“Well, I could walk you out and get you a cab a block away. Don’t want no trouble.”
But trouble, alas, was already there.
Earl felt a hand on his arm, and he was spun around with just enough force to imply the possibility of violence, and he found himself staring into the square, handsome face of a large American male. The fellow looked like some kind of Viking, bronze and broad and incredibly alive with hostility, a gristle of white beard clinging to but not quite obscuring his pugnacious jaw.
“Say, bub,” the man said to him, “what the hell is going on here? Is he bothering you, Jean-Marie?”
“No, he is not bothering me. You are bothering me. Please, I just want to get out of here.”
“You hear that, mister?” the man said. “You’ve upset the gal and she wants to leave. Who do you think you are, anyway?”
Earl was aware immediately that this was a strange situation. Everybody was staring at him. A semicircle had formed around them, the music had stopped, even the clink of the glasses landing on the marble tabletops had stopped.
“Sir, the lady asked me to call her a cab, that’s all. I think I’ll just go ahead and do that, if you don’t mind.”
“Well, pal, it seems I do mind. Hmmm, don’t we have a problem here though. It’s called face. I’m bracing you so I can’t back down, and you don’t look like you’ve got much back-down in you either.”
“Sir, I don’t want any trouble.”
A broad grin spread across the man’s face, as if he’d just drawn better cards against good cards.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No, sir.”
“Sure you don’t. You know, this happens to me all the time. Guys get lit up when they see me and they get all scratchy because they want to be the lion. So they come up to me. Oh, and when I don’t back down, then all of a sudden they don’t want to be the lion anymore. That’s all right. I’m going to go easy on you. I’ll just walk away with my female friend here and you go back to your little soda pop and it’ll be—”
“That’d be fine, sir, if that’s what she wants.”
“I don’t want to go away with you, Mr. Hemingway,” said the Asian woman, Jean-Marie. “I want to stay here.”
“Well,” said Earl, “there you have it.”
The big man looked Earl up and down.
“I’m a boxer,” he said.
“Done some of that myself,” said Earl.
“I could flatten you in two seconds.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, well, I guess you showed me. Look, pal, let’s part friends, okay?”
And with that the man threw his punch. It was absurdly telegraphed, as he pivoted just a bit, cocked his right shoulder, cocked his arm, and set his right foot before launch. The big fist flew at Earl like some sort of softball pitch from a woman, and as it swept toward him, Earl almost cracked a smile.
He ducked under it easily enough, then slipped an equally slow and oafish thing thrown with the left, where the man was not nearly as coordinated, and then Earl kicked hard, and both the man’s legs flew out from under him and he hit the tiles with a crash. His arms and legs flew akimbo as he rolled, breathing hard, then he drew himself together as if to make another rush at Earl.
Earl bent close.
“Now, sir, I’d stay down. You could get hurt. I can use either my left or my right to work jabs into your middle and then knock you into 1965 with the other. I’ll kill your guts so your hands quit and when they die, I’ll kill your head. I don’t want to go to no prison for breaking your jaw or nothing. You just stay put, and have a good laugh along with the rest of the folks.”
The man just glared at him, but made no move to get up.
Earl stood, turned to the exotic woman and said, “You know, let’s get you that cab.”
“Excellent idea,” she said.
They walked out hastily, pushing through the crowd that parted to let them by, turned left at the sidewalk, and soon separated entirely from La Floridita, down another nameless street, also choked with bars and people.
“Who are you?” she said.
“You wouldn’t know the name. I’m nobody. Earl Swagger,” he replied.
“Oh!” She leaned back and appraised him. “The bodyguard. Yes, that’s who you’d be, all right. You’re the big hero. Everybody says you’re joining the bright young men on the third floor.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Earl said.
“Oh, you can’t keep secrets here, in a little town like this one. Really, I’d have thought you’re a little straight-ahead for those boys. They think they’re really clever. I wouldn’t get too close to them. Roger’s all right, but that creepy little assistant of his? I hate the way he pretends like he’s not paying attention but you can see him writing everything down in his subconscious.”
“Thank you for the advice.”
“And I have to know. You really didn’t know who that man was?”
“No.”
“Mr. Swagger, you are priceless. Really, I love it. Served him right, the blowhard. Hemingway. The writer. Famous, rich. He’s a big fisherman and game hunter.”
“Seems I’ve heard the name,” said Earl, trying to place it, “but I can’t say where. Shotguns, is that it? He’s some kind of shotgun expert.”
“I’m sure he is. Well, you made him look foolish.”
“I can’t worry about that. He made himself look foolish.” Earl scanned the street for a cab. “Look, there’s one. Cab! Cabbie!”
His command voice got through the babble and the cab pulled over.
Earl escorted her to it, opened the rear door.
“There you go,” he said.
“You’re not even going to buy me a drink or wait for me to invite you over?”
“Ma’am, I probably got myself in enough trouble back there. I don’t need no other tonight.”
“No, I think the little boys you play with will think you’re really cool. Not that you care. That’s what I like about you, Mr. Swagger. You really don’t care what people think, do you?”
“To be honest, no, I guess I don’t, ma’am.”
She reached in her purse, and pulled out a card.
“Please don’t call me ma’am. I’m not your great aunt. I’m Jean-Marie Augustine. I manage the TWA office here in town; my husband’s a pilot, not that he’s ever here. Anyway, this is a dangerous town, Mr. Swagger. I’m giving you my card. If you need a friend, you give me a call. I know people, I can make phone calls, I speak Spanish like it’s my own language, because it is my own language. I can help you.”
“Thank you,” he said, “but I’m not planning on staying around long.”
She laughed.
“That’s what I said when I got here ten years ago. Good night, Mr. Swagger.”
“Goodnight, Mrs. Augustine.”
“By the way, you belong on this street. This is the street where you live.”
“My street?”
“Yes, look.”
She gestured to a painted sign on a building front right at the corner that identified the thoroughfare: Calle Virtudes, it said.
“Kai-yay Ver-tude-ez,” she said hard and fast, with a particularly forceful roll to the R’s of Verrr-tude-ez.
“What?”
“It’s the street where you live. I can tell.”
“I don’t get it.”
“In English, it’s Virtue Street.”
She smiled, closed the door and the taxi rolled away.
Chapter 32
“You go in back. If you see him, kill him. Shoot him many times. Stand over him and fill him with bullets. I will do the same from here.”
“Uh, you want signals or anything, Ramon?”
“We don’t need no fucking signals. Come on, my friend, let’s go kill something big.”
In hunting frenzy, Captain Latavistada seemed to change character entirely. His brow sweated, his skin radiated heat and sweat, he trembled with anticipation. It
was not at all that he was scared; it was that he was so happy. He seemed about to slide into a state of slaughter glee so intense that all other things were closed out. It was as if he didn’t really remember who Frankie was. He just wanted to close on the prey and kill it hard.
“Vamos, amigo!” he barked at Frankie, who had never heard that tone of voice from his new colleague before, but recognized it as something rare and valuable. It meant Ramon was more than a mere torturer; he was the rare man who loved battle.
Frankie looked at the Star machine pistol in his hands, not that he had any idea how to run it. As machine pistols go, it seemed to have more knurled knobs and levers than it needed. But weren’t they all pretty much the same? You point, you squeeze, you squirt, and something has a whole lot of holes in it fast. He’d done the same work in the French bookstore in Times Square, with a gun just as strange, so he felt loaded for bear, his own heart going thumpathump, as he headed alongside the house just as Captain Latavistada, with the big light machine gun, headed up the walk.
Frankie got around back, and thank god there were no kids, no dog, no maid—no horse. Shit like that got in the way. He climbed up on a patio, unsure what to do, and squatted for just a second under the canopy of a lush palm, amid ornate wrought-iron furniture, aware of the sun, the heat, the perfume of the flowers, the buzz of insects. Before him were two screen doors which led into separate sections of the house. He tried to decide which to go through when choice was taken from him and he jumped in surprise. For whatever reason, Captain Latavistada suddenly opened up, and the roar of the gun, even on the other side of the house, was deafening.
Castro enjoyed the second half of the cigar more than the first half; that’s where the buzz was, and it loosened tiny vibrations in his head. He lay back, naked, and watched the smoke drift and curl above him. It was the smoke of history, drifting this way or that, and only a strong man could make it obey him. He had that strength. He had known for some time. It was evident in the way others respected him and yearned for his attention and his command authority. It was evident when he spoke, and the words magically appeared in front of him, and he had the crowd and could mold it to his wishes, make it a violent animal or a weeping mother. It was evident in the way that he always won his debates and could ever so quickly assemble facts into an argument with an iron will, unassailable, imperturbable, as solid as a force of nature. It was evident in the way he saw swiftly into the heart of things, to their absolute center, and could master complex systems like Marxism in mere hours, sharpening them to the chisel point of their truth, and then seeing exactly how they would be applied in practical situations. He had never met anyone like himself, or anyone who could stand up to him or mother of jesus have mercy on your poor sinner lord Jesus look after me for I have sinned please dear lord do not end my days on earth here in this place though I am unworthy and—
The thunder of explosions, so loud it paralyzed him, became the dominant feature in his universe. There was nothing else. As he prayed, he lay frozen while the percussions intermingled with the roar of carnage as the atmosphere of the house was savaged, and filled with chaos and fear. His fear. He quaked, he froze, he whimpered, he prayed, he almost shit. Then it was silent. He heard clicks, scrapings, the heavy breathing of physical effort. He sensed his enemy, his would-be assassin, very close. Then the wall above his head exploded, spraying him with plaster dust and wood scraps, like the blast of a high-pressure hose. And the noise at that precise moment was momentous. In fact the whole world was turning monstrously unstable, as across the room, where Señora Fugolensia had pictures of the Holy Mother as well as herself, her husband and assorted relatives, that too began to dissolve or dance, pulverized into a mist of plaster dust, torn wood, what have you.
He knew enough to know he was being fired upon by someone with a large automatic gun. He wanted to be far away and hiding his face in his mother’s bosom. But then his reflexes took over, he rolled to the floor and began to crawl for the far exit as another raking burst sawed its rough way through the room.
The captain kicked open the doorway. The gun was like a mystical lance in his hand, yearning to express his contempt for the soft bourgeoisie world that hadn’t the spine to do what must be done, which sentimentalized revolution and found it fascinating, which adored the deviant, the non-pious, the arriviste. All his pathologies were gloriously astir and his loins burned with fervor. He needed to crush, to kill, to obliterate, to establish his primacy. He desperately needed an enemy.
What he found was a dumpy naked woman whose titties sagged, who had a plump belly above her bush, who ate a piece of toast in the kitchen and looked at him with utter bewilderment. Had she shown fear he might have let her live but it angered him that she did not immediately yield to his magnificence, so he cut her in half with the Mendoza 7mm, emptying a whole magazine into her. Blood flew everywhere, a hurricane of the stuff, spraying wall and kitchen appliances and tabletops and floor with equal disdain.
Amazing how quickly a twenty-round box will use itself up. Quickly, he ejected the spent magazine from the top of the weapon, pulled another out of his pocket, slammed it home, and pivoted with the heavy weapon—eighteen pounds, its bipod wavering as it swung—and fired another magazine into the center of the house.
The destruction was magnificent. The gun was a god. Wherever he pointed it, the world erupted as if by a volcano’s fury, and things disintegrated or danced or simply vaporized. The atmosphere filled with dust and smoke. A pipe shattered and water spurted out of the walls. It was as if the house itself were bleeding. Empty shells cascaded out of the hot gun, littering the floor. It was a profound experience for the captain to be the humble bringer of such grief to a world.
Jesus Cristo, no more ammo. Again, the thing was like a wet dog, that just shook itself empty in one spasm. Laboriously, he dropped to one knee—his shoulder ached—opened the latch that ran along the top of the receiver next to the magazine well, popped out the magazine, pulled another from his pocket, inserted it till the latch clicked, then reached forward along the barrel and pulled and released the bolt with a snappity-snap-snap.
He rose. Now where was this cabrone, eh? Where had this little puppy fled to? Come to papa, little boy. Papa has a present for you. Come ahead, my son. I have a nice surprise for you.
God, is he done shooting? wondered Frankie. He had no desire to get nailed by his good friend the captain, who seemed to have gone a little screwball with the machine gun. He was blasting everything. That’s how these people did it, they just waded in and started whacking. But Frankie saw himself catching a stitch of eleven or so slugs up the gut and bleeding out under palm trees, far from New York’s grit, him with all his big plans and new possibilities. That he did not want.
So he hung back, content to let the captain do the massacring, allowing himself the responsibility of the mop-up. The captain fired again.
Castro found refuge in the bathtub. He endured bombardment by pulverization and thunder, as whoever was shooting expended a whole magazine into the bathroom. A bullet ricocheted off the tub with a gong of death, and veered who knew where. He lay naked and vulnerable, aware that he shared the tub with pieces of glass and wood, with chunks of metal, with a significant accrual of dust and debris. He knew also that he was dead. How long before they found him?
The captain looked at the adulteress’s bed. Its sheets were rumpled and sweaty and the stains of sexual exchange were smeared here and there. He smelled a lover’s cigar as well. He had just finished a hose-job on the bathroom and the closet, riddling both. But the bed insulted his Cuban manhood. It reeked of illicit pleasure, so it was in direct competition both with his brothels and with his intense Catholic faith. Something atavistic rose in him, and instead of looking for the man he had come to kill, he decided to punish the bed.
This was an event of incredible carnage. The bullets tore into pillows and sent puffs of feathers exploding into the air, to fill the room with snow, while at the same time the mattress its
elf leapt as if in great animal pain as bullets buckled it. As the magazine wore itself out, the bed gave up the ghost, so to speak: it tilted crazily as rounds tore away the two far-side legs, a spring popped from the mattress like a dying snake, dust flew, empty shell casings flew, the whole a drama of extraordinary sensual pleasure.
Then the gun was dry.
Mother of God!
He knelt, pulled the old mag out, and was reaching into his pocket for another when a naked man flew out of the bathroom with a look of abject terror on his face, eyes bugged like fried eggs, flaccid body so white and pale with fear it was almost a comical scene from a movie. To make it more ridiculous, this naked figure had shod himself with his mistress’s slippers to protect his feet from the glass, so there he was, immense, white, terrified, naked, his equipment flopping, running like a bunny rabbit and poor Captain Latavistada could only watch him go, for he could not get the magazine into the gun fast enough.
“Frankie!” he screamed.
The doors blew open and Frankie stared into the terrified, scrambled face of his quarry.
This was it. The Star machine pistol came up, the range was five feet, six at the outside, the mark was jaybird naked and terrified to see another gunman, and Frankie fired.
Except he didn’t.
Fungool, it didn’t work.
He looked at it in his hands, saw various knobs set this way and not that, jiggered them and then the gun fired but did not stop. It ate a magazine in two seconds, and the bullets just rose on the house, cutting a stitchery of dust and then flying off into space.
But the naked man, meanwhile, threw himself off the balcony and ran amazingly fast, pink slippers flying from his feet as he disappeared into some jungle shrubbery. Frankie had his .45 out by this time and sent seven pills into the weeds after him, maybe hitting him, maybe not. The captain was next to him, and clearly he was not yet done shooting, for he heaved the machine gun upwards and unleashed another whole, jolting, jackhammering magazine that more or less chewed up the area into which the man had disappeared.