God's Favorite (16 page)

Tony listened to the mysterious speech with growing incredulity. Obviously there were significant signals being sent out—the occasion demanded it—but the most important one dawned on him, as it had on every other Panamanian in the crowd, with the force of a thunderbolt: the Americans are not recognizing Tony Noriega! People were shifting uncomfortably in their chairs. There was a perceptible movement away from Tony, a united leaning away, as if he had leprosy. In a few enigmatic
sentences the huge American officer had signaled that Tony was contaminated, expelled, cast into the non-American darkness.

Fidel was right, Tony thought savagely; he would have to make himself indigestible.

O
LD
P
ARR
. Very Old Parr. Very much very Old Parr. Every other sip, an enlisted man appeared from the shadows with a freshener to keep Tony's drink maximally stiff.

Tony was holding court at his round table in the back of La Playita, the private club owned by César Rodríguez and some of his Colombian pals. Ari Nachman was there, and Dr. Demos, Tony's psychiatrist and political pollster. Several girls from Miami who specialized in consolation rubbed Tony's knees. But with every drink, Tony could feel himself becoming more dangerous.

“Tony, why are you taking this personally?” César asked. “The Americans know they can't do business in Panama without you.”

“He even thanked the priests!” Nachman said in disbelief.

“Maybe he needs a little welcome party,” said Tony. “A demonstration of the people's righteous anger.”

“I know what you're thinking, Tony, but you should be careful,” said César. “Don't pull the trigger right away.” César was drinking White Russians as a tonic for his new ulcer.

“What the Americans did was very clever,” Dr. Demos said. “If you make too big a stink, they can say you are paranoid.”

This point really rankled Tony. He had to give the American general credit. Not mentioning Tony's name had been far more damning than if he had singled him out and criticized him. This way, the general made his point while giving Tony nothing to reply to. That was part of his humiliation, that he had been so cleverly handled, with a subtlety rarely associated with American diplomacy.

“I think they are only playing with you,” Nachman offered. “If you give them a little something, they'll remember who they are dealing with. Tell them what Fidel had for dinner—they'll jack off to that.”

“More arms to the Contras,” said César.

“Maybe I'll give them a few names,” said Tony. “People in the drug business. It's like catnip to them.”

Frozen smiles all around the table.

Tony turned to one of the girls, a sophomore in telephone marketing at Miami-Dade Junior College. “And you, my mercenary little friend, what would you advise me?”

“Fuck 'em, Tony,” she said eagerly. “Fuck 'em right and left.”

Tony grinned. He looked across the room, where Roberto was sitting alone. The sight of Roberto's sly eyes peeking over his champagne glass made Tony's blood pressure hop.

“Look at him,” Tony said. “He's spying on us.”

“Roberto's gone loco, haven't you heard?” said Nachman. “They say he found some guru who made him stop having sex. He became completely insane.”

“Technically,” said Dr. Demos, “I believe he's suffering from delusions of persecution springing from type-two schizophrenia.”

“Can you believe it?” said César. “And just when the Miss Universe pageant comes to town.”

“The most beautiful women in the world, and Roberto decides to become a virgin again!” Nachman marveled at the mysteriousness of that.

“Hey, Roberto!” Tony called out, silencing the rest of the room. “Do the Americans know you are a communist?”

Roberto looked stricken, but he quickly put up a brave smile. “What communist drinks Dom Pérignon?” he asked lightly.

“Dom Pérignon? It's for cunts!”

Tony's companions laughed, but they were uneasy. Everyone else was dead quiet.

“Waitress—hey, beauty,” Tony said, “bring Roberto a man's drink. Johnny Walker—
Red
Label.”

Tony laughed as Roberto walked out of the room. For a moment he simply sat staring down the dress of the future telephone marketer. Then he sighed. “Now is the time to teach the Americans a terrible lesson.”

“So what are you going to do?” Nachman asked. “You can't make them too mad, you know.”

Tony drained off the rest of his scotch. “Tony Noriega is a good friend, but he is also a terrible enemy,” he said. “The U.S., it is like a monkey on a chain. All you do is play the music, and the monkey performs.”

“Well, the U.S. is also like an elephant,” César said cautiously. “It takes time to get him to move, but when he does, it's a heavy move.”

T
HE EXTERIOR OF
the Atlapa Convention Center was bathed in floodlights when Tony arrived with his retinue of bodyguards. In the vast hall, waiters carrying trays of lobster wove through the tables and potted palms. The reflections of the many-faceted jewels on the bosoms of Panamanian society shown like a galaxy of infinite value. When the national anthem concluded, a beaming President Delvalle, wearing a tuxedo and the red, white, and blue sash of his office, approached the podium. “Tonight, the eyes of many nations are on Panama,” he said, “as we go about the serious business of choosing the most beautiful woman in the world. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Miss Universe pageant.”

Tony noticed Pablo Escobar entertaining a half-dozen bankers at the table closest to the stage. Escobar was disconcertingly at ease, and when he glanced up and caught Tony staring at him, he winked. This gesture was so threatening that, despite himself, Tony gasped. That Escobar has balls, he thought admiringly. They might become friends if one of them didn't kill the other first. He signaled to his bodyguards and walked quickly out of the crowded room, down the escalators, down another flight of stairs, to a labyrinthine complex of subterranean walkways that connected the convention center to the subbasement of the Marriott across the street. His grim-faced bodyguards walked on either side of him, and a pair of PDF lieutenants raced ahead like hounds, opening doors to various rooms.

“What's going on?” asked a busboy when one of the soldiers poked into the kitchen.

“Where's the reception area for the contestants?” the officer demanded.

“We're not supposed to say.”

The soldier pulled the boy into the hallway. His eyes widened when he recognized Tony. The boy quickly pointed to a double doorway at the end of the corridor. “But what's going on?” he asked under his breath.

“The General is going to fuck Miss U.S.A.,” the soldier informed him.

At the end of the corridor was the Venetian ballroom. A policeman at the entrance was peeking through the crack in the doors when the approaching footsteps captured his attention. He quickly jumped to attention. The bodyguards pushed him aside and burst into the room.

Two hundred of the most beautiful women in the world stood there like wood nymphs. Short and tall, dark and light, intense and silly, husky and shrill: variety, wonderful female variety, offered itself in ball gowns.

Swarming around the nubile contestants was a fawning mass of handlers and cosmeticians and fashion consultants and relatives
and reporters and agents and personal trainers and ass-patting pageant officials. Tony wandered through them like a hunter, his eyes seeking a single quarry, shoving out of his mind the appetizing distractions that arose at every point of the compass.

Suddenly there she was, tall, blond, strikingly beautiful if a bit horsy, her sash cutting a hypotenuse between her ample midwestern breasts. Half a dozen photographers were circling and firing at the scene of the highly favored Miss U.S.A. talking to Miss U.S.S.R., a staged event meant to echo recent developments at the summit talks. The Russian contestant was trim and muscular, standing a bit on tiptoe to match the statuesque American. Both of them were talking to a third party—an amusing third party who made them laugh and blush, a third party Tony recognized with an abrupt start: Roberto.

“Oh, General!” Roberto said in alarm as he noticed Tony hissing in his ear.

“General?” said Miss U.S.A.

Tony now took her in completely. She was a type who particularly appealed to him: a green-eyed blonde with luminous, downy skin. A small gold cross lounged in the billows of her breasts.

“Welcome to Panama, Miss U.S.A. and Miss U.S.S.R.,” Tony said, offering a little Prussian, heel-snapping bow. “If there is anything you desire, it is yours.”

Miss U.S.A. gave him an interested look. “You must be the fella in charge,” she concluded.

“Excuse me very much,” said Roberto, hastily introducing Tony to the two contestants, who were obviously flattered to be meeting “Panama's beloved leader,” as Roberto graciously described him.

“Pleased to meetcha,” said Miss U.S.A., pumping Tony's limp hand several times with shocking vigor. “I'm Brandi Thistlewhite.”

“Brandi—such an intoxicating name.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Roberto said the same thing.”

Tony turned to Roberto and grinned ferociously. Roberto abruptly excused himself.

“See ya later, Mr. Ambassador,” Brandi said as Roberto rushed away.

“My name, Tatyana Chernyshevskaya,” said Miss U.S.S.R., seizing Tony's hand as if it were a Baltic republic.

Faced with the towering actuality of Brandi Thistlewhite, whose disinfected sexuality presented no obvious approach, Tony nearly lost heart. The entire enterprise suddenly seemed hopeless; she was a fortress of nonchalance—uninterested, unavailable, and blandly incorruptible.

“My God, these American women!” Tony finally exclaimed. “They are so clean!”

“Well, thank you, I guess,” said Brandi, “but I don't think I'm any cleaner than the other girls. I mean, everybody washed, I'm pretty sure.”

“Still, somehow you seem cleaner. And your teeth, I think you have never had a cavity. Is this true?”

“They got sealed when I lost my baby teeth.”

Brandi's lips demurely closed the curtain on her gleamingly perfect incisors, but not before Tatyana cast them a covetous glance.

“I always feel, when I meet a beautiful American woman, that she has just been created, that God has just made her fully adult, like Eve, innocent and fresh, with the dew of creation still upon her,” said Tony.

“You make me feel a little self-conscious,” Brandi said through her pursed lips.

“May I ask what is your special talent?” said Tony.

“Birdsongs. It's a little strange,” she said apologetically.

“Birds?”

“Yeah, you know, like—” Brandi suddenly emitted a loud croaking noise like the sound of a rusty nail being prized out of an old board.

“Toucan,” said Tony.

“Right,” she said in surprise. “The keel-billed toucan! I'm majoring in ornithology at Ohio State.”

“I, too, have an interest in birds. Tell me, what noise does the falcon make during intercourse?”

“Pardon me?”

“To me, this is the noblest bird of all,” Tony said, turning slightly to include the vixen-eyed Miss U.S.S.R. “When the falcons make love, it is in the air—
plunging.”
He illustrated the point by clapping his hands together and swooping them down in a headlong fluttering dive.

“That may be true of chimney swifts,” Brandi said doubtfully.

“And if the male does not climax before the ground arrives—” Tony smashed his fist into his palm.

“Is very beautiful, this story,” said Tatyana.

“And what is your special talent?”

“I am contortionist.”

Tony had to steady himself.

“Have you met all the judges?” Tony asked Brandi. He was edging toward his central proposition. “The two Panamanians are close friends of mine.”

“Oh, wow, thanks. But we're really not supposed to fraternize. People might get the wrong idea.”

“Yes, but it is another matter when the supreme leader of a country takes an interest in your welfare.”

Brandi's eyes narrowed into tiny emeralds. “We had to sign all these documents. They pretty much frown on girls having anything to do with the judges.”

“In my opinion, is okay if it is the custom of the country,” said Tatyana.

But Tony had one last trick. “You appear to be interested in my complexion,” he said cruelly.

“No!” Brandi cried. “I mean, oh, my God, was I staring? I'm sorry!”

“You are charming when you blush,” he said. “Look how red you become.”

“Oh, God, I'm so embarrassed. And usually I'm not like this. I mean, I volunteer in the state school, so I've seen it all, if you know what I mean.”

“You know the story of Beauty and the Beast?” said Tony. “There is some universal human truth in this childhood fable.”

“For sure,” Brandi said desperately.

“This beast, he was not such a bad fellow inside,” said Tatyana.

“I agree,” said Tony. “And it makes me wonder: why do people think that beautiful people are all so good and ugly people are evil? Tell me, Miss U.S.A., do you think I am a wicked man?”

“You've been perfectly nice to me.”

“I am glad to hear this, but many in your country say I am almost a devil. I think it is because they don't know me. They only see this face.”

“That's so unfair,” Brandi said fervently. “And by the way, you shouldn't think that just because a person is beautiful on the outside that she is, like, holy or something. You should see how some of these gals behave! I think there's a few of them that would kill their own mothers to win this thing.”

“But still, you are on one side of my face and I am on the other. To make the journey across, from the beautiful to the ugly, it is asking too much. No one can expect that Beauty will sleep with the Beast by her own choice. In real life, the Beast sleeps alone. It is his fate.”