I sighed. "Maybe I should have brought that regiment of Mexican policemen that was offered me." I let the Ford roll forward to get it off the skyline, stopped it by a clump of shadowy, wispy trees I didn't bother to identify, and cut the switch. "Wait here, doll," I said.
"Don't be silly. I'm coming with you."
I said, "Sweetheart, I'm sure you're a great dancer and entertainer, but how many deer and elk have you stalked in your life?"
She said, automatically indignant, "I wouldn't kill a poor defenseless animal-"
"Says the girl who had steak for dinner, rare. Only somebody else killed that poor defenseless steer for her, so it's all right. You should hear my chief expound on the subject of people who can't bear to inflict death but are perfectly willing to profit by it to the extent of a good meal." I grimaced. "All right, skip the defenseless animals. How many armed men have you sneaked up on and slit the throats of?"
"Ugh," she said with a shiver. "Well, none, but-"
"Then just what the hell do you figure qualifies you for this duty? Stay here. If they dig it out and drive off, wait and I'll be back. But if those headlights go out and come back on again after five seconds, hurry on down there on foot. I don't want to take the chance of getting this heap stuck in whatever they've found to bog down in, but I may need your help, so don't loiter. Okay?"
She hesitated, and drew a long breath. "Okay, Matt. Be careful."
"Sure," I said. "Hell there are only five of them. I'll be careful."
XX
Actually, I had no intention of tackling five syndicate goons all in a bunch. We're not paid to be heroes-at least we're not paid to be stupid heroes. I was counting on their splitting up and making the odds a little easier; and when I got within range of their voices, I found that was exactly what they were doing.
It was their logical next move if the Chrysler was badly stuck, as it seemed to be. They'd got it buried to the bodywork in the sand of a dry watercourse. Well, it's happened to other pavement-type drivers on other desert roads, in Mexico and elsewhere. They never learn. All they can think of, when they start to slip and sink in the soft stuff, is to spin the wheels frantically and dig themselves in deeper.
Tillery was issuing last-minute instructions to the two men I didn't know, although I should have known there were some others around. Jake had intimated that he hadn't been alone when he'd watched me disposing of Beverly Blame's body.
"You two strong men stay here and get the car out of this riverbed," Tillery was saying. "Jack it up, stuff brush under the wheels, and back it up on the bank. Get it headed back the way we came, ready to go. When you hear shooting-you'll hear it all right, we can't be more than a mile or two from the coast-start the engine and switch on the lights so we'll know where to find you even if we miss the road in the dark. Come out and cover us if it sounds like we need it… Okay, Jake, you take your rifle. I'll handle the chopper."
"I'll handle the chopper." That was Sapio's voice.
"Yes, Mr. Sapio."
"Well, let's put it on the goddamn road."
"Come on, Jake. Mr. Sapio thinks we'd better get moving."
I crouched under a bush-mesquite, judging by the thorns-and watched the three shadowy figures march off to the southwest. Jake was carrying a heavy rifle equipped with some kind of a bulky telescopic sight, or maybe an electronic night-fighting contraption. It was impossible to tell. Sapio packed the unmistakable, old-fashioned shape of a Thompson with a drum magazine. You couldn't miss it, even in the dark. Well, it's still a good, reliable weapon, even though superseded in most places by newer and sexier submachine guns; and it has the sterling virtue that the big drum full of cartridges lets you stay in the homicide business, without interruption, several times as long as the clip-type magazines supplied with most later models.
I lay there and waited while the trio disappeared from sight; and then I waited some more while the two men left behind worked at jacking and brush-cutting-I mean, why should I do the work when I could let them do it for me? When it looked as if they had the big car almost ready to go, I moved in on them.
The edge of the wash, a perpendicular three-foot cut-bank, caused me a little trouble. I had to wiggle downstream a ways to find a low place where I could slither down it without making any noise. They weren't expecting trouble, however, and I caught them just the way I wanted them: bending over, one man with both hands on the jack handle, the other with an armload of brush he was just about to stuff under the rising wheel.
"Hold it, boys!" I said from the bushes behind them. "There's a.38 looking right up your rear elevations. If either of you would like an extra hole back there, I'll be happy to oblige."
''Who-"
"Never mind who," I said, rising. "Just call me a man with a gun. No, don't straighten up. Just stay bent over like that, turn around slowly, and stretch out flat on the ground, faces in the sand. Swell. Now, where the hell do you keep the light switch on this limousine…"
I'd hardly cut the lights for the required five seconds and switched them back on, when there was a muffled cry and a heavy thump behind me. I stepped aside quickly to where I could cover the new threat as well as the men on the ground, but it was merely Bobbie Prince picking herself out of the soft sand at the base of the bank off which she'd fallen. She got up, brushing off her jeans and straightening her floppy hat-the sarape had apparently been left behind as excess baggage. She came forward, limping a bit, a slim, pale, boyish shape in the night.
"Why didn't you warn me there was a precipice there?" she asked resentfully.
"You're supposed to be waiting back at the station wagon," I said.
"You and your deerstalking!" she said. "You didn't hear me, did you? And neither did they. I didn't make any noise at all, did I?"
I said, "Sure, you're great like Hiawatha and you damn near got yourself shot. Do you know how to work a hypodermic?"
"Naturally, but don't ask me how I learned. Why?"
"There's a kit in my left coat pocket. Use the vial marked Injection C. The other two are lethal, and I see no need to kill anybody, at the moment. The dose is a half cc, cubic centimeter to you. Put the boys to sleep for me while I keep them covered. Then we'll get this heap out of here and get after their friends."
It wasn't quite as easy as that, of course, mainly because, once our prisoners were safely unconscious, I made the mistake of putting Bobbie behind the wheel of the Chrysler. I told her to send it forward very cautiously while I stood by to lend a shoulder if required. Unfortunately, it turned out that she had the same lead-foot, sand-driving technique as the man who'd got it stuck in the first place.
It came off the piled-up brush nicely, moving well- I didn't even have to push to get it started-but the tires started to slip as she got eager and fed it more power. She felt them dig in and, instead of easing off, she gunned it hard. If I hadn't sworn at her in a loud, ungentlemanly way, she'd have sunk it out of sight once more.
"I'm sorry!" she said, cutting the switch. Her voice said she was actually more mad than sorry. "I couldn't help it! It's just too damn soft. You didn't have to get nasty about it!"
I said, "It was coming fine, sweetheart. I told you to take it easy, didn't I? What the hell do they teach you kids in Yuma, Arizona? A lot of crap about defensive driving, I bet, and not a damn thing useful like how to get a car out of a sandy arroyo. Well, come along if you're coming."
She started to open the door, but hesitated. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going after them, naturally."
"But what about the car?"
"To hell with the car. We've got our own transportation all set to go. I thought we might ride this one down a ways and save some walking, but we can't waste any more time on the heap. If anybody wants to use the road, they'll just have to drag it out themselves, if they can't get around it somehow."