the ecstasy that murder will bring, your thoughts arrowing into me… what’s that the Americans say? Fucking with my mind. What a perfect phrase! And that’s what you’ll be doing, coming all over yourself as you fuck my mind to death. How you can stand waiting? Or is this just the foreplay, the anticipation?’
He aimed another kick, but as he drew back his leg, Mingolla struck with all his power, with power he’d never known he had, sending waves of self-loathing at de Zedegui. The Nicaraguan stumbled back into the shadow beside the door, and Mingolla heard a steamy hiss, a whimper that went higher and higher like a teakettle on the boil. De Zedegui clapped his hands to his head and staggered through the door, swayed, a black mad figure against the orange murk, then turned the corner, with Mingolla following behind.
The three men were still grouped around the oil drum fire, and lurching, out of control, de Zedegui pushed them aside. He stood beside the drum, shaking violently, then gripped the edges of the drum with both hands. The metal must have been superheated, yet he gave no cry. One of the men started toward him, his knife drawn, but before he could cut, de Zedegui—with the formal precision of a deep bow—ducked his head into the drum. The glow reflected on the interior of the drum brightened by half, and when de Zedegui straightened, his head was burning, his shirt was burning, foot-high flames licking up from his scalp like weird reddish orange hair marbled with threads of black. Shouts, the rustling of voices, many voices rolling away as swiftly as wind through a forest, spreading the news. For a moment Mingolla thought de Zedegui would survive, that he would jam his hands in his pockets and stroll casually off into the Barrio. But then he toppled, sparks flying out on impact, and was soon blocked from view by the curious and those trying to remove his shoes and watch.
Mingolla couldn’t gather his thoughts and was briefly afraid that they had been sucked down the drain of de Zedegui’s death, whirled away into some garbage heap of stale brainwaves. He backed into the house and felt calmer in the dark room. It was early… what was he going to do with all that time? Somebody peeped in the door, and he yelled at them. He dug out the packet of frost, was horrified to see de Zedegui’s smiling photograph inside it; he sailed it away into the corner, and sat on the cot. Scooped up the white powder with his knife, shoveled it in. Too fast, spilling powder on his knees, the floor. He nicked his nose with the blade.
On the drive back to La Ceiba through the moonless dark, Mingolla sat in front with the guards, with Carlito, Martin, and Julio. He avoided looking at Alvina, who was a few rows back, and instead studied the masks of the guards. It seemed he was beginning to be able to read them, to assign expression to the maps of bloody tendon and muscle. He hated the masks, but that was not indicative of any specific grudge or attitude. Hate was coming to be something he kept in a secret compartment, something statistical and impersonal, yet a signal of his identity, like a license to carry a gun. He listened to the guards joking about the banalities of their lives, the funny things they’d witnessed back at the Barrio, and he made a decision. It was only fair, he thought. Eye for an eye, and like that.
The bus stopped on the edge of town, and the whores walked off in a body toward the lights of the Avenida de la Republica. Mingolla sat with his head down, waiting for motive to surface, for anything that would create a reason to act: he was that empty. ‘Don’t you have to report?’ one of the guards asked.
Mingolla saw the three anonymous faces turned his way. ‘There’s danger,’ he said, backing up the statement with emotional evidence. ‘Get off the bus.’ He told them to leave their rifles, picked one up, and unchecked the safety.
Wind poured off the sea in a cold unbroken rhythm, sweeping through the roadside grass, pebbling his arms with goose-flesh. The guards huddled to the right of the door, their shirttails flapping, hugging themselves against the chill. Their faces were puzzled twists of tendon, confused alignments of muscle. ‘You mustn’t be seen,’ Mingolla told them. Lie down in the grass, and I’ll let you know when the danger’s passed.’
Two of them moved off into the grass, but one asked, ‘What sort of danger?’
‘Terrible danger,’ said Mingolla, wielding more influence. ‘Hurry now! Hurry!’
They lay down in the grass, hidden from sight, and he felt they had fallen from the earth, plummeted in a long dark curve. Why was he doing this? he wondered. What difference did it make? Whose moral imperative did it serve? Blackness everywhere he turned. Black sea, black grass, black air. Only the bus was white, and that was a lie. One guard poked up his head, and that little red face with its surprised hole of a mouth punctuating the turbulent black poem of the winded grass… it irritated Mingolla. ‘Get down!’ he cried. ‘Get down!’ And opened fire. The bursts barely audible above the wind. He raked the grasses until the clip was exhausted. He took the gun by the barrel and slung it toward the sea. He listened. Nothing, no moans, no screams. The mortal silence was astounding in its depth. All that had once been alive might now be dead. He liked it like that. The silence touched his heart with a cold snaky kiss, and he wondered if he should inspect the bodies. Check for breath. Nope, he thought; no need. He scented the air. Briny and clean. He’d done his duty, done it well. He could have stayed there forever, serene with accomplishment, but at last he climbed back into the bus and drove into town.
He strolled along the Avenida de la Republica, peering into the bars, feeling distant from the music and laughter, immune to the atmosphere. He bought a lime sno-cone from a vendor and sucked at ice chips as he walked, smiling at everyone, shaking his head at the kids who pushed black coral jewelry into his face. A whore stumbled out of a bar, bumped him, and he caught her around the waist to keep her from falling. She was skinny, with light freckled skin, reminding him of Hettie, and she was very drunk. He helped her back to her hotel, keeping a grip on her waist, and when they reached the door, she asked if he wanted to go upstairs.
‘Wish I could,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an appointment.’
‘Well’—she patted her hair into shape, smiled foggily—‘you very nice to gimme a hand.’
‘My pleasure,’ he said, and sauntered off.
At the end of the street was a public square with tall hibiscus bushes at the corners, flowering pink and red. Coconut palms looming along concrete paths that crossed at diagonals, stone benches, a central fountain like a stone lily. Facing the square was a large white stucco church with two tiers of steps leading up to its brightly lit facade. Mingolla chose a bench near the fountain, did some frost for alertness, enough to put an extra shine on the splashing water. Clumped in the shadow of a hibiscus farther down the path was a group of shoeshine boys. Chattering, smoking cigarettes. Their kits were decorated with mosaics of broken glass, and to Mingolla they looked like midgets with diamond-studded satchels. He wished he had a cigarette; he had never smoked, but recalling friends who did, he thought that this seemed the perfect time for a cigarette, the sort of significant lull during which a smoke is helpful in focusing one’s thoughts. He did a tad more frost, instead. The shoeshine boys watched with interest, but showed no sign of going for the police. Not that he cared. He could handle the police. He got a nice drain off the frost and kicked back, crossing his legs, thinking that he had overreacted to de Zedegui’s death. Still, he realized a certain amount of reaction was inescapable. He would be better prepared in the future. He would go to the Peten, take care of Debora, and after that… well, after that the future would take care of itself.
The faint drift of music from the bars brought back nights on a Florida beach with an old girlfriend, the car door left open so they could hear the radio while they made out on the sand or screwed in the shallows. You could walk out a hundred yards and only be in up to your thighs. Tepid, calm water. Lighted buoys winking like fallen
