‘Gather ’round, gather ’round!’ called the robot, and the crowd formed a semicircle about the table, chattering and laughing. From their ranks came one of the Sotomayor men leading a pale thin girl dressed in a white jumpsuit. She had a withdrawn, blank look, and Mingolla felt that this blankness was a sign of retardation. She stood half-hidden behind the robot’s skirts, nervous, twisting her fingers together.
‘Music, maestra!’ cried the robot, clapping its pink plastic hands.
The girl jumped, ducked her eyes.
‘Please,
The girl smiled wanly, and a moment later bell-like tones began to resound inside Mingolla’s head, tones of such purity that he was stunned by their beauty and failed to notice at first the simplicity and awkwardness of the tune they played. A nursery school tune. Played badly, the timing all wrong. Mingolla realized the girl was in essence a music box whose lid had been opened, a toy with faulty springs. The tune continued for far too long, and the crowd’s applause was polite but unenthusiastic. The girl was led off, and a young man with a similar blankness of expression was presented to the crowd. His eyes were deep-set, dark; he had a pinched, bony face, and his scalp showed through his crewcut. After being prodded by the robot, he stared at a point in midair, and a color materialized before Mingolla’s mind’s eye, a shade of blue so deep and rich that it seemed an emotion, embodying a sense of absolute tranquility. Other emotions were projected, each of them powerful in the extreme, and the crowd applauded each one wildly.
Marina stepped forward and addressed the crowd. ‘I believe we should show our appreciation to Carlito for this great work, for bringing forth flowers from these stones.’
The crowd applauded, and the applause evolved into a chant of ‘Carlito, Carlito, Carlito!’ that ended only when the dance music was struck up again. Mingolla stared into one of the punchbowls, thinking that he’d seen six- legged movement among the floating bits of rind and fruit pulp.
‘Hello, David,’ said a high-pitched female voice at his shoulder.
He spun about and looked up into the robot’s eyes. Behind occluded crystals, the cameras swiveled.
‘Don’t you recognize me?’ The robot clasped its hands over its ample belly.
For a moment Mingolla was at sea; but then, remembering the chopper and its divine pretense, he penetrated the disguise. Izaguirre,’ he said.
‘Good to see you again,’ said the robot. The pudgy pink face seemed to be regarding him with paternal favor.
‘Are you here in person?’ asked Mingolla, hoping this was the case, not knowing what he would do, but hoping all the same.
‘Oh, no. I’m in Costa Rica. But I’ve been keeping my eye on you.’ He essayed a daffy wink. ‘I’m most impressed with the work you’ve been doing.’
‘Are you now?’
‘Indeed! It’s remarkable. The results you’ve achieved put my poor efforts to shame.’
‘You’re just saying that.’ Mingolla offered the robot punch and spilled a cupful over its stiff yellow dress. Gee… lucky you didn’t short-circuit. By the way, what is your work? Entertaining at birthday parties?’
‘Still angry, I see. That’s good, David, that’s good. Anger can be a useful tool.’ The robot dabbed at the spill. To answer your question: No. No birthday parties. My work is much like yours, though I’ve been limited to producing singular effects as opposed to the overall rehabilitation you’ve been attempting.’
‘I haven’t been attempting shit. Just passing the time.’
‘Don’t belittle your efforts. No one would put in the hours you have without a strong commitment.’
‘Beats hanging out with your nieces and nephews.’
‘I won’t insist you agree,’ said the robot. ‘However, I do have a proposal for you. I’d like you to come work with me after all the loose ends are tied up down here.’
‘Naw,’ said Mingolla. ‘I’m going home, gonna sit on the beach.’
‘You can do both.’
‘You work in the States?’
The crystal eyes tracked back and forth across the dance floor. ‘I see no harm in admitting it at this juncture. Yes, I have a home there. I think you’d find it an amiable atmosphere.’
‘Where is it?’
The robot gave out with a fey titter. ‘I believe I’ll keep you in the dark about that for the time being.’
‘Not really, David. You’re quite formidable, I admit. But we’ve been around for a long time, and we know how to deal with strength.’ The robot trundled back a foot, then forward the same distance, as if gearing up for a leap. ‘Now about my proposal…’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘A talent like yours won’t lie dormant, David. What else is there for you to do?’
‘Could be I’ll go back into the killing business. The world can always use another assassin.’
The robot’s great oval head twitched. ‘I’m sorry you have so much resentment.’
‘It’s not resentment,’ said Mingolla. ‘It’s disgust.’
‘I’m aware that—’
‘You aren’t aware of shit!’ said Mingolla. ‘The things you bastards…’ He caught himself, not wanting to lose it completely. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe all I can do is try to fix what you people have broken.’
‘Don’t you understand?’ said the robot. ‘That’s exactly how I feel.’
‘Really?’
‘Do you think I’m without feeling?’ the robot asked. ‘Don’t you know how appalling I find what we’ve done, what we’ve had to do?’
The robot embarked upon what Mingolla was coming to view as the classic Sotomayor rap, You Can’t Make an Omelet without Breaking Eggs, and We Will Spend Our Lives Redressing All Wrongs. Izaguirre’s version was superb, heartfelt, and eloquent, and Mingolla had no doubt that he believed every word. He promised Izaguirre that he would give serious consideration to his proposal and that he would try to put his resentments behind him; but after the robot had trundled off to visit relatives, he found that his tolerance of the proceedings had been reduced to zero. The scales had fallen from his eyes. Everywhere he looked he detected the residues of old hatreds. Whispers behind hands, scowls, poisonous stares. And there were fresh hatreds as well. Those he detected in the standoffishness with which the Madradonas and Sotomayors treated their new allies, the drug-induced psychics. The shoddiness of the party, the schmaltzy music, the whirling unlovely couples, the mutant sideshow, the high tech grotesquerie of Izaguirre’s robot: the sinister aspects of all this seemed to have undergone an intensification. He might, he thought, have been standing in Berlin decades ago, watching the burghers ratify their allegiance to the lean, cold National Socialists, disguising their intrinsic meanness and paucity of spirit with shabby pomp and sprinklings of glamour. This gathering had no less potential for nastiness, for vicious perversion, and he perceived in it the shape of the world to come, one not so different from the old. The feud would resurface, with the added bloodiness of a new feud between the families and their drugged creations, and the result would be a world of back-fence wars and heavy tensions and near-apocalypses. Or perhaps a total apocalypse. The families’ propensity for oversight might well allow for this significant difference. But whatever ultimacy they might contrive of the future, of one thing Mingolla was sure: he would not survive to see it. Wherever he turned, people looked away from him, not wanting to be caught staring. That consensus interest alone was enough to damn him. Sooner or later somebody would decide that he was too powerful to trust, or would make a judgment based on a more personal issue.
He spotted Debora standing with Tully and Corazon on the far side of the hall, and he crossed to them, bumping into ungainly Madradonas and graceful Sotomayors. ‘I’m gonna take a walk,’ he said to Debora as he came up. ‘You be all right?’
‘You look pale,’ she said. ‘Are you sick?’
‘Something I ate.’
‘You be missin’ all de fun, mon,’ said Tully drunkenly; he gave Corazon such a fierce squeeze that Mingolla half-expected to see her rosy eye pop out.
‘I’ll go with you,’ said Debora; but she didn’t seem eager to leave.
