Priscilla slipped a hand under my arm for support, as we fought our way along the buildings, buffeted by the wind. The other hand was trying to preserve her elaborate hairdo from total destruction. She stopped at a door and fumbled in her jacket pocket for a key, checked herself, and laughed.
"That's right, the lock doesn't work, like most things around here. Just open it, Matt."
As I opened the door, I had the sudden feeling I'd seen this show before. There had been rain in that other scene and not so much wind, but this wasn't the first time recently I'd come to a woman's door by invitation on a stormy night.
"Just a minute. I'll get the light," Priscilla said, stepping past me to find the switch. I saw her recoil abruptly as the light came on to show the interior of the shabby room; then she'd thrown herself aside and down, shouting: "Matt, look out, he's got a gun!"
It was Henderson, in badly fitting work shirt and pants he must have stolen somewhere; and he had a gun all right, one of those tiny derringers that are just about as low as you can get on the firearms ladder. Still, they are compact, and as one U.S. president found out the hard way, they will kill. The one Lincoln met was, as I recall, a single-shot job; this one had two stubby barrels, one above the other. That was about all that could be seen of it. The rest was pretty well covered by Gregory Henderson's bandaged hand.
Well, I had a gun, too. After years of this work, you learn it's bad business to ignore your hunches. I'd been slow in Mazatlбn under similar circumstances, but I wasn't making the same mistake here. I'd had the weapon drawn before Priscilla switched on the light- but another thing you get from experience is a 'feeling for when a man is going to shoot and when he isn't.
Henderson didn't have that cocked-and-ready, here-goes-everything aura. It was a dangerous gamble – my instincts aren't infallible-but we wanted the man alive and talking, so I held my fire, and he didn't shoot. We faced each other like that, at point-blank range, for a second that seemed much longer; then a gun crashed to my left and Henderson's knees buckled and he fell.
I looked at Priscilla, crouching in the corner, holding a short-barrele4.38 revolver from which trickled a wisp of white smoke. Her face was white, too.
"Were you paralyzed or something?" she snapped. "He was going to shoot, couldn't you see it? Another second and you'd have been dead!"
I said grimly, "Considering the way your boss feels about me, I think it's wonderful the way you people keep saving my life."
"Well, that's a fine way to talk after-"
"That will do!" It was Solana's voice, behind me. "You will please throw your guns on the bed, both of you, and raise your hands!"
17
His voice said he had a gun, too. Everybody had guns in Puerto Peflasco tonight. I tossed mine on the faded coverlet-well, Vadya's: the little 9mm Browning I was still carrying. After a brief pause, it was joined there by Priscilla's.38 Colt.
Priscilla scrambled to her feet, and I moved over to join her, since it makes a man nervous to try to cover two people standing apart, and I had no designs on Solana's nerves at the moment. Later,. a little psychological warfare might be indicated, but right now it was more important to learn what the man knew, and what he was planning to do about what he knew. It looked to me as if he had just made a great big mistake, moving in too soon when there was no reason for haste, but perhaps I was doing him an injustice.
He entered the room cautiously, holding a pocket automatic very much like my Browning, except that the workmanship looked Spanish or Italian rather than Belgian. It's hard to say what makes the difference, but it's there. Behind Solana was Carol, her blue eyes wide at the sight of death-her second such view that day.
Solana gestured us aside, and came forward to take the guns from the bed. Pocketing them, he stepped, back again, and spoke to Carol without looking around.
"Come in and close the door, Mrs. Lujan. Wait over in that corner, please. If anything should happen, lie down on the floor; you will be safer there." His dark eyes seemed to be focused on a point halfway between Priscilla and me. "I sincerely hope that nothing will happen. There has been enough violence in this room tonight, don't you think?" His glance touched the dead man on the floor for an instant, and swung back to us.
Priscilla said quickly, "He was lying in wait for us, Ramуn. He was going to shoot. We had no choice!"
"We, Miss Decker? I heard only one shot. Did you fire, Mr. Helm?"
"No, but-"
"Why not?"
I said, carefully, "Maybe I've had a little more experience along these lines than Miss Decker. I had a hunch he wasn't quite ready to throw the big, black dice. Besides, with that derringer, there was a good chance he'd miss if he did shoot. Those little things won't hit a manhole cover at ten feet unless the shooter's had lots of practice. I didn't think Henderson had."
That was a mistake. It's always a mistake to show any intelligence in a situation like that; it's much safer to act totally dumb.
Solana pounced: "What made you think so? I thought you did not know the man, except for your brief encounter with him at the hotel. How could you know anything about his marksmanship? After all, he did manage to kill a policeman 'with one shot."
"It must have been a lucky shot," I said. I indicated the derringer on the floor. "If he'd known anything about guns, to amount to anything, would he have come here with that?"
Solana frowned. "I do not understand. If that was the weapon that was smuggled to him-" I said irritably, "Hell, amigo, use your brains. Your man, the one who got himself killed, had a great big.45 auto on his' hip, didn't he? It was probably loaded with eight 230-grain slugs, seal firepower. So why was this character running around with a lousy little.22 derringer holding two lousy little 40-grain loads, one of which he'd already fired? Why didn't he throw the toy away and grab a real weapon from the dead man's holster?"
Solana said, "I see your point, but-" I went on without letting him finish: "It's only movie and TV actors who run off leaving effective firearms behind so they can have their rousing fistfights without being hampered by a lot of embarrassing hardware- actors with bad scripts, and people with very little experience, who don't think in terms of guns at all. When I saw that derringer, I knew that, murderer or no, he was just a scared duffer who didn't really want to shoot anybody else. If he'd had more killing in mind, he'd never have passed up the.45."
"I see your point, my gringo friend," said Solana. "But am I to believe that you reasoned all this out the instant you found yourself facing an armed murderer? That is very quick thinking indeed, Seсor."
I shrugged modestly. "And is it a crime to think fast in Mexico, Mr. Solana?"
He smiled thinly and didn't answer the question. Instead he said, "Very well. To sum up: you thought Henderson wouldn't shoot; Miss Decker thought he would. If he did shoot, you thought he'd miss; Miss Decker thought he'd Mt."
I grinned. "Or you could say that I was willing to gamble a bit with my life and Miss Decker wasn't."
"Very humanitarian of Miss Decker," said Solana dryly. "If true. However, there is still another explanation for this difference in behavior. There is the possibility that you, Mr. Helm, were simply anxious to keep Henderson alive so he could talk; and Miss Decker was anxious to have him dead so he couldn't. The question then becomes: why should two U.S. agents have such different attitudes towards the same situation?"
I didn't glance at the girl beside me, who hadn't moved or spoken. Behind Solana, in the corner, Carol looked pale and scared. The door and windows rattled under the impact of the wind, but there was no other sound for a second or two.