Lawrence Block - Masters of Noir - Volume 1

She moved closer to me and buried her head against my shoulder. Her voice tingled along my skin. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

We gave the sun time to get directly overhead, laying our plan as carefully as the foundation of a cathedral. The idea was to get Carrera out into the clearing. Once he was there, I’d either get the money or put a big hole in his fat face. He could take his choice.

Linda and I crouched behind the rocks, our heads close together. The sun bore down ferociously, baking the earth, spreading heat over the surface of the land. The sky was as blue as a sapphire, streaked with spidery white clouds that trailed their delicacy across the wide wash. It was the Mexico of the picture books, bright and clear, warm, alive — and it should have been pulsating with the throb of laughter and music, wine and song, fiesta.

Instead, a funeral was being planned.

Carrera’s.

And Mexico, the willing mistress, arched her crooked backbone, thrust up a solid barrier of jagged rock behind which we plotted while the sun watched with a bland, disinterested face. There was a sheer wall behind Carrera, rising like a giant tombstone for some hundred feet, terminating there in a jumble of twisted branches and fallen rock. A few feet from the wall, jutting up like an old man’s browned, crooked teeth, was the outcropping behind which Carrera squatted with his .45 — and with my ten G’s.

Once Carrera left the protection of that natural fortress, he was in my pocket.

We got to work. My watch read 12:45, and the sun was hot, probably as hot as it would get all day. The sweat spread across the front of my shirt like a muddy ink blot, staining my armpits, rolling down my face in steady streams.

Linda screamed, just the way we’d planned it. The scream tore the heat waves into shreds and clung to the jagged rocks like a tattered piece of cloth.

“Shut up!” I shouted. “Shut your goddamn mouth.”

“Jose!” she bellowed, her head turned to Carrera. There was no sound from across the clearing. I kept low behind the rocks, wondering if Carrera was listening, wondering if our little act was having any effect.

“I warned you,” I shouted. “One more word...” I cut myself short and yelled, “Hey, what the hell... hey, cut it out! Let go that gun!”

“You lousy filthy scum,” Linda shrieked.

“Don’t! Don’t! For God’s sake...”

I pointed the .45 over my head and fired two quick shots, the thunder echoing among the rocks like the dying beat of a horse’s hooves. I screamed as loud as I could, and then I dropped my voice into a trailing moan. I clamped my jaws shut then and allowed silence to cover the land.

It was quiet for a long time.

Linda and I crouched down behind the rocks, waiting, looking at each other, the sweat pouring from our bodies. There was still no sound from the other side of the flatland, and I began to doubt the effectiveness of our plan.

And then, softly, in a whisper that reached across the pebble-strewn clearing and climbed the rock barrier, Carrera called, “Linda?”

I put my finger to my lips.

“Linda?” he called again.

I nodded this time, and she answered, “It’s all right, Jose. It’s all right.”

Carrera was quiet again, and I could picture him behind his rock barrier, his ears strained, his fat face flushed.

“The American?” he called.

“He is dead,” Linda answered.

“Tell him to come over,” I prompted.

She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Come over, Jose. Come.”

I waited, my chest heaving, the .45 heavy in my hand.

“Throw out the American’s gun,” Carrera said. His voice was cold and calculating. He wasn’t buying it. He suspected a trick, and he wanted to make sure I wasn’t forcing his woman to play along with me. I bit my lip and stared at the .45.

“Give me the gun,” Linda whispered.

“What for? What good would that...”

“I’ll stand up. When he sees me with the gun, he will no longer suspect. Give it to me.”

“Throw out the gun, Linda,” Carrera called again.

“Quick,” she said, “give me the gun.”

I hesitated for a moment, and then I passed the gun to her, holding it by the barrel, fitting the stock into her fingers.

She took the gun gently, and then pointed it at my belly. A small smile tilted the corners of her mouth as she stood up. My eyes popped wide in astonishment.

“It’s all right now, Jose,” she said. “I’ve got his gun.”

“ Bueno ,” Carrera said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. I’d been suckered, taken like a schoolboy, hook, line, and sinker.

I slammed my right fist into the palm of my left hand.

“So that’s the way it is,” I said.

“That’s the way it is, senor ,” she answered. The gun didn’t waver. It kept pointing at my belt buckle.

“And it’s senor now,” I added. “Last night, it was Jeff.”

“Last night was last night,” she said. “Now is now.”

Across the clearing, I could hear Carrera scraping his feet against the rocks as he clambered to a standing position. Linda’s eyes flicked briefly to the right as she heard the sound, too, and then snapped back.

I studied the gun in her hand, and I listened to the noises Carrera was making as he started across the clearing. I wondered whether I should pull the old “Get-her-Joe!” dodge, or the equally familiar “Who’s- that- behind-you?” routine.

I decided against both. Linda was no dummy, and she could hear Carrera coming as well as I could. If anyone were behind her, Carrera would see him. And besides, she knew damn well there was no one but the three of us in those lonely hills. No, it had to be something else.

And it had to be soon.

Carrera was a fat man, but he was covering ground. I glanced over at him, watching him waddle slowly across the long, pebble-strewn flatland. He was bigger than I’d imagined he was, with a flat nose and beady black eyes that squatted like olives on either side of it. He kept coming, with still a hell of a lot of ground to cover, but plodding steadily away at it. Once he got to me, it was goodbye MacCauley, goodbye ten thousand bucks, goodbye world. And I never liked saying goodbye.

I started my play then. I began to sweat because I knew what it meant. Nothing had ever meant so much, and so it had to be good. It had to be damned good.

“I’m surprised, Linda,” I told her. I kept my voice low, a bare whisper that only she could hear. From the corner of my eye, I watched Carrera’s progress.

“You should learn to expect surprises, senor ,” she answered.

“I thought it meant a little more than...” I stopped short and shook my head.

She was interested. I could see the way her brows pulled together slightly, a small V appearing between them.

“Never mind,” I finished. “We’ll just forget it.”

“What is there to forget?” she asked. She wanted me to go on. She tried to keep her voice light, but there was something behind her question, an uncertain probing. Carrera was halfway across the clearing now. I saw the .45 in his pudgy fist and I began to sweat more heavily. I had to hurry.

“There’s you to forget,” I said. “You, Linda. You and last night. That’s a lot of forgetting to do before I die.”

“Stop it,” she said softly.

“And the promise,” I went on. “That’ll be the hardest to forget. The promise, Linda, You and me... and ten thousand bucks. You and me, Linda...”

“Stop it!”

“You and me without Carrera. Don’t you see, Linda?” I pleaded. “Can’t you understand what I’m telling you. Isn’t it all over my face? What do I have to do to make you...”

“Jeff, no,” she said. “No, please.” She shook her head as if trying to clear it.