Night of the Jaguar

by Joe Gannon

  They walked for six hours. Almost due north by Ajax’s reckoning. He and Matthew had crossed one river, where Epimenio had left them, looking glum and guilty. He and Matthew had wandered north-by-northwest. They’d made as much noise as they could without being too obvious. Left tracks and made a big fire that night. They’d met no one, yet still, in this isolated vastness, they had come across two huts of such desperate poverty the word hovel was too grand to describe them. They’d left soap behind at each one and kept on.

  If things went badly now, they might not be able to flee the way they’d come, Ajax knew that. So he kept a map in his head anyway. If they had to run for their lives, he at least needed to know the way home.

  They were in Krill’s camp before he or Matthew had realized it. In the darkening dusk it was eerily familiar to Ajax. Fires banked so low the flame tips barely peeked over the mound of earth piled to snuff them out instantly. They gave off little light, but enough to reflect the eyes of each Contra as they led Ajax and Matthew deep into the camp. There were more than three dozen in all, plus the twenty-two Krill had with him on patrol. Krill and One-eye bivouacked at the center, with the others in three concentric circles. There was very little talk, but what there was grew louder and more relaxed when Krill arrived, as if the return of their leader signaled all was well. In any event, they seemed not a troop of men expecting imminent attack.

  One-eye led them to Krill’s fire, pushed them to the ground, and slit their bonds. He dumped half of Matthew’s goodies on the ground and went off, Ajax assumed, to distribute the rest. In a few moments, whispered cries of joy confirmed it. Matthew collapsed onto the ground. He had been blowing hard for hours on the long slog. Ajax had found the pace exhausting, too, but his body still remembered how to handle it, and, in truth, he welcomed the thirst and pain of a grueling march—it sweated you down to your core.

  “I am fucking dying, really.” Matthew flopped onto his back. “I died before the sun went down and I would kill for some water!”

  “Keep your voice down, Connelly.” Ajax was surprised at how raspy his voice had become.

  “Yessir, Martin. Martin the mule. Oof!”

  Matthew sat up as a full canteen was dropped onto his soft belly. Ajax caught with one hand the canteen tossed at his face. Matthew gulped mouthfuls, while Ajax took one long pull and swirled it inside his mouth until the parch was gone, then quietly gargled and swallowed the rest.

  “You’re going to get a bellyache from drinking so fast, gringo.” Krill sat down, stoked his little fire, and set a canteen cup of water on it. “You ought to drink like your mule here, nice and slow.” He emptied two packets of the instant coffee into the water and stirred the contents with the tip of a skinning knife. He gave Ajax a good looking over. “You don’t seem too tired, Martin.”

  Ajax shrugged. “We’re Nicas, Comandante. Stoical on the outside, exhausted on the inside.”

  Krill smiled. “Yeah, the gringos are a soft people. I had some other reporters with me. The New York Times and The Washington Post, they almost died just from the walking. You know them, Martin?”

  “I know Mary Lantigua, but I don’t think it was her; The Post has many reporters.”

  “No, they were men. But even ignorant, simple Krill has heard of those papers.” Krill took out the ID cards he’d confiscated earlier. “But Matt-hew Con-no-lee? You don’t work for the big gringo newspapers?”

  “Comandante, I work for many newspapers and even though they are not so famous, my reports reach more people than The Times or The Post.”

  “Like who?”

  “The Christian Science Monitor, Financial Times, Toronto Globe and Mail, The San Francisco Examiner.”

  Krill stuck the tip of his knife into the coffee, then tested it on his tongue. Satisfied, he sheathed the blade and sipped his brew. As he did, One-eye joined them at the fire. Ajax could see now that he was younger than Krill, heavier, with a wolfish cut to his face when he smiled. And smile he did as he sat down and locked his eye on Ajax.

  Krill looked into his coffee and swirled it in the cup, as if, Ajax thought, he was consulting a Rolodex. “I never heard of these newspapers.”

  “Well, the story I will write about Comandante Krill will be read by people in the United States, Canada, and Britain.”

  “Any Nicaraguan people read it?”

  Krill gulped his coffee and looked over the cup at Ajax. It was then Ajax was sure of what he’d suspected: Krill was fucking with Matthew, maybe with them both. But Matthew didn’t get it, yet.

  “Sure, some people in Managua, maybe. But the Foreign Ministry reads it and your leadership in Miami and Honduras.”

  “Leadership?” Krill tapped One-eye. “You heard that? Leadership? In Miami? Honduras? What are these places?”

  “Miami is a faggot town where the faggots live,” One-eye said. “Krill is the leader.”

  A murmur went through the camp echoing One-eye’s words, and Ajax realized Krill had been performing for his men, not Matthew.

  “Of course, Comandante, here you are…”

  Krill threw the dregs of his drink on the fire. “It was nice of you to bring Enrique Cuadra’s body home for burial. Was doña Gloria grateful?”

  “Doña Gloria,” One-eye repeated, and that, too, passed like a murmur through the camp.

  One-eye was watching for a reaction, and Ajax knew it had to be the right reaction. So he laughed. It took Matthew a half second to catch on but then he did, too. Ajax picked up Krill’s cup and began to make his own coffee. “You are like God, Comandante: all seeing and all knowing.”

  “Yes, yes, right.” Matthew tried to catch up. “Omniscient.”

  “Enrique was your friend, Con-no-lee?”

  “A good friend, Comandante. And a good man. Did you know him?”

  Krill shrugged as Ajax had earlier. “We took provisions from him when we needed them. He complained less than the others do. How did he die?”

  “He was murdered.” Ajax tried to make it sound nonchalant, timing his words with setting the cup to the fire.

  “Murdered, for real?” Krill, Ajax assessed, was genuinely surprised to hear it. “What a fucking country. Did the piris do it?”

  “Ah, well, I don’t think so.” Matthew took a long pull on the canteen. “Some say maybe a robbery.”

  Ajax emptied a packet of instant into the cup. “Some say you did it.”

  “Me?”

  “The Contra.”

  Krill drew out his knife again and stirred Ajax’s cup for him. “Listen, Martin, Gar-CIA. We are not ‘Contra,’ understand? Because to be ‘en contra’ is to be opposed. We, in fact, are ‘in favor’ …”

  One-eye leaned forward. “In favor of killing piricuacos!” A mirthful murmur passed through his men as the joke was repeated outward in the dark to the edge of camp.

  Ajax laughed, too. Then he set his hand on Krill’s knife. “Can I borrow this?” Krill smiled, but nodded. Ajax took the blade. “The papers in Managua say it was you because—” Ajax touched the blade tip to his throat once and over his heart twice. “He was killed like that: once to the throat, twice to the heart.”

  “No? For real?” Krill held out his hand. Ajax stirred the coffee with the knife and then returned it, handle first. “I invented that, you know.” Krill touched the blade tip to throat and heart. “‘To kill the vampire.’ But no. We did not kill Cuadra. If I wanted him dead, he would be dead here!” Krill drove the knife into the ground. “Who Krill says dies, dies.”

  Ajax expected that to go round in murmur as well. Instead, Krill’s men suddenly appeared out of the dark and formed a silent circle. Krill looked first to Ajax, then to Matthew, and back again, and again.

  “Is this why you came here? To ask me if I killed Enrique Cuadra?”

  “No, Comandante,” Connelly said. “I told my editors I wanted to write about the famous Krill.”

  “And my men.”

  “And your men.”

  “Then go and talk to them.
” Krill waved at the soldiers whose circle had grown tighter. “Ask them anything. They will tell you why we fight.” Krill turned to look at his men. “Answer the gringo’s questions. Teach him what he needs to know.” Then he waved his leave for Connelly to go.

  “Thank you, Comandante. Martin, bring the tape recorder.”

  “No.” Krill jerked his knife out of the ground, wiped the blade on a pant leg, and sheathed it. “You go, gringo. Martin Gar-CIA stays.”

  Ajax could feel Connelly’s eyes on him. He passed the micro tape recorder to him and tried to avoid the gringo’s gaze, which Ajax knew would flash some concern for his safety.

  When they’d gone, One-eye lit himself and Krill a cigarette. He tossed one to Ajax, who made a show of leaning down over the small fire to light it, thus exposing his neck and back to them. Prey who have no fear don’t hesitate to show their bellies to a predator.

  “So, Martin, how old are you?”

  “Thirty-six.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, but I fuck like a teenager.”

  Krill and One-eye guffawed. Krill emptied out Ajax’s cup and made himself more coffee. “So you must’ve fought for the revolution, huh, when you were a kid?”

  “Not me, I grew up in the States. Los Angeles.”

  “For real? Grew up there?”

  “For real. My mother and father immigrated when I was a baby.”

  For the first time, Krill seemed actually impressed. “I lived in El Norte, too.”

  “Yeah? For real?”

  “Why do you say it like that? You think I can’t live there?”

  “No, but Connelly said you were one who stayed.”

  “Yeah, I did. But they brought me to Miami in 1980. I was supposed to get some ‘training’ from la cia.”

  One-eye laughed and mumbled, “Krill gives the training, he doesn’t receive it.”

  “That’s what I told them, but they never gave me shit anyway. That faggot-lipped Carter was still president, so I get to Miami and all they want to do is talk. Talk to me!”

  “So you didn’t stay long?” Ajax flicked his cigarette ash into the fire where it burned a second time.

  “A few weeks. In Miami. You ever been to a mall?”

  “Oh sure, L.A. has lots of them.”

  Krill looked into his newly brewed cup of instant coffee and smiled at the memory of it.

  “The first time I went into a mall, it seemed to me to be one of mi General’s palaces.” Krill shook his head in disbelief, but Ajax doubted he’d ever set foot in one of Somoza’s mansions. The Ogre had been as much a light-skinned, upper-class snob as any rich Nica was likely to be. “It was amazing. Huge, like nothing I had ever seen. Air-conditioning everywhere, it was like winter inside. And clean?” Krill made a snapping gesture with his fingers, which in Nicaraguan meant a thing was incalculable. “But you know what? Fucking gringos let anyone go inside! Not just whites and Cubans, but the blacks, too! And not just the black gringos, but the Jamaicans and even the Haitians.” Krill shook his head at what Ajax was sure was the still-lingering disbelief at the stupidity of gringos to hoard so much wealth, but then invite everyone to come in and gawk at it.

  One-eye shook his head in disbelief, too, but not, it seemed to Ajax, because he had been there. Krill was repeating a story he had heard many times before. “Fucking Cubans think they’re white, too.”

  “They do, too!” Krill laughed. “Fucking Cubans are more annoying than the gringos!”

  Ajax laughed a real laugh for the first time.

  “What is so funny, Martin?”

  “You sound like my father. He said in Los Angeles the Mexicans treated Nicas worse than the whites did.”

  “Así es. There you go. Your father was a wise man. Fucking Cubans are more arrogant than the gringos!”

  The three of them laughed and smoked their Mexican Marlboros. In the silence that followed, they all seemed to marvel at the foolishness of Gringolandia.

  “So, Martin, I remind you of your father?”

  “Comandante, you certainly joke like he did. Like a true Nica.”

  “And how is that?”

  “Nicas make fun of everyone, but ourselves most of all.”

  “Why is that? You think we are ashamed of ourselves?”

  “No, Comandante. My father used to say, Nicaraguans are proud in the ‘I’ but humble in the ‘We.’”

  “Proud in the ‘I’ humble in the ‘We.’” One-eye repeated it as he had Krill’s words before.

  Ajax thought he might be making some progress. He tossed his butt onto the embers, and watched it ignite its own flame and be consumed by it.

  “So, Comandante, why didn’t you stay in Miami?”

  “Stay?” Krill seemed to drift away from the moment, as if he were looking back over his decision. He closed his eyes and Ajax imagined Krill was feeling that air-conditioning flowing over his body. “No. If I stayed there I would’ve been a peasant watching those malletes and Cubans buying their things. Here I am a king. A poor king. But better a poor king than a rich peasant.”

  “You are very wise, Comandante.”

  Ajax meant it as a compliment, but Krill didn’t seem to take it that way.

  “What are you doing here, Martin?”

  “Me? I’m taking the gringo for all the money I can get!”

  “God bless this cocksucker for a brother!” Krill smacked Ajax on the shoulder. “We try to do the same thing, although I think our fearless leaders do it better in Miami. Does the gringo want to solve who murdered Enrique Cuadra?”

  “I think he thinks he does. He feels like he owes a debt, you know, to the country and that might be one way to repay it.”

  “Does he think I killed him?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you think I killed him?”

  “I don’t see why you would. Like you said, if you wanted him dead he’d be dead up here. Why would you follow him all the way to Managua to do it?”

  “Yes, when I go to Managua it will only be to kill shit-eating Sandinistas, which you know Cuadra probably was.”

  “You think so?”

  “In his heart not his boots. He was a civilian, but his sons were piris going way back. But that old man’s finca gave us coffee, rice, beans, and more. If his widow goes back to the city we lose our best store.”

  “So you wouldn’t want him dead?”

  “Not him, Martin. Not him.”

  Ajax felt the air rush out of the moment just before he heard the hammer go back on One-eye’s .45.

  “Comandante, I am just…”

  “Yes, yes. A mule. Martin Garcia, translator and fixer.” Krill hoisted his cup, almost as if to toast something, and then emptied it onto the ground. “But we watched you before we let you find us. Out there,” Krill waved at the impervious jungle, the implacable blackness, “out there you led and the gringo followed.”

  “The mule led the friar,” One-eye chanted.

  “We saw that. Only when you ‘found’ us did you become the mule and Connolly the friar.”

  “I am not CIA.…”

  “No. You’re Frente Sandinista.”

  “Piricuaco.” One-eye drew out each syllable in a deadly whisper, piri-kwa-koooo.

  Only then did the hair stand up on Ajax’s neck and arms. Only then did he realize that Connolly was likely already dead.

  “Don’t worry, Martin, we are not going to kill you.”

  “Not in the dark,” One-eye chanted.

  “Not in the dark.”

  “Comandante…”

  “No!” Krill unsheathed the knife and touched its tip to Ajax’s chin, and then slowly drew lines around his face as if making a map. “No. You have not made me angry yet by talking too much. Of course, talking too little also can make me angry.” Krill sat back and studied the blade as if it held the story he wanted to tell. “We had one little piri like you. He talked too little. Have you heard of the Seventeenth Light Hunter Battalion?”

 
“Not really.”

  “Do you know what they call themselves?”

  “No.”

  “‘The Whales.’ Do you know why?”

  Ajax nodded his head, as much as at Krill as at what fate had decreed. “Because whales eat krill,” he said.

  Krill smiled and slapped his knee. “Yes! This is an educated man! Very good! Because whales eat krill, they want to eat me. But we captured a few of them. One boy was the radio man. He had all the frequencies. You can imagine how much I wanted those numbers?”

  “I suppose they would be good for you to know.”

  “Good for me to know. So I tell this boy, ‘Look I am not going to hurt you. Instead I will show you on your friends’ bodies what I could do to you but won’t.’ Wasn’t that fair?”

  Several short bursts of gunfire rang out from the dark, followed by panicked commands Ajax could not quite make out. For a moment, Ajax thought he might be saved by an ambush. But neither Krill nor One-eye moved. He assumed it was Matthew’s firing squad. Krill looked over his shoulder, then back at Ajax.”

  “Now we are alone.”

  “You kill an American.…”

  “Do not make me angry, hijo de puta! I want to finish my story. So I showed this boy what I could do to him on his friends, and after some time when they were begging for death, I told the boy, do you want them to suffer or die? But he still wouldn’t talk. So I let him kill his friends. One by one.” Krill made a stabbing motion over his throat and heart. “Just like that. Like your friend poor Enrique.”

  “Poor Enrique,” One-eye added.

  “But still,” Krill went on, “still he would not talk. And he knew what was coming for him. Do you know how we do it?”

  “Torture.”

  “Of course, but how?” Krill leaned in closer as he warmed to his tale. Ajax studied the sticks burning in the fire. “I was sent to Argentina for training, back in the early days before the fucking gringos took over everything. And let me tell you, those Argentines are men.” Krill clasped three fingers together and drew a straight line from his head to his navel, indicating these Argentine torturers were estrechos—proper gentlemen. “They have balls. They are proud of what they do. Do you know why I hate the gringos so much? They think everything Krill does is dirty, they are afraid they have to clean up my mess. Clean up? All this—” Krill spread his arm to take in not only Nicaragua’s green mountain selva, but the entire world and its whorish allegiances and Cold War alliances. “All this is a dirty game to them. But to me, to Krill, it is my glory. My destiny! And those shit-eating gringos think I am dirty. Dirty.”