King Bongo

by Thomas Sanchez

  “Let’s go. This place gives me the creeps.”

  “Not me. We’ve been out here so many times, I’m getting used to it.”

  “I’ll never get used to it.”

  “This job has its ups and downs. We have our fun, and the pay’s good.”

  “You’re right. Beats going through life with a tapeworm hanging out of your ass.”

  The trunk lid clanged shut, the car doors slammed closed. The car drove away. A cloud of dust mixed with acrid engine exhaust drifted over Hurricane.

  Maybe the two goons were right, Hurricane thought. Maybe the American thugs were coming back to finish him off. He heard buzzards overhead, flapping their wings as they lowered in the sky. He waited for them to land and tear into his flesh with their beaks.

  In the hot sun, Hurricane’s brain boiled with hallucination. The bones and skulls surrounding him rose up; resurrected skeletons jerked like marionettes in a profane dance to searing Zombie music. The Papa Drum and Mama Drum were angry, unleashing the heated beat of a knife-wielding Sorcerer to slice open mysteries. The dancing chorus of bone-clanking skeletons heralded the souls of those in the field of death who had been brutalized, raped, tortured, shot, electrocuted, strangled. A percussive rhythm swayed the earth in a tide of sorrow as a thousand skeletal hands reached up and grabbed the sun’s shining orb, crushing it. The sun’s boiling innards spurted out, showering terror from the sky.

  Behind Hurricane’s blindfold all became darkness. He was woozy from the blistering heat, but he did hear music. Was it the music of hallucination, or had he died of heatstroke and crossed over to the final realm? He heard the swoon of a woman’s voice passionately recounting her sorrow:

  We shouldn’t dwell on love forgotten,

  like a piece of the soul

  wrenched heartlessly away.

  If only we could make all our dreams

  come true, you would love me

  like you did twenty years ago.

  Hurricane knew the song, “Twenty Years.” He knew the singer, María Teresa Vera, her mournful voice floating on a simple melody sketched by a three-string guitar. He thought he was dead in heaven and María Teresa was singing just for him. He started to weep, then his weeping became uncontrollable sobbing. He was a strong man, an athletic man, but the song exposed him for the soft emotional fruit that he was.

  Hurricane cried himself empty. María Teresa’s voice was still there. It wasn’t coming from paradise, it was close and tinny; it came from a car radio. When had the car arrived? Had the American thugs come back to finish their job? Had Pedro and Paulo returned to kill him because they realized he had heard their names?

  A car door slammed shut and the singing stopped. Footsteps walked across bones to where the three bodies had recently been dumped. The footsteps started again and came to Hurricane. He heard a rustling sound; something was being taken out of a pocket. A gun? There was a soft tapping, then the scratch of a match being struck. The scent of phosphorus and tobacco wafted in the air.

  A man’s voice asked, “You want a smoke?”

  Hurricane bobbed his head up and down in a yes.

  A hand reached down and pulled out the necktie stuffed into Hurricane’s mouth.

  Hurricane’s tongue had been jammed up in a bent position at the back of his throat for so long that he could barely move it. His mouth was parched, he needed water, not nicotine. “Wa … wa … water.”

  The man ignored his request. “You’ve got red ants crawling all over your face. They’re having a ball, wiggling their legs like they’re playing drums on your skin. Can’t you feel them?”

  Hurricane couldn’t feel them, his face was too numb and swollen, but he realized he had heard their drumming.

  “I’ve been coming to this field for weeks,” the man continued. “You’re the first live person I’ve seen. Somebody didn’t finish the job on you.”

  Beneath Hurricane’s exhaustion, terror returned. Maybe this man had come to finish him off.

  “I wonder if you had a hand in killing those three girls over there?”

  Hurricane shook his head.

  “But you might know who dumped them? Those bodies are fresh.”

  Hurricane didn’t know who this man was, whose side he was on. He didn’t like the questions the man was asking, so he said nothing.

  “You know, when a guy is tied up and blindfolded, he’s in no position to bargain.”

  Hurricane felt the metal tip of a gun barrel press against his forehead.

  “Who killed those girls?”

  Hurricane spluttered, “Not me!”

  “Why are you out here like this?”

  Hurricane took a chance. “Some guys kidnapped me and dumped me. I swear, I had nothing to do with those girls. I was tied and blindfolded the whole time.”

  “Yeah, sure, you’re just an innocent redheaded lamb.”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “I’ve seen you before.”

  “Let me see who you are. Do that, and I promise I’ll give you answers.”

  “I thought you didn’t have answers?”

  “You haven’t asked the right questions.”

  The man grabbed the handkerchief tied around Hurricane’s head and pulled it free.

  Hurricane blinked his eyes. All he could see was white glare. He stared down, away from the sun, and focused. He saw polished two-toned spectator shoes, above them a pair of linen trousers held at the waist by a thin alligator belt, a blue knit shirt beneath an unbuttoned tropical sport coat. Hurricane took in the man’s handsome face.

  “I know you. I saw you playing the drums New Year’s Eve at the Tropicana. You’re King Bongo.”

  Bongo removed his sunglasses. He wanted Hurricane to see his eyes, he wanted Hurricane to know that he meant business. “I’ve been coming here on the chance that my sister’s body might turn up.”

  “I know the Panther. Untie me and I’ll talk.”

  Bongo shoved his gun back into its shoulder holster, reached behind Hurricane, and jerked loose the belt that was knotted around his wrists.

  Hurricane pulled his hands free and rubbed his raw wrists. “Thanks.”

  “What about my sister?”

  “She’s safe.”

  “Does Zapata have her?”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “That’s how Zapata acts.”

  “He’s trying to find her too.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I swear I don’t know.”

  “And you don’t know who killed those three college girls over there?”

  “Oh, God!” Hurricane tried to get up and fell. There was no feeling in his legs.

  Bongo pulled him up and supported him as they walked through the bones, stopping in front of the bodies of three naked women in their early twenties. Purple rope burns ringed the smooth necks of the women.

  Bongo asked, “Who did this?”

  “I was blindfolded. I heard two guys, but I don’t know who they were.”

  Bongo glared into Hurricane’s bloodshot eyes. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. What would I have to hide?”

  “Why someone left you out here like this.”

  “It wasn’t a political reason, it was personal. It’s Havana, that’s how it goes.”

  “Yeah, Havana.”

  Hurricane’s cockiness was beginning to flow again. “Hey, pal, give me a lift back into town.”

  “If you tell me why you and the Armstrongs left the Tropicana on New Year’s Eve just before the bomb exploded.”

  “We were headed to another club. What’s the crime in that?”

  Bongo yanked his gun from its holster. “You’re going to have to do better than that!”

  “Saint Lazarus,” Hurricane blurted. “The cripple with the dog. Follow him.”

  “Why?”

  “He knows the way to your sister.”

  “How do I find Lazarus?”

  “Ask the White Spider Woman.”
/>   3.

  Perfumed Dreams

  The Crab scuttled along the morgue’s stone corridor beneath flickering fluorescent lights. He stopped in front of Bongo.

  “Hah-hah-hah! Good to see my favorite mourner. You’ve been coming here every day. Today is your lucky day.”

  “Might be my unlucky day, if you have who I’m looking for.”

  “You’re looking for so many, all beautiful young women. Tell me, just between us, have you tasted all of them? You’ve shown me their photographs, what fruit!”

  “I’m not involved with them in that way.”

  “So humble, hah! But you should eat fruit when it’s young. When it’s ripe the peel is close to the meat, when it’s old the skin is falling away, hah!”

  “I’m not here on a shopping expedition. You phoned and said you had something for me.”

  “Fresh produce. Right this way.”

  Bongo followed the Crab through a maze of corridors and into a bone-chilling room. Iron cadaver casements were stacked up along the walls to the ceiling. The Crab opened the door of a casement and rolled out a sheet-covered body.

  Bongo feared the worst.

  “I think this is what you’re looking for.” The Crab stripped the sheet away. “She’s in her twenties, a real beauty. Sorry about the face.”

  Bongo looked at the corpse. The Crab was right, it was a beautiful female body, and the right age. The face had been smashed in, unrecognizable. Bongo breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s not her.”

  “Maybe it is. Why don’t you smell her? The first time you were here you made an identification just by smelling the body.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s not her. The one I’m looking for has white hair.”

  “Black girls don’t have white hair.”

  “The one I’m looking for does.”

  “Well, then”—the Crab shoved the corpse back into its cold cradle—“we’ll just have to keep our hopes up. Every day there is a new crop.”

  “Speaking of that, I’ve got some for you.”

  “Finally.”

  “But you have to go and pick them up.”

  “Hah! Now you’re talking.”

  “They’re the other three young women I was looking for. The college girls.”

  “You don’t get a discount on three.”

  “They’re in the Pineapple Field.”

  “I don’t pick up in there. Too dangerous.”

  “What would persuade you?”

  “Money.”

  “You’ll get it. The mothers of the girls are on their way here.”

  “Let’s go.”

  The Crab led the way through another maze of corridors and stopped before a door marked PERSONAL EFFECTS.

  “Hah. I have something here from the fish you and Captain Zapata brought in.”

  “Don’t act like you’re giving me a present. I paid twenty-five bucks for you to give it to me instead of to Zapata.”

  “There wasn’t much left, hah, after the sharks finished snacking.”

  “Did Zapata try to impound it as evidence?”

  “Of course. But it’s yours.”

  The Crab opened the door and switched on overhead lights in a room filled with dank humidity and rusting filing cabinets. He opened a creaking file drawer and rummaged around, extracting a brown paper package bound tightly with coarse twine. He read the label, “Havana, John Doe, number nine hundred and eighty-three.” He tossed the package to Bongo. “Hah, now you have all his worldly belongings!”

  Bongo tucked the package under his arm and walked out. At the end of the corridor he saw three women entering the morgue. As he got closer, he could see that their faces were streaked with tears.

  The women stopped. One asked, “Where are our girls?”

  “I’m sorry,” Bongo answered in a subdued voice. “They haven’t been brought in yet. I just found them this morning.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know. They’ll be here this afternoon.”

  The woman collapsed with a sob. The other two pulled her up, supporting her as she gasped. Regaining her composure, she asked in a whisper, “Were they … hurt? Hurt in some evil way?”

  “No,” Bongo lied. “The end was merciful.”

  The mothers clung together, the blood draining from their faces.

  The Crab stepped around from behind Bongo. “Don’t worry, ladies. When I deliver them for burial, they’ll look as innocent as the day of their first Holy Communion.”

  “Keep quiet,” Bongo said to the Crab under his breath.

  “But I’m the maestro of makeup.”

  Bongo glared at the Crab, shutting him up.

  One of the mothers pulled a wad of cash from her purse and handed it to Bongo. “We promised to pay you the other half if you found our daughters.”

  “Please know I did everything to find them, before—”

  The mother choked back tears. “You don’t have to explain. We understand.”

  Bongo handed the money to the Crab. “Here’s your fee to bring in the young ladies.”

  The Crab clutched the bills to his chest. “I know what to do.”

  “Do it,” Bongo ordered. He turned to the mothers, nodded respectfully, and headed for the door.

  One of the mothers called after him in a pleading voice, “Find the monsters who did this to our children.”

  Bongo turned to look back at the mothers. “You have my word. I’ll find the monsters.”

  The Crab spit out a sarcastic laugh. “Hah-hah-hah! You won’t have to look hard. In Havana the monsters will find you.”

  In Havana the monsters will find you. The Crab’s words haunted Bongo as he steered the Rocket up the steep La Rampa of Twenty-third Street, past the massive steel skeletal construction for the new Havana Hilton Hotel covering an entire city block, past tree-shaded Coppelia Park with its kiosks of ice cream vendors, balloon sellers and strolling families. The air hummed with the noise of shiny new American automobiles. Tree-lined sidewalks were crowded with shoppers loaded with merchandise from chic shops and modern department stores.

  The Rocket’s convertible top was down as Bongo zoomed through this sun-stunned, palm-laced paradise. Where would monsters hide in all this modern gleam? Bongo tried to put the idea out of his mind. He was a man on the way up, who wanted to play the lighter side of life with its spontaneous music and heady possibilities of chance. He was too young to be thinking like an old guy who knew all the crooked moves, anticipated all the disasters. But as the Rocket’s engine propelled him into brighter light, he knew that invisible monsters were all around, even in the backseat, along for the ride, rattling their sabers like Spanish conquistadores, cracking their whips like plantation overlords, waiting for brutal times to roll again.

  Bongo couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being followed. He watched the cars behind him, reflected in the rearview mirror. He drove across the intersection of Avenue of the Presidents. He was heading in the opposite direction from where he really wanted to go. He couldn’t take the chance that someone might be dogging him.

  He thought about Mrs. Armstrong. She had telephoned him that morning. He heard her voice starting the conversation.

  “Meet me at the California Shoe Store in central Havana.”

  “Why a shoe store?”

  “Be there at four o’clock.”

  “You think it’s safe to meet in public?”

  “I have nothing to hide.”

  “I do.”

  “Don’t worry about my husband. He’s playing tennis at the Pan Americas Club.”

  Bongo replayed the short conversation in his mind as he drove alongside the Colón Cemetery, glimpsing its forest of white-marble saints, crucifixes and angels.

  At the Almendares River, he crossed the concrete bridge arching above the green crawl of water. He looked down. On one side of the river was a muddy slope where a tangle of tropical vegetation nearly hid the squalor of battered wood and rusted tin shack
s in the shanty-town of El Fanguito, Small Mud. On the opposite shore was an untouchable world of privilege, imposing houses commanding the high ground, castles for the bourgeoisie. Bongo knew what it was to live in view of them. He had spent part of his childhood in El Fanguito, where excrement and wasted spirits seeped into the damp earth with the same fetid stink of hopelessness. It was a stink that didn’t wash off, that success couldn’t dissipate.

  The familiar odor of El Fanguito floated up, making Bongo’s nostrils twitch as he crossed the bridge. He gunned the Rocket’s big engine, but no car could outrun the stink of memory.

  Past the bridge, Bongo wound down toward the river, driving by lush gardens surrounding sprawling houses. Before one of the gardens was a high pink stucco wall with spikes of scarlet bougainvillea cascading over it. A driveway entrance cut into the wall, but was blocked by a closed gate. Bongo pulled to a stop and peered through the gate’s iron bars, up to a stately Spanish Colonial building with high-arched windows. Parked in a motor court were Buick Rivieras, Lincoln Continentals, Chrysler New Yorkers and Cadillacs. One of the Cadillacs was a white convertible Eldorado.

  Bongo turned off the Rocket’s engine. He heard the hollow thwack of tennis balls being hit behind high green hedges. Tennis wasn’t his game, two people smashing balls at one another until somebody won. He preferred the moves on a dance floor, which required that two people merge into one rhythm in order to win.

  A uniformed guard came down the driveway from the far side of the gate and slipped a strapped rifle off his shoulder.

  Bongo started the Rocket.

  The guard aimed his rifle. “Stop!”

  Bongo turned the engine off.

  “What were you looking at?” the guard demanded.

  “Admiring the architecture.”

  “There’s no stopping. This is a private club.”

  “I didn’t see a sign that said that.”

  “This says it.” The guard poked the rifle barrel between the bars of the gate.

  “That’s a language I understand. I’m on my way.”

  “Wait, is that a Rocket Eighty-eight you’re driving?”

  “It’s a 1955, two hundred horses under the hood.”

  “Don’t move.”

  The guard opened the gate and stepped up to the Rocket. His gaze ran covetously over the slick red-and-white Naugahyde upholstery. His eyes riveted on the clear plastic center of the steering wheel, ostentatiously etched with the Oldsmobile insignia of conjoined North and South American continents. He whistled with appreciation.