Thin Air

Something crashed through the front window and a smoke bomb went off in the room. The wet wind coming through the broken window spread the smoke rapidly. The hall door opened and someone yelled in Spanish into the room.

Chollo murmured in my ear as we lay on the floor under the pall of smoke, "Says they're being attacked by Freddie Santiago."

Deleon rushed out with Gonzalez, leaving the door open behind them. The resulting draft drove most of the smoke into the corridor and we were alone, on the floor, while outside the gunfire continued. We got carefully to our feet. I could hear the sound of bullets thudding into the house.

"Freddie's people are cutting it kind of close," I said.

"Well, it is distracting Deleon," Chollo said.

"As long as it doesn't kill us in the process," I said.

"The room where she is should be right above us," Chollo said.

The slim muddy trickle that had been leaking down from the roof garden had been joined by other trickles until finally the whole wall was sheeted with dirty water that ran steadily. She stood in the center of the room in a dry area and listened to the creak and groan of the tenement as the weight of the watersoaked earth above bore down on its brittle skeleton. She was dressed in her own clothes, and it made her feel strangely herself. Clothes make the woman, she thought. She walked to the door and tried it. The knob turned, but the padlock was in place and she couldn't get out. She shrugged. No harm trying. A piece of plaster dropped from the wet ceiling, and a short cascade of water rushed through the hole, dwindling almost at once to a steady trickle that made a continuous drip in the center of her room. This may be a good sign, she thought. His goddamned house is starting to fall apart. The lights went out. The sudden darkness was like a physical jolt. She held herself motionless for a moment, remembering where things were, tamping down the panic that came with the blackness. She took deep breaths as she stood holding herself in, smelling the wet earth smell of the room, hearing the water trickling inside and the larger rushing sound of the rain outside.

The doorway, she thought. Like in earthquakes, the doorways are stronger. She moved slowly, hands ahead of her through the wet darkness toward the doorway. Found the wall, groped along it to her left, found the doorway, pressed herself against it, and waited silently for what would come. There was in her a kind of steely resignation that counter-poised her panic. She had endured all that had happened and had not broken. And something was going to happen. And she would not break. The attempted rape had been like a climax. Something would come of it. She didn't know what it would be and all she could do was wait and be ready.

She heard something outside that sounded like gunshots. Was it Frank? Had he come? She twisted the door knob again knowing it was futile. She stopped and took in a deep breath and pressed herself into the shallow doorway, invisible in the drenched, reeking darkness, and said it to herself. Ready. Ready. Ready.

Chapter 41

Gunfire started popping in the house as Deleon's troops started firing back from the sandbagged window positions. There was the occasionally heavier boom of a shotgun and occasionally the rippling bursts of a light automatic weapon. Stooping low to take advantage of the sandbags, in case Santiago's gu

The staircase was empty, everyone was hunkered down at a gun port by now. I wondered where the women and children were. Probably in the central yard where the bullets wouldn't reach them. As we went up, I could hear the building groaning like a ship in a storm. The walls of the stairwell were wet, and the remnant of stairwell carpet was soaking as we walked on it. Above us I heard the sound of wood twisting.

"It's the goddamned roof garden," I said to Chollo.

"The roof garden?"

"Yeah. It's been raining for three days. All the dirt on the roof. It's soaked full of water. The house is caving in under the weight."

"That makes it nice," Chollo said.

At the top of the stairs we turned left and back past the stairwell toward the front room. In the corner of the hallway, where the right wall joined the front wall, a man was crouched by the window, staying low, trying to see what was happening. He looked up at us as we came down the corridor, and frowned. We didn't look familiar. His hand went under his coat. Chollo said something in Spanish and jerked his thumb at the stairwell behind us. The guard had his gun out now, a big, stainless-steel Colt.45. He looked past us down the corridor where Chollo had pointed, and I hit him just above his right ear with the sap. He grunted and dropped the gun and staggered against the wall. I hit him again, same place, and he sighed and slid down the wall and lay still on the floor. The water ru

"What'd you say?" I asked Chollo.

"I said, `Luis wants you right away,"' Chollo answered.

There was a gun in his hand now, but otherwise he looked as relaxed as he had when I thought he was falling asleep in front of Deleon. I looked at the door to Lisa's room. It was padlocked. I stepped back against the far wall, feeling the wetness soak through the back of my pants where the leather jacket didn't protect it, then I lunged a kick at the door and heard the hasp screws tear in the door. I stepped back and did it again and the hasp tore loose and the door flew open. The room was completely dark. Chollo produced a small flashlight and shone it into the darkness and there was Lisa St. Claire in jeans and a tee shirt, holding an iron bar like a baseball bat, her eyes wide and startled like a deer caught in the headlights.

The gunfire sounds increased. In the wet darkness she heard someone at the door. She turned to face the door when it burst open. The light outside the door was dim, but it was too strong after the pitch darkness of her room. She squinted, trying to adjust. She could see someone in the doorway, two someones-a big man, very broad, and a slimmer man with balletic movements. Both of them had guns. Everywhere water dripped from the ceiling and slithered down the walls. He spoke. She backed into the room a little, crouching. Maybe she could get past them as they came in to get her. She spoke, without knowing what she said. Her voice sounded to her like the snarl of an animal. He spoke again. She knew him. He was Frank's friend. He'd been at the wedding with his girlfriend. She spoke without hearing herself. He spoke to her and she didn't hear him. Her world was no longer one of discourse. She felt his arm around her. She went with him, the dancer man ahead of them. The house creaked as they moved through it. The sounds of stress in the house were nearly continuous. The walls were slick with water. Holding onto the banister with her free hand, because the stairs were slippery with rain water, she went down with him. Her heart pounded. She struggled to control herself. Calm, she thought. Ready. I'm not out yet. On the stairs Luis was there. She shrank in upon herself. Words in Spanish. Then they were in the hall. Jostled. Gunshot. Out into the rain-wet, bright-black night street. Rain smell. Headlights. Silence before her. The house groaning behind her. The big man's arm still tight around her. Headlights. Her breath shallow. She felt a ripple of agoraphobic fear. She could barely breathe. Calm. Ready. She felt the rain in her face. The armed men clumped around her. The big man continued to hold his arm around her. The street seemed vast and unstructured, the figures across the street seemed remote and unreal. The buildings next door seemed distant. She felt a little dizzy, as if the earth were unstable and things might suddenly turn upside down. Luis was talking to the big man. I have to be calm, she thought. Behind her she heard the thud of something, plaster maybe, sodden with water, falling to the floor. A timber somewhere in the house gave way with a twisting screech. I have to be ready.