Night of the Jaguar

by Joe Gannon

Ajax turned left and went into his office. It was really a second bedroom—might have been a child’s bedroom. He sat in the comfortable leather chair she had given him back when she was mostly a pretty face but he was the great man. He opened a big desk drawer and stared through the darkness into it. He thought of it as the Dead Drawer. There were only four objects in it, like relics that, if laid out just the right way, offered clues to the loss of some bygone tribe. He removed The Needle, wrapped in oil skin to protect the blade, and set it aside with no more thought than you would give an old shoe. Then his fingers touched the finely framed photo she’d given him. A picture of the one perfect moment in his life—the afternoon of July 20, 1979. The day that divided his life into the Before of “All was possible” and the After of “Life is a double-dealing bitch.”

  He ran his fingers over the glass, closed his eyes. The image showed Ajax before a wildly cheering throng of people in what was now the Plaza de la Revolución, but was then still the Ogre’s Plaza de la Republica. Ajax stood on a platform, front and center, held an American sniper rifle over his head, the ivory handle of the Python visible on his hip. He was surrounded by his smiling compañeros. The look on his face was not one of triumph, but of joy. There was a watch on his wrist. Through a magnifying glass he had once tried to check the exact time. But it was obscured. She who had given him the watch stood at the back of the platform, her face just barely visible through the crowd of scruffy, fatigue-clad men and women. She was the only one not in fatigues. She stared at the Ajax the crowd adored. On her face was a look of hunger, but also of admiration. A look frozen for all time as incontrovertible proof that she had once adored him. No matter what bullshit evidence would later be introduced that he was cold, distant, and unable to live in the present.

  Ajax dropped the photo carelessly onto the desk and fumbled for the third object, a small makeup case. Through the plastic he could feel the tube of dark red lipstick. The brush still woven with strands of her chestnut hair. The nail file, long like her fingers. And, most precious, the small bottle of perfume. She’d worn the perfume the night of the photograph. His head had swum with the fragrance as she had torn at his clothes. He’d just been able to drag her into the back of a truck before she took him like some ravenous marauder, took him with such intensity, such unhinged abandon that it had been as if the people’s delirium at the Ogre’s overthrow had been channeled into her, the suffering and sacrifice of the guerrilleros channeled into him, so that when he’d entered her their bodies had become something new, some Adam and Eve, and the long stream of orgasms she had milked out of them both, her nails bloodying his back, had purged the suffering of the past, celebrated the unimaginable triumph of the present, and consecrated an unwritten future.

  Ajax had found it a little frightening.

  It had been, after all, only his third or fourth time, and he’d been nearly thirty. But she’d shown him, coached him, taught him. As was her way. He had wanted their child to be conceived that night. The very constellations in the sky were new. The Ogre had been overthrown. Decades of merciless dictatorship staked through the heart. Those who had been its slaves were now masters. And they would create a new world without slaves. Or masters.

  But the clock had already struck. Ajax did not know it then, but the day and the moment were gone. The constellations were not new. They were the same ones Ajax had looked at this very night. Only the Ogre would not come back (would be denied even exile, and sent to welcoming Hell on the nose of a rocket-propelled grenade).

  Ajax held the makeup bag to his face. He inhaled the perfume, the first time he’d done it sober in years, and the scent evaporated all those shame-filled nights when he’d tried to use it to awaken his pickled manhood. Now the scent inflamed his senses, sent a zing of electricity up his spine, caressed his old wound into silence and turned the handle on a rusted faucet he could not bear opened. Not now, not here alone with only the last object left in the drawer.

  He fingered the outline of the perfume bottle, set the makeup bag down, and lifted out the fourth object: the bottle of Flor de Caña, extra seco. Only foreigners drank the honey-gold dark rum. Like all Nicaraguans, Ajax preferred the water-clear extra dry. He ran his fingers over the unbroken seal. He’d written out the date of his last drink, June 28, 1986. What he hoped, prayed, wished to be the last. His turning, his redemption, his rescue.

  He wrapped his hand around the neck of the bottle. Wanted more than anything to wring its neck. Break the seal. Let go. He’d had a taste of letting go when he’d opened fire with the soldier’s AK. If had felt good. Very good. He’d even killed three crows—one of them in flight.

  Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme just the one drink!

  Burning off those rounds, he now realized, were the only moments when the thirsty voice had been quiet these past days. It seemed as if all the rum he would now not drink was rioting in his head. He fished out a Marlboro, stuck it into his lips, and flipped the Zippo into fire. It was almost lit when he saw the bloody stain running right down the seam of the cigarette paper.

  He wasn’t done killing, was he, you clever-stupid hero?

  “Situational awareness” was what the Cuban Special Forces colonel who had trained him outside Moscow had called it. When the sum of all you knew was greater than what the five senses could take in. Ajax had once been so famous for his situational awareness that his old commander, Horacio, had christened him, “Spooky.” But Fortunado Gavilan was not done killing, and Ajax had missed that situation. He seemed to miss a lot these days. Maybe the drink had rotted his once watertight instincts.

  Suddenly he was tired—exhausted and sleepy. He swept the icons of his life off the desk and back into the darkened drawer, lit the bloodstained cigarette, and dragged his ass to bed. On the way he picked up the thesaurus, just in case.

  2.

  Gladys Darío parked her Lada between two broken streetlamps, in a closet-sized pool of darkness, got out, and hung her heavy purse over her left shoulder. She checked the street—traffic in front of the Metro Centro was light for a Saturday night, but then the Soviet oil tanker had still not arrived. She stepped to the curb and walked unhurriedly, as if she had no real destination. The new cowboy boots, a gift from her sister in Miami, were just a little too snug, and she had to mind her step on the accordioned sidewalk, which the avocado trees lining the street had broken and buckled with their iron root system bulldozing like tectonic plates just below her feet.

  She passed a few sets of lovers at the bus stop, half asleep in exhausted embraces like warmed candles melting into each other. At the corner where the Carretera Sur began its run south to Masaya, she saw only two vendors selling ice cream and carnitas, but not doing much trade. She didn’t cross to the west side of the street where the Disco Vaquero actually sat—all gussied up in twinkling lights shaped like bull’s horns and a horse head. Between the blinking livestock, the words LADIES’ NITE were also lit up. Mexican norteño music escaped each time the door opened. She took up her usual observation post next to the Optica Nicaraguense at the edge of the Metro Centro directly across from the club. A trio of girls no more than ten passed her, chattering and carrying wide aluminum baskets filled with cheap hard candy, pens, loose cigarettes, matches, combs, and key rings. Where they were selling their odds and ends at this time of night, Gladys could not guess. She turned and watched them hold hands and dash across the street, first setting the baskets on their heads, which they balanced as easily as Gladys wore her cowboy hat.

  She had a discreet look at herself in the darkened store window. The tight Levi’s and white western shirt with blue stitching and real brass snap buttons made her feel as sexy as she hoped she looked. But the words “Made in the USA” in her sister’s mocking voice came to her mind. After the Revo, her younger sister had followed their parents to Miami. The first few years of letters and phone calls had eased the loneliness. But then Gladys had graduated university and chosen the police academy over Miami. She was thrilled to her marrow tha
t she’d been born in time to actually live the revolution generations of her people had dreamed of. Even her father had dreamed of it—just not one run by the Marxist children of fruit sellers and teachers. That was why he’d given up his lucrative medical practice and moved the family to Miami, where they’d spent much of their time anyway. She’d had his blessing to remain, but her training in Havana—the belly of the beast, as if Castro would personally demonstrate how to tie the garrote around the neck of Baby Freedom in its crib—was more than her father could accept, or excuse. The silences got longer and cooler. Her sister knew better than to talk politics with her, so the regular packages of clothes and makeup, jellies, soaps, and candies often arrived with no note at all—but always with the price tags still on.

  Gladys adjusted the new cowboy hat on her head and checked her front in the window; from breasts to hips, she found no conspicuous flaws. She looked into her eyes in the blackened glass and felt her inner predator purr. The only disappointment was the heavy purse. Her sister had not sent a matching one. Gladys hated purses anyway, but the jeans were too tight to pack the Makarov, even in an ankle holster. She never chambered a round when out of uniform, because the pistol could double as a good bludgeon, which she had employed it as more than once. Despite the Revo she’d sworn her life to, Nicaragua was still a backward nation of Catholic machos, and she was a young, pretty dyke. She had learned the hard way that sometimes all the consciousness-raising permitted was a smack in the mouth.

  “Good evening, Lieutenant.”

  The visitor’s face hove into view in the glass and froze Gladys like a cobra’s swaying head. He’d introduced himself at the graduation ceremony in Havana. He’d seemed to know everyone and everyone certainly knew him. Gladys had earned top honors, so his offer to partner her with someone like Ajax Montoya had seemed another prize. But he’d quickly made it clear she was not only to learn from Ajax, but about him. And report back.

  “Good evening, Comandante,” she said.

  “Compañero.”

  “Compañero.”

  The visitor looked her up and down; his gaze seemed to linger on her purse. Then he looked across the street at the disco. “I don’t like norteño music myself. Too Mexican, if that’s not ungrateful of me. The Mexicans are, after all, great friends of the revolution.”

  “Yes, I mean, no, I don’t like norteño either. It’s just…”

  He reached out and tapped her purse once, sharply, with the tip of his finger. “You go armed even when off duty?”

  “Sometimes, yes. It’s not loaded—I mean there’s no round chambered.”

  “Do I make you nervous, Lieutenant?”

  “No.”

  “Well I should. After all, I am asking you to report on Captain Montoya. He is your partner, your teacher, really. And a hero of the revolution. Doesn’t that make you feel the least disloyal?”

  “Um…” She slid the purse off one shoulder, then rehung it on the other. She regretted wearing the goddamned cowboy hat.

  “And you are ready to make a report, aren’t you?”

  “Sí, Comandante.”

  “Compañero.”

  “Compañero.”

  “And you’re not writing any of this down.”

  “No.”

  “And how is Montoya?”

  “Fine. Well, we had a tough day. A suspect got killed…”

  “We know. The bishop is already making a hysterical fuss about the priest, blaming it on us as if we’d crucified the poor bastard in the Plaza. La Prensa will have morgue photographs splashed over the front page. What happened?”

  “The priest was dead when we got there.”

  “I mean with Montoya.”

  “Ajax, Captain Montoya talked the soldier out. He seemed compliant. Then he pulled a gun. We had to shoot. The guy was crazy.”

  “The soldier?”

  “Yes.”

  The visitor moved so he could see both their reflections in the store window. “Tell me about Montoya. Was he sober?”

  “Sober?”

  “Sober, meaning not drunk.”

  “Yes, he was sober.”

  “Is he stable?”

  “Stable?”

  “Lieutenant, you keep answering questions with questions. I chose you in the hope you could observe and report, now do so.”

  “Yes, compañero. He was stable, rational. He’s just…”

  “What?”

  Gladys moved the purse back to the other shoulder. “He’s kind of an asshole.”

  The visitor threw his head back and laughed, showing all of his very white teeth. She could tell from the state of those teeth how high up in the government he was. You didn’t get that kind of dental care unless you were.

  The visitor studied her face a while. “It seems I have chosen well. Did you read his file?”

  “I wasn’t given it.”

  “Not Montoya’s. The soldier’s.”

  “Yes. I did. Hard to believe what they put him through.”

  “Do you know why the Contra are that way? Give me your purse.”

  Gladys handed it over. She rocked back and forth in her boots, relieved now that she was in them. Had she high heels on, she might have toppled to the ground.

  “The Contra are that way because they don’t fight for anything. An ideal. A goal.” The visitor unzipped the purse. “Only against something. Us. This actor-president Reagan came to power with a movie-script foreign policy that he will fight communism like the cowboys he played in B-films fought Indians.”

  He took her pistol out.

  “But the Soviets are Indians with nukes. Reagan can’t attack them. So he makes this Contra army to attack us. In this way he is like the old US cavalry—if they couldn’t get at the braves, the warriors, they attacked the women and children in the villages. Wiped them out. We, unfortunately, Lieutenant, are the women and children in the village. Do you understand?”

  She had no idea what this was about. “Yes, compañero.”

  “We are too weak to defend ourselves, so we take the brunt of the battle, but there are no warriors coming to defend us, nor revenge us. In America’s eyes Nicaragua’s role, the Revo’s role, is to suffer, to bleed, to starve. The Contra exist only to impoverish us, to sow dissension. That’s why they are so dangerous. The Contra are nihilists capable of murder and suicide.”

  Gladys understood that. “Yes, compañero.”

  “That’s why there can be no half measures. No half commitment. That soldier knew. It is why he submitted to torture but did not break. Did not betray his trust.”

  The visitor jacked the slide on the pistol, chambered a round, set the hammer down, put the safety on, and returned the loaded gun to her butt first—all in one fluid movement, his hands moving like a magician’s.

  “This is not the time or place to carry an unloaded weapon. We don’t have even a second to assess the danger. We are all always on the point of being murdered. Do you understand that, Lieutenant Darío?”

  “Yes, compañero.”

  “Good. Enjoy Ladies Nite. But don’t be out too late. You’ve got important work in the morning.”

  3.

  Ajax awoke with a deep shiver in the pitch dark. The shiver came from a thought ringing through his head like the report of a pistol fired from close by. The bullet was his own name. Ajax.

  Ajax. I know why you’re here. I know what I did, the soldier had said.

  The kid knew my name. He knew my name!

  He’d not noticed it before, but now he heard it and the sound of his own name stunned him.

  He knew my name!

  Then another realization cracked in his mind: he was cold, and dry. It was July and he was cold. He was awake and bone dry. His skin, the sheets, dry. So maybe he wasn’t awake, he never was unless he’d sweated through to the mattress. But he didn’t dream, not like this. And then he felt it, felt it in his hand. The Needle. Unmistakably, The Needle was in his hand. But now it was unwrapped from its oil rags. The leather
sheath felt warm. The steel handle, too. The Needle was a wicked stiletto—long and thin with a point like a knitting needle for sticking, but with four edges honed for slicing soft tissue. It was a specialty blade he’d specialized in. He’d carried it in the mountains for years, until that last time he’d used it, and then had put it away. Forever, he’d thought. Yet here it was—so familiar in his palm. Here he was—in the dark. Bone dry. The Needle in his hand. The kid’s voice saying his name.

  And he knew was not alone.

  He could see through the bedroom window into his garden—a blackness stood out against the blackness. A sheen reflecting moonlight—like a freshly painted board. But it moved and swayed, like a curtain hanging in the garden. Had he left a towel dangling from a branch? It moved again, fluttered like a wet black flag in a breeze. Gleaming. But more than that, too. A silhouette? It seemed to have no shape but he felt it was facing him. It couldn’t be looking at him, but he felt watched. Who could it be? He wasn’t in the mountains; he didn’t dream like this.

  And now The Needle was in his hand. And the shimmering shadow in the window was waiting. Watching. Rippling like a shroud in a draft. Ajax silently sucked air, making his chest rise and fall, exhaling for longer than he inhaled. He counted to ten breathing in, to fifteen out.

  He thought he heard his front door scrape open. He turned his head toward the sound. There’s more than one! When he looked back, the silhouette was gone. It seemed like flight, and his hunter’s instinct kicked in, as it did with any predator when the prey showed its back. In a spring like a jaguar, he was off the bed, through the window, and prone, naked upon the garden ground. The Needle, too, was naked, now, shucked from its sheath. The smell of the oil on the blade. His heart thumping against the earth, his muscles flexing, coiled, his ears attuned to every sound. And then he heard it, again, his name.

  “Ajax?”

  In the dream, the soldier had said his name. Was that it? Had the kid’s ghost followed him home? Ajax opened his mouth wide to keep silent his heavy breathing. No. This had begun before he’d met the soldier.