Night of the Jaguar (6 page)

It made Ajax want to slap Jesus.

But the other part of him marveled at the tireless ingenuity, the valiant innovation of making something from nothing. After all, each family here had constructed a home; an impossible tangle of jerry-rigged wires ran from utility poles to each shack where lights kept out the night and radios brought in the world. Impossible vehicles with no glass, doors, or springs, just five-gallon gas jugs sporting a hose plugged directly into carburetors patrolled the streets as “People's Taxis.”

It was an ingenuity born of necessity which never overcame the scarcity—like harvesting water from fog. You'd get enough to drink, but only just.

Ajax stood in the shade of a chilamate tree and studied the children. Few things happened in the barrios populares to break the routine, so this corpse, “their corpse,” would give them bragging rights in the ramshackle school they would eventually return to. But they were all out of school today. Three days of national mourning had been declared for the death of Joaquin “El Mejicano” Tinoco. And like all the barrios of the capitol, this one was already draped in black flags. Flags as black as the trash bags that covered the corpse at his feet.

“Been a lot of dying lately.”
Ajax had been shocked to learn from Horacio last night that the news of Joaquin's death would be made public today.

Joaquin Tinoco had been one of the nine comandantes of the National Directorate that actually ran the country—the men behind the president. Ajax had not even known he was sick. But he'd been dropped from the need-to-know list when he'd stopped going to Frente meetings. Still, it would've been nice, it would have been proper, to have visited Joaquin before the cancer ate him up. Joaquin wasn't really Mexican. But the old noms de guerre stuck to you like grafted skin. Joaquin had been born in Mexico and moved to Nicaragua as a child—a mirror image of Ajax, who'd been conceived in Nicaragua and born in the States. Joaquin was one of the oldest living founders of the Sandinista Front. In 1969, Joaquin had marched in with a squad of men to give the oath when Horacio had put Ajax up for full membership. Ajax smiled to remember how solemnly he had taken the vow—“Patria Libre o Morir!”—Free country or death. He'd even memorized a little verse from Nicaragua's national saint, the poet Rubén Darío, to consecrate the moment. But before he'd opened his mouth to recite, Joaquin had cuffed him upside the head. “Don't fuck up, chico. I don't want to have walked all this way for nothing.” And the veterans had gone off laughing to scrape together a meal. Por nada, for nothing, had instantly become Ajax's nickname.

That was the first time he'd seen El Mejicano. The last time was two years ago when Ajax had awoken in a hospital bed after wrapping his Lada around a palm tree. Like most drunks, he had an uncanny ability to survive wrecks less damaged than his car. El Mejicano had been in his room—the old comandante still looked after his boys. Ajax had pretended to be out, and watched him a while. Joaquin's face had seemed blank, eyes half-closed, the stupefied look all the old veterans had developed whiling away countless hours of waiting—for food, ammunition, battle, victory, death.

When Ajax had finally “come to” though, so had Joaquin. He'd pitched Ajax's things around the room, the bloody uniform, his battered shoes. When he'd found the Python, Joaquin pulled it from its holster, shucked five bullets out, spun the chamber with the sixth still in, and stuck the pistol into Ajax's hand.
You wanna gamble with your life, Spooky, play for real. Stop wrecking the Revo's cars!

That one bullet was still in the Python.

A breeze off Lake Managua snaked through the warren of the barrio, rustled the black flags hung for a hero, and lifted the black trash bags covering the corpse at Ajax's feet. It was “his” corpse now.

Ajax watched the crowd. Girls held hands to their mouths and whispered to each other. Boys talked excitedly and pushed each other toward the body, inciting the usual dares.

But Ajax ignored the children. At least the excited ones. He was looking for the quiet kid. The one standing apart, observing, watching with interested eyes. The cadaver was still fresh, no decomposition but just enough stiffness in the joints to make Ajax think it was maybe twelve hours dead. If the perp was local, he'd not be hanging around. But if something bad had gone down at home last night, if an adult had brought guilt into the house, then one of these kids might be wearing a worried look. It took a few minutes, but Ajax spotted him. A skinny, gangly boy with a shaved head, hanging back behind the adults. The only one watching Ajax more than the corpse. Ajax signaled to one of the traffic cops who'd called it in.

“Compa,” he said to the man, turning his back to the kid. “Look over my shoulder. You see the boy at the back of the crowd with the shaved head? I need to talk to him. Go up to the road and circle around behind. Bring him here.”

The traffic cop walked off, just as Gladys emerged from the crowd.

“Any luck?”

“No one knows him. No one reports anyone missing.”

“Didn't think they would. He's not local.”

“But you wanted me to ask anyway?”

“Canvassing's always a good idea. Show the flag. Let 'em know we're on the job, that we care. Come on, time to see.”

He walked her down to the corpse. The body lay facedown in the muck, still dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, shoeless, beltless, one limp black sock half off the right foot.

“What do you see?”

Ajax noticed that Gladys clasped her hands behind her back in order not to touch the body, and peered down rather than knelt.

“Well, he's late fifties or early sixties, from the gray hair and bald spot. He's got no shoes. There was no wallet or money or jewelry. They cleaned that out.”

“Good, Lieutenant. What does he have?”

“Clothes?”

Ajax knelt next to the body. “Get closer and look closer. What does he have? Look. He's wearing Levi's. Real ones. Look around. See anyone else wearing blue jeans?”

“Right.”

“Now turn back the T-shirt. See the tag? ‘One hundred percent cotton.' Only cheap polyesters around here. Ring finger?”

“Indention of a ring…”

“Wedding ring. But no ring. Same on his head. He's got an indention from a hat, but what kind of hat?”

“You gonna tell me that, Ajax?”

“No. But he will.”

The traffic cop, breathing hard, pushed through the crowd with the boy in a headlock. The crowd let out some whistles and calls.

“This little fucker can run, compa.”

The kid was squirming like he had a live wire up his ass.

“And you'd've never caught me you pig fucker except—”

“Except for what, mijo?” Ajax rubbed the boy's shaved bristles. “Except for what?”

“Except I tripped.”

“Tripped over them new shoes?” Ajax nodded at the ill-fitting cowboy boots on the kid's feet.

“Fuck you!”

“‘Fuck you,
compañero
Captain Montoya.'”

“Fuck you, pig fucker.”

“Shameless. Lieutenant Darío, we got a bad boy here, a tough guy, a real hard case.”

Ajax nodded to the traffic cop who tightened his headlock until the boy squirmed in pain. But the kid uttered not a word of protest, even as his eyes filled with tears. Ajax drew his revolver and held it to the boy's face. “You see this? This is the most powerful handgun in the whole world.…”

“Bullshit. That's not a forty-four. It's a three-fifty-seven Python.”

“You're good kid. How'd you know that?”

“It's written on the barrel, asshole.”

At Ajax's signal the cop eased the headlock.

“So you can read. But let's agree that if you run I will shoot you with it, so you will walk over here to the shade and we will chat, converse, talk.”

“Fuck you!”

“That's an affirmative.” Ajax signaled the traffic cop to release the boy. The kid was halfway up the sewage ditch before Ajax could blink. But Gladys was faster and wrestled him down into the muck of the ditch. He punched her once, and she would've head-butted him into submission, but Ajax grabbed the kid by the foot and dragged him through the ditch to the shade. The crowd hooted with delight, as a police pickup arrived to retrieve the body.

“How's your head, Gladys?”

“Not bad, but look at my uniform. That little shit-eater.”

“Yeah, it's a dirty business.”

He told the traffic cop to sit on the kid and met the compas from the pickup. They'd brought only an old army stretcher to collect the remains. Ajax had not disturbed the body, but he wanted a better look at it. He helped them roll it onto the stretcher. Felt the familiar heaviness of the dead that he remembered from burial detail in the mountains. Then he gave the corpse a going-over. The stiff's eyes were open. There was no bloating. The skin was not dark. Whoever he was, he was a ladino—more European blood than Indian. Blood had clotted at his neck and chest. Whatever had killed him had gone right through the heart. Ajax went through the front pants pockets as he had the back. Empty. Then wiped away some of the muck from the forehead to have a look. No bruising. No signs someone had bashed him in the head.

“Where you taking him?”

The pickup driver shrugged. “Tomas Betulia.” As if there was more than the one morgue to take him to.

Every building of any significance in Nicaragua was named for a hero of the nation. The national baseball stadium was named after Rigoberto López, the pistol-packing poet who had dispatched the first Somoza in 1957. Ajax couldn't recall who Tomas Betulia was. But he knew the medical examiner there from a long time back. Doctor Marta Jimenez was a full-lipped, leggy Colombian widow who'd joined the Frente years ago.

“You know Doctora Marta over there? Tell her Captain Montoya said to keep all the corpse's clothes. I've inventoried them.” Ajax waved a notebook. He had inventoried nothing. But a pair of genuine Levi's, even freshly scrubbed of death, would fetch many sacks of beans or rice in the Oriental. Even a carton of Marlboros. “Tell her to keep the body on ice, but not to wash it until I get there. Me entiendes?”

“Sí, compa. I understand, but there ain't no ice, not even juice.”

“Then whatever. But not to throw away the clothes.”

They left, and Ajax looked at the scene again. What a pain in the ass. A morgue with no ice and no backup generator? There'd been talk about it after a big bus crash had coincided with a power outage, and the outrage at sixteen bodies gone bad. Instead of taking care of it, the government had farmed it out to a foreign aid group. Busybodies Without Borders, if Ajax remembered correctly. Either they had no one on the ground in Managua or lacked the sense God gave a stone. So instead of a generator, they delivered a state-of-the-art industrial ice maker, which worked out very well. Until the next power outage. Ajax had to work fast.

“Gladys, we need this kid's cooperation. You know the old ‘good cop, bad cop' routine? We'll do bad cop, worse cop. I'm bad, you're worse.”

Ajax thought she smiled a little too readily.

The traffic cop had the kid facedown in an arm lock to keep him from rabbiting again. Ajax admired his tenacity. “All right tough guy, what's your name?”

“Rambo.”

“That's a shitty name.”

“Why?”

“Rambo's an over-muscled, empty-headed gringo hijueputa. The Contra use that name. You need a better nom de guerre.”

“What's that?”

“Your warrior name.”

“What's yours? Dick Sucker?”

Gladys unsnapped her holster. “You need a good beating you little barrio rat.”

“And your name must be Pussy-Licker, you dyke!”

Gladys backhanded the kid a good one, which raised more hoots, whistles, and calls from the onlookers.

“Lieutenant, would you disperse the crowd for us? Nice and easy, please?”

The kid spat a little blood.

“What's your name?”

The boy paused. Ajax gave a small smile. He'd rid the kid of Rambo, anyway.

“Dirty Harry.”

“Christ, kid, another gringo. Don't you know any Nicaraguan heroes?”

“Nicaraguan?”

“Yeah, like the Güegüense.”

“The way who?”

“The Güegüense.” Ajax trolled out the pronunciation. “The ‘
way-when-say
.' Shit, what school do you go to?”

By the way the kid bent his head, Ajax knew he didn't go anymore.

“The Güegüense always gets out of trouble, and always gets what he wants because he never lies.”

“He sounds like an idiot.”

“But he also never tells the truth.”

“So he does lie.”

“No. He doesn't ever lie or ever tell the truth. And that is how he always gets out of trouble.”

The kid processed this. His eyes roved, looking for an advantage.

“Did you kill that guy?”

“No!”

Ajax poked at the kid's boots with the toe of his own. “Did you steal his boots?”

“The boots are his, but I didn't steal them.”

Ajax lifted the kid's shirt. “Did you steal his belt?”

“The belt is his, but I didn't steal it.”

“What time was it when you didn't steal the boots and the belt?”

“Like I have a fucking watch!”

Ajax pulled a cigarette and fished inside the pack with a finger. Two left. He had to get to the smugglers. He smoked a while as the crowd melted away except for two old crazies and a huddle of three small shoeless children—two boys of maybe eight, and a girl around six holding a doll. They hugged each other and eyed Ajax fearfully. His tough guy pointedly did not look at the three kids.

“They your family?”

The kid said nothing.

“That's a yes. Got any parents? Grandparents?”