The Howling II

26

THE STREET CALLED Calle Verde was still another side of Mazatlan. It bore no resemblance to the moneyed boulevard that curved along the shore, nor the gaudy tourist streets just inland, Calle Verde was a narrow, grubby passage, between rows of weatherstained buildings which gave no evidence of life within. The few people visible on the street moved furtively, as though they expected to be stopped and searched at any moment. A quarter of a mile away was the blighted section called La Ratonera. Some of its human refuse spilled over into Calle Verde.

The cab driver pulled to a stop. "This is it, man, if you still want it."

"Where?" Chris said. "I don't see any numbers."

"There." The driver pointed to a scabrous wooden building with a blind doorway, where a hollow-cheeked little boy sat playing with a piece of string.

Chris got out of the cab and paid the driver. The child watched him, his young eyes already narrow with suspicion. Chris stepped past the silent boy and pushed through the door into a dark, musty room that looked like the overflow from a junkyard. There was a long workbench along one wall. Both the bench and the floor were littered with blackened pots and pans, dented kettles, tarnished, mismatched pieces of silverware, tools, nails, bits of wire, and odd chunks of metal.

"Anybody here?" Chris called.

After a minute a bald, monkey-faced man appeared from somewhere in the rear.

"Tulio Santos?"

"Si."

"Habla usted ingles?"

"No."

Chris switched to his laborious high-school Spanish. "Quiero comprar un cuchillo. Un cuchillo de plata."

The bald-headed man came closer and peered into Chris's face. "A knife of silver," he repeated, speaking Spanish very slowly for the benefit of the gringo.

"Yes."

"For what?"

"That is of no matter. I will pay your price."

Santos pursed his lips; that made him look more than ever like a monkey. "Ah. Well. A knife of silver. A moment." He vanished again into the gloom at the back of the big room. In a little while he came back carrying a tiny, flat butter knife. He displayed it proudly for Chris. "Here. A knife of silver."

"No, no," Chris said impatiently. "A knife." He looked around for something to draw on. He found a crumpled sheet of brown wrapping paper and smoothed it out on the work bench. With his ballpoint pen he sketched the outline of a long, vicious knife with an upturned, Bowie-type blade. Then gripping the end of his pen like the hilt of a dagger, he made stabbing motions in the air. "A knife," he said again. "Like this. You understand?"

Santos watched him slice the air with his pen, then studied the drawing for a long minute. At last he looked up and shook his head. "I have nothing like this. Not of silver."

"Can you make one?"

Another long study of the drawing, with much frowning and many shakes of the bald head. "Perhaps. But it will be very dear."

"I will pay your price," Chris said. He opened his wallet to show the bills inside. "Make the knife."

Santos looked up from the wallet to Chris's face. He nodded slowly, then turned and walked to a pile of debris in one corner of the room. He began digging through the accumulated junk.

Chris watched the second hand sweep around the face of his watch, and willed the man to hurry. After five minutes Santos gave a cry of discovery. With his sleeve he rubbed the dirt off his find and held it up to show Chris. It was an ornate, badly tarnished silver tea tray.

"La plata," said Santos proudly.

"No, no," said Chris, thinking he still had not made himself understood. "I want a knife." Again he went through the stabbing pantomime. "A knife."

Santos bobbed his head up and down. "Yes, I comprehend. A knife." With a blackened forefinger he outlined on the tray the shape of the blade Chris had drawn."

"You will make a knife from the tray?"

"Yes, yes." Santos grinned happily for a moment, then his smile faded. "It will not be a good knife. The silver is too soft for a blade. It will not cut."

"It is of no matter," said Chris. "Make the knife."

Santos cleared a space on the workbench and set the silver tray on it. He shuffled about the room, gathering up his tools. To Chris's eyes the man moved with agonizing slowness.

The soft knock on the door of Cabana Number 7 surprised Audrey. She had not expected Chris back until later in the afternoon. She had intended to be freshly bathed and perfumed and dressed in her most flattering clothes. She wanted him to be acutely aware of what a beautiful young woman he was treating so shabbily. But here she was still in her robe, and without her hair fully brushed out. Luckily, she had at least recovered from the hangover. Audrey belted the robe, smoothed it over her breasts and hips, and opened the door.

It was not Chris who stood outside. It was instead a tall, lithe woman with intense green eyes and shoulder-length black hair shot with a streak of silver.

"Hello, Audrey," said Marcia Lura.

Audrey stared. She felt held in place by the woman's gaze. "Do I know you?"

"No, but we have acquaintances in common."

"Who?"

"Chris Halloran, for one. For another, the woman now calling herself Karyn Richter."

Audrey curled her lip. "Oh, that one."

"I do not like her any more than you," Marcia said.

"Uh, come in," Audrey said uncertainly. "I was just about to get dressed."

Marcia stepped into the room and eased the door shut behind her. She glanced around without interest, then turned her luminiscent green eyes on Audrey once more. "Would you like to have Karyn Richter out of your life for good? And out of Chris Halloran's life?"

"Well — sure, I guess so."

"I can help you."

"Why? Why would you help me?"

"It is for myself too. I have an old score to settle with that woman."

Audrey felt a strange weakness in her knees. Her mind was sluggish as the woman's smoky voice and unblinking eyes pushed away all outside thoughts.

"What do you want me to do?"

Marcia took the younger woman's hand and drew her down on the wicker settee. As she spoke, Marcia let her hand rest lightly on Audrey's thigh. Audrey was intensely aware of the heat of the hand through the thin material of her robe.

"I have learned that the woman Karyn is out now in the glass-bottomed boat," Marcia said. "When she returns you will give her a message."

"A message," Audrey repeated dully. The strange woman's touch was awakening new, wild sensations in her.

"You will tell her that Chris Halloran returned while she was out, and could not wait for her. You will say that Chris wants her to come at once to the cabin of the gypsy. He will be there waiting for her."

"The cabin of the gypsy? Where's that?"

"She will know," Marcia said. "Tell her it is of life-and-death importance that she go there at once to meet him."

"I don't understand," Audrey said.

Marcia's hand moved along her leg. "When this Karyn arrives at the cabin, there will be a surprise waiting for her. Someone from her past. Someone who will see to it that she breaks up no more happy couples."

The woman's words had little meaning for Audrey. The important thing was the delicious touch of her hand. When Audrey spoke, it was in a throaty whisper. "What if Chris comes back before I can give her the message?"

Marcia turned on the sofa to face her. As though by accident, her hand slipped under the edge of the robe. For a moment it rested there on the smooth, bare flesh of Audrey's inner thigh. Then the hand moved, now with more assurance, sliding up to the moist nest of hair between her legs. Audrey sucked in her breath.

"Chris won't come back early," Marcia said. "I have seen to it that he will be detained."

"All right," Audrey said. Her hips rolled, moving against the light pressure of the woman's hand.

"The boat will return in less than an hour," Marcia said. "You will give Karyn the message as soon as she steps off."

"Yes," Audrey whispered. Her mind swam. Her body was responding to this woman as though with a will of its own. Her own hand moved down and covered Marcia's. Together, their fingers slipped in past the moist vaginal lips.

Breathing rapidly, Audrey said, "Will she believe me?"

Marcia's slender, sensitive fingers found the secret place, and Audrey gasped.

"You can make her believe you," Marcia said. She probed deeply, gently, insistently. "Have you something that belongs to Chris Halloran? Something very private and personal? Something he might send to this Karyn to convince her his message is genuine?"

Audrey tried to think. It was difficult with the waves of sensation that pulsed through her from the other woman's caress. "I–I do have one thing. I can show it to you."

She moved to rise, but found she could not. She looked helplessly into the green eyes.

Marcia smiled at her., "It's all right, dear. We have enough time." Slowly she drew her hand from between Audrey's legs with a soft, sucking sound. With her green eyes never leaving Audrey's face, she raised her fingers to her lips and tasted them.

Feeling unsteady on her feet, Audrey walked carefully across the room to the bureau. She pulled out the top drawer and removed her jewel box. With numb fingers she fumbled through the rings and bracelets, and finally came up with what she wanted — the misshapen silver bullet that had fallen out of Chris's pocket the other day.

Marcia rose from the sofa and walked over to stand beside her. "Did you find it?"

"Yes. I don't know why, but this seemed to have a special meaning for him." Audrey held out the bullet in her open palm to the other woman.

Marcia recoiled as though it were a tarantula. Audrey looked at her in surprise, but she recovered quickly.

"That will serve very well," Marcia said. "Yes, that will be perfect."

She smiled a dark, secret smile that frightened Audrey for a moment, but then it was gone, and Marcia was again looking at her in that knowing woman's way.

Audrey set the lump of silver down gently on the bureau and turned so she was facing Marcia. She could not speak, but her body cried out its need.

The tip of Marcia's tongue slipped out and ran around her pale lips. She reached out and undid the belt of Audrey's robe. The robe fell open, and Marcia's eyes moved over her body like a caress.

"Yes, dear Audrey," she said, "we have almost an hour to spend together." She slipped an arm around the girl's naked waist and led her to the bed.