Sailor & Lula (21 page)

Romeo heard the car coming. He tossed away his cigarette and waited, listening for half a minute as the engine noise grew louder. The long, black car pulled off the highway across from Romeo and came to a dusty stop. The motor idled and Reggie got out of the back seat, closed the door behind him, and walked over to Romeo.

“Hola, primo,”
Reggie said.
“Que tal?”

“You tell me,” said Romeo, as they shook hands.

Reggie was very tall, at least four or five inches over six feet, and heavyset. He was about fifty years old, his skin was the color of milk chocolate, and he wore a lavender leisure suit. His bald head reflected the moonlight. It was odd, Romeo thought, for Reggie not to be wearing a porkpie rain hat. In fact, Romeo could not recall a time he'd seen Reggie without a hat, other than when he went to sleep, since he'd lost most of his hair.

“I think I let the man, Señor Santos, tell you himself,” said Reggie. “It's a good deal, a fair arrangement, you'll see.”

Reggie smiled broadly, revealing his numerous gold teeth.

“There must be some danger in it, though,” said Romeo, “for him to get you off the island.”

Reggie gave a brief laugh. “There is usually some danger involved, is there not?” he said. “Though the man needs me for another matter, for where we are heading from here.”

“I see. And how is everyone back home? Danny Mestiza wrote to me that Rocky James got a double sawbuck in the joint.”

“Oh, yes, but he's out now again. I think for good. There was some irregularity but Señor Santos was able to clear it up for him. Halcyan an' Rigoberto is fine an' healthy. The money you sent helped out very good. I talk very strong about you to Señor Santos so he would consider you for this job.”

“What is the job?”

“You come to the car an' he tell it himself. Remember you don't call him ‘Crazy Eyes.' He don't like it when he see it in the newspaper, how they do just to annoy him.”

Romeo climbed down, walked across the road and got into the back seat of the Mercedes-Benz limousine. Reggie closed the door and stood outside. A soft light was on inside the car. Marcello Santos had a drink in his right hand, three fingers of his favorite single malt Scotch whisky, Glenmorangie. He was wearing a dark gray suit with a blue shirt and a red tie; a pair of black Cole-Haan loafers, with tassels, and red, blue and yellow argyle socks; two-dollar drugstore sunglasses with bright yellow frames; and a large gold or diamond ring on each finger of both hands, excluding his thumbs, one of which was missing. He had a brownish-black, curly toupee glued to his head; some mucilage had trickled onto his forehead and dried there. Santos was sixty-eight years old and had ruled organized crime in the southern and southwestern United States for a quarter-century without ever having been convicted of either a felony or a misdemeanor.

“
Buona notte
, Mr. Dolorosa. Romeo,” said Santos, extending his left hand, the one minus a thumb, as would the Pope or a princess. “Good to see you again.”

Romeo squeezed the fingers.

“It is always my pleasure,” he said.

“This is somewhat of an unusual place to meet, I know, Romeo, but as we are on our way to another meeting, and I hate to fly, I thought it would be the most expedient. I'm glad you could come.”

“It's no problem, Marcello, in any case.”

“
Bene.
Your cousin, Reginald, speaks well of you, you know. He tells me you take care of your family and friends back on the island. It's commendable of you.”

“I do what I can.”

Santos nodded and sipped his Scotch whisky.

“Would you like a drink, Romeo?”

“No, thank you. I am driving, and it's very late.”

“Yes, all right. Here is my proposal. It is very simple. There will be a truck here at this spot forty-eight hours from now, a refrigerated truck, accompanied by a car. The truck will be loaded with human placentas to be used in the cosmetics industry. They are blended in skin creams that some people think can keep them looking young. Maybe it does, maybe not. I don't know. This load must be delivered as soon as possible to a private laboratory in Los Angeles. I would like you to drive the truck there for me. That way I know the shipment will be in good hands. The driver of the truck will turn it over to you, should you decide to do this, and leave in the accompanying automobile. All you have to do is deliver it to the address in Los Angeles that this man will give you. I have ten thousand dollars for you now, in old bills, fifties and hundreds. When you arrive safely in 3L.A., your cousin, Reggie, will be there to give you another ten thousand dollars, also in old bills, and in similar denominations.”

“Why don't you just have Reggie drive the truck?”

“I need him with me for a situation between now and when the delivery must be made. He'll fly to California as soon as this other business is finished. Can you do this?”

Romeo nodded. “Certainly, Marcello. I am glad to help you however I can.”

Santos took off the cheap yellow sunglasses and looked at Romeo. His eyes were grayish-green with large red pupils that jumped and shimmied like flames. Crazy eyes. Despite himself, Romeo shivered.

“Bene! Molto bene!”
said Santos, patting Romeo on the knee with the four fingers on his left hand. He put the sunglasses back on and drank the remainder of his whisky.

Santos flipped open a panel in the floor and took out a package and held it out to Romeo.

“
Buona fortuna, amico mio,”
said Santos. “Remember always that God and I, we both are with you.”

Romeo accepted the package.

“I won't forget,” he said.

When Adolfo unlocked the shed door, the boy, even though he was blindfolded, looked up, his head cocked toward the noise. His mouth was gagged with a black rag, his hands tied behind his back and his feet bound together with heavy clothesline. He made no sound.

“Tiene años?”
asked Romeo.

“Diez,”
said Adolfo. “Perdita made the choice.”

“What do you know of his family?”

Adolfo shrugged. “A poor one, like most of those in Zopilote. He is one of four brothers, I think. Maybe two or three sisters. Perdita said it must be a boy. Maybe they don't even miss him.”

“Is Perdita here?”

Adolfo nodded. “Preparing for the ceremony.”

“Have you notified the others?”

“Everyone will assemble at ten o'clock. Carlos and Teresa are coming from Mexico City.”

“What about the DeLeon family? And the Acostas?”

“No word from Jorgé Acosta, but all of them are notified.”

Romeo turned to go, then looked back at the boy.

“Do you know his name?” he asked.

“He is nothing special. His name is Juan.”

“
Oiga, Juanito,”
said Romeo. “At ten o'clock tonight you will become immortal. Do you know what that means?”

The boy did not move. Romeo noticed the dark stain that ran all the way down the boy's left pantsleg. In the dirt next to his bare left foot was a wet spot the size of a dinner plate.

“It is no matter,” Romeo said.

“This is something an ordinary man can never know. You will enter the House of Dreams, Juanito, where you will live forever. Your mother and father and sisters and brothers, your grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, all you will greet in their dreams. And only you, among them, will be safe.”

Romeo went out and Adolfo followed, closed the door and locked it.

“So, it's agreed, then. After this we drive to L.A. for Santos.”

“I always wanted to see California,” said Perdita.

“Duane and I can take turns drivin' the truck, and you and Estrellita can handle the Cherokee.”

“How soon does Santos want it there?”

“Fast as possible. He's not paying me twenty thousand dollars to stop and take a donkey ride through the Grand Canyon. Get what things you want to take together now and put 'em in the Jeep. I want to be ready to go.”

Perdita was painting her toenails shocking pink. Her cunt itched but she knew Romeo wouldn't fuck her, never before a big show. That's how she thought of it, as a performance, like in the circus. She'd only seen a circus once, when she was six years old in Corpus. It was a small troupe, about a half-dozen wagons; one tent, one ring. They'd had an unusual attraction: an albino tiger. Perdita and her older sister, Juana, had stood in front of the cage and watched the beautiful white beast pace back and forth without stopping. Every thirty seconds or so, the tiger would utter a low growl, a lugubrious, slow rumble that seemed to unravel as it hit the air. This noise, Perdita felt, came from extremely deep within the animal, that he was just waiting for the proper moment to release his real feelings, his frustration and wounded pride. At that time his roar would be so deafening, so powerful that the people within aural reach would be paralyzed by fear, and the giant white cat would pounce on them and eat them up.

For weeks after the circus left town, Perdita had dreamed about the tiger. He would stand over her, straddling her lithe girl's body, then pin her to the ground with his paws, his saliva dripping down on her face, before slowly, carefully taking her head into his huge mouth and crushing it with one big bite. This dream did not frighten Perdita. It gave her a warm feeling. The tiger's mouth, she imagined, would be hot and wet, the enormous teeth, gleaming like polished swords, piercing her skin and
bones cleanly, painlessly. And then the tiger would chew her, separating Perdita into smaller and smaller parts, until finally, when the beast had swallowed everything, she would wake up.

Perdita had told this dream to only one person in her life, an old man named Pea Ridge Day, who pumped gas in the Green Ace filling station in Corpus. Perdita and Juana would go there to buy grape NeHi sodas from the machine, and Pea Ridge, who was usually just sitting in his red flamingo chair, would talk to them. He told the girls that people called him Pea Ridge because he'd been born in Pea Ridge, Arkansas, but that his Christian names were Clyde and Henry. He said that when he'd been a younger man he'd pitched in the National League for St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Brooklyn, whenever they were. Pea Ridge claimed he'd left a note to his wife and kids thirty years before, saying that he was going off into the Ozarks to commit suicide, but instead he hitchhiked down to Texas, where, as Perdita and Juana could plainly see, he was still very much alive. After Perdita told Pea Ridge Day her dream, he stopped talking to her as much, and one morning, when she and Juana went to the Green Ace station for a grape Nehi, he was gone. Perdita decided that Pea Ridge had probably gone back to Arkansas to see his family before he really died. She never absolutely believed that his disappearance was connected in any way to her having told him her dream, but Perdita decided then and there not to tell anyone else about it just the same.

“That sound all right to you, honey?” Romeo asked.

Perdita blew on her toes.

“You know me, baby. I travel light.”

“We live on one side of the river, the side of the Great Light. On the other side of the river, the side of the Great Night, is where we must go. We must cross over the river into the Great Night so that we may gain power to live. We must cross over and cross back. We must replenish our power over others, over our enemies, over the ones who would keep us in pain, in sorrow, in misery. This is the Truth, the one Known Truth, and it will keep us alive, keep us strong, enable us to devour our enemy before he devours us.”

Romeo stood alone in the middle of the room, his eyes closed, his head tilted back. In front of him was an altar surrounded by flickering candles, the only light in the room. On the floor around the circle of light were strewn dozens of crosses, costume jewelry, framed pictures of the saints, dog, cat, cattle and chicken bones, bird feathers, strips of black material, balls of hair, safety pins, saucers filled with milk, silver and gold coins, and pieces of paper with names written on them.

There were approximately sixty people crowded into the room, staring at Romeo or sitting still with their eyes closed, concentrating, listening. Closest to the altar, seated on the floor, were Perdita, Estrellita and Duane. Perdita embraced herself and swayed gently, slowly. Estrellita and Duane held hands level with their waists, their upper arms bound tight to their bodies by clothesline, their eyelids taped open so that they were unable even to blink.

Adolfo sat to the left and slightly to the rear of Romeo, keeping a steady beat with his hands on both sides of an hourglass drum. Romeo shuddered, his body quivering, then undulating, twisting and turning snakelike, and he began to moan. As he moaned louder and his movements became more spasmodic, others in the room moaned and moved their bodies, gyrating and jerking uncontrollably. The temperature in the already close room became hellish. Sweat poured off the faces of the witnesses, as it did down the forehead and cheeks and bare arms of Romeo Dolorosa, the
nanigo,
the
santero,
the magician, the High Priest of the Goat Without Horns Ceremony.

Romeo opened his eyes and looked around the room. His eyes grew large, then very large, the pupils dilating so that they filled the iris. He began to tremble, to shake more violently now, his eyes bugging out, swelling hideously, seemingly about to burst from his head. His body puffed up like a gigantic mosquito sucking blood from a baby. Adolfo beat harder on the drum, humming and moaning tunelessly, as did most of the witnesses.