by Paul Monette
“This ruthless oligarchy of generals and big businessmen,” said Gutierrez, “is dedicated to just one thing—growing richer and richer. They pour their cocaine profits into their Swiss bank accounts. They sit in their mountain kingdoms drinking champagne while the poor eat rats and smother their starving children. These pirates have declared war on the Bolivian people! We will cut them out like cancer!”
The applause welled up, and he shouted in Spanish the words of a song of liberty, and the crowd broke into unruly cheering. In Row VV, on the aisle, Tony Montana the king of Miami sat listening. Every minute or so he touched his nose, as if he had an allergy to populist rhetoric. Beside him sat the Shadow, his face a mask of death. Tony had had that feeling all day long, from the moment they landed at Kennedy—the feeling that he was leading Death around. He never felt this about himself, not even when he was going out to kill someone. But he felt it now with the Shadow. This Alberto was more than a man with a gun. He was like an infection.
“Ten thousand of our brothers,” shouted Gutierrez, “are being tortured and held without trial. Another six thousand have simply disappeared. You Americans cannot know what it means to be a disappeared person. In Latin America the rivers run with the blood of the disappeared.”
Here Gutierrez began to cough, or he had a frog in his throat, for he reached for the pitcher of water and poured out a glass. The audience was absolutely silent as he drank. There wasn’t a single one of them who wasn’t thinking hard about what it meant to be “disappeared.” Well, perhaps the Shadow wasn’t. But Tony was.
Gutierrez cleared his throat and leaned into the microphone and continued: “Unless the U.S. government sets an example soon, by calling for the observation of fundamental human rights, by stopping this endless sale of tanks and bombs and planes to the gangsters who run my country . . .”
The cheering swelled to a fever pitch, practically drowning him out. The Shadow tapped Tony’s arm to indicate they had seen enough. They slipped unnoticed into the aisle. Hundreds of people were hurtling out of their seats now, shouting. “Viva Gutierrez!” they clamored. “Viva Bolivia!”
“. . . I can promise you not only that the cause of human freedom and dignity in Latin America will once again be strangled in its cradle, but that the sickness is here now, on your shores. It is worming its way to the heart of your once-proud democracy!”
Pandemonium now. The crowd surged forward, besieging the stage. “Gutierrez! Gutierrez!” they cried. The Shadow hurried quickly out of the auditorium, as if the cheering of his enemy made him physically ill. Tony lingered a moment at the door, looking back once over his shoulder. Gutierrez had come to the lip of the stage, where he reached out his hands so they could touch him. Tony was startled to feel how deep the man had impressed him, and not just because of the heat he created. He would have stayed longer to watch if the Shadow had not been waiting.
As he stepped outside in the chilly autumn rain he drew from his pocket a bullet of coke and snorted, twice in each nostril. The Shadow stood on the curb, looking up at the bright-lit buildings with his mouth slightly open, for the moment as much of a hick as a tourist from Nowhere, U.S.A. Manolo was parked in an alley across the street, and as soon as he saw them he streaked out and pulled to the curb beside them. Tony opened the door and held it for the Shadow, smiling as the killer drew his rapt gaze from the giant panorama of Manhattan. Alberto suddenly realized that Tony had seen his awestruck state, and his eyes now frosted over as he ducked into the car.
“It’s a piece o’ cake,” said Tony as Manolo drove away. “Guy don’t even have a bodyguard.” He shook his head with distaste. “Real stupid, huh? It’s like he’s askin’ for it.”
“So we’re on for Thursday then,” said Manolo.
“Yeah, Thursday,” Tony said wearily. He turned and looked at the Shadow in the back seat, who now sat staring forward with no expression at all. Tony didn’t see why they couldn’t just wait in an alley and put a bullet through Gutierrez as he stepped out into the rain. Why did they have to go back to Miami and spend a day making a bomb? It was all getting too political. Killing was one thing, terrorism quite another. Tony willed himself not to think about it. He pulled out his coke and snorted again, thinking only of those three years he would not be in a cage. Yet the phrase kept repeating in his head: the disappeared ones. He could almost see their faces. He couldn’t see why they had to die for the sake of the drug traffic. Everyone Tony had ever killed had at least deserved to die.
The next night in Miami, Tony and Elvira and Manolo went out to celebrate the three years Tony was about to be given back. He’d spent the whole day doing errands with the Shadow. At Bob’s Discount they picked up aluminum baking pans, cookie sheets, black electrical tape, rubber garden gloves. At a Radio Shack they got wire cutters and a soldering iron and slide switch. At a nameless, faceless house off Calle Ocho they met with a whacked-out Vietnam vet who sold them a briefcase full of C4 plastique, with detonating cords and blasting caps. The Shadow was left in the boathouse by the canal to assemble his bomb, with Nick and Chi-Chi guarding him. It wasn’t stated out loud, but the bombwork was being done a hundred yards away from the house in case of a slip-up.
By the time they arrived at The Beachhead on Arthur Godfrey Road, Tony and Elvira and Manolo were completely loaded, giggling uncontrollably as they entered the Wasp bastion. The place was full of proper millionaires—developers who’d tossed old ladies out in the cold, proper sorts like that. As the maitre d’ led them across to a table, they were slightly weaving and had to hold on to one another. They swayed like a conga line, and a couple of sour-faced diners drew back in dismay. Just as Manolo and Elvira slumped into a booth, Tony recognized someone a couple of tables away. Grinning happily, he lurched over and slapped his hand on the shoulder of a heavy-set man at a round table of six people.
“Hey Vic,” said Tony, “I watch your show every day.”
The man craned around, with a toss of his leonine white head of hair. His eyes were glazed with the sort of patrician annoyance reserved for bores in restaurants. “Oh, is that so? How nice,” he said, though it didn’t sound very nice.
“Yeah, I think you got the best drug coverage around. Virgil Train—Channel 2, ya know him?—he’s a friend o’ mine. Does a real nice spot every coupla weeks. But you got it all over him, Vic. You got drugs on practically every night. We’re real proud o’ you, pal.”
Victor Shepard’s face was drained of all color. He didn’t know what to say. Tony was talking double fast and pouring on the charm. All the other conversations at Shepard’s table had stopped. They were totally intrigued by the man with the scar.
“Just one little thing, huh Vic? You know that two hundred kilo DEA bust you was congratulatin’ the cops for the other night?”
Vic’s brow furrowed. “Aren’t you . . . Tony Montana?” The five rich people sitting around him gasped in recognition.
Tony beamed. “Yeah, that’s me.” He shook off Manolo’s arm, who’d come to retrieve him. He winked around the table at the fatcats. “Hi folks, don’t get up. Anyway Vic, you should check it out. I heard like it was two hundred and twenty kilos went down. That mean’s twenty’s missing, right? The way I figure, anyway. Why don’t you ask your friends the cops about that?” He slapped Shepard’s shoulder again. “Hey, keep up the good work, Vic. Don’t believe everything you hear, okay? Have a good dinner now. Nice to meet you people.”
Waving a cheery farewell, he turned away from the table and sauntered back to his own, Manolo clucking fretfully beside him. “Hey Tony, that wasn’t cool,” he said. “Shepard’s got a lotta friends.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” retorted Tony, sliding into the booth beside Elvira. “He’s an asshole! Never fuckin’ tells the truth on TV. That’s the trouble with this country. Nobody tells the truth. Ain’t that right?” he asked the wincing waiter, who nodded fearfully and begged to know what drinks they would like to have.
And they all laughed at him for being afr
aid of them, because he was just a poor Cuban himself. Tony and Manolo laughed because they remembered huddling in the linen closet back at the Havanito Restaurante, looking out through the linen chute at the gold-chained couples and the coked-up dealers. Elvira laughed because she was in the mood to find everything funny about the desperate tacky glamour of a millionaire’s restaurant on Arthur Godfrey Road.
They ordered up a Roman feast. Caviar to start with and a bottle of the best champagne, here only $280 a crack, since it didn’t have the Babylon Club’s markup. Tony seemed visibly disappointed not to be paying five hundred. Then they had steaks and french fries, spurning all the sauces and medallions and game birds on the menu. The chef nearly wept at steak and french fries, but he served them up. Everyone at The Beachhead, in fact, was going out of his way to accommodate Tony and his arrogant desires. He sent a hundred-and-sixty-dollar bottle of brandy to Victor Shepard’s table, which Shepard returned untouched.
Tony laughed at the tension he caused, and Manolo and Elvira laughed along with him, in a vague gesture of moral support but with less and less conviction. By the end of the meal the men were sated, weary after all from the trip to New York the day before, the buzz of the coke wearing off besides. Elvira got higher and higher, meanwhile. Surreptitiously she would bring the vial up to her nostrils wrapped in a hanky, as if she was suffering from some pesky allergy. She did it every ten minutes. Tony didn’t think twice about it, she did it all the time, but tonight he sat there stuffed with food and looked over irritably at her untouched plate.
“Why don’t you eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“So what’d you order it for?”
“I didn’t. You did.”
Silence. It was usually about this time that Manolo would break in and shift the mood, deflecting Tony’s anger, soothing Elvira’s feathers. But he didn’t seem to have it in him tonight. He tossed down another belt of the brandy Shepard had spurned. He figured they’d go at each other for another minute or so, and then Elvira would stalk out, and finally they could leave. But Tony did not fire back at Elvira. Instead he gazed out at the gilded room where the laughing crowd exulted and paraded. His eyes were dead and melancholy. There was no anger now.
“Hey, Manolo, is this it? Is this all of it? Eating and drinking and tooting and fucking? And then what? You’re fifty before you know it, and you got a bag for a belly and your tits sag and your liver’s got spots and you look like a mummy. Just like these guys.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that, Tony. You’re gonna bring bad luck.”
“You think so, chico? You think Chango the god of fire and thunder’s gonna dump two shits on me?” Tony laughed out loud, as if the knot of rage in his chest had finally broken. He reached into his pocket and drew out his vial. He tapped it and flicked the opening and snorted. He didn’t bother with a hanky. Then he seemed to drink the crowd in even deeper. “But can you dig it, chico,” he said, his voice so soft for a moment they had to hold their breath to hear him. “This is what we worked for. Right here. This is what we kill guys for. For this.”
He turned a stony gaze on Elvira. “How many guys did I kill so I could live with a junkie? Who never eats nothin’. Who can’t wake up till she’s had a Quaalude. Who sleeps all day with black shades on. Who won’t fuck me any more ’cause she’s in a coma.”
“Can it, Tony,” said Manolo. “You’re drunk.”
Elvira’s eyes were sharp with fury. “Let’s not get into who’s good in bed, okay? You haven’t been winning prizes in that department for some time now.”
But he couldn’t stop. It was like he had a speech to give. Diners at the tables around them were beginning to cast embarrassed glances in their direction. It wasn’t loud enough for them to hear every word yet, but it was wonderfully embarrassing. Tony splashed the last of the brandy in his snifter, filling it half full. Neither he nor Manolo could have said how they drank the whole bottle. Indulgence was second nature now. The razor edge of the coke was fighting the blur of the liquor. It was all a losing battle.
“Is this the American dream, chico?” he asked, a wave of mawkish sentiment welling up inside him. “Is this what happens to Bogart at the end?” He laughed bitterly, staring out at a desert space where the gold had turned to dust. “Fuck it man, I can’t even have a kid with her. She’s got a womb like a sewer from all the dope. Can’t even have a nice little kid.”
Perhaps he would have broken down and cried just then, but now it was Elvira’s turn. She stood up from the table, lifted the untouched plate of steak and fries, and heaved it at him. It slopped all over his shirt and spattered his face. “You asshole,” she said with huge contempt. “You stupid sonuvabitch spic asshole.”
They had a black-tie audience now. The diners at The Beachhead, discreet before all else, made no pretense now of trying to listen with half an ear. They dropped their forks and gawked. The waiter—a fine upstanding Cuban-American with a wife and three kids and a mortgage and a Cutlass—hovered near the table, making ineffectual hushing sounds. He had a towel in one hand which he’d have gladly used to wipe up the mess if they’d only stopped and let him.
But Elvira had just gotten started. “How dare you talk to me like that!” she shouted. “You think you’re better than me? What the hell do you do? Deal and kill, right? Oh that’s real creative, Tony, that’s just wonderful isn’t it. A real contribution to human history. Well, let me tell you something—I don’t want a child with you. It’s the least I can do for the future, you know? At least I won’t bring another fuck-up into the world who might grow up like you!”
“Siddown before I kill you,” said Tony without emotion. He picked the steak up off his lap and set it on his plate. Then he accepted the towel from the waiter and began to brush at his shirt. He even managed to flash a grin as he said: “Maybe we can have a doggie bag, huh?” It was as if he’d put the whole problem aside. He would just stay drunk and stoned right now.
This only made Elvira madder—and louder. “What kind of home life’s a kid going to have with us, huh? With your thugs around all the time, carrying machine guns. Is Nick the Pig gonna be his uncle? Is Chi-Chi the dope fiend gonna take him to the zoo? Oh yeah, I forgot we got our own zoo.” Now the maitre d’ padded over, and he touched Elvira’s elbow gently, murmuring that perhaps if she was feeling ill she should think about going home. She leaped away from him with a hiss, as if he’d burned her. Her voice was a little softer, though, as she turned to Tony again. There was almost a pleading quality as she said: “Oh Tony, don’t you see? We’re losers, honey. We’re not winners.” She made a vague and tragic gesture around at the stunned and silent room. “These are the winners, Tony. Not us.”
The fury was over for both of them. A curious awkwardness settled on them now. They looked like two actors who’d lost their lines, who had no skill for improvising. Tony said gently: “Go on, get a cab and go home. You’re stoned.”
“Not as stoned as you are, honey. You’re so stoned you don’t know it.” She stumbled as she reached into the booth to grab her bag. Manolo stood up dutifully and moved to help her. She shook her head firmly, and he stayed away. Without another glance at Tony she turned and wobbled across the restaurant. A hundred eyes were on her, moving back and forth between her and Tony. Once again Manolo moved to follow, as if he couldn’t bear to see her watched.
“Let her go,” said Tony. “Tomorrow’ll be the same old shit. She’ll pop another Quaalude and love me again.”
She disappeared into the foyer and was gone. Suddenly it was as if the room had had enough of silence. They turned back to their meals with redoubled vigor, buzzing with conversation. Presumably there was but one thing they were talking about, but they couldn’t stand to watch it any more, so naked out there in the middle of things. They wanted to turn it into gossip now. They wanted Tony to disappear, the way Elvira did.
Tony stood up and reached in his pocket. He pulled out a roll of cash and peeled off several hundreds. He tossed
these on the littered table. As he stepped from the booth he brushed once more at the front of his shirt. Perhaps he was going to leave quietly after all. Manolo waited patiently. The maitre d’ and the waiter managed to pull to attention, in case one of those hundreds had a chance of coming their way. Tony took a long look around the room, like he wanted to commit it to memory.
Then he shouted: “You’re all fulla shit!”
The room lurched into another silence, this time red-faced and shy, with perhaps an undercurrent of wounded dignity. He had gone way too far. They were not amused any more.
“You know why?” cried Tony. “ ’Cause none of you got the guts to be what you wanna be! You’re too fuckin’ scared. You need people like me so you can point your finger and say, ‘Hey, there’s the bad guy.’ So what does that make you? Good guys?” They were listening hard, he could tell. Right then he wished he had an education, so he could show them the kind of hell they were in and make them cower in their seats. He shouldn’t have worried. His words were only the half of it. What they could not turn away from was his passionate conviction. “Don’t kid yourself, folks. You’re no better than a dealer just because you’re buyin’. You get along okay, huh? You know how to hide, you know how to lie. I ain’t so lucky. Me, I always tell the truth—even when I lie.”
He began to walk out, past the maitre d’ and the waiter, past the pastry cart and the Irish Coffee bar. Manolo kept pace with him, two or three steps behind. The crowd had not recovered from the second silence. They would recover by being offended, if only he would leave. He turned at the door and smiled, then gave them a kind of Sinatra wave.