The Silencers Read Online Free PDF Page A

up her little white purse from the floor where she’d dropped it. I shoved it into my pocket and gestured to LeBaron. He got one arm and I got the other, and we set Gail on her pretty little blue high-heeled shoes and marched her towards the curtains at the rear of the stage.
    “Left and out,” LeBaron said. “Jesus had better have the cab waiting, damn his black Yaqui soul.” After a moment, he said, “The portero threw the knife. I should have kicked him harder. I’m afraid he’ll live.”
    “The M.C. was in it, too,” I said. “He was searching the girl for something when we interrupted him.”
    “Searching? She didn’t have much to search, just a bra and G-string.”
    “She had it in her hair, whatever it was. She got it from that American tourist, I think. I never saw his face, but she patted his black hair nicely as she went by, and he reached up to grab her, remember?” I glanced back and said, sentimentally and uselessly, “Poor kid.”
    “Yeah.”
    This wasn’t all just idle chitchat, you understand. We were pooling what information we had, while we had the chance, in accordance with standard operating procedure in case only one of us got out to make a report. The woman between us tried to pull free and gasped with pain as we both clamped down—the cops used come-alongs made of chain and stuff, nicely chrome plated, but there are perfectly good grips that serve the same purpose.
    “Let me go!” she protested. “Let me go!”
    LeBaron was leading, since he knew the way. I was keeping an eye out behind us, so I was the first to see the Texas cavalry come charging to the rescue as we reached the curtains. Somebody had clobbered him good in the melee, but not good enough, and he stumbled up to the stage in his silly boots, with his face streaming blood from a cut over the eye.
    “You there!” he yelled. “Get your cotton-picking hands off that lady, you sons of bitches!”
    Then, so help me, he pulled a gun. In a place like that, with hell breaking loose already, he pulled a gun. A guy like that would light a cigar in a fireworks factory.
    I shouted, using the name the woman had mentioned: “This way, Sam! Make it snappy! We’ve been waiting for you!”
    It didn’t work. The invitation didn’t register. We were strangers; we were hostile; we were manhandling his girl, and you can’t do that to a Texan, suh. He took another step and stood there swaying, waiting for the weapon in his hand to settle down on something so he could shoot it.
    “Left and out,” LeBaron said quickly, urging us through the curtains. “Jesus will get you across the river. Never mind the cowboy, I’ll take care of him.”
    He started back across the stage. I didn’t wait to see what happened, but I heard a shot as I pulled the reluctant woman through the narrow passage and out through a door that stood open as if we weren’t the first to escape that way.
    I waited just a moment outside, but LeBaron didn’t come. Maybe I’d see him again and maybe I wouldn’t. Like I said, trained men doing a job. You don’t have to love each other like brothers, but the next time, if there was a next time, he could talk about sex all he wanted, even if he had been a little slow in dealing with Elena...
    “Cab number five!” a voice called softly.
    We were in an alley of sorts. It was seemingly empty, the way certain parts of certain towns get when there’s trouble, but you could feel eyes watching from all the shadows. I headed towards the voice. A man showed himself briefly, beckoning. I ran after him through the narrow space between two buildings, dragging Gail along with a grip that wouldn’t let her resist without tearing some ligaments.
    The parked cab on the street beyond was battered and ancient, but it looked remarkably like the promised land at that moment. I shoved my companion into the back and piled in after her. Jesus had the heap moving before I got the door closed.
    A minute later we were on a street full of