The Long Day of Revenge (14 page)

There was still no stiffness in his manhood. That was indeed odd. In a panic, Manolo increased the speed and precision of his whaps, which caused the punished girl to scream with each one.

“Owwwww! Oww! Owwww!”

It was then things came to an end, as abruptly as they had started.

“Go stand in the corner.”

Obeying the command, Esmeralda got up and, rubbing her scalding ass all the way, headed for the corner of the room. Her sobs were real and her breathing labored.

“Stand there until I tell you to come out.”

“Well done, but I never thought this was what you were into.”

Fernando De La Torre was standing before him, dressed in the bloodstained white and silver suit of lights he had worn the day he was killed.

“Go away,” Manolo whispered, not wanting Esmeralda to notice this new visitor. “Not now.”

“I don’t want to go,” De La Torre shrugged. “That’s the great thing about being dead. You’re able to be here and there. Say, you really spanked the shit out of that whore.”

Manolo frowned, looking first at the recently deceased matador and then to the girl in the corner, who was sniveling, but in no way aware of a new party coming onto the scene. For a long moment there was angry silence, and then it was De La Torre who spoke.

“Granted, I’m at fault for introducing you to this place, but no one twisted your arm to come. Now you’re caught up in the murk just like I was. Just hope Lucinda never finds out. I mean, if you treat her like you do Esmeralda here, I won’t be surprised if you come back to an empty apartment one day. It’s going to happen if you aren’t careful.”

“Shut up,” Manolo pantomimed with his mouth. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Suit yourself,” De La Torre griped. “Oh, by the way, I know what you’re planning next season. I’d get everything you want done before that day is finished up, because Gaditano is going to kill you. That came from the gypsy woman.”

“I hate Gaditano, and I hate that fucking gypsy,” he said aloud, and Esmeralda looked over her shoulder on that one, not sure how to react.

“Still going on about the bull?”

“Yes,” Manolo countered, more relieved De La Torre had vanished than the fact his playmate had heard him ramble on about the hated horned devil. “Look, we got done what we needed to. Come over here and just talk to me.”

Manolo stretched back on the bed, lying on his stomach, but his eyes were now distant.

As before, Esmeralda knelt by the bed, whispering to him.

“You know I love your company, but I really think deeper inside you’re happy with your wife. Maybe happier than you know it. Maybe you should just forget the spankings, like I said and do everyday type sex with her. Give her what she wants, and you might see her be more happy. When she’s happy, I think you’ll both be happier.”

“This sounds peculiar coming from a working girl,” Manolo noted. “This is most irregular.”

“I’m unusual,” Esmeralda added. “Most people, I could care less about. You, I feel for. That’s why I wonder if you would be better off never coming here again and staying with your wife. Sooner or later, she’s goings to figure out what’s going on.”

“You’re the only other one I do it with,” he tried to justify. “No one else.”

“Still…”

“This surely is unusual.”

Manolo shut his eyes, thinking of how he truly did miss his wife back in Mexico City. He had given her everything. Did she not appreciate it? What was wrong with her? So many other women would have eagerly traded places to be in her spot. He could have done a lot more cheating, like De La Torre, if he chose.

“Some people think Gaditano will finally kill me,” he croaked out. Though his mind was racing and should have been on Lucinda, it was reverting back to the devil’s pawn of the Eliseo Manzano ranch.

“So many times people have rambled on about what they desire to happen, and often I have heard men talk of their dreams,” Esmeralda whispered to him. “They build what they think are the castles they want to live in. They put them up a brick at a time. Then, when the building is complete and they think they have gotten what they want, the building caves in on them. Don’t be like that with your castle. This bull could be all wrong for you. Let it go and worry about your wife.”

Manolo shook his head in the negative.

“No,” Esmeralda continued. “She sees it just like I do. I am sure of that.”

“You are a most extraordinary woman,” Manolo countered. He was truly baffled and amazed by her conversation. To this, Esmeralda shrugged.

“No,” he said at long last. “I think we’ll all be better off if I keep making appointments with you when I am in Nogales. I think we will go with that.”

“That’s okay, also,” Esmeralda answered. “That’s okay, too.”

“Are you coming to the bullfight tomorrow?”

Esmeralda nodded.

“And next season when I kill Gaditano? Will you come then?”

“Will your wife be there?”

Manolo shrugged.

“Who knows!”

The matador again fell silent as he thought of his secret rituals which again had been observed. He then considered the appearance of De La Torre. Was he a ghost like in the comic books, or was he simply the product of a stressed mind? It couldn’t have been alcohol, as he was sober.

“Well, sometimes I do think of what I have made and what the bulls have taken from me in return. I have never been gored except that one time. That includes surviving in all the big rings. That’s why I hate Gaditano so much. Something mad came into me that day and beyond. The devil lives in me. I am sure of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve become a bastard as a person. I have drives, and they overwhelm me. At times, I think I have no control anymore. I hate what I have become.”

“Then change.”

Manolo laughed on that one.

“The desire of every man. We all want redemption. We all want change, but it doesn’t come easily.”

“And how will killing Gaditano bring change?”

Manolo thought for a moment.

“It will put everything behind me forever.”

“But this is already behind you,” Esmeralda objected. “The goring happened and you recovered. You don’t get it, but it all could be over if you wished it over. You are the one dragging it all up again.”

“What do you say I eat you?” Manolo offered. “At least then I won’t have to talk about this.”

Esmeralda again rose and offered herself to her host.

“Whatever you want.”

Chapter Eleven

Lucinda was alone in her apartment, watching as the bullfight progressed. The last time something from Nogales had aired, she had seen the death of Fernando De La Torre. She prayed beyond all hope such would not take place again. As a norm for the smaller rings, Nogales cards usually offered two matadors and four bulls. Since this was a benefit for De La Torre’s memory, six bullfighters were on the card facing one animal each. This was a major affair.

The lineup offered Manolo, of course, plus Juan Lorenzo, Emilio Rubio, Emilio Marcos Magnolia, Luis Redondo, and Gomez, who had since gained some recognition and was the last man fighting. He had been with Manolo that day in Hermosillo and beforehand in Ciudad Obregon, which seemed so long ago.

The first four bulls had not been good and the public was restless. Insults poured down, even as Redondo’s beast fell, which seemed unjust, as the man was donating his services for free this day. The public did not seem to care. Clearly, even this was not enough to satisfy the bullring crowd.

“I have an announcement right after I kill this bull today, so come back and I will tell everyone. All I will say now is it has something big to do with Nogales,” Manolo informed the newscaster. “For now, I want to dedicate this performance to my lovely wife, Lucinda, who is at home, and to the memory of my brave colleague, De La Torre.”

The announcement caught Lucinda by surprised on many fronts. While she was stunned Manolo mentioned her this day, she was thrown even more off guard by the announcement he planned to make.

It was then something else came to mind. When he was drunk in Guadalajara, Manolo had uttered something about De La Torre and some place. What was the name of it? Casa something? From time to time, thoughts of this had emerged, but not often. Now, for some reason, they returned.

Something bothered her about the name and sound, but she could not place it.

No matter. The trumpet blasted and Manolo’s bull exploded into the ring, racing about with corral dust still blowing off its back and head held high.

“Have luck,” she whispered, as if somehow through the television Manolo could hear.

Manolo darted out and dropped to his knees, but whatever luck he might have had left him. All Lucinda could do was rise in her chair and scream as the bull slammed straight into his body, lifted him high, and threw him violently against the fence, so hard she was sure she heard boards breaking.

“A farol de…”

The newscaster was about to describe the pass Manolo prepared to do, but had been cut off.

“My God!”

Shades of Hermosillo came to mind again, as she watched Manolo being carried from the ring. Yet suddenly the crowd roared. He was starting to kick his way free, evidently not gored.

“Thank God,” Lucinda sighed aloud, but as she did tears started to materialize in her eyes. It was far too bitter a memory that had returned.

“Thank God.”

Manolo was helped behind the fence, where Rafael tried to revive him. He offered him water from a jug and kept holding his head, asking if he was okay. Manolo gave only a weak nod.

The camera shifted between Manolo, trying to shake off the brutal tossing he had received, and the action in the ring, as the picadores and banderilleros worked. There was speculation as to whether Manolo would be able to complete the performance after all, or if some other matador on the card would finish the bull for him.

Looking much worse for wear, Manolo stepped back into the ring, doffing his hat to indicate he sought permission from the plaza judge to kill the bull. It was a routine gesture.

“Viva Garza!” someone shouted, and the call brought roars from the crowd.

Manolo again slid to his knees, this time holding the smaller red muleta and sword. Kneeling by the fence, he called to the bull and took it past him, making the maneuver work where it had failed with the larger cape some minutes before. Again, the crowd screamed.

“Manolo has always considered Nogales to be a good luck ring for him,” Rafael Gonzalez was saying to the commentator as the fight progressed. “As his manager, I try to have him come here at least twice a year. It is not the biggest of rings, but it is one where he has always done well. Now this bullfight is different because it is in the memory of De La Torre. May God give him peace. As you know, Manolo was on the card with him earlier this season when De La Torre took that horrible goring, and it was Manolo who brought death to the offending bull. That is why this bullfight has special meaning to him.

“And what of his big announcement?”

“I have no idea,” Rafael shrugged. “It is not my doing, as we have no more bookings in Nogales this year.”

Another commentator interrupted from in the stands and proclaimed the obvious, noting how Manolo had the bull under his spell, and pandemonium was the rule of the moment in Nogales.

“Adorno,” the commentator babbled out in reference to an adornment where Manolo rested his sword on the animal’s head and dared it to kill him.

“Manolo Garza knows what this audience wants,” Rafael’s voice was overheard again as the action on the screen continued. “He knows this crowd, and they know him.”

Manolo was now leading the bull through slow right handed passes; committing each with such grace it looked simple. The animal seemed to be moving on a set of rails.

“Ole!”

The cheers rang from above, and the music played. Lucinda had heard the song before, but did not know the title of it.

Again, Manolo dropped to his knees and spun in the lure, taking the horns perilously close to him. If he had been badly rattled when thrown in the early moments of the bullfight, he had shaken it all off well.

“Manolo mixes the right amount of raw courage with art,” the commentator from the stands was saying. “This day is no exception. He knows on the border the fans like the kneeling passes, and so…”

Backing away, Manolo smiled and pointed up to the heavens, as if to indicate De La Torre was looking down on him. Lucinda smirked at this, for from what Manolo had rambled about him in the hotel after the funeral, it seemed more fitting he should have pointed toward the ground.

“Ole…”

More cheers as Manolo finished up his work and went to the fence to retrieve the killing sword. This was the part Lucinda hated the most.

“De La Torre…”

It was then for whatever reason the camera panned the audience and focused on a dark haired girl in the front row. Lucinda’s eyes widened with the memory as she saw the logo on her T-shirt.

“Casa de Campo. Nogales.”

She said the words aloud as they lit up within her. The name was set ablaze by torches in her brain.

“Casa De Campo.”

She remembered Manolo’s drunken nonsense, too.

“He was saying some shit about De La Torre and Casa De Campo. It sounds like a fucking whore house.”

What did this really have to do with her? It was De La Torre’s problem and not for her or Manolo. She had a pretty good idea what Casa De Campo was now, just with a look at the woman in the stands with the brief glimpse the camera provided. This again was of no concern. Her main worry was the survival of her husband on the sand.

“Ole! Ole!”

A few more passes came, in order to put the bull in position. Manolo then took aim with the cloth in his left hand and the sword in the right, determined to bring the grand performance to a fitting end.

“Garza lines up for the kill,” the commentator informed the viewers. “And…”

Manolo missed. The bull had lifted his head at the last second, and rather than sink deep within, the blade had bent slightly and bobbled out. The matador, however, kept his grip on the instrument of death and took aim once more, determined to make this second try fatal.