he's in charge now. Maybe he's not as bad as Roger.'
Earl didn't say a thing until he came up with, 'Well, there's too many people paying attention in an embassy. The woman on Zanja Street is my best bet.'
The car stopped and started in traffic. Jean turned on the radio, and soft mambo music poured tinnily from the box. She rolled the windows down and the smell of sea came in, and the smell of flowers and the smell of rum.
'You're not planning some cowboy thing, are you?'
'No, I am not planning nothing except to get the hell off this place. It was a mistake ever coming. I have been shot at in too many hard places to die in a gutter in a city I don't know, for reasons I don't understand.'
'Do you have money? I have some money for you and I can get you more.'
'Thanks, I'm fine. You've done enough.'
'Earl, I know people.'
'I'd just get them in trouble.'
'Okay, we're almost there.'
Earl sat up. He saw the bars and bodegas of Zanja Street. He saw arches and cafes and girls lounging and smoking, showing too much flesh. The cobblestones and neon signs and banks of lottery numbers. He saw pimps and grifters and knife fighters. He saw sailors and midwestern dentists and palm trees and fruit stands and cigar rollers.
'I should be fine here.'
'I will say, you are a piece of work, mister. I never met a piece of work like you.'
'I ain't all that much fun, once you get to know me.'
'Please, let me help. I know I can help.'
Earl had thought this out pretty carefully. Now he gave it to her.
'You say you know people. There's a fellow in this town, some kind of European, maybe Russian, I don't know. But he's the sort people will have noticed. Wiry, salt-and-pepper hair like steel wool, full of electricity. He's always laughing. Funny guy. Funny in his comments, funny in his beliefs. I think he's a Red, but he knows what he's doing like nobody's business. I think he'd help me.'
'Does this genius have a name? A place? I will find him if you give them to me.'
'When I met him, he called himself Vurmoldt. He said he sold vacuum cleaners from Omaha, Nebraska. Atom powered, or some such foolishness. But later he laughed at what a phony lie that was, and what a lame thing it was to come up with. I never got the real name. But believe me, people will know him. And if you ask for Mr. Vurmoldt the vacuum salesman, he will hear and know you came from me. When you meet him, ask him if he's gotten a new handkerchief yet. He will know what that means. Ask around. Ask people who do business with the Russians. Or who watch the Russians.'
'I know a couple of Brits who are in that trade, I think.'
'They will have noticed him. You must get word to him.'
'Suppose he betrays you for some communist purpose? I don't like communists.'
'I don't like them neither. But I think this one is okay. It's a risk, but it makes some sort of sense.'
'What should I tell him?'
'Tell him I'm with Esmerelda. That's enough. He'll find me.'
'Not that it matters to you, but will I ever see you again?'
'No.'
'Oh. Well, thanks for the truth.'
'Look, I didn't plan this world, I just live in it. If I didn't have responsibilities and I saw you in that bar and you smiled at me like that, I'd have fought the Pacific all over again for you. But that can't happen. You know it, I know it. Knowing you has been the best thing about this trip by far. I wish there was more. But there ain't. That's the truth.'
'You always tell the truth,' she said. 'What a terrible, terrible gift.'
He leaned close and kissed her and smelled her, and didn't want to leave her, but if he didn't now, he never would. And so he did, stepping out into the shadows of Zanja Street.
Chapter 55
The pimp was sullen. The pimp was nervous. The pimp was upset because he paid good money and this sort of thing was not supposed to happen. It never would have happened until recently, but now that El Colorado was gone, things were muy loco. Nobody ran the business, no one knew who to pay, who to call, and the policia were getting more and more greedy in their demands on poor working men such as him.
Then the officer hit him in the mouth with a sap. He went down, spitting teeth and blood, and the Indian kicked him savagely in the guts, twice. He curled in pain, whimpering. He could do nothing. There were three of them: the officer Latavistada, the Indian, and a norteamericano.
Latavistada leaned over.
'Friend, you know my reputation. I am the one they call 'Beautiful Eyes' for a certain skill with a scalpel. You will get used to me, as I am soon to be very important down here. So now would be a good time to impress me and get a head start on our relationship. We are looking for someone. A big man, norteamericano, short hair, thatchy, iron gray. Moves like a cat, always watching. You would not mix with this man, amigo; he carries that meaning. You know where he is, don't you?'
'Sir, I swear it. I have only seen the usual Americans. They want to get fucked, they want to get drunk, they want a virgin, they want a negro, they want a yellow woman, they want all three, or they want all three in one, but for all of that they don't want to pay so much. That is all I know.'
This conference was taking place in an alley off of Virtue Street, in Centro. It was one of many such conferences Captain Latavistada and his two cohorts had engineered over the past few days, all up and down Virtue, up a few blocks on Zanja, in many of the buildings with the doors with the hatchways, near the rail station, down the twisty pathways of Old Havana.
'Should I kill him?' asked the Indian.
'I don't know. Should he kill you, senor?'
'Please, sir, I just want to make an honest peso.'
The captain spoke in English to the American. The American said something briefly.
'Even my American friend thinks you should be killed. We don't feel your hunger to do your duty to your nation, as exemplified by me.'
'I swear I know nothing.'
'How many women work for you?'
'Five.'
'Five! A lie! It must be ten at least. Your teeth are gold, that switch knife had an ivory handle, the chain you wear around your neck, it too is gold. Your dying Jesus is gold. A man could not accumulate such wealth on five whores. That is ten-whore wealth if ever I saw it.'
'I don't know. My gut hurts so bad I can't think straight.'
'Get him up, Corporal,' said the captain.
The Indian, immensely strong, lifted the pimp and rammed him against the wall. He put his forearm heavily into the sweating man's throat, so that the pimp felt death but seconds away if the Indian so decided.
'I will come back tomorrow,' said the captain. 'I had better see ten whores with black eyes and swollen heads and big blue lips, so that I know their master has spoken to them thoroughly and that they have held nothing back. The whores talk among themselves, they know things.'
'Yes, sir,' said the pimp.
'Now go do the necessary,' he said, nodding to the corporal, who released the pimp and shoved him roughly on his way.
'Well, sooner or later,' Latavistada said in English to Frankie, 'one of these fellows will talk. Meanwhile you and I, we are establishing our bona fides down here.'
