King Bongo

by Thomas Sanchez

  The up-tempo notes of “Tropical Lies” swished through the air. The music’s mood was the exact opposite of Bongo’s. He poured more rum from his bottle of Bacardi. Tropical truth? What the hell was the truth anyway? The morning newspapers were full of the Tropicana bombing. Of course the speculation, if not outright accusation, was that the bombing was the work of revolutionaries. Hadn’t they been setting off bombs all around the city? Nothing new in that.

  It was Bongo’s job to be skeptical. He was an insurance investigator and, for the right price, a private dick. Stenciled in bold black letters on the frosted glass of his office door was KBII, which stood for “King Bongo Insurance and Investigations.” Above the bold initials was also stenciled GREAT TROPICAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY. It was common sense, you had to insure it to investigate it. So the investigator in Bongo got to thinking, between the drumbeats on the radio and the throbbing in his temples. In fact, that bomb could have been planted by rebels, or by those who wanted everyone to think it was the rebels, or by the Giant of the Tropicana to collect the insurance money. Tropical lies, tropical truth. Who was to know? Who was to care? Bongo cared. Mercedes was dead and his sister was missing. He blamed himself.

  He heard high-heeled shoes on the staircase outside the door. It sounded like Mercedes when she came to visit him. He must be hallucinating. He took another swig of rum and let it burn a little reality into him, but he still heard the footsteps. He could always tell the footsteps of a woman in high heels, his ears were tuned to that. As a percussion man he knew the distinctive beat of each female, for each laid down a different beat as she walked, each had her own rhythm. This rhythm sounded like Mercedes. But Mercedes was dead.

  Bongo got up and switched the radio off. The refrain of “Tropical Lies” abruptly stopped, and so did the footsteps outside the closed door. Maybe it was just the damn pounding in his head. He was sorry the footsteps had stopped. Could it have been Mercedes? Could last night have been only a nightmare? Perhaps he was just waking up. Then again, maybe last night really did happen and Mercedes was miraculously alive, Mercedes was walking.

  He forced himself to think about something else. Had the Giant of the Tropicana bombed his own club to collect the insurance, knowing the rebels would be blamed and nobody would suspect him? Not a bad scheme; many businesses were using it during these unsettled times. But if the Giant was responsible it meant he was also placing his greatest assets at risk—the dancers, especially the most famous of all, the Panther. Whatever the truth was, the Giant’s insurance company would have to pay him off, and after it did it would drop him. Insurance companies play the odds; after one loss, they cut and run as standard practice. Which meant Bongo could sell the Giant a new policy. It would have to be a very expensive policy, given the recent history, but that was justified considering the risk. To have the world-famous Tropicana as a client, now that would provide some good word of mouth, some serious stature, which was what Bongo needed. He liked this line of reasoning, and the rum helped him along with it. The rum made him think that fairly soon now the bearded boys in the mountains would all be shot, the bombing would stop, and things would go back to cockeyed normal.

  The footsteps began again.

  The sound of high heels clicking on the tile floor outside was different this time. Maybe it was because the sound was closer, coming from the hallway just beyond the door. Bongo stiffened and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. The different beat he heard was imprinted in his blood. It was the beat of the Panther. He leapt up, raced to the door and threw it open.

  But it wasn’t his sister. The beat of his headache had thrown his timing off. Or could it be that the woman standing before him now moved to the same beat as his sister? Impossible. This woman was white, white as a hen’s egg, white as a fish’s belly, white as a lily. White, rich and American. She was dressed from head to toe in such an up-to-date style that it looked like someone had ripped a life-sized page out of Vogue magazine and propped it up. What was she doing here on New Year’s Day, or any day? She belonged across town in Miramar, in the Country Club district, the Beverly Hills of Havana, where the gardens were the lushest, the mansions the fanciest, and the sun always shone gold. But here she was, in a white linen suit, crowned by a white mohair hat with a white peacock feather. Even her voice sounded white.

  “Are you going to ask me in?”

  Bongo was immobile, like a fly just zapped by the tongue of an albino lizard.

  “Are you the insurance agent? The sign on the door says ‘Great Tropical Life.’ ”

  He felt his senses returning. Bam-bam went the headache throbbing between his ears; boom-boom went the rum drum in his brain. Usually he made the first move with females, led the way, danced the first step, but not this time. She gave him a smile that gleamed as big and bright as the chrome grille on a Cadillac Eldorado.

  “Are you open for business or not?”

  “Sure … yeah, well, come in.”

  She walked in and imperiously sat in the shabby rattan chair in front of his desk.

  Bongo closed the door and sat down behind the desk. Self-consciously clearing his throat, he slipped the half-empty rum bottle off the desktop and into a drawer. He knew who she was. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Armstrong?”

  She crossed her long legs. Her silk stockings were white; her high-heeled shoes were white suede. “Tell me, exactly what line of business are you in?”

  “I’m, uh, an insurance salesman, an insurance adjuster, an insurance investigator. Property, fire, theft, accident.”

  “You must be very successful. The roads of Cuba are simply murderous. You can make a tidy living on auto accidents alone. There are more automobile accidents per capita in Cuba than in any other place in the world. People are just crazy on these roads.”

  “You’re very knowledgeable about the conditions of our roads and drivers.”

  “I have to be. I’m paying a fortune to insure my three cars here. More than I pay for my five cars in Newport.”

  “Let’s just say that in Cuba driving is considered a sport.”

  “A blood sport. Spain has its bullfights, Cuba has its highways.”

  “So you want to switch insurance companies?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe you’re in the market for home insurance? You get a discount if you have a police panic light on top of your house.”

  “You mean those lights outside on your roof that flash when you push a button next to your bed if you’re being robbed at night?”

  “Robbed or … anything.”

  “I’ve got five of them.”

  “Must be a big house.”

  “Depends on what you’re used to.”

  Her thin nostrils pinched in as she took a deep breath. As she exhaled, the linen fabric of the stylish short jacket covering her breasts rustled with the sound of leaves caught in a breeze. “Is that vanilla I smell?”

  “Could be.”

  Her eyes swept the desktop and she saw a small potted orchid. She got up and came toward Bongo at the desk, bent over and put her face close to the flower. Then she sat on the edge of the desk as if sitting sidesaddle on a horse, an aristocratic pose. She reached up and removed her hat, then unpinned the diamond clip in her blond hair and shook her hair loose.

  Bongo could smell her perfume. It was distinct, like crushed roses and leather, with the same exciting rush as the scent of a new car’s interior.

  He could swear she was jealous of the orchid, competing with its beauty and fragrance. Nothing, nothing in the room was going to be more sublime than she was.

  “What variety is this?” she asked.

  “Just a small Madagascar baby. Vanilla is made from its pods. I once had a different orchid with a powerful cinnamon perfume. No one could compete with her.”

  “No one? What was her name?”

  “Vanda dearei.”

  “Is that the one I saw you carrying into the Tropicana last night?”

  Bongo was surprised. He h
adn’t been certain if she had seen him when she and her husband nearly ran him down in their Cadillac. So much for Cuba’s murderous roads. “You saw me last night?”

  “I most certainly did.” She leaned closer, her blond hair framing her face. “And I saw you earlier, playing the drums.”

  “Bongos. Playing the bongos.”

  “You were good. Do you often get up and play with the band?”

  “When the music moves me.”

  “The crowd loved it.”

  “And you? What kind of music do you like?”

  “Love songs, like Peggy Lee and Johnnie Ray sing. You probably haven’t heard them.”

  “I might. We get the American stations here.”

  “You would know them if you heard them.”

  “So what do they sound like?”

  “A warm bath. A warm bath filled with tears.”

  “And what does my music sound like?”

  She gazed down at his hands, where his fingers had been tapping on the desktop the whole time they had been talking. “To me it’s not like music when you play. It’s like … urgency. As if you’ve got something important to say but you’re not quite certain how to do it. You’re searching, sending out a signal, trying to connect.”

  “That’s quite an analysis. I was only playing the bongos.”

  “You were doing more than that. I could see it.”

  A familiar image flashed through Bongo’s mind. He was seven years old, standing next to his sister, both nearly naked. Their father stood behind them, slapping the beat onto their shaved heads with his open palms. Whack-whack-thwack-thwack-thwack! All the neighbors gathered around, fascinated, passing the rum bottle back and forth as his father sang, “The Bongo has two heads, man and woman, hate and love, war and peace, Christianity and Santería! Those heads are always at odds, tricking you into thinking they are two and not ONE! It is up to you to communicate the message of unity, so the body can dance and the spirit come! The Bongo is the same drum!” Thwack-thwack-whap-ditty-do-dap-whack!

  Bongo looked into Mrs. Armstrong’s blue eyes. “I’m not certain whether I’m playing the bongos … or they’re playing me.”

  “It really is exceptional.” She pressed her hands over his to stop his incessant drumming on the desktop.

  “Not so exceptional here. Cubans are very musical. It’s in the blood. Some people say it’s even in the food.”

  “If it were in the rice and beans,” she laughed, “then all of Latin America would be musical.”

  “We have a few more things on the menu than that.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Is that so? What? Pork and fried bananas?”

  “I don’t think you’re able to taste what we cook.”

  “Don’t get testy. Be nice.” She removed her hands from his. “Sometimes I have my maid cook Cuban dishes.”

  “That’s the problem. She’s cooking for you, not her family.”

  “You seem so sure of yourself.”

  “I’m certain about food and music.”

  “I’m not so sure, if you haven’t heard Peggy Lee or Johnnie Ray. And have you ever eaten anything other than Cuban food?”

  “My father was American. He met my mother when he was stationed at Guantánamo Bay. I went to college in America.”

  She seemed amused. “Where would someone like you go to college?”

  “University of Miami.”

  “That’s not exactly Harvard.”

  “I didn’t exactly want to go to Harvard.”

  “What did you major in, sunshine?”

  “Sunshine with a minor in gangsters.”

  “My, you’re good.”

  “If you want to check out my credentials, there’s a diploma behind me.”

  She gazed at a framed document on the wall. “An English major! My God, now that’s flying with the eagles. You know, I never understood how people in America could major in something called English; it’s what they already speak and know. It would be like someone in China getting a major in Chinese. Does that make any sense?”

  “I take it you don’t have much use for colleges.”

  “My people founded them. Why should I go to them? There’s too much life to be lived.”

  “You’re right, there’s too much life to be lived.”

  “Why did you leave Miami?”

  “Miami is dying. The great hotels are being turned into old-age homes, or worse, catering to families with kids. The suburbs are bigger than the city. It’s not like Havana. Havana has history, five hundred years of history. Havana has a center as elegant as any city in Europe. It has a heart, it has an identity. It’s booming with new businesses, new hotels. Grand boulevards are being laid out, grand schemes are in the works. There’s opportunity here. Havana is the future.”

  “A future with broken sewers,” she said sarcastically. “And water that’s unfit to drink and phones that almost never work.”

  “You take the good with the bad. Havana has opera, it has theater, it has glamour.”

  “So do London, New York, and Paris.”

  “London, New York, and Paris don’t have sun twelve months of the year.”

  “You sure are a cocky boy.”

  “I just have my own way of seeing the world.”

  “So what are you seeing now?” She laid the gaze of her blue eyes on him, a haughty challenge.

  “I see that people walk into my office for all kinds of reasons. Some want to insure their business, their car, or their life. Others want me to do a little investigating on the side, since that’s part of my business too, though it’s hardly enough to pay the bills. People walk through that door when they need help. They’ve lost their pet, their money, their—”

  “—husband.”

  For the first time she looked vulnerable. All that pale white skin didn’t look so plush now, merely common.

  Her voice started to tremble. “I was told I could trust you. You sell insurance mostly to the Americans, British, and Canadians, the ABC community; the country club set, the foreign movers and shakers. You’re the only one in Havana who specializes in that world, knows its secrets, all its little nooks and crannies. More importantly, you’re part of the Cuban world. You are unique. You are the only one I can come to.”

  “If your husband is lost, he must have gotten lost between last night and today, because I saw him at the Tropicana last night in the Cadillac with you.”

  “I didn’t say we weren’t still together. But he’s gone, gone from me, gone from the marriage.”

  “I can’t help you, then.”

  “I want you to find out why he’s lost to me. Then I can work on getting him back.”

  Here it comes, Bongo thought. She wants a tail on the husband to find him cheating, then, bam-bam, Bongo takes the incriminating photos, she sues for divorce, and the rich get richer.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” She placed her hand over his again to stop his fingers from tapping on the desk. “But this isn’t some simple divorce case. My husband did go to Harvard. But he’s not the one with the money. I’m the one who pays all the bills. It’s not money I want, it’s answers.”

  Now Bongo got it. Simple, really. It was about pride. She couldn’t imagine any man walking away from her body, her position, her dough, the whole perfumed aura of her life. He didn’t like the deal. It stank.

  She got up from the desk and sat back down in the shabby rattan chair, exasperated. “Are you going to help me?”

  Her husband, Guy Armstrong, had walked through Bongo’s office door no more than three months before, had sat in the same rattan chair. He had negotiated a very substantial policy on his own life with his wife as beneficiary. If Armstrong wanted money he would have taken out a large policy on her life with himself as beneficiary. Bongo remembered asking Armstrong, an athletic man, a picture of American health, “Why take out such a large policy?” Armstrong had smiled at him, with that big American car-grille smile he and his wife both had, and answered, “Life is
a game of polo.”

  Mrs. Armstrong snapped her alligator purse open and pulled out a checkbook. “I can make it worth your while.”

  Maybe she was on the square. Maybe he was being too harsh. After all, these Americans celebrated Christmas just like Cubans, some of them, anyway.

  She wrote out a check. Her fingers were slender. Her perfectly polished fingernails were the same pink color as the throat of a lovebird when it lifted its small head to preen for its mate. Her handwriting was as elegant as the amount she wrote down on the check—five hundred dollars.

  “This should cover your time and expenses.” She slid the check across the desk.

  Bongo saw himself paying his rent. He saw himself betting on baseball, the horses, the dogs, the lottery. He saw orchids. Fields of orchids. All Vanda dearei. Precious Vanda dearei.

  He grinned. “I’m your man.”

  “I’m not looking for a man. I’m looking for a service.”

  “That’s the American way, isn’t it?”

  “You know”—she uncrossed her legs and stood to leave—“you’d better be careful that the American half of you doesn’t get the upper hand.”

  “I’m watching that.”

  “I’m sure you are.” She went to the door and opened it, then turned to him. “By the way, how many languages do you speak?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “Two?”

  “Three.”

  “Spanish and English. What’s the third?”

  “Music.”

  “My, my.” She smiled. “Aren’t you the one-man band.” She closed the door behind her.

  Bongo pulled the bottle of rum from the drawer and took a good stiff belt. The sharp afternoon light shot down through the slats of the window louvers and cut across his desk. The scent of Mrs. Armstrong’s perfume lingered in the air, faint but insistent, a competitive reminder. He recalled the scent of the Vanda dearei he once held in his hands, now blown away in the Tropicana blast. The big-band rhythm of “Tropical Lies” came back to him, reverberating in his mind. He drummed the music’s percussive beat with his fingers next to the orchid on the desk. The rum was busy with its buzzing performance in his head. He drummed harder. He inhaled the scent of the orchid mixed with Mrs. Armstrong’s lingering perfume; tropical truth tangled with tropical lies.