‘All right, Frankie. I’ve got him covered.’
Mark shoved the coat away. It fell to the floor. Frankie was still clutching at his arm. George had come in through the French windows and stood facing him, very pale and eager, a gun directed at him.
‘Drop the gun, Mr Liddon.’
Mark let go of the revolver. Frankie snatched it and stepped away from him. She stood at George’s side, looking back at Mark rather sadly.
‘I told you we could do this sort of thing much better than you, Mr Liddon. Now look what you’ve done. I don’t get kidnapped after all. You’ve ruined my day.’
MARK’s
first reaction was fury against himself. George had obviously been hiding all the time on the roof behind one of the chimneys. He had let Frankie distract him from a thorough search by the crudest device of clutching his arm and deflecting his attention to herself. Through sheer stupidity he had muffed his big opportunity.
George was very excited. He couldn’t take things calmly like Frankie. His fair hair fell in a nervously disheveled lock over his blue fanatic’s eyes. He looked small and undernourished and immensely determined to be dangerous. He snapped at Frankie.
‘How much does he know?’
‘He says his wife’s still under dope. I don’t think he knows anything. But he has got my gun.’
‘Get it back. And, if he has it on him, get Mrs Liddon’s tourist card too.’
While he kept Mark covered with his revolver, Frankie retrieved her gun from Mark’s pocket and searched until she found Ellie’s tourist card. She tossed it on a table and continued to search. Her hand went into his pants pocket and came out with the key to the room in the Hotel Mirador. For a bad moment Mark thought the hotel’s name might be stamped on the metal tag. But it wasn’t — just the number.
Frankie studied the key thoughtfully and then, throwing it up in the air and catching it again, moved towards George’s side.
George had been watching like a celebrated surgeon waiting for his nurse to complete the preliminaries for an operation. Now he said:
‘How did you find out where your wife was, Mr Liddon? From Oscar?’
Mark could at least keep his bargains. ‘I forced it out of him.’
‘And this address too?’
‘Yes.’
George took a step closer. That was supposed to intimidate him. Mark could see all the wheels going around behind the ‘tough-guy’ characterization. It struck him as odd that this should be the man Victor had chosen to do his dirty work. He seemed far too undisciplined — too nearly the amateur.
‘We warned you to keep out of this, Mr Liddon. You had your chance.’ There it was again, that stuffy, preacher’s tone as if he were scolding an intractable congregation. He took the key from Frankie and held it up. ‘Okay. You’ve taken your wife to a hotel. What hotel?’
Perhaps, if less had happened that day, if his emotional reserves had not been almost exhausted, Mark might have taken the danger more seriously. But it seemed absurd that George should expect an answer to that question.
Guns can’t make people tell things.
Frankie had said that.
George was breathing quickly now as if he had been running. It was the dictator-whose-patience-is-almost-exhausted pose. But he was genuinely angry too. The best bet was to make him even madder. George was the type to do something foolish when he was in a passion.
‘I’m waiting, Mr Liddon. Where’s your wife?’
Mark grinned. ‘If you want to find her, you’d better wire Victor for reinforcements.’
The blood flushed up through the thin white skin of George’s face. ‘Where’s your wife?’
‘You’re wasting your breath.’
‘Yes, George darling, you really are.’ Frankie had been watching them. Now she stifled a theatrical yawn. ‘After all, we haven’t got much time. Let’s give up being ominous and go get her.’
Mark stiffened.
‘Get her?’ echoed George. ‘You mean you know where she is?’
‘Of course I do.’ Frankie picked her coat up from the floor and put it on, carefully arranging the collar around the neck. ‘Mr Liddon is the worst wife-preserver on record. He hadn’t been here five minutes before he lit a cigarette from a book of matches. I asked for a light and there it was all beautifully written out on the matches.’
She turned to Mark and smiled brightly. ‘Mrs Liddon is at the Hotel Mirador, that friendly hostelry which brings you all the color of quaint old Mexico.’ She took the key from George, studied it and dropped it into her coat pocket. ‘Hotel Mirador - Room 26.’
As Mark returned her cool, steady gaze, he knew for one crystal-clear moment what it was to hate someone. There was no end to this girl’s duplicity, to her casual expertness in tricking him all along the line. Ellie’s safety had hung precariously from a matchbox. Frankie had been clever enough to realize it and he had lumbered into the trap she had set. Like a water-buffalo. That’s what she’d called him. And that’s what she’d made of him. A water-buffalo. Or a bull. For the second time that day he thought of himself fantastically as a bull. A vivid mental image came of the bull charging Frankie, tossing her over its shoulder with a horn.
He glanced at George’s tensely clutched revolver. Now that they knew where Ellie was, his only hope was violence. And, since they had the guns, it could only be the violence of desperation. Had he been right in summing George up as a straw-man? He had crumpled once before that evening in the alley behind the Salon de Lisboa. Mightn’t he crumble again?
He tensed his muscles, waiting for the slightest chance to jump George. Frankie had two revolvers, but they were both in her coat pockets. She despised him now. And, because she despised him, she might underestimate him.
George was smiling his strained, sanctimonious smile. It was obvious that he was already taking full credit for Frankie’s cleverness.
‘Well, Mr Liddon, I guess we don’t need your help after all. We’ll go around to the Mirador and get Mrs Liddon. And then…’ He turned to Frankie and started to speak in rapid Czech.
Frankie’s reaction was lightning quick, but not quite quick enough. In the second before she cried ‘Shut up. He may understand,’ Mark’s rusty Czech had been sufficiently good for him to have heard George say:
What shall we do with her? Take her with us to …?
That was the point at which Frankie had cut in. But it was almost certainly to Acapulco that they were going. That was where Frankie had her hotel reservation at the Casa Miranda. Tomorrow this crazy conspiracy, whatever it was, would reach a climax in Acapulco.
Thanks to George’s blunder, the game was not irretrievably lost. Now, even if the worst happened and he couldn’t keep them from recapturing Ellie, he at least knew where they would be taking her. But he would have to play dumb. If they thought that he’d understood, they might be cagey enough to change their plans. He arranged his expression to one of exasperated disappointment.
They were both watching him, their eyes intent and scrutinizing.
Frankie said to George: ‘He’s Czech. I should have told you. Czech born.’
‘What difference does it make?’ George still kept the gun aimed straight at Mark. ‘I didn’t say anything that mattered. And, even if he did get it, we’re going to put him out for a while.’
‘Yes,’ murmured Frankie. ‘Yes, I suppose we’ll have to.’ Get the tape.’
Frankie went to a drawer and brought out a large roll of adhesive tape and a lethal looking pair of scissors.
Smiling at Mark, she said: ‘I’m afraid this is on the corny side, Mr Liddon. But you’re a logical man. You see the need of it.’
George said: ‘Put your hands behind your back.’
Yes,’ said Frankie, ‘definitely behind the back. I don’t want to be thrown at George again like a ball.’
Mark put his hands behind his back. Frankie started to circle him. Once they’d taped his wrists, all hope would be gone. It was now or never. Very conscious of the scissors behind him, he, threw himself forward at George.
He had been right in his judgment of the other man.
George didn’t fire. He merely ducked to one side. But it was Frankie who acted. Almost in the first instant that Mark moved she jumped at him from behind, clinging around his neck with her arms. The unexpected extra weight threw him off balance. As he struggled to right himself, George’s arm flashed upward and he felt the impact of the revolver butt behind his ear. He reeled, with Frankie still clutching him. George hit him again. He felt Frankie sliding away from him. The pretty room with its colorful serapes rotated around him. There was a dim sensation of having no knees.
Then he dropped into unconsciousness.
When he was next aware of anything it was of his name called in a quiet, crooning voice:
‘Mr Liddon. Mr Liddon.’
His head was aching. His mouth felt as if some sticky hostile hand were clamped over it. He tried to move his ankles. He couldn’t. He remembered the adhesive tape.
‘Mr Liddon.’
He twisted around and opened his eyes. He was looking straight into a pretty golden-brown face with long lashes curling around black, solicitous eyes.
‘Mr Liddon, is me. Your friend — Oscar.’
It made no sense that Oscar should be there. But that didn’t matter.
‘You are tied up, Mr Liddon, with this material which doctors use. Do you wish me to remove it?’
Mark nodded.
‘It may bring pain.’ Oscar’s dainty fingers gripped the tape over Mark’s mouth. ‘Courage, Mr Liddon. Ay.’ He ripped the tape away.
Everything had come back to Mark and with it a great sense of urgency. ‘How long have I been out?’
‘How long? Perhaps half an hour. At the hotel I think maybe my friend needs help. I follow. I see George and the girl come out. Luckily, when I rent the apartment, I make a second key. I wait until they drive away. Then…’
‘Get the tape off my wrists and ankles.’
Oscar’s face broke into a happy smile. ‘You are in a hurry, Mr Liddon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Perhaps a one-hundred-peso hurry ?’
‘Anything you say, but get the tape off.’
Oscar’s smile became a beam of delight. ‘First I take the money. Is more simple.’ His hand slid into Mark’s breast pocket and brought out his wallet. Having carefully selected one hundred pesos, he stripped off the tape. Mark jumped up and started for the door.
Behind him Oscar called: ‘You want a taxi?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am more young, I go more quickly.’ The boy dashed past him and down the stairs. When Mark reached the street he was standing proudly by a waiting taxi. They both climbed in.
‘Where, Mr Liddon?’
‘Hotel Mirador.’
Oscar spoke Spanish to the driver. As the taxi shot forward, Mark grimly assessed the situation. Oscar’s unexpected one-hundred-peso rescue had been a help, but it wouldn’t alter the situation. Frankie and George had at least a half-hour lead. They had the key to Ellie’s room. Ellie wouldn’t be able to do anything to defend herself. Almost certainly they had her out of the hotel by now.
Mark never kidded himself. This disaster was entirely his fault. He should never have left Ellie alone in the hotel. He’d tried to be too clever. Now Ellie was paying for it. Frankie and George had a car. Oscar had said he had seen them driving away from the apartment. Probably they were already on their way to Acapulco. A tormenting image came of Ellie huddled helpless in the back seat of a speeding automobile. With a great effort of will he suppressed it. There was no point in torturing himself.
He would follow to Acapulco.
The taxi swung into the self-conscious grandeur of the H
otel Mirador’s driveway. He took money out of his wallet and handed it to Oscar.
‘Pay him.’
Mark ran through the lobby out into the patio and up the stairs. He reached Room 26. The door was ajar. He ran in. Ellie was gone and her clothes too. Even though he had been prepared for this, the sight of the tumbled sheets on the empty bed almost defeated him.
He hurried downstairs to the desk. ‘Did you see my wife leave?’
The clerk blinked. ‘No, sir.’
‘And did anyone come here to ask for her?’
‘Why, no, sir. No one at all.’
He’d expected that. Frankie and George must have known the Hotel Mirador, known that one could slip from the grounds through the patio and up the stairs without being seen from the lobby.
‘The only thing that happened, sir,’ said the clerk uneasily, was that Mrs Liddon telephoned.’
‘Telephoned?’
‘Yes, sir. There were three calls. Two local calls and one to New York.’
‘Do you have the New York number?’
‘Why, yes, sir. I put the call through myself.’ The clerk crossed to the switchboard and consulted a little book. ‘It was Sacramento 9-6412.’
Sacramento. That was Victor’s exchange. It was Frankie, of course, who had called Victor, pretending to the clerk that she was Mrs Liddon. That was to be expected too. She and George would have to check in at headquarters — report Ellie’s escape and subsequent recapture.
He turned to Oscar, who was hovering behind him. ‘How long does it take to get to Acapulco?’
‘Acapulco ? ‘Oscar’s face brightened. By plane, is one hour and a half. But the plane goes only in the morning. By car is nine-ten hours.’
‘Can I hire one now?’
Oscar’s white teeth flashed. ‘It happens I have a friend. He owns a most pleasant car.’
‘Could you get it right away? ‘
‘I believe so. But’ — Oscar was watching his fingernails — ‘the roads to Acapulco are most treacherous to strangers, very long and winding. My friend — he is most particular. I do not feel he would wish you to drive it yourself.’
‘But he’d let you drive it?’
‘Oh yes, yes. He has much confidence in me. Is very good friend.’
‘Okay. Go get it.’
‘And I drive you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ay!’ Oscar’s face clouded. ‘There would, of course, be a financial arrangement.’
‘Of course.’
‘And there is, too, my work at the hotel. I must pay a boy to take my place.’
‘How much do you want altogether?’
Oscar looked shy. ‘You have not many pesos remaining, Mr Liddon. This I happen to notice when I see your wallet. But American dollars will be all right.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps seventy dollars — for everything?’