Chapter Forty-One
The road dropped out of the steep canyon it had followed down from Huajimixtli and leveled into a long, wide, straightaway through a pleasant valley. Dancy suddenly glanced back and said, “Hey, that’s Armando’s barn. Where the plane landed.”
Doc also looked around asking, “Lios Leyva’s plane?” Then, as the bus continued down the straightaway, he saw the set-up. The fine new highway was a runway, with the straight stretch painstakingly pieced into the landscape. Now he noticed an unused bridge where the old road had been. A radio message from the incoming plane would dispatch cars to block the road off, then a plane could be taxied straight through the wide double gate and into that cane barn with the ridiculously wide doors. Doc suddenly felt like jumping up, getting off the bus, heading back to that barn. A plane would be a nice, trouble-free way out the situation–straight to Mazatlán or even Los Cabos. He settled back in his seat. If the plane was there, and fueled and operational. And if they’d be nice enough to let him take it. A man with guns that don’t shoot can’t expect a lot of courtesy from bandits. He looked longingly back at the barn as the bus rounded a needlessly sharp corner at the end of the straightaway. No wonder nobody ever found the airstrip. Or the plane. “So Robin Hood’s fine new highway wasn’t all that altruistic, after all.”
Dancy looked at him for a moment, then put it together, “Ah, that Armando was one shrewd dude. But I think ‘altruistic’ would be stretching it. I mean, what with the heroin and all.”
“I guess I was starting to buy into his own publicity.”
“I think maybe so.”
The bus stopped at a dusty wide spot where three Mixteca women were selling refreshments for passengers. Doc passed money out the window and handed Dancy a plastic cup of jicama spears sprinkled with red chile powder and a plastic bag of lechuguila with a straw stuck through the top. Two boys about eight years old, obviously brothers, got on the bus as it pulled away. They waited a minute or two, then started to sing high and sweet, the smaller boy repeating the lines a half-beat behind his older brother, like an echo. Their songs were very adult, stone-cold treatises on the sorrows inevitable in trusting anyone as treacherous as a woman. It was very effective to Doc, the contrast of the sad, cynical material making their sheer boyishness and vulnerability more evident and poignant. Dancy was enchanted by the performance, and when the older boy moved back into the aisle, holding out his hat for donations, she fumbled in her pockets for some change, then reached to her bandolier for a lipstick. When the boy came back up front, she beckoned him with a coin, then motioned him over, “Thanks, honey,” she said, “That was very sweet.” And printed a big red kiss on his cheek. She turned to Doc and said, “Translation, please.”
Doc glanced away from the mirror and said, “What should I do, kiss him in Spanish?”
Dancy cut him a sidelong glance, muttered, “No use having a foreign tongue if you don’t use it.”
Dancy slipped a rolled-up bill into the hand of the older boy. Even in the quick flash of the pass, Doc could see it was a 100,000 peso note.
“For Christ’s sake , Dancy.”
“It seems like a good cause.”
“Good cause to get the kid hurt.”
“I should have warned him not to smoke it.”
The driver gave the kid that glare we reserve for people who get windfalls they don’t deserve, appreciate or know what to do with, but slowed down at an almost invisible crossing and let the boys off to wait for the next bus going the opposite way. Dancy mused, “Is there such a thing as a Spanish kiss? You know, like a French kiss? Or wow, is there Mexican style sex, like French and Greek?”
“Yep.”
“So what’s Mexican sex?”
“You get drunk, pass out, and a guy named Sancho comes in and does it for you.”
“Oh. I thought maybe if had to do with weapons.”
She was dosing on his shoulder when Doc gently said, “Your boyfriend’s back.”
She murmured, “Mmmmm…which one this time?”
“Radio Marti and the seven thieves.”
“Six.”
“Right. One down, six to go.”
“Doc. Why don’t you just stop the bus and let me off. Get out of this. You’ve been had. Let it go.”
“Nope. I afraid this is one of those damned ‘whatta man’s gotta do’ things.”
“Gotta Duke it out? Please.”
“It’s too late. I killed one of them. There’s absolutely no reason for them to let me go.”
“That’s right. Torres. Ramos would track you down anywhere to even up on that one.” She paused, then said softly, “But you had no choice, Doc.”
“That’s how it always starts. One step at a time. That’s why they call it escalation. You’re poking around, advising, gathering intelligence, then something happens so quick you can’t even think about it and you’ve just made your first kill. Almost like an accident. But you’ve been training for it, haven’t you? Is there such a thing as a premeditated accident? After the first one, the others just come along naturally until enough people are dead to settle the issue.”
“Sounds like you’re done this before.”
“And the last couple of times I was swearing I’d never do it again.”
“Well, it beats me how you’re going to do it this time. Get out in one piece, I mean.”
Doc pulled the .357 and Ingram out of the bag and said, “I knew these would come in handy for something. Here, I’m sure you want the big one.” Stepping out of the seat, he tapped the driver on the shoulder and showed him the revolver. Slowly, he brought the driver up and out of the seat and slid into it himself. Dancy was beside him now, but he pointed down into the stepwell, where she could stand relatively sheltered. The driver sat in the seat they’d just vacated, looking at Dancy as though she’d shattered the last of his few illusions. Doc told Dancy to cover him and the other passengers with the Ingram as he tested the steering and looked around the panel. She glowered menacingly at the goggle-eyed campesinos.
“You talking to me?” she snarled, “You talking to me?” Nobody moved, except maybe a bowel here and there.
Looking down at the cracked, dim gauges, Doc caught sight of a decal, fading at the edges, on the dashboard. A black hammer, “He could take you.” Dancy saw it too, and said, “Too late to get off, hero?”
Doc just kept the bus bombing down the highway, keeping an eye on Martillo’s attempts to pull around him. Two warning shots were fired from the Buick, attempts to scare the driver into pulling over. Doc could keep him from passing, the hurtling mass of the bus being equal to the superior speed of the Park Avenue. But sooner or later they were just going to shoot out the tires. Doc was looking ahead for a place to try the only move he had left when she said, “I’m not going over as well as the kids.”
Doc, clenching his teeth as he wrestled the awkward wheel with one eye on the Buick and one on the narrow twisting road, grunted, “So sing. Give ’em some soft shoe.”
She asked for requests, but nobody had any burning desires. She shrugged, fondled the Ingram, and in a thin, girlish contralto trilled out, “Telephone rings in the middle of the night, it’s daddy saying what you trying to do with your life.”
She had to gloss over a few words in the verses, but came through loud and sure on the chorus, “Girls just want to have fun.” Doc smiled in spite of himself. “That’s all we really want,” she trilled, “Girls just want to have guns”
She spun the Ingram on her finger, blew imaginary smoke from the muzzle. “Yes, girls just want to have guns.” She pointed the gun around the cab as everybody ducked, switched tunes in mid-beat, “Happiness is just a warm, yes it is, a warm gun. Bang, bang, shoot, shoot.”
They sped past a tobacco field where Martillo could fireball up alongside for a second without risking total destruction if Doc cut into him. He looked up at the mirror and window simultaneously, just to get a view of Doc, see who he was dealing with. He ignored an oncoming truck with a tractor on its back, and it plowed off into the field, horn locked into a solid wail. Doc looked at Martillo coolly in the mirror, then stuck out his tongue. Martillo raised an eyebrow, then grinned back at him. This might be more fun than he’d thought.
Aboard the bus, Doc saw his opening coming up. He slowed slightly, telling Dancy to stay down in the door well, which she did, but kept popping up, pointing the Ingram to surprise anyone taking advantage of her lapse in vigilance. Suddenly, Doc hit the brake and the Buick surged out ahead. Doc swung the bus to the center of the road and accelerated towards the rear of the big car. Consternation was apparent through the rear window. Maldonado and Regalado ducked, then tried to get their guns out the side windows as Santiamen howled at Martillo and the car jumped forward like the bus had buggered it. The Buick was almost across the bridge when Doc stood up on the brake with both feet and cut the wheel for all he was worth.
The bus shuddered and started to plunge toward the edge of the road and on down into the canyon, but the cut was too sharp–the bald rear tires lost traction and started moving around to catch up. As the old rig broadsided on the narrow road, the rear window scraped brush from the mountainside and the front wheels slid on crumbling shoulder. It almost went over, which Doc was fervently hoping it wouldn’t since he really didn’t look forward to climbing out the top with Martillo’s guns on him. As it was, it worked perfectly; the sidewinding bus slammed into the steel bridge abutments and stopped short, throwing half the passengers against the left windows and the other half into the aisle. Doc had opened the door, grabbed Dancy’s arm and jumped out before the engine even stalled.
He dragged Dancy across the bridge, running in the cover of the sideways bus. Once across the corked-up bridge, he pushed Dancy straight into the jungle on the downhill side. She took two steps, lurched forward and almost fell down a precipitous slope, so steep she couldn’t see the ground twelve feet below. “We can’t run down this,” she yelped, “It’s vertical!”
Doc wrapped his arms around her and said, “Vertigo anyone?” then jumped straight out into the green canopy, the two of them plunging out of sight, tearing a hole in the jungle, and trailing a scream that broke into a high, racing laugh.