by Joe Gannon
“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.�
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“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?”
He shook his head. Ajax waved the three little ones over. “Vengan niños.” The kids came as called.
“This your brother?”
The two boys dutifully muttered, “No.”
The little girl began to cry. “What do I say, Ernesto?”
“That’s a yes,” Ajax said. He knelt before Ernesto. “If you don’t tell me what you know, I’m gonna take you to a holding cell. What are they gonna do tonight with you gone?”
All fight went out of the kid.
“What time did you find the body?”
“I don’t know, man. It was late. The train had passed.” The kid motioned to the tracks running down the middle of an adjacent boulevard.
“The train from Estelí. That gives me a time. What else did you see?”
“Nothing, I was out … looking around. I saw him there. His pockets were empty. I only took his boots.”
Ajax slapped the kid a good one. “Get up, Ernesto.” He whipped out his handcuffs, fastened them on too tight and turned on the little ones. “You three get fucking lost!”
“Okay, okay. All right! I’m sorry.”
“Last chance or they’re on their own.”
“I took his ring.”
“His wallet?”
“He didn’t have one. I swear!”
“His hat?”
“I sold it.”
“Baseball or cowboy hat?”
“Cowboy.”
“Straw?”
“No, not straw, something else. Gray colored.”
With his index finger, Ajax lifted the boy’s face. “What’d you do with his keys?”
“Keys?”
“His car keys!”
“No keys, señor. Just the ring.”
“And the shoes and the hat and the belt.”
“Yeah, and the doll.”
Ajax looked at Ernesto’s little sister. She dropped her head and held out the doll. Ajax looked it over—one of those colorful Mayan Quiche dolls with an embroidered red top with a blue skirt. Hair of yarn and face drawn in dark pencil. Handmade, Ajax thought. And well made.
“This was on the corpse?”
“Next to it.”
“Where’s the ring, Ernesto?”
The boy looked at his little sister, who lifted her grimy shirt to reveal a pouch tied around her waist. She handed it to Ajax, who examined the contents: about ten thousand Cordobas in old, dirty bills. Not even a dollar’s worth, even at the black market rate. Some weather-beaten photos of the children with a smiling woman in a folkloric outfit at what looked to be a festival. Not more than a year old, from the look of the kids now. And a dull, gold wedding ring. Its history written in every ding and scratch.
Ajax held it up to the children.
“This goes to the man’s wife, or family. I’ll find them. I promise you that.” He unlocked the cuffs. “You keep the stuff you didn’t steal, but let me examine the shoes. C’mere.”
Ajax led them to his Lada where Gladys waited in a soiled uniform. Ajax reached inside the car, took out a pad, and scribbled something. Then he bent over the boy. “Lemme see those boots, the bottoms. Now the belt, Ernesto.”
Ajax scribbled in his notepad. “You know where the Cine Cabrera is, where they show the films?”
“You sending us to the movies?”
“From the Cine Cabrera you walk two blocks toward the lake and three toward sunset. There’s a white house with four palm trees in front. You hear? It’s run by foreigners. They help orphans.”
Ernesto stood in front of his three siblings like a mother rat, ready for all comers. “We’re not orphans!”
“No? Then where’s your father?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
“Your mother?”
“Where is mama, Nesty?” The little girl tugged on Ernesto’s T-shirt.
“You know where she is, Claribel.” He shot Ajax a look. “She went north and when she’s got a job she’ll send for us and we’ll all go live in Texas.”
“That’s right,” Ajax said, echoing the boy’s story. “But until then”—he thrust the paper into Ernesto’s pocket—“you go to this house. It’s not an orphanage. They won’t separate you. It’s run by foreigners.” Ajax rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “They got resources. You ask for a Nicaraguan named Marlene. Give her this note. Tell her I sent you. Ajax Montoya. They’ll help you out.”
Ernesto eyed Ajax like he was a dirty old man with a bag of candy.
“Just trust me on this kid, right?”
“Maybe.”
Ajax gave the doll to the little girl and shook Ernesto’s hand. His little siblings lined up to do the same. Ajax watched them file off like ducklings into the maze of ramshackle homes. Ernesto turned back. “You didn’t say what yours is.”
“My what?”
“Your noom de whatever.”
“Nom de guerre.”
“Yeah.”
“In the mountains, fighting Somoza, they called me Ernesto. Everyone wanted to be called Ernesto.”
The boy looked like he might actually smile.
Ajax watched the little shipwrecked family drift down the crowded alley, which suddenly felt like a vast and empty shore. He let out a long breath. “‘We do not simply manufacture orphans, or raise crows as children.’”
“What does that mean?” Gladys said.
“Cuadra.”
“Who?”
“The poet Pablo Antonio Cuadra. ‘Third Class Country.’ ‘We do not fold paper boats to sail puddles, or, inadvertently, raise crows as children.’”
Gladys looked at him like she was waiting for the punch line.
Ajax smiled. It had been an excellent morning. “It means, Gladys, that you must broaden your horizons and embrace the mystery.”
“Of what? The stiff? In this barrio? They killed him for his wallet.”
“Wrong, Lieutenant Of False Suppositions. Our stiff had knife wounds but no blunt trauma. And ‘in this barrio,’ you kill someone for his possessions, you bash his fucking head in. But maybe someone wanted to make it look like robbery. I’m not sure yet. The good news is his keys are missing. Whatever vehicle he was driving is still out there. We’ll be looking for someone selling a stolen pickup.”
“Why a pickup?”
Ajax leaned against his Lada, drew the Python, rolled the chamber over his palm and closed his eyes. “The kid said he took a cowboy hat. Farm workers wear baseball caps, landowners wear cowboy hats. Farm workers with money dress up in straw cowboy hats. You know the kind I mean?”
“Yeah, sure, I’ve seen them.”
Ajax closed his eyes again. “Kid said the stiff’s hat was gray, so it was maybe felt, not straw. The ring and the jeans show he’s got money. A landowner with money drives a pickup. But he’s wearing boots. Landowner with money and a felt cowboy hat doesn’t wear cowboy boots on the farm. The boots mean he was driving his pickup to Managua on business, so maybe he’s got family here.”
Ajax holstered the Python. “If he’s got family here, they’ll look for him when he doesn’t show. Eventually they’ll go to the morgue.” He opened his eyes. “I hope you’re taking notes.”
She fished for her notebook. “No, sorry, I mean…”
“Just kidding, Gladys. What do you think?”
“It’s a lot of ideas, but why not robbery?”
; “Why, because of the method of murder. Come here.”
Before Gladys could react Ajax had seized her, pressed her back against his belly, and pulled her head back with his left hand, exposing her throat.
“Ever killed anyone with a knife?”
Her body stiffened. “No, Captain.”
“Our stiff has stab wounds to the throat and the chest.”
He held up his right hand with the thumb skyward like a Roman emperor about to decide someone’s fate.
“To get someone in the throat like this”—he brought the thumb slowly in until it pressed lightly against her larynx—“is not so hard, if he’s still, like you are now. But if he fights, fights at all, not so easy. You might even miss and get yourself.”
He pulled his hand back, and thrust in again, thumb poised between her breasts. “To hit the heart, or at least a lung, is easier, again, if the victim doesn’t struggle. But if you get him in the heart, why then go for the throat at all?”
Gladys managed to nod. “I don’t know.”
“Now if it was a knife fight”—he spun her around and brought quick blows with his hand—“a blow to your throat, what do you do? Bend over, fall down; same with the chest. If you’re not dead, you wave your arms. Instinct says, do anything to live. But there were no defensive wounds on the hands or arms. No other blows but those two, one to the chest, one at least to the throat. So he never fought back. And like you said, he looks middle-aged. From his clothes, he wasn’t poor. From the calluses on his hands, I’d guess he worked for a living, but not too hard, thus a landowner. So there was no knife fight. Gimme your hand.”
Gladys looked at her hands, then reluctantly held out the left one. In one deft movement, Ajax bent her arm over her head, tripped her, gently dropped her onto her back and straddled her.
“But if you put the victim on his back”—with his left hand on her chin, he pushed her head back—“then you can come down clean.” He brought his hand down on her throat, raised it over his head to demonstrate the blow to the heart, but then he froze as if turned to salt. His eyes went to the hand holding the imaginary knife and the world seemed to melt away. The harsh sunlight of a city without trees dimmed. The hot urban jungle cooled.
* * *
Ajax was surrounded by forest, touched by dappled sunlight, chilled by mountain air putrid with death. The woman beneath him was not Gladys in her dusty uniform, but a middle-aged lady caked in the dark earth of the selva. Ajax had brushed the soil from her ashen, bloated face. Their faces. There had been four of them: two health workers, a teacher, and a local militiaman. All had the same wounds, stabbed once in the throat and twice through the heart. He’d found out later that the Contra had made them dig their common grave. Lie in it and fold their arms over their chests. Then a Contra had straddled each and delivered the fatal blows. This was March or April 1982. It was the first of many such graves unearthed in the mountains during the early days of the counterrevolution. But he remembered that one woman most. She’d had a hole in her sneaker and her big toe had poked out. The toenail painted red. The little piggy that went to market had gotten all prettied up for it. But the toe had been very white, not discolored like the rest of her. He couldn’t stop looking at that toe and had finally pulled the shoe off to solve the mystery of its whiteness. It was a prosthesis. She’d lost her foot just above the ankle and wore a wooden one on which someone had painstakingly—lovingly—carved the separate toes. Not etched on a block, but sculpted, each toe separate from the others, just like a real foot, with toenails and everything. Then she’d painted them red, just like her real ones.