The Last Dawn

by Joe Gannon

  So he did. A buzzer sounded far away and after a few moments the iron gate slid back to let them in. They approached the house warily. Sticking to the shadows. The front door was unlocked. So they walked in.

  The foyer was dark. Down the hall a light was on in the dining room, illuminating little.

  “Jasmine?”

  There was a pause, which suddenly put Ajax on alert. Jasmine stepped into the hallway, but did not approach. Did not move from the door between dining room and hall.

  “Come on in, Max will be right down!”

  Ajax put an arm on Gladys, mouthed Max? He held up a hand and waved Jasmine to them. She shifted her hips ever so slightly to the left—someone was in the dining room with her.

  “Max is changing,” she called out. “We’ve got nacatamales! Made them myself!”

  Nacatamales was a Nicaraguan dish. That was all Ajax needed to know.

  He put a hand on Gladys’s shoulder, mouthed Krill. She tensed and Ajax feared she might charge. He pointed to the wall separating them from the dining room. He pointed to a likely position, put his mouth to her ear. “When she moves shoot through the wall, between here.” He held a hand at shoulder height. Gladys nodded her assent. Her gaze was steady.

  Ajax held up his hand to Jasmine, signaled her first to bend low, then run. He gave her the thumbs-up. She made no move at all. Silence equals consent. He flipped his hand at her.

  “Now!”

  Gladys started blasting, making a tight pattern as Jasmine folded over and sprinted to them. It was only a moment later when a hand appeared around the corner and fired back, blind. Jasmine sprawled to the floor, bullets smashed plaster loose. One shot was dangerously close to Gladys’s head. Ajax drew the .22 as Gladys reloaded her only other clip. He put a couple shots about where he hoped Krill might be, but the Pop Pop of the dinky gun would do little to deter Krill.

  “I’ve got men outside,” Krill yelled.

  “You’re alone and we’re coming for you!”

  Ajax signaled Gladys to go left, covering the hallway. Ajax would go right and come up behind the fucker—the .22 wasn’t much use, but he didn’t want Krill dead right away. As he and Gladys made their move, a hand appeared, or rather, a hand grenade. The sphere, black in the gloomy light, made an arc. Ajax saw the spoon flip off as it went live, hit the floor, and bounded toward him. He and Gladys both hit the deck, Ajax pushing himself against the wall. But the grenade bounced toward him like it had his name on it, and came to a stop inches from his face. He froze, only for an instant, expecting oblivion when, like a viper, Gladys’s hand lashed out and swiped it away. The little orb of death flew back down the hallway, only to slam into Jasmine’s head and come to a stop, almost in her ear.

  Then Krill flew out of the dining room and down the hallway toward the kitchen and the servants’ quarters, Gladys chasing him with her last three shots. Ajax closed his eyes, tried to shield his face from the blast, from death. That fucking Krill, they were all dead.

  * * *

  Or not.

  “Why didn’t it go off?”

  The three of them had lain there for a full minute before they realized they weren’t going to die. Ajax had checked the servants’ quarters, found the door unlocked as Krill had left it, secured it, and rejoined the others around the dud grenade.

  “Why didn’t it go off?” Jasmine repeated.

  Ajax picked it up, weighed it in his hand. “Clever bastard.” He quickly loosened the top of the grenade and unscrewed the head. Turned it upside down and shook it. “He took the explosive out. I’ve seen it before. When your back is against the wall, you make it look like you’re going to blow yourself up, toss the grenade, everyone ducks, and you slip away.”

  “Why would Krill want to do that?” Jasmine took the grenade and had a look in its empty belly.

  “He wants us alive.” Gladys said it to no one, or to all of them. Ajax thought she might be saying it to Krill.

  “Are you alright?” she asked Jasmine.

  “I’m okay, he didn’t … I mean, all he did was talk, for hours. Sometimes to me, sometimes to the general.” She nodded to the portrait. “Does he always call himself ‘Krill’?”

  “He does. Tiresome, isn’t it? Why’d you come back here, Jasmine?”

  “I couldn’t wear Estela’s bathrobe forever. The phones were working for a while, I called, got no answer, assumed Max had fled to safer ground. I came up the same way we went down.”

  Gladys checked the load in her pistol. “I’m spent.”

  Ajax searched her face, he saw no outward sign of panic, but Gladys had an edgy, restless feel to her. She was jonesing for a wash, he could tell.

  “We can’t stay here” was all she said.

  “We can’t be out after curfew either.” Ajax was willing to risk a lot, but not a night on the street. “Can we make it to doña Estela’s?”

  “We don’t have to.” Jasmine tossed the empty grenade to Ajax. “Max has a safe room upstairs. Bolts from the inside. No one knows about it but him and me.”

  “It’ll withstand bullets?”

  “Anything Krill’s got short of an RPG.”

  The three of them went upstairs. Ajax kept watch until he heard Jasmine’s cry when she found Max’s garroted corpse in the safe room, still tied to his chair. Ajax went over the body, signs of some torture, a cloth belt, maybe from his bathrobe, still looped around his neck. It made Ajax think briefly of El Gordo Sangroso’s strangled body. Ajax and Gladys dragged Max out, laid him on his bed, and covered him in his own bedding.

  They packed pillows and bedding from Jasmine’s room, some water from the sink, and entombed themselves in the safe room. The last thing Ajax saw as he pulled the heavy door closed was Little Max’s outline under the blankets.

  * * *

  All over the city people were trying to do the same—hunkering down. Claribel in whatever hovel she lived in was settling under the mattress she’d propped onto two chairs. The fast-talking shoe-shine boy made a pallet of old newspapers under the one table in his room. Nora and her troops stretched out on whatever ground was under their feet. The padres and their housekeepers were safe in their beds. Krill did the same at Estela’s house, to where he’d tracked Gladys and Ajax. There was plenty of room for him now.

  San Salvador—the Holy Savior—was sheltering from Death, a figure so familiar to its people they called him uncle. Tio Death walked the city’s streets that night, not alone, not in El Salvador where there were so many helpers already fanning out through the dark lanes of the Savior’s neighborhoods.

  30

  They killed the housekeepers first. I don’t know why they killed us first. I was in my bed when I heard the trucks stop, the squeal of the brakes like my own scream. I climbed into bed with Mami, holding my St. Agnes medal so tight it broke off the chain. Praying, praying, praying, Please God, don’t let them come in. But that light in our faces, poor Mami was crying, she held out her rosary like it was a safe-conduct pass. But the soldiers only yelled at us, dragged us into the garden with the fathers.

  Pobre padres. Some of them were in their underwear or bathrobes. Barefoot or in slippers. Two of them held Bibles. All of them held hands. Father Ellacuría tried hard to make it all normal. Telling the soldiers not to worry, they were always ready to cooperate with the army. He’d even tried to send me and Mami inside to make refreshments. “Don’t fear, doña Elba,” he’d said, patting my mother’s cheek. “Soldiers are always hungry.”

  But they had shouted at him to be silent, and pushed him to his knees. All of us to our knees. We held hands and prayed, Father Ellacuría led us in the Lord’s Prayer, but I whispered Hail Marys. The Blessed Mother has always been my favorite in times of trouble.

  Some of the soldiers had painted faces, faces like demons. Others wore bandannas, like God would not recognize them in the afterlife. They were civilians. Escuadrones. They were rude to us, especially one. He called me and Mami whores and the priests subversives. I’d rather hav
e been a subversive.

  Matan los, he said. I closed my eyes then, when he said to kill us. They shot me first, I don’t know why. Poor Mami. She’d had her eyes closed too. But the gunshot scared her and she opened them in time to see me die. And then to see her own death coming. Just like that they shot us, one by one. First the housekeepers and then the priests. Father Ellacuría last. He held his Bible out and a bullet ripped right through it. The rude civilian stepped forward and shot the father in the face. It was the only time he fired.

  They left us where we fell, then ransacked the house. Father Ellacuría was right, soldiers were always hungry and I watched three of them carry off all the pupusas I’d made for the cubanos-gringos who’d played cards with the padres. They grabbed a lot of papers and things they carried off. Then they took some money from the big box the fathers kept. Most of the soldiers had left by then. The last few went through the priests’ clothes, looking for money. But the padres didn’t carry their money in their bathrobes and underwear, not even in their slippers or Bibles. That’s when one of them saw the gold chain clasped in my hand. He pried my fingers open. I tried so hard to keep my fist closed, but the body down there was not mine anymore.

  After that they were gone. I stayed a little while watching Mami, the padres. Even myself. Then a boy came. He was terrible to look at. The soldiers must have caught him somewhere and killed him to be silent. His clothes were all bloody. But he was a beautiful boy. He took my hand and led me away. I don’t know where, yet.

  31

  The next morning broke clean and clear. Gladys had a few nerve-racking moments while she and Ajax cleared the house. No sign of Krill or anyone overnight. Max still lay in his bed-coffin and the generalissimo had stood guard overnight, notwithstanding his own wounds. When they’d assured themselves there was no immediate danger, they’d brought Jasmine out. She paused over her cousin’s body but seemed to have no need to mourn or weep and wail. Gladys thought her a tough bird, unless there was something hidden in her family history with Max.

  Gladys checked the lights and water as she made her rounds. Neither was working. She lingered by the dining room wall where she’d tried to kill Krill last night. It was a tight shot group—six shots at about shoulder height. But the wall was concrete and none had passed through. Still, the dining room floor was littered with pieces that had exploded off. Maybe that’s why Krill had fled. But why he had come at all was a mystery she did not want to solve. Even more so his reasons for tossing a dud grenade at them.

  Or, his reason.

  What did he want if not to kill her? Them? She shook her head and kicked some of the debris on the floor. But she wasn’t saying no so much as refusing to consider the evidence: what Krill wanted was her. The thought of it made her heart pound in her temples. A tremor from her stomach ran through her. She held out her gun hand and watched the fingers twitch like a palsied old drunk. They had twitched like that three years ago, every time she’d felt his tread through the floors of her cell. She would not …

  “Gladys.”

  She had her pistol in Ajax’s face before the least little thought had told her to. “Jesusfuckingchrist, what are you doing!”

  “Easy, Gladys.”

  He reached out and pushed the gun down. He gave her the once-over, and she didn’t like it.

  “Maybe you should go home.”

  “What?”

  “Home. Miami. We might get you to the airport. You can wait there for the flights to resume.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Look at you, Gladys. Krill’s freaked you out.”

  “Fuck you Ajaxfuckingfuckyoumontoya.” She gave him a little push into the hallway and pointed at the holes in the wall. “Look at that shot group, that look like I’m freaked out?”

  “He’s hunting you.”

  “I know what he’s doing and what he wants. And if he wasn’t hunting me that grenade he tossed would’ve been live and you’d be splattered all over the fucking wall! Yes?”

  “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  Jasmine was screaming upstairs.

  They bolted passed the generalissimo and up to her bedroom where they found her on her knees banging her head on the floor.

  “NOOOOOOOO! NOOO! NO!”

  “Jasmine, Jasmine.” Ajax bent over her and lifted her to her feet. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “They’ve killed them. They killed them all!”

  She lifted up a transistor radio that was broadcasting the news. They stood in a small circle listening as the names of the Seis Padres were called. The housekeeper and her daughter last.

  “Not Elba and Celina too!” Jasmine dropped her head in her hands, as if the weight of just thinking about it was too much.

  Gladys conjured the faces of the two women—the women who had nothing to do with these men, neither priests nor assassins. “Goddamn, Ajax, where are we?”

  “Satan’s waiting room,” Jasmine said, wiping tears and snot from her face. “They will kill us all.”

  Ajax said nothing, just walked to the window overlooking the street. Gladys watched him for his reaction, she could tell how much he’d liked the padres. He stared into the street, then his head popped up, like he’d seen something, or someone. He nodded his head as if answering a call.

  “What is it?”

  He whipped his head around, cut his eyes back to the street as if checking on something.

  “What do you see?”

  “What do you see?”

  Gladys scanned the empty street. “Empty street.”

  “Good.”

  He looked into the street again. Gladys followed his line of sight, he was staring at the middle of the street, but there was nothing there. Still, he nodded his head as if acknowledging a signal.

  “What’re you thinking, Ajax?”

  “Monkey Man.”

  “What?”

  “We saw him at the UCA. He did it, or was with those that did.”

  Gladys scanned the street again, as if looking for the script he seemed to be reading.

  “So?”

  “You still got Claribel’s number?”

  “Why?”

  “She’ll know where Monkey Man is.”

  She pushed past him to stand between him and the street. “Hey, loco. Look at me. It was crazy enough coming here to look for Peck.”

  “Young Peck.”

  “Young Peck. But now all hell has broken loose, our cover’s blown, and Krill is out there hunting us. Us, Ajax. And I am…” She checked over his shoulder that Jasmine would not hear. “I am sorry about those two women and the priests, but you are going off mission here.”

  “No, we have to question Monkey Man about Peck.”

  “Young Peck.”

  He smiled and she saw him there, saw Ajax in that smile.

  “Even in Satan’s waiting room, a hit like that, they’ll be lying low. Claribel will know where he is.”

  Gladys studied his face, like cutting for sign. She shook her head, but all she could think to say was, “I need bullets.”

  “I need a real gun.”

  “Max has both.” Jasmine was on her feet now. “In the safe room.”

  And he did too, bless the dead bastard.

  Ajax sorted them in Jasmine’s room while Gladys made the call. There were three M16s and four different types of pistol, including, to Ajax’s delight, a .357. Not a chrome-plated Python like the one he’d carried in Nicaragua all those years, ever since he’d killed the boy with the long eyelashes to get it, but the grip and the heft were old friends in his hands. He flipped the pistol’s cylinder open, all the chambers were empty. He closed it, spun the cylinder, pointed the pistol in the air, and pulled the trigger.

  Click!

  “That’s one.”

  Then he loaded it, two .45s, and an M16. He set Krill’s dud grenade out too. He checked over his shoulder occasionally, back into the street to make sure the ghost was still there.

&n
bsp; He was.

  Gladys came in, surveyed the arsenal, picked up a .45, weighed it. Holstered it down her back.

  “Okay, I’m feeling better.”

  “Claribel know where Monkey Man’s holed up?”

  “She’s going to him, same place she says after every hit. They lie low, party, she brings the girls and coke.”

  Ajax smiled. “She say where?”

  “Yeah, Jasmine showed me on a map.”

  “Jasmine.” Ajax said the name like he’d forgotten about her. “She can’t stay here. We gotta bury Max, but she can’t stay here. This is a night op, Gladys. We’ll get into place early enough to beat the curfew, then wait for dark. But we’ll have to stick out there until daylight tomorrow. She can’t stay here overnight.”

  “She won’t. She’s going to doña Estela’s.”

  * * *

  Gladys stood on the balcony overlooking the street. She’d counted six army patrols racing past in the last half hour. Once they were gone there was only silence on the street, but the sounds of combat rose up from the city below them like a smell wafting uphill. In between she could hear Ajax digging Max’s grave out back. Her eyes kept going back to the street, the spot he’d been looking at. What was it?

  “Gladys.”

  “Jesus Christ!” She leaped out of her skin. Jasmine stood just behind her. “Why is everyone sneaking around!”

  “Sorry. I…”

  “It’s okay, just, you know.”

  “Jumpy.”

  “The whole country must be. How is it you’re not all on anxiety meds?”

  “I suppose that those that can afford it are, the rest … well … what are you doing here?”

  “Keeping an eye on the street.”

  “No, Gladys. Here. El Salvador.”

  “Looking for Jimmy Peck.”

  “Like hell you are. When was the last time you spoke of him or even thought of him?”

  Gladys swept her arm over the city. “Things got a little, you know, complicated.”

  “And you’re going to go with him?”

  “Who?”

  “Ajax! After this Monkey Man you’re talking about. You’re going with him?”