Angels in Heaven

time,” he said
in a croak, keeping his eyes submissively downcast. “But I hated to miss
basket-weaving class, it’s my favorite.”
    “¡Silencio!” said Joaquín sharply. “Por allá.” He prodded him vigorously toward my office. Billy stumbled and fell in through
the door.
    While he was slowly picking himself
up again, I said, “Tsk-tsk. You really must take better care of yourself, an
ex-Eagle Scout like you.” In other words, another reminder' to be prepared. He
nodded once to let me know he’d got the message.
    I threw a "Cinco minutos” to the guard over one shoulder and followed Billy and Joaquín, closing the door
behind me. Which action, necessary to our plans, I did not think the lieutenant
would object to as he was about, he dreamed, to be handed 1I million pesos in
used cash, an activity he surely wouldn’t want his sergeant to oversee.
    When we were all seated—the
lieutenant directly facing me, Billy on his right, and Benny over at his desk
putting his papers away in a folder—I got out a folder of my own from the top
desk drawer, then hit the intercom and asked Doris to please hold all calls
except Washington, which was our signal for her to start making some noise.
Billy raised his eyes enough for one brief glance at me, then lowered them
again.
    “You got it, Chief!” Doris said and began rattling away on her typewriter as well as commencing to loudly hum
one of the Sex Pistol’s more tender ditties. I also hoped she was keeping the
sergeant’s optics well occupied.
    I took a breath. I needed one.
    “Oh, drat,” I said, reaching into the
top drawer again as if I was hunting for something. “Keith, you got those
two-oh-two forms over there?”
    “Right here, sir,” he said.
    He arose promptly and headed my way
with the folder. I picked up the cannon from the drawer, leaned across the
desk, and not too gently pressed the working end of the muzzle against Joaquín’s
bronzed forehead, then half-cocked it with one thumb, all so quickly the
startled lieutenant had no time to move anything but his eyebrows, which went
up. Billy made a move to help, I told him to get out of the way. I looked into Joaquín’s
eyes, held one finger of my free hand to my mouth, and went “Sh-sh-sh,” which I
hoped meant the same thing in español as it did in English.
    Benny was behind the lieutenant by
them. He dropped the folder and slapped across Joaquín’s mouth, to say nothing
of his mustache, two large pieces of adhesive tape he’d been hiding. Then he
taped two more, longer lengths over his eyes. Then he took out lengths of
precut, single strand, copper-cored electric cable from one pocket and quickly
tied the lieutenant’s hands behind his back. It was when he was starting on his
legs that the trouble erupted.
    Being no fool, the lieutenant had
decided that we didn’t want to kill him, at least not right then, or why go to
all the trouble of trussing him up, so he heaved himself backward and toppled
both himself and Benny onto the floor, making a hell of a commotion. Then I
heard a scream from the other room and it sure wasn’t the sergeant, unless he
screamed coloratura soprano. Billy launched himself into the melee on the
floor, and he and Benny fought to bring Joaquín, who was lashing out wildly
with both booted feet, under control. I briskly moved me and the cannon to the
door and was just about to open it when the sergeant came through it from the
other side without bothering to open it. I went flying. My glasses went flying.
The cannon went flying over behind Benny’s desk. I started scrabbling after it,
then changed my mind and began scrabbling toward the sergeant, who was
desperately trying to claw his cannon out of its holster.
    “Look out!” I think I shouted. I know
I shouted something clever because Billy looked up, took in the scene, jumped
up and threw himself onto the guard’s gun hand, which couldn’t have done his
own bandaged hand much good. By then I was close enough to hook one of my feet
behind one of the guard’s legs; with my other foot I kicked him on the knee as
hard as I could. He screamed and went down. Oh, fine, I thought. One more
scream and we’ll have the whole street in here. I rolled myself heavily onto
the guard, leading with a stiffened forearm to the adam’s apple, which took
most of the fight out of him, and stayed on him till my brave allies finally
got him trussed, bound, gagged, blindfolded, incapacitated, and generally hors
de combat.