The Last Dawn

by Joe Gannon

“Go? He probably couldn’t find the place without me. Man’s got no sense of direction.”

  “You think it’s funny? These men are all professional killers, the most professional in all the goddamn continent. Father Ella…” Jasmine stopped, swallowed hard. “I can hardly say their names. Father Ellacuría lived in Nicaragua during your insurrection. He was there a few years ago when that whole thing went down with you two. He knows all about Ajax. Do you know how many men he killed in Krill’s camp?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Eleven! Eleven men with a knife. Do you know how many died during that ‘case’ you worked with him? Including the firefight where you were kidnapped?”

  “I was in that firefight!”

  “Yes, you were. And how many men did you kill? How many people have you ever killed?”

  Gladys knew the answer, and knew Jasmine did too.

  “He was a guerrillero, you know that.”

  “That war has been over for ten years. Death follows where he goes, it covers the ground like guano.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Do you feel safe around him? Really?”

  Gladys swept her arm over the city. “As opposed to?”

  “Not here, not in a war. When the two of you are alone, do you feel safe?”

  Gladys had had enough. She pushed in on Jasmine until their pelvises almost touched. Jasmine made a quick two-step back—straight girls were like that, all female solidarity until you got a little too close. Gladys took another step until Jasmine found herself against a wall. She was sure she knew so much about Ajax, Gladys was going to fill her in.

  “You ever been taken by a man, Jasmine?” Gladys leaned in until their lips almost touched. “Taken against your will?”

  “No.”

  “I was in hell. Listening every day for Krill’s footstep to my cell. It was only three weeks but it lived like three eternities. He would talk to me, quietly, softly.” She reached out and stroked Jasmine’s hair. “He’d touch my hair, tell me about our lives together. What we would do, the little finca we could have, our children. But I never answered, I couldn’t. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “So I decided when the day came that I’d bite his fucking manhood off and swallow it before he buried a knife in my brain. And the day came, but instead of death, there was Saint Ajax, holding a hand grenade. A division of our best troops could not have dislodged me from that camp. But he did. And for that he spent three years in hell.”

  “Yes, he did. The prison and the insane asylum, Gladys. Who has he killed since he got out?”

  Gladys didn’t want to answer but her eyes flicked away from Jasmine’s as she thought of El Gordo, and she knew she’d given herself away.

  “He’s not going to interrogate this Monkey Man. He’s going to kill him.”

  Gladys took a step back. “But not Claribel. He won’t hurt her or the other women.”

  “And what does that mean? Isn’t that what I am talking about? Look around you!” She pushed Gladys back onto the balcony. “I am not some bourgeois girl. This is a country of killers. I know them, I live with them, they are my family. And Ajax is a killer. I’m not saying he is a bad man but you don’t seem to know who this man is. He is broken.”

  “Ladies.”

  Gladys flinched, again, but was finished showing it to others. Jasmine, apparently, wasn’t. Ajax stood in the doorway, caked in sweat and dirt from the grave digging. For a moment all three just stared at each other.

  Ajax broke the silence. “You want to say some words over Max?”

  Jasmine looked from one to the other, and swallowed hard. “Yes. Thank you.”

  She slipped past Ajax, taking care not to touch him. He and Gladys stood in silence. She knew he could feel what they’d been talking about. He made his way to the balcony, resumed the same post she’d found him at before. His eyes going to the same spot as if some invisible sentry stood vigil there.

  “So,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “Thanks for digging the hole.”

  “I like it. Digging. You got ground, earth, one shovelful, two, keep at it slow and steady, you get a hole.”

  “That’s weirding me out.”

  “Holes are useful. You can put a body in it, treasure, guns, shit.”

  “Can’t argue with that. Let’s go say good-bye to Little Max.”

  She began to brush by him when he put his arm out. “Claribel?”

  “She’ll be there with her girls. There’s a green light by the pool, when it’s on, the men’ll be out.”

  “How does she know?”

  “She says they always get all fucked up after a kill. When the girls get tired of them they slip some kind of barbiturate into their drinks. Out cold, but it seems like sleep.”

  “Tell her to double the dose.”

  “We can’t interrogate Monkey Man if he’s out.”

  “Then everyone but him.”

  “And we can’t interrogate him if he’s dead.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “You’re going to kill them?”

  She squinted imperceptibly to take in every facet of his face. He did not blink. Not a muscle twitched. Not a hint revealed. Immobile and impassive. But in his eyes, somewhere deep inside, she sensed the shift to that part of him that always had been hidden, alien.

  “Every goddamn one of them.”

  “Why…”

  “Did you sit at their table last night? Did the girl serve you? Did her mother cook for you?”

  “No, why you?”

  “Me?”

  He looked into the street again, always to the same spot like his lines were written there.

  “Because I can. Because Claribel will lead me to them, right now, tonight! You want to leave it to the Salvadorans? The gringos? The U.N.? Or wait forty years until they’re shriveled old men like them fucking Nazi camp guards that keep turning up?”

  “What’s that got to do with Peck?”

  He leaned in close to her, until her back was against the wall. “Nothing. Not one fucking thing.” He leaned back. “But we’ll interrogate Monkey Man first. Or I will.”

  Now she stepped forward, made him take one backward. “Stop doing that! Assuming I won’t go, or I’m not in or I should fucking go home. I’m in. Besides, I got to make sure Claribel and the girls get out safe.”

  Ajax put his hand over his heart, the move so quick she flinched. “What’s that mean? You think I’d hurt her?”

  “No! Of course not. Look, you want Claribel’s help, I have to be there to reassure her. Okay? Now, let’s go. Put Max in the ground and go get cleaned up, you look like a fucking yucca farmer.”

  He brushed some dirt off. “Yeah, death’s a dirty business.”

  32

  The jaguar looked into Ajax’s eyes. And he looked back. The animal crouched, perfectly still. It might have been made of clay, or salt. Ajax slid the Needle from its sheath on his calf, fingered the point, and slid a finger along the honed edge until he felt it slip beneath a single layer of skin. The Needle was his claw, his fang. There was something inevitable about it now. This creature, this place, this night. Only a few feet separated them.

  He wasn’t sure if he should kill it or worship it.

  The screech of a quetzal split the night. Still the big cat did not blink, nor did Ajax. He could hear all the animals of the night, smell the dung, feel ponderous feet pacing back and forth. Even Gladys coming up behind him. But he wasn’t ready for the monkey head that sailed over him. The jaguar was, and leaped like a ballerina assassin into the air and came down with it in its mouth. The cat cracked the skull open in one bite.

  “The fuck did you find that?”

  Gladys shrugged. “Most of the monkeys are dead, someone’s been butchering them, heads and hands and feet scattered all over.”

  The Parque Nacional Zoologico was closed, to say the least. There might be some zoos somewhere, he’d thought, say in Belgium, that tri
ed to look like natural settings for the animals they caged. But like a lot of third-world zoos, this one was more gulag than park. Ajax reckoned the cage was just big enough for the cat to take four strides before having to turn about. Just big enough to pace yourself into a psychosis.

  The zoo was their staging ground for what was to come. He and Gladys had left the car as close as they could, then scaled a fence at dusk and hunkered down waiting for night. It seemed fitting that Monkey Man’s post-massacre safe house was only two blocks from the zoo. But if Gladys was right then someone had been coming during the day to butcher the monkeys for meat. That is a city under siege.

  Ajax sheathed the Needle, checked the load in his .357, and then rechecked the magazine in the M16.

  “You’re not going to kill it.”

  “Thought never occurred to me.” He looked up to find Gladys holding an armful of monkey limbs. “What are you doing?”

  She waved a paw in his face. “Hi, Ajax.”

  He slapped it away. “Get that shit away from me.”

  She held up another one. “Give me five, bro.”

  “Stop it. And be quiet.”

  Gladys threw a paw to the cat, which set about cracking it and licking the marrow from the bones.

  Ajax shook his head. “You want to be charitable? Here.”

  He handed her an M16. Gladys slung it over her shoulder. “No way.” She tossed another monkey paw in. “We could open the cage.”

  Ajax chuckled. “You know how the road to hell is supposed to be paved with good intentions?”

  Gladys flicked a paw over the fence. “I sense a rhetorical ambush, but I’ll say yes anyways.”

  “Well, I always thought the road to hell should be paved with the skulls of do-gooders.”

  Ajax took a monkey skull from her and shot-putted it to the big cat who leaped and caught it and cracked it in one movement.

  Now it was Gladys who shook her head. “You won’t let it go, but you’re going to kill five men.”

  “You let it go and it’s just another killer on the loose. You think once free it’ll just hang around here? Someone’s kid will be dinner and then what?”

  Ajax stood, he was restless like the jaguar and tired of the small talk. “If you’re not going to kill it, leave it be. You think he’s better off in a cage?”

  “Better off than dead? Sure. Weren’t you?”

  Ajax considered it. “My cage was for a different purpose.”

  “Was it?” She tossed another paw over the bars.

  “The jaguar wasn’t brought here to be punished, but put on display. The cage restrains its natural desire to run back to the jungle and kill whatever gets in its way.”

  Gladys tossed the last of the slaughtered remains to the big cat. But she made no reply. Neither did Ajax.

  “Let’s go” was all he could think to say.

  33

  “I’m not prejudiced, you understand?” Krill cut another length of rope. “Mi general, General Somoza, he gave me everything. Everything I have become came from him. And he was rich, rich as a king! So I am not prejudiced against ricos. But in ’79 when the piris came, the rich ran, all of them. Miami, San Jose, Mexico City.” He measured the length of rope—he wanted them all to be exactly the same. Precision was important to him. It’s why he wanted these two to understand him precisely. “When they ran, I stayed. Krill stayed.”

  He studied his captives. It hadn’t taken much time to find the old lady’s house. It had been his refuge since he’d fled Jasmine’s. That decision still troubled him. He could’ve killed them all with that grenade—but he had to speak to angelita first. Just talk! He tied Estela’s feet. She tried to kick him! What a character! He’d hated hurting her, he really had. But there was no other way to get Jasmine to talk, to tell him where to find his angelita.

  “No, abuela. No kicking Krill. I’m not prejudiced. But you ricos, you’re just not strong enough, you need people like me. Not as a servant, but a protector!” He tied Jasmine’s feet. “But your cousin, doña Jasmine. He was just too weak. Too weak to live. I am sorry.”

  Jasmine said nothing, well, she was gagged. But she communicated nothing. Still, Krill could tell by the look in her eyes that she was not such a weakling. Krill fetched the car keys from the pocket of Estela’s dead driver. Then he hoisted the old lady over his shoulder. She was so light! Like a bird.

  34

  When night was well settled over the city Ajax and Gladys scaled a wall at the far end of the zoo and made their way up an alley that connected to a street only five blocks over from Monkey Man’s safe house. The sounds of gunfire were far off, but close enough to remind them the city was still under siege. Gladys knew this was the dangerous part: no matter the ID cards or passports they carried, nothing would save them if they were caught by either side armed and creeping around at night.

  She and Ajax scoped the street and dashed across it. They crept down other alleys and dashed across streets until they found the green light Claribel had said marked the house. The rear entrance was a heavy steel door set in high walls topped with concertina wire. Ajax nodded for her to try the bolt and at the first touch it gave a little screech. She grimaced at the sound, took out a small bottle of olive oil she’d brought from Max’s, and poured it over the bar. She gave it a second and tried again. It slid almost soundlessly out of the catch. Gladys took a breath and pushed. The door popped open.

  The both slid the safety off their M16s and stepped in.

  The door led to a yard big enough for a small swimming pool surrounded by deck chairs and a cabana for changing. The yard was dark, but the house—a two-story bungalow with lots of windows—was lit up. The brusque hum of a generator came from somewhere. Good, she thought, a generator meant gasoline.

  They crept behind the cabana and watched the house.

  “Time,” Ajax whispered.

  “Nine thirty.”

  “They should be out by now.”

  But shadows moved inside the house. Gladys couldn’t tell whose. Ajax signaled for her to go right, he’d go left. “Get the girls out, bring them to the cabana.”

  She turned to go when he grabbed her arm. “Don’t come inside until I signal.”

  She crouched and made her way along the wall, circling toward an entrance that should lead to the kitchen. She got to a wooden door with a small window, turned the handle, and it opened silently. She stepped inside to find a pistol in her face. But then Claribel kissed her.

  Gladys gave her enough tongue to reassure her, took the pistol, and put her lips to Claribel’s ear. “Where are the others?”

  Claribel gave a tiny whistle and four young women appeared.

  “The men?” Gladys asked.

  Claribel dropped her head to the side and stuck her tongue out—they were passed out. But then she pointed one finger up. “Monkey Man’s upstairs, he was on the phone.”

  “He out?”

  “Should be.”

  “Where’s the generator?”

  Claribel pointed to a door at the far end of the kitchen.

  “Okay, get the others.”

  Claribel disappeared back into the house. Gladys had a quick peek in the garage and found, as they’d hoped, fifty-five-gallon gasoline drums for the generator. Claribel returned with four others. They did not look as scared as Gladys thought they’d be. She indicated the back door and led the putas out and through the yard to the cabana.

  * * *

  Ajax crouched behind a rolling bar near the house. He crouched so still he might’ve been made of clay, or salt. But he could see movement in the house where none should be if the girls had spiked the killers’ drinks. He’d counted four men splayed out on couches and chairs. Someone was moving amongst them, more shadow than man. He hoped it was the boy with the long eyelashes and not one of the killers. He slipped the .357 down his back and drew the Needle out. He ran the blade over his palm, then put it lightly to his nose and breathed in the smell—the light coat of oil clinging to the ste
el, the rawhide strips covering the handle. They say olfactory memory is often the strongest, but the scent of the Needle did not bring up things past. Ajax had read somewhere that maps are not a record of where you’ve been, but where you mean to go. The Needle was like that—the smell did not remind him of what he had done, but what he meant to do. And if he was right, if the shadow moving inside was not a man but the boy with the long eyelashes, then it was time to cleanse them all.

  That’s when someone touched his shoulder. He spun and had ahold of Gladys and the Needle under her chin without, it seemed, moving at all. She blanched, her mouth open and eyes like two moons.

  “You’re supposed to stay with Claribel,” he whispered.

  Her mouthed quivered, but no sound came out. He gave her a light slap on the cheek. “Comprendes?”

  Gladys swallowed. “She says Monkey Man is upstairs.”

  He nodded. “You see anyone moving around inside?”

  Gladys seemed unable at first to take her eyes off of him, but then she scanned inside the house.

  She swallowed again. “No.”

  “Good. Now go.”

  But Gladys was wrong. There was a shadow. Not inside, but creeping around outside on the street. Testing doors and concertina wire for a way in.

  * * *

  Gladys made her way back to the cabana. Her heart pounding in her ears, breath coming short, her hand would quiver if she held it out to see, but she wouldn’t, she didn’t want to see and didn’t want anyone else to either. It was not so much the Needle poised to prick her skin, a millimeter or millisecond from drawing blood, as the look in Ajax’s eye. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Saint Ajax holding a hand grenade, it was … she couldn’t keep El Gordo Sangroso’s name out of her head.

  Then the lights went out. And in the darkness the silence of the generator escaped her. Claribel gasped. “He knows!”

  Gladys put her finger to Claribel’s lips. “Stay here.”

  There was enough moonlight for Gladys to make out shadows as she moved quickly back to the house. Ajax was gone, he must’ve moved inside. But why had he cut off the generator? She crouched outside the window looking in on the main sala. The shapes of the four men on the couches and chairs were still there. But their postures had relaxed somehow. Through the windows she could see a shadow moving. She let herself inside, pistol at the ready. She’d not taken three steps when her foot slid. That certain tang on the back of her teeth. It was blood. What she’d thought were shadows on the floor were pools of blood. He’d already killed them all. Across the room there was a shadow moving up the staircase. Through a sliver of moonlight she caught Ajax’s profile on the stairs.