by Joe Gannon
Somewhere an unseen DJ spun a song by Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine.
Little Max dispensed with the lesser introductions and led them to several tables nearest the pool, where the dons sat. The button men were scattered farther back along the high rear wall topped with razor wire. There were two squat guard towers at either end of the wall, manned, Ajax noticed, by gunmen in civilian dress.
“Caballeros!” Max called out. “Let me introduce our new friends from Miami. This is Martin Garcia and Gladys Batista.”
None of them stood, it was clear they felt they had more pressing business than meeting these two fucking cubanos-gringos from Miami.
“This is Colonel Benivides, head of our Treasury Police. The oldest uniformed service in our country.” Max said the latter like it was the greatest of compliments. Ajax knew the Treasury Police, Policia de Hacienda in Spanish, was the worst of a bad and bloody lot. They had begun as just that, a private militia raised on the massive coffee haciendas that dominated most of the fertile land in a very fertile country. The PH—pay achay in Spanish—had begun as private gunmen used to maintain the literally feudal conditions on the big haciendas, and to slaughter at will anyone who sought to bring the miserable campesinos into the nineteenth century, let alone the twentieth. Somewhere along the way someone had put them in uniform and organized them at the national level: the better to maximize their violence. Like adjusting a magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays into a single beam to train on a line of ants.
Ajax held out his hand. “Mi coronel.”
Benivides had barely looked up, but when Ajax used the proper form of military address, the colonel stood and offered his hand.
“Bienvenidos. You were military?”
“No, mi coronel, but my father served in Cuba, before the communist takeover.”
“Then he was on the losing side.”
“He was, but he gave his life for that loss.”
That had the desired effect. These officers clearly had no use for these Cubans, but they respected men who died in combat, and their offspring. They all stood and shook hands with Ajax.
“Gladys is related to President Batista, who that pig Castro drove out.”
This, too, impressed the officers.
“He was my grandfather’s brother.”
She, too, was rewarded with a greeting somewhat warmer than arctic.
“So,” Benivides said, “you have come to give presents to our people?”
Crooked smiles broke out on the faces of the others. He’d addressed Ajax but Gladys took a half step forward.
“Relief supplies for the refugees of communist terrorism.”
“There are no refugees, the communists kill them.” That from another of the officers, which drew smiles from the rest.
“She means,” Max stepped in, determined to get everyone back on script, “the displaced people in the refugee camps.”
A palette of blank stares.
“Of course,” Benivides finally said. “The refugee camps.”
“Come, my friends,” he took Gladys and Ajax by the elbow, “let me introduce you around.”
He steered them away, Ajax thought, toward others who might get the story straight. Because if they did see any “refugees” they would be those poor bastards whose villages had been emptied to make free fire zones in the countryside.
“Maximiliano!” Benivides called out. “You unloaded their supplies?”
“Of course, Colonel.”
“And that’s all done?”
“Of course.”
“Their plane returned safely?”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
“And El Mayor?”
Max held up his hands like a maître d’ promising a guest his table would soon be ready. “He’s coming, he’s coming.”
As Max walked them from one table to another, Ajax wondered who the head of the PH would deferentially call El Mayor—the major—but that gangster movie came back to him. Il capo di tutti capi.
* * *
After an interminable round of introductions, Max had finally been taken by the elbow and escorted off by an oleaginous-looking underling. Ajax and Gladys finally had a moment more or less alone. They stood before an enormous oil painting, a portrait of Little Max’s psychotic grandfather, the generalissimo and architect of La Matanza. The portrait might’ve been painted by the semi-skilled older brother of the child who chopped the topiary—it was not that badly done. They studied the portrait respectfully. It gave Ajax time to scout the rest of the guests.
Now that Ajax thought of it, the same family who did the decorating might have dressed the guests, whose fashion sense ran from the common to the outlandish. Their tailors were either limited to reruns of Miami Vice or fashion magazines pilfered from dentists’ offices. Oddly, considering the homicidal makeup of the crowd, Ajax felt a twinge of something, some feeling—regret? A lament of some kind—as he surveyed the scene. These people were important in their own country. And yet when they came together for a celebration, what did they have? The salsa music was from Miami or Colombia, the country and western from Mexico, the fashion leeched from whatever gringo vein was available. But nothing of their own, he noted. Anything organic, indigenous, had long ago been abandoned as Indian and so too racially impure, or peasant and so too culturally humble, or too artistically subversive. All that was left was this mishmash of self-loathing and imperial mimicry.
“Jesus Christ, I’m a nervous fucking wreck,” Gladys whispered.
“It’s cool, we’re cool. You did good, Gladys, you’re doing good. We’re doing good.”
“I feel like Daniel in the lion’s den.”
Ajax had a discreet look around. “More like the hyenas’ den.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Lions kill and then devour. Hyenas start eating before the prey is dead.”
“Thanks, Martin, that settles my nerves.” She squinted at the painting. “Jesus, would you look at that!”
“What?”
“The back of his hand.”
The painting showed the generalissimo in uniform, half his weight in gold medals on his chest. One hand rested on the saber at his side, the other on a book with a title in Latin. Now Ajax saw it, on the back of each hand was a small, faint circle, just slightly darker than the flesh.
“The stigmata.”
Gladys snorted. “The butcher of El Salvador as el salvador.”
“Give thanks and praise for it. Works in our favor.”
“How?”
“No one, Gladys, is easier to fool than the already self-deluded.”
“Okay.”
Ajax was already back reconnoitering the guests. “What do you see with them?” He directed her gaze to the far side of the pool where twenty or so men and women sat at tables at the farthest reaches of the party, like barracuda scrumming at the edge of a school of tiger sharks.
Gladys scanned them. “Bodyguards, lieutenants, midlevel minions. Wives, girlfriends. Couple of professional girlfriends.”
“Good. Now, pick one of the men, any one, count how long it takes for him to touch his nose.”
Gladys did. After a moment she almost giggled, it seemed some kind of party game was on, as one after another, over a minute at most, the men would touch their noses and sniff.
“I see it.”
“What is it? Sniffles? Summer colds?”
“Shit. Cocaína?”
“Got to be. See the guy in the black shirt and skinny tie? Watch him, watch him!”
Gladys clocked him as Ajax narrated. “Hand under the napkin, napkin to the nose. Achoo! Out he blows. Big sniff back in.”
“A la gran puta.”
“High as monkeys in the canopy.”
They watched as Monkey Man made another pass with the napkin. As he did his “girlfriend” made a reach for it and he deftly struck her in the face with his elbow—right on the nose. It was, Ajax saw, a practiced move by a veteran batterer.
>
“I’d like to kneecap that fucker.”
“Take it easy, Gladys.” But he was glad of her anger. She’d done well so far, held strong, and he’d not seen her use a Handi Wipe since they’d landed. Controlling that compulsion said a lot for her. “You’re not armed.”
“Wait, I’m not? Meaning you are?”
“Never leave home without it.”
“What if they find the Needle on you?”
“You kidding? In this crowd? I could sit and talk shop with these fuckers for hours about it. Probably get offers to buy it. Look, look…”
Ajax nudged her gaze back to Monkey Man. He’d given his napkin to the girlfriend who was using it to staunch a tiny stream of blood leaking from her nose. She rose and left the table.
“Follow the girl.”
“What?”
“To the bathroom, she’s gotta be going there. Talk to her.”
She got it. “Okay.”
* * *
Ajax spent the next ten minutes making a slow circuit around the party, meeting and greeting, air kissing, and exchanging pleasantries about nothing. Few of the guests seemed to know who he was or why he was there, considering he was the alleged guest of honor. Every few minutes he’d check the table of officers, who just as frequently checked their watches. Someone was late.
He made his way vaguely back to the garish portrait. Strangely, Ajax felt disappointed. He and Gladys had concocted a sack of stories about Miami and how anxious the Cuban community was to make common cause with their Salvadoran cousins.
“You must be the Cuban.”
Ajax started, as if someone had read his secret thoughts. He turned to find himself caught in the gaze of a remarkably attractive woman. She was tall for a Salvadoran, with the black hair and eyes of Indian blood but the pale skin of Europe. But her nose and cheeks gave her face a Semitic look. The parts seemed to belong to different countries, but her looks incongruously came together, the way Central America would if all the borders came down. She seemed amused, and also, somehow, familiar.
Sphinx, Ajax thought, for some reason.
“I didn’t mean to ambush you,” she said in flawless English.
“No, that’s, that’s quite alright. I’m…”
“Martin Garcia, from Miami, bearing gifts for the dispossessed of the earth.”
“Why, yes.”
“And Gladys Batista is…”
“Somewhere around here.”
“I am Jasmine Maximiliana Lourdes Montenegro de Hernandez. Also known as Max’s cousin.”
That’s why she looked familiar.
“A pleasure to meet you. So you are granddaughter to…”
“The generalissimo, yes,” she gestured to the portrait, and held up her hands, “but no stigmata.”
Ajax could not help but smile, it was the first light moment he’d had since touching down at the airport. He felt himself breathe for the first time.
“You and Max are close?”
“Well, we grew up together. I spent most of my time at his house when we were children. His father was”—she leaned in conspiratorially—“much more liberal than mine. Not politically of course. But Uncle Max always said everyone, and by everyone he meant our class, should learn to read and write, ride and shoot. It was a lot more fun at his house.”
“And did you? I mean, ride and shoot?”
“Oh yes! Uncle Max was an old cavalry man who never accepted the mechanization of his trade. Do you know he rode a horse into the Soccer War?”
Ajax laughed. The Soccer War was certainly the most absurd of Central America’s many conflicts. It was a brief but bloody crusade between Honduras and El Salvador in the late sixties, sparked by the disputed outcome of a soccer match. El Salvador lost the game, but won the war.
“He didn’t survive. The horse, I mean. Uncle Max died in his bed.”
“Are you any good, a shot?”
She cast another conspirator’s glance about the room. “Cousin Max long ago stopped competing with me on the pistol range. Now he has,” she gestured around the room, “others to do his shooting.”
It was an odd point to make and an awkward silence settled on them, broken by a girlish giggle which made Ajax smile a real smile.
“Once, I haven’t told this in ages, but the first time I fired a pistol I’d snuck into Uncle Max’s office. He had this old revolver, a very heavy one from the American Civil War, it had six bullets but also fired a small shotgun shell…”
“A Le Mat.”
“Yes, you know it.”
“My father taught history.”
“Well the damn thing was so heavy I had to use two hands, and I was just playing, you know, cowboys, Powpowpow! And it went off! BOOM! But I swear I never even touched the trigger!”
She giggled that girlish giggle and Ajax found himself chuckling along, out of more than politeness.
“Well, the servants went screaming out the doors, throwing themselves to the ground, they thought the Indians had risen again! But Uncle Max came charging in, you know, charge to the sounds of the gun!”
“He must’ve been very angry.”
“I think more scared. He was so relieved to see I’d only shot the furniture and not myself. And let me tell you it was very nice furniture, Max’s mother”—she gestured at the décor—“was a much better decorator than her son is.”
“No spankings?” That came out differently than he’d meant it.
She smiled—the sphinx in her smiling too.
“No. He just very gently took the pistol from my hands, surveyed the damage to his divan, patted me on the head, and said…”
She paused, the sphinx look again, inviting him to solve her riddle. And suddenly Ajax understood—and the air went out of him for a moment. “Mata Sofá.”
“Mata Sofá,” she whispered.
“Couch killer.”
“Couch killer.”
Their contact.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there, dumbfounded, maybe only a moment. But long enough for her to lean in close and touch her finger to his chin. “Martin, your mouth is hanging slightly open.”
She shut it for him alright.
“Where is Miss Batista?” she said, louder, back in the mood of the party. “Point her out before our guest of honor gets here.”
“I thought that was us?”
“Oh it is, Martin, but all these people would not linger this long just for two cubanos-gringos, if you’ll pardon my candor.”
Just then Ajax spotted Gladys coming out of the toilet with the battered girlfriend, who, he noticed, slipped something into Gladys’s hand before giving her a brief embrace. Ajax could’ve sworn she’d pinched Gladys’s nipple. “There’s Gladys. I’ll introduce you.” Ajax took her elbow.
“She’s pretty. But no. You tell her. I’ll meet her tomorrow, I’m staying here too. Max keeps a room for me. I’ll insert myself into your itinerary. We’ll distribute your relief supplies and get the other matter taken care of as well.”
“You certain? Max seemed pretty determined to escort us.”
“Max, frankly, has bloodier fish to fry than you two. He doesn’t like to mix with common people, particularly refugees. He’ll mostly want to take you around to the nightclubs and show you off. I’ll arrange for the days to be ours, you’ll have to endure the nights with him.”
“Did you know him?” Ajax leaned in close enough to smell the perfume in her hair, which made him think of a dry, clean place, like a desert. Sphinx. “Peck, James Peck?”
For the first time her eyes cut left and right—cautious, careful. “Know him? Everybody knew him. But which one? James Peck? Jimmy? Jaime? Santiago? I knew him. So did Max.”
That struck Ajax as odd. The lefty firebrand and a doughy death squad Charlie like Max? Outside, there was a clamoring, the big iron gate rolling back, people began to get up, move toward the foyer. Someone shouted, “Viene el jefe!”
“That’s my exit. I can’t stand the man, frankly. He s
lobbers over my hand thinking he’s a chevalier.”
“Who?”
“El Mayor, of course.” She pecked him on the cheek. “Ciao.”
Now Ajax understood. The Mafia movie came back. All these people had not been waiting for him and Gladys, they’d been waiting for the godfather to finish dispensing favors and come out to the party. The real guest of honor was the don of dons, Roberto D’Aubuisson. The actual and literal father of El Salvador’s death squads—the country’s worst butcher since the generalissimo.
Ajax beelined toward Gladys, thinking they should be presented together. Thinking the sphinx had given him the first clue, the first thread to pull on. Everybody knew him. He scanned the room for Gladys, excited to tell her the game was on, when his roving eyes fixed upon a face that stopped him dead in his tracks. Literally, dead.
Between him and Gladys his eyes met the eyes of the boy with the long eyelashes. Ajax stopped so quickly he stumbled a step. He checked left and right to see if anyone else could see the blood-spattered specter in their midst. But all attention was on the front door, awaiting the great entrance. The boy looked right at him, but otherwise made no move.
The guests erupted into cheers as El Mayor and his entourage made their entrance. Ajax moved away from the crowd, hoping he might draw the ghost away, but the boy stood his ground, yet his eyes tracked Ajax. Gladys was on the far side of the room and he went to her. When he got close, he halted again. The crowd had surged around her to get close to their champion, but she was rooted to her spot, petrified, like Lot’s wife. Her face blanched white as salt. White, like she was about to pass out. White like she had seen a ghost. His ghost? Was that possible? But she was looking in the wrong direction to see the boy.