Songs for Perri (28 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"Yes, Papa." Pride answered for her. He couldn't hear the ice-like quietness or the tremor that had invaded her voice. "I think I'll pack now."

"Good idea. Get some sleep, too. We'll be flying out early."

Unable to breathe, Perri retreated into her room. She shut the door behind her. She had to be alone. Walt's words hadn't hurt her. They had destroyed her.

Her mind reeled. Hugging herself tightly in anguish, she staggered over to the bed. There she sank to her knees on the floor, shoving her head hard against the side. Her bones ached.

Above the pain, a whirlwind of thoughts kept demanding "why." Why hadn't she considered the possibility that Hugo's love might be part of his act? Why had she been so blind? Now she knew what had been holding him back.

Oh, my love! Why didn't you explain? I gave you my love, my trust.

She knew the answer even as she asked the question. "It ain't over till it's over."

It wasn't over. He hadn't even told Owen where he could find his father. But that didn't make the answer any easier to accept.

It was just a job to him. One which included making a stupid woman think she had fallen in love with him...and him with her. He could win an Academy Award any day.

The acting, the lying, was all part of the job. That's what agents did. That's why she was never going to marry one.

Springing angrily to her feet, she threw her suitcase on the bed and flung it open. She had to move, to do something, or her emotions would tear her apart. With shaking hands, she folded a shirt.

There was a quiet tapping on her outer door.

It didn't sound quite the way Joe/Hugo knocked.

Wishing there were one-way peepholes in the doors, she crammed the shirt in the case. "Who is it?"

"Anna." Her voice sounded strange, higher than normal. "I've those pictures I promised you."

Pictures...of Hugo.
Did she really want them now?
Perri asked herself. Anna had made them at her request, so she needed to take them. Besides, it might be the only photos she'd get of him. She still loved him more than she'd ever imagined loving a man.

"Great." Perri forced a happy lift into her voice as she swung open the door. "I can pay—” She froze.

Anna wasn't alone. With her were two strange men, one clamping the frightened woman tightly to him. Both were armed.

Spurred by fear, Perri tried to slam the door shut, but they kicked it sharply inward, knocking it out of her hands.

"I'm sorry!" Anna sobbed hysterically as she was forced into the room. "They said they'd kill me!"

The younger one grabbed Perri's arms. A clean-cut man in a light blue suit, he had been sitting next to her in the restaurant...last night! Black hair, mustache, short beard. Did he know anything? Had he already killed Owen and Alvaro?

He yanked her backwards, at the same time placing a large cotton pad over her face.

Panicked, Perri fought to get away. She tried to hold her breath; but the need for air made her gulp convulsively and all went black.

She awoke to daylight, sick and nauseous from the chloroform, gagged with a handkerchief. Perri fought both the sickness and hysteria. If she threw up, she could choke to death.

It wasn't over!

Perri willed her body to relax, especially her throat and stomach. Rejecting the gag reflex, she forced herself to breathe deeply through her nose. It took all her mental power to subdue those first few seconds of screaming panic.

Once in control, she glanced stealthily around. She lay on the floor of an empty room; feet tied, hands bound securely behind her. Twisting her head, she could get a worm's eye view of the room. Balls of lint and small chunks of concrete and other dirt littered the red tiled floor.

In one corner a pile of old cans and rubble looked as if it had been hurriedly swept there. A broken chair lay on its side near the door.

The room smelled of dust and old concrete. There were no photos, no personal items lying around. It looked like one of the many abandoned dwellings found throughout Mazatlan.

It was probably morning. The angle of the sun coming in the barred window showed she was on the east side of the building.

Although alone, she could hear voices from the other room. Was Anna here, too? Had they found Walt?

She had closed the door between her room and Hugo's. Walt couldn't have heard the men. And if they hadn't checked the door, they wouldn't have known he was in there.

But she knew. She also knew Hugo's secret. She'd have to feign ignorance.

If only she didn't know those things! Why hadn't Walt moved to another hotel?

A knock on the outside door ten minutes later brought a new voice. A man's, carrying authority. It was familiar. Speaking Spanish with a Cuban accent.

Concentrating hard, Perri tried to place it. She had heard it before...but speaking English. Not Spanish. The change was enough to throw her off.

They talked among themselves briefly. Perri could only catch a few words. Walt and Owen. Alvaro. Scorpion.

The Scorpion! He was involved. For the first time since waking, Perri's spirits plunged all the way into the grim despair of hopelessness.

Death and the Scorpion came together.

A door closed. Moments later, the two men who had kidnapped her entered the room.

Roughly they untied her. Slumping, trying to feign unconsciousness, she received a hard slap across the face. It made her senses reel. Perri open her eyes, wary of another blow.

The taste of blood flowed in her mouth and her jaw. How had Joe taken it?

Joe and Owen and Walt. The men she loved. Nothing would make her betray them.

Terror sent adrenaline pounding through her, bringing her to a fighting alertness. The despair dropped as a stubborn determination took its place. They were not finding out anything from her. Period.

But if they beat her like they had beaten Joe, could she keep quiet? She had to keep telling herself that talking—telling them anything at all—would not lessen what they would do. If she didn't say anything, she was better off than if she began to talk. Either way they'd beat her, so she might as well stay quiet.

It was easier to think it than to do it.

The gag was yanked roughly from her mouth and she gasped in air, shaking her head when one asked where Walt was. Good! They didn't have him.

Another slap rocked her head and loosened some teeth. "Come on, lovely, we're not here to play games. Tell us where your old man is."

Ignorance! "He never told me. He changed hotels after he was kidnapped, but he never told me where. He never tells me anything. He says it's safer."

"Oh, yeah? Then where is Alvaro?"

"Alvaro?"

Another blow from the older man brought tears to her eyes. "Don't play dumb. We know you saw him."

"Then why ask where he is? I served as messenger only...I never asked for names and the people I saw kept changing locations."

She saw the blow coming this time, but had not Joe's ability to roll with the punch. White spots danced in the darkness. Their voices sounded strange, as if from a distance.

The black veil lifted, and she raised her head. They had carried her into the other room and sat her at a rickety table holding six beer cans and an empty box of crackers. Across the room, a TV set on a box.

The window was barred, but she could hear the ocean and see between the buildings a tiny portion of the divided street called the Olas Altas. The knowledge sparked an ember of hope.

How could she tell Walt and Hugo?

The oldest man, in his mid-fifties, his belly hanging over half-buttoned pants, brought her a tablet and a pen. He was short, but burly...heavy with either muscle or fat.

"You write what we tell you," he commanded. "Exactly. No extra words.
‘If you want me back, Walt is to bring Alvaro outside the ballpark midnight tonight for an exchange. No one else.’
Sign it."

"My brother could—”

"No! It must be your step-father! Now write."

She picked up the pen; hesitated. Her instinctive reaction was not to cooperate. This was what they wanted. Therefore she should refuse to do it. If nothing else, it might force them to change their plans.

They weren't after money...they were after Alvaro. Weren't they? Or were they after Walt, too? They could just as easily keep her and get Walt and Alvaro also. And Owen and Hugo. And then kill them all. "No."

"Write or else!"

That was what she was afraid of. But helping these thugs would be the worse thing she could do. "No!"

This time the younger one hit her. She woke to find herself on the floor of the back room again, but this time her hands were tied in front. The gag was in place, but not so tight, and she managed to work it around enough to untie it.

Everything hurt. The spy business had nothing to recommend it. The only ones it made happy were the dentists who had to fix your teeth afterwards. And maybe the doctors who patched bullet holes. Perri sobbed silently to herself. If there was an afterwards.

Trying to ignore her aching jaw, Perri reflected on what they had said. They had known she had talked to Alvaro. So they must know where he was.

That meant they wanted Walt. They knew he would allow himself to be exchanged for her.

Yet that didn't make sense either. If they knew where Alvaro was, all they'd have to do was wait until Walt and Alvaro got together and kill them both. They couldn't know that Joe had planned to send Walt out on the plane last night.

The only other possible explanation was that they were lying; they didn't know. Whoever had kidnapped Walt the first time had beaten Joe to find out where Alvaro was. This group had been trying to get her to say where he was by claiming they already knew.

It had almost worked. She had been tempted to tell them to go to the restaurant then and pick him up. She hadn't because Owen was there with him.

As usual when she was nervous she fiddled with the pendant, her fingers clutching the smooth ivory surface. Her mother had used it to carry a message. Maybe she could, too.

Standing up, she tiptoed over to the barred windows. There were two of them. Out the first, she could see nothing except a two-storied blue house.

All right. Think! she lectured herself. What makes it different? She studied it for awhile before realizing two things. The window grill had an unusual scroll work of fish forms. The roof was flat, with no red tiles. Nothing else.

The house she was in was white. Nothing unusual about that.

Hurrying over to the east window, she looked down into a courtyard littered with concrete rubble, completely enclosed by a wall topped with broken bottles. Far beyond it were the towering lights of the baseball park.

Not much to indicate where she was, even if she could get a message out.

Now if it were possible to put a sign in the window...

Perri kicked hopefully at the rubble. Five tin cans, some with their labels on, old electrical wire, chunks and chunks of concrete, broken pieces of wood, and...a bent nail.

In her mind there arose the memory of tin cans tied to a car's bumper at a friend's wedding. Immediately she knew how to mark this house.

With their labels stripped off, the cans would reflect the light enough to catch the eye. Using a chunk of concrete as a hammer, Perri punched two holes in each can with the nail and strung them on the wire. Soon they were dangling out the east window.

Now to write a message and put it in the pendant...and get it to Hugo.

For the next few minutes, she searched every inch of the bare room, but could find nothing to write with. The pen in the other room was essential. Should she try to get it? As soon as she stepped in, they would know she was conscious again. If nothing else, they'd replace that horrible gag. Yet she had to try.

Tearing off a piece of label that was white on both sides, Perri folded it in half, rolled it tightly and placed it in the pendant. Blanking her mind against the possibility of failure, she opened the door.

The older man was gone. The younger one sat at the table with chair tipped back, his attention on an old "Dukes of Hazard" show dubbed in Spanish. He glanced up briefly as she entered, scowled at her and motioned her to sit down, which she did...opposite him.

Where was the pen?

It wasn't where she had left it. Leaning forward, Perri could see it next to him. Even as she did so, he picked it up, playing with it as he watched TV.

Don't give up now
, she scolded herself.
He's not that aware of what he's doing. You have to replace it with something else.

Beer? The cans were all open, probably empty. Stretching out her hands, Perri shook one, then another, as if looking for a drink. In the process, she successfully knocked two off the table.

Growling an obscenity, the young man set the pen down, and stooped to retrieve the cans. Grabbing the pen, she slid it out of sight, between her arm and the table top.

As he raised up, she held her breath. Would he remember he had held the pen?

He set the cans down with a bang and a threatening look, as if to warn her to keep quiet. Then he turned his attention to the "Dukes," giving her only a cursory glance now and then.

During a chase scene, Perri slipped out the paper. Her hands slippery with a cold sweat, she quickly sketched in the neighboring house with fish scrolled grill, ball park and ocean. On the opposite side she wrote: "Near Olas Altas. Tin cans— E. window." There was no room for more information. Shoving the rolled-up paper back inside, she closed the pendant.

This was what Crystal must have done. Where had she see the Scorpion? Who was he? One of these men? Mouth drier than ever, Perri sat back to wait. Now to get the pendant to Hugo...somehow.

The "Dukes" were still being chased in the "Robert E. Lee" when the older man returned, scowling.

"I talked to one of them on the phone. He wants proof we've got her."

"I said he would. Shall we make her phone them?"

"I won't say anything," Perri told them defiantly, her fingers clutching the pendant. "You won't prove anything to him."