Tropic of Night

by Unknown

  At the Trail, they had to stop for some time, while emergency equipment, fire trucks, ambulances, buses full of cops went by, sirens and lights. The worst of the trouble seemed to lie east, over by the bay and Brickell Avenue. Paz directed her west.

  Jane said, “I assume you’re off duty.”

  Paz gave her a quick nervous look. “I guess. I don’t know what good a cop is when the guy who’s doing the bad stuff can’t be collared and locked up. It strikes me that the prudent investigative posture is to stick as close as possible to you.”

  “As bait? Or … what?”

  He thought for a moment. “Barlow used to say, the difference between a good detective and a no-account one is three things: patience, patience, and patience. I’m waiting. Something’ll turn up.” After a while he added, “Do you think … will Barlow ever come back to, like, normal? Like he was?”

  “He might,” she said. “If he has people around him who treat him like he’s the decent guy you say he was, and love him, the grel may fade back. People have what we call ‘nervous breakdowns’ all the time, and recover. And there are more direct methods against them. Were you close to him?”

  “Not close, but he was really good to me. I respected him more than any man I ever met.”

  “A father figure?”

  His face grew stiff. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Is your father here in Miami?”

  “No. My mom said he died coming over from Cuba.” His tone did not invite further questions.

  They drove in silence to a crowded parking lot off Calle Ocho. Jane looked at the restaurant with interest. It was a large, brightly lit place, with the name splayed in loose blue neon script over faded pink: la guantanamera. Entering, she was hit with the delicious and barely describable perfume of a good restaurant running at full tilt. The place was packed; panic had not cut into business at Guantanamera, or perhaps the rumors of disaster had brought people out to die replete. Paz was obviously well known here, she saw; the maître d’ at the tiny front desk gave him a big smile, smiled at Jane, too, and at the fascinated yet shrinking Luz. Ignoring the clot of patrons waiting in the little lobby, he immediately led the party to a nice banquette table, right under a huge saltwater fish tank. The child stood on her chair and watched the fish. Paz stood by her and named them as they drifted by: the beaugregory, the moorish idol, the damselfishes in their varieties, the French and regal and queen angelfishes, the neon goby and the rock beauty. She poked the glass and gave them her own private silly names.

  “This is great,” Jane said. “She’ll probably crash in two minutes.”

  A waitress arrived and gave Paz a gold-toothed smile. “Hey, Jimmy! You’re out front today.”

  “Julia, how’s it going?”

  “It’s been crazy tonight. She was looking for you.”

  “I bet. Why don’t you bring us a couple of special daiquiris and a Shirley Temple for the kid.”

  Then he spoke to her in Spanish for a few minutes and she left. Paz said, “You don’t speak Spanish?”

  “Hardly a word, I’m ashamed to say. I usually speak French sprinkled with random a ‘s and o ‘s. And I caught ‘daiquiri’ just now. They seem to know you pretty well here.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m here a lot.” They watched the fish and Luz for a while. Jane became aware that the music system was playing the same song over and over, with different singers and arrangements.

  “That song,” she said, “I know that song. It’s famous. Didn’t Pete Seeger do that way back when?”

  He laughed. “Oh, right, the definitive version. Christ, Pete Seeger! Right now this is Abelardon Barroso and la Sensacion. It’s “Guantanamera,” the greatest song ever written. Back before the revolution, Cuban radio used to play it five minutes before the hour, every hour. People used to set their watches by it. There are thousands of versions. But this next track is the original, by Joseito Fernandez. He wrote it sometime in the thirties.” She listened. A rock-solid beat and a man with precise diction and a rough friendly voice, singing from the heart.

  “What do the words mean?”

  “Oh, they have all kinds of verses. In the old days, Joseito used to make up verses on the news?murders, scandals, famous people.” He sang along softly: ” ‘Yo soy un hombre sincero, de donde crece la palma, y antes de morime quiero, echar mis versos del alma.’ “

  He translated this and she said, “I believe that. I believe you are a sincere man from the land where the palms grow. And maybe you’ll actually get to sing the song of your soul.”

  He shrugged. “Who can tell? Anyway, the chorus is always the same: ” Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera… the girl from Guantánamo, the girl from the farm.”

  She stared at him. “From the farm?”

  “Yeah, a guajira ‘s like a country girl, a hillbilly.”

  “And they named this place after the song?”

  “Not really.” He laughed, mildly embarrassed. “Okay, I confess?it’s my mother’s place. She’s the guantanamera it’s named after. We always play this CD after midnight, kind of a trademark. The people like it too.”

  “Does she really come from a farm?”

  “Oh, yeah, from back in the mountains north of Guantánamo. When I was a kid, I was always hearing what they didn’t have on the goddamn farm. What, you want sneakers! I was seventeen before I saw my first pair of shoes. What, you want a car! I was twenty-two before I even rode in a car, and that was a truck.”

  “Well, she seems to be doing okay now. This place …”

  “Oh, yeah, now. But they never get over it. My mom left in ‘72. Came over on a couple of doors lashed to four inner tubes. She could always cook, so she got restaurant work. She slept on a mattress in the stockroom to save money. Then I was born, and she got one of those little food trucks, going around to all the construction sites, feeding the Cubano working humps their rice and beans and media noche and the coffee and cakes. I was up there in the front seat until I started school. And she hung on to every goddamn penny and opened her first real place, a counter-and-four-tables joint on Flagler. Comidas criollas . And then this one here, fifteen or so years ago. An American success story.” She could see his face get tight as he said this, tight behind the bright, faintly mocking smile. She controlled her own excitement. “And your dad? What was he like?”

  His face shut down completely. “I told you?died before I was born. Crossing over.”

  The waitress returned with the drinks and a straw basket full of warm platano chips and a pottery bowl of mojo criollo .

  “I ordered for us. You don’t mind?” She smiled, shrugged, and took a plantain chip and dipped it in the sauce. She ate and sighed, closing her eyes. She took another. And another.

  He watched her eat and drink. In five minutes she had consumed half the basket and finished the daiquiri. Paz polished off the rest of the chips, except for the half-dozen or so the child took. He ordered another round. “You’re hungry.”

  “Oh, yes, ” she said, her eyes lit with a crazy light.

  Then came a plate of frituras de cangrejo and bowls of cold sopa de aguacate, and then a beefsteak palomilla, with mounds of curly fried potatoes, with plates of black beans and rice on the side. The child ate the fries and some rice and beans, whined briefly, and fell asleep on the banquette, with her head on Jane’s lap. Jane ate most of the fries and most of the rice and beans. Paz looked on admiringly. “You’re a good eater.”

  “It’s good food. I haven’t had a square meal in two and a half years. Actually, the fact is, I shouldn’t be hungry at all. I’ve been on uppers for the last twenty-four hours or so. I should take some more, but I can’t bear to. This is so pleasant. Thank you.”

  ” De nada. Why are you taking uppers, if I may inquire?”

  “You may. It’s so I don’t fall asleep until all this is over. He can get to me if I’m dreaming, in a way that could put me in his power more or less permanently.”

  “I thought you said he couldn’t get to you. Yo
u had … you know, those charms, or whatever.”

  “Yes, in the m’fa .” She waved a hand. “This world. But in sleep we open a door to m’doli, a world between the real world and the world of the spirits. Spirits can visit us there, that’s what a lot of dreams are, and it’s also the arena where magic takes place?a borderland. I have to meet him in m’doli, but awake.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “More drugs. I have some of the stuff made up. But as I told you, I need allies.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I don’t get …” He broke off and stared.

  A striking figure was wending her way through the dining room, a mahogany-colored woman dressed all in yellow silk, with a fresh white gardenia placed in the coils of black hair piled on her head. She stopped at several tables and exchanged a few friendly words with the customers. Then she arrived at their table. Paz stood up, embraced the woman lightly, kissed her cheek.

  “How are you, Mami?”

  “I’m fine. I’m working myself to death in the kitchen of my restaurant because I have a son who doesn’t care about me, but otherwise I’m just fine. Who is this woman?”

  “Someone from my work. She’s an important witness. Shall I introduce you?”

  “If you like.”

  Paz stepped back and switched to English. “Mother, this is Jane Doe. Jane, my mother, Margarita Cajol y Paz.”

  Jane rose, nodded, extended her hand, looked into the woman’s face. There was no doubt about it. She felt a warm tingling in her hand; the woman must have felt it, too, because she pulled her own hand abruptly away. The expression on Margarita Paz’s face changed from its habitual cast of superior dissatisfaction to amazement, and then to something much like fear. Paz watched this with interest, having never observed this particular face-show before. He was about to prime the conversation to discern its cause, when his mother made a hurried excuse in Spanish and bustled off.

  Seated again, Paz asked, “What do you think that was all about? Usually she hangs around and gets your pedigree and when we’re going to get married.”

  “Perhaps she knew I wasn’t good enough for you in one glance. How long has your mother been involved in Santería?”

  He frowned. “Who said she was involved in Santería? She hates that stuff.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. She’s a straight-up Catholic. I had a girlfriend once, in high school, gave me one of those little statues. My mom found it, and chewed me out, and trashed it. Why did you think she was into it? Because she’s a black Cuban?”

  A challenging tone here. “No, not that at all. As it happens, I saw her at Pedro Ortiz’s ile a couple of nights ago.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  The waitress dropped off a tray of guava tarts and Cuban cookies, a couple of Cuban coffees, and two brandies.

  Jane said, “I saw her. Your mother. Not only was she there, but she was an oriate, a ‘made’ woman. You know what hacer el santo means, don’t you? I saw her mounted by Yemaya. No, don’t shake your head. Listen! I want you to listen to something.”

  She recited, almost chanting, “He-went-into-the-river-and-killed-the-crocodile was the one who cast Ifa for ‘Is it profitable to take a caravan to the north?’ Ifa says it is foolish to leave the farm before the rains. Witches are coming to carry off the eldest child. She said her strength was no match for evil-doing. He said seek the son with no fathers. He said the woman will leave her farm and help. He said the bird with yellow feathers is of use. Four are necessary for the sacrifice: two black pigeons, two white pigeons, and thirty-two cowries.”

  “What’s that, a poem?”

  “In a way. It’s a divination verse. Ifa gave it to me when I asked him what I should do about my husband. I already made the sacrifice. Three allies are named. I have a yellow chick at home. I just met a woman who left a farm, and is made to Yemaya, the sea goddess. My husband is terrified of the water. Now, tell me about your father.”

  “This is crazy.” He tried to smile, but it jelled on his face.

  “It’s true. Tell me about your father!” He was shaking his head, mulish. She slammed the table with her hand, making the crockery tinkle, and drawing looks from nearby tables. She hissed, “Do you want to stop him or not? Tell me!”

  And, surprising himself, for he had never told anyone, he told her. “I was fourteen, we lived above the restaurant on Flagler. She sent me down to the office to get the ledger. She was doing some accounts. Being a nosy kid, I paged through it and I noticed that besides the regular payments for rent and utilities and purveyors, there was a monthly four-hundred-dollar payment to a guy named Juan Javier Calderone. Yoiyo Calderone. You know who he is?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You were Cuban you’d know. He’s a political guy, his father was a real old-time Batistiano big shot. From Guantánamo, as a matter of fact. A homey. Came over with a shitload of money right after the revolution. My mom’d never mentioned she knew him, so I asked her. Nothing. A loan. Mind your own business! She wouldn’t look me in the eye, and believe me, my mom loves to look me in the eye. So I knew something was off.” He drank some brandy. There was clammy sweat on his forehead; he didn’t look at her, but past her, at the bright fishes in their tank.

  “Anyway, I didn’t let it go. I looked up Calderone’s address, and one Saturday I took my bike over to his house. A big white mansion on Alhambra in the Gables, tile roof, a big lawn with a big tall flame tree in the middle. A crew was working on the grounds, real dark guys, just like in the old country. There was an iron gate on the driveway that was open because of the gardeners, and I walked up the driveway and through another gate and there I was on their back patio. A big pool, cabanas, everything perfect. There were two kids in the pool, a boy and a girl. The girl was blond. I stood there staring like a jerk. The two of them were sitting in deck chairs, Calderone and his wife. She was younger than him, and blond, with blue eyes. And then the woman gets up and notices me. She asks me what I want, and I say I want to see Juan Javier Calderone. He gets up and comes over, asks me what I want, and I say I’m Jimmy Paz, I’m the son of Margarita Paz. Okay, I could see he was my father, I could see it in his face, and I could see he could see it in mine, that it was true. Then this look comes over his face like he just stepped in dog shit, and he puts his arm around my shoulders and he goes, Oh, really? Come along here and we’ll talk. And we go through the little gate to the driveway, and when no one can see us, he whips his arm around my throat, he’s choking me, and he drags me behind some big bushes. He goes, Did she send you? Did that chingada whore send you? I couldn’t answer. He goes, ‘Listen to me, you little nigger bastard, if you ever come here again, or if your chingada mother ever tries to contact me again, the two of you will end up in the bay. Do you understand? And make sure that every goddamn penny gets paid back or I’ll take your fucking nigger slophouse back and kick you out on the street like you deserve.’ Then he pops me a couple of good ones on the ear and kicks my ass out the gate.” Here a long sigh, some silence, and then he said, “Shit, Jane, you ate all the torticas .”

  She blushed. “I’m sorry. It’s automatic. They were so good.”

  “I know they’re good, Jane. That’s why you should’ve saved some for me. Jeez, I’m telling you about the worst day of my life, and you take advantage to hog all the torticas .”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, and he saw that she was not talking about the cookies. After a while he added, “I went back and laid all this on my mother, and she gave me another beating, the last one I ever got from her. I ran away. I split that night, and hiked up Dixie Highway, hitched a couple of rides. I slept on the beach at Hallandale for two nights, and the next day the cops grabbed me up. They shipped me home, and it was ‘Did you finish your homework?’ She never mentioned Yoiyo again, or what happened after. Meanwhile, it didn’t take a detective to figure it out. She wanted to get a catering truck, and like a peasant, she went to the local big man, Calderone, the Guantanamero. She n
eeded eight K to get the truck and a stake to start a business. She was nineteen. And how does a beautiful black woman get eight grand from Seńor Calderone? I mean what does she use for fucking collateral? He probably did her right on the couch in his office, or bent her over his great big desk. And the result was me.” He laughed. “My sad story.”

  “It is a sad story. I figured it was something like that. And of all the cops in Miami, it’s you that picks up this case, that shows up at my place. This is how it happens, the way you get allies.”

  He wiped his face with his napkin, and reassembled his personality behind its cover. “Right. Me and my mother and a chicken are going to help you fight our invisible man. Looney Tunes.”

  “Yes, be cynical,” she said, her voice low and urgent. “It’s been a couple of hours, and your mind is reconstructing the consensual reality. All that, the things you saw and did, they couldn’t have really happened, the murder at that hotel, and arresting Witt, and the cops shooting one another, and Barlow turning into someone else, and craziness spreading through the city. Get a good night’s sleep and it’s back to normal. But it won’t be. The only way back to normal is through the magic.”

  “So what do we have to do? Sit in a circle and chant and kill a pigeon?”

  “It will become clear to you what you have to do in the event. Mainly, I’ll be more or less out of it for what could be a long time. You need to take care of me?I mean this body?and take care of Luz.”

  “And the chicken. Don’t forget the chicken. What’s the chicken going to do? Peck at his nose?”

  She turned her eyes away from him, as if embarrassed. He felt ashamed, in fact, although he was not certain of what. He said, “Jane … be serious now: can you imagine me trying to explain all this to my mother?”

  “You won’t have to explain it to your mother,” she said. “She’ll come to my house, at the right time.”

  “Really? And how are you going to arrange that?”

  “Because it’s the place to be. It’s the Super Bowl. Your mother’s a player in this, an oriate . She wants to help. You’re not a player, so you have to decide on some other basis whether you are going to fulfill Ifa’s oracle or not. It’ll start tomorrow night, I’m guessing. If he’s writing now, he’ll write all night and crash about dawn, and he’ll wake up around three or four, get a big breakfast, revise the stuff he wrote the previous night and be ready to step out around seven.”