Earl bent close.
"Now, sir, I'd stay down. You could get hurt. I can use either my left or my right to work jabs into your middle and then knock you into 1965 with the other. I'll kill your guts so your hands quit and when they die, I'll kill your head. I don't want to go to no prison for breaking your jaw or nothing. You just stay put, and have a good laugh along with the rest of the folks."
The man just glared at him, but made no move to get up.
Earl stood, turned to the exotic woman and said, "You know, let's get you that cab."
"Excellent idea," she said.
They walked out hastily, pushing through the crowd that parted to let them by, turned left at the sidewalk, and soon separated entirely from La Floridita, down another nameless street, also choked with bars and people.
"Who are you?" she said.
"You wouldn't know the name. I'm nobody. Earl Swagger," he replied.
"Oh!" She leaned back and appraised him. "The bodyguard. Yes, that's who you'd be, all right. You're the big hero. Everybody says you're joining the bright young men on the third floor."
"I don't know what that means," Earl said.
"Oh, you can't keep secrets here, in a little town like this one. Really, I'd have thought you're a little straight-ahead for those boys. They think they're really clever. I wouldn't get too close to them. Roger's all right, but that creepy little assistant of his? I hate the way he pretends like he's not paying attention but you can see him writing everything down in his subconscious."
"Thank you for the advice."
"And I have to know. You really didn't know who that man was?"
"No."
"Mr. Swagger, you are priceless. Really, I love it. Served him right, the blowhard. Hemingway. The writer. Famous, rich. He's a big fisherman and game hunter."
"Seems I've heard the name," said Earl, trying to place it, "but I can't say where. Shotguns, is that it? He's some kind of shotgun expert."
"I'm sure he is. Well, you made him look foolish."
"I can't worry about that. He made himself look foolish." Earl scanned the street for a cab. "Look, there's one. Cab! Cabbie!"
His command voice got through the babble and the cab pulled over.
Earl escorted her to it, opened the rear door.
"There you go," he said.
"You're not even going to buy me a drink or wait for me to invite you over?"
"Ma'am, I probably got myself in enough trouble back there. I don't need no other tonight."
"No, I think the little boys you play with will think you're really cool. Not that you care. That's what I like about you, Mr. Swagger. You really don't care what people think, do you?"
"To be honest, no, I guess I don't, ma'am."
She reached in her purse, and pulled out a card.
"Please don't call me ma'am. I'm not your great aunt. I'm Jean-Marie Augustine. I manage the TWA office here in town; my husband's a pilot, not that he's ever here. Anyway, this is a dangerous town, Mr. Swagger. I'm giving you my card. If you need a friend, you give me a call. I know people, I can make phone calls, I speak Spanish like it's my own language, because it is my own language. I can help you."
"Thank you," he said, "but I'm not planning on staying around long."
She laughed.
"That's what I said when I got here ten years ago. Good night, Mr. Swagger."
"Goodnight, Mrs. Augustine."
"By the way, you belong on this street. This is the street where you live."
"My street?"
"Yes, look."
She gestured to a painted sign on a building front right at the corner that identified the thoroughfare: Calle Virtudes, it said.
"Kai-yay Ver-tude-ez," she said hard and fast, with a particularly forceful roll to the R's of Verrr-tude-ez.
"What?"
"It's the street where you live. I can tell."
"I don't get it."
"In English, it's Virtue Street."
She smiled, closed the door and the taxi rolled away.
Chapter 32
"You go in back. If you see him, kill him. Shoot him many times. Stand over him and fill him with bullets. I will do the same from here."
"Uh, you want signals or anything, Ramon?"
"We don't need no fucking signals. Come on, my friend, let's go kill something big."
In hunting frenzy, Captain Latavistada seemed to change character entirely. His brow sweated, his skin radiated heat and sweat, he trembled with anticipation. It was not at all that he was scared; it was that he was so happy. He seemed about to slide into a state of slaughter glee so intense that all other things were closed out. It was as if he didn't really remember who Frankie was. He just wanted to close on the prey and kill it hard.
"Vamos, amigo!" he barked at Frankie, who had never heard that tone of voice from his new colleague before, but recognized it as something rare and valuable. It meant Ramon was more than a mere torturer; he was the rare man who loved battle.
Frankie looked at the Star machine pistol in his hands, not that he had any idea how to run it. As machine pistols go, it seemed to have more knurled knobs and levers than it needed. But weren't they all pretty much the same? You point, you squeeze, you squirt, and something has a whole lot of holes in it fast. He'd done the same work in the French bookstore in Times Square, with a gun just as strange, so he felt loaded for bear, his own heart going thumpathump, as he headed alongside the house just as Captain Latavistada, with the big light machine gun, headed up the walk.
Frankie got around back, and thank god there were no kids, no dog, no maid-no horse. Shit like that got in the way. He climbed up on a patio, unsure what to do, and squatted for just a second under the canopy of a lush palm, amid ornate wrought-iron furniture, aware of the sun, the heat, the perfume of the flowers, the buzz of insects. Before him were two screen doors which led into separate sections of the house. He tried to decide which to go through when choice was taken from him and he jumped in surprise. For whatever reason, Captain Latavistada suddenly opened up, and the roar of the gun, even on the other side of the house, was deafening.
Castro enjoyed the second half of the cigar more than the first half; that's where the buzz was, and it loosened tiny vibrations in his head. He lay back, naked, and watched the smoke drift and curl above him. It was the smoke of history, drifting this way or that, and only a strong man could make it obey him. He had that strength. He had known for some time. It was evident in the way others respected him and yearned for his attention and his command authority. It was evident when he spoke, and the words magically appeared in front of him, and he had the crowd and could mold it to his wishes, make it a violent animal or a weeping mother. It was evident in the way that he always won his debates and could ever so quickly assemble facts into an argument with an iron will, unassailable, imperturbable, as solid as a force of nature. It was evident in the way he saw swiftly into the heart of things, to their absolute center, and could master complex systems like Marxism in mere hours, sharpening them to the chisel point of their truth, and then seeing exactly how they would be applied in practical situations. He had never met anyone like himself, or anyone who could stand up to him or mother of jesus have mercy on your poor sinner lord Jesus look after me for I have sinned please dear lord do not end my days on earth here in this place though I am unworthy and―
The thunder of explosions, so loud it paralyzed him, became the dominant feature in his universe. There was nothing else. As he prayed, he lay frozen while the percussions intermingled with the roar of carnage as the atmosphere of the house was savaged, and filled with chaos and fear. His fear. He quaked, he froze, he whimpered, he prayed, he almost shit. Then it was silent. He heard clicks, scrapings, the heavy breathing of physical effort. He sensed his enemy, his would-be assassin, very close. Then the wall above his head exploded, spraying him with plaster dust and wood scraps, like the blast of a high-pressure hose. And the noise at that precise moment was momentous. In fact the whole world was turning monstrously unstable, as across the room, where Senora Fugolensia had pictures of the Holy Mother as well as herself, her husband and assorted relatives, that too began to dissolve or dance, pulverized into a mist of plaster dust, torn wood, what have you.