Tropic of Darkness

by Tony Richards

  She wasn’t sure what hour it was when sleep finally claimed her.

  * * *

  She woke up to an empty bed the following morning. Didn’t even notice it, at first. She reached out, semiconscious, trying to touch Frank. And felt an impression in the pillow where he had been lying.

  Ellen sat up with a start, and then a smile overtook her. He had to have gotten better, thank God.

  The sun was shining brightly, although there was still snow on the window ledge. She could hear a bunch of small kids playing in a nearby yard. It was just like any other normal day, in other words. Like yesterday’s exaggerated fears had merely been a dream.

  That is, until she heard the moaning.

  It was coming from downstairs, and did not sound normal or even particularly human. Fright reclaimed her in an instant.

  “Frank?!” she yelled out, going rigid. “Frank, is that you?!”

  She got no answer but another groan. It occurred to her that it was him making the sounds. Still unwell, and possibly in pain.

  Jumping up, she got her robe and slippers, headed for the stairs. She came to a halt at the banisters, peering down. She could see Frank’s head moving past below her.

  He was wandering along the hallway. Had stripped off his pajama top. His head was bowed. His hands seemed to be lifted to his face, but it was hard to be sure from this angle.

  He disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. And as he slipped from view he moaned again, louder than before.

  Ellen froze, genuinely terrified.

  A loud crash.

  Had he fallen? She went quickly down.

  It wasn’t him on the floor, thank heavens. Only a stool from the breakfast bar, turned over on its side. Frank must have done that, but didn’t seem to notice.

  He was standing with his back to her at the kitchen door, peering out at something. Not the yard, either. His head was lifted too far back for that.

  With a fresh surge of shock, she took in the fact that he was gazing at the newly risen sun.

  “Frank, stop that!”

  She lurched toward him.

  “Frank, you’ll hurt your eyes!”

  He paid her no attention, even when she grabbed his shoulders. She had to turn him around physically, and it took all the strength that she could muster.

  His face finally came in sight, and he was crying.

  “Frank?” Her fear gave way to astonishment. “What is it?”

  Those bright, wet eyes settled on her for a second, but he did not answer.

  “Jesus, Frank, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  He stepped forward abruptly, pushing her aside. Ellen hit the edge of the dishwasher, pain flaring up in her hip. But she righted herself, her gaze still following her husband.

  He had wandered back into the hallway. His hands went to his temples again and he continued with that awful moaning noise. It came in long, slow pulses, like some huge sea mammal mourning its dead mate.

  Reaching the front door, Frank flung it open and walked out, bare feet crunching in the snow. Ellen dashed out after him and grabbed him by the wrist.

  “Frank! Frank, come inside!”

  His only response was to shake her loose, then gaze up at the sky again. Except that the sun was not visible from this side of the house.

  His eyes fastened on something else instead. Followed it as it drifted across the high blue firmament.

  He was staring at an airplane winging its way south. His cheeks seemed to crumple as he watched it. Furrows appeared on his brow. He raised one hand toward the craft, like he was trying to touch it. Then he let out the worst sound so far.

  Not a moan this time. A howl of anguished misery.

  Several faces appeared in windows across the street. All Frank did was shake his head, go back inside the house.

  Ellen followed him, not even bothering to close the door behind her. She was on the telephone by the time that he went back into the kitchen.

  “Yes, hello?” came Leland’s muffled voice.

  “It’s Ellen! You’ve got to get over here, now!”

  “Why? What is it?”

  Frank came back past and started up the stairs. He seemed to be holding something, but she couldn’t make out what it was.

  “Frank’s gone crazy! Please, I . . . please! Leland, please!”

  “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  There was a bang from upstairs, a door slamming shut. It was followed by the rattle of a bolt. Oh God, he’d locked himself in the bathroom. Ellen bustled up.

  She grabbed the doorknob. It turned easily but the door wouldn’t budge. So she started thumping on the wooden panels.

  “Frank, please, open the door!”

  What finally stopped her was the realization she was making so much noise she couldn’t make out what was happening inside. Keep a grip, a small inner voice seemed to tell her. Just stay calm until Leland gets here.

  She tipped her head forward and asked, in a quieter voice, “Frank, are you okay in there?”

  There was some kind of muttering from the other side, but it didn’t sound like a response of any kind. More like he was talking to himself.

  “Frank. I can’t get the door open, sweetheart. I need to get in, just to see that you’re okay. I’m concerned for you, that’s all.”

  She put her ear against the door.

  And finally made out what Frank was mumbling.

  “She’s . . .”

  Her fist shot up to her mouth.

  “. . . under my skin.”

  The same as that first night. The exact same. He wasn’t singing it this time. He was intoning it over and again in a hushed whisper.

  “She’s . . . under my skin.”

  There was something else as well, she noticed. Punctuating every phrase, there came a grunt, almost of stifled pain.

  “Frank?” she tried again, her voice becoming brittle.

  “She’s . . . uhh . . . under my skin. She’s . . . uhh . . . under my . . .”

  On and on like a stuck record. What in the name of heaven?

  A stair creaked behind her and she spun around. Leland Hague, his coat on crooked and his shirt collar askew, peered up at her.

  “He’s in there?”

  Wide-eyed, Ellen nodded.

  The aging doctor moved her gently to one side, then stepped up to the door himself, adopting a stern kind of manner she had never seen before. He reached out with his fist, his knuckles rapping softly.

  “Francis? This is Leland Hague. Remember me?”

  “—uhh—” came the reply. “—She’s . . .”

  “Would you please open up? Just unlock the door. Nice and easy. Okay, Frank?”

  No response.

  There was a sudden movement at the low edge of her vision. Ellen glanced down at the floor.

  Hague was wearing old white sneakers. But now, the toe of the left one was red.

  The doctor noticed too, and stepped back, horrified.

  There was a thin stream of blood running out from underneath the door.

  Oh my God, thought Ellen.

  Frank . . . ?

  Ellen began screaming, but Leland ignored her. He stepped back and then slammed his shoulder into the paneling.

  He was too old, too lightly built. It took him twelve attempts before there was a splintering noise. The next attempt, the door loosened a little. And the next, there was a metallic clatter on the tiles inside as the deadbolt dropped away.

  Hague stumbled through, carried by his own momentum. Skidded on something wet.

  Toppled over, landing heavily.

  He tried to get back up and only slithered down again. And then he yelled with pain.

  The entire floor was slick with blood. Ellen stared past the doctor at her husband wi
th a stark and almost disbelieving sense of awe.

  Frank was sitting naked on the edge of the bathtub, his pajama pants in a soaked ball by his feet. In his right hand was a chef’s knife, the blade more red than silver.

  His whole body from neck to knees was striped with flowing cuts, so that he didn’t even appear naked. More like he was wearing a shiny, bright red leotard.

  Ellen started letting out a frenzied, hysterical wailing. But Leland was ignoring that and managing to raise himself a little higher.

  “What?” he croaked. “Frank, why?”

  Francis Jackson’s blue-gray eyes rolled toward him in that colorless, soft face and focused on him dully.

  “Under my skin, Leland.” The man let the words out in a single, rolling breath. “She’s under my skin . . .”

  His face twisted into a sad, embittered smile.

  And then he toppled over to the floor.

  * * *

  Three ambulances were needed, in the end. One for Frank, who’d bled to death by the time it arrived. One for Ellen, who required sedation. And the last for Leland Hague himself, who’d broken his ankle when he’d fallen.

  As it sped him to the hospital, a young paramedic gazed down at him uncertainly.

  “What was it with that guy? Like, what the hell was that? I’ve seen people cut their wrists plenty of times. Even cut their own throats. But those little cuts all over, trickling your life away like that?”

  Hague tried to think it through, but everything seemed muddled. He was going into shock, he realized, and would certainly pass out before much longer. Better make his answer as succinct as possible.

  “I’m not entirely sure that he was trying to kill himself,” he murmured.

  The darkness was starting to close over him, the paramedic’s face becoming blurry.

  “I think he was trying to . . .” It sounded so insane he paused. “Rid himself of something. Just cut something out.”

  “Huh . . . ?” the paramedic was asking right before Hague drowned in darkness.

  PART TWO

  THE QUEEN OF GRAVEYARDS

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  A FEW DAYS LATER

  Through the narrow, slatted shutters of his window at the Hotel Portughese, Jack Gilliard could see the ebb and flow of people out in Havana’s Parque Central, which in truth did not resemble any kind of park in the slightest.

  It was not a great deal larger than a soccer field, and was paved over for the most part with broad flagstones. Planted down the middle were parallel rows of palm trees. Bushier, more shady trees provided shelter at the corners of the square.

  There were lots of people sitting underneath them on the concrete benches, trying to stay cool. It was early afternoon and the sun was high and very hot.

  Jack gazed down not with a tourist’s eye, but with a far more practiced one than that. He could immediately pick out the hustlers and thieves amongst the crowd by the way they moved their heads and hands.

  They didn’t bother him particularly. You got far worse than these guys in places like Rio and Caracas. And besides, he’d brought with him the only two implements he had ever needed to get along in a Latin American city: his cornet, and his long-bladed gravity knife. The first to provide him with a living. And the second to ensure that he hung onto it.

  His surname was from the French, on his father’s side. But his mother’s family had been Scandinavian, and physically he took more after that branch of the tree. Tall and gaunt, Nordic in appearance with dark blond hair and icy, pale blue eyes. He’d been born in Minnesota–St. Paul in the middle of a blizzard back in 1962 and had never liked cold places very much since then. Never liked his father too much either, since the man had been a violent drunk.

  He’d run away at fifteen, southward, fleeing—equally—the beatings and the winters. First to Charleston, South Carolina. Then to Montgomery, Alabama. Then Galveston, Texas.

  And finally, by the end of his teens—his skin darkened and his limbs sinewy from years of picking fruit and working on the shrimp boats—he had arrived in New Orleans.

  The battered case holding his old Earlham cornet was lying at the foot of his bed like some faithful dog. And the knife, a seven-inch number he had won in a card game in Asunción some years back, was where he always kept it, a familiar narrow pressure by his rump. It had served him well, drawing blood three times since he had gotten it. But always in self-defense. And thankfully, he’d never had to kill with it. Gilliard had traveled down a lot of dark alleys since fleeing the States, but never that one.

  He’d owned the Earlham since the age of ten. His father had bought it for him in one of his extremely rare, generous-drunk moods, and Jack had taken to it quickly. But there in the gaslit streets of the French Quarter, he’d met people who had turned his ideas about music upside down.

  Most of them were seedy types, failures by regular standards. But they knew and loved their music; it was engraved on their souls. And as he learned from them, he began to make a brand-new living for himself, of sorts.

  His present circumstances drifted back. A fine, familiar sweat had started beading him. He hunched forward in his chair and continued to study the park. There was certainly an awful lot of criminal activity under way in Uncle Fidel’s workers’ paradise.

  Jack spotted a pimp with three attractive young girls dressed in what looked like hand-me-down frocks, sitting underneath a flowering tree. He saw two pickpockets following a tourist couple as they walked along obliviously. Young men were propping up the lampposts everywhere he looked. They were watching the front entrance of this very hotel, waiting for foreigners to come out so that they could start their pitches.

  “Want to buy cigars, man? Rum? Marijuana? Listen, it’s the best.”

  Yeah, sure. He’d heard that kind of promise many times before.

  “Wanna make some real money?” an acquaintance had asked him in the October of that first year in the Easy.

  Jack had been playing a small bar off Decatur, for tips only, and was having trouble paying his room bill and still having enough to eat.

  It was between sets. His stomach was grumbling. Jack picked up the bourbon that the man had bought him, nodded.

  “Got a package needs delivering, to Houston. I can’t go myself, but I can loan you my car. And there’s a grand in it for you when you get back.”

  He guessed immediately what the package had to contain. The idea of it bothered him, but the way the man described it—hell, it sounded like quick, easy cash and God only knew he needed that. Over and done with and forgotten, that was the way to approach such an enterprise.

  Someone must have tipped the cops off. They had flagged him down before he even got to Baton Rouge. And it was only because he was so young and scared and they weren’t taking him too seriously that he managed to escape through the roadside bushes.

  But they had his wallet by that time. His whole identity, tucked into one neat little leather pouch. It contained his driver’s license and his hotel key and the last twenty dollars that he owned.

  There was nothing left for him. Jack hitched along the backroads the whole way to the border and slipped over into Mexico like some tall and lanky ghost.

  * * *

  A tall white statue with a bird perched on its head watched over the center of the Parque Central. Jack had no idea whose it was, but the fellow looked rather pleased with himself. And today, it was a feeling that he shared.

  He’d been in Buenos Aires for the last three months, played some halfway decent clubs and earned enough to fly out here and book himself into his first respectable hotel in practically a year. God, how long since he’d bedded down in a room this large? There was a TV, a small fridge, and even air-conditioning, although, unused to the latter, he had switched it off.

  A pair of cops dressed in short-sleeved shirts and baseball caps came up
along the sidewalk below him. The street people drifted out of sight, reappearing again once the coast was clear, like a shoal of smaller fish evading a shark. He was going to have to run the gauntlet when he stepped out there. And there was nothing else to do but go out there. Pierre Melville wasn’t due here until six, and it was only five after one.

  Jack stood up, six foot tall and long limbed, not an ounce of spare fat on him. He wore his hair cropped short and his skin was tanned to a hard hazelnut-brown.

  Like many in these parts, he preferred to wear a short-sleeved shirt and chinos rather than a T-shirt and jeans—they were looser, better suited to the climate. And skinny he might be, but definitely not weak.

  The knuckles of both hands protruded in sharp ridges. The muscles in his forearms were like cable. Not the kind of man to pick a fight with, any fool could see.

  Maybe if he hid his hair and eyes he’d have a middling chance of sightseeing without the hustlers bothering him. His skin didn’t announce him as a Yanqui, after all.

  He paused a moment, reaching for the items that he needed. He got the feeling, suddenly, that there was someone watching him. Perhaps more than one person. He had developed strong instincts in that line since he’d left the States, and they were rarely wrong.

  But Jack couldn’t see how that was possible. There was no one overlooking his window. And the door was shut, and there was no one but him in the room.

  He shrugged, slipped on a straw hat and a pair of shades. Snatched up his room key from beside the television, and went out.

  * * *

  For the hundredth time that day, Manuel Cruz stopped scribbling and glanced at the phone on his desk at the Ministry of Trade. His eyes went sad and his mouth pursed with disappointment. Frank Jackson had struck him as such an honest man during the five days they had spent together.

  Call you tomorrow, the Canadian had said, shaking Manuel’s hand before he’d gone to board his plane.

  Manuel had risen especially early that morning to drive him to the airport.

  As soon as I get the okay from my superiors, I’ll call you and confirm it. We can do the rest by fax. It’s been a pleasure.