Even as the thoughts rushed at her, Alice sensed rather than saw or heard the tall, slim, masculine figure which moved towards her from where he had been concealed at the hinged side of the door. Fingers closed on her right bicep and feeling their touch triggered off an instant response.

  Since first becoming a member of the G.C.P.D.’s Bureau of Women Officers, Alice had received very thorough training in unarmed self-defense which she had on occasion been compelled to put to serious use. However, there had been another aspect constantly reiterated by the instructors at the Police Academy. No matter how expert, efficient and tough an officer became, he or she should always try to summon aid when under attack.

  Alice considered herself under attack right then. If her nose did not mislead her, the assailant was also the person responsible for the stink of marihuana in the room. Being under no misapprehension about just how dangerous a ‘pot’ addict could be, she wasted not a moment in putting the instructions or the advice into operation.

  ‘Brad!’Alice screamed, as loud as she could manage, at the same time darting a glance over her right shoulder to discover her attacker’s location.

  On shouting, the red-head raised her right leg and thrust it to the side and rearwards. Luck favored her in guiding the kick to the place where it could do the most good under the circumstances. Driven by the muscles of a shapely and powerful leg, the heel of her right boot struck the man full on the knee-cap. An explosive curse in Mexican was followed by an immediate relaxing of the grasp on her arm. Snatching the limb free, Alice sprang to the center of the room.

  ‘Brad!? Alice shrieked, spinning to face her assailant. ‘Help!’

  At which point Alice became suddenly and shockingly aware that the marihuana-smoker had company. Thrusting open the wardrobe’s doors, a second man sprang from his hiding-place. Just a moment too late Alice heard the man and remembered having noticed the doors moving. Before she could turn to meet the new danger, he reached her. Throwing his arms around her, so that he pinned her elbows against her sides, he held her firmly. Vile language continued to pour from the first attacker as he limped hurriedly forward. Alice spoke sufficient idiomatic Spanish to follow the meaning of the threats being hurled at her by the first man. So did his companion.

  ‘Don’t kill her, you stupid son-of-a-whore!’ barked the man behind Alice.

  Maybe the first attacker was flying high on ‘pot’, but he understood and clearly respected the speaker’s order. However, his drugged condition was not conducive to quick thought. While he realized that he must forget his intention of killing the girl who had inflicted such pain on him, he failed to consider the danger of continuing to advance in her direction.

  Bracing herself against the man to her rear, Alice swung both feet into the air. Resting the soles of her boots against the first assailant’s chest, she bent her legs until she had brought him to a halt. Without giving the pot-smoker time to resist, she straightened her legs with all the force she could muster. Back hurtled the slender figure, blundering helplessly across the room until he collided with the door. More curses, of greater violence, obscenity and wildness rose from him and he thrust his right hand across beneath his jacket. Alice did not believe that he was reaching for a pocket-handkerchief, or even another marihuana cigarette.

  ‘Help!’ the red-head shouted. ‘Brad! Help!’

  Not that the woman deputy intended to restrict herself to yelling for assistance. Although staggering from Alice’s weight and the counter-reaction to the push that had flung his companion backwards, the second man managed to remain erect and retain his hold on her. His height did not greatly exceed Alice’s, but he was a man of considerable strength. Breaking his grip by muscle-power alone would be impossible for the red-head. Yet she knew that she must escape from him if she hoped to avoid being attacked by whatever weapon her first assailant was trying to draw.

  Brad was about to put his bag upon the bed when he heard Alice’s first shout. Knowing that the girl would not be doing so merely to play a foolish trick on him, he dropped the bag and drew his automatic. Turning, he dashed from his room. By the time he reached the passage, he knew for certain that his partner was in trouble. Darting along the passage, he reached Alice’s quarters and saw the door vibrate as if something, or somebody, had crashed into it.

  Pausing for a moment, Brad took stock of the situation. He did not know if Alice had locked the door on entering. Nor did he wish to waste time, if she had, by turning the door’s knob. To do so and discover that the door was locked would warn whoever was attacking Alice of his presence. Brad’s training as a peace officer supplied the answer.

  Flexing his right leg slightly and raising his left foot to the height of his off knee, Brad pivoted towards the door. Powered by the immensely strong gluteus muscles of his buttocks, with the full weight of his giant frame concentrated into the effort, he propelled the sole of his left boot alongside the door’s lock. With a shattering crash, the lock sprang open and the door burst inwards.

  Flashing a quick look down, Alice pin-pointed the position of her second attacker’s feet. Interlacing her fingers, while still suspended in mid-air after shoving the pot-smoker away, she flung her legs downwards. Savagely she stabbed the heels of her boots on top of the man’s glossy, well-polished shoes. His howl of pain came like music to her ears, but she did not rely upon the stamping alone to set her free.

  Sucking in a deep breath and keeping her hands clasped together, Alice forced outwards with her elbows. Although the man’s grip loosened, it did not break. Alice’s follow up to the assault on his feet had been made to gain room for her to maneuver. Exhaling suddenly and closing her arms a little, she bent her knees until his left elbow rested on her shoulder. By twisting her torso to the right, she sent the point of her elbow jabbing hard into his solar plexus. That achieved her intentions. The pain-filled yelp changed to a startled, agony-induced croak and the man’s hands fell away from Alice as he retreated.

  Debating whether to turn on the attacker from whom she had just escaped, in the hope of using him as a shield against whatever weapon the pot-smoker carried, Alice had the matter taken out of her hands in no uncertain manner.

  Flying open with considerable velocity, the door smashed into the marihuana-addict’s back. He had half-drawn a snub-nosed Colt Cobra when the unexpected impact came. Still befuddled by the drug, he was committing the supreme folly of squeezing the trigger before the revolver had cleared its holster. Flung from his feet by the violence of the blow, he stumbled and fell. As he landed on the floor, a muffled detonation sounded from beneath him and his body jerked spasmodically.

  Light from the passage flooded into the room as Brad kicked open the door. In its illumination, he saw his partner complete her escape from the clutches of the second man. However, Alice was in the line of fire.

  ‘Move, boss-lady!’ Brad yelled as she swung towards the man from the wardrobe. ‘Get clear of him.’

  While speaking, Brad was also studying the man with the gaze of a trained observer. Around five foot eight in height, with a stocky build, Alice’s attacker was a Mexican. Swarthily handsome, his features were marred by a livid scar which ran across his forehead from above the left eye to disappear into the center-parted glossy black hair. Dressed in a neat, well-cut gray suit, dark-blue shirt and plain blue tie, he had on highly-polished, sharp-toed shoes. Incongruously, considering that he was taking part in an assault upon a woman, he sported a dark red flower in the button-hole of his jacket’s left lapel.

  All that Brad noticed in the brief instant the man faced him. Showing a good turn of speed, Alice’s second attacker twirled on his heel and dashed towards the window. The girl flung herself aside with no less speed, but Brad had no wish to start shooting. Instead, the big blond bounded after the fleeing man. Darting across the balcony, the Mexican vaulted over the balustrade and fell from the blond deputy’s sight.

  On reaching the balustrade, Brad looked over. He half expected to see the man sprawled on the ground. Dandy dresser he might be, but Alice’s assailant had known how to take a substantial fall. From what Brad could make out, the Mexican had landed rolling like an expert sky-diver alighting after a parachute-jump. Coming to his feet fast, the man set off along the street at a flying sprint. Swerving and weaving, he offered a poor target. So Brad made no attempt to bring him down with the big Colt.

  Turning after watching the stocky man disappear into a side alley on the opposite side of the street, Brad saw Alice kneeling alongside a writhing, moaning figure. Feet pounded on the stairs and in the passage, mingling with shouting voices, as people came to investigate the commotion. Brad eased up the manual safety catch before returning the pistol to its holster. Then he walked towards his partner and saw her tense face swing in his direction.

  ‘Are you all right, boss-lady?’ Brad asked gently.

  ‘Sure,’ the girl replied. ‘But this hombre’s hit in the stomach. He needs a doctor bad.’

  ‘There’ll soon enough be one here,’ Brad guessed. ‘Say. You remember when we got here how Gene said he was so pleased to see us that he gave us the keys to the city?’

  ‘I remember,’ Alice agreed.

  ‘After this caper,’ Brad said, ‘he’ll be wanting to take them back again.’

  Four

  At ten o’clock on the morning following their arrival in Nonoava, the deputies entered Captain Eugenio Machados’ office. Both had changed into clean, if informal clothes before leaving the hotel. Brad still dressed like a Texas cowhand, but wore a blue denim jacket. Ending at waist level, the jacket hid the fact that he now carried his Colt automatic in a Hardy-Cooper spring shoulder-holster. Alice had on an open, hip-length khaki bush-jacket, over her blue shirt and jeans.

  For all that he had not slept the previous night, the Mexican peace officer greeted his visitors from north of the border with hospitality. Indicating a seat to Brad, he drew up a chair for Alice to his desk. Like the deputies, Machados had changed. Gone was the vaquero-style clothing, being replaced by a smart, stylish businessman’s suit.

  ‘We don’t get treated this good by our Watch Commander,’ the girl commented as she sat down.

  ‘I’ve heard that Mac McCall tries to never let anybody sit down in his office,’ Machados answered, settling into his chair at the other side of the desk.

  ‘Tries?’ Brad grinned. ‘He even hides the chairs.’

  ‘Why did you send for us to come in and see you, Gene?’ Alice inquired, changing the subject from the habits of First Deputy McCall.

  ‘It’s about last night,’ the Mexican explained. ‘I understand that you had some trouble at the Mirador.’

  ‘Just a mite,’ Alice admitted. ‘What happened to the man who was shot?’

  ‘He died without speaking earlier this morning. Don’t waste your pity on him, I beg you. He was a petty thief, but very dangerous when he was high. We’re certain that he’s killed two people, but couldn’t get sufficient evidence to take him before a court. He was very high last night, the doctor tells me.’

  ‘Look, Gene,’ Brad drawled. ‘That sergeant of yours handled things real well. Don’t figure you’ve got to take a hand personally on our accounts, he’s capable of doing everything that’s needed.’

  ‘But I do figure, amigo’ Machados insisted. ‘Firstly, I don’t care for attempts being made to rob visitors. That’s bad for our tourist trade. Secondly, and more important, I have an aversion to such attempts being made against my friends. That reflects badly on the fear and respect my name carries among the local bandidos

  ‘You figure that a couple of pot-addicts got high,’ Brad asked, ‘and were fixing to prove they don’t give a damn for your name by robbing one of your friends?’

  ‘It could be,’ the Mexican replied. ‘But what do you think.’

  ‘Except for one thing,’ Brad said soberly, ‘I’d just lay it to being a couple of sneak-thieves who picked unlucky for their caper.’

  ‘And that one thing is, amigo.’

  ‘Alice and I looked over the one who shot himself, Gene. Robbing hotel rooms would be about his size of caper. But the other didn’t look, nor act, like a two-bit sneak-thief.’

  ‘Would you agree, Alice?’

  ‘I’ll go with Brad, Gene. That other hombre looked too well-dressed and acted too smart to have been reduced to petty theft. And he didn’t smell like a pot-smoker. I was close enough to him to know that for sure.’

  ‘That was a good description you gave to my sergeant last night,’ Machados complimented and he reached into his desk’s drawer. ‘You both read Spanish?’

  ‘Well enough,’ Alice confirmed, and Brad nodded his agreement.

  Apart from the difference in the language, the card which Machados placed before the deputies might have been passed to them from their County’s Records and Information Bureau. There were the usual three ‘mug-shot’ photographs—full face, left and right profile—their owner’s name, aliases, description, finger-prints, criminal record and other details. After studying the card, Alice and Brad exchanged glances.

  ‘It’s the man who got away last night,’ Alice declared. ‘Everything on the card fits him, from that scar on his forehead down to his shiny shoes and the flower in his buttonhole.’

  ‘Only I’d say a feller with his record ought to be way too heavy to take part in a two-bit caper like last night’s,’ Brad went on. ‘Three counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Suspicion of murder and complicity in a gold-mine pay-roll stick-up. Robbing hotel rooms shouldn’t be his bag.’

  ‘What do you know about him, Gene?’ Alice asked. ‘Benjamin Ohris,’ Machados replied. ‘Currently working as a pistolero valiente, what you’d call an enforcer, for el Rey Yerno down around Veracruz Llave.’

  ‘He’s a mite off his home range,’ Brad drawled.

  ‘Farther than you realize,’ the Mexican answered. ‘Which raises the point of why he should be attempting to commit such an uncharacteristic crime here in Nonoava. Yerno may be el Rey, the King, down along the South-East coast, but this is Cristobal Peraro’s territory.’

  ‘Is there any connection, then?’ Alice wanted to know. ‘Did the other man work for Peraro?’

  ‘Never. While I, as a peace officer, believe that Peraro’s mother and father should never have met that one time, I have to admit that he’s selective in the men he hires. Which means that one never worked for him.’

  ‘So?’ Brad prompted.

  ‘According to a whisper I picked up,’ Machados went on, ‘Don Cristobal Peraro recently visited Gusher City and was interviewed on the night of his arrival by Sheriff Jack Tragg and two deputies who answer to your descriptions.’

  ‘He came and we went with the sheriff to see him,’ Alice admitted, impressed by the thoroughness of their host’s sources of information.

  ‘The meeting was cordial?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You didn’t order him, with suitable threats, to get the hell back south of the Rio Grande?’

  ‘Not in so many words,’ Alice replied. ‘The sheriff just told him to finish off his business pronto as the climate around Rockabye County got a mite unhealthy at that time of the year.’

  ‘His business at the time being to contact representatives of a New York syndicate and organize a mutually-beneficial working arrangement,’ Machados said. ‘Also to find the man who had murdered his nephew.’

  ‘We saved him the trouble of doing the last part,’ Brad stated, matching Alice’s admiration over the Mexican captain’s ability to collect details of importance. ‘From what we heard, they wound up the meeting in El Paso.’

  ‘Peraro didn’t leave Gusher City feeling riled at us,’ Alice went on. ‘It seems like he figures he owes Brad and me for getting the man who gunned down his nephew. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to having to attend to it himself, with the New York thing going and all, although he knew that his men would have expected him to do it.’

  ‘He even wrote to us later,’ Brad concluded. ‘Said if we should ever be in Mexico and need a favor, we’d to get in touch with him.’

  ‘He’d do it for you, too,’ Machados declared. ‘Bad as he is, Peraro’s a man of honor according to his family’s code. Well, it looks as if he’d have no reason to want revenge on you. I didn’t care for this business before, but it grows worse by the minute.’

  Alice and Brad did not need to ask what the Mexican captain meant. During the case which had brought them into contact with Don Cristobal Peraro—current head of a powerful criminal organization and whose family had been prominent bandido leaders in Northern Mexico for generations— the original evidence had seemed to point to a war brewing between two rival moonshine-whisky combines. There had been considerable concern expressed around the Sheriff’s Office over the possible consequences if it had commenced. [9] Clearly Machados was experiencing similar misgivings. A struggle for domination between two criminal factions as powerful as those of Peraro and Yerno invariably meant bloodshed. During the course of the fighting, innocent people might be killed or injured. For ‘the King’, el Rey Yerno to organize an attempt upon the life of a person known to be in Peraro’s favor—especially in the other’s territory—amounted to an open declaration of war.

  ‘Do you reckon that Yerno’s pistolero valiente would need to take on a two-bit pot-smoker to help him with an important caper like rubbing Peraro’s face into the dirt on his own ground?’ Brad asked.

  ‘That too puzzles me, amigo,’ Machados admitted soberly. ‘If Ohris had needed help, he would have fetched in some of el Rey’s guns rather than use a local man.’

  ‘Unless he’d lost his own helper in some way before he arrived,’ Alice suggested. ‘Then he’d have to take somebody who didn’t work for Peraro.’

  ‘Which wouldn’t leave him the pick of the herd,’ Brad continued. ‘What he’d be looking for was somebody who might hate Peraro’s guts for not hiring him And who’d serve another, useful purpose if he was killed after they’d pulled off the caper.’

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18