She went back to sleep. He couldn't. He lit another cigarette. He wanted to have her painted. But after the manner of Gauguin’s "Manao"? Or Goya? The later Goya, after he'd gone mad from licking his brushes covered with lead-based paints. A parody of Goya might be just right. As "La Maja Desnuda," the naked countess that so inflamed Madrid society.
Or-he drew on his cigarette-after Manet's "Olympia"? Soledad lying on a divan wearing nothing but a black choker. Ideal! He was seized by a brilliant inspiration-where do these ideas come from? He would have the artist do the servant woman hovering at the foot of the divan in a photographic likeness of, hm… Ursulina de Gomayumbre, dowager duchess of Lima society, descended from practically everyone, one of Mama's oldest friends. He'd have copies made and display them in the window of the gallery on the Paseo. Ha! The old bag would drop dead of embarrassment. Or make her husband confiscate it. Better make copies. Better, make lithographs. If the point is merely to epater les bourgeois, a painting will do, but for revolution, it's lithographs you want.
He fell asleep. When he opened his eyes an hour later the room was warm already, flooding with light. There was a knocking on the door. Virgilio's voice, muted, urgent. "Niño."
"What?"
"It's Miami. The lawyer."
He got out of bed with the sheet wrapped around his waist like a sarong. He combed his thick black hair back with his hands, lit a cigarette and coughed. Ought to switch to filters. He went into the study, picked up the phone and gave the code so the lawyer would know it was he.
The lawyer made it sound as though he hadn't slept since the incident. In fact, all he knew was what he'd gotten from the Miami Herald. "Medellin," he said.
The news filtered through to the left side of his brain, which was not yet entirely open for business today. "I'm listening," he said.
"The police and the DEA are saying it's a turf battle."
"What do you hear?"
"Almost nothing. No one seems to know. Or no one's taking credit for it. But Chin, the one who does transportation, he disappeared a few days before Barazo."
"What do you mean, disappeared?"
"Just like that-disappeared. You want my opinion, I think Chin sold his information to our friends in Medellin and left the country."
"I'm not paying you for your opinion. I want to know what happened."
"I'm working on it, Niño. I haven't been to bed in two days."
He hung up and summoned Virgilio. Virgilio appeared, as if out of air. It was his virtue. "Have you heard from Sanchez?"
"He called from Isola Verde at four this morning."
"From Panama?"
"His pilot had just radioed him. He broke a strut landing on the beach at Andros. The Cubans had to bring him a part from Nassau."
"I don't like that."
"Neither did Sanchez. But what could he do?"
"Ariella should have changed the rendezvous point. As a matter of course, he should have changed the rendezvous."
"Si, Niño. I think he was trying to show continuity."
"He showed stupidity, Virgilio. I knew Barazo, Virgilio. I worked with him. And let me tell you, Ariella is no Barazo."
"Si, Niño."
"He's not strong enough to take over from Barazo. We're going to have to look for someone else. All right, when is the plane due into Panama?"
"This morning."
"What time this morning, Virgilio?"
"Ten."
"Then Sanchez should be here by"-he looked at his watch-"four o'clock."
"He said there's a front off the coast of Ecuador. That's why he was so pissed about the strut."
"Bring some coffee. I leave in-Christ-an hour. Strong, Virgilio. I didn't get much sleep last night."
Virgilio grinned. "Si, Niño."
He stepped into the shower and turned the two chromed handles. Cool water blasted out from sixteen nozzles, creating a Heraclitean vortex. He had flown two men over from Munich to install it. It felt so delicious. Sometimes he just let himself get lost in there with his thoughts. A little warmer. He soaped his groin. It was tender. Their teeth were filed when they were young; he was seriously considering flying in a dentist to round them off.
Barazo gone. Missing. Presumed… dead? No, if Cabrera was going to kill him, he'd kill him. Medellin was direct if nothing else. Subtlety was not an arrow in their quiver. If Barazo was missing they had probably taken him back whole to Colombia. But to take Barazo alive you'd need steel nets and tranquilizer darts and Christ knows what else, a shark cage. Barazo was an animal, no beauty of nature. The people you had to deal with in this business-que horror. Barazo was pure id. If Barazo ever bent over a flower it wasn't to smell it but to blow his nose on it.
They'd only met once, in Panama; the interview set up by del Cid. Barazo had the minister in charge of the Bahamian Defense Force on his payroll, an arrangement that went back to the days when he was making marijuana runs in DC-3s. He was a peasant, Barazo, a total crudity, something from underneath a rock-but a snob nonetheless, proud of his Bahamian connection: "I deal only with ministers, nothing below cabinet rank." He boasted of his friendship with Noriega. Doing business with him was one thing, but boasting of being Cara Pina's (Pineapple Face's) friend. My God, please.
"So," Barazo said, "why should I waste my time with you? Cabrera sends me seven hundred and fifty kilos every week."
"Because I can send you a ton. For the same price."
"How?"
"I'm vertically integrated." Barazo probably thought that was something to do with getting an erection. "I do my own farming, refining and transporting. I control every aspect of production. The families in Medellin and Cali want you and everyone else to think they're the only ones who get their hands on ether and acetone. I have access to the finest precursor chemicals in the world, Don Jesus." (It caught in his throat to call him that.) "I'm even thinking of installing a pipeline from Brazil. Well, I'm joking"-Barazo wasn't laughing-"but the point is, I take it from leaf to pasta sucia to pasta lavada to pasta basica to hydrochloride under my own roof. And I pass on my saving," he said, "to the wholesaler. Cabrera charges you twelve thousand U.S. a kilo, correct?"
"Ten," Barazo lied.
He was expecting that. "Then my price is eight, with a quarter again the volume. And a guaranteed purity of ninety-five percent."
"Bullshit."
"Testing for purity is as simple as… finding out if you're pregnant. Either you are or you aren't. If it tests out less than ninety-five percent, it's yours, no charge."
Barazo nodded.
"With that kind of quality you're going to pass along your savings to your people. Or," he added with a grin, "not." Barazo gave a little grunt. "By my own calculation, you'll be making about three million more a week. Before taxes, that is. Of course, if you're afraid of upsetting Cabrera, I completely understand."
"Cabrera fucks the sheep on his farm." Charming.
Two weeks later, Barazo Federal Expressed the eyeballs with the little matador swords. After that it made sense to tighten security around Yenan: booby traps-which were constantly blowing up monkeys and jaguars-Beni and his SAM-7; and for insurance, a monthly retainer to Garza in Bogotá in case Cabrera found out the identity of Barazo's new supplier. Redundancy, Virgilio; make sure you never run out of options.
So-had Cabrera finally decided after all these years to get his revenge on Barazo? Sanchez will have an insight when he gets here.
"What?"
"Niño, the plane! You'll be late!"
"What?" he shouted over the roar of the shower jets.
"It's eight o'clock, Niño. You've been in there an hour."
Yayo was waiting on the tarmac. Today the motorcade consisted of four cars: the armored Range Rover and three others, two in front, one behind. The lead car emitted from its front fender an electromagnetic pulse that detonated mines. It was developed by the Spaniards after the Basques blew Franco's chief of staff, in his armored car, over the roof of a building. El Niño got int
o the driver's side of the Range Rover. Yayo squeezed his Incan bulk into the front passenger seat. Flores rode in back and briefed him as they drove through the dismal traffic toward the slum of Las Barriadas.
"Channel 7 for sure, Channel 5 maybe. El Comercio says they're sending someone, but they always say that. La Republica is sending Gaetana. Oh, and guess what-¡Mira!'s coming."
"¡Mira!?"
"You know it's serious when ¡Mira! starts showing up, eh?" Flores joked.
Papa wouldn't permit the magazine in the house after it published photos of Franco's mistress, Chu Chu Valpina. "LA VERDADERA 'PASIONARIA'!" But the servants used to read it anyway in the kitchen, hovering over the pictorials of Gina Lollobrigida and Cantinflas and Ordonez the bullfighter and of course the royals. Royals were the mother's milk of ¡Mira! If Princess Anne fell off her horse, ¡Mira! treated it like the Second Coming. Once the pastry cook and the gardener got into a shouting fight in the pantry over an item in ¡Mira! saying that the Conde de Barcelona-father of the present King of Spain-was having an affair with Jacqueline Kennedy. (JFK was still alive.) Papa heard it and came in and tore the copy into pieces with his huge hands and discharged them both and cuffed him hard on the ear simply for being present. ¡Mira! continued to be a thorn in his existence. Just a few months ago he'd caught Soledad with a copy of it. An Indian girl who couldn't read, whose only Spanish was "I love you," staring, fascinated, at photographic spreads of Julio Iglesias and Joan Collins. He'd lost his temper a little, snatching it away and ripping it into pieces-just as Papa had, it only now occurred to him-and yelling at her with words she didn't understand: "Pretty boys! Sluts! Garbage!" He gave her a scare. She started to cry. Suddenly he's down on his hands and knees piecing the wretched thing back together, Julio's face, Joan's left breast…
"They'll do the Robin Hood angle, you can bet on it," Flores was saying. "Yayo can be Father Tuck."
"Brother Tuck," El Niño corrected. Yayo made no response, Uzi on his lap. El Niño said to Flores, "Try to keep ¡Mira! away from me."
They were going through a red light. It was one of the virtues of having an armed motorcade. At the far end of the intersection he saw a gamine, seven or eight years old, filthy, hair matted, half naked, holding a stick with a piece of rag attached to it. He braked. The security car behind almost smashed into them. "Shit," said Flores. "Niño, come on, we're late." But he was already out the door, Yayo following with his gun drawn, shouting orders at his men in the lead car to form a cordon. He was a nightmare to protect, like Gorbachev, always jumping out of cars. Someday-
The gamine saw large men with guns converging on her and turned and began to run. He caught her after a few feet. She struggled in his arms. He soothed her. "It's all right, beauty. We're not going to hurt you. I promise."
He held her tightly. The stench was appalling. Her right eye was runny with pus. Some of them this age had syphilis, gonorrhea, AIDS. By ten they were old; by fifteen, according to one estimate, 80 percent of them were dead.
Traffic was backing up behind the stalled motorcade. One of Yayo's men held up his submachine gun; the honking stopped. In respects, Lima is similar to Los Angeles.
Yayo had his frantic look. He whispered to Flores, "Is he wearing his vest?" Flores rolled his eyes-how should I know? "Please, patron," begged Yayo, "get back in the car. Please."
"What's your name, beauty?" He stroked her matted hair. "Where do you live?" There was no answer to that.
"Flores," he said, holding out his hand. Flores took out a roll and peeled off bills. He handed them to El Niño. El Niño took the whole billfold and put it in the gamine's sticky hand and closed his own over hers. The gamine grinned at him. She reached into her rags and produced a basuco cigarette and held it out to him. They made them from pasta sucia and tobacco: the high came mostly from the kerosene and hydrochloric acid and other chemicals, not from the coca. He stared at the crudely rolled cigarette in the sticky palm. He took it from her and said, "Thank you, beauty." The girl smiled.
He stood and got back in the car and drove the rest of the way in silence. Flores didn't say anything until they reached the edge of the crowd in Las Barriadas.
Flores' people had built a small stage in front of the building hung with the banner that said CLINICA LIBRE, and had set up food and drink stands, had hired musicians, put up lights and posters and loudspeakers. The atmosphere was that of a political rally, an election without candidates. His people were scattered throughout the crowd of five hundred to get the chant going, organizing their roars into iambs, "Ni-no! Ni-no!" Soon they were all converging on the stalled motorcade. Then the hot TV lights were on, bathing everything in that lurid glare. Dr. Nunez was on the stage with a microphone, shouting, "Let him through! Please, let him through! He's here! He's come! But we have to let him through!"
Yayo put himself at the head of the phalanx, but even Yayo could not penetrate this. They all wanted to touch him, to tear off a piece of clothing for a talisman. Their arms insinuated between Yayo's men, hands plucking at him. His blood was rushing, it was good, but thank God for Yayo's men, they'd tear you to pieces with their love otherwise. It made him think of when Papa had taken him to the plaza when he was very young to see the god Ordonez kill bulls. A total disaster. Ordonez put the sword into the bull, the bull hunched his great shoulder muscles and the sword flew out like a missile, followed by a tremendous gush of blood. He began to cry for the bull as it writhed on the ground while Ordonez strutted in his suit of lights. Papa, mortified, took him home and made him put on his sister's clothing, made him go to school in a dress for a week; regarded with satisfaction the bruises he returned with every day.
They had to lift him onto the stage over the heads of the crowd. He held up his arms to silence them, but they kept chanting. He shook hands with Dr. Nunez. Dr. Nunez made an Ecce homo gesture. Niño took the microphone from him.
"This is your clinic now," he said. "And no one will take it from you!"
Something went flying through the air and landed on the stage by his feet. A rosary. He picked it up and, smiling, shook his head. "Listen to me. Science is the answer to our problems. Not"-he waved the rosary-"this. This was brought by the Spaniards." He tossed it back into the crowd. "This"-he pointed to the whitewashed building behind him-"was brought by me!" The crowd roared.
"He's good," Dr. Nunez said to Flores.
"Yes."
"What does he want? I mean, he's not going to run for office again, is he?"
Flores made a face. "Pah-he's finished with that shit."
"So, why?"
"He wants to help people."
"Sure, but why?"
"He wants to make the government look like assholes."
"Ah," said Dr. Nunez, satisfied. He stepped forward and shouted into his microphone, "¡Viva El Niño!"
"Viva El Niño!" the crowd shouted back.
Rosaries flew through the air.
The reporters were negotiating their way through the crowd in front of the stage. He saw a blonde followed closely by TV lights. Antoniela Catamarca, Channel 7. Good-looking. Christ, a guy was putting his hand up her skirt for a grope. She hit him. The man just grinned. Kids were slicing at her cameraman's belt with razors.
"Yayo." He pointed.
Yayo and his people got her up onto the stage. She was shaken. "That filthy, disgusting cholo"-she pointed at the man-"he, he-"
"Don't blame him too much. Beautiful women like you never come to Las Barriadas. That was probably the happiest he will ever be in his life."
"Well, I don't know about that." But she was already adjusting herself in a compact mirror. She held his microphone to his lips; such an obviously phallic act, he thought. How do they manage it?
"This is the sixth so-called free clinic you've established in Lima," she began.
"Wait," said her cameraman. "I'm not getting power. Shit, those little fuckers stole my batteries."
The other reporters were on him now. He wondered which was from ¡Mira! He hea
rd a man's voice say, "Sendero"; he turned away toward another reporter. The man said more loudly, "It's alleged that you're connected with Sendero Luminoso."
He turned toward the man. Robles, from El Comercio. He said into his own microphone, "Señor Robles here, from the great newspaper El Comercio, which only comes to Las Barriadas to hunt Communists, wants to know if I am connected to the Shining Path? I told him my connection is to you. What do you say?"
"Kill him!"
He turned back to Robles, who had gone pale. He smiled. "There's your answer. Next question?"
La Republica wanted to know why he wouldn't stand for the municipal elections in November. "I want to help Peru, not make things worse." The reporters laughed.
"What about the foreign debt?"
"It is Peru that is owed, not the other way around. Let the imperialists return all the gold and silver they took from us. Then let us look at the balance sheet."
"Brigitte Nielsen, the former wife of Rambo, is in Peru making a film. What is your opinion of her?"
"What?" ¡Mira! "I-have no opinion on this." Yayo, get this idiot away from me.
"Are you related to Julio Iglesias?"
"No!"
"But you're an Iglesias."
"I have not used that name for years," he said testily. He turned to Dr. Nunez. "Come on, let's see the clinic."
"Of course, Niño."
As they went in, reporters following, Flores nudged the doctor and whispered, "Remember, only the really sick ones."
"They're all 'really sick,' Flores." There was an old man gasping with asthma, a boy with a crushed leg needing amputation, several horrible worm cases, dehydrated infants. In one ward they came to a shrieking basuco smoker tied hands and feet to the bed because he had scratched the skin on his legs down to the bone. Flores whispered to Nunez, "Christ, Nunez!"
A man coughing up blood from consumptive lungs, a rabies case, drooling, blank-staring stroke victims, a failing kidney, cancers of the bone and throat, AIDS. The reporters had grown quiet. They came to a woman whose husband, Dr. Nunez explained, had gotten drunk on pisco and thrown a pot of boiling chicken grease on her.
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