He pushed through the men and women in the alley, shouldering them aside, unconcerned by their proximity… although he didn’t like touching them, subject to an irrational fear that bits of their substance would flake off and cling to him. He weaved through the motionless dark figures thronging the store, catching sight of himself among them in the silvered mirrors, a man hiding among mannequins. He’d forgotten about Gilbey, but as he moved into the street, he noticed him missing. He turned to the store. Gilbey was kneeling next to a body that lay half-in, half-out of the shattered window. A crowbar beside the body’s outflung hand.
‘C’mon, Gilbey,’ he said.
Gilbey’s hand fluttered over the body; he might have been searching for a switch with which to reactivate it.
‘There’s nothing you can do for him,’ said Mingolla, laying a hand on Gilbey’s shoulder.
‘Leave me alone!’ Gilbey knocked away his hand.
His eyes were glistening, and Mingolla wondered at this, at tears from Gilbey.
‘I…’ Gilbey looked at Mingolla and said his name a couple of times in a quizzical tone as if it meant something rare and unfathomable.
‘What is it?’
Gilbey shook his head, smoothed Jack’s rumpled shirt.
It was useless to continue their charade of friendship, Mingolla realized; it had been a sentimental mistake to distinguish Gilbey from the others, to pretend he was alive and well. There was no room for sentiment here. He walked away from Gilbey, resisting the impulse to say goodbye, and, using his reflection in a store window, he set about cleaning the blood from his face and arms. Around him, the dead stood stockstill like statues in a street scene by De Chirico. He could almost hear the vibration of their emptiness, their longing for purpose, and he knew how to ease that longing, he knew the purpose for which they had been made.
Anger had always been big in him, but what he felt now was anger come to fruition, anger that seemed a separate shape walking in his body, a glittering man of furious principle. His anger spread to infect the army, and as he hurried toward the palace, shadows pushed themselves up from the curbs and doorways and fell into step behind him. The moon was up, and the walls of the buildings glowed with such brilliance that he could make out the gray patches where the whitewash had flaked away. More than ever, the narrow streets reminded him of canyons, and with their ragged hair and primitive weapons, the army might have been cavedwellers on their way to engage a neighboring tribe. Their skin looked as pale and crumbly as cheese, and their eyes had the reflective blackness of the window glass.
When he reached the street that opened onto the parking lot in front of the palace, he divided the army into two forces, sending one on a circuitous route in back of the palace toward the barricade and instructing the others to wait in the shadows until summoned. Walking across the parking lot, he felt calm in the midst of anger, as if the core of his personality had separated from the rest and was observing the goings-on. Parked by the steps were a number of jeeps, and he was pleased to see that most had keys dangling from their ignitions. Inside, the party was in full swing, the atmosphere more drunken than when he had left. Madradonas and Sotomayors tripping the light fantastic to the strains of a jazzy dance tune; the storytelling robot stood unmoving in a comer, switched off. Probably past Izaguirre’s bedtime. As he worked his way through the dancers, Mingolla smiled and nodded to whoever caught his eye. ‘Lovely evening,’ he said. ‘Wonderful party.’ And then, pitching his voice so low that they couldn’t be sure what they had heard, he would add, ‘You’re gonna die,’ and smile more broadly. Debora was hemmed in against a table by a group that included both Ruy and Marina, and Mingotla insinuated himself into the group, stood next to her. ‘Where’s Tully?’ he whispered.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I think they went back to their hotel.’ She looked at him askance. ‘You’re bleeding! What happened?’
He touched his brow, his fingers came away red. ‘Got a little bump,’ he said, smiling at Ruy. It was too bad about Tully and Corazon, he thought. But he wasn’t going to postpone things. They would just have to fend for themselves.
‘That looks serious,’ said Marina. ‘You should have it tended to.’
She was acting nervous, fidgeting with her skirt, unwilling to meet his eyes.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said, feeling a heady mixture of rage and glee. The blue plastic shell of the palace suddenly seemed the inside of a vast skull, Carlito’s skull. In the beams of light slanting from the ceiling he saw the haywire geometries of Carlito’s thought; the air had the stink of his stale brainwaves, and the dancers, the group by the table, the inanimate robot, all of them were the sorry creatures of Carlito’s imagination, whirling and talking and pretending to be real, each of them moved by some strand of plot or whimsy. But that was coming to an end. He pictured the blue walls cracking, unable to contain the power that Carlito had inadvertently kindled.
‘I’ve had an interesting time tonight,’ said Mingolla. ‘What you might call a real eye-opener, isn’t that right, Ruy?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Ruy said.
‘No, I bet you don’t.’
‘You should have that cut seen to,’ Marina said with some agitation. ‘I’d be…’
‘Don’t trouble yourself.’ Mingolla glanced around at the others; they were staring at him with puzzlement as if they sensed something imminent, but weren’t sure what, and though he had planned to wait until he and Debora got clear, he realized that now was the time, that he couldn’t leave without at least witnessing the beginning of the end. That he, like Carlito, delighted in dramatic presentation.
He took Debora’s arm, steered her away into a clear space at the edge of the dance floor. He turned back to the group by the table. They looked nervous.
‘Somebody tried to kill me tonight,’ he said.
Somebody turned off the music, and everyone was whispering.
‘It’s not that important for the culprit to be singled out’—he raised his voice—‘because every damn one of you is guilty. But I think it’s appropriate that some punishment be meted out.’
Marina pushed through to the front of the group. ‘How did it happen, David?’
‘Somebody sicced the army on me while I was walking,’ he said.
‘Ruy!’ She spun about to face him.
‘It wasn’t me!’ he said. ‘I’ve been here all night.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Mingolla called out to the dancers, ‘How ’bout some more entertainment, folks?’
‘I wouldn’t risk myself just to get back at you,’ Ruy said to Mingolla.
‘Who was it, then?’
Ruy was caught without an answer for a moment. He searched the crowd for a likely candidate. ‘Marina?’ he said.
She looked injured, disappointed, like a teacher let down by her prize pupil.
‘It was her… don’t you see?’ Ruy said to Mingolla. ‘She’s trying to get back at me, trying to set me up.’
‘My God, Ruy,’ Marina said, and gave a pitying laugh.
‘It had to be her,’ said Ruy. ‘All these years she’s pretended that she’s forgiven me, but I knew she hadn’t.’
‘Forgiven you for what?’ Debora asked.
‘Years ago,’ said Ruy. ‘I did something to her. I didn’t mean to, I was crazy about her. But…’
‘You’re the one who made her lose her child!’ said Mingolla, putting together Marina’s flighty behavior that evening with her pleasure in punishing Ruy, with other hints and clues.
‘This is ridiculous!’ said Marina.
‘Yes, yes!’ Ruy moved closer to Mingolla, eager now. ‘And she’s been crazy ever since. But she’s managed to make everyone think her craziness is something else. Dedication, efficiency. She’s just been waiting her chance. She knew I’d be accused if anything happened to you.’
Guilt was plain in Marina’s face, but Mingolla was unable to redirect his anger; the fact of her treachery was not at all surprising, considering what Ruy had done, and he had hated Ruy for too long to give up his vengeance. In any case, he wasn’t concerned with specific guilt, but rather with example, and Ruy, with his pleading manner, his sweaty fear, made a perfect example.
‘’Bye, Ruy,’ he said, and struck with stunning force.
Ruy sagged, his knees buckling, and went down on all fours. His saturnine face emptied, and he collapsed onto his side. Mingolla stood over him, plucking at his mental knots, undoing them one by one. ‘What we call this,
