by Paul Monette
“So Mama does piecework,” Gina said, “and I work part-time at a beauty shop. Hiram Gonzalez—his father had a barbershop in Havana, remember? Hiram’s been very good to us. He lends me the money to go to night school. In two years I get my cosmetology license, and by then I’ll be making enough—”
“Hold it, hold it,” Tony said, waving his hand to stop the excited flow of her words. “Things are gonna change around here. I got a good job now. Mama don’t have to sew in no factory no more.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. He peeled off a bunch of hundreds. He could feel his mother staring at it. “I made it, Mama. I’m gonna be a big success in America. I didn’t wanna show my face till I was sure you’d be proud of me.” He stacked the hundreds neatly. There must have been about a thousand dollars. “This is for you, Mama,” he said, pushing the stack to the center of the table. “ ’Cause I’m your son.”
At last the old woman left the stove. She crossed to the table and picked up the money. For a moment it seemed she was going to stuff it in her apron pocket. But she shook it in his face and hissed at him: “Who’d you kill for this?” Gina rose and tried to grab her mother’s arm, but the old lady slapped her away. “What is it, Tony? Banks now? You shoot people down in the streets?”
“Hey, Mama,” he said, “this ain’t Cuba. Things are different here. I work with this anti-Castro group. I’m what you call an organizer. We get a lotta contributions. I’m a politician, Mama.”
“You’re scum,” snapped the old woman. “Just like all the other punks.”
Gina was nearly hysterical. “What are you saying, Mama? He’s your son!”
“Who do you think you are, you don’t say a word for five years, then you show up here and throw money around.” The old woman had switched to Spanish now, and the accusations tumbled out. “You think you can buy us with jewelry, huh? You look like a pimp. Some punk’s going to shoot you full of holes some day, and I’m not going to cry for you Tony. Not any more. I cried my life away in Cuba. I don’t need your money. I work for my living. You leave us alone.” She was panting now, and her breast heaved with passion. Tony and Gina sat silent, their faces filled with an inexpressible sadness. Mama tossed the bundle of bills into Tony’s lap. “And I don’t want you around Gina either. I’m not going to let you destroy her. Get out of here now, before I call the cops.”
There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then Tony stood up, and the money fluttered to the floor. Mama was trying to unhook the chain, but it wouldn’t come, and she started to cry in frustration. “Okay, Mama,” Tony said gently. “Okay, I’ll go.” And he turned away without even looking at Gina, because he thought he couldn’t bear it. His face felt burning hot as he banged the screen door open and strode down the walk to his car. He sat behind the wheel for a moment, looking completely blank.
Gina ran out and crouched by the car. “Don’t listen to her, Tony. She don’t mean it.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said. No emotion at all.
“She’s got a lot of hate in her. Give her time. She’ll come around.”
“I don’t got much time,” he said with a dry laugh.
She gripped his shoulder through the window. “I know you done some bad things, Tony. It don’t matter to me. You listening? You’re my blood. I don’t want to lose you again.” She leaned in and kissed him.
“Don’t worry, honey, I’ll keep in touch. You use that money in there, okay? Help Mama out. I’ll call you.”
As he drove away he watched her through the rearview mirror, waving from the curb. His throat got thick for a moment, and then he turned the corner. It was a mistake to come at all, he realized that now. He’d just been looking for a little place to breathe. But if he wasn’t going to get it here, then he’d have to wait till he made it to the top. All the more reason to go for it. It was just as well to know what you had to do without.
Home had nothing to give him any more. It was weakness and doubt that had brought him there. By the time he turned once more into Calle Ocho, he felt lucky to have all that behind him. Home. Family. Hadn’t he always known the safe life was for little men?
Oh he’d take care of Gina, all right. He’d make sure she was a fairy princess before he was through. But his heart beat fast to get on to the next appointment. He had his destiny to tangle with, the shape of which now flashed across his mind like a shooting star. The risks. The chases. The desperate men. He loved it all, as deep as he loved the gold.
He didn’t need anyone else.
Chapter Four
THE MESSAGE WAS brief, delivered by a woman’s voice Tony had never heard before: “Meet the Monkey in the parking lot. Ten o’clock.” And then she hung up.
It was already quarter past nine, but Manolo had alerted Angel and Chi-Chi to be ready to go on a moment’s notice. Tony swore they’d be left behind if they were ripped, so they were all clean when they tumbled into the back of the Monte Carlo. There was a palpable air of excitement in the car. Tony was driving, and Manolo beside him kept flipping the radio, looking for a salsa beat. The parking lot the woman had mentioned was the one at the Havanito Restaurante. It was the street-side office of the coke trade. No dealing was done there, just high-level meetings. As the Monte Carlo turned in among the Continentals, Tony Montana’s gang swelled with the pride of having arrived.
Omar stood by a row of phone booths, puffing on a cigarette. Beside him stood a bodyguard, six-foot-six, who looked like he had an IQ of about thirty. Tony got out of the car and left the other three to wait for him. Omar smiled and shook his hand warmly, as if there had never been any tension between them.
The deal was this: two kilos of cocaine, to be picked up at a motel in Lauderdale. Colombians, Omar said. They swore they could deliver fifteen kilos a month, but their references were spotty. No one in Miami had ever dealt with them before. Tonight’s buy was a test case, and if it all went as planned, Tony could count on a regular run with these guys. Once they got up to the full fifteen a month, Omar was willing to cut Tony in on a percentage of the coke, say five percent. Omar handed over a bag of cash in hundreds, authorizing Tony to go no higher than twelve thousand a key.
The unspoken thing about it all was this: Colombians were animals.
Tony nodded and walked back to the car. “We been promoted,” he told the others as he drove out onto Calle Ocho. The pay for the evening’s pickup was a cool three grand. Angel and Chi-Chi whooped it up in the back seat, because now they could buy a color TV. Only to Manolo did Tony murmur that they would be dealing with Colombians. Manolo grimaced and whistled under his breath. Then he shouted at Angel and Chi-Chi to shut up.
They pulled off the highway into Lauderdale about eleven o’clock, just as the night was waking up. Traffic jammed up on the strip, as the neon clubs on either side opened their doors to the glitter crowd. Young girls in packs prowled the sidewalks. A blonde in a high-collared silver lamé jumpsuit cavorted on the roof of a parked Ferrari. Macho hoods passed by in their Lamborghinis and Porsche 911’s, honking their horns in appreciation. Angel and Chi-Chi gaped at the girls, moaning and grumbling obscenities.
To break the tension, Manolo nudged Tony’s arm. “Hey Tony, you been practicing?” Tony turned with a puzzled look. Manolo stuck his tongue out and flicked it a mile a minute. “You gotta practice, chico,” he said. Tony burst out laughing. “Gotta stay loose,” said Manolo, whirring his tongue and groaning with pleasure.
About four blocks further along they saw the bright yellow lights of The Sun Ray Motel. At least it was right on the strip. The blinking neon was almost cheerful as Tony pulled into the lot and parked around the side, by the dumpsters. He handed the bag of cash to Manolo. “You and Chi-Chi stay here,” he said. “Anything looks funny, I’m in Room 18. Give it ten minutes max, then you better come get me. Money stays here till I come out and get it. Nobody else.”
Angel was so excited he forgot his gun in the car, and they had to come back and get it. For a second there Tony thought he shoul
d take Manolo in instead, but then Angel would have been disappointed. He wanted very much to prove himself as something more than a driver. In the last few weeks he seemed to develop a kind of hero worship toward Tony. Of course Tony was flattered, but he also saw it as a challenge, a test of his skill as a leader. He felt good being Angel’s hero.
As they walked through the rancid lobby and down the dirty orange hallway, Angel fingered a pendant that hung from a chain around his neck: Chango, God of Fire. More than any of the others Angel kept about him a whole junkheap of charms: red and white beads, black hand pendants, silver bangles, all to ward off evil spirits. Where all of these things usually angered Tony, with Angel they seemed just another mark of his gentleness and innocence.
“It’s gonna be fine,” said Tony, nudging Angel with his elbow as they came to Room 18. They exchanged a brief grin. Then Tony gestured for Angel to stand back with his hands in his pockets, one hand on his gun. Tony turned and knocked.
The door was opened casually by an ugly squat Colombian, about five-foot-four, face covered with warts like a toad. The Toad and the Monkey, Tony thought. The man smiled and nodded at him, his bug eyes taking in Angel who hung back in the corridor. Tony spread his arms to indicate he was clean, then stepped by the Toad and into the room. On the blue and orange bedspread sat a tough-looking little chick in a miniskirt—expressionless eyes, red fingernails, short boycut hair. The Toad eased the door closed, leaving Angel in the hallway.
“Mind leaving that open?” Tony said. “I gotta keep an eye on my brother. My mom’s real strict.”
The Toad shrugged and left it a few inches ajar. “No problem,” he said. “This is Marta.”
“Nice legs,” said Tony.
Marta nodded woodenly. She did not get up. Her eyes kept flicking to the television set, perched on the bureau across the room. She was watching the “Cable Newswatch.”
“I’m Hector,” said the Toad.
“Yeah, I’m Tony Montana. Omar sent me.”
Hector gave a mock gasp. “Oh, I thought you were the guy with the pizza,” he said. He laughed, but Tony didn’t. Neither did Marta. “So, you got the money?”
“Yeah, you got the stuff?”
“Not right here,” said Hector. “I got it close by.”
“Ain’t that a coincidence?” retorted Tony. “That’s where the money is too. Close by.”
“In the parking lot?”
Tony didn’t answer. Hector seemed to get jittery all of a sudden, and he went to the door and peeked outside at Angel. He seemed satisfied that everything was quiet. He walked across the room, blocking the TV screen as he poured himself a vodka. He held the bottle up and turned to Tony, but Tony shook his head. Hector drank and said: “Where you from, Tony? Cuba?”
“What’s the difference where I’m from?”
Hector chuckled, as if Tony had told a joke. “I like to get to know a guy I’m doin’ business with,” he said.
“Well, I don’t.”
“Hey, loosen up, Tony. Marta’s got real bad nerves, don’t you, honey?” Marta said nothing. She stared at Hector’s belly, as if she could see the TV through him.
“I’ll loosen up as soon as you start doin’ business and stop fuckin’ around, Hector. Where’s the stuff?”
Hector smiled at Marta, as if he would let her answer. Suddenly Tony heard a door slamming somewhere out in the hallway. Angel shouted “Tony!” Hector leaped for the open door of the bathroom and disappeared as Tony reached down to his ankle to grab his Baretta. He spun around and reached for the door. Then he heard a click behind him. “Stop right there,” said Marta, in a voice that could have drawn blood.
Slowly Tony turned, raising his hands to the ceiling. She was holding a .44 Magnum, leveled right at his abdomen. Hector peeked out of the bathroom, saw that everything was under control, and stepped back into the room with a satisfied grin. The door was pushed open behind Tony, and two sullen Colombians shoved Angel in. They carried Ingram machine pistols with silencers. Neither one could have been older than twenty. With their straight black Indian hair cut across their ferret eyes, they muttered to Marta in swift Colombian slang. You could tell from the way they held their guns how careless they were about killing.
“Hey frog-face,” Tony sneered at Hector, “you just screwed up real bad. You steal from me, you’re dead.”
Hector snatched the Baretta from Tony’s upraised arm. He shrugged as if to say it didn’t matter, dead was all the same to him. He sounded almost bored as he spoke his ultimatum: “You gonna give me the cash, Tony, or you want me to kill your brother first? Before I kill you, that is.”
“Try sticking your head up your ass,” said Tony.
Hector shrugged again, then turned and unleashed a stream of hard Colombian slang on the two goons. One of them grabbed Angel and shoved him toward the bathroom. Angel managed to turn and give Tony a fearless look, as if to show him how tough he was. The Colombian dragged him into the bathroom, while his partner stooped beside the bureau and picked up a coil of rope. Marta opened the suitcase on the bed. Clearing away some oily rags, she pulled out a portable chainsaw.
Tony could hear the two men in the bathroom tying Angel up. Angel swore a blue streak till they muzzled him with a strip of adhesive. As Marta attached the chain, Hector returned to his drink and drained it. Nobody seemed to have anything left to say to Tony. Tony kept counting the seconds in his head, screaming inside for Manolo. One of the goons came out of the bathroom and turned up the volume on the TV set. A little blonde pork-chop on the screen was chirping the details of a major drug crackdown.
Marta handed the fully assembled saw to Hector. She then returned to the suitcase and pulled out a voltage adapter and a long extension cord. She disappeared into the bathroom. Hector followed. The goon came forward and grabbed Tony, holding his Ingram tight to Tony’s temple as he pushed him across the room. When they reached the bathroom the goons stood on either side of him, holding his arms and the guns to his head, forcing him to look.
Angel was hanging suspended from the shower bar. He dangled from the ropes like a puppet, and his legs straddled the bathtub. Though the tape covered most of his lower face, the horror was plainly visible. His eyes bugged out, and his skin was chalk white. He gave off a queer sour smell, as if the sweat that drenched his shirt came pouring right out of his gut. Hector was dead serious. He connected the voltage adapter and plugged the saw in the wall socket.
“No!” screamed Tony. “Let him go—you can have the money.”
One of the goons slapped a piece of adhesive across his mouth. He struggled and kicked, but they held him so tight he couldn’t move.
“Course we can have the money, Tony,” said Hector with maddening calm. “But I don’t like your attitude. Omar thinks he can fuck with us, don’t he? He thinks we’re a buncha spics, right?”
Then he smiled amiably and flicked the switch. The chainsaw roared in the tiny bathroom. Marta was crouched up against the wall beside the toilet, watching like a zombie as Hector approached the bathtub. Angel was having some kind of convulsion. Hector reached up with the saw and sliced his arm off at the elbow. Blood spattered all over the room, but only Hector was close enough to be doused with it. The feel of it slick on his face, sopping his shirt, seemed to fill him with exultation.
Angel dangled by one arm. Mercifully he had passed out. The other arm was still tied to the shower bar, swaying like a piece of meat on a butcher’s hook. Tony writhed with rage in the grip of the goon Colombians. The roar of the chainsaw was deafening. Hector stepped forward again, studying the body with a strangely abstract gaze. He reached to cut off the right leg, the same side as the severed arm, but then some grotesque sense of balance seemed to possess him, and he turned instead to the left leg. It took longer to cut than the arm.
When he was finished he stepped back and flicked the chainsaw off. The silence was the most awful thing just then. Hector turned and stared at Tony, who had ceased to struggle in his captors’ grip. Th
e hate in Tony’s eyes would have turned another man to stone. Though his mouth was still bound with the tape, he made it clear he would go to the end of the world to wreak his vengeance. No wonder Hector nodded at the goons to string him up. He couldn’t let Tony go now, or else he was a dead man.
The one goon stepped forward and loosened the strap that Angel swung from, and the body tumbled into the bathtub, a heap of bleeding flesh. The other goon started to bind Tony’s wrist with a length of rope. Daintily, Marta moved away from the toilet, tiptoeing as she walked across the bloody floor. She exited into the bedroom, where the TV was blaring the weather now. She turned down the volume as if she had a headache. She would turn it up again as soon as Hector was ready to cut.
Hector, meanwhile, stared at himself in the mirror above the bathroom sink. He seemed to take enormous pride in the blood that drenched him, the weapon he carried. He caught Tony’s eyes looking at him with murderous hate, and he smiled. He spoke into the mirror, almost gently: “Coke’s not for nice guys, Tony. Coke’s about blood.”
Suddenly there was the sound of a gunshot out in the hall, and the door to the room came splintering open. In the split second before Manolo opened fire on Marta, Hector’s eyes went wide with surprise as he looked in the mirror. The last thing he saw was the blaze of triumph on Tony’s face. Then everything fell apart.
Marta dove for the bed where the Magnum lay. Manolo shot twice and hit her in the eye and the abdomen, and she crashed onto the bed face-down, as if she’d suddenly got real tired. One of the goons erupted out of the bathroom, spraying the room with his Ingram, but Manolo was already crouched by the bureau and fired once, blasting the guy’s stomach and crumpling him to the floor.
