Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem (3 page)

“What about the camera?”

“Fuck the camera.”

“Of course you’d say that. You didn’t pay three hundred dollars for the latest model available only at the Vegas Electronics Show or online. As usual, you’ve got zero skin in the game.”

“What do you mean, no skin? If we stick around here we’re likely to have stilettos poked through our vital organs.”

“I always knew you had a yellow streak.”

“Hah.”

He almost strikes her. Which is what she wants, so she can refuse him sex privileges back on the cruise ship. Relegate him to the couch in the sitting room of their suite. Even cut off his bar tab, which she pays for out of her mother’s estate. Ray is presently unemployed. He holds his temper in check, gripping his hands into fists as if crushing a pair of fat water roaches.

Out of nowhere, two more cops appear. These guys are the real thing. Radiating menace.

The crowd grows nervous, restive. The Marxist slackers and hangers-on at the back peel away, suddenly remembering important appointments elsewhere.

“What’s going on here?” the cop who looks like Ernie Kovacs in the movie version of
Our Man in Havana
says. Hard-billed Gestapo cap, algae-green fatigues with epaulets and a cluster of ribbons above one pocket. Shades. A large weapon in a flapped leather holster hangs at his waist.

This is Lieutenant Diablo Reiner.

“That young hooligan stole my camera,” answers Marge. She gestures again at the youth with the lip fringe and bandanna. “And that man…” she wishes she could eviscerate the coach with the blade-like edge of her French-nail manicure job, “attacked me.”

“She’s making it up,” the boy yells.

The other cop, in matching fatigues but without the fruit salad and wearing an Aussie snap-brim hat with one side turned up, backhands Angel in the mouth. Like in a comic strip, his head seems to fly in the opposite direction, then bounces back. Blood oozes from his split lip.

“How much is the camera worth?” Reiner asks.

“I paid three hundred dollars for it. U.S. dollars.”

The cop licks his lips. It’s a lot of money in a poor country contiguous to the Tropic of Cancer.

“And how do you know this person took it?”

“Because he’s been staring at it the entire time we’ve been here.”

Reiner looks sadly at the boy.

“Search him!”

The command is directed to both Sergeant Gomez in the outback headgear and the officer in the blue uniform, who’s with traffic control. The latter grasps the young man’s arms from behind while Gomez pats him down. A few coins and a condom in its foil wrapper are the only result.

“He must have passed it to a confederate,” Marge says. “It’s probably already for sale in the thieves market.”

“Don’t be making up shit,” hisses Ray.

Marge takes a deep breath.

“And he was ogling my breasts,” she says.

“Which must have been spectacular,
senora
, about thirty years ago.” The Lieutenant says this in Spanish. Some of the remaining riffraff snicker. Others just blink their eyes. “Ah ha. Not only a thief but a sex maniac too,” Reiner says in
gringo
-speak. “A bad
hombre
.”

Before Marge can reply, their tour guide, a sassy full-breasted woman with a half-baked command of English, touches Ray’s arm. Startled, he jumps.

“We must leave now to ship.”

When he looks at her, Lieutenant Reiner’s eyes carry a death sentence. He clicks his heals. “Not so fast. We have serious accusations that must be resolved.”

“Their cruise liner departs at
cinco y media
. We have more than an hour’s drive ahead of us to get there in time.”

Reiner scowls at her.

“Get lost,” he says. “
Vamanos
.”

Sergeant Gomez takes over, placing his hands on the tour guide’s shoulders and pushing her back into the scrum of teammates and onlookers. The rabble closes behind them like the high tide over the road to Mont-Saint-Michel.

“Wait a minute. We’ve…,” Marge begins.

Reiner places his finger on her lips. He shakes his head.

“
Silencio
. Stop talking.” His words are like the back and forth of a straight razor across a leather strop. “You must give written statements about this incident,” the lieutenant says. “For that we will go to my office.”

Ray’s in a panic.
We’ve got to amscray out of here,
he thinks.

“Forget the camera,” he bursts out. “If the kid stole it and you get it back, it’s yours, officer. A gift. But we’ve got to leave. Get back to the ship.”

For the first time Reiner focuses on Ray.

“
If
…?” he inquires with sloth-like slowness. “
If
he stole it? There can be no doubt in such matters.”

“What I mean…,” Ray says. He’s not sure what he means. He just doesn’t want to be there any more, in that cafeteria, in the capital of the Republic on a late Tuesday afternoon in mid-May.

Seconds later the tour bus pulls out of the parking lot without them. A viscous lump of fear settles at the back of Ray’s throat.

“My name is Lieutenant Reiner of the Special Police,” Reiner says. “Sergeant Gomez is bringing the car.”

As if on cue, the motley assembly falls into tatters like smoke blown by a fan revealing a black Lincoln Continental oozing to the curb in front of the glass cafeteria doors. Sergeant Gomez shambles out of the front passenger seat and opens the rear door.

“
Adalante
,” the lieutenant says, pushing an ashen-complexioned Angel through the hushed throng.

Marge looks at Ray. Her lips are as compressed and pale as twin slices of white peach flesh. She puts a hand over them as if she’s about to burst into uncontrolled sobbing or vomit up her lunch. One of her beautifully manicured nails is chipped.

“Let’s go,” Ray says.

Soon they’re hunkered down in the vast leather-bound backseat of the Lincoln. It’s almost like prom night. Marge and Lieutenant Reiner sprawl on the couch-like banquette. Ray and the sergeant huddle on hard jump seats facing rearward. Between them, Angel flops on the floor on his stomach, a guppy out of water. A plastic restraint holds his wrists in the small of his back. The red bandanna is missing. Gomez’s boot resides in the crook of his neck.

The pungent tang of fresh dog poop fills the air, and Ray has the urge to check the bottom of his shoe. Then he realizes the soccer youth has shit himself. Ray’s own bowels gurgle like a drain clog on the move.

The car surges into traffic like some primeval cat prowling the chiaroscuro of the rain forest.

“You are enjoying your visit to our country?” Reiner asks. “Excluding, of course, this unfortunate incident of the camera.”

“Swell,” Ray says.

The conversation dies.

Waves of garlic and other more exotic spices emanate from Gomez. Despite the air-conditioning, the interior of the Lincoln is thick with sweat, stale tobacco, feces, and musk.

They pass through a business district, the sidewalks awash with pedestrians flitting in and out of the shops, bargaining vociferously with the street vendors. Then they turn and begin to climb a hill among more official-looking buildings. Acacia trees dazzle in full flame-yellow bloom. A blood-orange Poinciana explodes into view. Suddenly it begins to rain.

The headquarters of the secret police of the Republic is a squat frog-like building of green stone. On closer inspection, Ray realizes it’s constructed of cement blocks covered in mold. A pair of guards in camouflage gear and armed with machine guns snap to attention as Lieutenant Reiner steps from the car.

The five of them, Reiner, Gomez, Marge, Ray and the alleged thief, mount the steps. Angel stumbles as if he’s forgotten how to walk.

Inside, they climb ringing metal steps to the third floor. Gomez and two other cops, overwhelming Angel’s feeble resistance, manhandle him down a side corridor toward the back of the building.

Lieutenant Reiner’s office is a vast institutional gray space with windows on two sides. His desk is worn and unadorned. Marge collapses into a hard wooden chair in front of the desk, her hands covering her face. A larger-than-life-size photograph of the President of the Republic gazes down at her. The President’s eyes are as vacant as the Dead Sea.

Ray walks to one set of windows. They look out onto a soccer field where, despite the pelting rain, two teams of men race and pivot back and forth chasing a mud-caked ball.

“Nice view,” he says.

“Wasted when you’re overworked,” Reiner replies.

“I’ll bet,” Marge says.

A female secret police person enters the office through a side door. She doesn’t bother to knock. Drab olive short shorts and slim-fitted military blouse. Combat boots with socks. Ink-black hair tied in a bun, pierced by a pair of chopsticks. A tiny gold cross hangs like a fallen climber between the foothills of her Sierra Madre breasts.

“Ah. Irena,” Reiner says.

She carries a tray on which sit four cups of steaming
espresso
, a bottle of
agua
minerale
con gas
,
and glasses, all of which she sets on the conference table.

Her bottomless brown eyes fixate on Reiner, then Ray. She gives nothing away.

“We’ll be taking statements,” Reiner says.

Irena collects a steno pad and pen from the credenza and sits sidesaddle at the end of the table, crossing her long bare legs. In a different venue, Ray would willingly tell her his life story; drop to his knees and perform cunnilingus.

Instead he throws himself into a chair at the table. Marge sits next to him. He pours them both a glass of water. She seems to be shaking. Small tremors every few seconds make her seem out of focus.

Reiner sits opposite them, with a clear view of Irena.

“Now then, Mrs. Elrood… ,” Lieutenant Reiner begins.

“What are they doing to that boy?” Marge demands in a rush. “You’ve got to let him go!” She bursts into tears.

Ray gives Reiner an apologetic eyebrow roll. He touches Marge’s shoulders. She shakes his hands away and starts digging in her carpetbag-sized purse, looking for a Kleenex.

At that moment Sergeant Gomez slips like a ghost into the room. He moves quickly to the Lieutenant, bends down and whispers.

The tip of Irena’s tongue slithers between her lips. Her body twists and grinds as she seeks a comfortable position in the military-issue straight-back chair.

Suddenly, Marge screams; slumps sideways in her chair.

Is she having a stroke?
Ray wonders.

Reiner throws a glass of water in her face. Marge shudders, uses the tail of her blouse to wipe her face and sits up. One side of her white silk blouse is soaking wet and you can see the nipple like an aroused prune. When she removes her hand from her purse, she’s holding the missing Canon digital. She places it on the polished surface of the table. All eyes stare at the camera as if it holds the meaning of life and death.

“It was in my bag all along,” Marge offers apologetically. “I totally forgot I put it there. You can let the boy go. I was mistaken.”

“Even about the fact he undressed you with his eyes?” Reiner asks.

“I’ve got a very vivid imagination,” she replies.

Ray nods in support of this admission.

“Please. Just let the boy go,” Marge says.

Reiner: “I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”

“What do you mean?”

“
Es muerto
.”

In an excess of emotion, Ray grabs the camera and with all his strength throws it against the wall. It splinters into jagged bits of shrapnel.

Marge is sniffling softly, her teeth worrying her lower lip.

Ray looks at Irena, who is staring down at her boots as though they belong to someone else. Lieutenant Diablo Reiner’s voice interrupts: “But there is the matter of reparations…and justice for the family.”

The room turns ice cold. Looking at Reiner, Ray imagines black membranous wings unfolding.

Ray feels his nads shrivel.

Bad Juju

I flew into Saint Hippolytus in an aging single-engine turboprop. As we made our final approach, the tarmac came up fast. Black and swollen as a dead dog’s tongue remembered from childhood. Jungly foliage covered the landscape on either side. At the end were some mangroves and then the ocean.

I’d just read a three-paragraph story in the
Financial Times
about the Cessna
Caravan
being voluntarily grounded for landing-gear failures. In the next instant there was the twang of breaking metal components. As the front and one rear wheel scorched down onto the runway, the other side of the plane, missing the second rear wheel, fell sideways like a terminal drunk. When the fuselage hit the tarmac, the plane began to spin, propeller blade splintering, pieces flying wild-assed through the air.

Just before all this happened, I had glanced up from the
Times
article and read the words Cessna
Caravan
engraved on a cheap plaque screwed to the instrument panel. My seat was in the row directly behind the pilot.

Next thing we were spinning out of control, veering off the runway into the high grass. I could hear the howling of fire equipment. We pivoted one last time and lurched to a spine-jarring halt in three inches of water left by an earlier thunderstorm. When I pressed my face against the passenger window, I saw that the luggage compartment had split open, leaving a ragged line of suitcases strewn behind us. The captain kicked open the forward door. We bailed and ran.

When it was my turn, I judiciously kicked off my high heels before jumping into the pilot’s arms. Smoke billowed from the engine that had scraped and sparked across the ground. Amazingly the other wheels hadn’t given way. Running barefoot, I was quickly outdistanced in the dash for safety.

A sharp wind blew off the ocean. I tripped once, scrambled back to my feet and loped onward toward the terminal, my lizard clutch lost in the weeds. As I ran from the soggy grass onto the tarmac, I saw my Samsonite suitcase lying ahead, its shell cracked open like a blue crab on a crab-shack table on a hot Caribbean night. Caught by the wind, the money inside the suitcase, all US$4 million of it, spiraled upward and green-parrot-like swooped into the jungle.