Chapter Forty
Torres turned around to see Doc hauling out his shotgun. Like most of his colleagues, he wasn’t the kind to weigh odds, just to make the most machote move possible. Doc had the drop, but the short outlaw skinned off the fender, snatching up his AK as he moved. Automatically, Doc centered on his body and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He jacked out a shell and fired again, still nothing. Torres had the gun up now and was shooting the bolt. Too far from the door to retreat, Doc rushed at him, throwing the Remington with his right hand as he pulled a pistol with the left. The shotgun wheeled into Torres’ face, causing him to throw up his arms and take a nasty crack on his wrists. By that time Doc had the pistol out and was squeezing the trigger as he charged in. There was no report, just the hammer clicking on nothing.
But Doc was inside before Torres got the muzzle back down, swinging the pistol into the smaller man’s nose for a bright blurt of blood. He snatched the muzzle of the rifle, but Torres fired off three rounds before Doc smashed in his trachea and tore the weapon out of his hands.
Dancy stood staring, not really comprehending what had happened, even as Torres slumped to the ground gasping and rattling himself to death. Doc spun to check on her and she whistled, “Wow, Whizzer, you’ve got a no-hitter going.”
Doc stuck the pistol in his belt, reversed the AK, and pushed her back towards the door just as Morales and Ramos ran in through the big gate, both firing full auto and wide open. Doc leaned out the door and hosed the gate, making the outlaws duck outside for cover. He fired a quick burst at Ramos, who had made a feint to run in, but missed him. Flattened inside the door with Dancy wide-eyed beside him, Doc suddenly thrust the gun outside and fired blindly into the gateway. He released the magazine, then slammed it loudly back into the receiver. Let them think he was loaded and making a stand.
He grabbed Dancy and dragged her through the guesthouse at a dead run, crashing through laundry, cooking and screams. Glancing out front at the plaza, he didn’t see anybody with weapons, though it was hard to tell in the milling market crowd. For a very long minute he had no idea what steps to take–then he caught a glimpse of rickety salvation across the square.
Morales, Ramos and Regalado came out the front door of the pension before Doc and Dancy had quite made it to the bus, but didn’t see them cutting around behind it through the blue clouds of exhaust. The people had been panicked by the shots, but hadn’t known which way to run from the sounds echoing around the plaza. Seeing the bandits with their weapons gave them the right idea and everyone started flooding away down the streets on the other side of the square.
The men quartered the square cautiously, fanning out to search the shops next door. Doc calmly gave the bus driver a handful of pesos and suggested that they leave right away before the narcos did more shooting. The driver richly agreed, goggling his attention back and forth from Dancy to the gunmen across the plaza. But he was already closing the door and moving the hell out of town.
Dancy glanced back as they rounded the corner. She said, “That was Torres at the car. He was a nice guy. Great guitar player.”
“We’ve all got some little gift, Slim. But they end up for nothing in the body bag.”
“Geez, that’s so philosophical.”
“The philosophy was when you almost realized that guy was a human being and now he isn’t any more. Now he’s a just a disposal hassle. No deep thoughts in that.”
They were standing in the aisle of the bus, most of the seats filled. Doc wanted a seat where be near the door, mirror and driver. He spoke with a man in the front seat, pulling out a wad of bills to clinch his pitch. The bribe was a big one and the man’s wife was already standing up, but the man hesitated. “Why do you need a seat so bad?”
“We’re short sleep,” Doc said and leaned over to murmur, “It’s our honeymoon, you know.”
The guy took in the scratches on Doc’s face and neck, the bruises on Dancy’s forehead where Doc had plowed her into the headboard a few times. He laughed and followed his wife to the rear of the bus. “Congratulations.” Doc related the conversation to Dancy, who grimaced at the peasant.
“All the world loves a lover,” Doc told her.
“And all the world fucks a fucker,” she snapped. She settled down into the seat and leaned her head on the window. After a minute she turned to Doc and asked, “So the bus is taking us somewhere better than where we were?”
“Tepic.” Doc said.
“And we’ll be safer there? Why?”
“Well, it’s a big place, for one thing. We’ll be harder to find.”
“Not for Martillo, we won’t. He could just walk into the square and offer an autograph to anyone who turns up an American blonde and a gringo with a hard-on.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Doc said, glancing quickly down to verify the hard-on accusation (which had been exaggerated.) “There’s an airport. We’ll be in Los Cabos tomorrow. Probably by private helicopter and Mercedes limousine. Your hubby’s there with a telephone.”
“Yeah, he’s a real touch-tone wizard, isn’t he?”
“Really. He could probably call us in an air strike if we needed it.”
She whipped her head around to look at his face, her mouth opening slightly, then snapping shut, “He probably could, couldn’t he?”
Doc gave her a long take, catching her drift but saying nothing. She toyed with a strand of hair, chewed it a little, then softly asked, “Where’d you get that shotgun, Doc?”
Doc slumped slightly in the seat and ran his hand up into his hairline. “Your husband got it for me,” he said.
“Well, well, well.”
Doc pulled off his vest and spread it on his lap. He reached down and eased the Ingram out of his bag and up under the vest. With an unfocused gaze out the window, he quickly field-stripped it by touch. Then he put it back together and dropped it back into the bag. He said to her, conversationally, “All the parts are there. Just the firing pin’s been cut away enough that it won’t shoot. Which can’t be fixed. I can’t believe I never test-fired them. That’s why he only got them to me at the last minute. Wotta guy.”
“He firmly believes the world is divided into predators and chumps.”
“It’s looking like he’s right.”
“Check this out. He married me. Access to millions of dollars, access to me pretty much whenever he feels like it. But he’s still always angling for me, you know? Trying to catch me, trying to win something off me. Does that figure?”
“I guess. He’s a player. You’ve got a pretty maddeningly superior air about you…” Doc grinned as she flashed a glance at him, “Not that you don’t have any reason to feel superior. But it could lead him to having to run a full time conquest. I mean are you really his, all his?”
“Not a chance. Hell, I’m not even all mine.” She sat silently for a minute, watching the walls of cane and jungle flash by. Then she said, “Stan started telling me there was something wrong with me, something empty and rotten inside me that would never get well.” She sighed, picking idly at a scratch on her thigh. “I really started hating it when I realized he was right.”
“I know what you mean,” Doc said. “Exactly. But it’s bull. Things can be healed, people can recover.”
“Glad you think so. But tell me, what did you think of our first formal ball?”
“Didn’t I act entertained? Why do these things always happen when I’m working?”
“Oh, you’re a cutie pie all right. But I gotta say, you ring my chimes in a big, bad way.”
“Me, too. This is major. I feel like a recent ex-virgin.”
Dancy smiled and patted his cheek. Then she said, “So, go ahead, tell me about your very first time.”
“Well, I guess it was Rocky Mountain Time; daylight savings, actually.”
“You’re so damn droll.”
“But my best time was forty yards in 4.5 seconds my senior year.”
“Your first sex, butthead.”
“Ah. See, usually when somebody asks that question, what they really mean is that they want to tell you about theirs. So go for it.”
“Okay, I will. You ready for this? It was none other than my sweet old daddy. You know, your boss, the guy you’re taking me back to? Hard to believe with his folksy, gentle image isn’t it?
“I like the phony folksy, but he’s about as gentle as wolverine. And it’s not that hard to believe. I just don’t happen to believe it.”
“You accuse me of lying about something like incest?”
“Not lying, maybe. Maybe you believe it. That daddy molester stuff is a hot fad, ever since Freud. Sell it to Oprah, I’m not buying.”
“You bastard!”
“And, just in case it crossed your mind, you can’t switch my loyalty from your daddy to you.”
Dancy smoldered a minute, then fixed him with a very practical gaze. “Now that you’ve gotten to know me a little better, tell me something. Do you really think I need to be rescued?
“Well, I probably should tell you something. I’m not really working for your old man.”
“Who, then? Oh, God. Not Stan.”
“No, the Mexican government hired me to get you out of here while they’ve still got a country left.”
“Oh, that’s just special. For a soldier of fortune, you’ve got a real unfortunate sense of humor.”
“I’m sorry, You were sharing your sexual history. Who was it really? Your grandmother? The varsity defensive line? Decatur chapter of Hell’s Angels? John Huston?
“You jerk. I don’t believe you. OK, it wasn’t daddy. Would you have bought it if he didn’t look like Burl Ives? No, it was a teacher when I was in Junior High. I was born this way. What’s your excuse?”
“I don’t need excuses. I’ve got a note from my mom.”
“I got mine from my father. I went to parochial school, remember? So the teacher I mentioned was a priest. A “father figure” after all. He broke me in pretty good, because I was still into the whole church thing. He had a catechism of the human body you’d have to have heard to believe. Even taught me the rudiments of birth control, if you’re into irony.”
“Immaculate contraception?”
“Good one. Then he dumped me for a dainty little piece in the seventh grade and made it clear I’d better keep quiet or the whole Holy Roman Church could hit the tubes and it would be my fault if Satan Rules. I guess I got a little hinkey. A bit of a reputation for hand jobs and head. I was popular with the guys, I will say that. Always have been. Now you go.”
“Comparing emotional scars are we?” Doc took a deep breath, as if starting a dive. “I don’t remember her name.”
“Just the expression on her tits?”
“I don’t remember her face either.”
“Now that’s blasé,” she smirked.
“Probably because I was zoned out on acid.”
“Those zany sixties. I’m sure the name and face are in your yearbook,” she said. “That’s what annuals are for, so you can go back and wonder what you ever saw in people.”
“Not likely. She was a whore in Saigon. I guess it would have seemed weirder, but I was fighting a war stoned, too. It was a long time afterwards before I could have sex high without it seeming sleazy and dangerous. Sometimes I smoke a bowl and remember it all jumbled up, just a bunch of bodies.
She was quiet for awhile then said, “I had no idea war was so much fun. You sure wiped me out in the Celebrity Battle of Id Scars. No wonder you’re such a kink.”
“Standard issue. The Marines make men.”
“By the process of elimination?” she shivered, then bounced back into her natural healthy spirits. “But look, you’re telling me a hunkster like you, a football star no less, didn’t get laid in high school?”
“Nah, I was on an even weirder trip then. Nice Guy, Nice Girl. I didn’t even make out with girls I didn’t respect.”
“And if you did respect them, they were too nice to fool around with, right?”
“It seemed to make sense at the time.”
“But a little war and acid and heroin and you couldn’t quite remember why, right?”
“Remember what?”
“Ooh, long member and short memory. You are my kind of guy.”
“I’m starting to suspect you aren’t a very nice girl.”
“No way! Fuck those nice little cunts. Whoa, those hypocritical little sluts in school…the nuns were down on me even before I started gobbling knobs in the park. But when it got out that I was a sinner with a fan club of devoted pricks, I really got it from my chaste little classmates. God, I hated those nice little twats. But too bad for them, I was starting to get co-ordinated and my growth wasn’t all in my tits. I didn’t really take off in tennis until a few years later, didn’t even go to state my sophomore year. But field hockey was something else, brother.”
“That’s the one with chunky lesbians in bobby socks, right?”
“That’s the one. It must seem alien to a Westerner, huh? Like deb balls and fox hunting. I’ve done that too, you know. Steeple chase and riding to the hounds. Putting stallions over the jumps was a major passion, as you might imagine.”
“I’ve noted a predilection.”
“You should have caught my act in my twenties, before I started to like myself a little. I’d have scared your ass off. I’ll bet there are good little Catholic preppy family men out there that still wake up with nightmares, chills, and aching hard-ons.”
“Those are the symptoms, all right.”
“You’ve got no idea, you silly man, what a true harriden is like. I have been known to come to bed with spurs and riding crop.”
“That’s what they call a “riding habit?”
“Full scale addiction, really. But anyway, field hockey was when I first got to be a jock. Boy, did I ever knock their little pussies loose for ’em. I was pretty rough on opposing schools; most of my scoring records still stand. But nothing like the shit I dealt those St. Catherine’s bitches in practice. Full contact terrorism and a nice hickory stick for breaking little thoroughbred bones. So a bunch of them ganged up on me in the showers, tried to take me down.”
“So it’s not just a look, they actually are lesbians?”
“We’ll never know. It was a major moment for me, Doc. The first time I found out I’m hell on wheels.”