She shook her head. "I did not see Elena. I saw only Barry. And he — he was dead." Her voice sank to a whisper. She was on the verge of fainting.
I moved inside the bathroom and gripped her roughly by the elbow. She sagged against me, breathing heavily.
"She killed him?" her voice whispered in my ear.
I said nothing. How could I tell her it was Kelly and me?
"Why did you come back to Sol y Nieve?" I asked her quietly.
Her eyes turned to stare at me. I pushed her around and made her sit down on the edge of the tub. I sank down beside her. I held the Luger on her chest. She was a devious woman, and I didn't trust her at all.
"To see… to see…"
"Barry Parson," I supplied. "To show him Corelli, so he could kill him."
There wasn't a sound.
Her lips trembled, and her eyes moved away from me. "Yes," she whispered.
"You hired Barry Parson to kill Corelli," I said flatly. "You can't deny it. He told us before…"
"I don't deny it," she said steadily. Her face was regaining some of its color. My eyes slid to the hypodermic needle.
"Motive?" I asked. "You're an addict? Is that it?"
She shrugged. "I am all mixed up. I do not know why I want to kill him, except that I hate him more than anyone else in the world."
"But he's giving it up, turning in everyone involved in the drug chain," I said.
She hung her head.
"Why did you come back?" I asked again.
"To find Barry," Tina said softly. "I came up along the balcony, and I looked in and saw him. Dead. I came in…"
I stared past her shoulder. Of course! The balcony! That was how Elena had left the room without my seeing her. When Elena had found Barry dead she had been frightened out of her wits, and she had fled. She had simply opened the French doors, stepped out onto the balcony, and hurried away. Then, just after that, Tina had come up the back way to meet Barry in his room — perhaps the two of them had planned to meet — and she had found Barry dead. Her need for drugs had taken over, and she had gone into the bathroom for a fix just as I had blundered in.
"I came in and found that he had been shot. I thought at first Elena might have killed him. But perhaps Corelli discovered Barry was after him. Perhaps Corelli knew that I…" Her eyes began to fill with tears. "I'm frightened, Nick!"
I shook her. "You've got to take me to Corelli, Tina. It's the only answer. Too many people have tried to keep us from getting that list of names. Too many. Now it's up to you, Tina."
She turned pale. "He'll know, Nick! He'll guess I hired someone to kill him! You can't make me do that. You've got to let me go!"
"No way, Tina!" I snapped. "You're the only answer. You're taking me to him right now. Just point him out to me, and…"
"He won't admit it!" she cried. "He'll deny his identity."
"Tina…"
She reached around for the hypodermic needle. I guessed what she was going to do the moment she turned her shoulder. I pressed the muzzle of the Luger into the soft part of her neck. "No, no, Tina! Not the needle. Sure, that'll make things seem fine for a few minutes, but you'll always have to come back to reality."
"Nick!" she sobbed, still holding the needle.
I slipped the Luger into my pocket and reached for the needle. Her face changed almost instantaneously. From that placid beautiful mask, it turned into the face of a hellcat — eyes flashing, teeth bared, lips pulled back in an animal snarl.
The needle plunged into my forearm before I could defend myself against the crazy, slashing stab.
She laughed in a low, mirthless howl.
I felt everything drain out of me. I felt like a lump of putty.
She was leading me into the next room, then pushing me down into a chair.
"A little mixture of our very own, Nick," she was saying with that satanic smile of hers. "You stay there like a nice little boy. I'm going to get out of here."
No, Tina! I tried to say, but nothing came out.
She seemed to be moving in speeded-up motion — a hundred frames per second — as she ran through the French doors and along the balcony. Then there was silence.
After what seemed like centuries, I heard someone banging on the door. It was Kelly.
"Nick! Are you in there? Nick?"
I opened my mouth. At least it moved. But I had no voice. Was the paralysis wearing off?
The door shot open, and Kelly hurtled into the room, gun drawn. He just stood there gaping at me in astonishment.
"Hey, Nick!"
I moved my lips again. The paralysis was wearing off. I got out a grunt.
Kelly glanced around, checked the bathroom, and smelled the hypodermic needle. Instantly he came back to me, slapped me in the face, lifted me off the chair, and dragged me into the bathroom. He put my head under the shower, and cold water slammed down on my neck.
Kelly was talking to me as he worked.
"It's some new stuff. We've got supplies of it. Knocks you out so you can't move, but you can see everything that's going on. Temporary paralysis. Comes from curari, also known as ourari, urari, woorali, wourali, and woorara. But it's been cut with something else. Don't ask me what. The formularies always disappear the minute we get them."
I soon revived.
"Quick!" I said. "It's Tina. She came up from Granada to meet Barry Parson and found his body here. She's on her way out now. She thinks Corelli killed him. If she escapes now, she can kill him later."
"Hold it!" snapped Kelly. "I came up here to find you. Tina's been downstairs in the lobby, you know, creating a scene!"
"Who?" I asked impatiently.
"Tina Bergson."
"Tina!"
"Exactly. But she's gone now."
"Gone? But…?"
"She was in the lobby, but she left," Kelly told me as we ran out of the room and down the corridor. We started down the stairs, and I could see a crowd of people in the lobby. They were all peering out into the parking lot.
I saw Juana, who turned to wait for us.
"What's this all about?" I snapped.
"She's in the red Jaguar," Juana said, pointing out at the parked cars. I could see the headlights come on in one of them. The light cut through the darkness and illuminated the snow-covered mountainside where the road turned from the Prado Llano and wound up toward the main highway.
"She made a big scene," Juana said quickly. "It was very dramatic."
"Too dramatic!" Kelly said dryly.
"Are you going to tell me what she did?" I asked impatiently.
"She came in here not ten minutes ago, raising hell and asking for Mario Speranza!"
"Who is Mario Speranza?" I asked.
Kelly shook his head. "When they told her that Señor Speranza was not here, she broke down and almost went into hysterics right out here in the lobby."
I could see the Jaguar start to move. Tina's blond hair was blowing out behind her.
"It brought all of us out of the lounge on the run," Juana explained.
"And then she collapsed here and had to be revived by the desk clerk," Kelly concluded. "I went up to get you."
I frowned, thinking quickly. "It's an act — the scene down here. What it's for, I don't know. But I've got to stop her."
"Right," said Kelly. "What do we do?"
"Check out that Mario Speranza," I said to Kelly. "He probably doesn't exist. I'm going after Tina!"
I was moving through the crowd toward the revolving doors and I spotted Herr Hauptli there, with his crew of sycophants. He waved and then turned away.
The Renault was cold. It started up fairly well. I pulled out onto the road and skidded twice before I got it under control. There were ice patches in the roadway, the same as two nights before.
The road descended and then made a right turn. I could not see the red Jaguar at all, but I remembered the road turned right, and then began to curve to the left in a long, wide, horseshoe-shaped turn that clung to the rim of the barranca.