The Piranhas (8 page)

Alma looked up at me. “I told her to go to her room and lock the door behind her. That the police were here and they would take care of everything.”

“Good,” I said. “Maybe you should go with her.”

She shook her head. “I have to be there with you. You wouldn’t recognize the captain’s voice.”

“Why are you doing this for me?” I asked. “I’d feel better if you could be safe.”

“I’m with you,” she said simply. “You pulled me out of the water from the piranhas. Besides we are friends and lovers.”

I didn’t speak—just leaned over and kissed her. “Friends and lovers,” I said.

9

“TEN MINUTES,” I
said to her. “He’s taking his time.”

She looked at me. “He’s a very careful man. I’m sure he knows what he is doing.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m getting nervous.” I moved to the front door and peered through the wide-angle tiny glass peephole. I could see down the hallway to the elevator door. There was nothing moving. I turned back to her. “Can you reach him in the garage?”

“No,” she answered. “It only works one way. When they call here.”

A moment later the tinny sound came through the house phone. The man’s voice crackled through the speaker. Alma replied quickly. He spoke again, a nervous urgency in his voice. Alma turned and looked at me. There was a puzzled expression on her face, then she spoke to him again. “Okay.”

She let go of the speaker button and the house phone went quiet. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “He called me Alma. He never called me by my first name before.”

“But that is your name,” I said.

“Yes,” she answered. “But you don’t understand. He is a very correct man. And this is not his kind of etiquette.”

“Okay,” I said. “What else did he say?”

“First he asked if we had our bags packed, and if you had your attaché case. I said we were ready, then he said he’s coming up in the elevator.” She shook her head. “He didn’t seem quite like himself.”

“I think he’s in trouble. Otherwise he would not have known or even asked about my attaché case,” I said. I turned to the peephole in the door and called over my shoulder to her. “You hadn’t said anything about the attaché case, had you?”

“Don’t be an asshole,” she said angrily. “I am not stupid.”

I laughed. “I never said that you were stupid. But we better find a quick way out of here.”

“This is the only way,” she answered. “The kitchen door will only take us down the stairway.”

I looked through the peephole. The elevator doors began to open. I gestured to her. “Check. See if it’s your friend.”

She glanced through the peephole. “It’s him. But there is another man behind him.”

I looked through again. Her friend was not a tall man. But he wore a police uniform and high-heeled boots that added some height. The flap on his leather holster was snapped open, with no gun in it. There was also no gun in his hand. The man behind him was a head taller than he and his arm seemed to be pushing against the captain’s back.

The captain’s voice came through the door. “Alma!
Estoy Felipe!
”

“What do we do now?” she whispered.

I slipped the safety from my gun and stepped behind the blind side of the door to hide myself. I held the gun tightly in my clasped hands and nodded, whispering to her, “Let him in.”

She turned the knob and stepped back as the door began to open. The captain seemed to be pushed into the apartment. He stumbled against Alma. The other man was still on the other side of the door, and I couldn’t see him.

“The Americano!” the man said harshly.

Alma kept silent. She gestured to the bedroom behind her. The man shouted in Spanish at them. I didn’t understand what he was saying, but I could understand the tone of his voice. Alma shook her head. The man shouted at her again and started to move into the apartment toward her. Now it was my turn.

I slammed my heavy automatic against his gun hand and wrist. His gun fell to the floor as he turned to me and tried to grab my arm. There were a few things I had learned in the army. I stepped back from him slightly, then kicked him in the balls. He grunted and bent forward; this time I laid the gun over the side of his head. Now he was on the floor. He stared at me, then tried to reach for the gun.

But this time the policeman was fast. He had picked the gun up from the floor. He looked at me and gestured with the gun. “My revolver,” he said.

“Good,” I said.

The policeman bent over the man and quickly snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists behind his back. He rolled the man over on his back and snapped at him harshly. The man snarled back at him. The policeman smashed his gun against his face. A trickle of blood began to come from his mouth and nose. The policeman began to hit him again.

Alma spoke quickly: “Not on the white rug. It won’t clean.”

The policeman stared at her, then half smiled and nodded. He wasn’t a big man but he was strong. Easily he pulled the man across the floor out to the marble balcony, then he hit him across the face again. This time the blood began flowing freely. The policeman growled at him. The man shook his head silently.

I spoke to the policeman. “Do you know anything about him?”

The policeman answered me in English. “Nothing, only that he’s Colombian. We thought there were only three of them. We had watched them in the car. He was hiding in the garage and he got me when I got out of the car.”

“Where are your men?” I asked.

“In the street watching the others in the car,” he answered. He turned to Alma and spoke in Spanish.

She answered in English. “I don’t know anything about why they are after us. Maybe they had the same tip that you had about the other man.”

I looked at her admiringly. She didn’t use Angelo’s name. No reason she should call attention to it.

“But did you ever meet this Angelo Di Stefano?” the captain asked.

“Possibly,” she said. “Maybe at one of the discos or a party. I meet many people.”

“And this man?” he asked, nodding toward me. “How did you meet him?”

“One of my girlfriends from school in the States. She called me and said that he would be calling on me.”

He looked at her. “But you went away for almost two weeks with him. Where were you?”

“I was at my small place in the country,” she said.

“And you’re going to the States with him? It seems like a quick romance,” he said.

“Love comes in mysteriously sudden ways,” she said.

He turned to me. “You know about guns?”

“I was in Special Forces in Vietnam,” I said.

“Where did you get the gun?” he asked.

Alma answered quickly. “I gave it to him. It was given to me by your general.”

He was silent for a moment, then turned back to the Colombian. He spoke quickly to him in Spanish. Again he wouldn’t answer.

The captain picked him up and turned him around, pushing his belly into the balcony railing. Holding his revolver against the back of the man’s head, with his other hand he unlocked the handcuffs and pulled them off his prisoner’s hands. Still holding his revolver to the man’s head he again snapped at him in Spanish. The Colombian snapped angrily back. It sounded to me like he was cursing at the captain.

The captain seemed to be shrugging his shoulders. Then he slammed the revolver against the back of the Colombian’s head. He half slumped over the railing. The captain moved gracefully. He shoved his hand between the man’s legs and lifted him under his groin. As the captain stepped backward, the Colombian flew up over the railing, and, screaming, he fell down toward the street.

The captain looked over the railing. A faint thump came up from the street. The captain turned to us. His face was expressionless. “Clumsy, stupid son of a bitch,” he said noncommittally. “He landed on the roof of a new car and ruined it.”

We didn’t say anything.

The captain replaced his revolver in his holster. “He would have killed all of us,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

“Do you want to take a look?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I saw enough of that in Vietnam.”

He nodded. “Very well. Let us go back inside. I will call for more men, and while we wait for them, I will check your papers.

*   *   *

THERE IS NOTHING
like a police escort to take you to the airport. Two motorcycles with sirens wailing in front of a black-and-white police car, then we, in the captain’s car, with another black-and-white behind us. People watched us curiously as we sped through the streets.

Alma and I were in the back seat, a uniformed policeman drove the car, and Captain Gonzales sat beside him in the passenger seat. The captain turned back to us. “I think we’re okay,” he said. “There’s no sign of the Colombianos.”

“I wonder where they went,” I said.

“Who knows?” he answered. “My men lost them in traffic when they took off after the accident.”

“Accident” was a polite way of expressing it. Especially since he had pushed the bastard over the railing. He checked his watch. “You missed the Braniff flight already,” he said. “It took off at two o’clock and their next flight won’t be until tomorrow.”

“Shit,” I said.

“Nothing to worry about,” he said comfortably. “Air Peru takes off for New York at four o’clock. I can get you on that.”

I looked at Alma. She nodded. “It’s a good flight. They have a first-class section. I’ve taken it a number of times.”

“Okay,” I said to the captain. “We’ll take it.”

“You’ll have to buy a ticket,” he said. He reached his hand back to me. “Give me the money and your papers. I’ll arrange everything.”

I took my hand out of my inside jacket pocket. I laid two one-thousand dollar bills on him, and with it I gave him my passport and exit visa. “Get a ticket for Alma while you’re at it.”

“Of course,” he said and shoved it into his pocket. “It’s three o’clock now. I’ll set you up in the VIP lounge.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He looked at Alma. “When are you expecting to come back?”

“I haven’t thought about it,” she answered. “I might go over to Paris for a quick visit.”

“That’s very nice,” he said politely. “Send me a telex when you’re ready to return. I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

“You’re very kind, Felipe.” She smiled. “I’ll let you know.”

He left us with a detective in the VIP lounge as he went to arrange the formalities for the flight. Alma lit a cigarette and a hostess brought us two glasses of champagne. “Excuse me a moment,” I said. “I have to go to the john.”

“Hurry back.”

I went to the toilet and pressed myself against the urinal as I opened my fly. I was doing real good until I looked in the mirror in front of me; then I almost lost it, narrowly avoiding pissing on my pants. Quickly I zipped up my fly and turned. Vincent was standing behind me, leaning against the door.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you would be gone.”

“I had to stay over,” he said. “Did you talk to your uncle?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Then you told him what I did?”

“Of course,” I answered. “He was very pleased.”

“Okay,” he said. He took an automatic fitted with a silencer from his pocket. “Then you’ll never be able to deny that you and Angelo were screwed over the coca, that it was all tobacco leaves.”

“You’re crazy,” I said.

“Twenty million dollars crazy,” he said moving toward me.

I saw the door open behind his back. Then there was a cough of another silencer, and I was quick enough to get out of Vincent’s way as he pitched forward, his gun falling to the floor, the back of his head torn open, with blood and brains falling into the urinal.

Captain Gonzales was standing in the doorway. “One of the Colombianos,” he said.

I couldn’t talk. I nodded.

“Now, get out of here,” he said. “I’ll have one of my men clean this up.”

I was still silent.

He half smiled. “You’re a lucky man,” he said. “It’s time for you to board the plane.”

10

CAPTAIN GONZALES GESTURED
to one of his policemen as we stepped from the men’s room. The policeman came toward us. The captain spoke to him quickly in Spanish. The policeman nodded and placed himself in front of the men’s room door so that no one could enter.

I looked at Captain Gonzales questioningly.

“I want to get you and Alma on the plane before we have to bring the airport police into this. Once they get here, they’ll drag in Immigration, and you’ll be tied up in formalities, and it might be two or three days before you could leave. I’m sure you’re anxious to get home.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “After all, you saved my life back in the apartment.”

“And you saved mine,” I said.

“That is my duty,” he said. “To protect innocent people.”

I held my hand out to him. “But thank you again.”

We began walking to the lounge where Alma was waiting. “Strange,” he said. “I don’t understand why the Colombianos followed us.”

“They probably had the same information that your department received. The only problem is that I was not the man they were searching for,” I answered.

“You didn’t recognize the man in the toilet?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“But he was going to kill you,” he said.

“I don’t know why,” I answered. “But thanks to you, he didn’t.”

He nodded solemnly. “I will have two more men with me to take you on the plane. I don’t want anything to happen to Alma and you.”

“I feel safer already,” I replied.

He laughed suddenly. “Do you plan to return to Lima again?”

I laughed with him. “I don’t think so. I’ve had enough excitement with this visit.”

He nodded. “I think that is wise of you.” He glanced at me as we began to approach Alma. “There is no reason for you to tell her anything about the incident in the bathroom. She has been frightened enough over this affair.”

“You’re just in time,” Alma said. “I just ordered a bottle of champagne.”

The captain smiled at her. “You won’t have time for it. I arranged to preboard you.”

“What’s the hurry?” she asked. “We have forty minutes before takeoff.”