Havana

'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.

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.