In Spanish, now that the chattering din had subsided, he said, "I don't trust her, do you?”
"Beautiful women are never to be trusted," Ramon said.
He was still angry over the fact that she'd cut him.
His hands were still bandaged and medicated and for the most part his wounds had healed. But there were some wounds that never healed. You did not cut hands of a person as handsome as Ramon C You did not even touch Ramon Castaneda unless gave you permission to do so. For her indiscre the blonde whore would pay. As soon as she them the money.
"Why her house?" Carlos asked.
"Because she's stupid," Ramon said.
"No, she's very smart, give her that at least." I'll give her this,” Ramon said, and grabbed genitals.
"Yes," Carlos said, and smiled. "After she us the money.”
"And then this," Ramon said, and took pocket a small bottle with glass stopper in its The bottle was full of a pale yellowish liquid. liquid was nitric acid. Ramon hoped that Hollis would live to have many children grandchildren, so that she could tell all of them her face had come to be scarred in such a manner. You did not cut someone who looked Ramon Castaneda, no.
"Put that-away," Carlos said.
Ramon put the bottle away.
"Why her house?" Carlos asked again. "Will police be there? Has she notified the police?”
"She murdered your uncle," Ramon r.e him.
"Still.”
"If you had murdered someone, would you call the police?”
"The police in Argentina aren't looking for her.”
"True. But she doesn't know that. Believe me, Carlos, she hasn't called the police.”
"Then why her house?”
“I told you. She's stupid," Ramon said again. "All beautiful women are stupid.”
"Can she be planning a trap?”
"Stupid people don't know how to plan traps.”
"I think we should be careful.”
"Why? We'll roll over her like a tank. Take the money, fuck her, throw the acid in her face," Ramon said, and nodded at the utter simplicity of it all.
But Carlos was still concerned.
"Why do you think she chose the house?" he asked again. "Why not a public place?”
“She told you why. She's afraid of carrying all that money on the street.”
"A public place would be safer for her.”
"Women think their own houses are the safest places in the world. They think their houses are nests.”
"She'll be armed in her nest," Carlos said.
"Certainly. She was armed last time.”
Both men fell silent.
Carlos looked at his watch.
The time was a quarter past three.
Suddenly, he grinned. He looked particularly ugly when he grinned.
"Do you remember how we got in last time?" asked.
Ramon grinned, too.
She heard the key in the front door at exactly twenty-eight minutes past three. There were two people who had keys to this house. The opening the front door had to be... "Marilyn?”
Willis's voice. Calling from the entry Calling to her where she sat in the red armchair facing the open-arch entrance to the room, the .38 Colt Detective Special in her fist.
Exactly what she hadn't wanted. Willis home the other two not here yet.
Willis stepping into middle of it. The one person she wanted to keep of it, clear of it... "Hi, honey," he said, and came into the room a bouquet of flowers wrapped in white paper, saw the gun in her hand. The flowers made her to weep, the incongruity of flowers when she expecting... His eyes suddenly shifted to the left, toward the stairs, and she knew even before his hand snapped to his shoulder holster that they were already in house. Somehow, they had got into the house again.
The spring-release on Willis's holster snapped his pistol up and out into his hand.
She came up out of the chair just as he fired.
He must have hit one of them - she heard someone yelling in pain just as she turned toward the stairway and then there was shooting from the steps, and she stuck the .38 out in front of her the way she had seen lady cops do on television shows, holding it in both hands, leveling it.
The big one was hit and was lurching toward Willis, firing as he stumbled into the living room. The handsome one was on his left, coming toward her, a gun in his hand.
She fired at once. The bullet went low, she'd been aiming for his chest.
But she was sure she'd hit him because she saw a dark stain appear where his jacket pocket was and at first she thought it was blood, but it wasn't dark enough for blood, and suddenly he began screaming. His screaming startled her, but there was no time to wonder what was causing it, there was time only to fire again because the hit hadn't stopped him, he was still coming at her, screaming, his handsome face distorted in anger and pain. The big one was still headed straight for Willis.
Both of them still coming. The bad and the beautiful in one spectacular fireworks package.
Willis had his. pistol stuck out straight in front of him, holding it in both hands the way she'd seen detectives do it on television, except that he happened to be a real detective and not Don Johnson. He was aiming very carefully at the ugly one's chest, taking his time, because this one was for the money. He fired in the same instant that the ugly one did. She fired, too. And saw the handsome one throw back his arms, the way extras did in mov: and then fly over backward as if he'd been hit by football linebacker. Except that the stain on pocket seemed to be spreading and his chest w suddenly spurting blood.
So was hers.
She didn't realize at first that she'd been hit.
And then she saw the blood, saw her white turning red with blood, saw the blood spurting up of the hole in her blouse, the hole in her spreading into the fabric, turning the entire bh red, and knew that she'd truly been hit badly, and the pain all at once, came down all at once off excitement of all the shooting, felt the pain like elephant stepping on her chest and thought, oh he's really done me, and thought oddly and that she had not yet returned Eileen Burke's call almost a week ago. And then she fell to the floor her mouth open and her chest still spurting blood.
Willis stood over the big one, the gun still in hands, the gun leveled at his fucking head, ready blow his head off if he so much as blinked eyelash, but nobody was blinking, they were down, he turned immediately to Marilyn.
And saw her on the Persian carpet, all covered with blood.
Saw blood spurting up from her chest.
Her heart pumping out blood.
And thought Oh Jesus no.
And ran to her.
And fell on his knees beside her.
And said, "Marilyn?”
A whisper.
"Marilyn?”
And realized all at once that he was still holding the bouquet of lavender roses in his left hand.
In the city and state for which these men and women worked, Section 30 of the Criminal Law Statutes was titled INFANCY, and Subdivision 1 of this statute read: A person less than 16 years old is not criminally responsible for conduct.
Gloria Keely had turned thirteen in February.
Her parents insisted on an attorney. The attorney said he woulc apply at once for removal of the action to the Children's Court. They reminded him that the crime was murder. He reminded them that she was scarcely thirteen years old, and that children (he punched home the word children) of thirteen, fourteen and fifteen years of age were juvenile offenders under the laws of this state. They, in turn, reminded him that the moment she hit her thirteenth birthday, she lost. infancy under the laws of this state if the crime was Murder, Subdivision One or Two.
Ergo, she could no longer be considered a juvenile offender, and they were charging her as an adult.
Gloria's attorney told them that the laws of this city and this state specifically forbade the questioning of a juvenile offender in a police station.