“A little fire. That makes canaries of them all, doesn’t it, tamale?”
He wasn’t really laughing. His face had a strained, anticipatory look, and the grin had cracked his ruined lips so that a dribble of blood was working down his chin. The same look was in the faces of the others, too. All except Max. Max’s eyes, above the gun, never wavered from me.
I didn’t have any hope now. The end was inevitable. But you have to go on trying:
“Just for the record, Ernie. Who killed her husband?”
“Shut up.”
“I want to know.”
“What’s it to you?”
I looked at Cannon. “My guess is you, Sam.”
It was a bull’s-eye. Sam’s grin thinned to nothing at all, and he said: “Why don’t we take care of this guy first? He don’t know where the dough is. He’s just in the way.”
My heart jumped uncontrollably, but not because of what Big Sam said. An idea had streaked through my head, as quick as that. Not much of an idea. Maybe no idea at all. I spoke fast, in Spanish, to Revita:
“Was there a fight when they picked you up?”
“No,” she whispered back.
The Mexican translated it, and it didn’t seem to mean anything to them. Maybe it wouldn’t mean anything to anybody. Time was running out fast. I looked at the four of them, I ran my tongue in a slow circle of my lips, then I said in a voice I made shaky:
“Is it all right if I stand up?”
“What for?”
“I feel stiff as hell.”
Fidako’s eyes narrowed, but I didn’t wait for him to think it out. Like he’d said yes, I got to my knees, moving slowly, unsteadily, a suffocating feeling in my chest, expecting any second to hear the guns slam.
I put a hand on Revita’s knee to help me stand; then my hand slipped swiftly under her dress, along the silky smoothness of her thigh — and it was there!
The dagger.
It was there inside her garter, and now I had it. I whirled, rising with it in my hand. Big Sam barely had time to claw his gun out; then the knife went in just below his wishbone, angling up to the left; and I must have hit his heart dead center, because I could see the death in his eyes even before he started to fell.
A gun, not Sam’s, slammed like the crack of doom, and I felt a stunning shock in my shoulder; but it didn’t stop me. I hadn’t planned a thing beyond the knife; after that it was as though I did everything by instinct.
It was instinct that made me fall backwards, pulling Sam over on top of me. Instinct made me grab for his gun. And everything seemed to move so slowly — I seemed to float to the floor, and Big Sam’s body seemed to drift down on top of me. It was like I had an enormous amount of time — an infinity of it.
My hand caught Big Sam’s gun from his loosened fingers. I remembered to kick Revita’s chair so she toppled to the floor out of harm’s way, and I felt two bullets from Max’s gun sock into Big Sam’s body over me.
Then I lined up the sights on Max, and saw the little hole appear magically in his forehead. I hit the other guy, the Mexican, in the side when he tried to duck behind a chair, and I hit him again in the chest when he turned to fire at me, and this time he went over on his back and stayed there. Ernie Fidako was running for the door in a waddly, fat-man’s rush, and I put the last three bullets into his broad back.
I pulled the trigger at least three times more on empty chambers before I realized the whole thing was over.
I pushed Big Sam off me.
My shoulder was numb, but it didn’t hurt. I felt fine. I realized I was laughing, and the crazy sound of it made me stop.
Revita’s wide eyes watched me from where she lay on the floor. “Muy bravo” — her whisper barely bridged the distance — “un hombre muy bravo.”
I smiled at her. A helluva lot she knew.
“Priest...” a bubbly voice came from the door. Ernie Fidako, no kidding. He took a lot of killing, that fat boy. “Get me... priest...”
I got him a priest. I got him a priest and three newspaper reporters, and by the time he got done talking and died, I was in the clear and so was Revita Rosales.
And late that night with the sleep not coming, and the shoulder hurting, and old prognosis negative sitting on the foot of my bed, I was still rolling it around in my mind — the muy bravo part, which means very brave in Spanish.
Maybe I hadn’t been so brave — not the way she thought — but I hadn’t been afraid either, and I wasn’t now. Not even of what was sitting on the foot of my bed, because it seemed to me that between us we’d thrown a pretty good party this evening.
Me and my muy bravo pal, prognosis negative.
Against the Middle
by Richard Marsten
There’s one sure way to beat your competition and get the girl. Just put a bullet through your rival’s brain.
He was there when I arrived. He was always there lately. Every time I stopped in to see Deidre, he’d be sitting there like a damn big shot, wearing his best suit, his hair neatly combed, his shoes highly polished.
“Hello,” he said, and he didn’t mask the antagonism in his voice.
I looked at Deidre. My blood began hammering in my veins, the way it did every time I looked at her. “You started to take in boarders?” I asked her.
She tilted her head back, her auburn hair spilling free like an upturned glass of burgundy. Her lips parted, full and scarlet, and a laugh rippled up the clean, long line of her throat, bubbled out of her lips.
“You’re a fool, Gene,” she said. “A simple, jealous fool!”
“Damn right I am,” I said.
She rose quickly, her thighs flashing as she shoved herself off the couch. She sucked in a deep breath, and her breasts punched out against the shimmering green silk of her blouse. “And you are too, Charlie,” she said, turning to him.
He tried to grin. “Deidre, I...”
“Oh, shut up! Just shut up! I’m sick of both of you whining around me like a pair of lovesick puppies.”
“That’s unfair, Deidre,” I said.
“There are other men, you know,” she went on. “Plenty of other men. I don’t have to sit around here and listen to you two argue.”
Charlie’s heart was showing all over his face when he got up. “Honey, there’s no need to get angry.”
“Take me out,” she said, her eyes flashing. “Take me out and give me a good time. Both of you! Show me you’re interested! Instead of arguing, show me.”
“I... I thought we had a date tonight,” I said lamely.
“What?” Charlie complained. “Deidre, you said you’d go out with me.”
“If you’re going to start again, you can both get the hell out,” she said. She stared at us in heated silence. “Well, make up your minds.”
I looked at Charlie, and he stared back maliciously.
“All right,” I said at last, and Charlie nodded agreement.
“You’re dolls,” Deidre said, smiling. “Wait while I dress.”
That’s the way it went.
Charlie clung to her like a dirty shirt. If I called and the phone was busy, I knew she was talking to Charlie. If I went to see her and found flowers on the hall table, I knew Charlie had sent them. I began buying her things, things I couldn’t afford, but I knew Charlie was doing the same thing. Charlie, always Charlie! I began to hate him with a fierce intensity. And all the while, the fever that was Deidre grew inside me. I would think of her all the time, think of the silken flow of her hair, the rich swell of her breasts, the lissom walk, the flat stomach and rounded hips. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. But I knew that Charlie wanted her, too. I began to wish that Charlie was dead.