'It seems her screaming got on their nerves after a while.'
'What do you mean.'
'He cut her eyes out. The secret police officer called Ojos Bellos, Beautiful Eyes. And his American chum. After she ran up and down Zanja Street screaming, the American shot her. She's still in the street.'
Earl was surprised how hard it hit him. He wanted to puke, but the pain went red into rage a few seconds later and when he came back to earth everything was clear again.
'Turn around.'
'Swagger, you are a fool.'
Earl yelled past the Russian to the young officer, 'Turn this tub around, goddammit. I have business.' It was his command voice, dead and powerful and undeniable.
'Swagger,' said the Russian, 'I am a man of the people. But I am not a man of persons. This is a person. It is very sad but what happens to persons is of no consequence.'
'I got her killed.'
'She was a whore. Havana is a whore town. Tonight, as on any night, five thousand whores were fucked by twenty thousand men. Fifty of those whores were beaten because men beat whores. Of the fifty, one died. This night it was this whore. Thus is it eternally in the wickedness of the world. The death of one whore? It has nothing to do with the forces that control history and political destiny. It has nothing to do with systems, yours or mine. It has nothing to do with?'
'Fuck all that shit, mister. Do you have a gun?'
'God, Swagger. Truly unbelievable. You would go unarmed otherwise. Against men who wait for you.'
'How do you know?'
'I heard the cops talking. They do not like this Beautiful Eyes very much, but also they fear him. They wonder what game he plays. He would not let them move the body. He sits there with his American friend and an Indian, heavily armed, waiting at the Bambu. Waiting for what? We know what he is waiting for, don't we, Swagger.'
'It don't matter.'
'And what would it prove?'
'It don't prove a goddamn thing except maybe I still have some gun speed left.'
'Swagger, what a red guerilla you'd have made.'
'Fuck all that shit. Here's where we are: you wouldn't have come across Havana without a gun to help a hunted man. You have a burp gun somewhere too, I know.'
'Back in the hold of the tanker Black Sea. The tiny pistol I used in prison was the bribe I used to get out of prison.'
'You wouldn't have come across Havana without no gun. You're too careful and too salty. You're an old Texas Ranger in this game and so you're packing big heat, I know you are.'
The Russian turned, nodded to the young officer, who shouted orders, and the boat began to come about.
'Truly amazing,' the Russian said, turning back to Earl. He shucked off his coat and slipped out of something heavy, handing it over to Earl.
'Where would one get a gun in Havana in a hurry?' he asked rhetorically. 'I could only think of one place, a certain museum to imperialism, protected only by the charisma of the American empire. And so yes, I helped myself.'
It was a basket-weave shoulder holster of ancient, much-burnished leather. Earl pulled it on like a coat, sliding a shoulder into each of the loops of the strap, which was held in place by a leather X-piece at the back. Then he tied the holster down tight against his belt, reached up, slipped out the weapon it concealed, feeling how quickly the holster yielded its grip.
It was a Colt Peacemaker, with the short 45/8-inch barrel in the Long Colt.45 caliber. The finish was so well worn from usage that it was a dead gray, the case-hardening long since faded away, the gutta-percha stocks smooth from much work. It felt familiar to Earl, reaching out for his hand from a past so dead it hardly existed any more. His old daddy had carried this kind of gun as a sheriff and he, Earl, had cleaned it every day for ten years, or got beaten bad. He and the pistol were therefore on intimate terms. Earl had shot it a lot, so it held no surprises, but a good question was, had the old marshal who'd owned it and brought it to the war of 1898 honored it or ignored it? Earl tested the hammer pull and found it slicker than soap, and knew that sometime in the past the old boy had honed its internal surfaces, maybe planted a little leather ringer where the mainspring mates with the frame, to make it better for man-killing work. He noted that the front sight had been filed way down, again for speed-work out of the holster. He shook each cartridge from the cylinder, then cocked-smooth as glass-touched the trigger on an empty cylinder to see what pull dropped hammer, and discovered a trigger as responsive as a cat with its back up. He reloaded, and the Russian handed over an old box of cartridges, which Earl emptied into his coat pocket. It was a gun that had done some good killing work in its time.
'Swagger, here's the terrible thing,' said the Russian. 'I don't believe I've ever seen you this happy.'
Chapter 59
It is 4 A.M. on Zanja Street, the hour of Odudua, the dark mistress of the underworld according to the cosmology that is Santeria. Odudua is married to Obatala, whose job is to finish creation; hers is to destroy it. As you might imagine, it is not a happy marriage. So she wanders alone at night, deciding whom to take.
The men lounging in the sidewalk cafe in the orange glow of the Teatro Shanghai, sipping coffee and smoking, have no knowledge of Odudua; they don't believe in her or in the system that created her, a fusion of Catholicism and Nigerian pantheism, so they would consider themselves theoretically immune to her predations. Perhaps they are right; perhaps they are not. This is the evening they will find out.
Captain Latavistada has his feet up on a chair and is smoking a very large cigar. He is well pleased with himself. He enjoys torture, destruction and death as necessary pillars of the state, and tonight he has done his duty. He hopes for more duty to do. He feels marvelous, alive, tingly, his vision sharp and precise. He loves to fight and he hopes he gets to fight some more tonight. The coffee is loaded with sugar, so he is all ajangle. Next to him, on the floor, resting on its bipod, is the formidable Mexican 7mm Mendoza light machine gun. It is cocked and ready; its safety is off. He hopes he gets to use this fabulous weapon again tonight, for its novelty has not worn off. It enchants him.
Across from him, more feral and hunched, his ratty eyes dashing this way and that, sits Frankie Carbine. He has taken his sunglasses off. He is drinking beer. His black tie is tight. He wears leather gloves. He wears a narrow-brim fedora. His jacket is buttoned, all three buttons. In shoulder holsters under each armpit are Colt.45 automatics. Across his knee is the Star machine pistol. It too is cocked, safety off, ready to go in a second. Frankie drinks beer but it doesn't numb his senses. They are too sharp for that. He is ready. It should happen. The guy, the fella, whoever the fuck he is, he will have heard what they did to the broad.
Now they wait, and people give them a wide berth, out of respect for the seriousness of their commitment to law and order. Though it is late, Zanja Street is not empty. Here and there a whore still trolls for tricks, for often the gringos would come down to Zanja Street not quite brave enough to be with a woman yet. They'd find a place and drink and nurse their courage, and work themselves into a state where they felt beyond their own moral compass and no longer responsible for their actions; that was when they wanted a dark, heavy woman, with large breasts and a willing mouth, and no capacity to judge, no need to forgive, no common language except the fuck and the suck. That commerce is common still at this late hour.
So Zanja Street is crowded this night. Somewhere a mambo band plays, somewhere a woman laughs, another screams. Knives are carried and used; pimps beat the recalcitrant; whores and tricks eye each other, each waiting to begin the ritual of the barter; sailors drink; the captain and the mobster sip and wait, and the Indian corporal lounges close at hand, silent and watching, not at their table but the one beside it, a loyal servant. They all wait for a man who would be a fool to face their armed might, but they believe he will arrive nevertheless, before dawn.
And Odudua is there, too. She also waits. No one sees her, for she never takes visible form. But she is there and she knows that tonight will be a good night for her and that she will have many to take with her back to the
