"For chrissakes, why ya bring the goddammed kid?"
"Hadda do it. If we don't, the kid's gonna make a big fat fuss, then some jerk hollers cops.
This way we got away clear, fast, no sweat."
Juanita stirred. Hot knives of pain, originating where she had been hit, surged through her head.
She moaned. "Listen, bitchI" a third voice said.
"Ya make trouble, y'll get hurt plenty more.
And don't get ideas about anyone outside seeint in. This car's got one-way glass."
Juanita lay still, fighting off panic, forcing herself to think.
There were three men in the car, two on the back seat above her, one in front.
The remark about one-way glass explained her earlier impression of a big car with dark windows. So what had been said was right: It was no good trying to attract attention.
Where were she and Estela being taken?
And why? Juanita had not the least doubt that the answer to the second question had something to do with her arrangement with Miles. What she had dreaded had come true.
She was, she realized, in gravest peril.
But, Mother of God.' why Estela?
The two of them were sandwiched together on the car floor,
Estela's body heaving in desperate sobs. Juanita moved, trying to hold and comfort her.
"There, amorcito! Be brave, little one."
"Shaddup!" one of the men commanded. Another voice she believed the driver's said,
"Better gag and blindfold 'em." Juanita felt movements, heard a cloth-like substance tear.
She pleaded frantically, "Please, no! I’ll…"
The remaining words were lost as a wide adhesive tape was slapped over her mouth and pressed down. Moments later a dark cloth covered her eyes; she felt it being fastened tightly.
Next her hands were seized and tied behind her.
Cords cut her wrists. There had been dust on the car floor which filled Juanita's nostrils; unable to see or move, choking under the gag, she blew frantically to clear her nose and breathe.
From other movements beside her she sensed the same treatment was being meted out to Estela.
Despair enveloped her.
Tears of rage, frustration filled her eyes.
Damn you, Wainwrightl Damn you, Miles
Where are you now?.. . Why had she ever agreed… made it possible…
Oh, why? Why?.. . Mother of God, please help me
And if not me, save Estelal As time passed, with pain and helplessness increasing,
Juanita's thoughts drifted. She was aware vaguely of the car moving slowly, stopping and starting as if in traffic, then of a long burst of speed followed by more slowness, twists, and turns.
The journey, wherever it was to, seemed endless. After perhaps an hour or was it much more or even much less?
Juanita felt the force of brakes applied fully.
Momentarily the car's motor was louder, as if in a confined space.
Then the motor stopped. She heard an electric hum, a rumble as if a heavy door was closing mechanically,a "thunk" as the rumble stopped.
SimultaneousIy the limousine's doors clicked open, hinges creaked and she was pulled roughly to her feet and impelled forward.
Juanita stumbled, striking her legs painfully again, and would have fallen, but hands seized her.
One of the voices she had already heard ordered,
"Goddamn' walk"
With the blindfold still in place, moving clumsily, her fears remained centered on Estela.
She was conscious of footsteps her own, others resounding on concrete.
Suddenly the floor fell away and she stumbled, partly held, partly shoved down stairs.
At the bottom, more walking.
Abruptly she was pushed backward off balance, her legs shooting out until the fall was stopped by a hard wooden chair.
The same voice as before told someone,
"Take off the shade and tape."
She felt the movement of hands, and fresh pain as the tape was pulled carelessly away from her mouth. The blindfold loosened, then Juanita blinked as darkness gave way to a bright light directed into her eyes. She gasped only, ''Por Dios! where is my…" when a fist struck her.
"Save the singing," one of the car voices said.
"When we tell ye, y'll spill plenty."
There were certain things which Tony Bear Marino liked.
One was erotic sex by his standards, erotic meant things women did to him which made him feel superior and themselves degraded.
Another was cockfighting the bloodier the better.
He enjoyed detailed, graphic reports of gangland beatings and executions which he ordered, though he was careful to stay away from evidential involvement.
Another, though milder, taste was for one-way glass.
Tony Bear Marina so liked one-way (or mirror pane) glass, which permitted him to observe without being seen, that he had it installed in multiple places his cars, business premises, hangouts including the Double-Seven Health Club, and his secluded, guarded home.
In the house, a bathroom and toilet which women visitors used had an entire wall of one-way glass.
From the bathroom side it was a handsome mirror, but on the other was a small closed room in which Tony Bear would sit, enjoying a cigar and the personal privacies unknowingly revealed to him.
Because of his obsession, some one-way glass had been installed at the counterfeiting center and though, out of normal caution, he seldom went there, it had proved useful occasionally, as was the case now.
The glass was built into a half-wall in effect a screen.
Through it he could see the Nunez woman, facing him and tied to a chair.
Her face was bruised and bleeding, and she was disheveled.
Beside her was her child, secured to another chair, the little girl's face chalk white.
A few minutes ago, when Marino learned the child had been brought in, he exploded angrily, not because he cared about children he didn't but because he smelled trouble.
An adult could be eliminated, if necessary, with virtually no risk, but killing a child was something else.
It would cause squeamishness among his own people, and emotion and danger afterward if rumors leaked.
Tony Bear had already made a decision on the subject; it related to the blindfold precautions taken while coming here.
He was also satisfied to be out of sight himself.
Now he lit a cigar and watched.
Angelo, one of Tony Bear's bodyguards who had been in charge of the pick-up operation, leaned over the woman.
Angelo was an ex-prize fighter who had never made the big time but was built like a rhino. He had thick, protruding lips, was a bully and enjoyed what he was doing.
"Okay, you two-bit hooker, start talkie'."
Juanita, who had been straining to see Estela, turned her head toward him. "De que'? Talk, what about?" "Whassa name o' da guy who phoned ya from the Double-Seven?"
A flicker of understanding crossed Juanita's face. Tony Bear saw it and knew it would be only a matter of time, not long at that, before they had the information.
"You bastard!… Animal" Juanita spat at Angelo. ''Canalla! I know of no Double-Seven."
Angelo hit her hard, so that blood ran from her nose and the corner of her mouth. Juanita's head drooped. He seized her hair, holding her face up while he repeated,
"Who's the guy who phoned you from the Double-Seven?" She answered thickly through swollen lips. "Maricon, I will tell you nothing until you let my little girl go."
The broad had spirit, Tony Bear conceded.
If she had been built differently he might have amused himself breaking her in other ways. But she was too scrawny for his taste no hips worth a damn, half a handful of ass, and little peanut tits.
Angelo drew back his arm and punched her in the stomach. Juanita gasped and doubled forward as far as her bonds allowed.
Beside her, Estela, who could see and hear, was sobbing hysterically.