He knew enough to know he was being fired upon by someone with a large automatic gun. He wanted to be far away and hiding his face in his mother's bosom. But then his reflexes took over, he rolled to the floor and began to crawl for the far exit as another raking burst sawed its rough way through the room.
The captain kicked open the doorway. The gun was like a mystical lance in his hand, yearning to express his contempt for the soft bourgeoisie world that hadn't the spine to do what must be done, which sentimentalized revolution and found it fascinating, which adored the deviant, the non-pious, the arriviste. All his pathologies were gloriously astir and his loins burned with fervor. He needed to crush, to kill, to obliterate, to establish his primacy. He desperately needed an enemy.
What he found was a dumpy naked woman whose titties sagged, who had a plump belly above her bush, who ate a piece of toast in the kitchen and looked at him with utter bewilderment. Had she shown fear he might have let her live but it angered him that she did not immediately yield to his magnificence, so he cut her in half with the Mendoza 7mm, emptying a whole magazine into her. Blood flew everywhere, a hurricane of the stuff, spraying wall and kitchen appliances and tabletops and floor with equal disdain.
Amazing how quickly a twenty-round box will use itself up. Quickly, he ejected the spent magazine from the top of the weapon, pulled another out of his pocket, slammed it home, and pivoted with the heavy weapon-eighteen pounds, its bipod wavering as it swung-and fired another magazine into the center of the house.
The destruction was magnificent. The gun was a god. Wherever he pointed it, the world erupted as if by a volcano's fury, and things disintegrated or danced or simply vaporized. The atmosphere filled with dust and smoke. A pipe shattered and water spurted out of the walls. It was as if the house itself were bleeding. Empty shells cascaded out of the hot gun, littering the floor. It was a profound experience for the captain to be the humble bringer of such grief to a world.
Jesus Cristo, no more ammo. Again, the thing was like a wet dog, that just shook itself empty in one spasm. Laboriously, he dropped to one knee-his shoulder ached-opened the latch that ran along the top of the receiver next to the magazine well, popped out the magazine, pulled another from his pocket, inserted it till the latch clicked, then reached forward along the barrel and pulled and released the bolt with a snappity-snap-snap.
He rose. Now where was this cabrone, eh? Where had this little puppy fled to? Come to papa, little boy. Papa has a present for you. Come ahead, my son. I have a nice surprise for you.
God, is he done shooting? wondered Frankie. He had no desire to get nailed by his good friend the captain, who seemed to have gone a little screwball with the machine gun. He was blasting everything. That's how these people did it, they just waded in and started whacking. But Frankie saw himself catching a stitch of eleven or so slugs up the gut and bleeding out under palm trees, far from New York's grit, him with all his big plans and new possibilities. That he did not want.
So he hung back, content to let the captain do the massacring, allowing himself the responsibility of the mop-up. The captain fired again.
Castro found refuge in the bathtub. He endured bombardment by pulverization and thunder, as whoever was shooting expended a whole magazine into the bathroom. A bullet ricocheted off the tub with a gong of death, and veered who knew where. He lay naked and vulnerable, aware that he shared the tub with pieces of glass and wood, with chunks of metal, with a significant accrual of dust and debris. He knew also that he was dead. How long before they found him?
The captain looked at the adulteress's bed. Its sheets were rumpled and sweaty and the stains of sexual exchange were smeared here and there. He smelled a lover's cigar as well. He had just finished a hose-job on the bathroom and the closet, riddling both. But the bed insulted his Cuban manhood. It reeked of illicit pleasure, so it was in direct competition both with his brothels and with his intense Catholic faith. Something atavistic rose in him, and instead of looking for the man he had come to kill, he decided to punish the bed.
This was an event of incredible carnage. The bullets tore into pillows and sent puffs of feathers exploding into the air, to fill the room with snow, while at the same time the mattress itself leapt as if in great animal pain as bullets buckled it. As the magazine wore itself out, the bed gave up the ghost, so to speak: it tilted crazily as rounds tore away the two far-side legs, a spring popped from the mattress like a dying snake, dust flew, empty shell casings flew, the whole a drama of extraordinary sensual pleasure.
Then the gun was dry.
Mother of God!
He knelt, pulled the old mag out, and was reaching into his pocket for another when a naked man flew out of the bathroom with a look of abject terror on his face, eyes bugged like fried eggs, flaccid body so white and pale with fear it was almost a comical scene from a movie. To make it more ridiculous, this naked figure had shod himself with his mistress's slippers to protect his feet from the glass, so there he was, immense, white, terrified, naked, his equipment flopping, running like a bunny rabbit and poor Captain Latavistada could only watch him go, for he could not get the magazine into the gun fast enough.
"Frankie!" he screamed.
The doors blew open and Frankie stared into the terrified, scrambled face of his quarry.
This was it. The Star machine pistol came up, the range was five feet, six at the outside, the mark was jaybird naked and terrified to see another gunman, and Frankie fired.
Except he didn't.
Fungool, it didn't work.
He looked at it in his hands, saw various knobs set this way and not that, jiggered them and then the gun fired but did not stop. It ate a magazine in two seconds, and the bullets just rose on the house, cutting a stitchery of dust and then flying off into space.
But the naked man, meanwhile, threw himself off the balcony and ran amazingly fast, pink slippers flying from his feet as he disappeared into some jungle shrubbery. Frankie had his.45 out by this time and sent seven pills into the weeds after him, maybe hitting him, maybe not. The captain was next to him, and clearly he was not yet done shooting, for he heaved the machine gun upwards and unleashed another whole, jolting, jackhammering magazine that more or less chewed up the area into which the man had disappeared.
"Ha!" said the captain, his face aglow with sweat. "It's wonderful, eh? Such fun! Hunting men, god, what sensual pleasure! How alive one feels!"
"Uh, he seems to have gotten away."
"Possibly. But he is naked and wounded and in a jungle. I do not think he will get far."
Frankie nevertheless had a sense of great disturbance in the world. He knew a bad thing had happened, and he would have some explaining to do to Mr. Lansky. Then he peered back into the house and saw nothing but devastation; it had been shot to pieces.
"Ramon," he asked nervously, "shouldn't we get out of here before the police come?"
Ramon looked at him, incredulous.