dummies!’ hissed Montague Du Cann. ‘You don’t even have a getaway car!’
There was a silence. Fernando Salvador looked at Antonio Gabriel Bernardino Martinez and The Kid looked at Pedro Del Camino. Juan Gonzales was right. That’s why
he had been leader of the Dos Hombres Gang. He had the brains.
And then a smile came over The Kid’s face. ‘Wait a minute!’ he said. ‘Seems to me you had a pretty hefty bank roll, there in the saloon. Seems to me you could hand that over and we’d be quits.’
‘It’s no good to you,’ replied Montague Du Cann, quick as a flash. ‘It’s only English money. It’s not worth anything here in New Mexico.’
The three desperate bandits looked at each other a little crestfallen, and their shoulders slumped.
‘Then we’ll have to rob the bank after all,’ moaned Fernando Salvador.
But then Pedro Gonzales suddenly perked up. ‘Hey!’ he said to Montague Du Cann. ‘You can change English money into US dollars at the bank, can’t you?’
‘Yeah! That’s right!’ said The Kid.
‘So what are we waiting for?’ cried Fernando Salvador, and he grabbed Montague Du Cann’s coat and tried to dig out the wad of notes.
But Montague Du Cann had been about to pay off some blackmailers who had discovered his previous life as a bandit. For this reason he was carrying more cash than he would ever normally carry – to the tune of several thousand pounds. He was not going to let his former accomplices steal that money if he could help it. So he punched Fernando Salvador on the nose, hit The Kid in the stomach and kicked Pedro Del Camino in the crotch.
Then he turned and ran back down the road, forgetting for the moment about the bar tender, who had just
reappeared outside the saloon. As soon as he saw the three non-paying customers running towards him he opened fire again.
The bullets sprayed all over the High Street, scattering the few people who were about.
But Montague Du Cann didn’t give two hoots. He wasn’t going to allow those crispy £50 notes to fall into the hands of his erstwhile colleagues. He ran straight past the saloon, and round the corner. The three former bandits didn’t stop either. They reckoned that the bankroll in Juan Gonzales’ hand was the only real chance they had of getting any money that day.
They rounded the corner in time to see something odd happen. Juan Gonzales had stopped outside a building that appeared to have an elevator that opened straight on to the street. None of them had ever seen such a thing before. What’s more the elevator doors were opening, and Juan Gonzales, the former leader of the Dos Hombres Gang – the man who had betrayed them and who now refused to help them in their hour of need, was stepping into the lift.
The three of them ran as they’d never run before, and never would again. They did the 100 yards as fast as any Olympic sprinter you could name. But they were too late!
They arrived at the strange elevator just in time to see Juan Gonzales waving to them with a smirk on his face, as the doors closed together.
‘The rat!’ they exclaimed.
‘Don’t worry!’ said The Kid. ‘We’ll take the stairs!’ And they rushed into the department store, and spent several minutes trying to find the stairs before Fernando Salvador
suddenly stopped and said, ‘Wait a minute! This building only has one storey!’
The Dos Hombres Gang looked at each other, and then ran outside again to where the elevator had been. But there was now no sign of it – just a shop window with a large poster that said:
COME TO SWINDON!
THE ALBUQUERQUE OF ENGLAND!
The three ex-bandits were so perplexed, they walked into the next bar they could find, and drank three more pints of beer each, before they once again remembered they had no money.
Meanwhile, Montague Du Cann, when he had got back into the lift, pressed the button for the Sixth floor – the Executive Floor – from which he’d come earlier that morning.
The light