The Last Score by Ellery Queen

Author:Ellery Queen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

Six

He opened his eyes and saw thorns, as in an etching. All sounds were distant. He sensed his aloneness. Pain filled his head and back, but it had a neutral quality; it was a mere pressure on the nerves, tolerable.

Reid sat up. Five o’clock by the sun. Out four hours. He tried to think, but his thoughts spun about without order or sequence, like a bottled emulsion that had been shaken.

Leslie will be killed they were waiting for me all ooooo yes good kill but shouldn’t have Greengrove Mama police.…

Hold it, hold it!

Reid got to his feet. Yes, it had really happened. Gordo’s blood-crusted face was busy with flies. A delegation of vultures sat hunched in a nearby pirul tree. He could hear dogs grumbling in the brush all around, waiting for him to go away. Death in Mexico brought plenty of company.

His valise lay on the ground. Reid picked it up. Inside he found a note printed in the same kind of rough capitals as in the first message:

NOW PRICE IS TEN THOUSAND. BRING IT IN SMALL OLD BILLS TO CHURCH IN SANGRE DE CRISTO TO GET YOUR WOMAN BACK. YOU HAVE SEVEN DAYS. ON THE EIGHTH DAY SHE DIES.

El Hombre wasted no words lamenting the death of his Fat One. Reid remembered Delgado’s eyes; the man would care nothing for revenge; revenge was a human emotion.

Delgado had, nevertheless, made a human mistake: Leslie was not Reid’s woman. But Delgado was right in a deeper sense. How could a man turn his back on a human being in distress? He would have to return to Greengrove, get the money, and come back for Leslie. And without telling Mama.

Reid walked in widening circles around the clearing, looking for the path. He could not find it. For a time his sanity deserted him. He did not remember leaving the cactus thicket or running among the thorns. The next thing he knew, he was standing on the riverbank watching a woman wash clothes. His face and arms were bleeding from scratches; his clothes were in tatters. A burro train loaded with charcoal was moving placidly along the opposite bank. It seemed a very long time since he had crossed the river. How could the sun be indicating that it was not yet six?

He wondered if he should go back to hide Gordo’s body to gain time. But suppose he got lost in the thorn thickets? He could feel his consciousness drifting away again. How much of that damn mota had he smoked anyway?

Then Reid found himself leaning against a wall, laughing. The river was gone, the woman, the burro train. He was also out of breath. That made him remember. He had followed the river back into the ’dobe slum; he was thirstier than he had ever been in his life.

Then he evoked a sudden clear picture of himself in a cantina, gulping beer. Many Mexican eyes had been fixed on him—the domino players, the bartender, the old man with the newspaper. Their eyes glared hate.

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