Tropic of Darkness

by Tony Richards

  It was like no dream that he had ever had. Even fast asleep, he knew that.

  First, it went completely dark inside his head. And then . . .

  There was a pair of eyes, moving in toward him through the blackness. They had hazel-colored irises, rather saddened in the way they glistened, as though on the verge of tears. They continued getting closer, larger until—by the time they stopped in front of him—they had become the size of headlamps. This was how a mouse inside a hole had to feel, being stared at by a cat.

  They studied him curiously for a while. Then finally they blinked, began to fade away.

  But they did not vanish completely. They remained faintly in the background for the whole remainder of the dream, as if they were studying his reactions.

  The darkness in its turn gave way to a warm although subdued lighting. Which revealed marble pillars, an ornate ceiling, and massive potted palms. There were tapestries on the walls, revolving fans in the ceiling, a floor so polished it reflected like the surface of a lake.

  He was in a hotel lobby, but it was not the Portughese. Instead, it was . . . the Nacional, he understood. From where?

  And then he kept wondering how he knew that. Because he’d never even seen the outside of the Nacional.

  But something else had changed as well. Something of even greater importance.

  He wasn’t Jack Gilliard any longer. His name was . . .

  Mario Mantegna . . . ?

  He turned to straighten his tie in a mirror.

  * * *

  It was a bowtie, on a stiff winged collar of the detachable type. He was wearing a tux—once again, not of any modern style. More like something from an old black-and-white movie. And the face above the collar was a good five years younger than his own. Latino and very handsome. Full and smooth and with a strong, square jaw. Black hair was slicked against his scalp. There were rings on his manicured fingers when he glanced down.

  Near the armpit, there was a distinct bulge in the fabric of his jacket. He could feel a solid weight there, and the pressure of a holster. He was carrying a gun.

  He’d never owned a gun before. Only the knife. Or had he?

  He grinned at his own reflection, pleased with the shape that he was in. And then was brought smartly around by a bellow from the far end of the lobby.

  “Mario Mantegna! Welcome to Havana, you good-looking son-of-a-bitch!”

  The stumpy figure trundling in his direction was Eddie Lanzarro. “Cold Eyes” Eddie, from Detroit. They had been friends ever since they’d jointly solved the problem of an awkward prosecutor in Seattle.

  “Mario, am I pleased to see you!”

  The man was barely five-foot-four, but the word “stocky” didn’t even begin to describe him. He was like a squat barrel of muscle with a head and limbs attached. His face, below his graying, short-cropped hair, was creased with pleasure. Except that Mario could see that his eyes were as dull and without warmth as they always were.

  They embraced each other tightly. Glancing across his shoulder, Mario saw the man had brought along four local girls.

  “Well, Jesus!” he beamed, staring at them. They were slender and sultry and quite gorgeous. “Things look like they’re as good down here as everybody says.”

  Mario waved his hand at his surroundings. “We own this place?”

  “Every inch. Meyer always did have taste.”

  “He here?”

  “Nah, tied up in Vegas for a few more days. He’ll be here though. He might even take you to meet Batista. But hell, what’re we talking business for? We’ve got a couple days clear and, trust me, you ain’t gonna believe this town. These broads are just for starters.”

  They went out to the forecourt. Piled, all six of them, into a cab and headed across into the Old Town.

  This—Jack figured, turning in his sleep—was not the present. It had to be the fifties. The vintage cars were new. The buildings of Havana were not crumbling as yet. There were fresh paintwork and bright lights everywhere he looked. And Batista was still president.

  Another era. 1958, to be exact. And how did he know that, either?

  They passed restaurants and nightclubs, strip joints and casinos. Mario couldn’t even start to take it in.

  “Sweet Jesus Christ!” He shook his head. “This place is a gold mine. Ninety miles off the coast of Florida? A boat trip, for Pete’s sake. And we’re gonna run the whole damned thing?”

  Eddie replied with a nod and a wide grin. He’d lit up a cigar and had it wedged between his large teeth while he pawed a couple of the girls.

  Everywhere that Mario looked, there was activity. Each of the restaurants was packed and the streets outside were bustling.

  They disembarked in front of a grand-looking venue and a doorman ushered them inside.

  He’d seen Eddie in strident moods before, but nothing like the way he acted in the Floridita. Shouting and demanding, bullying the waiters. Harassing and insulting them to the point where he was sure they’d snap. But they didn’t seem to dare.

  “Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of war going on down here?” Mario asked, in a lull between the yelling. “Some kind of Red making trouble for the government?”

  “Castro? That shithead?” Eddie stuffed some shrimp into his mouth. “He’s not a soldier, he’s a lawyer, for chrissakes. And when did you last meet a lawyer who could fight his way out of a paper bag?”

  “No problem, then?”

  “No friggin’ way. His ragtag little army’s pinned down in the mountains, no more than a thousand of them at the most. And Batista assures us that they’ll all be dead by Christmas. You’ll like El Presidente, kiddo. Hell, he’s pretty much like one of us.”

  The food was excellent, the surroundings luxurious. But Mario still couldn’t understand where Havana’s special reputation came from. Until the next stop on their tour.

  CUBAN SUPERMAN, read the banner above the entranceway.

  He found himself loosening his collar, his cheeks growing hot. He wasn’t a prude, God only knew, but this? Open, naked sex in front of everyone. To a paying audience, for God’s sake.

  He looked away after a while. Saw the pale, transfixed expressions of the tourists around him, the mesmerized glaze in their eyes. And in that moment, he knew what Havana’s secret really was.

  No one quite believed this town.

  Eddie gestured for the check. They’d ordered more drinks in here. The barman simply flapped his hands.

  “Compliments of the management, Señores,” he told them with a bow.

  “You see?!” Eddie shouted as they sauntered out. “We’re kings here! Friggin’ kings!”

  At this point in the dream, Jack rolled over again, mumbling.

  For a second, in the course of the dream, Eddie’s face had seemed to transform into the features of Pierre Melville. The exact same words, issuing from his mouth. Almost forty years separating the two men. But the exact same words.

  There was another cab ride through a district of tall houses and huge, bizarre-looking trees. Finally, they turned into another forecourt, slowed down to a halt. Mario could make out, through the luscious foliage, rows of colored bulbs flashing over an arched entranceway.

  This place was called the Club Karibe.

  Inside, it was practically all tourists again. They went through a hall full of gaming tables into the main section of the nightclub—it was open to the skies. And up on the stage, an act was underway.

  It was a cabaret, similar to what you saw in Vegas except blown up to a near absurd degree. Dancing girls? Well, here they were, as many of them as you could cope with. A chorus of more than a hundred black and Latina women in gold sequined costumes that showed off a great deal more than they concealed. Tall plumes of white feathers bobbed in their dark hair.

  Mario watched them for a while, impressed. But then h
is attention began to wander. The nearest of the girls that they’d brought with them had begun touching him, down low.

  He was bending to nuzzle a soft shoulder when a movement from the stage brought his head back up.

  A new dancer had appeared from the shadows at the back. Her olive skin was paler than that of the others. She was tall and slim, incredibly beautiful. In fact, the other women practically looked dowdy when compared with her.

  She had begun gyrating, body raised on tiptoe. And as Mario watched her avidly, she spun closer and closer to the front of the stage.

  His gaze drank her in.

  He was finally able to see, under the hot glare of the spotlights, that she had the most amazing hazel eyes.

  Exactly the same color—Jack realized—as those that had approached him at the start of this strange dream.

  They held Mario entranced. The rest of the nightclub seemed to fade away.

  Finally, at last, he leaned across to Eddie.

  Breathed, “I want her.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m going to have her, if it’s the last thing that I do.”

  Eddie muttered, “Who?” at him, shrugging.

  Mario looked back up at the stage.

  Glanced from side to side, trying to find the lovely dancer.

  And his jaw gaped. She was gone . . .

  * * *

  Jack woke with a piercing yell, sitting bolt upright on his bed.

  The music from outside had stopped. The room was silent and pitch black. Humid night air closed around him like a giant’s breath.

  But oddly, he felt a little cold. Rubbed at his upper arms.

  He was shivering. Why should that be? And why’d he woken so abruptly? Nothing in the dream had been particularly frightening.

  However much he turned it over in his head—and he did that for a good long while—he simply couldn’t figure it out.

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  As dawn’s light touched the suburbs, Doctor Julio Alfonsine let himself quietly out of his apartment, went down to the garage, and then headed off in the direction of work, a hospital near the center of town.

  He was freezing cold and shaking, even worse than he had been the last couple of days. And his eyes kept blurring over so that he could barely focus on the road. Thank heavens, at this early hour, there was practically no one about and the streets were clear of traffic.

  Good. That was good. He didn’t want to risk injuring anybody that he didn’t have to. But he had to put a stop to this. And if his life could not be saved, then maybe his immortal soul?

  He’d already been to confession, but knew that that was not enough. This was not only to do with spiritual things. It was actually physical, a matter of the blood.

  He’d checked himself a hundred times and found the same result. His blood was growing cooler by the hour.

  He reached an intersection with its lights red and began to slow. When suddenly, his sight failed him completely.

  He stamped hard on the brake, his hands digging into the steering wheel. And once the car had stopped, he clapped his hands to his face, pawing at his eyelids.

  Nothing changed. A perfectly seamless darkness kept on staring back at him until the man whimpered with fright.

  Then two points of brightness punctured the black, and began moving up to him. Two small dots of emerald green, like teardrops lying on their sides.

  Eyes, he could make out as they drew closer.

  Alfonsine let out a wail and shoved himself back in his seat, trying to escape them. But it did him not the slightest good, since they appeared to be inside his head.

  He moaned and struggled as they drifted up and studied him. Then they faded back. Dim outlines of the street returned, swimming gradually into focus.

  Alfonsine shuddered and mopped the sweat off his face. He stepped on the gas and sped across the intersection.

  Damn it!

  If he hadn’t felt so lonely, that night.

  If he hadn’t been so helpless under the searchlight of a lovely woman’s smile.

  And if he hadn’t gone looking for such pleasures at the Karibe club.

  * * *

  The hospital, when Alfonsine arrived, was drenched in that profound hush which precedes the start of yet another busy day. The night staff were leadenly drowsy, the patients all asleep.

  His footsteps echoed as he made his way along a corridor, Occasionally a cough or a moan would slow his progress, but he was not challenged by a single person.

  He let himself in through the door of the blood bank. Went to the refrigerator that contained his own group and opened it. And found that there was not enough stored here for his purpose. Not for a complete replacement.

  There was no point phoning round the other hospitals and getting some transferred. First of all, he would have to explain why he needed it. And second, there’d be too many people around by the time the stuff arrived.

  He propped one of his hands against a wall. Breathed deeply, trying to steady himself. He could not give up now.

  And he already had a fallback plan.

  The fellow’s name was Hector Lamazar, a construction worker, thirty-five years old and quite the picture of good health. But three weeks earlier, he’d fallen from high scaffolding. Been brought here in a coma, and was still held in its grasp.

  The man was alone in a room just down the corridor from here. And would never do anything again but lie there like a block of wood. Alfonsine had heard several of his colleagues discussing it. Lamazar had suffered brain damage too serious to reverse.

  And by fortunate coincidence, their blood types were the same.

  Perhaps Alfonsine was even doing the man a favor. He kept telling himself that as he wheeled the fellow’s bed along the passageway. It was a thought he clung onto for all that he was worth. Almost twenty years practicing medicine, saving lives. And today he was going to kill a man.

  He shoved the bed in through the swing doors of operating theatre D. Once inside, he wedged a chair against the door handles, jamming them shut. Nobody was due for several hours yet, but there was no sense taking chances.

  He drew Lamazar parallel with the operating table, merely a short gap separating them. Then he brought the transfusion apparatus over, with the necessary needles. Swabbed a spot on Lamazar’s right arm. Rolled his own sleeve up and repeated the process on his left.

  Alfonsine climbed up onto the table, pushed the needles in, and settled back. He watched the jars above him. Spurts of redness began gushing down their sides.

  This was his only hope. And as for Lamazar, the man was quite incapable of suffering. It was like passing on his sickness to a piece of stone.

  Five minutes went by. Then ten. Alfonsine remained as cold as ice, and was starting to become concerned.

  Fifteen minutes. Twenty. Maybe he had been completely wrong, and it wasn’t the blood after all.

  His eyes began to slide closed with despair.

  But then . . .

  He felt the part of his arm around the needle start to warm up just a little. His eyelids snapped wide open and he held himself as still as he could.

  A delicious new hotness began creeping down toward his fingers. Alfonsine stared over at his comatose bedfellow.

  The man’s face had taken on a deathly pallor. Every trace of color had been drawn out from his cheeks, deep gray shadows springing up beneath his eyes. He was taking on the illness like a sponge soaking up fluid.

  “Thank you, my friend,” the doctor breathed. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  The chill was subsiding throughout Alfonsine’s body. Even his head was beginning to clear. The process was more than halfway finished. Triumph started welling up in him. He had faced death and terror in their purest forms, and found a way to conquer them.

&nb
sp; At that very moment, though, an icy prickle started up in the fingertips of his left hand.

  At first, it was not much different to picking up a chilled glass. Then it struck at him far more violently.

  His fingers spasmed.

  With an abject sense of horror, Alfonsine felt the newborn chill envelop his whole left arm. Felt it swamp his shoulder blades, his neck. And plant itself like a stiletto at the center of his breastbone.

  Seconds, that was all he’d earned. A brief respite and nothing in the least bit more.

  This was hopeless, and he understood that fully now. This was utterly futile. There was only one thing left to do.

  Alfonsine steadied himself and then, raising himself on his elbows, pulled out one of the needles, letting the tubing drop away. He reached over to the man beside him. Got hold of the tube that was transferring blood and yanked it clear. No point pumping any more of the stuff into the poor guy.

  He lowered himself back onto the table, let his eyelids flutter shut. And lay there, breathing shallowly.

  His blood continued pumping through the other tube. Except that, by this time, it was splashing on the floor.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  The receptionist on the Toronto end of the line said, “I can put you through to Tom Burlington again, if you’d like?”

  “No, thank you,” Manuel Cruz replied.

  It was nine-thirty in the morning and promising to be an exceptionally hot day. And since his air conditioner was on the fritz again, he was sitting in his rolled-up shirtsleeves at his desk, a handkerchief clutched to his brow.

  “I’ve already talked to him,” Manuel said. “Is there someone who knew Francis better? Perhaps, an actual friend?”

  “We-ell, there’s Colin Petrie, I suppose,” the receptionist replied. “He and Mr. Jackson started here at about the same time.”

  “He’ll have to do, then.”

  There were eight rings on the extension before someone picked up.

  “Uh-huh?” asked a laid-back-sounding voice.

  When Manuel put down the handset a few minutes later, the day’s heat was forgotten. The atmosphere actually seemed a little cooler, if anything.