Stuart Woods: Santa Fe Edge

Barbara closed the window, then inspected the bedroom. Inside a closet she found a wardrobe of dresses perhaps two sizes larger than her own, and shoes slightly smaller than her feet.

She looked through a chest of drawers and a bedside table, hoping to steal money but finding nothing except some awful costume jewelry. There was something else she was very glad to see: a telephone on the bedside table. She closed the bedroom door and found the phone book. Her Spanish was poor, but she managed to divine how to call the United States, so she dialed a number she knew very well, belonging to her dear friend, the film producer James Long.

“Hello?” a sleepy male voice said.

“Jimmy, it’s Barbara,” she said softly.

“Good God! I read in the paper you were in a Mexican jail!”

“I am-in a prison called El Diablo, in a little town east of Acapulco, called Tres Cruces. Write all this down.”

“Okay, I’ve got a pen.”

“Listen to me carefully,” she said. “Do you still have the same cell phone number?”

“Yes.”

“I have some clothes and some identity documents in a suitcase in the apartment over your garage, remember?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ve found a way out of here. Can you come to Acapulco?”

“Yes.”

“Charter a small airplane. I’ll pay for it. Ask the pilot to wait, for two or three days, if necessary.”

“All right, when?”

“Now, today. Book a room at the Acapulco Princess, and check in. I’ll call you on your cell when I’m ready. Tomorrow, rent a car from the hotel, drive to Tres Cruces and find Camino Cerritos and a bar called Cantina Rosita. Park near there. There’s an alley across the street. I’ll call you on your cell, then drive into the alley, and you’ll see a small window about ten or twelve feet above the pavement, on your right. Park under the window. Got it?”

He repeated the instructions.

“Buy me some hair dye, auburn, in the hotel shop, and some good scissors.”

“Okay.”

“I love you, baby,” she said. “I’ll call as soon as I can.” She hung up and returned to the office, where Alvarez still snored away, and began searching the room for useful items. There was a cabinet containing guns, but it was securely locked and grilled with ironwork. There was also a substantial safe with an electronic keypad lock.

She went to the desk and methodically searched the drawers, but the only thing of use to her was half a dozen of what appeared to be handcuff keys. She took one and put it into her mouth, under her tongue, then she looked at the sides and bottoms of the drawers, finally finding what she was looking for, taped to the bottom of a pull-out typewriter shelf. It was a piece of paper with a six-digit number written on it, and she did not doubt that it would open the safe. She also did not doubt that if she used the code now, it would cause electronic beeping that would waken the warden. She memorized the number.

Alvarez stirred. She ran back to the sofa, sat on the floor beside him and pretended to be asleep.

“Hey, you, girl,” Alvarez said, shaking her.

Barbara raised her head. “Hey, you,” she said in a low voice.

“You’re pretty good, you know?”

“I know.”

“Get dressed and get out. I’ll send for you again.”

“I’d love to see you again,” she said. “When?”

“You want some more, eh?”

“Oh, yes,” she agreed.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said.

“When does your wife return?” she asked.

“What do you know about my wife?” he demanded.

“Just that she’s away.”

He looked at her for a moment. “Sunday,” he said.

“Then we have tomorrow to play,” she said, standing up and slowly putting on her clothes.

“Tomorrow, then,” he said.

“Yes, Capitán,” she replied. “I will be ready.”

He handcuffed her, then unlocked the office door and turned her over to the guard who waited outside.

The guard marched her back down the dirty hallways and put her back in the small cell that she shared with five other women.

“Have a good time?” one of the women asked suggestively.

“Shut up, bitch,” Barbara replied, and lay down on her bunk. Tomorrow, she thought. Saturday at the latest.

Later, she got up and motioned to the guard in the hallway.

“Eh?” the woman said.

“I can’t sleep,” Barbara said. “I need something to take.”

“Sleep is expensive,” the woman replied.

“Twenty dollars American for Ambien or two Valiums.”

“Show me the money.”

“When I see the medicine.”

The woman went away and returned with two yellow pills. “Valium,” she said. “See the writing?”

Ten milligrams, Barbara thought. Ideal. She retrieved the money from a capsule in her vagina and paid the woman. Now all she had to do was survive tomorrow.

It was nearly noon before the guard came for Barbara in her cell, and she had been getting nervous, thinking something had gone wrong. The guard finally opened the cell door, and she didn’t handcuff Barbara.

The guard took her down the corridors, let her into Alvarez’s office and closed the office door behind her. Barbara locked it herself.

This seemed to please Alvarez. “Would you like a drink?” he asked.

“Sure,” she replied, walking toward his desk, where a bottle of tequila reposed, along with some glasses. “Let me get you one.” She was unbuttoning her blouse as she walked.

“Good girl,” Alvarez said, unzipping his pants.

Barbara fished the two Valium tablets from her bra and ground them between her thumb and forefinger into the glass as she poured the liquid. She turned and walked over to Alvarez while reaching behind her and unhooking her bra.

“You’re not having one?” he asked.

“Afterward,” she replied. “I enjoy it more if I’m sober.” She knelt between his legs and began toying with his penis. “Salud.”

He tossed off the tequila, grabbed her hair and pulled her into his crotch.

She took longer this time, hoping the drug would work quickly, playing with him, bringing him to the brink of orgasm, then backing off. After fifteen minutes or so he came loudly, then sagged sideways on the sofa, as he had done the previous day. She continued to stroke him until he fell asleep.

Barbara walked back to the desk, took a swig from the tequila bottle, swished it around her mouth and spat it onto the floor, then went into the apartment, picked a dress from the closet and put it on. She took a scarf from a drawer to wear over her blond hair, then picked up the phone and dialed James Long’s cell number.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“Just driving down Camino Cerritos,” he said. “I was delayed by some roadwork.”

“Can you be under the window in five minutes?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“See you then.” Barbara hung up and looked around the room for something else but didn’t find it. She walked back into the office and looked around. In a corner was a silver-trimmed Mexican saddle, with a cowboy’s rope tied to it. She took the rope and started back into the apartment, then stopped.

She had nearly forgotten the safe. She knelt before it and pressed in the code she had found in the desk. There was a soft click, then she turned the handle and the door swung open. To her delight, the first thing she saw was two stacks of bills, one of dollars, the other of pesos. She took both. On a lower shelf, half a dozen pistols were arrayed. She chose a small Beretta semiautomatic and checked to be sure it was loaded.

At the bottom of the safe she found a cloth bag and put the gun and the money into it and tied it around her neck. She walked back to where Alvarez slept, thought about putting a bullet into his brain, then decided against it. It would just make the authorities angrier and motivate their search for her.