Anders knew where the hospital was and that occupied everything in his mind except for the portion that made him keep searching the rear-view mirror. The Buick never appeared. By now its driver knew he’d lost his chance; probably he’d known he’d lost it when they got too near El Convento — that was why he’d started shooting at them: If they’d got inside the restaurant he’d have lost them.
It was madness. Anders’ pulse throbbed; he blinked in quaking disbelief. The hospital — he slewed into the ambulance driveway, stopped the cab by the emergency ramp and started to yell again. After a little while they came out with a stretcher and took Rosalia inside.
He sat on a hard bench watching the wall clock. The waiting room was crowded with people sick and people bleeding. It was the kind of sultry night that provoked violence and disease. Anders kept watching the door, half afraid his assailants would appear again.
They wouldn’t; by now they’d have disappeared into the demimonde. Rodriguez’s people, he was sure. It gave him pause, sudden concern for Crobey and the Marchand woman.
He looked at the clock again, got up in anger and presented himself at the desk and demanded news of the heavy-set nurse. She had nothing to tell him: Miss Rojas was undergoing emergency surgery, he must wait.
The bullet had struck her in the back; it had hit bone somewhere, for there hadn’t been an exit wound in front. It was all he knew for certain — that and the fact that she’d been unconscious when they’d removed her from the car.
God, God. He’d only just found her...
Those two with the Buick had exceeded their orders; he felt morally certain of that. They’d had instructions to follow the quarry and attack them where there were no witnesses: with knives to make no noise. Mugging victims found dead in an Old Town alley — nothing to stir up much of a fuss. The thing had gone awry because the man with the knife had been knocked down by a shoe and Anders and Rosalia had got away from them. The man in the Buick had got mad. The continuation of the attack, beyond all reason, had taken place because the man in the Buick was angry and at the same time atavistically shrewd enough to know that if he killed Anders and Rosalia he’d have no witnesses against him.
I didn’t even get the license number, he thought savagely. Not that it would matter. The antique car would be easy enough to find; but it would prove to have been stolen. Not even an amateur killer set out on his nightwork in a car that could be traced to him.
Anders tried to remember the face of the man with the knife. The police would be here soon; the hospital had called them. He had to clear his mind, make a decision: Give a description to the police or keep it to himself? He wanted someone to nail the bastards but at the same time he was unable to lose sight of the fact that the two men, if he could find them without police help, might lead him to Rodriguez. And he wanted Rodriguez now, not just the hired guns. It was Rodriguez who was responsible for what had happened to Rosalia. The hired guns were only tools.
It had been dismally dark in the passage. Mainly he’d seen the knife; it had drawn his attention. The man’s face? He thought he’d know it if he saw it again — big, blocky, young, a bit of a double chin, clean-shaven except for the mustache: It might have been the face of Pancho Villa from an old photograph. Yes, he’d know the man again.
And the man in the Buick? No. Anders had never really seen that one’s face — only enough of him, running in the cobblestoned alley, to know he was a fairly big man.
He decided to tell the police he hadn’t got a good look at either of them.
The nurse summoned him to the desk. “The doctor will see you now.”
The doctor was a tired young man with dust on his glasses and fresh creases in his white smock; clearly he’d just changed into it. He was scrubbing his hands in a lavatory sink at the side of the cubicle. “Sit down.”
“How is she?”
“I’m sorry,” the young man said as if by rote, “she didn’t make it.”
Part Four
Chapter 13
Crobey drove, as always, with one eye on the mirror. She was accustomed by now to his sudden turnings and doublings back. All the same when they reached the highway she was exasperated enough to say in a caustic voice, “I trust you’re sure you’ve lost them.”
“Right.”
She cast an eye at him. “You mean you were being followed?”
“Right.”
And she believed him. Crobey had the peripheral vision of a professional basketball player.
She said, “Why are you angry with me this time?”
“Forget it.”
It didn’t take her long to work it out. Insects smashed into the windshield and the Bronco jounced her gently. Crobey’s profile was pale in the dashboard’s reflected illumination. She said, “If you didn’t have me along you’d have let them catch you, wouldn’t you?”
“It might have been useful to ask them a few questions.”
“Suppose they’d asked first?”
Crobey only crooked his lip corner in a tidy smile. Feeling rebuffed she said, “Tell me something: Is there anything you do badly?”
“Yes. Lose.”
“Your conceit is absurd.”
“I told you before: We’d get along faster if you’d go home.”
She began to retort, then curbed her tongue. It was occurring to her he might be right. He tolerated her because he was a mercenary and she was his employer; he resented her because she was a woman and an amateur.
She wondered why he put up with her at all.
She said, “Who were they?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“But they might be some of Rodriguez’s people?”
“Might.”
She didn’t comprehend his equanimity; she said bluntly, “You want me to leave, then.”
He made no answer. They were approaching the turnoff. Crobey punched the button, extinguishing the lights, and used the hand brake to slow the truck so that the brake lights wouldn’t flash. They rolled slowly off the main road into that total darkness that had frightened her so much the first time. The truck eased to a halt; she heard the ratchet of the emergency brake. Crobey hooked his elbow over the back of the seat and twisted to watch the road behind. He didn’t take the revolver from under his jacket but she knew it was there; she’d seen him put it there before they left the house.
He had a stalking predator’s steady inexcitability. It wasn’t tranquillity; it was the cool command of an otherwise tumultuous temper. His cool passivity came across as menace.
That morning he’d instructed her in the manufacture of a Molotov Cocktail. “You mix soil and gravel, and a little bit of soap powder to make it grunge together. Fill the bottle about one third with this gunk. It weights the bottom and gives you throwing ballast — and the gravel makes good shrapnel. Now we fill the rest up with petrol — gasoline from the pump, the octane doesn’t matter. Right to the top. Tear off this much rag, see — wad it up with this little bit of clotheslines for a fuse. Stuff it in the mouth like this to soak up gasoline from inside and make sure the clothesline pokes out an inch or two. When you light this thing get rid of it fast — throw it hard and drop on your face. Drop behind something that’ll shield you from the blast and the heat, if you’ve got a choice. In Hungary they took out Soviet tanks with these things.”
“Why the hell are you showing me these horrible things?”
“Because the kind of people we’re dealing with, ducks, you may find yourself getting chased into the woods by people with guns and machetes and maybe all you’ve got is your little car and your handbag. You’ve got gasoline in the car — suck it out through a hose you strip off the engine, if you have to — and I never met a woman who didn’t carry half a dozen little bottles in her handbag.”