Dillinger. Jack Higgins

one you were talking to. He owns the automobile. Who is he? What’s his game?’

      ‘I ain’t telling you a damn thing,’ Fallon said.

      Rivera shrugged, walked along the terrace. Two men were sitting at the end table eating frijoles, a bottle of wine between them. One was a large, placid Indian with an impassive face, great rolls of fat bursting the seams of his jacket. The other, a small, wiry man in a tan gabardine suit, his sallow face badly marked from smallpox, got to his feet hurriedly, wiping his mouth. ‘Don Jose.’

      ‘Ah, my good friend, Sergeant Hernandez.’ Rivera turned and glanced towards Fallon. ‘I wonder if you might consider doing me a great favour?’

      Hernandez nodded eagerly. ‘At your orders, as always, senor.’

      Twenty minutes later, Fallon surfaced with a shock as a bucket of water was hurled in his face. One side of his face hurt from his eye to his jaw. He was lying in the corner of a police cell. The big Indian who stood over him must have hit or kicked him. Fallon’s side hurt as much as his face. Sergeant Hernandez sat on the bunk. Fallon recognized him instantly and went cold.

      ‘What is this? What have I done?’

      ‘You are a stupid man,’ Hernandez told him.

      ‘I’m an American. You have no right to put me in here,’ Fallon said.

      ‘If you don’t like our ways, why don’t you go back? You want me to escort you to the border and turn you over to your Federalistas?’

      Fallon shook his head.

      ‘You are here because to go back there you have to spend fifteen years in jail, is that not so?’

      The massive Indian moved within kicking distance of Fallon on the floor.

      ‘You see,’ Hernandez said, ‘he only knows one thing, kicking.’

      Fallon rolled away from the Indian, which brought him closer to Hernandez.

      Hernandez leaned down and whispered to him, ‘I think you will now stop being stupid. Now I think you may even try to be sensible? Is this not so?’

      ‘Sure,’ Fallon muttered.

      The cell door opened and Rivera entered. He glared down at Fallon.

      Hernandez said, ‘Senor Rivera has some questions to put to you. You will answer them. You understand?’

      ‘Yes,’ Fallon moaned.

      ‘Excellent.’ Rivera said and sat on the bunk. ‘Let’s start again then. This man, Harry Jordan. Who is he?’

      A slight wind lifted the edge of the dingy lace curtains in Dillinger’s room. The place had that strange, derelict air common to rooms in cheap hotels the world over. It was as if no one had ever really lived there. As Dillinger lay on the bed, he heard the great bell of the church toll, and it reminded him of Sunday mornings in Indiana when he was twelve. He’d led his neighbourhood gang – all sixth-grade boys – in a foray to steal coal from the Pennsylvania Railroad and sell it to the women in town. He remembered the happy days in Gebhardt’s pool hall, and the even happier times playing baseball. He loved it because it was two games being played at the same time, winning against the other team, and being watched by the girls, who always went after the boys who had played best immediately after the game. Some of those older girls had terrific figures, not like these Mexican women. Jesus, was he getting homesick so soon?

      He had to wait it out till the hunt for him cooled off. He had to be steel, like the time he found strength to pour acid on his heel in prison so he could get transferred to yard duty. They owed him nine years! He remembered how good he felt – like he was flying – when he got out of jail that first time. He wasn’t going to spend any more time ever behind bars.

      The knock on the door stopped his reverie. He hoped it was the damn bellboy with the bottled water he’d asked for more than an hour ago. God, things moved slow in Mexico!

      ‘Come in,’ he yelled. ‘The door’s open.’

      What came in wasn’t the bellhop but a small wiry man in uniform with a pock-marked face.

      ‘Police, senor,’ pock-marks said. ‘I am Sergeant Hernandez. May I see your passport?’

      Dillinger looked across the room to the dresser where his Colt automatic lay in its holster. The sergeant followed his eyes.

      Dillinger swung his feet off the bed, went to his jacket, took out the Harry Jordan passport and handed it to Hernandez, who went through it page by page, his face expressionless.

      ‘How much did you pay for this passport, Senor Jordan?’ Hernandez asked.

      ‘Same as anyone else,’ Dillinger said.

      ‘I must have you accompany us to headquarters, senor.’

      ‘Would you mind explaining what this is all about?’

      Hernandez straightened, his jacket falling open, and drew a revolver from the holster on his left hip. ‘Please, senor, let’s be sensible about this. No fuss, eh? We must think of the reputation of the hotel.’ He pulled Dillinger’s Colt automatic from its holster and pocketed it. ‘We can drive to police headquarters in my car, or my driver can follow us in your car in case you do not wish to leave that beautiful automobile unattended in front of the hotel. You see, the man who was watching it, he is no longer watching it because he is in jail. Like you, Mr Dillinger, he doesn’t want to be turned over to the Federalistas on your side of the border.’

       4

      In the courtyard a troop of Mexican Federal cavalry was exercising. Dillinger, with Hernandez beside him, waited till he could drive the con-vertible into the courtyard. He wasn’t about to leave it in the street.

      When he parked, Hernandez held his hand out for the keys.

      Dillinger started to separate the trunk key from the ignition key on the ring.

      ‘Both keys, Senor Jordan,’ Hernandez said, ‘if you please.’