Free The Rodriguez Affair (1970) by James Pattinson

señor. Without the token my memory cannot be relied upon; indeed, it will be most unreliable. I may forget not to mention what we have spoken about.”
    “Señor Torres,” Cade said, “you may go to the devil.”
    Torres shrugged. “Eventually perhaps, but not immediately. And I think you would be well advised to help my memory with another token, because it is not only our conversation that I might forget not to talk about. There is now another matter of some importance.”
    Cade glanced at him. There was an unmistakable threat in Torres’s voice. “What other matter?”
    “Shall we say, for example, the small gun that you have in your bag?”
    So that was it Torres had been snooping through his luggage while he had been away from the hotel and had found the gun. Well, it was only what might have been expected of such a man. The gun was a .38 revolver with a stubby barrel; he had bought it in Caracas on a sudden impulse. He did not imagine he would needa gun, but it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he might. Harry Banner could have used a gun in London; it might have saved him from being killed. And the people who had killed Banner were still at large, unless Superintendent Alletson had made an arrest in the last day or two; and he did not think that likely. All things considered, a gun might not be altogether superfluous; a gun and one box of .38 ammunition.
    “You have been searching my luggage.”
    “The bag was not locked.”
    “Does that give you the right to stick your nose in it?”
    “The right? Perhaps not The opportunity—certainly. Do you wish me to keep silent about the small gun, señor?”
    “I am telling you to do so,” Cade said.
    There was a greedy look in Torres’s eye. “Without some incentive that might well be impossible. How do I know that you have not come here to kill Señor Gomara for example? Perhaps I should warn him.”
    “Perhaps you should mind your own business,” Cade said. He was becoming a little tired of Jorge Torres. On one point his mind was now made up : gun or no gun, Torres would get no more bribes out of him. That talk of going to Gomara was probably nothing but an idle threat anyway. And even if he did go, why should Gomara believe such a fantastic story? Unless, of course, it was the kind of thing that Gomara was expecting, the reason why he had hidden himself away and felt the need for a bodyguard.
    “But,” Torres said, “this is my business. Be sensible, señor. Give me another fifty bolivars and I guaranteethat my tongue will be as still as a sleeping lizard.”
    Cade advanced two paces very sharply, seized Torres’s right arm and twisted it savagely up behind his back. Torres gave a cry of pain,
    “If you are wise,” Cade said, speaking directly into Torres’s ear, “you will keep a still tongue in your head anyway. I am a patient man but my patience is not inexhaustible. Do you understand?”
    Torres tried to get free, cursing. Cade twisted the arm a little more, making Torres cry out again.
    “Do you understand?”
    “I understand,” Torres gasped. “I will say nothing. Depend upon it. Only let me go. I will not say a word. I promise.”
    “You had better not.”
    Cade gave Torres a push and released the arm. Torres fell face downward on the bed and got up slowly, looking as venomous as a cobra. He had been hurt and he had been humiliated, and if the opportunity ever came his way to do Cade an injury there was little doubt that he would seize it. Cade knew this; he knew that he had perhaps acted rather too hastily and had made an enemy. Twisting Torres’s arm would not even make the man hold his tongue; it had served no useful purpose at all except to relieve Cade’s anger. It would perhaps have been better to fork out the fifty bolivars.
    Torres retreated to the door and there was hatred in his eyes. He massaged his right arm. “Señor Cade,” he said, “you should not have done that.”
    “You asked for it.”
    “I did not