King Bongo

by Thomas Sanchez

  She set her cocktail glass down with a sharp clink. “What are you staring at?”

  Bongo couldn’t reveal that he was trying to look down her dress, to finally determine if she was the naked blonde he had seen on the movie screen.

  “I was, ahh … just admiring your pendant.”

  “Guy gave it to me.” She caressed the diamond with her slender fingers. “It was a wedding present.”

  “Generous.”

  “He was generous with what he had.”

  “So I hear.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Bongo didn’t want to speak ill of a man to his widow.

  “Answer me,” she demanded. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Bongo pulled out his Luckys and his Zippo. “I was wondering,” he said, lighting up, “do you by any chance have three moles on your breast?”

  “What!”

  “On your left breast?”

  Mrs. Armstrong blushed. She glanced around to see if anyone had overheard, then looked back at him. “What if I do?”

  Bongo smiled, but said nothing.

  “Should I open the top of my dress right here in public? Would that satisfy your curiosity?”

  “I’m not asking that.”

  “Then what are you asking?”

  “Who are you?”

  Mrs. Armstrong lowered her voice. “You should know, since you had me.”

  “I’m not sure that I did.”

  Bongo couldn’t tell her that he thought he had seen her in a theater in a blue movie. Or that he had seen her husband in the same theater, arguing with the now dead university student. For Bongo, she remained more of a mystery than her husband. At least there was a possible explanation for her husband’s having been in the theater with the student. Perhaps they were secretly plotting against the government. What more innocuous place to meet than in a darkened movie theater filled with guys watching raunchy stag films?

  Mrs. Armstrong leaned across the table, the bright diamond orb swinging between her breasts. “If it wasn’t me you had, then who was it?”

  “I think I’m the one who’s been had.”

  Bongo stared at the diamond glittering provocatively. He recalled her slippery body in his arms in the water, her breath coming into his mouth as she kissed him. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited. How long I’ve been without.”

  Mrs. Armstrong gave a curt smile. “I think I know what’s on your mind.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “Someone from the government visited me after Guy’s accident.”

  Bongo’s spine stiffened. “What was his name?”

  “Zapata, like the Mexican revolutionary.”

  “Zapata, like the lake in Cuba.”

  The waiter reappeared. “May I offer another round?”

  “No,” Mrs. Armstrong said. “I’m about to leave.”

  “And the gentleman?”

  “I’ll have another rum and Coke. Hold the Coke.”

  “Right away, sir.” The waiter bowed and left.

  “This Zapata character,” Mrs. Armstrong continued, “he told me Guy was not who he appeared to be. He said when Guy was a student, he dropped out of Harvard to fight the fascists in something called the Lincoln Brigade.”

  “You would have known if he had.”

  “I knew that Guy left Harvard for a year to knock around Europe.”

  “Some knocking around, fighting in the Spanish Civil War.”

  “Zapata also said that Guy was involved in trying to overthrow the Cuban government, that he had a perfect cover, being married to me.”

  “He was hardly someone you’d think had Communist tendencies.”

  “Who said he was a Communist?”

  “Many who fought against Franco were.”

  “No, Guy was an idealist.”

  “Not to Zapata.”

  “He said Guy was using my money to fund his activities. I never asked Guy how he spent my money. He had expensive hobbies—race cars, polo ponies, yachts.”

  “Overthrowing governments, that’s some hobby.”

  “You’re being sarcastic. You think he was a dilettante meddling in affairs down here.”

  “Hardly a dilettante. He thought everything through with great care.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Bongo reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out an envelope. “This is why I asked you to meet me here.”

  Mrs. Armstrong opened the envelope and pulled out a check. Her eyes widened in astonishment. “What is this?”

  “A half million dollars.”

  “For what?”

  “It’s from my insurance company. Your husband took out a life insurance policy with me shortly before he died. You’re the sole beneficiary.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would he want me to have another half million? He knew I didn’t need it.”

  “I think that’s why. He wanted to show you he could give something back. He wanted to show that he loved you.”

  Mrs. Armstrong fell silent.

  Bongo saw something he had thought he would never see. From the blue sky of her eyes, two tears fell.

  “The rich,” Bongo said, “get richer.”

  Mrs. Armstrong raised her wet eyes and glared with contempt. “And the poor get poorer.”

  She put the check in her purse, snapped it shut and pushed back her chair.

  “One last thing.” Bongo stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. “I know you don’t think I’m a very complicated crossword puzzle.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So help me with your puzzle. Zapata told me about the university professor.”

  “What university professor?”

  “The one Zapata killed because he was my sister’s lover. The one you were screwing behind your husband’s back.”

  Mrs. Armstrong sat very still, barely breathing.

  “Everything about you is a lie,” Bongo said. Then he twisted the knife. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited. How long I’ve been without.”

  Her blue eyes took on a starkly strange expression. He didn’t know if she was going to scream or hit him.

  “I wanted you,” she said coldly, “and I had you.”

  “Simple as that?”

  “Simple American efficiency.”

  “Such a cruel culture.”

  “The professor was a two-timer. No one does that to me. I saw you on New Year’s Eve at the Tropicana playing the bongos. Then I saw your sister dancing onstage. The two of you were fascinating, the exact opposite of each other, yet identical.”

  “So I was the revenge on your lover?”

  “Yes.”

  “And having me follow your husband was a ruse?”

  “You got paid, in more ways than one.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Jesus had nothing to do with it. It’s love and war.” Mrs. Armstrong stood up. “Have a nice life in paradise.”

  Bongo watched her walk away, untouchable in her sunny-with-money world, where no shadow of regret lingered. He thought, it really is true about the rich: marry them, fuck them, or kill them.

  4.

  Asylum

  A long the Malecón the chaos of Carnival ruled. The night shook with a rumba roar and throbbed to a conga beat as outrageously flower-bedecked floats rolled down the broad boulevard, surrounded by thousands of gyrating people. Men in leopard thongs swung immense lanterns before them, prancing defiantly with iron slave collars around their necks. Nearly naked females, draped in provocative strips of velvet, satin and sequins, dueled one another with tricky dance steps. Giant papier-mâché gods and devils danced duets to the thrill of cheering spectators.

  Bongo watched the dancers and floats passing by in raucous procession, celebrating freedom from a colonial enslavement that still stung with the harsh memory of its whip. All the neighborhood and religious organizations of Havana were para
ding. This was the night that the true royalty of the people, the Queen of the Carnival, reigned supreme.

  Black men on white horses galloped in front of Bongo. Huge plumes of white peacock feathers nobly crowned the heads of the men, their skin sparkled with gold glitter. Chasing the men was a twenty-foot-tall slave master in a white suit and white top hat. The monster stomped along as women cursed it and children screamed in panic, then he stopped, throwing fistfuls of candy at the suddenly gleeful onlookers.

  The crowd’s hysteria grew and Bongo knew that royalty was close. A marching band came into view, blaring the beat of an infectious rhythm. Behind the band, the Royal Float glided forward. Atop it, on a throne surrounded by hundreds of orchids rioting with exotic blooms, was the voluptuous Queen in a strapless sequined gown, waving and blowing kisses to her cheering subjects.

  Behind the Royal Float emerged a line of women in billowing white dresses and white bandannas around their heads. The women chanted a shrill chorus: “He who plants the seeds of love will harvest love,” as they swept the street ceremoniously with palm fronds, preparing the way for men paying homage to Saint Lazarus. The men wore tattered rags and held on to leashed dogs that symbolically guided the way from the world of the dead to the living. The men shouted promises of penance for their sins and pleaded loudly with prayers for miraculous medical cures.

  Bongo pushed through the crowd to get closer to the women in white. He fell into step with them as they sang and swept, trying to get a clear look at their faces. One of them looked up from her sweeping.

  “It’s you!” Bongo shouted.

  The woman dropped her palm frond and ran. Bongo chased after her, but he lost sight of her in the crush of people. He kept going until he broke free of the crowd and a side street opened up. At the end of the street, he saw the woman running. When he got there, she was gone. Three streets branched off in different directions. Bongo quieted his heavy breathing, listening. Footsteps echoed back from one of the streets. He ran in that direction, following the street as it narrowed between dilapidated Colonial houses, then passed beneath a stone arch and abruptly ended.

  Bongo stopped, staring out at the flat water of the bay. Wedged in among shipping docks was a weather-beaten wooden shack. The tinny sound of jukebox music came from inside, scratching at the night. He took a deep breath and walked toward the shack.

  Bongo threw open the door into the Three Virgins. The usual throng of muscular men in sleeveless T-shirts sized him up; some tried to block his way, others tried to catch his eye with a challenging stare. He only had eyes for the woman in white sitting at the far end of the long bar. He pushed onto the stool next to her.

  Sweet Maria turned to Bongo. She was breathing hard and sweating. She gulped beer from a glass, then wiped foam from her lips. Her voice was sultry deep. “Honey, you must really want me.”

  “I do.”

  “You were giving such a good chase, I thought, why not let the poor boy catch me.”

  “You’ve been hard to catch.”

  “Don’t think you’re the only one trying. That viper with the mustache has been after me. He went door to door in my neighborhood, threatening people. But they wouldn’t talk.”

  “I knew they wouldn’t. That’s why I didn’t go.”

  “You never would have found me there.”

  “So why let me catch you now?”

  “I know what you’re after.”

  “What?”

  “Your sister.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know a thing.”

  Bongo opened his coat, exposing his holstered gun. “I thought maybe I could impress you.”

  Maria batted her eyelashes. “That doesn’t impress me.”

  “What?”

  “Your rod.”

  “You’ve seen bigger?”

  “You can’t imagine.”

  Bongo smiled. “That’s not what I had in mind.” He reached inside his coat, unbuttoned a pocket and pulled out a glass jar. He set the jar on the counter.

  The color drained from Maria’s face.

  “This spider is from the Tropicana,” Bongo said in a flat voice. “You didn’t kill it on New Year’s Eve. It’s come back to take its revenge and give you the bite of death.”

  Maria stared at the large white spider inside the jar, its gnarly legs attempting to climb up the glass wall. She hurriedly made the sign of the cross. “Santa Barbara, save me.”

  “You can’t outrun this spider. It will get you, unless you tell the truth.”

  “I can’t tell you where she is.”

  “Look closely.” Bongo held the trapped creature up in its glass prison in front of Maria’s face. “Tell me, is this spider crying or smiling?”

  Maria stared in horror at the tropical albino spider larger than a tarantula. She pleaded, “I tried to warn you of what was going to happen. I knew you were your sister’s brother.”

  “Is it crying or smiling?”

  “Every New Year’s Eve, Zapata takes the same table at the Tropicana to watch your sister dance. He sits with his back to a banyan tree so no one can shoot him from behind. Only his two goons are at the table, protecting him against assassins coming from the front. Your sister brought the basket of flowers with the hidden bomb to his table before her show started.”

  “My sister! Christ, I never suspected her!”

  “Neither did Zapata.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “A dancer who was jealous of your sister, she told the Judge something was going to happen to Zapata. The Judge got Zapata out, but the bomb was still there. We didn’t want innocents hurt, so one of our people brought the basket to another table and defused the bomb beneath the flowers.”

  “Who did that?”

  “Mercedes. But she didn’t disconnect the right wires. Minutes later the bomb exploded.”

  Bongo stared intensely at the white spider struggling inside the glass. In his mind’s eye he saw Mercedes standing in her shiny gold satin dress, jasmine blossoms woven into the braided crown of her hair, her smile joyous as she waved to him across the room to join her. He still heard the crowd, chanting the countdown to the midnight blast that shattered his world.

  Bongo shook his head, scattering the terrible memory. He gazed at Maria. “This is your last chance.” He screwed off the jar lid and flipped the jar upside down. The enormous spider thumped onto the top of the bar. “Answer me. Is this spider crying or smiling?”

  “Don’t let it kill me.”

  “Where’s my sister?”

  The spider pumped up on gnarly legs and crawled toward Maria. She froze in fear.

  Bongo brought his fingers down around the spider, forming a cage. In a blur, his fingers began drumming.

  “Stop!” Maria pleaded. “Don’t drum that rhythm!”

  “You know it?”

  “It’s the rhythm of the sorcerer! It’s the serpent’s tongue, it’s the evil call in the blood!”

  Bongo’s fingers flew faster, confusing the creature in its confined space. “If my fingers miss and crush this spider, its spirit will crawl into the mouth of your dreams and poison you.”

  “Your sister’s not smiling!” Maria gasped. “She’s crying!”

  “Where?”

  “In the asylum of Saint Lazarus.”

  “Which one?”

  “Saint Lazarus of the Lepers.”

  “Lepers! Why with the lepers?”

  “No one would think to look there.”

  Bongo stopped drumming. He scooped up the spider, placed it in the jar and screwed the lid tight.

  Maria’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t betray anyone, did I?”

  “No. You’re a good woman.”

  “You really mean that? You really think I’m a woman?”

  “The best kind.”

  Maria placed her hand on Bongo’s cheek and tenderly caressed him. “Be careful, honey. Zapata wants you dead.”

  Tropical dawn streaked the sky as Bongo aimed
the Rocket up a road ascending a steep hill. At the summit, he cut the engine and got out, standing before an old circular fountain surrounded by angels. The angels resembled gargoyles more than celestial spirits, their granite faces and wings knocked off long ago. Bongo turned and gazed up at the high stone facade of a seventeenth-century convent, its window shuttered. The convent’s thick wooden door bristled with iron spikes. Bongo pulled a rope hanging next to the door. A bell clanged, but the door remained closed. He yanked the rope harder; still no one came. He went back to the Rocket and honked its horn. After the sharp blast all was quiet again, with only the gurgle of water spouting from faceless angels.

  Bongo looked back at the monolithic stone convent. He knew his sister was inside. He decided to crash the Rocket through the formidable door. As he turned to get into the car, the convent door creaked open on iron hinges. A specter appeared in the doorway, draped in a gray cloak, the top of its head covered by a tall conical hat with a wide brim flaring out like the wings of a prehistoric bird. In the shadow of the brim, lips murmured, “This is an asylum. Honor the silence.”

  “I’m looking for a young woman. She was brought here New Year’s Day.”

  “There’s no one here like that.”

  “I’ll see for myself.”

  Bongo pushed past the specter and into the convent. More specters rushed at him from long hallways, the winged brims of their hats flapping as they surrounded him.

  A specter stepped forward. “Stay out! This is a holy place of healing. Saint Lazarus protects us.”

  “I understand,” Bongo answered respectfully. “I too am a faithful follower of Saint Lazarus. I have prayed to the saint for a cure.”

  The specter gazed skeptically at Bongo. “What promise of penance did you declare, for the saint to cure you?”

  “I promised Saint Lazarus that if he delivered my sister to me, I would kill the devil of darkness.”

  “To kill is a mortal sin resulting in eternal damnation.”

  “Yes, that is the highest penance of all.”

  The specters all turned their backs against Bongo, murmuring urgently, their heads bobbing beneath the flapping brims of their hats. They suddenly fell silent. One of them turned. “What you say is true. But we cannot allow you to commit a mortal sin in the name of a promise to Saint Lazarus. You must leave.”