“You’re just too old for me. God, what are you? Forty, or something? They shouldn’t let people live so long.”
“Well, you almost killed me last night. You damn near bit my weenie off.”
“You weren’t paying attention to me.”
“I’ve had things on my mind. I’ve been distracted.”
“The big man.”
“My bearded friends in the mountains aren’t doing so well. I’ve got to send them more money.”
“I thought you were broke.”
“I am. That’s why I’m here. I can always squeeze a little juice from the Right Guys or the President.”
“Squeeze all you want, see if I care. Look! Lassie’s come home! She’s licking Timmy’s face!”
“I hope she’s not a biter.”
“Pig.”
“Turn the channel to the race.”
“Why don’t you just get out of the tub and look out the window? It’s right there.”
“I need my beauty soak.”
“You’re such a bully.” The Teenager got up, flicked the TV channel to the race and flopped back on the bed. “When are we going to get out of this dump? You promised we could go back to Jamaica. I like it better there. All the servants speak English.”
“I told you, I need to squeeze some juice. Then the yacht sails back to Jamaica.”
“So get squeezing.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing here for the past weeks? But it’s getting dangerous, everybody’s playing sides, so I’ve got to play all the sides. And there’s that bald guy who’s been shadowing me. I’ve still got to fuck the reason why he’s tailing me out of his bimbo wife.”
“Is that the only reason you’re interested in her?”
“Yeah. I don’t want anybody but you. You’re prime, at least until you turn sixteen.”
“Pig!” The Teenager plucked a pillow from the bed and hurled it through the doorway. It fell with a splash into the bathtub.
The Bad Actor howled with laughter, then threw the soggy pillow back.
The Teenager whined, “I want to go to the pool. I want to get some sun on my titties.”
“Lean out the window.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I told you, my little strawberry polliwog, we can’t go to the pool. We’ve got to stay in the room until four o’clock.”
“But Daddy Poo-Poo, why?”
“Because an ape named Lizard told me something is going to happen around three o’clock that wouldn’t be good for my image, that I should lay low until four.”
“You care more about your public image than making me happy,” the Teenager pouted.
“You want to come in here and play with my froggie?”
“No!” She grabbed the soggy pillow and held it against her skinny chest. “I’m on strike!”
“Turn up the TV volume.”
“Stinker Daddy Poo-Poo! What a bully!” The Teenager flounced off the bed with a groan and cranked up the volume, staring resentfully at the screen. Race cars rounded a curve on the Malecón, then the camera panned to the grandstand in front of the Nacional. “There’s your friend.” She puffed up her cheeks, pretending to vomit. “The one from dinner last night who tried to feel me up under the table.”
“The President, yeah. The Right Guys will have touted him on the race. He’ll be flush with money. I’ll squeeze more juice out of him.” The Actor slid a fresh cigarette into his holder, careful not to get it wet. “Did my polliwog let the Prezy-whezy feel anything under the table?”
“You told me not to wear any panties to dinner.”
“So what did the Prezy feel?”
The Teenager pulled the elastic band of her panties back, then let it slap her skin so hard that an angry red mark welled up. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Leaping Larry Lizard was having a great day, seated in the President’s grandstand in front of the Nacional. There was more than just a race going on. History was about to be made. He checked his wristwatch, then glanced up to the hotel’s top floor, to the window where the Right Guys had told him Sweet Maria would be. It was a long distance to shoot, but he knew the perfect weapon was in her hands. Maria’s hands could work all kinds of magic, Lizard got a throbbing boner just thinking about it. Too bad she would no longer be around after PayDay finished her off. But she deserved to go. She was just another dirt-poor sugarcane kid who’d landed in the city hoping for a better life, but she made the mistake of falling for a radical university boy, who seduced her with visions of equality, free education and housing, then trained her to be a crack shot with a rifle. Lizard checked his watch again. The President and Maria had only minutes to live.
Lizard heard the distant roar of race-car engines. The people crammed into the grandstand shouted with excitement, especially Broadway Betty, seated next to him. He already had a boner from thinking about what Maria’s hands could do; now it danced wildly in his pants as he pictured what he wanted to do with Betty. He was no longer pissed off at PayDay for bringing the blond bimbo along on the job. He eyed her knees peeking out from beneath the edge of her poodle skirt as she sat scrunched up between him and a Cuban Pete whose lips smacked away at a torpedo cigar. Lizard hated the way these Cuban Petes were with cigars, like Frenchmen with wine bottles, sucking like pathetic baby pigs. Lizard knew this Cuban Pete was one of the President’s bodyguards. The President was sitting high up in the grandstand surrounded by more bodyguards, and he looked fatter than ever with a bulletproof vest padding out his white suit coat. Lizard had no respect for the Cubes. It was only a matter of time before the island became the forty-ninth American state and all the Cubes were shipped back to Mexico, or wherever they swam over from.
“They’re coming!” Betty shouted with a thrill.
“Yeah.” Lizard cocked his head, pretending to watch for the racers but really trying to get a closer look at the bimbo’s breasts, quivering like two bowls of vanilla pudding in an alligator-print halter top. It occurred to Lizard that if this ditsy dame dressed with alligator and poodle prints on her clothes, she must be something unusual when caught between the sheets. He was just the gator to bite her puppy puss. His nostrils flared at her musky poodle scent, the dame was in heat. He wanted to bang her in front of the whole world, bang her as hard as he knew the Bad Actor must be banging her. But the Bad Actor’s banging days were soon to end. The Right Guys had found out he was betting all four corners of the table. No one gets away with that unless he owns the table. Only the Right Guys owned it, and nobody owned them. The Actor’s last big bang was going to be Betty, or that carrot-top teenager with dick-cutting braces on her teeth.
“They’re getting closer!” Betty shouted. “Oh, my, what a roar!” She pressed her knees together, the poodle skirt flounced up to her thighs.
The cigar chomper handed Betty his binoculars.
“Thank you.” Betty smiled.
She raised the binoculars to her eyes, her lips circling into a provocative O.
Lizard was pissed at the cigar chomper, trying to work his greasy Latin chivalry. He grabbed the binoculars out of Betty’s hands. “Here, let me have a look!”
“Thanks,” Betty purred sarcastically.
Through the binoculars Lizard could see a blur of speeding cars rounding a distant curve of the Malecón.
“I told you they were coming.” He handed the binoculars back to Betty, thinking he would be generous.
Betty passed the binoculars back to the Cuban. “Thank you. Moocho-grassy-ass.”
The Cuban smiled. “You’re quite welcome, Señora.”
Lizard was really pissed now. The Cuban Pete was still pretending to be a gentleman, when all the Cube wanted was to dive under Betty’s poodle skirt and start yapping at her pussy like a Chihuahua.
Lizard could play the Cube’s game. He offered up a chivalrous ploy to Betty. “Your husband’s going to be tied up after the race. Come into town with me and I’ll treat you to some Christians and Moors.”
Betty didn’t answer.
“How about the Floridita?” Lizard leaned close and breathed heavily into Betty’s ear. “I’m the guy who can take you there.”
Betty turned and gave Lizard a smile with her candy-red lips. Looking straight at him, she sang with knife-edged sweetness, “I get too hungry for dinner at eight. I like the theater but never come late. I never bother with people … I hate.”
Sweet Maria ran her hand affectionately over the wood stock of her rifle. A brass plate at the stock’s base was stamped with the word CZECHOSLOVAKIA. She wondered what the word meant. It wasn’t Spanish, and she couldn’t imagine how to pronounce it. But the rifle had a fine balance; she could intuit its straightforward inner workings. It excited her that with the squeeze of a finger she could ignite a deadly velocity. She leaned her cheek against the polished wood, as if it were the naked thigh of a lover. She peered through the sight scope mounted above the long barrel, and her view of the world expanded with pinpoint magnification.
Below the hotel window, Maria saw the grandstand in the garden facing the Malecón. She scanned the crowd through the rifle scope, stopping at the sight of a blond woman in a halter top and poodle skirt seated next to Larry Lizard. Maria aimed the rifle at Lizard’s heart. She puckered her lips and made a loud pop. If only she could squeeze the trigger—but she was stalking bigger game. She swept the view of the scope over the crowd and sighted on the President. He was no longer the bright young bull who offered Cuba hope. His face was puffed from rich food and smoothed from pampering, his slack cherubic expression was the familiar mask of all despotic Latin American death angels. Maria targeted the red carnation pinned on the white suit coat above his heart. The roar of approaching race cars was in her ears.
In the long moment before Maria pulled the rifle’s trigger, she thought of the bearded young saints in the mountains. She thought of the cries of starving children in the night. She thought of the sorrows of women selling their lives as underpaid laborers, selling their sex for less than the price of a fishhook.
She thought about the film Las Mujeres Madan, a movie she had seen at the Teatro Fausto, about a mythical island of women. For her the film wasn’t entertainment, it was a revolutionary tract. The women were all sexy, tough and smart. They could sing and dance. They had their own army. They wore uniforms of cute shorts belted by holstered pistols, tight blouses, and caps tipped at racy angles. They were experts with weapons, even machine guns, which they squatted behind in dangerously pretty poses, taking aim at any man who threatened their island paradise. These valiant females could kill with their looks as well as their weapons. Maria understood that revolutions can be made for selfish reasons, as well as idealistic ones. She checked her wristwatch. It was 3:01.
She remembered what she had been taught: safety off, target in sight, remain calm, steady pull on the trigger. But she always added something of her own—a wiggle of her ass for good luck.
From the grandstand below, a voice boomed from loudspeakers that a Maserati, driven by an Italian, was leading the pack, followed by a Ferrari, driven by the American, Guy Armstrong. The crowd was on its feet, shouting into the deafening roar of the approaching machines.
Maria prepared her shot. She wiggled her ass. Steady. Calm. She sighted the rifle on the red carnation.
The brightly colored cars roared in front of the grandstand. The Maserati swerved right, allowing the Ferrari to speed by. The Maserati swung back into the center of the roadway, blocking the other cars from catching the Ferrari.
From her window, Maria firmly pulled the trigger. The shot skimmed over the President and angled down at the Malecón, smashing through the Ferrari’s windshield.
The windshield shattered into Guy Armstrong’s face. He clung to the steering wheel, struggling to control the skidding car, his eyes clouded with dripping blood. The side of the Ferrari scraped along the Malecón’s stone wall, striking a trail of sparks. The Ferrari flipped and exploded in a thundering fireball that sent it over the wall and out to sea.
The recoil of the rifle shot was so powerful against Maria’s shoulder that it knocked her to the floor. She pulled herself up and looked through the open window down to the grandstand. The President was surrounded by a wall of bodyguards. Beyond the grandstand, the fireball of the Ferrari sank into the sea with a great hiss. “Mother of God,” Maria moaned, “forgive me. I have shot my compañero!”
Maria hid the rifle beneath sheets stacked on her cleaning cart. She pushed the cart out into the carpeted hallway and walked quickly away.
At the opposite end of the hall, the elevator door opened, revealing two men inside.
Maria recognized them. She decided to keep pushing the cart.
King Bongo and Johnny PayDay stepped out of the elevator at the same time.
Bongo spotted Maria. “Finally!”
PayDay looked suspiciously at Maria, then hurried past her.
Maria batted her eyelashes innocently at Bongo. “What’s going on?”
Bongo glanced down the hall.
PayDay stopped in front of the door to the room Maria had just vacated and pulled out a gun.
Bongo pushed Maria and her cart into the elevator.
PayDay flung open the door to the room and rushed in. No one was there. He looked out the window down onto the garden. There was a clear view of the grandstand, now empty. “Shit!”
Bongo and Maria stepped out of the elevator into the hotel lobby. Maria rolled the cart before her as Bongo held her arm in a tight grip. Around them, panicked people ran in all directions, except for a circle of men listening intently as Zapata spoke. The circle broke up, the men raced off in different directions. Zapata saw Bongo and headed for him.
Bongo whispered to Maria, “Don’t let him see your face.” He began kissing her.
Zapata walked up and jabbed Bongo in the back. “What are you doing?”
Bongo turned his head. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“That’s just like you. Making out like a teenager at a time like this.”
“Any time is a good time.” Bongo flashed a smile.
“I don’t have time for this. I’ll get to you later.” Zapata stepped into the elevator, punched a button, and the door closed behind him.
Maria turned her head up to Bongo. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t want him to get his hands on you. Let’s go.”
“I’ve got to put the cart away. I’m responsible for it.”
“No tricks!”
Bongo followed Maria as she rolled the cart across the tiled floor, dodging running people.
She stopped outside a door marked LADIES’ LOUNGE. “I have to leave the cart inside.”
“Hurry before Zapata returns.”
“That was some kiss.” Maria winked. “I’ll be right back.”
She rolled the cart into the lounge, the door swinging closed behind her.
Inside the lounge, Señorita Pee-Pee was waiting. She locked the door behind Maria, pulled the hidden rifle from beneath the sheets on the cart, and buried the weapon under stacks of towels in a storage closet.
Maria stepped to a mirror in front of a marble sink. She plucked off her fake eyelashes, ran water into the sink, scrubbed her makeup off with soap, then pulled off her long dark wig, exposing the thick matted kink of male hair.
Señorita Pee-Pee handed Maria a man’s blue suit and a pair of brown men’s shoes.
Maria kicked off her pumps, pulled off her maid’s uniform and unstrapped her padded bra, exposing a skinny male chest. “I hate it when I’m not a woman anymore.”
“You’re still a woman,” Señorita Pee-Pee offered sympathetically. “Did it go well?”
“I missed.”
“We’ll get him next time.”
Maria put on the man’s suit and shoes. She looked at her male reflection in the mirror and sighed with exasperation. “No style.”
“They’ll be looking for a maid. Only we know that Maria is really Joseph.”
&n
bsp; Maria swung around defiantly. “Nobody can say a sweet Maria didn’t have the balls to shoot a president.”
Johnny PayDay had his escape route planned in advance. Lizard had shown him a secret door that opened up behind the bar and onto the sunbathing deck next to the swimming pool. From there it was an easy stroll through a garden gate and down the street to the Capri. PayDay opened the secret door behind the bar. He walked around the pool alongside splashing swimmers and got to the garden gate just as another man did. The man was thin, wore a blue suit and brown shoes. PayDay could swear he knew the face. Then he recalled, on his way to the shooter’s room, he had passed a maid. This guy’s face had the same features.
PayDay held his hand on the gate. “Do I know you?”
The man lowered his head and answered in a baritone voice. “No hablo the English.”
PayDay opened the gate. He watched the man walk away. The guy had a decidedly feminine sway to his hips.
PayDay went straight to the Capri, walked in under its swooping concrete overhang, passed the reception desk, and waited with a crowd in a hurry to return to the safety of their rooms. He wedged himself into a packed elevator, rode to the top floor, got out and knocked on the penthouse door.
A girl’s voice called from behind the door, “Who is it?”
“Complimentary champagne for the film star.”
“Oh, goody.”
A man’s voice growled at the girl, “Don’t open it. We don’t know who it is.”
PayDay banged the door open and pointed his gun at the Teenager standing directly in front of him.
“Daddy,” she screamed, “someone’s here to kill us!”
PayDay pushed inside, slamming the door behind him. “Shut up and get on the bed.”
The Teenager sat, her bony knees banging together as she shivered with fear.
The Bad Actor continued to soak in the marble tub, his face slathered with cold cream, the hairnet plastered on his head. He called out nonchalantly, “The wallet’s in the second dresser drawer. The Rolex is on top of the TV. Take them and beat it.”
PayDay walked into the bathroom.
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