Voodoo Eyes (36 page)

Max decided to stop. In a wooded area, he turned off at a byway and parked near a grove.

The sky had clouded over, the air was weighted with the smell of brewing rain, and on the western horizon lightning streaks were flailing at the earth, as if softening it up for the downpour. Swirls of fireflies clustered in the dark, tracing thick figure-eights in green and yellow embers, before disappearing in a sharp buzz. Tentative drops of rain landed on the roof.

Benny woke up and yawned, and then gasped as he accidentally pulled at the stitches.

Max closed his eyes, looking for sleep, but he couldn’t find it. He was too wired and too beat to relax.

‘Can I ask you question?’ Benny said.

‘Go ahead.’

‘Have you ever be in love?’

‘Kind of question’s that?’

‘I’m curious. You so angry people, so fill with hate. I can no imagine you happy.’

‘I was happy with my wife. I loved her. A lot,’ said Max grudgingly, wishing he hadn’t. Exhaustion had lowered his defences.

‘She leave you?’

‘Funny,’ said Max. ‘No. She died.’

‘You still wear marry ring.’

‘Reminds me of her.’ He looked at his hand. The ring was a little looser on his finger. He could turn it around freely. He’d lost weight.

‘You no’ remarry?’

Max saw Tameka again, her dark skin and the sexy severity of her face, the rose tattoos on her breast, ankle and hand. He’d been close to popping the question –
real
close. ‘No.’

‘You have girlfriend in Meeyami?’

‘No.’

‘Is no surprise.’

‘Go fuck yourself.’

Benny chuckled.

‘What about you?’ Max yawned. ‘You been in love?’

‘One time, yes. Big,
big
passion,’ said Benny. ‘It was Russian man. Wladimir.’

‘When was this?’

‘Long, long time. He was big, beautiful man. Outside and inside. Kind, generous. The
best
!’ said Benny. ‘It was good when the Russian in Cuba. Everyone have the food, the clothe, the soap. Everything function. But the Russian peoples, they no’ nice. They
snob.
They
racista.
They no’ mix with the Cuban peoples. They no’ learn
Espanol.
They have they own school for the children, speak just the Russian. They have they restaurant, they club, they gym. All is separate. All is just for they. The writing in all they building is Russian. Wladimir was no’ like they. Him different. So intelligent. He love the Cuba culture.’

‘So what happened?’

‘We together for one year. Then – like that – him go. I no’ know where. He no’ say nothing to me. He just go,’ said Benny, his voice clotting. ‘At the beginning, I no’ understand. I have confusion. Then a friend tell me, the Russia government is like we government. They no’ like homosexual. So I suppose, they find out about him and me. And him get transfer. Maybe they kill him. I no’ know.’

‘Sad story,’ said Max, but he didn’t find it sad at all, because he only half-believed it – if that. Benny was mid-thirties at the most, so he would have been a teenager when the Russians left Cuba. He claimed he’d been married and worked as a cook, but now Max was thinking that was bullshit, that he’d been a hustler all his life. Maybe the story about the camp had been a crock too. But what did he care? Tomorrow, with any luck, he’d be rid of Benny. After the town of Las Tunas, they’d come to a fork in the road. One way went towards Guantánamo and the Wetback Express, the other to Santiago de Cuba, the Dascals and – maybe – Vanetta Brown. Max was going to put Benny on a bus in Las Tunas.

‘My heart it break. But is OK now. Is fix,’ said Benny. ‘I think peoples have three love – first love, then love for life and then the last love. Wladimir was my first love. So I think, in Meeyami, maybe I find the love of my life.’

‘There’s no love in Miami,’ said Max. ‘Just people using people, and people getting used by people.’

‘I no’ believe you. I think you heart break when you wife dead. I think you see the world through you tears. You no’ stop cry for her.’

Max thought about what he’d said and how almost right he was. ‘You’re not just a pretty face, are you, Benny?’

‘You think I
pretty?’

‘Figure of speech. It means you’re not as fucken’ dumb as you look.’

Max slept, but it was shallow, broken sleep. He kept ducking in and out of consciousness, snapping into wakefulness at the slightest sound, his hand grabbing for a gun that wasn’t there before he’d even opened his eyes.

42

At daybreak they set off again, Benny at the wheel.

He’d changed into a plain chocolate-brown dress and a curly black wig. He’d also applied an ultra-heavy layer of make-up to hide the stubble thickening around his jaw.

They drove uphill for the first hour and crossed a plateau where the road banked on to a pocked and craggy rockface to the right, a view of endless green fields and woodland to the left.

Max reached over to turn on the radio when a flash across the rearview dazzled him. A car was hurtling up the road behind them, a bright looming ball of chrome and glass.

It was the Mercedes. And it was no longer feigning innocence, but in full-on pursuit mode.

Benny had seen it too. Now they could hear the roar of its powerful engine drowning out the tinny sound of the DeSoto.

‘How fast can this go?’ asked Max.

‘No’
that
fast.’

Then they heard a siren – coming not from the Mercedes, but from a white police Lada on its tail. Benny changed up a gear and pushed harder on the gas.

The Mercedes reached them in seconds and came bumper-close, hovering behind the Firedome like a wasp about to strike. Max put on his seatbelt and braced for impact, but the car swerved into the other lane and drew up alongside them. Benny went faster. The Mercedes kept up with no effort. Now the Lada was drawing closer, its blue light flashing, the siren lacerating their ears. Max looked across at the front window of the Mercedes, trying to see inside, but all he met was his own panicked, confused face in the tinted glass.

Then the car left their side in a 1400-horsepower whoosh, disappearing around a bend in the road with a puff of exhaust.

The Lada drew nearer, but the Firedome was almost as powerful. Max was about to tell Benny to step on the gas some more, when the police car suddenly slowed down.

As they took the bend they saw the Mercedes again, parked sideways-on in the middle of the road, blocking all but a sliver of each lane.

Benny hit the brakes and the Firedome came to a sharp screeching halt, about ten feet from the Mercedes.

The Lada careered to a stop behind them, the siren growling to silence as two uniformed cops jumped out, machine guns in hand.

The driver and passenger doors of the Mercedes opened simultaneously. The same two men from the hitch-hiker stop got out. They hadn’t changed their clothes – loose white
guayabera
shirts, black slacks, aviator shades and heavy brown shoulder holsters. One had on a gold necklace.

The uniforms flanked the Firedome doors and jammed their gun barrels through the windows.

Max and Benny put their hands up.

The cop on Benny’s side reached in, snatched the keys out of the ignition and pocketed them.

‘Salga!
’ he snapped.

Max and Benny didn’t move, didn’t look at them.

‘
Salga!
’ the cop shouted, jabbing his gun barrel into Benny’s temple.

‘SALGA!
’

Benny got out, then Max.

The cops pulled them away from the Firedome and made them put their hands on their heads. The uniforms shouted at them some more. As usual Max didn’t understand. Right opposite where he was standing, a hunk of fresh roadkill – species indeterminate – lay at the side of the road. The blood was glistening. Max wondered if the Mercedes hadn’t hit it. He wondered also if Cubans ate roadkill when times got tough. They did that in Florida.

The cops were a pair of sweaty kids. The one covering Max had a cluster of unripened zits on his chin. Benny’s had freckles and ginger hair. The pair were nervous as hell, like this was the first time they’d done an auto-stop outside of class. Their guns were quivering, their eyes popping and edgy: nervous energy feeding off adrenaline. They had an audience to impress: the
guayaberas,
who were leaning against the Mercedes, their thick arms folded across broad chests, watching.

The cops took turns frisking them. Freckles covered them both while Zits patted Max down with light slaps and pushes. Then he did the covering as Freckles went to work on Benny, asking his name as he worked his hands over Benny’s body from the top down. Benny was about to answer when Freckles reached his crotch. Max saw the confusion on the uniform’s face, and the hint of laughter – or was it pleasure? – on Benny’s as the young cop found his dick and balls. First Freckles pressed down, then palpated, then squeezed, then sprang back, shaking, looking up at Benny, horrified.

‘
Tu es – tu es – un – un
…
hombre?’
gasped the cop and then blushed.

‘Si señor,’
said Benny in a deeper voice than usual.

Max almost smiled. It wasn’t just him: even in broad daylight, with that ugly tramline stitch up his cheek and the stubble on his chin, Benny passed. He was a hell of a woman.

The
guayaberas
laughed loudly and said something to the freckled cop, who was wiping his hands manically on his shirt. He laughed with them – forced and shallow – and flashed an ingratiating grin, but his eyes were enraged blisters. Nothing worse than wounded pride in a jittery kid holding an HK MP5, which fired 650 rounds per minute.

Benny asked why they were being stopped.

‘No hable maricón!
’ yelled Freckles, jamming the barrel into his chest. ‘
Cuál es su nombre?
’

Benny gave his real name.

The
guayaberas
did sissified whoops and blew kisses.

The zitty cop asked Max for his name. Max flicked a look at the
guayaberas,
who were staring at him.

‘El tiene quizá un pozo!
’ shouted the
guayabera
with the gold necklace, humping the air. Zits laughed. Max got the gist of it.

‘Cuál es su nombre?’
repeated Zits.

‘You speak English?’ Max asked him calmly.

‘Qué?’

‘Inglés?’

The cop was confused. ‘No.
Es usted un turista?’

Zits was Max’s height and half his weight. Brown-eyed and pale, coffee on his breath. He had his gun pointed at Max’s head, his finger on the trigger and the safety off. In America, cops kept their fingers on the trigger guard until ready to fire. They didn’t do that here.

‘Si,’
said Max.

‘Pasaporte?’
The cop held out a hand. As he did so, he lowered his gun so the barrel was pointing to the ground.

That was a mistake.

Max had one chance.

He pretended to reach for his pocket, but switched moves and made a grab for the cop’s arm.

He never reached it.

At the instant he was about to make contact, Benny screamed.

Max and the cop turned together as a vulture tore the wig from Benny’s head, its claws caught in the hair. The big bird twisted sharply, hitting Freckles full in the face with the hairpiece, before arcing over him and slamming beak-first into his back. The vulture flapped in panic and squawked in agony as it tried to get away and free itself from the wig while upside down. The cop staggered back and forth, and started pirouetting on the spot, screaming in terror and crying for help, as he tried to smack the bird off with his gun.

The
guayaberas
were roaring with laughter. Zits stood immobile, mouth open, not knowing what to do. Suddenly Freckles’s HK erupted in a loud blast. Bullets sprayed the Mercedes and both
guayaberas
went down. Max dived on Benny, knocked him over and shielded him as bullets flew over them. The shooting continued. Glass shattered, metal punctured, casings tinkled down on the road. All around them birds flew out of trees and bushes and off telegraph poles.

And then it stopped.

It was absolutely still.

Max looked up. The roadside was dense with bluey, acrid gunsmoke and there was no one standing. The two uniformed cops were lying close by, their bodies riddled with bullets, weapons on the ground, smoke coming out of the barrels. Freckles lay on his side with a finger curled around the trigger of the MP5. Zits lay on his back, his guts bubbling over his belt. He was still alive, just about, but not for much longer.

Max worked out what had happened. Freckles had shot the
guayaberas
and spun around, trying to get rid of the vulture, his finger still on the trigger. He’d sprayed Zits, who’d returned fire – instinctively or accidentally – killing Freckles and the vulture, which was now a headless lump of mincemeat and feathers.

Max tossed the HKs into the bushes.

The Lada had been shot to pieces, the windshield gone, two tyres ripped open, the light half smashed, the tank leaking.

He went over to the Mercedes, where the
guayaberas
lay side by side. The one with the necklace was still twitching. His shirt had turned red. He was inhaling air and exhaling blood, moaning very faintly, his foot slapping back and forth on the ground, like a half-busted wiper. The man next to him was motionless and missing his face. Somehow his shades had stayed on.

Benny stumbled over, pale, shaking as if from a deep chill, wiping the dirt off his dress.

‘What happen?’

‘They shot each other. You OK?’

‘
Si … No.
I no’ know.’

‘You’re not wounded?’

‘No.’

‘Have you checked our car?’

‘What?’

‘Did our car get hit?’

‘What you say?’

‘The car, Benny. Go make sure it’s OK.’

‘This man still live, and you … you ask about
car?’