The Penalty

by Mal Peet

  When they were close to the press, Mateo told them to stop and said to Bakula, who was standing in the moonlight with his hands in his pockets, “Which one you wanna do, Edson?”

  Bakula looked up. “The one with the stupid hair.”

  “Okay,” Mateo said. He tapped Diego on the top of his head with the gun. “On your knees, man.”

  Diego kneeled.

  “You,” Mateo said into Wallets’ ear. “Over here. C’mon, now.”

  One of Wallets’ eyes, the right one, was puffed up; it looked like the buttocks of a sleeping piglet. The other one was wide and full of terror. Mateo forced him into a kneeling position with his head on the lower plate of the cane press: the posture of a French aristocrat at the guillotine.

  Bakula nodded.

  Juan and Lucas leaned stiff-armed against the handles of the press, grunting and going, “Whew, hey, how long since someone use this thing?”

  They moved forward, pushing, starting to circle. The timbers groaned, then squealed. The upper plate came down, reluctantly at first, then more easily. When it touched the top of Morales’s head he twisted so that the right side of his face was against the lower plate and his one good eye was looking straight at Diego Samuel. The upper plate continued to descend, pressing his left ear into his skull. He managed to make a faint sound.

  Faustino looked away. Beside him, Prima was an intent black shape. Only her eyes were distinct, and they were focused on Bakula.

  The creaking stopped.

  Lucas said, “Hold on there, bro. Let me ease me shoulder. Damn, this thing stiff.”

  Juan also let go and straightened. “Yeah,” he said. “Edson, it okay we take a short break? Reckon the next bit gonna be the hardest.”

  “You’re right,” Bakula said.

  Mateo went over to Diego and ripped the gaffer tape off his face. Faustino winced at the sound it made coming away from the skin.

  Diego inhaled gasps, moving his head from side to side. When he could speak he said, “You bastards. What the hell’re you doing? What’s this for?”

  Mateo jabbed his gun into the top of Diego’s head and said, “What you think we doin, mister kidnapper policeman? We squeezin information outta you.”

  Diego lifted his head up against the pressure of Mateo’s gun and let out something like a sob; it was among the saddest sounds that Faustino had ever heard.

  “What you expect the man to say? You still got his mouth taped, you sick mothers.”

  Mateo sighed like a deeply disappointed man. He said gently, patiently, “It ain’t difficult, man. We don’ want your ugly friend there to talk. We want you to talk. But we figure that once you seen the way his head pop, you gonna be much more cooperative, know what I mean? Cos you seen how unpleasant it is. Thought about havin the same thing done to you.”

  Diego stared back at him.

  Juan said, “How that shoulder, bro? You ready for the last heave?”

  Lucas said, “Yeah, I reckon. C’mon, then. Les’ get it done.”

  He leaned against the pole and it inched forward. Morales’s legs shot out backwards and his toes pressed the ground, raising his body. His slack belly sagged.

  Diego yelled, “Okay! Okay! Jesus! What? What, damn you?”

  Bakula stepped closer and looked down at him. “What we would like to know,” he said, “is when the man you call Paracleto might come here. Do you know that?”

  “Yeah,” Diego said. “Sometime round midnight.”

  “What, tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mateo said, “Well, I’ll be damn. Look like you got the timin right on the button, Edson.”

  “Tell me how you know this,” Bakula said.

  Diego shook his head sadly. He looked like a man seeing Paradise fade into the distance. “Wallets got a phone call.”

  “Wallets?”

  “The guy you’re killin over there.”

  “All right,” Bakula said. “And?”

  “The man said da Silva finally stopped stallin and came up with the money. Late this afternoon. So tonight Paracleto’s comin up here to do his hocus-pocus thing on the kid.”

  “What man? Who do you mean, ‘the man’?”

  Faustino said from the shadows, “Eduardo Varga.”

  There was a silence during which Bakula gave Faustino an interested look.

  “Yeah,” Diego said. “Varga. All right then. What else don’ you sonsabitches know?”

  “Will Paracleto come alone, or with others?”

  “I dunno.” Mateo pushed the gun harder against Diego’s scalp. “I don’ know, man. Last time he came, he had two guys with him, but—”

  “Who were these men? Colleagues of yours?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. They had these crazy like hoods on, you know?”

  Bakula looked at Diego for a few seconds in silence, then nodded. “Okay. So, when Paracleto’s done whatever he’s supposed to do, what happens to the kid? To Brujito?”

  “I dunno.”

  Mateo let out a hiss of exasperation. “All this joker ever say is ‘I dunno.’ We wastin time, Edson. Wan’ me to shoot him?”

  “No, lissen,” Diego pleaded. “Lissen, man. I’m tellin you God’s truth. Varga didn’ say nothin about that. Our orders is, we keep lookout here while Paracleto’s in with the kid. When he’s done, we split. Me and Wallets. Go on down to our boat, get back to San Juan, collect our cut. That’s it. Job done. I’m not shittin you, man. He didn’ say nothin about takin the kid with us.”

  “So you leave him here. With whoever turns up tonight.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  Faustino felt Prima nudge his arm.

  “I told you so,” she said quietly.

  He didn’t reply. He was horribly fascinated by Two Wallets’ weakening efforts to keep his body high enough off the ground so that his neck wouldn’t break.

  Lucas broke the silence. “All done, Edson? Wan’ us to carry on?”

  Without looking round Bakula said, “Yes, carry on.”

  Lucas grinned, a white crescent of teeth. “Aye aye, Cap’n.” He took hold of one of the winding poles. “You ready, brother ’postle?”

  “Guess so,” Juan said.

  “Oh God, no,” Faustino murmured, and turned away.

  Wallets’ toes scrabbled for more purchase on the earth.

  Grotesquely, Lucas began a sort of work chant, “Hey-yo, hey!” and leaned forward. Then, chuckling, he and Juan stooped under their poles and shoved in the reverse direction. The timbers moaned and mewled, and the plate rose reluctantly. Wallets brought his knees forward, very slowly, but did not lift his head from the slab. He had both eyes closed now, and he exhaled through his nose in a bubbly hiss.

  Bakula had been standing with his hands in his pockets, staring into the night. Now he turned and said, “All right. Rehearsal time.”

  SHORTLY BEFORE ELEVEN thirty, Bakula, Prima and Faustino returned to the building that housed the shrine. They did not go to the double doors at the front; instead they went round to the back, where a single door with a lock but no handle was set into the wall. Bakula shone his torch along the concrete lintel and reached up. When he brought his hand down it was holding a key. He unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  “Come in.”

  Faustino followed Prima into complete darkness. He heard the door close behind him, and then a light clicked on. It was not a bright light, but his eyes flinched.

  The room was the width of the building but only some four paces deep. It contained a good deal of stuff and a stale religious odour that took Faustino back, briefly, to the unbearable Sunday mornings of his childhood. Arranged haphazardly along the walls were items of furniture: a few simple wooden chairs, a chest of drawers, a cupboard with a small padlock, boxes of various sizes, an unplugged and rusty fridge. On a low table stood a number of African-looking carved figures, some naked, some dressed in clothes whose bright colours had faded. Other more naturalistic statuettes made of plaster were, Faustino sup
posed, Christian saints. Some, not all, had their faces painted black. On the long wall facing the entrance was another door, fastened with a hefty sliding bolt, and a small curtained window.

  Speaking quietly, Bakula said, “This is what I suppose you’d call the vestry. I’m sorry it’s not more comfortable. With any luck you’ll not have long to wait.”

  He went to the window. “Come over here, Paul. Prima, please turn the light off.”

  The room returned to darkness and Bakula drew back the curtain. When Faustino’s eyes had adjusted themselves, he found that he had a commanding view of the shrine. He looked down on it slightly; it seemed that the floor of the vestry was a little higher than that of the rest of the building. The double doors at the far end and the window shutters were still open; Faustino could make out the lines of blood and salt bisecting the angled patches of moonlight. The bare light bulb still cast its weak and sickly glow over El Brujito, who was lying on the bed with his knees pulled up to his chest, perhaps asleep. The television set had been turned off.

  “I want you to see what happens,” Bakula murmured, “and we think this is the safest, the best, place for you. You will be invisible to anyone in the building as long as you keep the light off. I’ll leave the torch with Prima, but she will only use it if it’s absolutely necessary. You must be completely silent, of course.”

  “No cheering, then.”

  “Not until it’s over. And maybe not even then.”

  Bakula pulled the curtain closed and Prima switched the light on. Bakula handed her the torch and the key to the outside door. Then he laid his hand on her head, and looked into her eyes.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  “Yes. Lock the door behind me.”

  Then he left them. A click, darkness again, and the sound of the door opening and closing.

  The three figures that emerged from the dense shadow of the track at eight minutes past midnight might have been returning from some ghoulish carnival. Two were similarly dressed. Over their trousers they both wore a kind of kilt made of dangling lengths of coarse knotted string. At the ends of these strings were shells and small bones which chinked and clacked together. Both men – if that was what they were – wore red and black quartered football shirts and black hoods that rose to stiffened peaks almost a metre above their heads. The mouth and eyeholes were outlined with white paint. Hood One held a large seashell, a conch, in his right hand. Hood Two carried a small iron plate attached to a leather thong looped over his fingers. Both had satchels made of painted sackcloth slung over their shoulders.

  The third character walked a couple of paces behind the others, and something in the way he moved suggested that he was an older man. He was barefoot, and plainly dressed in white trousers and a loose white shirt. His eyes and nose were concealed by a moulded plastic mask, also white. His pale straw hat was frayed at the brim, and its band was adorned with small clay skulls painted red and black. In his hand he held some sort of wand or club: a bundle of thin canes bound together with embroidered bands of cloth. From the end of it protruded a small two-headed axe. He too carried a painted sackcloth satchel.

  Diego Samuel stood outside house number six and watched this weird threesome approach. He had his back to the window and the empty shotgun cradled in one arm. If he’d leaned back a little he’d have felt the muzzle of Juan’s gun pressing into the base of his skull through the sugar sack curtain. He glanced over to see how Wallets was holding up. He looked more or less okay; he was leaning against the frame of the open door, the damaged side of his face in shadow. But Diego knew that if Wallets were to turn his head to the left he’d be looking straight down the snout of the big Glock nine-millimetre pistol belonging to the guy called Lucas. And over in the shadow of the cane press was the third guy, Mateo.

  Hood One called out and Diego cautiously raised a hand in greeting.

  “Yo, man. Everythin cool?”

  “Yeah,” Diego said. “How long you reckon you’ll be?”

  “Long as it takes. Why, you in a hurry?” A flash of teeth in the mouth hole. “Don’ tell me you ain’t enjoyin your little all expenses paid holiday up here.”

  Wallets cleared his throat and spat. “It sucks.”

  The man in the white clothes murmured something.

  Hood Two said, “The pai here want to know how the superstar is.”

  “Same as ever,” Diego said. “I checked him a half-hour ago, looked like he was asleep.”

  “Okay. Don’ you guys go cuttin off till we get back, now.”

  “We ain’t goin nowhere,” Wallets said sourly.

  “Right,” Hood One said. “Let’s get to it.”

  He raised the conch to his mouth and blew into it. A low and mournful sound unfurled itself from the shell. As it faded, Hood Two struck the iron plate with a wooden stick, producing a flurry of beats that settled into a slow marching rhythm. The conch moaned again, and to this unearthly music the strange trio walked towards the shrine.

  Lucas murmured, “Nice work, guys. Now come inside an’ have a lie-down.”

  When the sound reached Faustino, it sent a tickle of fear across his scalp. He got up from the chair. A pool of torchlight appeared at his feet. When they were beside the window Prima clicked the torch off and drew back the curtain.

  It seemed that El Brujito had also heard. He sat up slowly, and swung his legs off the bed; then, as the eerie rhythm grew louder, he stood, his back to the doors.

  Faustino could not stifle a soft exclamation when the three freakish figures appeared in the doorway and stood silhouetted against the moonlight. As he watched, the hooded figure on the left drummed a fast pattern on the iron plate, paused, repeated it. When the metallic echoes had died, the other man lifted the conch to his mouth. The sound it gave out was far louder than its earlier calls; it reverberated in the dark space like the cry of some huge and primitive animal facing its own extinction. The boy standing alone in the shrine swayed, but did not look round. When the silence returned it seemed denser than ever.

  Now the hooded men moved into the building, shells clinking against bones. When they reached the barriers of blood and salt they stopped. They were perhaps two metres apart. Each took a candle from his satchel and placed it between the blood and salt, careful not to touch either. Each lit his candle with a cigarette lighter then stood and spoke a phrase in a language that Faustino did not know. Their actions were almost perfectly synchronized, as if in response to unheard commands.

  They repeated this ritual at intervals as they worked their way across and then down opposite sides of the blood and salt rectangle. When they were almost level with Brujito, the hooded man on the right stumbled slightly; his foot had encountered the television lead.

  “Shit,” he said, softly but audibly. He stooped and pulled the cable free of the wall socket with a single savage tug. Then he resumed his steady and stately progress along the blood and the salt.

  When the fourth side of the rectangle had been lit by candles the hooded figures stood just outside it, their backs towards the window behind which Faustino and Prima were concealed. Faustino saw that both men’s shirts bore the name BRUJITO above the number 10.

  While this lengthy procedure had been taking place, Ricardo had grown increasingly anxious and restless. He had struggled to keep his hands still, baring his teeth with the effort. It seemed to Faustino that he was fighting the urge to run on the spot like a substitute waiting to come onto the field during a fraught passage of play.

  By contrast, the masked man in the white clothes had remained motionless throughout, standing slightly stooped just inside the doors. Now at last he moved. He reached into his satchel, put something in his mouth. The flare of a lighter lit up his half-human face. Blowing cigar smoke in long plumes to the left and right he walked slowly forward, extended his axe-headed club in front of him, and stepped over the blood and the salt. As he did so, the conch sounded again, a low hoarse greeting that rose in pitch then fell away.

  When
the pai reached the skeletal timbers of the shrine itself he stopped. Again he raised the club in front of him; then he called out a phrase, a sequence of unintelligible words. His voice was strong but rough-edged, as though long unused. The two hooded men called a reply, then repeated it; it became a slow chant which they accompanied with handclaps and foot stomps, setting up a strangely off-kilter rhythm, a crippled waltz. The pai now stepped through the wooden pillars and began an unhurried patrol of the shrine. At ten different places he paused, uttered an incantation, and blew jets of smoke towards the surrounding darkness.

  Ricardo now looked deeply agitated. His eyes were closed, and he moved his head in slow circles like someone easing a stiff neck. His body twitched, and with each spasm he would grimace as though enduring great pain or terrible joy.

  Prima was gasping audibly; when a muffled sob broke from her Faustino reached across and took her hand in his. To his surprise this quietened her.

  The pai now handed the remains of his cigar and the axe club to one of the hooded men and added his voice to the chant. He approached Ricardo and stood facing him for a second or two; then he raised his right arm and laid his hand on the boy’s head, palm on his forehead, fingers spread on his scalp. The effect upon Ricardo was immediate. The palpitations ceased. His body went slack, like a suspended marionette, then folded as he sank to his knees. The pai stooped, as though effortlessly forcing the boy to the ground.

  And then everything stopped. The chanting came to a shocked and shocking halt because the television set had turned itself on.

  THE SCREEN WAS, at first, a brilliant writhing mass of spermy shapes; the white noise that hissed into the shrine might have been the sound of their swarming. Then fragmented bands of colour began to scroll down the screen, accelerating into a rapid mesmeric flicker. At the same time, the white noise broke up into a fast sequence of different sounds – smeared snatches of music, babbled talk in a multiplicity of languages, electronic warbles – as if the set were searching frantically for a lost channel.