Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 41, No. 4, October 1977

“You know those ceramics — those little clay horses? Nothing much outside, but inside there’s plenty. They’re worth a hundred grand to me. I don’t want to kid you any longer. I can’t.”

“Why are you telling me now?”

“I have to. There’s a certain danger. Ever hear of Julio Anthony?”

“No.”

“He runs the Bay Area. He’s found out about me. He knows my connections. He probably knows about you. If he takes over, he’ll eliminate some people. I’m one. You’re another.”

She had first felt the chill then, and it had been hot in her apartment. To keep San Francisco’s fog from penetrating, she had turned the thermostat to its highest point. Steamy jungle air circulated among her hanging plants, but hot jungle air did not stop the icicles from slipping down her spine.

“Jeff, you mean kill?”

“Yes, Sweets, I mean kill.”

Jeff had planned her trip like a military campaign. This would be her final visit to Mazatlan. Never again would it be necessary for her to face the sharp scrutiny of customs, or pretend to play with toy horses. Jeff would settle the score in Mazatlan. He would wipe off his slate, clean up his action.

“You never know, Sweets. You never know. You’ll make out fine. Who knows? You might even marry rich. Rub against money long enough, and some of it is guaranteed to rub off on you.”

He had kissed her, too loosely, too indifferently.

“Jeff, what about you?”

“I’m going to try Mexico City for a while. Paseo de la Reforma, three seventeen. Nothing too rough. Maybe some gambling.” His blue satyr’s eyes pierced her. “I don’t need money. I need...”

She had not the foggiest notion in the world about what young Jeff Meadows truly needed. He took her as a woman, but his taking was more ritual than passion. Always something inside him looked beyond her, even beyond the currency which he threw casually into his dresser drawers.

“I don’t know what I want. It’s been fun in Frisco, but I need a new city. I need new kicks. But don’t forget kid, I’ll take Julio’s number-one man off you for good.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know, but I’m finding out.”

Jeff had always computed her runs on the basis of no contacts, no obvert trafficking with the underworld south of the Border. Invariably she stayed overnight in La Paz, then took the overnight ferry to Mazatlan.

She had never seen anyone she could openly suspect. But somebody saw her and watched over her. In the past, she had tried to guess if it were Alex, or Carlos, or Roberto, but she couldn’t pin it down. It could have been anyone, anyone at all.

Nothing changed, nothing ever changed, but on the morning of her departure, she would stride up from the hot blazing beach and find five little ceramic horses on the vanity in her hotel room. She would wrap each one carefully in a blouse or a sweater and fit them into her blue flight bag.

White sunlight raked the deck. Ocean and sky vibrated with cold blue. For some reason she had not slept well, but she could not trace her reason for not sleeping. She had felt chilled in her stateroom. In the bar, when she went up for a drink, she had noticed a dark man with a long thin nose. She had not even stayed for her second drink.

A rock ripped at blue ocean, tearing it into long white rags, and the Transborador turned towards the port. A small boat brought out the pilot. Lynda leaned on the rail and watched him.

A deep voice spoke to her. “Miss Penny, it must bore you to see the same thing over and over again.”

She glanced right. A tall man, dressed in loose-fitting Ivy League clothes, leaned on the rail. His sandy beard, his blue eyes, looked vaguely familiar.

“I don’t know you.”

“But I know you. You’re the mule. Right?”

Total terror chilled her to the marrow of her bones. How did he know? Jeff had never warned her about such an encounter. This man was not Julio’s number-one man, was he?

“Like being a mule is being out of it. You don’t know the score?”

Without thinking she heard herself asking. “So what is the score?”

“Don’t you know?”

“No.”

“Death.”

“Death?”

“It’s like those poison bottles. Skulls and crossbones. Nothing less. Nothing more. It would help if mules like you were aware. If they really knew. They don’t.”

“You can’t touch me.”

“I don’t want to touch you.” — He turned and walked away. “Ever.”

From that second on, nothing went right. Her stay at the Hotel Neva proved cold and unreal. Even the hot sun, the hot beach chilled her. She had expected to see Jeff, at least in the distance. She had not seen him once.

Hot sunlight forged cold steel knives from shards of glass around the wall of the hotel’s inner pool. She had not expected to meet Julio’s number-one man, and perhaps she hadn’t. But who was the man who had followed her along the beach, and who smiled his lipless smile at her?

“Mees! Mees! You wanta horse? You wanta buy horse?”

Jeff had taught her so little. What could she do? How could she survive? Something muttered along with his love words had been a small indication of what to do if cornered.