Authors: Daniel Finn
‘You don’t know this one? You surprise me, Captain. You who have the whole city under your thumb.’
‘Where is she, señor?’ said Reve.
The señor smiled. ‘She? She’s all right.’ He lifted his hand. ‘You wait, eh. I done you favour. You’ll see.’
A wind must have picked up because the rain was now slapping against the window. Reve was aware of the door behind him opening. ‘Just till the rain finish,’ said Pelo. ‘Is that
a’right, señor?’
‘Sure,’ said Moro expansively.
Reve wondered whether Baz and Demi had really gone and told Fay what had happened. If they had, wouldn’t they all just take shelter from this rainstorm? Keep their heads down?
‘See, Captain,’ continued Moro, clearly enjoying himself, ‘it is my job here to please. This boy looking for his sister . . . who I’m giving a little shelter to.
An’ you looking for promotion, maybe governor of the city. That could be your future, Captain. I can help you with that too.’ The señor was spinning another web, this time to
snag the Captain. But how could Mi have anything to do with that? Just a girl from the country . . . Maybe he wanted to make her a thief. Was that it? Well, she wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t
do it for him, this big man with all his power, so much power he made Calde look like a rooting pig.
The Captain laughed and raised his glass. ‘You can fix all that, eh, Moro? If you do that for me, I think we can do business.’
Reve shifted uneasily. What if it was something worse than being a thief? He felt the skin tighten round his eyes and his heart banged in his chest. He forced himself to breathe, like Tomas had
told him. Did they think they could keep him standing there forever, make him be a donothing. He needed something to wake them up.
He glanced over at the barman, who was leaning over the counter, talking quietly to Pelo. He saw the water jug, and the bottle of red wine. Pelo was listening to the barman, but his eyes were on
Reve.
Outside a tram rattled past and there was a loud blast on a car horn. ‘Sounds like my driver getting impatient,’ laughed the Captain again. ‘He going to find himself on the
late shift if he’s not careful.’
Reve made up his mind. He twisted back and snatched up the bottle of wine from the counter, spun it so that he was holding it by the neck and, just like he had seen the cantina men do, he
smacked it hard down on the edge of the counter, shattering the base, red wine splattering his arm, dripping down his jeans and pooling on the floor. He was left gripping the neck, pointing the
splintery glass mouth at Moro’s face.
That got their attention.
The shark was on his feet, a stubby gun in his hand, but Moro had a restraining hand on his arm; behind him Reve sensed that the barman was ready to move too. He took a step forward and away
from the counter just to put himself out of reach. He couldn’t afford to turn his head to see for real; he only had eyes for Moro. This was it, he was in deep water now.
‘What you think, boy?’ said Moro. ‘You goin to do something with that bottle or just stain my floor?’
‘You got my sister. I want you bring her out here now. We done nothing ’gainst you . . .’
Moro put up his hand. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘You better learn some patience, bull boy. I got a thing to play out here, and some thing take time. You,’ he said to Pelo,
‘fetch the girl. You want to see her, see she all right, you go with him,’ he said to Reve. ‘And you,’ he said to the barman, ‘you clear up the floor. My pasta’s
cold.’
The men at the table laughed and settled back into their places, the shark, Secondo, slipping the gun back into his shoulder holster, and taking his jacket off and hanging it on the back of his
chair.
Reve felt a hand on his elbow. ‘You give me that. You made your mark,’ said Pelo quietly. Reve let him take the jagged remains of the bottle and then Pelo ushered Reve down the room
towards the door at the back. It was the door that Reve had been through before when Moro had taken them up to the roof and shown them the city, his city.
As they were passing the table Moro beckoned Reve. ‘Here.’
Reve stepped over to him. Moro smiled and patted his cheek. ‘Frighten of nothing, this one.’ Then, in a move that was so quick Reve had no time to react, Moro had gripped the back of
his neck in his right hand, yanked him forward and had his face pressed up against the blade of a small knife he had in his left. Reve could feel the steel against his cheek and could just see the
tip up by his eye. He stiffened. Held his breath.
‘You think you can manage with one eye? Slow you down a little, maybe make you think a little, eh. That might be a good thing. What do you say?’
Reve reckoned it was better to say nothing.
He felt the blade prick the skin on the underside of his eye; he could smell the garlic on Moro’s breath; all he could see were the shiny black hairs on the back of Moro’s hands.
‘You want me to take him through, señor?’ Pelo sounded as if he couldn’t have cared less whether or not Reve was sliced up like a salami, but it seemed to distract Moro.
He gave a
humph
and then with a flick of his wrist he nicked a line down the side of Reve’s face. He smiled and patted Reve’s cheek again, but the other side from where he had
cut him, and sat back in his chair and Reve straightened up. His face stung a little and he felt something warm running down to his chin. He hoped it wasn’t tears. He couldn’t be weak,
not in front of these men. A little cut was nothing.
‘Good. No sound. I like that. Are you not impressed with this boy, Captain? Does he not even seem familiar to you? Not at all, no?’
‘Should he?’
‘Oh yes . . .’
Pelo nudged him through the door and then, instead of going upstairs, he turned left down a corridor which had two doors on the left-hand side. Reve pressed his forearm against his cheek; it
came away smeared with red. ‘You were lucky,’ murmured Pelo, unlocking the door and swinging it open.
He didn’t feel lucky. But if he had had to pay an eye to get to Mi, then that’s what he would have paid.
It was an ugly room with a scabby tiled floor, a sink, a barred and rain-streaked window that looked out on to a closed-in yard with tall metal gates. No way out there, then. Just inside the
door was an iron-framed single bed with a thin stained mattress and no bedding. A bare bulb hung from a wire in the middle of the ceiling, casting a sickly orange light over everything. Standing in
front of a long mirror over on the far side of the room were two young women.
Even though he was expecting to see Mi, for a split second Reve didn’t recognize her. She was standing in front of the mirror wearing a green, backless dress, like dancers on one of those
TV shows might wear. The other young woman Reve had certainly never seen. She was wearing skinny jeans and had pins tucked into her mouth. She was twisting Mi’s wild red hair into a knot at
the back of her head.
‘Mi?’
Mi stood unmoving, a statue.
The girl took the pins from her mouth. ‘A’right,’ she said. ‘You look more pretty now than when they drag you in. Who this visiting?’
‘Her brother,’ said Pelo.
The girl raised her eyebrows, glanced at Pelo and then slipped out of the room.
Mi turned round. She didn’t look like like Mi, not the Mi of twenty minutes ago. No. Almost took his breath away, seeing her look so different.
‘Knew you’d come and get me,’ she said. ‘The man said that to me, but I knew it anyhow . . . What happen to your face?’ Her own was a mask under the make-up the
girl had put on her; her voice was brittle, just under control.
‘I’m a’right . . . They hurt you?’
‘Done nothing ’cept put me in a dress, pat powder on my face. He say he want to show me someone. I look like a street woman, eh?’ Her words started to speed up. Sentences
tumbling together. ‘They made me drink something, Reve, and it’s fuzzing up my mind . . . This the hole, Reve. This the sinkhole goin take me down to the place where bad spirit come . .
. You got cut on your face . . .’
‘Shh.’ He took her hand. She fell silent, her breath coming in little sips. He gently guided her to the bed and made her sit and then looked at Pelo. ‘What did they give
her?’ he said angrily.
Pelo grimaced. ‘Just saw her bundled in, but I reckon they just give her something to quiet her down . . .’
‘Quiet her down and then pretty her up for the Captain. That man,’ he said to Pelo, ‘he the one they call Captain Dolucca?’
Pelo nodded.
There was such a sour taste of bile in his mouth, Reve almost gagged. Moro was going to sell her to that man, the man who’d run with their mother!
‘Is there a way out the back, Pelo?’
‘No. Place like a fort, Reve. Those gates locked up all the time . . .’
The door behind him pushed open and the barman appeared. ‘Señor says bring them in.’ Then he saw Mi. ‘Phoof! Maria work a miracle or something. Maybe I get her paint me
up, give me looks.’
‘Need more than a miracle to do that for you, Bo,’ said Pelo, pushing him back out of the doorway. ‘Don’t need you back here. We’re coming. ‘
‘All right, fisherman. They come from your village, eh? Don’t get cosy – that what the señor tell me to say. Don’t get cosy.’
He went back down the corridor. Pelo looked at Reve, his thin, weathered face thoughtful, like he was weighing a catch, seeing what it would bring, whether it would pay off Calde and leave a few
dollars over for his family. ‘Bring her in, Reve,’ he said, and then very quietly murmured, ‘If any chance happen, you make a break, all right. I won’t stop you.
That’s maybe all I can do, but if I’m standing at that door, you got a way clear out to the street.’
‘And then what?’
Pelo put a hand briefly on his shoulder as Reve guided Mi past him. ‘Miracle. Miracle the thing we all need.’
‘All right, this is it, Captain,’ Moro was saying when Reve and Mi came back into the bar, with Reve keeping a firm hold on Mi’s arm. ‘I need to be sure
you don’t forget what we agree. I need to be sure none of your dirtfly helicopters come buzzing the coast, eh, when I got business . . .’
That seemed so long ago: the helicopter, bullets ricocheting off the stone wall, a little boy running, flames . . . There’d been no time to think then.
‘You got my word,’ said the Captain, leaning back in his chair.
‘Yes,’ said Moro, ‘I know all about words . . .’
At that moment the Captain saw Mi and he froze, the cigarette halfway to his mouth. Moro’s Secondo, the shark, twisted round and looked at them. And the greasy Zavvy studied Mi too –
it was only Mi they were interested in – before turning back to Moro, raising an eyebrow but saying nothing.
Moro seemed highly pleased with himself. ‘I tell you,’ he said smiling, ‘I always give people what they lookin for. This what you lookin for, Captain. This woman remind you of
someone, eh?’
The Captain blinked and puffed at the cigarette, letting the smoke curl up out of his mouth. ‘It’s nothing,’ he shrugged. ‘She’s like a woman I knew.’ He
hesitated. ‘Very.’ He stubbed out his cigarette.
‘I know,’ said Moro. ‘I know.’ He emphasized the two words, scoring them heavily as if with a thick pencil. ‘Like her mother, eh? Maybe when you first seen her.
Long time before you were captain of the city. ’Bout the time you were planning to take a step up the ladder.’
The Captain pushed back his chair and came round to Reve and Mi. He barely saw Reve; it was Mi he was looking at, devouring her almost, like a hungry dog. He had maybe been good-looking once,
dark shiny hair swept back from his brow, a long straight nose, but there was something greedy and hard in his eyes.
Mi shivered, even though the air felt thick and clammy. Reve tensed and edged a little closer to her, so their shoulders touched. Should he grab Mi and run, just run through the door and out
into the rainstorm? Pelo wouldn’t stop them. That’s what he said.
Mi shivered again and took a sharp breath. Her eyes were unfocused.
The Captain turned away. It looked to Reve like it was an effort to do so. ‘What exactly is it you think you know, Moro?’ he said, going back to his chair.
‘Maybe some things other ears shouldn’t hear.’ He leaned across the table to offer the Captain one of his cigars. ‘But we’re all friends,’ he said, smiling.
‘Friends. Business partners. This is it, eh? You got my support, Captain –’ he nodded at Secondo, who snapped a light for the Captain – ‘and I’ll help you climb
the ladder to mayor, I’m telling you.’
‘This girl,’ said the Captain ‘how did she come here?’
‘Came looking for her mother. Tha’s what they tell me.’
‘Here? In this place!’ The Captain laughed – it didn’t sound genuine to Reve – and then he puffed at his cigar and made a performance of examining the glowing tip.
‘I don’t think so. Her mother disappeared a long time ago.’
‘She not so far away.’
‘I think maybe she’s dead.’
‘Oh no,’ said Moro. ‘It’s the husband, this girl’s father, you thinking of, Captain. Eh?’ He paused and nodded. ‘You remember? He died so you could
bring this girl’s mother to the city. Now such a story would not sound so good in the newspapers: “POLICEMAN MURDERS MAN AND STEALS HIS WIFE”.’ He held up his hands as if
framing the newspaper headline. ‘And she’s not the only thing he steals, that’s what I hear. A consignment of . . . drugs, eh? A lot of money for you, Captain, a lot of money and
a beautiful woman with red hair – just like this one. You would like to read that story in the papers, Captain?’
‘No!’ The Captain’s inital response was abrupt and then he shook his head, as if the idea was almost childish. ‘That’s not how it was.’
‘Oh? This is how I hear it: there is a young man, eh, he don’t even make lieutenant yet, but he go to that village many times because he see this is a good place. It got a nice
little business comin in on the boats, and maybe he get paid a few dollar not to pay too much attention to this business. This village has something else he likes: a very pretty woman, who is also
smart. You remembering this, Captain?’
And he told the story that Reve had learned back in Rinconda.