothing. I was nothing. Nobody. Nowhere.
How long it was like that, I don’t know. Then, far away, it was like a pulse started to beat somewhere in me — a pulse of thought. Negative, was the thought... negative... negative...
And with it came a wonder — was I dead? — had it happened?
Then an ache joined the pulse of thought. And a light joined the ache. A light through my closed eyelids.
I wasn’t dead.
I was hurt. But I wasn’t dead.
I hurt more with every pulse. My head. And now I could feel the breath in my throat, coming in hard, going out hard. I was lying on my face on something hard. Then suddenly, the way you switch on a radio, a voice cut through the fog in my mind:
“—imagine, a punk like him. Must of gone nuts. A punk like him.”
“You imagine it. I don’t like the way he got in here. I’m twenty feet away from a bullet, and you’re sitting on your fat can in the kitchen lapping up beer. What the hell do I pay you for if not protection?”
“Aw, Boss—”
“Shut up. Turn him over. Throw some water on him.”
They shut up. I was turned over. Water hit me in the face. I opened my eyes.
“What the hell’s the idea, Makin?”
They looked enormously tall, standing over me. Four of them. Ernie Fidako, broad, blond, pink-faced; Big Sam, big as a house, his face a mess; a third guy with a narrow, nervous face; and a fourth who looked pure Mexican. The ache in my head was a shattering thing; it made my muscles feel like rubber and my stomach feel like I was going to be sick. But the sickest thing was the thought in my mind:
I’d flopped.
All the talk about prognosis negative, and nothing to lose, and why not fling one last party to have one honest memory to take with you — and what had it come to? I had only to turn my head to see how complete the flop had been.
Beside me, near enough to touch, was Revita Rosales; she was in a straight chair, and her eyes watched me, wide and frightened.
Ernie said again, “What’s the idea?”
I shook my head, not trusting my voice.
Big Sam said: “Went nuts, huh?”
“Nuts or not” — Fidako’s voice was a cold thing — “I want that sixty grand. Now where is it?”
So they hadn’t picked the money up with Revita. I looked at Ernie Fidako, at his wide pink face with the cold eyes deep in the fat, at the pink scalp showing through the blond hair; and wearily I sat up. A gun appeared in the hand of the thin, nervous-faced guy. I assumed he was Max. Ernie Fidako waved an impatient hand at Revita Rosales.
“Make that damn dame look alive.”
“Sure.” Big Sam took hold of her hair and turned her head so hard she was whipped around and the chair rocked on its legs. She screamed. She screamed for help, and she hit it like an opera singer taking high C.
Big Sam laughed and slapped her, whipping her head around to the other side, and she left it there, the hair half hiding her face; and she stopped screaming. I could see now that we were in a cellar with concrete floor and walls and no windows. Air sighed from a ventilator grating in the ceiling. They weren’t worried about her screams being heard.
“That’s better.” Fidako put a slim, tan cigar in his mouth and the Mexican guy lit it for him. “Now where’s my sixty thousand bucks?”
Revita told him a lot of things: what he was, where he could go, and what he could do when he got there — and it’s a pity they weren’t in English. She spat at him but he was too far away. Fidako said:
“What’s she saying?”
The Mexican said, “She say no dice.”
I said to Revita, “I’m sorry, kid.”
“It isn’t your fault.”
It was, though. I should have figured that tapped wire. I should have told her about her husband two weeks ago. Now I said:
“Where is the money?”
“In a safe place.”
“Better give it to him.”
“Why? He’ll kill us anyway.”
Which was right. He couldn’t take a chance on us going to the law with what we knew about his wetback racket and her husband’s death. Maybe he could beat the raps, but he wouldn’t chance it. Not when he didn’t have to. She was right. Prognosis negative for the both of us.
The Mexican had translated while we talked, and now Ernie Fidako jerked his chin at Big Sam who said:
“Aw, I think she’ll talk.” He struck a match with his thumbnail, and his swollen lips made a grin. “How about it, tamale? Where’s the dough?”
She spat in his face, and this time she didn’t miss. Big Sam slapped her hard enough to rock the chair again on its legs; and her head stayed to one side, again half covered by her hair. Big Sam struck another match.
“Heads up, tamale.”
She didn’t move. Big Sam shoved the flame into her hair, and a lick of fire went up it. Big Sam batted it out, as Revita’s head jerked up in horror. Big Sam laughed.