"I know that, Hector. But I am not ready for you yet. Contemplate the darkness and the pain more rigorously, if you please. Then I may blind you anyway, simply as punishment for your evil ways. That is, even after you spill the beans."
He raised the scalpel and Hector, seeing it through the eye not awash in blood, began to cry grotesquely.
"See," the captain said to Frankie in English. "The power of it. Really, it's amazing."
"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, that. Yeah, that's swell. Anyway, this hold on the beautiful girls? See, there's a big deal coming to America. It would be dirty pictures but in color. High quality, great lithography, glossy pages. And not just the melons. You know, all of it, the plumbing, the tunnels, the bush, all that stuff. Maybe eventually the fuck itself. If we could show it, man, the moolah would just roll in. We would have something there, let me tell you."
"Ah," said Captain Latavistada, "yes. Yes, that is very good. I like that. I had not thought of it. But, yes, the drugs, the girls in the brothels, some young and quite lovely, yes, I can see. Yes, there is potential there, too."
"Good," said Frankie. "See, I see a two-pronged thing but only one organization. That's the thing of it. By the same methods that you import, protect and distribute the drugs, you could do the same with the pictures."
"Yes, that's true. However, the drugs can be destroyed very quickly in a raid, while the pictures, being bulkier, would prove problematic. That's why initially the drugs seem a safer enterprise."
"We could solve the destruction problem with the pictures, then we'd be in good shape. I'm thinking, well, I'm no expert or nothing, but acid. Some kind of acid. Much faster and more complete than fire. I saw a guy once get a faceful of sulfuric. Man, not even Hector there would change places with that guy. Let me tell you, acid works fast."
"Hmmm," said Latavistada. "You may have something there." He looked at his watch. "Mother of god," he said, "how late. I have a meeting with a very beautiful young lady. You would excuse me, Senor Carbine."
"Frankie. You have to call me Frankie."
"Frankie, then."
"But what about―"
"Oh, that. Yes, of course."
He turned, and very quickly sliced through the eyeball of Hector, blinding him forever.
"Hector," he whispered, "tell me what I want to know."
Hector muttered something desperately through tears and snot and tremors and gasps for breath.
Latavistada nodded gravely.
"He says this Castro can be found generally at one of three coffeehouses in the afternoon, and he will give my man Eduardo the addresses of all his known supporters. Tomorrow we may intercept this Castro in any of a dozen places. It's not to be any kind of problem, my friend."
"You work very professionally."
"I mean to impress upon you that Cubans are precise and motivated and capable, not lazy, sombrero-wearing peons like the Mexicans. It's our truer, richer, purer Spanish blood. Now, as I say, I must go. I have a date at the country club."
Chapter 28
It was a quiet night at the little bar called La Bodeguita del Medio. The first wave of johns had gone off with the first wave of marias, the gamblers hadn't won or lost enough to come to celebrate or drink themselves into oblivion, no marine regiments or naval crews were on liberty, and so Earl sat alone, under a slowly spinning fan that looked like the prop on a Wildcat, and contemplated the bottle.
It lured him.
It beckoned him.
He didn't want to give in.
It sat before him on the bar, in the darkness, glinting magically, promising so much.
Fuck it, he said, and gave in.
He swallowed half with one swig, sucking greedily.
"Doesn't it go down better with something to drink?" asked someone next to him.
Earl set the aspirin bottle down before him, took a long swallow on a concoction he called a ginless-and-tonic and washed the dry, scratchy feel of the tablets from his throat.
"Yes," he said. "It does."
"How's the wound?"
"It hurts like hell."
"Why don't you take something stronger?"
"Boy, do I want to. But if I do, three weeks later I wake up in Shanghai with a Chinese wife, seven kids, four sets of grandparents and six new tattoos."
"Ah," said the man, "you are such a creature of discipline-the secret, I suppose, of your many excellent accomplishments."
Earl didn't have to look, but he did anyway. The man was still thin and papery, with dry skin, sharp, hard, bright eyes, a gray crewcut, dressed in a baggy suit.
"The last time I saw you, you was selling vacuum cleaners. What was the name then?"
"Actually, I've forgotten. I sometimes grow hazy on details."
"I think it was Wormer or Wormhold or Wormgeld."
"That sounds like something I'd come up with."
"Vurmoldt. Yeah, Acme Vacuums or some such. Maybe Ajax. Of Nebraska."
"I wonder where I got the Nebraska from? There can't be any vacuum cleaner companies in Nebraska, can there?"
"Wouldn't know."
"You're certain you're not drinking anything with alcohol in it? I rather enjoy the blur at the end of a busy day of selling vacuum cleaners. I'd be pleased to buy you one."
"I'd be pleased to accept one from you tonight and damned tomorrow. That's how it is. Sorry, but I do appreciate the offer. Anyhow, I should buy you one. I think I owe you one."
"Very well. I will have a mojito. This place is famous for its mojitos. Movie stars come here for the mojitos."
Earl got out a wad of bills, hailed the bartender and ordered another ginless-and-tonic for himself and a mojito for the gent on the next stool.
The two men watched the ritual as the waiter crushed sugar and rum and mint sprigs together, added lots of rum, a little spritz water, a few ice cubes, and, to top it off, still more rum, puncturing it with a straw. Then he added a little American flag on a toothpick before handing it over.
"Why, how patriotic," the vacuum salesman said. "Here's to the U.S. of A.!" and he took a nice long draught through the straw.
"I do like a man who enjoys his drinking," said Earl. "You know what, I am glad I ran into you. Here, take a look at this."
Earl reached into his pocket and came out with a brass casing less than an inch long. He set it on the tile of the bar.
"Now what do you suppose that little thing is?" he asked.
"Why, could it be from a gun?"
"You know, I believe it is."
"Guns are very dangerous, you know."
"So I've heard. Anyhow, it took some digging, but I finally figured out this came from a Soviet PPsH 41 tommy gun. It's in 7.63mm."
"A commie tommy! How alarming!"
"Yep. The commiest tommy there is. Anyhow, the other day I was busy getting killed. Seems some feller didn't like me and he was about to part my hair with an automatic. Suddenly he goes all swiss-cheesy. Someone stitched him six times with that commie tommy. Then, before he could fall, he stitched him six times again."
"Ah! Well, one can hardly miss with those guns, I'd imagine."
"Actually, it ain't so damned easy. Most folks, they squeeze the trigger and the gun runs away on them. They miss the target but redecorate the room. I had a gun something like that in the war; they're pretty hard to master."
"Your point is?"
"Whoever saved my bacon knows how to shoot. Has been around a long time. Knows infantry weapons, the way a soldier would. Would that fit you?"
"Ah, well," said the man. "One hates to tell stories on oneself. I learned some of those skills recently. If I recall correctly, it was called World War II."
"Yep, believe I heard of that one. You said you was in the German army."
"Did I? Well, possibly I meant a European army. There are so many countries over there, one can hardly keep them all straight."