“He told us to see where they go,” said Iglesias. “You want to explain to him why you thought a piece of ass was more important than doing what the man said, go ahead. I wish you the best of luck.”
“¡No me friegues, pendejo!Give me ten minutes with that cunt and we’ll know not only where she comes from but what she had for breakfast last Tuesday.”
“That’s a good plan, and I can see you understand the situation a lot better than Prudencio does.”
“He just wants the information, man. I bring it in, he won’t do shit to me.”
“If not, could I have your boots?” Instinctively Rascon looked down at his boots, which were crocodile, elaborately tooled, and tipped with silver caps. Then he snarled,“¡Chingate!” and stomped away, followed by the softly giggling Iglesias.
They sat in their van. Rascon wanted to turn the radio on and roll up the windows against the occasional mosquito, but Iglesias said no, partly to annoy the other man and show who was in charge, and partly because he wanted to see what the Americans were going to do. He had a good idea of what, but he wanted to observe it. The two Americans entered the van via the side door. Iglesias saw the van settle on its springs. After a few minutes the body of the VW began to rock rhythmically. Its windows were all open, and shortly thereafter the slight breeze brought to the two watchers the sound of heavy breathing and then a series of short cries, like that of a small bird, rising in register, and then a distinctively male groan.
“She’s getting it now, the little whore,” said Rascon sourly. “I’m getting sore balls listening to that shit.” He massaged these.
“If you’re going to jerk off, go outside,” said Iglesias.
“¡Pela las nalgas!”
“When we get back, you can ask Torres for a piece of his fine white ass.”
“¡Cállate, cabrón!”snapped Rascon. “You’ll see, I’m going to fuck that girl before we’re done here.”
“Again I wish you the best of luck, my friend,” said Iglesias. “In the meanwhile…¡Ay, coño! Listen, they’re going at it again!”
Prudencio Martínez thinks for a moment and then reaches into the backseat and shoves the man sleeping there into wakefulness.
“What’s up?” says the man in the backseat. His name is Rafael Alonzo Torres. He is slim and young, the youngest of the men Martínez has brought with him, a hungry and aggressive kid from the Cali slaughterhouse district, blessed with a mild-looking angel face. He reminds Martínez of himself twenty years ago. Martínez says, “You slept enough. Go into the house. Sit in the chair I showed you. And stay awake.”
The youth yawns and stretches. He says, “What about Garcia and Ochoa?”
“Garcia’s in the kitchen and Ochoa’s watching the back. I want you on the bedroom floor.”
“Did something happen?”
“No, it’s quiet, but we had a car drive by I didn’t like.”
“A car?”
Martínez gives him a look. “Hey,cabrón, just go! And Raphael: make sure your phone is on.”
Torres leaves the van and goes to the back of the house. He taps on the door, and Benigno Garcia lets him in. They exchange a few words. Garcia goes back to watching the maid’s television in the kitchen. Torres walks through the hallway to the main foyer and up the stairs to the second floor. There are four bedrooms on this floor, each with a bath, and there is also the room at the rear of the house that Mr. Calderón uses as a study or home office. Torres sits in a chair between the door to this room and the one to the master bedroom. The chair is uncomfortable, and he curses softly as he sits in it, but he doesn’t really mind. This is a very easy job compared to some he has been on. And he can sleep anywhere.
Unlike his client. Yoiyo Calderón is sleepless tonight, as he has been for more nights than he can remember. Weeks at least, maybe months. No, he thinks, it started around the time Fuentes died, or maybe a little after, when the Puxto deal began to go sour. He attributes this insomnia to stress, although he is scrupulous about following all the stress-reduction hints in the business and fitness magazines he reads. These helpful sources do not discuss nightmares, however. Successful take-charge American businessmen do not mention their dreams, or even acknowledge that they have dreams, except in the figurative sense of projecting a scheme for increasing material wealth.
Calderón is an educated man, and he is familiar with the ideas underlying Freudian psychotherapy. Dreams, especially repetitive dreams, have some deep meaning, are the signals indicating the repression of an unacceptable desire. He has looked into this on his own, for his daughter has all those how-to-feel-good-about-yourself books, and he has sneaked looks, but they seem like a lot of crap to him. He has never had the slightest problem feeling good about himself. He considered that the Yoiyo Calderón who existed up until a month or so ago was as fine a man as could be found anywhere in Miami-good-looking, decisive, sexually potent, rich, getting richer, a decent husband and father, generous to his various mistresses, a man of his word when dealing with equals, philanthropic to a fault, well respected in the community-and not about to see a goddamned headshrinker either, that was out, although he had asked his family doctor for some Xanax as a stress reliever. Half a milligram before retiring is the dose recommended on the vial, but tonight he has loaded himself with three milligrams in the hope that this will stop the dream.
It is always the same one. In it, he is somewhere in the tropics, dressed in explorer garb. It’s hot and dark and he’s at a table. A line of natives in fancy regalia stretches out into the dark, and one by one they sell him all their ornaments, which he pays for with bits of paper he tears off a pad and writes banal phrases on, like those found in fortune cookies. New friends will help you. You are greatly admired. He is happy to be getting rich in this way and has convinced himself, in the logic of dreams, that the natives are better off with his scraps of paper than they are with their gold jewelry and plumes. As he works, he becomes conscious of a noise, soft at first, but growing louder, like something breathing, in and out, like the purring of an immense cat, a cat the size of a hill. Then there are no more natives and he is alone with the noise. And now the fear starts, and he feels an urgent need to get away. He shoves his swag into a sack and leaves the hut. He is on a muddy jungle trail in the dark. All around him is the sound.
Ararah. Ararararh.
Now he can hear the thud of the monstrous paws, close behind him in the dark, getting closer. He runs, clutching his sack. He feels its hot breath on the back of his neck. He can’t possibly escape, his limbs are caught in some sticky mud, and now he screams. He is crawling now in the slow paralysis of nightmare. He turns and looks up and sees its golden eyes, its jaws…
And he is awake, sweating, cursing; and when he looks at the clock it is always around three in the morning and he can’t return to sleep, the night is ruined for him again. But tonight there is no dream of jungles. Tonight he falls into blackness and awakes on the daybed in his study. He has taken to sleeping there to avoid the shame of his nightmares, the screaming and thrashing. The blinds are closed and the room is very dark. The only light comes from the digital clock on his desk, green numbers telling him it is 3:06. It is cool in the room, and at first he thinks someone has switched on the air-conditioning, because there is a rumble in his ears. No, not a mechanical sound.
Ararah. Ararararh.
Terrified now, he scrambles up, kicking the quilt away, reaching for the light switch. The light goes on, and there it is, huge and golden, in the room. He thinks he is still dreaming, a new and even more horrible nightmare, until just a few seconds before he dies.