Night of the Jaguar (28 page)

One-eye shook his head in disbelief, too, but not, it seemed to Ajax, because he had been there. Krill was repeating a story he had heard many times before. “Fucking Cubans think they're white, too.”

“They do, too!” Krill laughed. “Fucking Cubans are more annoying than the gringos!”

Ajax laughed a real laugh for the first time.

“What is so funny, Martin?”

“You sound like my father. He said in Los Angeles the Mexicans treated Nicas worse than the whites did.”

“
Así es.
There you go. Your father was a wise man. Fucking Cubans are more arrogant than the gringos!”

The three of them laughed and smoked their Mexican Marlboros. In the silence that followed, they all seemed to marvel at the foolishness of Gringolandia.

“So, Martin, I remind you of your father?”

“Comandante, you certainly joke like he did. Like a true Nica.”

“And how is that?”

“Nicas make fun of everyone, but ourselves most of all.”

“Why is that? You think we are ashamed of ourselves?”

“No, Comandante. My father used to say, Nicaraguans are proud in the ‘I' but humble in the ‘We.'”

“Proud in the ‘I' humble in the ‘We.'” One-eye repeated it as he had Krill's words before.

Ajax thought he might be making some progress. He tossed his butt onto the embers, and watched it ignite its own flame and be consumed by it.

“So, Comandante, why didn't you stay in Miami?”

“Stay?” Krill seemed to drift away from the moment, as if he were looking back over his decision. He closed his eyes and Ajax imagined Krill was feeling that air-conditioning flowing over his body. “No. If I stayed there I would've been a peasant watching those malletes and Cubans buying their things. Here I am a king. A poor king. But better a poor king than a rich peasant.”

“You are very wise, Comandante.”

Ajax meant it as a compliment, but Krill didn't seem to take it that way.

“What are you doing here,
Martin
?”

“Me? I'm taking the gringo for all the money I can get!”

“God bless this cocksucker for a brother!” Krill smacked Ajax on the shoulder. “We try to do the same thing, although I think our fearless leaders do it better in Miami. Does the gringo want to solve who murdered Enrique Cuadra?”

“I think he thinks he does. He feels like he owes a debt, you know, to the country and that might be one way to repay it.”

“Does he think I killed him?”

“I don't think so.”

“Do you think I killed him?”

“I don't see why you would. Like you said, if you wanted him dead he'd be dead up here. Why would you follow him all the way to Managua to do it?”

“Yes, when I go to Managua it will only be to kill shit-eating Sandinistas, which you know Cuadra probably was.”

“You think so?”

“In his heart not his boots. He was a civilian, but his sons were piris going way back. But that old man's finca gave us coffee, rice, beans, and more. If his widow goes back to the city we lose our best store.”

“So you wouldn't want him dead?”

“Not him, Martin. Not him.”

Ajax felt the air rush out of the moment just before he heard the hammer go back on One-eye's .45.

“Comandante, I am just…”

“Yes, yes. A mule. Martin Garcia, translator and fixer.” Krill hoisted his cup, almost as if to toast something, and then emptied it onto the ground. “But we watched you before we let you find us. Out there,” Krill waved at the impervious jungle, the implacable blackness, “out there you led and the gringo followed.”

“The mule led the friar,” One-eye chanted.

“We saw that. Only when you ‘found' us did you become the mule and Connolly the friar.”

“I am not CIA.…”

“No. You're Frente Sandinista.”

“Piricuaco.”
One-eye drew out each syllable in a deadly whisper
, piri-kwa-koooo.

Only then did the hair stand up on Ajax's neck and arms. Only then did he realize that Connolly was likely already dead.

“Don't worry, Martin, we are not going to kill you.”

“Not in the dark,” One-eye chanted.

“Not in the dark.”

“Comandante…”

“No!” Krill unsheathed the knife and touched its tip to Ajax's chin, and then slowly drew lines around his face as if making a map. “No. You have not made me angry yet by talking too much. Of course, talking too little also can make me angry.” Krill sat back and studied the blade as if it held the story he wanted to tell. “We had one little piri like you. He talked too little. Have you heard of the Seventeenth Light Hunter Battalion?”

“Not really.”

“Do you know what they call themselves?”

“No.”

“‘The Whales.' Do you know why?”

Ajax nodded his head, as much as at Krill as at what fate had decreed. “Because whales eat krill,” he said.

Krill smiled and slapped his knee. “Yes! This is an educated man! Very good! Because whales eat krill, they want to eat me. But we captured a few of them. One boy was the radio man. He had all the frequencies. You can imagine how much I wanted those numbers?”

“I suppose they would be good for you to know.”

“Good for me to know. So I tell this boy, ‘Look I am not going to hurt you. Instead I will show you on your friends' bodies what I
could
do to you but won't.' Wasn't that fair?”

Several short bursts of gunfire rang out from the dark, followed by panicked commands Ajax could not quite make out. For a moment, Ajax thought he might be saved by an ambush. But neither Krill nor One-eye moved. He assumed it was Matthew's firing squad. Krill looked over his shoulder, then back at Ajax.”

“Now we are alone.”

“You kill an American.…”

“Do not make me angry, hijo de puta! I want to finish my story. So I showed this boy what I could do to him on his friends, and after some time when they were begging for death, I told the boy, do you want them to suffer or die? But he still wouldn't talk. So I let him kill his friends. One by one.” Krill made a stabbing motion over his throat and heart. “Just like that. Like your friend poor Enrique.”

“Poor Enrique,” One-eye added.

“But still,” Krill went on, “still he would not talk. And he knew what was coming for him. Do you know how we do it?”

“Torture.”

“Of course, but how?” Krill leaned in closer as he warmed to his tale. Ajax studied the sticks burning in the fire. “I was sent to Argentina for training, back in the early days before the fucking gringos took over everything. And let me tell you, those Argentines are
men
.” Krill clasped three fingers together and drew a straight line from his head to his navel, indicating these Argentine torturers were
estrechos—
proper gentlemen. “They have balls. They are proud of what they do. Do you know why I hate the gringos so much? They think everything Krill does is dirty, they are afraid they have to
clean up my mess
. Clean up? All this—” Krill spread his arm to take in not only Nicaragua's green mountain selva, but the entire world and its whorish allegiances and Cold War alliances. “All this is a dirty game to them. But to me, to Krill, it is my glory. My destiny! And those shit-eating gringos think I am dirty.
Dirty
.”

One-eye didn't repeat the word. Instead he laughed, low and deep in his chest. “Krill will clean the world.”

“Yes, hombre.” Krill patted One-eye's shoulder as he might his best hunting dog who was his only companion. “We will clean them all. Piricuacos, Soviets, Cubans, all those faggots and then those arrogant gringo sons of bitches.”

“And then we will own the malls!” One-eye spoke it like a punch line. Ajax realized One-eye was playing his part—the chorus in an oft-told tale.

Krill leaned over the fire to light another cigarette. Ajax studied his eyes, but didn't see a psychopath, only a man for whom killing is a way of life.

“What the Argentines taught me,” Krill sat back. “And this is something they learned from
history,
what they taught me is that when you are questioning a guest you tie him upside down. You know why?”

“No sleeping,” One-eye intoned.

“That's right. The blood flows to the head and the guest stays awake through all kinds of shit, like the shit we put this piri's friends through, okay? For two days he watched his friends suffer, bleed, plead. Still he didn't talk. Do you know why, Martin?”

“He had balls.”

“Enormous fucking balls! And I respect that, Communist, non-Communist, I don't care. And you know what happened when we tied him upside down?”

“Nothing. He escaped first.”

Krill's mouth dropped open; for the first time he was surprised. “A la gran puta!” He tapped One-eye's arm. “How does he know this?” Krill leaned in to study Ajax even closer. “You are not his brother. Not his father. But you know him, yes? So, Martin, you are military. Army?”

“No.”

“State Security?”

“Fuck them.”

Krill laughed out loud, a real laugh that sprayed the campfire like spittle. “Fuck them? Fuck them! You sound like me. But why? You know this boy? Did he survive his escape?”

“He's dead.”

“Ah, so you have come to revenge him?”

“No.”

“How did he die, our big-balled guest?”

“He killed his girlfriend, then a priest.”

“Really? Well, at least the priest was not his girlfriend.”

Krill slapped One-eye, but he didn't laugh, just kept his .45 pointed at Ajax.

“So, Martin, how did he die?”

“He killed himself.”

“Really?” Krill made a finger gun and pointed it at his own head. “Shot himself?”

“No. It's called ‘suicide by cop.'”

“Ah, he killed the others then made the police kill him. I have seen that in soldiers.” Krill leaned over the fire and laid a hand on Ajax's knee. “Now I see. You are the police of
suicide by police
.”

“Yes.”

“So you
have
come to revenge him?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“I want to know who murdered Enrique Cuadra.”

“Wait,
you
want to solve the murder. Not the gringo?”

“It's my job.”

“You have to come to Krill's camp, a place, my friend, from which you now
know
you will not leave, to solve one murder?”

“Yes.”

“And you think I killed him. Why?”

“Enrique found your airstrip.”

Krill and One-eye exchanged a look. To Ajax's cop eye, they didn't seem to be readying a lie.

“We know of an airstrip, more than one. But they aren't ours. What we get by air is dropped to us. So you don't think I killed Cuadra?”

“I have to eliminate suspects.”

Ajax had deliberately given Krill the word “eliminate” to play with, but he didn't. Krill didn't laugh. He didn't smile or look triumphant. He seemed to Ajax to be genuinely curious. “This whole country is a great pile of maggots.” Krill turned his knife as if lifting one wiggly worm. “And you want to pick up one maggot and say, ‘This worm offends me.' You are confused my friend. Deeply confused.”

“I have been told that before.”

“Have you ever been told you are going to die?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because you are, Martin the mule. That is why you have come to Krill's camp. To die. Maybe we can call this ‘suicide by Krill.' Tie him to a tree.”

Krill rose and One-eye produced rope and reached for Ajax's hand. Ajax had been studying the fire for some time, so he knew just which burning stick to use. It had, he reckoned, worked for Ulysses, why not him?

But One-eye was too fast. As the embers flew when Ajax ripped the stick from the fire, One-eye turned his head just enough so that the burning coal hit not the fleshy grape of the one good eye, but the rough scar tissue of the other. The burly bastard seized Ajax and leapt on top of him, roaring in pain and surging with the power of it
. Son of a bitch!
While he fought with One-eye, Ajax noticed that Krill did not come to his dog's defense. He just stood there, smiling, while his men appeared out of the dark like demons. Demons with fists like rocks and feet like logs. Ajax hoped the beating would put him out quickly, because he knew once he was upside down he would never lose consciousness.

2.

There is a certain release in pain. Pain that is not mere discomfort. Ajax had learned in the mountains that men could be driven mad by too much rain, too little food, or too much illness. But he had never seen a severely wounded man lose his sanity. In those cases you simply gave in to the pain, surrendered to it. Like a drowning man who capitulates to the water—you would live or die, but not go insane.

Ajax was like that now. He had not lost consciousness during the beating, but he'd been able to protect himself. His balls were not swollen and his teeth still felt all in place. But the pain was everywhere else. Like a heat rising from his feet, up each leg, in all the muscles and joints and bones all the way up to his face. He could taste blood in his mouth. He let it pool there and then slowly spat it out. Sitting against the tree they'd finally bound him to was perhaps the worse discomfort. The shrapnel in his coccyx felt as if it had been driven deep into the bone and sitting on it drove a slow stream of pain up his spinal cord into his brain. Once there, Ajax pretended to suck the pain out of his head through the cuts inside his mouth. As the blood filled it, he imagined himself spitting out the pain.

It actually helped. The spurting noise was the only sound in the dark camp. So he didn't fight the pain, didn't fight the knots. He just rested his head against the tree, looked at the half moon risen over his head, and spit blood. At first he'd just wanted to keep it off himself. Then he'd noticed the flat top of a buried stone between his legs and he'd aimed for that. He was hitting it pretty good when a memory floated home to him. Years ago, during the final offensive, his column had been halted outside of Matagalpa. Rhino had joined them by then, and one quiet afternoon he had stumbled out of the bushes, fumbling with his fly, practically screaming, “
A la cachimba!
”—the Nicaraguan version of “Eureka!”