To Iceland, With Love
Page 6
then dropped her arms and head abruptly. Jane and John looked politely unconvinced.
“Just so you know,” Jane clarified for John, “I’m war and you’re beauty.”
“That it?” John inquired, trying to keep the edge of impatience out of his voice.
Her chin tucked almost into her broad bosom, the fortune-teller answered in a guttural voice that seemed to come from a world beyond. “You are also to remember that there is such a thing as right ashe.” John and Jane looked at her with renewed interest and respect. In the Exorcist, that kind of vocal effect required computers and a voiceover. She raised her head and looked at them with burning milk-white eyes. “What others call karma.”
The waiter arrived with fresh drinks and in the farther room – by coincidence? - a new band was striking up the dance of Oshun y Chango. A troupe of dancers in elaborate gold and red costumes pulled tourists from their inert cliques and bar stools and made them join in. The fortune-teller’s grandson tugged at Jane’s hand.
Closing her eyes again, the fortune-teller gestured toward the far room. “Go, child. What you don’t understand, you learn in the dance.” Jane threw John a look of mischievous surrender and let the child lead her. John watched as she found a place in the circle of dancers, and almost immediately caught the rhythm and the moves, earning the instantaneous and very audible admiration of the predominantly male spectators.
“Drink?” turning back to the table, John held out one of the as yet untouched mojitos, which the fortune-teller graciously and unerringly accepted. Without opening her unseeing eyes.
“The Orishas are pleased,” she declared.
John lifted his glass politely. “If they’re happy, I’m happy.”
She drained her glass the way Tiger Woods plays golf; that is, with singular grace and smooth efficiency. Her flawless technique would have put most frat pledges to shame. John was so lost in admiration that he jumped slightly when she set the glass back on the table with a snap. “You do not understand. Everything is wrong. And everything now depends on you. The two of you. THAT,” she said sardonically, “Is IT.” Her grandson reappeared as she turned to go, and they left by way of the back door, picking their way through the rear garden with its ragged constellation of tables, potted plants, and flagstones. In the far room, the dance was reaching some sort of crescendo, full of wild drumming and banshee shrieks. By sitting sideways in his chair, John could see Jane hiking up her skirt, kicking off her shoes, and matching the lead dancer move for move. Just when it seemed the music could not get any louder and the dancers could not whirl and thrust any faster, there was a blinding flash. Every light in the place flared on at once. Followed by total darkness as every light went out – even the fairy lights in the garden, even the votive candle on the table, snuffed out by an errant gust of wind. Amid screams and shouts in many languages, John sat tight. A shadow slid across his line of vision as the lights in the bar flickered on again, then off again to nervous laughter. The trumpeter blew a false note or two as the band tried to pick up where they had left off.
John palmed a fork from the table as a cold metal chain whipped across his throat.
6 Closing Time
The light fixture overhead did not leap back to life. But in the wan light eking in from the bar, John saw that a small man occupied Jane’s seat. A very small man, a biker dude in miniature, who seemed utterly focused on lighting a small cigar. The wooden match he cradled in one hand illuminated his face like a Rembrandt self-portrait, albeit a very hirsute and vividly colored Rembrandt self-portrait; for every square centimeter of skin bore either the dye injected by a tattoo needle or an overgrowth of facial hair. Willy Nelson would have envied his pony-tail. He wore wraparound Eye Ride sunglasses, which he did not remove, and which may have contributed to the difficulty he had getting his stogie evenly lit. For what seemed an eternity he rolled it gently this way and that, patiently puffing away with the most intense concentration. When at last he had the smoke drawing smoothly, he extinguished the match and tossed it over his shoulder onto the floor. With the weird insouciance of the psychotic, he patted each of his pockets in turn until he remembered he had left the matchbox on the table. Whistling tunelessly through gold teeth, he extracted and lit another match, reignited the votive candle, extinguished the second match, and sent it to join its brother on the floor. Still whistling, he replaced the matchbox in an inner pocket and paused as though in thought. When he withdrew his hand again, he was holding a Glock 30, which he proceeded to fire into the air. Just a round or two. No biggie.
Apparently everybody in the bar, Cubans and tourists alike, spoke Glock, because in a New York minute the place cleared out. The throng inside and the throng outside collided briefly, then re-oriented and ran away together as fast as their individual legs and health status would permit, melting to nothing like so many ice floes in a warming Arctic sea. Two intrepid souls remained behind in the bar: one of the busboys, an enterprising youngster who crouched on the floor near the old-fashioned cash register, presumably daring life and limb to clean out the cash drawer, and Jane, who leaned against a door jamb, clutching her stiletto-heeled Manolo Blahniks to her chest and straining to hear what was said.
The small biker dude addressed his junior partner, who had practically drawn John out of his seat, so tight was the heavy-duty chain around his neck.
“Fils de pute, ‘Fifi. Tu me fais chier. I said ‘kill the lights,’ not the waiter.” (“Son of a bitch, ‘Fifi. You’re pissing me off here.”) From this exchange a portion of John’s brain deduced that the small biker dude might be French Canadian. Oh shit, his brain further deduced.
The younger biker, whose full name was Rififi and who might best be described as a cross between a homicidal Wookie and a downy baby chick, turned red and tried to explain. “Pardon, Bob. His head got in the way.”
Bob rolled his eyes and you got the feeling such minor mishaps were an all too frequent source of irritation. “C’est rien que del la merde. Tête de noeud. You can’t just go around killing people in a foreign country. Do you even know who to bribe here? No.” (“That’s bullshit. What a dickhead.”)
“Pardon, Bob. I thought you must know. Because we will be killing this one, n’est ce pas?”
“How many times must I repeat, there is killing and there is killing.” He divided the world using both hands. “Civilians and –“
Meanwhile John was quietly choking but trying to interrupt, one hand grasping the chain to prevent total strangulation, the other raised in polite one-fingered query: “Excusez-moi?”
Both men paused in their discussion and looked blankly at their detainee, whose fate had momentarily been subordinated to a review of best criminal practices. Bob’s face cleared. He tapped his forehead with the sleek snub-nosed barrel of his gun and playfully wagged the gun back at John. “One dickhead leads to another. You remind me that time is money and we are short on both. Bon! Let us begin again. Monsieur Doe. Bon soir! Enchante! It has been some time since last we met. But no doubt you remember Quebec?”
“Could you be a little more specif-“ John gurgled and tore at the chain as Rififi conscientiously tightened it.
“The Mounties wore red, you wore leather? Undercover pauvre con (asshole).” He watched to see whether or not memory was dawning for John. It was. It had. A small matter of half a dozen gangs and several dozen corpses.
“Eh? Mais oui! So now you know who is snuffing you out like a candle.” He extinguished the votive candle between his thumb and forefinger. It may have hurt. There was a slight hissing sound. “Voila!”
“You know, some people might say you owed me.” Rififi leaned down to see whether John was serious. “After all, I cleared out your competition. More for you.”
“Oui, mon frère. We owe you,” Bob guffawed. “20% of net for the past three years. More for you – or rather more for those you used to represent. A 20% tax remitte
d monthly to a PO box in Nevada. So you can appreciate how I have looked forward to finding you and settling old scores. Also it doesn’t hurt that there is a bounty to be claimed. Only 50 thousand to be sure, but in this economy-“ he shrugged in true Gallic fashion.
John stopped struggling altogether. “Wait – what?”
“I know. A pittance, right? Why bother? With us it’s a case of serendipity, pure and simple. We were here on totally unrelated business –“
“Une affaire de prostituée,” Rififi explained.
Bob paused, glared until his sidekick wilted, then resumed: “- which turned out to be a trifle premature. But just as we decide the trip is a bust – we spot you in the square. And just like that,” he snaps his fingers, “We cover our expenses, we get brownie points with the big boys, we maybe make a profit on your lady friend –“
“The ebay,” Rififi used one hand to show John the picture he had taken of Jane with his cell phone, punching a button to display a string of bids submitted by clients eager to buy.
“So you see? It’s all good! As the spoiled children of your narcissistic country say. ‘Fifi!” Bob made a slashing gesture across his own throat with the barrel of his gun.
“Why, darling,” Jane said,