Two to Tango (Nick Madrid)

by Peter Guttridge

  I chose the smallest horse. I didn't care that my feet were almost brushing the floor, I felt safer that way.

  Riding out, I nodded at the guard at the gate and let the horse amble around the perimeter wall of the hacienda. I could hear the noises of the morning-music on some tinny radio in a shack halfway up the hillside, cocks crowing, the tonk of sheep bells, dogs barking. It was magical.

  I was at that section of the wall immediately behind the bar when I was surprised to see a familiar figure coming through the wicker gate a couple of hundred yards away and hurrying into the trees.

  I guided my horse over to the trees. A narrow path ran through them, curling up a slight incline.The figure was nowhere to be seen. I dismounted, tethered my horse to a low tree branch, and walked slowly up the path. I approached the top of the slope gingerly but the path twisted down the other side amongst a denser growth of trees.

  I felt foolish skulking in the woods, even though I was trying to do my best Hawkeye impersonation. But we weren't out of Colombia yet and if there was to be an attempt on Otis's life from however unlikely a source, today would be the day.

  The trees thinned about 300 yards farther along. I caught sight of the person I was following hurrying along the path.

  A youth sitting astride a scooter was waiting at the edge of the trees. He could only be a sicano.

  The figure stopped a couple of yards from him. Flitting from tree to tree I got to within thirty yards. I wasn't near enough to hear the conversation but they were speaking very intensely.

  When I saw the money change hands I thought I should get back to my horse before I was spotted.

  I hurried through the trees off the path, though keeping it in sight, rather less Hawkeye than lumbering elephant. I heard the rip of the scooter departing.

  My horse was amiably cropping some weeds by the tree. I untethered her, climbed on her saddle, and wheeled her. At least, I tried to wheel her.

  I yanked at her head, she yanked back. I nudged her with my knees, she dipped her head and carried on munching.

  I can never do that clicking noise riders do with their tongues but I did my nearest approximation. The horse looked up at me disdainfully as if to say. What the hell was that supposed to be?

  I wondered if there was a language problem-maybe different countries had different physical instructions for horses. The saddle and stirrups were different here to England-cowboy style, the stirrups were much lower.

  Perhaps a nudge with the knees meant stay here and keep feeding your face as those hurrying footsteps along the path come closer. I dug my heels in under her ribs. That, in my experience, means canter. In my horse's experience it meant set off like a rocket. She jerked her head up and dashed away.

  I've been on a bolting horse before-see my earlier reference to the Sussex Downs. However, I was only on this one a matter of seconds before the small matter of a large branch caught me full in the chest and I somersaulted to the ground.

  There may not have been much dignity in my fall but at least I managed to release my feet from the stirrups.

  I was sitting in the long grass, gingerly turning my neck, when the hurrying footsteps down the path came to an abrupt halt in front of me.

  I looked up. Smiled woozily.

  "Hi, Conchita. Nice morning."

  Lima surprised me for three reasons. First, I thought it was up in the Andes so flying over a vast expanse of desert-half of Peru is sand-came as a shock, especially when we then ended up on the coast.

  Second, Lima turned out to be a surfer's paradise, huge rollers crashing onto a long, long beach as regular as metronomes. I'd assumed in my racist way the city would be full of ponchogarbed men in knitted hats with earflaps and women wearing bowlers toddling around on llamas. But the part of Lima we were staying in was full of surf bums.

  The third cause for surprise was that somebody tried to kill me. Surprise is perhaps too tame a word for the motion I expressed at this last. Shock takes us near the ballpark.Terror gets us through the gate.Why me? What was wrong with Otis?

  There had after all been another warning for Otis that morning. When I took the horse back to the stables-when Conchita eventually caught it for me-the place was in an uproar, security guards running this way and that, Ralph on three phones and a walkie talkie.

  Conchita slipped away in the confusion. I hadn't been able to find out what she was up to.The conversation had gone along the lines of:

  "Hi, Conchita."

  "Hi, Nick. Little early in the day for trick-riding, dontcha think?"

  She strode past me as I stumbled to my feet.

  "You're up early, too," I said before she thrust two fingers into her mouth and emitted an ear-splitting whistle. The horse, which had slowed to a walk some thirty yards away pricked up its ears and cantered obediently back.

  Conchita swung easily into the saddle and smiled down at me, then started back to the hacienda at a trot. I found myself running alongside like the serf attending the lady of the manor.

  "So you were taking a morning stroll, eh?" I called up to her as I puffed alongside.

  She ignored me as she wheeled the horse round the corner to the front of the house. When I turned the corner she had reined the horse in. In front of the hacienda security guards were running around. On the windshield and bonnet of the armored Mercedes was the spray-painted message Death to Otis Barnes, except Death was spelt Deth.

  "At least they knew the English words," I muttered but when I turned to Conchita she had slipped away and I found myself talking to the horse. Even she wasn't listening.

  I didn't get a chance to talk to Ralph before he helicoptered Otis, Conchita, and Horace out. Nor was I sure what to say. Could the young thug on the scooter have spray-painted the car? How could anyone have spray-painted the car without the guards seeing since it was parked right in front of the hacienda?

  Turned out there had been what Raoul, the older guard, called a "winnow of oppity" when the guard from the gate had left his post to see the last ten minutes of some big soccer match between rival Colombian sides on TV in the office.

  He had still been able to see-and prevent anyone coming through the gate or over the wall, which was, as far as he was aware, his main function. He wasn't worried about what might be going on outside.

  Raoul told me this in the people-carrier on the way back along the dusty bumpy road to the airport. I don't know what strings Ralph had pulled or who he'd paid off but we were whisked straight through and onto the plane without any of the usual formalities. Otis, Conchita, and Horace were already up in first. I was cattle class, naturally.

  Two hours later we landed in Lima. We reached our beachfront hotel around two in the afternoon.All the rooms had great sea views apparently. Well, except mine. Depressingly, I accepted it as my lot. I did have a great view of the edifice that dominated the place-an advertisement in the form of a giant cigarette packet on stilts that seemed to tower over even the skyscrapers, visible all over the city.

  Beatrice was in the hotel lobby. "You coming surfing?" she said. I couldn't figure her. I'd decided she wasn't a nutter but that therefore she wasn't interested in me in "that way."

  "I'm not sure surfing is my thing," I said. No sport that involves standing on planks has ever struck me as a particularly rewarding or sensible activity. So the fact that I found myself ten minutes later not on a surfboard but a pair of water skis you can put down to a pathetic last-ditch attempt to impress the braided beauty on the next set of water skis along.

  The Joe Blows and Fertile Lands were both on the beach, although I didn't see Otis's ex-wife Catherine. Benny the percussionist had apparently staked out a corner of the hotel bar for himself until the concert.

  So there could be a live link with some satellite relay, the concert wasn't taking place until midnight-dinnertime here in Peru, which in common with other Latin American countries followed the Spanish tradition of going out for the evening when northern Europeans are happily tucked up in bed.

/>   Picture a bronzed, young god skimming blue waters, one hand clasping the tow rope from the boat, the other raised in a negligent wave to his admirers on the beach. Now picture me.

  The problem was getting up out of the water.You start out underwater, knees tucked against your chest, skis parallel, with only your head, shoulders and the tips of your skis above the water.

  The boat takes off, the tow rope tautens, you rise out of the water, straighten up, and you're in business. Well, that's the theory. Me, I fell forwards, fell sideways, fell backwards, smacked myself on the nose with the skis-there's no dignity in these sports you know.

  Eventually, though, the big moment.A perfect skiing posture and the boat pulled me almost a quarter of a mile-the first-ever underwater water-skier.

  Beatrice was waiting for me when I finally staggered ashore, waterlogged.

  "Nick-can you do anything right?" she said impatiently.

  Good question actually. She stayed on the beach as the others were still surfing. I went back in the hotel to get rid of the gallon of seawater sloshing around inside me.

  You use salt water in a yoga purification exercise not dissimilar to colonic irrigation. It has a remarkable effect on the digestive system-as I was to discover over the next few days.

  I wasn't sure how to handle the Conchita thing. I could hardly say to Otis, `I think your girlfriend is planning to have you killed,' especially as I didn't know who the guy was that she'd met. He could be another lover for all I knew. Maybe he'd spray-painted Otis's car, but there were plenty of other possibilities, too.

  I decided I would tell Ralph-if I could get hold of him.

  Left to my own devices-the alternative was hanging out with Perry to discuss the phenomenology of rock-I thought I'd do a little sightseeing in old Lima.

  It's a big city, its population of 8 million representing a third of the population of the entire country. Since the country is twice the size of France, that means something statistically fascinating, but as the next page of my guide book was torn out I'll never know what.

  I took a cab that dropped me off in the Plaza des Armas shaken and bruised. Shock absorbers were clearly regarded as a luxury in the cabs here. There was a socket for a seat belt but no actual belt so I spent the trip with my feet braced against the dashboard, which rocked alarmingly.

  In the square, in front of the President's palace, young boys with long rifles slung down their backs hung around in groups whilst police and other paramilitary vehicles were lined up three deep facing the palace.

  I walked down a narrow street towards the Church of San Francisco, past a string of tatty but atmospheric old shops-deep, high-ceilinged but selling only a few dusty wares. I passed a great-looking bar except there were only about three bottles on the rows of shelves behind the counter. A television was on the counter and all of the customers were engrossed in watching a football match.

  Some kids wearing sandals and old plimsolls were playing football in the street. I heard the grind of gears and a whining noise behind me. One of the kids picked up the ball and they all moved without haste onto the pavement to let the tank go by. It trundled down the center of the street followed by a couple of foot soldiers.The kids didn't look twice, just went back into the road and carried on their game.

  When I walked into the church I bumped into Catherine, Otis's ex-wife.

  "Didn't expect to see a rock journalist in church-it's a bit late to beg forgiveness for your many sins."

  "I would have thought that went double for a rock musician," I said."But I'm not really a rock journo. I'm more your cultured type. I read there were some great Spanish tiles imported from Seville. I came to have a look."

  Well, yes, that is my idea of a good time.

  "They're in the cloisters," she said. "Unless you're a serious Catholic don't bother with the church itself-very baroque with horrible iconography-cheap dolls tricked out in tat to awe the peasants"

  We walked up a flight of stairs to the cloisters. Off to the right was an extraordinary library of mouldering old books-the library of the original priests shipped over some five centuries before, then left to rot.

  "Twenty or thirty monks still live here," Catherine said. "One of them is a medical monk-he gives free treatment to the poor of the neighborhood every week"

  We were drifting through a long, shady length of cloister, the Seville tiles showing scenes from a monk's life high on the wall to our left. It was very still and sound refracted oddly. Our footsteps and those of half a dozen others also in the cloisters echoed loudly.

  She was a pretty woman, in her early forties I guessed, her eyes and her mouth edged with laugh lines which deepened when she laughed, which it turned out she did easily. Her eyes were cornflower blue-well, the pupils were; she'd have looked a bit silly if the whole lot was blue.

  "From all I've heard about you and Otis," I said, "I was expecting a victim, face turned to the wall."

  "That was many years ago," she said, dragging back her hair with a long fingered hand. "But you should have seen me before the therapy.That really saved my bacon"

  "So what do you think about Otis now?" I said as we descended a flight of stairs into the dimly-lit catacombs.

  "I try not to think about him at all," she said with a small shudder.

  I go off first appearances a lot-I'm trivial that way-and she didn't strike me as the kind of woman who would be sending threatening mail or spray-painting cars.

  "Beatrice enjoyed the yoga," she said as we came to our first pit full of bones. I glanced at a notice high on the wall. This used to be the public cemetery, where 25,000 people were buried.

  "You familiar with it?" I said as we reached an alcove some three feet deep, full to the brim with stacked bones, neatly sorted according to size. They were stylishly lit by concealed lighting below.

  "I once did a tour with Sting. He was into it"

  "Did you try it?"

  "Too energetic for me."

  She stopped and gave me an up-from-under look.

  "I like things slow, languorous, and easy."

  I blushed. Of course I blushed. But I held her gaze. Don't anybody tell me I can't handle women who like to play with their sensuality. I can't, but don't tell me.

  We were standing on a sort of bridge. Below us on both sides were pits stacked with undifferentiated bones, skulls, all manner of remains of dead people.

  And in racks on either side of us were yet more bones. One part of my brain was wondering what the hell place this was. The larger part (and we're still not talking much) was focussed on Catherine.

  "Well sure," I said, still blushing furiously. "I'm the same. But this yoga is something else.You should really give it a try."

  "Perhaps you could demonstrate it for me, too"

  Again the smile at the corners of her mouth. She walked ahead and I paused to collect my thoughts. Since my brain felt like a colander this could well have taken some time. And would have, had I not heard a clattering sound above my head. I looked up in time to see the highest rack of bones to my left cascading down towards me. A moment later I was engulfed by them-skulls, thigh bones, rib cages, femurs-every manner of bone.

  A moment later I was engulfed by them.

  I can't imagine many people know what it's like to be on the receiving end of an ossuary. It hurts. Think about being kicked on the shin. Now think about being kicked by a shin. Any number of shins.

  Bones that I didn't even know existed piled over me. I was battered to the ground and lay curled in the fetal position, my arms round my head as the bones continued to shower down.

  Over the rattling of the bones of the former citizens of Lima I heard Catherine cry out. But did I also hear some echoing, receding male voice singing "Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones?"

  I lay there for a moment, trying not to choke on the dust.Then I heard Catherine calling my name and the sound of bones being tossed aside. There was some space to flex my muscles. I flexed.

  I wasn't exactly Venus r
ising from the foam but I did sort of explode out of the bones, sending them flying in all directions.

  Dust clouds rolled off me. Catherine coughed, I choked.

  "Are you alright?" she said then started to laugh.

  I was less hurt than I expected, largely because the bones had formed a kind of tent over me.

  "Aside from a nasty knock on the side of the head from a particularly pernicious femur and a poke in the eye from a sternum, surprisingly good-why are you laughing?"

  "No reason," she said, covering her mouth with her hand.

  I was pretty shaky and my head felt a bit weird-a tight feeling. Catherine helped me up the passage to the exit, occasionally pausing whilst I doubled over to cough and splutter.

  The dust up my nose had joined with the seawater to form a kind of mud pack in my sinuses. Catherine occasionally patted me, sending puffs of dust from me.

  "Did you hear singing?" I said as she started to giggle again. "What is it?"

  "Nothing," she said, forcing a solemn expression onto her face. "They say that every breath we take contains minute particles of the breath of everyone who ever lived. So every intake of breath you get a bit of Hitler or Jesus or Mozart-"

  I was racked by a sudden coughing fit.

  "Bit of Stalin gone down the wrong way?" she said solicitously.

  I'd expected some of the custodians to come running at the racket the bones had made but nobody appeared. I guess-and I apologize for this remark in advance-they were operating a skeleton staff.

  I got some very odd looks when I emerged, I guess because I was covered from head to toe in grey dust.

  "Did you hear singing?" I said again. My head was feeling so tight I wasn't sure if I'd imagined it.

  "I did. Wouldn't let him in the band but maybe he could make a living on the pub circuit. Someone with a weird sense of humor, that's for sure."