“Excellent.” Hector kneeled down beside Gina. “I’m proud of you, Michael. Of what you’ve done. You and Gina. She’s a remarkable woman. If I were a younger man…”
“You’ll outlive us both.” He blinked hard, fought a spasm of pain.
“There’s another town a few kilometers down the road,” Gina said. “A real town. I walked down and phoned a Guardia station.”
“They’ll be here shortly, Michael,” Hector said. “Medical care for you, a truck for the Senora.”
“Lofton? Alejandro?”
“Dead. Everyone’s dead, Michael. Everyone but Lopez Rega, and he wishes he was.”
“What about their bodies?”
“This is a place of war, Michael. What better place for them to be buried?”
“Dig them up. Lofton and Alejandro.”
“Why?”
“We’re taking them with us.”
By afternoon’s end the Guardia medics had helped Michael off the rubble and splinted his broken arm. They were leading him to an ambulance, but he insisted he and Gina ride with the Senora in the army truck. They agreed, making Michael as comfortable as possible on the benches.
Lofton and Alejandro’s bodies, bleached orange like Etruscan statues, were dug from the dune, wrapped in tarps, and laid beside Evita on the truck bed, which they had delicately covered with canvas. Hector sat in back with them, all three sporting bandages and salve, Gina wanting to sleep against Michael but it hurting too much for both of them.
There was only the few-hundred-mile ride to Madrid left. Hector smiled his reassuring smile as they bounced along the road, but he was not at ease. It was only a small thing, but Hector had noticed, sometime in the last hour, that his derringer was missing.
Michael smiled back.
Across the dry wastes of Aragon and over mountains Michael stopped counting, the small military convoy continued, past sunset, becoming a string of grated headlights on slow, two-lane highways. The back of the truck vibrated, a note musical and awful.
“How much longer?” Gina asked.
“A few hours. No more,” Hector said. “Then everyone can get to a proper hospital.” Hector smiled at Michael, who was thumbing through Lofton’s wallet. Michael looked back at Hector and closed his eyes.
It was on the high-altitude plains outside Madrid that Michael asked Hector to stop the convoy.
“Why?”
“Let’s take Her in alone, Hector. Just us. No army. No guards. Lofton, Alejandro, you, me, and Gina. One happy family.”
“The driver?”
“Keep him.”
There was nothing threatening about Michael’s stance or the way he stared. Just one hand, the one not splinted, resting in his pocket. Hector smiled. “Of course, Michael. I appreciate the symmetry. We started this journey together, let us finish it that way.”
Michael didn’t nod, didn’t smile. Hector leaned out the back of the truck and spoke to the Spanish escorts. Thanks much. Appreciate the effort.
The troops gathered in their other vehicles, pulled back onto the ring highway, and with just the driver, Evita and her closest friends moved slowly into Madrid.
Fashionable only slightly, crowded with villas threatening to go to seed, the Puerto de Hierro neighborhood was well lit but silent, the truck’s engine vibrating windows up and down the street as the driver stopped at the gates on Calle de Navalmanzano.
“So we have finally arrived,” Hector said. “I always had the faith that you would make it, Michael. I always knew we would stand together here one day.”
“Dr. Ara is waiting in there, isn’t he?”
“Almost certainly.”
Two military police officers stood guard at the villa’s gates. “Tell them to send for the good doctor, Hector.”
“Of course. But why don’t you and I give the news to General Perón together, Michael?”
“Just tell them to get Ara.”
Hector leaned out and spoke with forced casualness to the guard nearest. The guard disappeared inside, and Hector found himself again facing Michael across three dead people.
“You are a continuous source of surprises, Michael Suslov.”
“There’s nothing surprising about me at all, Hector. You should have learned that by now.”
“Is the Senora in danger?”
“Not unless you’re stupid.” Michael’s hand was still in his pocket. “Within the confines of our relationship, Hector, would you say you trust me?”
Hector paused a long time, then the smile that irony owned crept over his face. “Within the confines of our relationship, Michael Suslov, yes.”
The guard returned from the villa with a scowling Dr. Ara. The former Spanish cultural attaché to Argentina looked with disdain on the dusty and bloodied pair inside. “Where’s Lopez Rega?”
“He’ll be along,” Hector said, “one way or another.”
Dr. Ara’s eyes fell on the smallest of the three canvas wraps, and his voice changed completely. “Is that Her?”
“Come with us, Dr. Ara,” Michael said. “Come with Evita.”
Ara looked at Hector suspiciously. “It’s quite all right, Doctor,” the secret policeman said.
“We want only a brief moment of your time,” Michael added, “for this final part of her journey.”
The doctor scrutinized Michael’s features as best he could in the dark. “Do I know you?”
Michael pulled Hector’s derringer from his pocket. “Just get in the fucking truck.”
Ara glanced over his shoulder for the guard—he was gone—and merely shrugged, accepting Gina’s hand and climbing aboard beside them. “Tell the driver to go,” Michael said.
“Where?” Hector asked.
Michael stared at Ara’s bald, elfin features.
“His house.”
It was a suite of generous apartments, three floors up, and they sat in the rear of the truck outside it. “We’ll take them in with us.”
“All these bodies?” Hector asked.
“No. Just Evita.” Michael gestured to one of the shrouds. “And Lofton.”
You could see Hector trying to make the pieces work. “Dr. Ara’s apartment is on the third floor, no?”
“Yes,” Ara confirmed.
“The Senora is no stranger,” Michael said, “to back stairs with you and me, Hector, in the middle of the night.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“And I’m sure that in the meantime the doormen here at Dr. Ara’s building have grown accustomed to all manner of strange boxes being delivered to his apartment. They probably even help.”
Ara stared at the canvas wrap between them. “Is it truly Her? After all this time?”
“Yes.”
Ara let his hand touch the rough material. “Have your driver take us around back,” Ara instructed. The command was relayed, and the military truck grinded itself to a service door. Ara turned to climb out. “I’ll be right back.”
“Not so fast.”
Ara stopped and shook his head, every motion an ooze of breeding. “Please, young man, I’m not a child, hmm?”
Ara climbed off the truck. “Go with him,” Michael said to Gina. She paused. “Please.” Gina touched his shoulder and stepped out behind the Spanish dwarf.
“I must confess I’m intrigued.” But Michael ignored Hector and focused what was left of his mind on Gina, now returning through the service door with Ara and two doormen.
“The doormen will take them up,” Ara said. “Do what you want with the other one. Just have respect for the neighbors.”
Michael came off the elevator with Gina and walked to the only door on the floor. It was open, and Hector and Ara were standing in the living room with the bodies of Evita and Lofton on carts between them. Michael entered and collapsed onto a couch. The derringer stuck out from his pants’ pocket, a cut on his neck had begun bleeding again, and his entire nervous system felt like melted copper traveling his spine.
“Where are the toys,
Ara?” Michael asked. “Not the farmer’s head you keep in a hatbox for parties. The real stuff. The playroom, Dr. Ara. Where do you play?”
Michael coughed violently, bending over, and that ripped open another cut, soaking his back. “What’s wrong with him?” Ara asked. The doctor looked over Hector and Gina, their dusty clothes, the broken scabs on their faces, and shrugged. “Never mind.”
“The room, Ara. Where’s the room?”
“Nobody enters that room. Not alive.”
“Your choice.”
Ara chuckled to himself. “For the Senora then, yes?”
“Open the room.”
Ara took from his coat a string of keys, pulled back a faux bookcase, and unlocked the steel door behind. He gestured to the others. “Please.”
The door led to what was once, years ago, an adjoining suite of apartments. The long entryway had been left paneled in prewar woods. Along each wall, mounted like Roman busts, were embalmed heads. African heads, Asian heads, Indians, Gypsies…some clothed in native headdresses, most of their eyes closed but some open, sparkling clear irises and imprisoned souls.
You couldn’t help but linger, and Gina, who thought she had no tears left in her life, wept silently as she passed these trapped horrors, filed here in Ara’s personal purgatory.
“Excellent collection,” Hector said, nodding.
“Thank you.”
The corridor of heads guarded a larger room, maybe the old parlor, also richly paneled. Here were entire bodies, stretched out in glass cases like a rare library. Some wore magnificent costumes, others the simple worn coats of cobblers and street vendors. There were children, smiling, and Michael willed his eyes from them.
A large, snarling black bear stood on its hind legs in one corner. “I wasn’t aware you did animals, Dr. Ara,” Hector mused.
“An early dalliance. I never took to them, though. No soul. Or a soul that flees too quickly. With people you have more time. To capture them.”
It figured that it would be here, among his stable of horrors, that Dr. Ara would at last warm to his guests.
Hector noticed, among the cases, Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin. “One of your celebrity copies?”
“I was asked to consult during his embalming in ’24.”
“I remember.”
“January in Moscow. No heat. Unbearable. But I had ample time for a thorough study of the man.”
“The work is exceptional.”
“Yes. An excellent piece.”
“What was your basic model? Your materials?”
“Well, Hector, who says this one is the copy?”
“Remarkable…” Hector muttered.
“Insane,” Gina said. She had Michael’s arm, helping him along, as Ara opened the final door that led to his laboratory. It was all white tile, deep autopsy sinks, and steel worktables.
On one bright metal table rested a three-month-old infant. Smiling, eyes open, arms out, cooing to its mother, and Ara’s guests froze in numbed desolation. Gina turned away and placed a hand over her eyes. “We’re all mad…this entire trip…madness.”
Ara covered the child with a sheet and lifted it away. “Just something I was working on.”
They brought Evita in, placed her atop the table, and cut away the canvas covering. She seemed less strange here, with her creator fussing over her dress, her hands. It’s extraordinary, Michael thought, what you can get used to.
“Her skin is fine, only a few small cracks. Her hair needs cleaning, of course. Some small damage to the nose. There’s ash in here.”
“It was a long trip.”
“I’ll begin work immediately.”
“Not just yet.”
Ara straightened up, his enthusiasm replaced by imperial bearing. “Yes?”
“Take the key out.”
Ara just stared at him. “Come, Doctor,” Michael said, “don’t play dumb. You’ve always known it was there, right? It was your X-rays blown over that Recoleta café.”
“The safety deposit key,” Hector said, nodding to himself. “Of course.”
“You didn’t know?”
“The key?” Hector said. “No. We suspected, even cared once. But now? Now is just politics, Michael.”
“Was Evita’s brother, Juan, murdered for politics or money, Hector?” Ara asked.
“As I said, once we cared.”
“Why didn’t you keep the key?” Michael asked of Ara. “You had her. She was yours for months. Why wait nineteen years for Lopez Rega to bring it up?”
Ara stepped away from the body and faced Michael directly. “Assuming the money mattered to me, young man, I was the only one who knew. Why hurry? Bank rules would never allow the money to be touched for years. Possessing the key would only cause me danger. Especially after the X-rays were stolen by your friends. It was perfectly safe with the Senora…till she disappeared…”
“The key still with her,” Hector finished, “and only Michael knowing where she was…”
“Get the key,” Michael said.
“You’d defile her? Now? After all this time?” Ara challenged.
“Don’t butcher her like Lofton would have. Use your skill, Doctor. Your knowledge of the woman. Make it clean. Make it respectful. But get on with it.”
Ara turned from Michael and opened a surgical tray. From it he removed a scalpel. Gina looked at Michael, horrified. “The money? Was it about the money for you too, Michael?”
Hector, who was also watching Michael and perhaps gleaning his thoughts, answered her for him. “No, my lady, I don’t think so.”
“What, then?”
“A close of the cycle. Yes, Michael?”
Michael didn’t answer, was watching silently what they all watched now: Dr. Ara drawing the scalpel across Evita’s burial gown. The stiff muslin parted, and Ara made another incision, through layers of impregnated plastic and chemical injections, reached into the dry but intact viscera with a pair of forceps, and removed one specially made, multialloyed key. He wiped it with a towel and handed it to Michael. “Satisfied?”
“Nearly.”
“What now?”
“Bring in Lofton.”
Gina rolled in Lofton’s wrapped corpse and together they laid it roughly onto a second examination table. “Open the shroud.”
Ara drew his scalpel along the material, and Lofton emerged from within not looking much different: old, wasted, eyes half-mast, orange dust everywhere. “Some journey,” Ara said.
“It’s not over yet.”
“What do you want with him?”
Michael stood beside Ara and looked down at Lofton’s face. “Ed Lofton drank too much. Since the day I met him. Didn’t eat well, either. It always left him skinny and emaciated looking. His body seemed to me in those days almost…feminine.
“I was thinking of Lenin out there, of the fake celebrity heads you used to seduce women in Buenos Aires. After Evita died, we were doing surveillance on a house one night, and I saw you show off Evita’s head. Only it couldn’t be Hers; Hector had the entire article. You’d made a copy. Surgery on some poor dead peasant woman. Just a game, right?”
“My art was never a game, young man.”
“Fair enough. Where is the head now?”
“That was years ago.”
“Where is it?”
Ara measured Michael. “Here.”
“Get it.”
“And then?”
“Make Lofton Evita.”
“You’re insane.”
“Still…”
“He’s five inches taller than Her.”
“Cut his feet off.”
“He’s a man.”
“Is someone going to look up Her dress? Now? He’s a skinny man. Put her head on him and people will see what they need to.”
“Why, Michael?” Hector.
“A promise.”
“And Argentina?”
“Argentina wants an empty vessel to jam their superstitions and dreams into. I wouldn’t deny them
that.” Michael pointed Hector’s gun at Ara. “Now cut Lofton’s goddamn head off.”
Michael waited with Gina in the living room. The one without the displayed heads. He closed his eyes, and the room spun with viciousness. He reached out to Gina, she held his hand, but he was running low—too low—and when he passed out, Gina took the gun, kept it in her lap, and with the Guardia’s medical kit, dabbed and redressed his wounds.
Michael screamed when he woke and the nightmare lingered too long before his eyes. When it finally cleared, he felt Gina beside him and saw Hector waiting on the sofa opposite. “He’s finished.”
Michael fought to remember what he was talking about. It took everything just to lean forward. “Bring me Ara.”
The doctor was along presently, wearing his physician’s smock. “Success?” Michael asked him.
“It’s a sixty-five-year-old man with the head of Evita. A monstrosity.”
“Success?”
“It is not my best work. It is not even good work. I spent nearly a year on Evita, do you understand? A year!” Ara took off his smock and threw it over a chair. “But in a limited way, it could work. In a very limited way.”
“Sit down, Doctor.” Ara sighed and took a seat beside Hector. Michael closed his eyes, closed them a long time, and Hector wondered if he was coming back. He did. “Dr. Ara, I remember you told Hector once, in a dark alley a long time ago, to remember that though Evita was a symbol to so many, she was also a woman. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“You cared for her.”
“I still do.”
“I could shoot you now, Dr. Ara, and release every soul trapped in this horror den. But I believe you when you say you cared for Evita. I care for Evita too, Dr. Ara, and I believe her service to her country should end here.
“I intend to deliver to General Perón that monstrosity in the other room, which they may parade through the streets, run up a flagpole, or rip in half looking for a key. But they will not disturb her peace. You can help in this by authenticating the body we deliver, or you can destroy it and me the moment we walk in. I am asking you, in the name of her, to help.”
Ara was silent a long moment. Something small and alien crossed his features. Something…human. It rested strange on his elfin mouth. “In return you guarantee her peace?”
Blood Makes Noise Page 29