Blood of Paradise (20 page)

“Yeah,” Strock said. “Sure. Thanks.”

“Just ask Clara for the phone.
Teléfono.”

“Okay.”

“I don't answer, no big deal. I'm back on duty come tomorrow, and I don't pick up all the time. Leave me a voice mail. I'll answer when I can.”

With that he went back to the dining room, returned the phone to Clara, then headed out. He crossed the sand toward the gate; Clara followed, to secure the lock behind him. Strock stood in the doorway to the house, leaning on his cane, watching Jude disappear. Kid McManus, they used to call him. Pop Gun's son.

Clara walked back to the house and, as she came close, offered the warmest smile, pretty despite her horsey teeth. Her eyes seemed sad, he thought. Maybe it's me.

“¿Quiere su almuerzo ahora?”

He shrugged, not knowing what she'd asked, then limped after her on his cane into the house. Again, he caught that same queer silence lingering beneath the roar of the wind and the breaking waves.

19

Jude drove from La Puntilla under the same blistering midday sun, storming in a back-blast of dust past the pricey hotels and elegant
ranchos
along the Costa del Sol. He tapped his horn as he passed the teenage bread vendors on their
bicicletas de la carga
, the women balancing baskets of
tamales
atop their heads, the wandering dogs and cows and pigs rooting along the roadside for fallen mangos or cashew pods or even half-rotted cabbages, while armed men watched from behind iron gates. The jarring clash of luxury and want prompted an uneasy candor: He felt guilty but grateful to leave Strock behind. Just one last connection with Malvasio, report on things, then he'd put this curious little picaresque behind him for good.

He'd been lied to, sure. Used, maybe—and for what? He couldn't tell. That's just the way things get done sometimes, he told himself: No harm, no foul. God loves drunks, fools, and Americans. Here's hoping. But then, rounding a bend, he felt a surge of nausea build to the point he had to pull to the side of the road. He opened the door, leaned out over the billowing dirt of the roadbed, ready to hurl. Nothing came, just a trickle of bile up his throat, while from somewhere nearby a rooster shrieked. He felt ridiculous. Until that moment, he hadn't realized what a buildup of fear he'd been sitting on. It seemed odd, not to know a thing like that.

Glancing up, he saw a billboard for Schafik Handal, the FMLN candidate for president, looming over the road. The old guerrilla's beaming, bespectacled, white-bearded face was gone, obscured by a giant blotch of black paint. The country had held its elections on Sunday, while he'd been in Chicago, and the
efemelenistas
had lost big. More to the point, as the vandalized billboard made plain, the
areneros
were ugly winners.

It made him wonder about Eileen—out of concern for how she was taking the election, sure. He'd ask her about that, ask her about everything. But ever since he'd landed, despite all this business with Strock and Malvasio—or maybe because of that—she'd become the star of increasingly shameless daydreams. He felt like a ten-year-old with a crush on the babysitter, a state of puzzling arousal humming in his groin. And, bowing to the humility inspired by his sudden bout of dry heaves, he admitted to himself he felt unworthy of her. What do you do with something like that, he wondered. Sit on it, like your fear?

Malvasio sat waiting at the same beachfront restaurant in San Marcelino. This time there were other customers too, two men, one woman, sitting together: the men filthy from fieldwork and stormily drunk, one of them wearing a sweat-stained cowboy hat of yellow straw; the woman young, dark, and willowy, with doe-like eyes that belied the fact she was a prostitute.

Malvasio offered a
Hey buddy
smile. “Everything squared away?”

Jude sat down across the table, the artery in his neck throbbing. “I'd get somebody out there to follow up quick. Before somebody we both know goes batty.”

“No worries. That's the plan.”

“I gave him my cell number to call if he gets edgy and I'd prefer he didn't blow up my phone wondering what the hell's going on.”

Malvasio cocked his head a little. “You guys do some male bonding on the way down?”

“What's that crack for?”

“Nothing. I just—”

“I felt for the guy. God knows he's a drunken pain in the ass, but he's out there alone, middle of nowhere.”

“What about Clara?”

“She doesn't speak English. He doesn't speak Spanish.”

“My point,” Malvasio said, “is he's not alone.” He reached across the table and gave Jude's arm a little buck-up shake. “And he'll get connected work-wise tomorrow, first thing. Relax. He'll be okay.” His eyes warmed again. “He's somebody else's worry now. You did great. I'm grateful. Really.”

Despite his own better instincts, Jude felt reassured by the attaboy. Malvasio had the gift. “You were right about one thing, incidentally.”

“Just one?”

“He says he'll kill you if he sees you down here.”

Malvasio looked out across the white sand, the rustling palms, the shimmering blue water. “I wish I knew what to say to that.”

“He filled me in on the Winters story. The parts you left out.” And more, Jude thought, holding on to that for now.

Malvasio turned back. “And which parts might those be?”

“Mainly, the part about planning the hit two months before Winters died. And leaving Strock with his knee torn up when he fell through a rotted stair trying to get into position.”

Malvasio looked like something had crawled up his pant leg. “Come again?”

“I think you heard me.”

“Jude—”

“That's not your recollection of what happened?”

“I haven't got a clue what you're talking about,” Malvasio said. “Phil and your dad always told me they were working in your basement and there was an accident. Phil fell off a ladder, I think. A screwdriver or saw blade or something went through his knee. You're telling me that isn't his story now?”

Jude felt another lurch of nausea but he tamped it down, picturing how it might have happened—not Malvasio but his dad the one who wanted Winters dead, the hooker snitch too, planning it out with Strock, only to have it all go wrong. It made sense, actually, after a fashion. But then why blame Malvasio?
Because he's the lucky prick who got away clean
. Give yourself ten years to perfect a fable of blame every time you've got a drink in front of you, God only knows what you'll concoct.

“No,” Jude said. “That's not the way he tells it.”

“You ever talk to your dad about what happened?”

Assuming I'd believe my dad, Jude thought. “Never.”

“So it's Phil's word against mine.”

“Yeah. Seems so.”

Malvasio rubbed his eyes and groaned. “The funny thing? It's not like I didn't know this might happen—I told you he puts everything on me, right?”

“You're saying he's lying. His version of what happened to his leg, Winters—”

“Jude, let me stop you, okay? I can't make this right. I can't go back and prove anything for you. I've already told you my side, he's told you his, there's no getting from one to the other. You just have to decide who to believe. Him or me. Maybe neither.” Malvasio shook his head with a sad little laugh. “If you don't mind me changing the subject, how'd you find him?”

“The kid you told me about,” Jude said. “I tracked her through Vital Statistics, found the mother in East Chicago. She told me enough I could figure out the rest.”

“You met her. The mother.”

“She's a dancer. The exotic kind.”

“Okay, that fits the picture. She got a name?”

Jude thought about that. “Listen, don't take this wrong. I don't mean anything. But given the bad blood—”

Malvasio raised his hand. “Jude, we're good. Fine. Don't tell me. I don't need to know. I was just curious, okay?”

“He's not crazy about the weapon you left for him, incidentally.”

“Not my problem. Or yours. Besides, that's just him. Olympic-class whiner, that guy. Give him twenty-four hours, he'll be knocking caterpillars off coconuts at three hundred yards, trust me. Be doing the same if you left him a slingshot and a box of rocks.”

“He says it's too windy to practice out there.”

“So they'll find someplace else he can practice. Look, it's covered. Your worries are done. Let's wrap up—any problems along the way I should know about?”

Jude thought through what had happened the last few days—from tracking down Strock to finally dropping him off at the
rancho
—the whole time not knowing whether he was doing a good thing or a dumb thing, wondering what came next and would he get dragged into it somehow, getting his mind whipsawed by one tale after another with no way to tell what was true: Did any of that constitute a problem?

Malvasio said, “Don't do that.”

Jude snapped to. “Do what?”

Malvasio pointed to his mouth. “That thing with your lip. The way you chew at it. It's a nervous tic. Gives you away.”

Jude could feel the blood rush to his face. “Sure.” On a sudden impulse he searched his shirt pocket for the slip of paper he'd removed from his pickup's firewall—unfolded it, set it on the table, turned it so Malvasio could read the hand-scrawled lettering: “This look familiar?”

Malvasio glanced down, read the message, then lifted his eyes again, his face imbued with an almost pitying impatience. “What are you going on about now?”

Jude felt his defiance melt away as easily as that. Telling himself to give it up, he fluttered his hand, like he was shooing away a bad idea. “Never mind. Stupid. Sorry.” He gathered up the paper slip and stuffed it back in his pocket.

Across the room, the girl and her two johns were drinking hard; the talk was heating up. The one in the cowboy hat had his arm around the young woman and he leered at her, pinching her nipple through her halter, his fingers black. Jude guessed he'd been digging by hand through cold trash fires for scrap metal. And he'd found enough to cash in, pay for a party—which meant five bucks for the girl, two more for the beers.

Malvasio produced an envelope and slid it across the table. “This is for you.”

Jude stared at it. “No need. Really.”

“What I gave you before was for out-of-pocket costs. This is to say thanks.”

“You're welcome. Thing's done. Hope it got done well and everybody ends up happy.” Standing, Jude left the envelope where it was. “I'd best get back to what I do down here.”

Malvasio looked up at him with an expression that said,
So that's what you think of me
. He nodded toward the envelope. “You're sure you won't take this? I don't want you feeling taken advantage of.”

“It's not a problem.”

“I didn't say it was a problem. I just want you to have it.”

Across the room the grimy cowboy reared back his head and roared, laughing, reaching with his beer bottle to clink it against his friend's. A toast. May the best man win. Loser gets sloppy seconds.

“You want me to handle that?” Malvasio said.

Jude blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You want me to take care of it?”

“Take care of what?”

Malvasio took the envelope with the cash inside, stood up, and ambled over to the table where both men were pawing at the young woman now. He let the envelope drop onto the table.

“¿Cuánto te pagan? Yo te pago más. Mucho más.”

How much are they paying you? I'll pay you more. Much more.

The man in the cowboy hat cleared his throat and glared while the other one blinked. The young woman eyed the envelope. Malvasio gestured for her to stand up and go. It took a second but, smiling nervously, she turned sideways on the bench to get out. The cowboy stopped her. To Malvasio, he said,
“A la chingada, baboso, y
—”

Malvasio snatched the beer bottle from the cowboy's grip and slammed it so hard against his nose his face exploded in blood. His friend jumped back with a sick little shriek. That much Jude had half expected. It was the next move that stunned him—Malvasio picking a fork up off the table, gripping it like a knife, then plunging it into the cowboy's throat.

The man sat there, face bloody, white eyes gaping while a faint, bubbly hiss leaked out from his punctured windpipe.

Malvasio lifted the envelope, dotted with blood now, handed it to the girl, and told her to leave. She kicked off her sandals, the better to run, grabbed them from the floor, and vanished down the stairs. Malvasio turned away from the two men and walked slowly back to Jude.

He said, “I had to do that or he'd have come back sooner or later and taken it out on the girl. You understand that, right?”

The cowboy's drunk friend finally overcame his shock and inched to his companion's side. He reached tentatively for the fork but the cowboy shook his head in whimpering panic and swatted the hand away.

Malvasio said. “You should go. I'll wrap this up. Thanks again for all your help.”

PART III

SINCE I MET

THE DEVIL

The true purpose of masks, as any actor will tell you, is not concealment, but transformation.

—Salman Rushdie,
The Jaguar Smile

20

Want me to handle that?
Jude tore west in his pickup from San Marcelino, trying to convince himself nothing he could have done would have mattered. By the time he'd caught on to what was happening, it was too late—but everything had that sense to it now. What other little reckonings were in store? It dawned on him that for someone whose job was protecting people, he'd done a piss-poor job looking after himself, and no doubt there was a moral to be had in that, but for now it just brought to mind the way his father died, with a whole new take on just how fitting it was: a miscalculation, a thoughtless slip. Then tangled up underwater. Trapped.