Medianoche stared at the dead men.
Twenty years ago, he would’ve bolted into the room with a gun in each hand and unloaded on his target and on everyone in sight, then vanished into the night.
The waiter begged, for his wife, for his children.
Medianoche asked the waiter if he would be able to remember him when he was gone. The waiter lowered his head, shook his head. Medianoche told the waiter that if he remembered him, then he would be remembered in return. The waiter shook his lowered head, a tsunami of terror in his splintered voice as he said he could not remember what he did not see.
Medianoche slipped into his long black coat, checked his watch, saw the time, then eased on his fedora, adjusted its brim. He patted the pocket that housed the waiter’s identification and photo, his pregnant
esposa
and smiling
hijos
, then nodded.
The waiter nodded in return, fear and a deadly understanding on his face.
Medianoche’s Italian shoes clacked on the Spanish tile as he strolled out the door. The night was cold, damp, that ache in his eye springing to life. Once again that North Carolina memory. A memory that ran like a subroutine trapped in an infinite loop. Like a computer deadlocked.
Señorita Raven said, “Sir, are you okay, sir?”
She was standing in front of him. Close enough for him to smell her perfume and the beer on her breath. Close enough to kiss. He didn’t know how long she had been there.
He extended his arm, moved her out of his way.
Medianoche tilted the brim of his fedora downward, shadowed his face, walked past the Melia Recoleta Plaza Boutique Hotel, kept moving toward Callao, turned right on that wide street, headed toward the heart of Recoleta. Taxis, cars, buses, and pedestrians clogging the streets like it was high noon. Señorita Raven was no longer behind him. He dodged dog shit with every step.
He took out his cellular. Dialed.
The Beast answered,
“Buenas noches.”
“It’s done. That little job is done.”
“Good.”
“Your location?”
“San Isidro.”
“Thought you would be out at your ranch.”
“Didn’t want to get too far away. The package is in a
villa
near here. It gets moved again at the crack of dawn. Scamz and his crew, they don’t have a lot of time. I’m monitoring flights, buses, and boats from Uruguay.”
“Impossible to catch everything.”
“That goes without saying. The next few hours will be with all of us on red alert.”
“Any direct communications with Scamz?”
“They’ve gone silent.”
“As expected.”
“That said, how was your evening? Problems with the Italian contract?”
He was about to bring up Señorita Raven. Said, “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“Collateral damage?”
“Three. Had to put down three extra. Question?”
“Yes, soldier.”
“Did you send backup?”
“Backup? When have you ever needed backup?”
“I thought I saw Señorita Raven in the area.”
“She’s not on my dime. She’s on her own time.”
“Everything is good with the package?”
“Everything is fine.”
“The other half?”
“They will be here soon. If they are not already here.”
“Sure about that?”
“They have no other options. We have the cheese, and they are the rats. They were in North America when we had that last conversation. But they could be here now.”
“Should I come down there? Should we pick up the package?”
“No.”
“We have better firepower.”
“All is fine. I’m keeping the package moving. From hellhole to hellhole.”
“Cheap labor.”
“People will put their lives on the line for a few pesos.”
“Your loyal servant?”
“Draco did good this morning. He was a major asset. Draco is working overtime. He’s in contact with the package, coordinating the efforts, making sure the hooligans keep moving it.”
“Draco can handle it if those Scamz fucks appear?”
“He was a marine. He had a problem and he handled it with style and grace.”
“When was this problem?”
“Someone tracked our package. Someone from the Scamz organization.”
“Scamz has a crew down here.”
“A scout. That was late afternoon. But that scout is with the Jamaicans now.”
“The Gideon guy, Draco took him out?”
“No, not him. Not sure if he’s here.”
“Scamz. That organization. What do they have on us?”
“Nothing that will do them any good. Don’t worry. We’re good. Will keep you posted.”
Medianoche nodded. He said,
“Buenas noches.”
“Buenas noches.”
He closed his phone, kept his stride strong and steady.
Soon he heard hurried footsteps. Señorita Raven was behind him.
Capítulo 24
malos recuerdos
After La Rambla.
Medianoche had walked ten blocks with that nonstop clicking following him. He was at Cordoba, another street filled with bars, the promise of sex, another area filled with madness. A moment later the clicking heels of tango shoes were beside him. She moved at his hurried pace.
Medianoche crossed Cordoba. The clicking of high heels remained at his side.
“Mind slowing down, sir?”
“What the hell do you want now?”
“Did that have something to do with the package?”
“Classified information.”
“Well, then I think I should tell you something else.”
“What, soldier?”
“It’s about the waiter, sir.”
He asked, “What about the goddamn waiter?”
“I killed him.”
He stopped walking. Faced her. She had the throwaway .22 in her hand.
He growled, “I gave him a pass.”
“Well, I revoked that pass.” She dropped her .22 inside her purse and straightened her coat. “First, your ass could’ve told me you were about to kill a room filled with asshole racist U.S.-hating Italians. I would’ve left. You let me sit there while you were killing up the entire restaurant. I thought you were just drinking coffee and maybe looking for hookers or something.”
“Why in the hell did you kill the man?”
“How many women have this shit in their faces? How many have almost been blown up? You think the waiter didn’t see . . . this shit? I saw how he looked at me. He might’ve forgotten you, which I doubt very seriously, but I know for a fact that he never would forget my face. No one ever does. I have a face marked up by fucking frags. Who forgets seeing that shit? I act like I don’t know that, but I do. I see my reflection every day. Even the days I get dressed without looking in the mirror, I see my reflection. I can tell by the way people look at me. Like I’m some goddamn freak. Like I’m some kind of sideshow. So yeah, I took him out. I killed him. So the fuck what? Stop acting like a one-eyed prick.”
Medianoche took a deep breath, cold air fogging his breath.
What was done was done.
Taxis passed, water splashing underneath filthy tires. Buses passed, buses that looked twenty years old. People walked by, bundled up and attacking the cold, in search of a good time.
Señorita Raven said, “There was a cook hiding in the kitchen. Handled him too.”
Medianoche growled, a monster about to break its chains.
Medianoche walked. Señorita Raven walked with him and did her best to keep up.
She asked, “Do you tango as well as The Beast says you can tango?”
He felt her hand on his elbow, her touch gentle, ladylike. She slipped her arm though his. He stopped, moved her arm from his, frowned at her. The beauty marked by shrapnel.
“Quiero bailar.”
She smiled.
“Por favor?”
He felt his breathing thicken.
She brought her face close to his as if it were the start of their dance.
In her eyes he saw a chance to return to Montserrat.
He grabbed her, held her shoulders and pushed her inside the recessed opening to Notorious, pushed her up against the business’s dark glass door as taxis whizzed by, cars passed, and people walked on the opposite side of the street. He shoved her, made her back hit the door hard enough to knock the wind out of her body. He expected to hear her scream. Was ready for her to fight. She licked her lips and smiled. He grimaced at her. He was losing control. Losing goddamn control.
She whispered, “I can feel you.”
He yanked away from Señorita Raven, grabbed his fallen hat, put it on, and stumbled away, hurried up the avenue, pulled his coat over his erection. He hailed a Radio Taxi, climbed inside as fast as he could, left Señorita Raven standing on the filthy concrete.
He opened and closed his hand, made a fist over and over. Disturbed. She traumatized him. He took out his cellular. Dialed a number he hadn’t dialed in years. Area code 664.
The phone rang.
He knew Gracelyn was still there. She’d never leave her homeland. She had survived Hurricane Hugo in the ninth month of ’89. Then in the fourth month of ’96, she had survived the eruption of the Sou frière Hills Volcano that had devastated her birth land, destroyed her birth home in Plymouth. Lava and rocks had buried their capital city underneath forty feet of volcanic destruction, roads to the homes in the hillside wiped away, air polluted, rivers and golf courses erased and replaced by volcanic rubbish, two-thirds of her island uninhabitable. That was the Caribbean’s own version of a modern-day Pompeii. That had been their Katrina. Her home had been destroyed, but her love for Montserrat remained unconditional. Nothing could deter her love.
She answered on the third ring. Her voice heavy with both sleep and panic.
“Hello.”
He would recognize her voice in a crowd of thousands.
He heard her voice and at that moment he saw her as she was when he first met her, smiling, a black wrap around her hair, plain black sandals on her feet, wearing jeans that were cuffed up above her calves and a white T-shirt that had the image of Olaudah Equiano on the front. That was the conversation starter, him asking her about the image on the T-shirt.
Her voice, soft with an almost Irish accent. West Indies meets Ireland.
The most beautiful voice he’d ever heard. The sweetest song ever written.
She had told him that Olaudah Equiano was kidnapped as a child and enslaved, beaten until he answered to the name Gustavus Vassa, a slave who had been taken from Benin, taken to the West African coast, to Barbados, to the English colony of Virginia, to London, sold at Deptford, then taken to Montserrat. In Montserrat he bought his own freedom for forty British pounds.
Olaudah was her hero.
She repeated, “Hello.”
He was back in Montserrat with his third wife. A dark-haired virgin at the age of twenty-four. An unspoiled beauty, a woman who loved deeply. He had been the first man she had allowed to touch her in that way.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
He smiled, opened his mouth, almost said something.
The military had been about love for country, but loyalty stood high above love. That was not Gracelyn. An uncomplicated woman from an island that had no stoplights, no clubs, no town.
He had told her who he was. Had told her the things he had done.
She had looked at him with eyes filled with fear. Said she could not continue lying down with a man who had murdered people. Olaudah Equiano had survived the horrors of slavery, had suffered and reclaimed his freedom. She said she could suffer and survive the heart-break brought on by a man. She was deeper than the carnal aspect of the human comedy.
He had been run away, not by guns or bombs, but by the soft tears of a stubborn woman. A woman who cried as if she had been raped. The anguish. He remembered her goddamn pain.
“Hello. Who is this? Are you okay?”
Middle-of-the-night call, and she had answered with care and concern in her voice.
He managed, “Gracelyn . . . how are you?”
“I am fine. Who is this?”
The woman he loved didn’t recognize his voice.
He’d become a stranger to her. He no longer existed.
The knife twisted as it went deep.
He closed his flip phone. Closed it hard.
Capítulo 25
crueles e inusuales
Medianoche exited
the elevator, stepped back inside his condo.
His Tres Marías were waiting.
They all wore beautiful, long dresses, thigh-high slits up the sides. Tulip-hem crocheted dresses, accented with spot beads and fringe. The first María wore a red dress. The second María’s dress was black. The third María was dressed in blue. The scent of gentle perfumes, three scents that mixed into one.
The first María hurried to Medianoche, smiling. “
Yo quiero bailar
.”
She said that she wanted to dance.
The second and third Marías did the same. “
Nosotros también queremos bailar.”
Medianoche growled, went inside the bathroom, stared in the mirror, saw Gracelyn staring back, her image like smoke. He opened the medicine cabinet. Took out a small container. Unscrewed the top. Stared at the white powder. Tonight there was no hesitation. He put cocaine in the web of his hand. Snorted. Closed his eyes for a moment. Waited on that rush. Waited on the euphoric effect. Blood vessels constricted. Body temperature rose. Heartbeat accelerated. Fatigue was replaced by boundless energy. He reached inside the cabinet again. Took out the other small box. Ocular prosthesis. Opened the box. Stared at his faux eye. He removed his eye patch. Inserted the convex shell made of cryolite glass.
The prosthesis fit over his orbital implant and underneath his eyelid.
Ocular prosthesis in place, he left the bathroom.
The girl’s mouths dropped open. Three Spanish gasps. No words.