Chapter 6
Edmunto turned away from the thrice-buggered, blood-smeared body of Morgana Tovares. He glanced around her apartment.
"Break a few things. Take any money you find and throw her purses around the room, Caballo. We will make this look like a robbery."
"But he will know," Caballo said. "Brooks will know!"
"Of course he will. But knowing and being able to prove are two different matters," Edmunto smiled.
"And the big bitch told us nothing," Gaston muttered, staring at the naked, mutilated woman that his whip and Caballo's knife had cut up magnificently.
Edmunto shrugged. "It is a shame, but no less than I expected. Brooks is no fool, to tell secrets to his mistress. Besides, it doesn't matter. We knew when he left for Washington, and we knew thirteen minutes after he arrived."
"Is a shame," Caballo said, overturning a chair and hauling the mattress half off the bed. "We have cost the American ambassador a perfectly fine and serviceable mistress-and for nothing!"
Edmunto heaved an exasperated sigh and shook his head. "Not for nothing, estupido! This is one more warning to Brooks. Perhaps he will heed this one!"
Gazing down at her as if he wished she'd suddenly show a sign of life so that he could use his whip to snap off her other nipple, Gaston nodded. "Si' And besides, she was not one of us. A traitor to her people. Perhaps the Americana's next mistress will be more cooperative and not such a blind tool of the imperialist money worshipers!"
"And keep her beauty," Caballo said, wiping his knife on the bedspread and storing it carefully away in his clothing. Then the three of them left.
After dropping his men off, Edmunto returned to give Raul Herrera the news. While he was there, the phone rang. Herrera snatched it.
"Herrera. Si' Si-ah, Buchanan! Link me in!" And, very carefully, he placed his hand over the receiver. He looked over at Edmunto, who was eyeing the liquor cabinet. "Be very quiet. David Brooks is calling George Buchanan from Washington! Maria is plugging me in to the circuit. I shall hear everything they say!" Then he rolled his eyes to the telephone he held. His mouth closed and he listened as George Buchanan answered. "Buchanan. This is Brooks in Washington.
Because of our agreement, I thought it best to call you. Are you alone?"
"Yes, Mister Ambassador," Buchanan said without respect, "I'm alone. You've got some- thing to tell me, do. I'm oiling "
"All right," Brooks interrupted. "I've talked with State, and I've been to the White House for a meeting. I have their OK, now ... to reveal to the people of Espania certain facts they should know about the influence of certain people on their government-and their relations with the United States."
"That sounds like doubletalk, Brooks," Buchanan growled.
There was a long pause, then Brooks said, "All right. I'll tell you this much. Raul Herrera drives a Mercedes that costs eighteen thousand dollars American in Espania, and he lives very comfortably on an estate. And I not only know where the money came from-and keeps on coming from-I have the papers right here with me. And just as soon as I can fly back to New Madrid, we'll see that the Espanian people aren't left in the dark any longer about their . . . hero of the common man."
Edmunto could not hear. He could only see his boss's knuckles go white on the phone; see Herrera pale and start to exude sweat on his high forehead.
"OK, Mister Ambassador," Buchanan said. "But just in case, I'll keep on oiling."
"I'll be there, George. It will be as I said. I have the document, and there are no copies down there. But there are now several sets in Washington! Just hang on, and let's do this the proper way."
"The proper way! Shit! Thanks for calling," George Buchanan said, and he hung up.
"Buchanan? George?" David Brooks' voice said in Raul's ear. "Well, damn him!" And there was another click. With a shaking, sweating hand, Raul broke his end of the connection and sat there staring at Edmunto.
Then he told the balding man to go out onto the porch while he made a phone call.
It did him no good. He was out on the porch, ten minutes later, still pale and still shaking. Yuri Babaikov had assured his government's Espanian tool that he would deny everything- and help the American smash Raul Herrera. Sorry. That was the way things were. I am thrown to the wolves, Raul thought. He had to find a way to stop Brooks. Not from getting here, but from doing anything with whatever documents he had. Somehow, he had to get a grip on the American.
There was only one way.
Edmunto looked up questioningly as his boss came unsteadily out onto the porch.
"The Princess!" Raul snapped.
She was lying on the bed on her side, naked, when the three men came in. Her back was to the door. Like worshipers who had just entered a famous and truly beautiful cathedral, they stopped to stare. The smooth whiteness of her skin . . . the fine swooping curve of her upper body, flowing down into a small waist and then leaping up into the superb flaring beauty of her hip . . . the perfection and shocking beauty and succulence of fine naked buttocks, standing firmly and brashly out. They were shocked at the beauty of the woman they had known was beautiful. Who'd have thought she'd be even more beautiful naked, Edmunto mused. Who'd have expected the shocking beauty of that naked ass?
They had entered silently, but Claudine, even involved in her book, sensed their presence. She turned over to stare at them-and that swiftly, Gaston pounced. His were the finest reflexes among Herrera's trio of dirty workers.
She lay there with one hand thrown across the white swell of her breasts, in protective modesty. She was defenseless and powerless, and Gaston was holding a gleaming knife to her throat. She felt icy fear and her head spun, but she showed none of it.
"Who are you? What can you possibly be doing here? Do you have any idea where you are?"
"We know exactly where we are, Senora Brooks. And we have come for you," Edmunto said quietly. The light from the handsome chandelier shone off the broad expanse of naked skin atop his head. "Be absolutely quiet and do as you're told and you will not force us to hurt you."
"Be absolutely quiet-you must be insane, or think I am.
I'll do nothing of the kind!" She pushed Gaston's arm away and sat up, still holding one arm across her bosom. She kept her thighs close pressed to conceal her vulva from their lustful gazes. "Get out of here, and quickly!"
Edmunto sighed. "Gaston."
Her mouth opened wide as Gaston reached for her throat. He took time out to slap her face. No one had ever slapped her face before. It wasn't just pain that assaulted her, but shock. She, Claudine Attenborough Brooks, had been slapped!
Then Gaston seized her by the throat. The back of his hand forced her chin up. She met his cold dark eyes.
"Be still and quiet and put your hands behind you, Senora Brooks, and I will not choke you until you must be quiet."
She blinked. A little shiver rippled through her admirably proportioned body. She felt fear, rage, frustration . . . and utter helplessness.
"You're kidnaping me?" she asked quietly.
"Yes."
She sighed. Glanced around at them. "All right. Let me put some clothes on."
They laughed. Slowly, her face took on a red glow. The hugest of the three men approached, holding lengths of slim rope. They were beneath her, they were lower class natives of this backward little country. It hurt her to say it, but she had to.
"Please," she forced out. "Let me get dressed."
"You will not need clothing, Princess," the huge man said, trailing an immense hand over her shoulder as he moved around her. "Stand up and put your hands back."
Gaston's hand tightened on her throat and he pulled. With a choking sound, she flowed to her feet. After a moment's quivering hesitation, she put both hands back.
"Mother of God," Gaston said softly, "look at the tits!"
That did it. That she could not bear. She kicked at his leg at the same time as she jerked her head backward to free it of his hand. He grunted, wincing, automatically half-doubling at the flash of pain in his leg. She tried to dodge sideward, to run. "Juan! Dolfo! Estrel Caballo flipped a loop of rope over her head, snapped it in under her chin, and jerked. Her voice was turned into a gurgling gasp. The back of her head banged hard against his chest. Her hands leaped up to try to loosen the rope at her throat. Her mouth came open. Her eyes bulged. Her face reddened. Her mouth gasped and her tongue appeared. Her clutching, clawing hands grew jerky, weak. Her tongue came thrusting out of her mouth. Then her bulging eyes rolled up and she sagged.
Caballo let go one end of the rope, immediately. He caught her with one hand and held her up with two fingers pressing into the yielding white flesh of her breast. Beneath it, her heart pounded.
"She will have an ugly mark on her throat," Gaston said, tying her ankles.
"She will have more marks on her than that before we're through with her," Edmunto said, walking over with the big white laundry bag. "Our only instructions are not to kill her and not to do anything to leave scars."
Caballo folded the limp body over and Gaston tied her wrists to her ankles. "What tits! What an ass! She has disguised her body under clothing, amigos!"
"No secret from us, now," Gaston said. "There." He straightened. "A nice package."
"And soon no secrets from us anywhere," Caballo said, with a leering grin. "Soon we know her inner flesh, too."
They gagged her with a stocking and stuffed her into the laundry bag. Caballo shouldered it. Then they hurried downstairs and out across the porch to the waiting car.
As they were putting the sack into the trunk, Estrelita appeared in the lighted doorway, nearly filling it. She was just in time to see them jump into the car. She screamed as they slammed the doors. The car's tires squealed and it lurched away. Dolfo came running.
"I think I heard the Senora cry out-those three men put a laundry bag into the trunk of their car, Dolfo! Do you think "
He frowned, staring after the car. "Can you recognize any of them?"
"Si! I would recognize two; one of them is a huge man and another have a great scar all down his left cheek, so!"
"Most unfortunate," Dolfo said.
Something in his tone made her turn to him with a questioning look. She didn't even see the low-held knife. But that way she got it in the gut, rather than the back. Her eyes went very wide and her mouth dropped open. She made sick noises.
"Most unfortunate, fat sow," Dolfo said, and he twisted the knife.
She sank at his feet. Her mouth remained open but she could not speak. Blood poured out of her paunch, flooding between her clutching fingers. Her eyes remained on him, but soon they saw nothing.
The chauffeur, Juan, came running up, and Dolfo held the bloody knife behind him until Juan bent over the dead cook. "Madre de Dios," he muttered, and stood up, and got the knife twice. Low in the belly; then even lower, in the balls. Blood spurted and his face contorted, first in surprise and then in pain. He went to his knees, clutching his crotch while blood poured out of the hole above.
Dolfo stepped carefully back as the man pitched forward.
Dolfo squatted beside Estrelita's corpse and drove the knife, very carefully, into her again. Just as carefully, he slipped it into Juan's hand and folded his fingers around the hilt. Then he rose and gazed speculatively down at the bodies. Turning, he closed the door and turned off the porch light. Then, staring down at the big woman's body, he turned it over with his foot and used the toe of his shoe to lift her skirt, exposing her big bare ass.
Smiling and licking his lips, Dolfo opened his pants and reeled out his enormous hard-on.