'Yes.'
He went for lunch, wandered a few blocks, getting shoved this way and that by the crowds, finally wandered into a lunchroom. Was he in Cuba? He had a hamburger and a Coke and some french fries. Everybody in the lunch room was an American, except the help.
Then he walked a bit, picked up the washed and folded clothes, no longer new, and the softened boots, went back to the hotel, laid everything out, took the rifle from its case, ran the bolt several times to feel its smoothness and solidity, checked the security of the sling, checked the scope settings, wiped the lenses with lens tissue, and tried to relax.
Impossible.
He put a call in to America, to Junie, because it had been some time and he felt restless and unsure. Something far inside was unsettled, as if he had a gripe and didn't want to be far from a john. But it wasn't that, it was just a little something.
Someone picked up.
'Hello?' It was the boy's voice.
'Bobby! Oh, Bobby, it's Daddy!'
The boy's voice, dullish in the answer, suddenly lit up with pleasure.
'Daddy! Hi, Daddy!'
And so Earl talked with his son. Except he could not. At key moments, he found words often difficult to produce.
'So, how are you?'
'I'm fine, Daddy. Seen lotsa deer. Them woods is full of deer.'
'I'll get you one this fall, you bet on it.'
'Yes, sir. Daddy, you aren't mad at me 'cause I din't shoot that one in the spring?'
He saw that the kid had assembled the two phenomena in his mind: his inability to shoot the springtime deer and his father's immediate disappearance.
'No, sir. Not one bit. No, I am not. You'll be fine, young man. We'll get you a nice one in the fall, if that's what you want. Now, is Mommy there?'
'No, sir. She's over to the church.'
'Well, you tell her I miss her. I miss you, too. Bob Lee, Daddy loves you very much. You know that, don't you.'
It was the only time he had ever used the word love with the boy.
'Yes, sir.'
'I think I can polish this off soon. I'll be home. Bob Lee, I'm going to bring you a nice present, you'll see. And then it'll be like I was never gone, and I won't go nowhere no more, okay?'
'Okay.'
'Now tell Mommy I called.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Bye now.'
'Bye.'
He hung up, feeling like he'd just failed some test. He'd meant to say so much. But he'd said nothing.
Lord, he needed a drink. Just one damn little one, a splash of gin against the cold ice, leavened by the tonic, almost a soda pop with just the softest little buzz to it. But that way was the road to hell, with no way back.
Instead he went to the window to observe the full spectacle of carnival. And there was a lot to be enjoyed: the music seemed everywhere and everywhere there was music there were the crowds. He could sense that the gaslit plaza across the way was jammed with them, and there were neon-lit amusement rides, temporarily erected across the way, as well as vendors selling all manner of drinks, the whole thing a great ocean of human want and need in the warm dark. The gaslamps flickered, giving the whole thing even more sense of life. It was like one huge parade.
Just watching it all, he didn't feel so cut off. He wasn't the killer. He wasn't the one man among them designated to put the crosshairs on a living being and press the trigger. This one was different from combat. He'd killed, too many times, but always an armed man trying to or planning to kill him, or his men. He'd never shot a prisoner, he'd never shot a wounded Jap. He shot what would hurt him and his and nothing else.
And now?
What am I? Dear lord, who have I become and in whose service am I prepared to do this deed? Why is this what you have to do to get a nice house in Washington and pretty clothes for your wife and a good school and college education for your son?
He had no answers and the questions hurt. He decided to go down to the restaurant, have some dinner, and turn in early.
The bar on the porch of the Casa Grande was jammed. A variety of smaller carnival parties had somehow collected into a single one, and two or three competing mambo quintets wandered the floor, issuing manifestos of pleasure and rhythm. Everybody was smoking, everybody was touching, everybody was shaking. It was an orgy of human groping. It overlooked the park and all the tables were crowded.
He headed toward the bar with his usual routine in mind, which was to enjoy the sense of celebration, the closeness of other if strange human beings, but not to drink and lose himself. He slid through the throng, dodging dancers, slipped through darkness, found a relatively isolated spot at the bar at the end of the long porch, and parked on a stool.
'Senor?'
'Ah, rum and coke. Charge me the whole ticket, but no rum. Put an umbrella in it. Okay?'
'Of course, senor.'
Soon enough it came, soon enough he was sipping, looking out to the square where the real action was, where the life of the city at play really took off. The smoke seethed, the bar was strung with lights, the music rose and jiggled.
He smoked, had another drink, enjoyed a brief if debilitating fantasy about bringing Junie and the boy down here, hoping they'd enjoy what was so special about it, yet knowing they wouldn't. An hour or so dragged itself by, and he thought enough time had passed so that he could get to sleep.
Instead he saw someone waving at him from a busy table of Americans, all of whom were staring at him with equal parts adoration and passion. She detached herself and he recognized her immediately: the woman Jean-Marie Augustine, the Filipina, rapturously beautiful tonight in a low-cut tropical dress that showed her smooth mahogany shoulders, her cleavage, and the tightness of her body through hips and legs, down to pretty red toes in some kind of high-heeled sandals. She had a flower in her hair and as she approached, he tried not to feel excited at her attraction to him and his to her, and he tried not to be intoxicated by the intensity of her sweet perfume, and he wondered, near panic, what the best way to get out of here fast would be.
'Well, hello,' she said.
'Hi, there. I thought you were a Havana gal.'
'Oh, I am, definitely. But carnival. I mean, you have to come. It's the best show on earth.'
'These folks know how to throw a party, that's for sure.'
'Oh, and this year, they say the fireworks might be on the ground as well as in the sky. I had to come up and get a look at it.'
'I wouldn't pay too much attention to rumors. They're always wrong.'
'Except that what would the famous Sergeant Swagger be doing up here if there weren't something big going on? You don't seem the type to come up for a big party.'
'I just do what these young kids tell me.'
'You're quite the celebrity. The man who bested the mighty Hemingway. Now they say you're up here on some secret mission for the boys on the third floor, to defend our interests. The bodyguard who became a government agent and saved the banana for America. God bless the banana, staff of life.'
'I don't even like bananas, not a bit. But between you and me, I don't think these boys could find the sky if they didn't have a sign marked 'up.''
She laughed.
'Look, why don't you join us? It's some businesspeople, all wealthy and connected. The Bacardi crowd. They
