Sailor & Lula (17 page)

“I remember.”

“She gave me a box of Kotex sanitary napkins and a can of cunt spray and said, ‘More of each of these will be on the second shelf of your bathroom closet.' ”

“So she never discussed anything?”

“Get real. My mother would drop dead if she knew half of what I've done.”

“Mine, too, probably, even though she's such a slut herself.”

“Come on, I need to get some boots to go with that cowgirl skirt Kristin gave me.”

“Sounds good. Oh, do you have your credit cards? Mummy took mine away for a month and I might see something I like.”

“Yeah, no prob.”

Perdita watched the two girls as they walked out of the coffee shop. Neither of them was more than twelve years old. Both had long blond hair, wore tight, short, black skirts, expensive-looking blouses and large gold hoop earrings. Perdita felt for a moment like stabbing them each in the back and chest and throat dozens of times. She imagined their blood running black, dripping down their smooth golden legs. Just as suddenly the feeling passed, and she forgot about them.

That evening, when Perdita was driving along Tres Sueños, she saw two little girls, eight or nine years old, sitting on the lowered tailgate of a parked pickup truck, petting a fuzzy brown puppy. One of the little girls had long, dark hair cut into bangs in front; she reminded Perdita of herself when she was that age. This sight made Perdita sad because it made her think also of her twin sister, Juana, who was dead. Juana had been shot and killed by her husband, Tony, who was drunk, during an argument. Tony had then murdered his and Juana's two daughters before putting the gun in his own mouth and blowing off the top of his skull. Perdita missed Juana, and her nieces, Consuelo and Concha, too. She guessed she might forever. Tony she always could have lived without.

When Perdita first saw Romeo Dolorosa she thought he was very ugly. He was drinking a papaya milkshake at an outdoor fruitstand on Magazine Street in New Orleans. She ordered a large orange juice and avoided looking at him, staring across the street at a Shoetown. When she turned back to pay, the fruitstand operator, a bent-backed, dark gray man of indeterminate age or race, said, “The gentleman there already done, sweet thing.”

“It's your lucky day, señorita,” said Romeo. “And mine, perhaps, too.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” asked Perdita. “I don't need a new friend.”

Romeo laughed. “Oh, but you do,” he said, and laughed again. “What a charming manner you have, Señorita Spitfire. Are you the daughter of Lupe Velez? My name is Romeo Dolorosa.”

Perdita looked more closely at Romeo. He was really quite handsome, she realized, with long, wavy black hair, deep brown skin and blue eyes; perhaps an inch under six feet tall, but substantial looking. He had beautifully shaped, very muscular arms that tapered gracefully down from the short sleeves of his blue and red Hawaiian shirt. It was odd, Perdita thought, that her first impression of him was so unflattering. She wondered what she had seen in Romeo to have made him appear that way.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she said. “Thank you for the orange juice. My name is Perdita Durango. Who is Lupe Velez?”

“Better, much better. Lupe Velez was an actress, a movie star from Mexico sixty years ago, who was famous for her hot temper.”

“Why should I have reminded you of her? You don't know me.”

“I am trying to make a beginning. Please, I apologize for my presumptuous behavior. Do you live in New Orleans, Perdita?”

“I've only arrived this afternoon. I'm looking around.”

Romeo nodded and smiled broadly. He had very large white teeth.

“If you will allow me to buy you dinner,” he said. “I'll be happy to show you the town.”

As Perdita sipped the orange juice through a straw, she raised her 8-ball black eyes to Romeo's, smiled, and nodded slowly.

“Now we're getting somewhere,” he said.

At Mosca's that evening, Romeo asked Perdita if she knew what a “resurrection man” was. She shook her head no.

“A hundred years ago and more,” said Romeo, “doctors at medical colleges paid men to rob graves, mostly in nigger cemeteries, and deliver the corpses to them to be used for dissection by students. The doctors soaked the bodies in whisky to preserve them. It wasn't until almost the twentieth century that laws were changed to permit dissection of humans.”

“Why you tellin' me this?” asked Perdita, licking salad dressing off her fork.

Romeo grinned. “Science is everything,” he said. “The most important thing, anyway. Often it's necessary to go against what is the popular thinking to achieve discoveries. I think about things this way, scientifically. There's nothing I would not do for science.”

“About those people saw the Virgin Mary at Tickfaw?” asked Perdita. “And the woman in Lubbock took the photo of St. Peter at the gates of heaven? How's science deal with that?”

“Need funds to research,” Romeo said. “Like the $1,925 some fundraiser withdrew without permission this morning from the First National Bank of St. Bernard's Parish on Friscoville Street in Arabi. Science needs money, just like everything else.”

“You tellin' me you're a grave robber or a bank robber? I ain't totally clear.”

Romeo laughed and stuck a fork into his stuffed catfish.

“Scientists gotta eat, too,” he said.

“I knew a guy once named Bobby Peru,” said Perdita. “You know, like the country? Thought he was a bad dude, and he was, kinda. Coulda helped us out here, I think, but he got himself killed.”

“Know what soothes me?” Romeo said.

Perdita laughed. “Yeah, I sure do.”

“That, too,” said Romeo. “But I like to read the weather reports in the newspaper. Like for other places than where I am. ‘Ten below with snow flurries in Kankakee.' ‘Fifty-nine and raining in Tupelo.' Never fails. Calms me.”

Perdita Durango and Romeo Dolorosa were sitting facing each other in a bathtub filled with smoky gray warm water in the Del Rio Ramada. Romeo was fondling an H. Upmann New Yorker and flicking the ash into the bathwater.

“Wish you wouldn't do that,” said Perdita.

Romeo laughed. “Why not? Keeps away the evil spirits, don't it?” He laughed again, showing off his perfect Burt Lancaster teeth.

“How long you suppose these guys are gonna go for this voodoo shit, Romeo? They ain't all all the way stupid.”

“Makes you say that? Could they might be. Besides, it ain't voodoo, neither.
Santería, chiquita.
That's hocus-pocus, Latin-style. But you're right, we gotta do somethin's gonna make 'em pay better attention.”

“I know what'll do it,” Perdita said.

“Yeah?”

Perdita nodded, her thin black eyebrows uncoiling like cobras. “Kill somebody and eat him.”

“You mean like cannibals.”

“Sure,” she said. “Nothin' can be more horrible than that. It'll stick in their brain.”

Romeo laughed and puffed on his cigar.

“You bet it will, okay,” he said. “Stick to their ribs, too.”

Perdita smiled and tickled Romeo's penis under the water with the big toe of her right foot. The cobras on her forehead flattened out like reptiles on a rock in the sun.

“You know how to help a man in both mind
and
body,
mi corazón
. What I like about you. It's the good life, okay.”

“Let's do it tomorrow,” Perdita said.

At three-thirty in the morning Romeo woke up and lit the half of the cigar he'd left in the ashtray on the table next to the bed. The smoke woke Perdita up.

“What's the matter, hon?” she said. “Can't sleep?”

“Thinkin'.”

“Anything in particular?”

Perdita had her eyes closed; her long black hair was strewn across her face.

“Once read about how just before the Civil War ended, rebel soldiers buried the treasury of the Confederacy within one hundred paces of the railroad tracks between McLeansville and Burlington, North Carolina.”

“How come nobody's dug it up?”

“Good question. It was all gold coins kept in iron cooking pots. Some farmer found one of 'em, but there's supposed to be about fifty million dollars worth still in the ground there. Somethin' to think about.”

“For after we get done here, maybe.”

Perdita fell back asleep. Romeo finished off most of the Upmann, imagining himself overseeing a crew of his disciples digging up pots of gold along a stretch of railroad tracks next to a tobacco field. The disciples could then be shot and buried in the holes. This was not impossible, he decided.

Perdita woke up and turned on the radio. She lay in bed listening to the news with her eyes closed.

“Finally,” said the broadcaster, “from China today comes the announcement that seventeen convicted felons were sentenced to death and executed before a crowd of thirty thousand people at a stadium in the southern city of Guangzhou. The public trials and executions were carried out, according to the
Legal Daily
newspaper, ‘in order to allow the masses to celebrate a stable Chinese Lunar New Year.' How's that for Southern justice, folks?”

Perdita switched it off. She looked over at Romeo, who was still asleep. His mouth was open and his mustache drooped over his upper lip, the long black hairs fluttering as he snored. Romeo might be part Chinese, thought Perdita. The way his face hairs hung so limp, not like on Mexicans. Or Spanish, she reminded herself. Romeo insisted on identifying himself as Spanish, no belly-crawling Indian blood in
his
veins. Perdita snickered. No matter what Romeo said, he didn't look like no white man. He even talked like a Chinaman sometimes, so fast you couldn't follow what he was saying.

They were heading back to the ranch today, which was good. She needed to build a new altar for the sacrifice. This would be something different, really special. Not like with the chickens and goats or dogs. Romeo was a good organizer, he knew how to get the shit across the border, how to get the money. Perdita smiled, thinking about the one time Romeo had tried to smoke marijuana himself. He'd gotten dizzy and had to lie down until his head cleared. Wouldn't touch the stuff for nothing now. That was cool, though, she figured. The dope didn't get in the way of doing business. Perdita made a mental note to buy more candles, they were almost out. Also some grain alcohol. They could use a new sledgehammer, too.

Perdita stuck the index finger of her right hand into Romeo's mouth and pushed down on his tongue. He gagged, coughed hard, and sat up.

“What!? What the fuck?” he said, and worked at clearing his throat.

“Vamonos,”
said Perdita. “We got lots to do today.”

Caribe 2.14.1989

 

Hello Romeo.

Jest these few lines to let you know that everything at your house is fine. Well Mr Dolorosa sir there is a tolk out in Caribe that you wants to sell your house. People had been asking me about the sale on the house but all I can do is to gave them your phone number so that they can call you and talk with you about it. Well I hope that you will bee back some day jest so that the people wood stop tolking so much shit. Mr Romeo this time I had seed some bad days because in December my dorie brook down cood not even get out to fish can't fine no woor here and most of the time I wood only eat one male per day. So last month the lady at Caribe Keys that bys the fish seant me up her boat so that I can make some money but the first week out fishing was good but the monny was so small. She gets half of the monny an the other half is in between me and another. Look the first 4 days we sold 1,500 Caribe dollar and so far we cant get out for the winds the winds has been from 10 to 20 knots from the eastnortheast an from east for allmost two months that my boddy can get out to fish. I had been a little sick the last pass few week so I went to an Amarican docter here an he told me that my boddy was ran down a lot so he put me on some toneck a madacen and I feale a little better these last few days. But Nelmy had been on an off with her Hedakes. Well yesterday school open for the kids but Alix had healp us a lot with them gatten them most of what they need. Kenny want even come down so that I can get a few days woor with him I jest dont know watt I will do if this wind dont stop I needs to get out fishing for atlest one more week before you gets here. Mr Rome Nelmy sent to say hello an she hopes that you is fine an she wants you to tell Perdi hello for her. And not to forget her T-V. Mr Dolorosa sir I dont know for shore but some people was saying that Rocky James was senten to jail for 20 years an if Reggie San Pedro Sula ever came back to Caribe he wood go to jail for 15 years. Well the people was at first was saying that you and Mr San Pedro Sula wood go to jail when you ever all got back from the USA but
Mr Reggie was here about a week ago and he did not have any problem at all. Mr Romeo if I was you I wood keep away from Reggie San Pedro Sula ontell everything is normal again. Virgil Fredrex is a little up set because Woody Hall took all of his stuff out of the room on the hill an carid it down to his house that is about all for know ontell another Mr Rome take good care Love from my hole fam Nelmy Danito Chonge Nansy Branny and my sister an brothers mom & dad Your good fren

 

Danny Mestiza

“Do you think some people are born wanting to travel?” Romeo asked.

“Or do you figure it's a kind of thing comes over you?”