Chapter Forty-Seven
The .45 slug caught Martillo a little wide, but still punched the right lung, lifted him off Doc, and slammed him to the floor on his back. Doc turned over, still covering him with the empty gun, and watched the crisp anger turn into shock. Doc tried to get to his knees, but slumped and yelled at the pain. He gasped again, then referred the pain to his “back burner”–ignoring it as he crawled to the door and tugged a submachine gun from under Morales’ body. He secured his perimeter, then turned to look at Martillo, who was watching the bright red blood of his lungs flow out into his cupped hand. On the bed, Dancy had recovered her senses and was trying to focus on Doc, unable to see Martillo’s body on the floor below her. She slurred a little as she said, “Out of bullets, Shane?”
At the sound of her voice, Martillo stiffened, then gave Doc a blank look, “SHE’S still alive, of course.” Doc nodded, holding the gun on him as he shifted to a position where he could also cover the door. Dancy snapped into gear as she heard Martillo speak, rolling to her knees and looking over the edge of the bed. She recoiled at the sight of him lying in a quickly spreading pool of blood, and put her hand to her mouth. The sight of her like that–in a pose that would have taken an hour to coax out of a model–hit Doc hard, was one of those tableaux he knew he’d recorded permanently. He wished for his camera, caught himself, and scowled.
He looked helplessly at Martillo’s foaming, sucking wound. He knew better than to turn him over, knew what the exit site would look like. Martillo looked at him, dumbfounded. He said, “Me moriré, verdad?” Then, “I’m going to die?”
Doc could barely control his voice, but said, “Yeah, you’re dying. I’m sorry.”
Martillo shrugged a street shrug, “No es nada, gringo. But…I’m going to be dead. And for what?” He looked up at Dancy, who must have seemed like a blonde angel, leaning over above him. “Por tu amor, Cajeta.” He smiled a terrible, bleeding smile, as though he’d just figured it all out, “Por tu maldito amor.”
She looked down at him, her hair disheveled around her sweaty nakedness, “I’m sorry, Marty. You were very special. You could have been a contender.”
He took her in, his eyes starting to cloud up. He seemed to dismiss her, turned to Doc. “God will hate to see me, I’ve done some terrible things.”
Doc said, “God’s going to love your ass. You’re getting out while you’re still beautiful.”
Martillo smiled again, “I think you’re right, gringo. I’m a beautiful beast, am I not? But since you have killed me, can I know your name?
Doc said, in Spanish, “Just call me El Doctor.”
Martillo gave a choking laugh, “No, you’re supposed to call ME a doctor. You stupid gringos don’t know shit.” He caught his breath and gave a deep, burbling sigh, “Ah, but your women. How do you stand them?”
Doc spread his hands, “Hey, they kill me, too.”
Martillo suddenly grabbed Doc’s shirt, pulling him down a little. He stared him right in the eyes. “Do me one thing, Doctor,” he gasped, “Fuck that bitch for me. Fuck her to death.”
Doc said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
Martillo wheezed, “I love her like no woman ever. I even had her. Right there in my hands. I just wanted her damned love. And now I’m dead. And she probably thinks she was worth it.” Then he smiled and coughed and died.
Doc turned to look at Dancy, kneeling naked on the bed, staring down at the young face and body. Her tears were falling into his staring eyes. Doc said, “Crying, huh? I didn’t think you had it in you.”
She snapped her head up, cheeks streaked; but eyes dry, hot and angry. “Had it in me more than once, matter of fact.”
Doc stood and spun and grabbed her by the upper arms, hands biting to the bone, and pulled her up to face him. “I suppose you’d have done the same for me if everything had worked out.”
She held his gaze, “Why cry for you, Killer? You get by.”
The adrenaline of the fight had swung off into sentiment, but now it was back where it belonged, hard, sharp and trembly. The close brush of death’s lips was still on Doc’s gut, and his heart was singing a hymn of new life–a tune danced to most noticeably in his trousers. He spun her off the bed and pushed her back against the white-washed wall. His nostrils flared as he smelled the sweat and fear and musk on her, amid the odors of death and blood and perfume that flooded the room. He surged up against her, pressing her mouth until they both tasted blood. She was squirming up against him, her own glands responding to having been almost–but not quite–dead. He rasped his groin against her, feeling the zipper grate against her hairs. Her hands fluttered down to it, pulling it open. He surged out like a switchblade and shoved her up the wall until he could rummage into her, slamming hard against her hips as she gasped and curled her calves up behind his calves, then his thighs, then his butt. He grabbed her breasts and leaned his weight on them, pinning her to the wall as he punched into her, driving off the balls of his feet, trying to punish her, obliterate her, wipe whatever she had off her face or wherever she wore it. Her head was thrown back, bumping the whitewashed concrete. Her eyes blinked open and she raised her arms slowly, like someone crucified. She grabbed two of the peeled poles that supported the corrugated roof and hung there as Doc hammered at her hips. He reached to her throat with both hands, softly, palms spread, cupping the strong golden neck, tracing the noble jawline. He tightened that grip and she felt her consciousness fading, knew it was a touch of death. But she hung on, arching her back against the wall to slam into Doc’s wild lunging. Her vision sputtered, blackened, cleared. That slight taste of oblivion drove her to orgasms like she’d never experienced. The light was flickering and she felt a roaring in her ears, a white fire lapping down her loins. The light came slower, less often; she was in black silence, then there would be a painful flash of red roar and the glare of Doc Hardesty’s face, teeth clenched, mouth bloody, eyes like lead bullets. The darkness swept up around her like rising black water and up through it swam convulsions, epileptic contractions she could feel grabbing her limbs apart and throwing them around. She welcomed the convulsions, because beyond them, down at her toes, she could feel a cold current she knew to be death.
Then, suddenly, the light came on and flashed through her as if she’d been glass. The blood slammed back into her brain, freighted with adrenaline and unknown concoctions. The orgasm of all time slugged up into her guts, grabbed hold of her diaphragm and shook her limp as a handful of snakes. Her lips went cold and white, her eyes rolled up into her skull. She was sobbing, flailing her head. But she was pumping against him for all she was worth, her arms and head slammed against the wall over and over as she flopped like a fish speared on Doc’s still-hammering rod.
Doc finished in a thin, cold stream of dying rage, no satisfaction in it. He released her and she slumped, down the wall, rotating around the point where Doc had nailed her up. He let her fall, semi-conscious, face down on the bodies on the crowded floor. Panting, Doc turned and saw a glimpse of his face in a mirror, framed between a sticker of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the bleeding, thorn-pricked heart of Jesus. He stared into his own eyes a minute, then snarled, driving a fist into the mirror, punching a dent into the plaster behind it, grinding shards of glass into his knuckles. “You make me ashamed. You make me sick,” he told here, “I don’t like this part of me.”
“Well I do,” she breathed, “You’re already sick. You all are. I just bring it out. Lucky little me.”
“Get dressed,” Doc said, “We’re leaving.” He stomped to the door, where the crowd, including two policemen, scattered in front of him then pressed back to watch her roll to her knees, stand up and stretch. She found her stained shirt and pants and pulled them on, ignoring the gaping, buttonless front. She looked at the crowd, who looked back in awe, seemed ready to bolt if she said “boo”. So she said, “Boo!” and they all flinched. She smiled and patted her hair. “You know,” she said to the brown faces of whores and cops and cowboys hiding their shock behind frozen passivity, “That was the very best I ever, ever had. I mean it.” They stared at her. She giggled, winked, and whispered to them behind her hand, “But don’t tell him that. You know men.” She walked out without looking back into the room, and they cleared her a path. She stepped out of the cantina to find Doc talking to two more cops, in front of a car. Doc glanced at her, then turned to a cop and said, “Who do you have to fuck to go to jail around here?”
In the car they sat without speaking, Doc staring at her as though not seeing her. Finally he shifted his hips and reached to his back pocket. He pulled out a bandanna and handed it to her. She wet it in her mouth and started cleaning off her face and breasts. Her nipples came erect and she cut a sidelong glance at Doc, almost smiling. He gave a long, shuddering sigh, then pulled off his shirt and gave it to her. She put it on and buttoned it, then gave him a smile that just broke his damned heart.
“Okay, I’m sick,” he said, “But I don’t like having to watch it.”
She looked at him with genuine curiosity and said, “What else is playing?”
Doc looked into her face for almost a minute, then shook his head. “You couldn’t spare me even a single tear, huh?” he said.
“You shouldn’t exchange bodily fluids with strange men,” she said, “And you’re about as strange as they come.”
“Well, that’s the strangest I ever came,” he said, fighting a grin, “You should’ve been there.”
He reached across the seat to her, and when Stan and Primo walked into the police station. they were sitting on the bench holding hands like a couple of kids.