My attacker moved out in front of the car, a stark, dangerous silhouette against the dazzling brilliance of the beams.
I moved another step.
“It ain’t going to do you no good to run.”
The long blade of the knife in his hand began its slow, snakelike weaving once more.
“Stand still, hombre! I’m gonna make it quick for you.”
I recognized the voice. It belonged to the stocky young man who had approached me at the malecon two days before — Luis Aparicio. The recollection brought back a flood of others. For some reason, the image of the turtle being disemboweled flashed into my mind. In my head, I could see again the turtle lying helplessly on its back, the quick slashes of the fisherman’s knife, the muscular arm bloodied to the elbow, and the long gray and pink coils of wet gut spilled onto the steps of the jetty.
Pushing the images away, I kept my voice calm with an effort. “Hello, Luis.”
“I told you we would meet again,” Luis said. He moved forward another shuffling step. “Tonight, I fix your friend at the hotel. Now, I take care of you.”
“You’ve been following me?”
Luis shook his head. “No, I don’t follow you. I come out here to see Carlos Ortega to tell him what I do at the hotel. I come up the road and I see a car. What you think I find inside, all tied up, huh? So I wait. Pretty soon, who you think comes up?” He smiled without mirth and took another step toward me. “Hombre, I’m going to cut you slow, and there ain’t nothing you can do.”
My mind was racing, calculating the few options I had. To run would only delay the end by a few desperate minutes. To stand and fight with only a rock as a weapon and with one arm rendered helpless was equally useless. To move in, unarmed, on a trained knife fighter would be sheer suicide.
In that second, I evaluated and discarded every choice but one, and even then, I knew the odds would be heavily against me. One small fact had come into my mind. I remembered how quickly Luis had lost his temper when I’d refused his offer to serve as my guide. Now, I gambled on that.
“A little punk like you?” I laughed at him, the derision in my voice reaching out and stinging him like a slap in the face. “Only from behind and in the dark— and even then you missed!”
Luis stopped moving forward. We were no more than eight feet apart
“You think I can’t do it?”
“Come and try!” I held out my left hand so that Luis could see the rock I held in it. Deliberately, I turned my hand over and let it fall to the ground.
“For a man, I might need a weapon,” I said, putting as much scorn into my voice as I could. “For you—” I spat into the road.
Luis turned slightly toward me. The headlights touched and lit up his face in sharp triangles of black and white. His mouth twisted into an angry grimace.
Slowly, I reached back into my hip pocket with my left hand and took out my handkerchief. I wound it around my slashed, right forearm.
“What’re you gonna use when I cut your stomach open?” Luis jeered.
I didn’t look at him, although every nerve in my body screamed at me to keep my eyes on the knife in Luis’s fist. Again, I reached behind with my left hand, my fingers going into my pocket and curling around the heavy brass plaque attached to my hotel room key. I kept my body turned away from Luis as I slid the key and plaque out of my pocket.
“You don’t have the cojones to come at me face to lace,” I taunted him. “I might take that knife away from you and make you get down on your hands and knees and lick it with your tongue like a dog! You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you little maladonada.”
“Don’t talk like that!” Luis snarled, trembling with rage.
I prodded him again. “Malcreado, chico! I spit on little pimps like you!”
Deliberately, I turned my back on him and took a step down the road away from him. Luis uttered a cry of rage and sprang after me.
With the first scraping noise, I flung myself to one side and spun around. Luis’s knife came whipping up at me, slashing through the air where I had stood only a fraction of a second before.
The furious sweep of his lunge had left him wide open. With every ounce of strength I could muster, I brought my left hand swinging around from my side in a vicious snap, hurling the brass plaque and key full into Luis’s face from only inches away. The heavy edge of the brass plate caught him across his eyelids.
He screamed out in pain. One hand involuntarily flew up to his blinded eyes, the other desperately thrust out the knife as he stumbled away, his sandals skidding on the loose gravel of the road. He slipped to one knee, his left hand going out to break his fall, the other still clutching the switchblade.
I took a long, savage step forward, lashing out with the full power of my right leg in a hard, driving kick— thigh muscles, calf muscles, back muscles all explosively concentrated with the whole force of my body, my ankle locked, my toe pointed rigidly.
And Luis, desperately pushing himself to his feet, came rising sightlessly into the blow, catching the point of my shoe squarely in the middle of his throat.
His mouth flew open. His knife dropped. Both hands went to his neck. He thrust himself stumblingly to his feet, staggering erect, standing finally in a bent-kneed, swaying crouch, the raw, animal sound of his scream blocked in his throat by a smashed larynx.
Luis turned toward me, the brutal glare of the headlights shining full on his bulging eyes and tortured face. Blood ran from his eyelids where the key and plaque had torn them open. His mouth gaped and closed as he tried to drag air into his lungs. His chest convulsed with the enormous and futile effort. Then, his legs buckled and with a great shuddering gasp, he fell forward, his face smashing into the gravel of the road. He thrashed crablike in the dirt, trying to breathe, trying to get up. His muscular body arched in one, giant final spasm and then he was still.
For a long moment, while I caught my own breath I watched him carefully. Then I went over to him and picked up the knife from beside his body. I wiped my own blood off the blade onto Luis’s shirt, folding the blade into the handle and putting it into my pocket I found my hotel key and, after a few minutes’ search, I found the .38 Airweight revolver that he had knocked from my hand in his first, murderous rush.
Finally, I went back to the car and turned off the headlights. I didn’t know how much longer I had before someone might come along. In the sudden darkness, I felt drained and tired and my arm began to ache badly, but there were still a few things I had to do before the night was over. For one thing, I couldn’t leave Luis’s body where it was. I didn’t want it discovered just yet.
I opened the trunk of the car, and, tired as I was, I hauled his body to the car and heaved him into the compartment, then slammed the lid shut
Wearily, I climbed into the front seat and started the car. I turned it around in the darkness before I switched on the headlights and drove back to Bickford’s casa.
Half an hour later, I sat patiently in Bickford’s living room waiting for the big man to regain consciousness. My arm had given me hell, especially when I had to move Bickford’s inert body from the car into the house, but I managed it in spite of the pain. I’d cleaned the cut with peroxide and had wrapped it tightly with bandages, both of which I’d found in the medicine cabinet in Bickford’s bathroom. The wound wasn’t deep, no tendons had been cut, but now the numbness had worn off and it hurt. I tried to ignore the pain, exercising my fingers to keep them from stiffening up. Every once in awhile, I’d pick up the gun in my wounded hand and grip the butt tightly. After awhile, I was satisfied that I could use it with my right hand if I had to.