Mile Zero (29 page)

“Always got some great saying, Justo. But you know your problem? You think too much. Cops should act before they think, it’s what gives them their edge. Some day you’re not sharp it’ll be too late, opportunity will have flown.” Angelica pressed her lips to the rim of the shot glass of rum to indicate the true meaning of her intentions. “Have you ever whipped anyone with that thick belt of yours?”

“Don’t stir the rice.”

“I might be a lousy cook, but I never let my rice stick to the pan.”

Justo could not keep a smile from his lips, first time he had smiled in twenty-four hours. The marrow in his bones started to melt.

“Where’d you get that don’t stir the rice stuff?”

“Cervantes.”

“If Don Quixote were to come back today he’d be a Colombian cocaine cowboy.”

“Or a cop in the Florida Keys.”

“No, he’d be a drug runner, I’m sure.”

“Tilting at windmills in fast cigarette boats?”

“Something like that.” Angelica laughed, then she went very serious. “Come home with me. I’m not like your wife. I’ll let you read in the bathtub. What time do you get off?”

“Never off.”

“Perfect couple, I’m always on.” Angelica poured herself another
anejo
. She hated the stuff, liquid honey to stiffen the arteries and pickle the brain. Couldn’t tell a Cuban that though, the older ones drank nothing but
anejo
, recalling the days when
anejo
was Cuban-made. Now it was distilled in Florida, had become the all-Cuban-American drink. From Angelica’s side of the bar it appeared that, for the most fervent members of the jingoistic Cuban-American tribe, drinking
anejo
was a passionate mixture of confused national prides, a declaration of twisted allegiances. To kick back shots of
anejo
, until the tongue swelled and the lips forgot how to pronounce words the brain no longer remembered, had become a near patriotic act of contrition. Angelica drank
anejo
only with Justo. Justo drank nothing
else, but not, Angelica suspected, simply to run his conflicting flags of national faith up the flagpole. No, Angelica sensed Justo was a hard man who liked soft things, a tough spirit who suckled life’s sugars. Angelica assumed there were times Justo simply wanted no fanfare, longed to get sweetly drunk. Times like these Angelica harbored the fantasy of slipping clothes from Justo’s muscled body, handcuffing his dark feet by the ankles so he couldn’t run screaming for his Rosella when the cock crowed at dawn. Times like these Angelica was not above slipping Justo a mickey in order to slip him in. One woman’s game is another’s pain. Angelica was not about to give up so easily or gladly as in the past. This early morning she would drive the hook of her red fingernails right through this latent Latin lover’s heart. She was going to have Justo so deeply within her there would in the end be for them both no way out.

“Anejo!”
Bubba-Bob raised his glass of rum in mocking salute to Justo. “Rhymes with asshole! Just you think about it, bubba buck!”

Angelica’s intentions were thwarted by Bubba-Bob’s rude intrusion. This might not be a morning for romance after all, might instead be a morning for murder. Angelica pushed back from her provocative position, sauntering along the bar to where Brogan still wandered at the entrance to his maze.

“I bet …” Bubba-Bob brought his flushed face up in front of Justo’s. “Bet you could jump backwards through your asshole and land on a peso.”

“Glad to take that bet.” Justo pushed off the barstool and stood before Bubba-Bob. Both men appeared massive enough to support another five men standing atop each of their broad shoulders.

Bubba-Bob let loose with a grin. After chasing Brogan through his maze without making contact Bubba-Bob was in luck, he finally had a player. Oh how Bubba-Bob loved these moments of random chance, when he could butt his bulk against other men in test of physical time. Everything else in life was just so much fancy talk and cute fiberglass boats. “How much you wanna bet?”

Brogan spun on his barstool, up from the maze, banged Bubba-Bob on the shoulder with his fist to gain sudden attention for a line of truth which shined bright as the already wagered imaginary peso. “That’s it! MK was the one tied, not Joy-Joy. MK was on a leash the whole time he was in Nam. Now he’s down in Central America running with headless rats.” Brogan looked quizzically from Bubba-Bob to Angelica to Justo, confused as a downed prizefighter emerging
from a knockout fog. “Christ! Why couldn’t I see it before? It’s all so clear now. MK’s got himself involved in the biggest tie-up game of his life.”

Bubba-Bob did not hear a word of Brogan’s revelation. He was waiting for Justo’s proof of currency. Bubba-Bob didn’t like cops, especially the one standing before him now, the one he had known all his life on the island. To others Justo was a tower of karate-killer toughness, a bad nigger with a Cuban accent who spouted cornball sayings. Bubba-Bob knew better. When he and Justo were teenagers they worked shrimp boats together. First time out, when the long line of drag trawls were hoisted aboard, dripping and stinking with a load of fetid dross only hidden pockets of the Gulf’s bottom is capable of releasing, Justo ran to the gunwale and puked his guts overboard, the Conch shrimp-boat captain laughing in the putrid wind at the pukey boy: “Bettah go bhack to shore! Bhack to shore and be a bugheadah! Nevah gonna work nets wit dese mens! Ya gots a gurl’s stomack. Bye-bye, Bugs!”

“El pez por la boca muere.”
Sweet
anejo
gripped Justo’s tongue. “The fish dies from an open mouth. You’re a fisherman, you should know that.”

Bubba-Bob’s loose grin grew wider. This was a corny Justo saying he liked. Bubba-Bob was going to remember it, but he didn’t see how it applied to him. The veins in his neck bulged, his hands clenched into fists, one went quickly into the air and crashed onto the bar, rattling glasses the length of the long countertop. “What’s your fucking bet?”

The rattling glasses brought Brogan further out of his maze. “MK!” Brogan screamed at Bubba-Bob. “My brother’s finally over his head!”

Bubba-Bob’s fist came off the bar in fierce rebound, catching Brogan under the chin, spinning him off his stool and sprawling across the floor. “I don’t give a diddily fuck about MK and his Nam bullshit!” Bubba-Bob spat at Brogan gazing up through an even more complicated maze. “MK doesn’t scare me! Neither do cops!” Bubba-Bob turned back to Justo. “Cops on the fucking take same time as they rides their high horses!”

“Algunos caen para que otros se levanten.”
Justo’s words came as an afterthought, as if the exploding motion of his body required a concrete beginning. He followed instincts flowing through
anejo-
thickened blood, force from fists, knees and feet rearranging flesh and bone of another human’s body. When a man becomes a weapon
he surrenders to all consequence. The consequence was bleeding Bubba-Bob, thrashing on the floor next to Brogan, raising hands to ward off the weighty confusion of more blows.

“Bubba-Bob’s not going to look the same after this.” Angelica edged along the bar to Justo. “Should we call a cop?” She thought the cleverness of her remark might bring Justo to his senses before he pulverized what was left of Bubba-Bob. Maybe it was time to set the hook. “Why don’t I sweep the drunks and deadbeats out? We’ll go someplace where you can read in the bathtub with nobody yelling at you.”

“Where?”

Set the hook and pull. “My place.”

“Okay.”

It was that easy. One last jerk on the line so the hook didn’t rip from this hard-won prize. “What was it you said in Spanish before you laid Bubba-Bob out with all that karate stuff?”

“Some fall that others may rise.”

Angelica’s provocative pout swept up in a victorious smile. She had her catch in the boat, only thing left to do was take it home and fry it. “Honey, you’re not through rising yet.”

O
CHO
dreamed of conch fritters and slick oyster bellies in the backseat of Justo’s car. Coming dawn pushed a swell of temperature before it, steam streamed heavenward from slick asphalt streets and steep slanted tin roofs of crowded houses, instigating a humid haze as Justo drove through damp heat ascending. The island wavered before him uncertain as an underwater vision, a glimpse of sun above glittered as if striking a vast watery surface, reminding of a far different universe. Rosella Rosella Rosella,
ojos que no ven, corazon que no siente
. Rosella, what you don’t see won’t break your heart. The
anejo
in Justo’s veins filled him with a leaded weariness, he was too tired to concentrate. He forced his eyes open to the crack of sunlight breaking through morning mist. It seemed in these modern times everyone was too tired to concentrate, especially on the consistency of their lives. It was a time when even five-year marriages were a big deal, not like Justo’s grandparents’ time, when people married for life, for better or for worse. It was for their own good, kept them from making the same mistake over and over. Rosella Rosella Rosella.
Quien peces quiere, mojarse tiene
. He who wants to catch the fish must not mind a wetting. Yesterday Justo had set out to catch a fish in a sea of fishermen, now he was headed for Angelica’s house, headed for a wetting.

Everything was confused with weariness. Who was the big fish? Who was the little fish?
Pez grande come al chico
. Big fish eats little fish. Angelica and Justo were two anglers in search of a sucker mouth. Maybe he was the sucker, but he had to follow his lead. The first thing he had noticed when he walked into the Wreck Room, even
before noticing Angelica’s shorts, was the day’s daily witticism chalked on the blackboard behind the bar. Justo knew he could not ask Angelica who had authored the scrawled message. To ask Angelica would have made her the she-shark and him the bonita. Angelica had something Rosella did not, and she was not about to sell short. Justo had tried to sit quietly at the bar and order his
anejo
, not wanting Angelica to seize upon the expression he felt covered his face, not wanting her to inquire, “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” There was always the possibility Angelica authored the message. If so Justo was swimming with someone capable of putting a harpoon through his neck as well as his heart. No one was above suspicion. Bubba-Bob had a detour in mind for him, he wanted to let Bubba-Bob run his mouth off, talk himself out of what little common sense he had, give up what information he might hold. Bubba-Bob had pushed Justo along the detour of most resistance, forcing him to rise to the occasion. So now Bubba-Bob as a possible source of information was closed. Only Angelica’s path of softest resistance was left open. It was Angelica’s handwriting on the chalkboard behind the bar, Justo knew, had seen her written messages many times. The custom in the Wreck Room was for one of the customers to come up with the day’s enigmatic quotation, then the bartender scrawled it in chalk across the blackboard to elicit further sagacious comments, or unleash a stream of derisive innuendo. A recent message inquired:
HOW MANY HAITIANS DIE EVERY DAY TRYING TO SAIL TO AMERICA?
The answer that made its way along the bar among the knowing during the long evening was simple: as many as can fit into a garbage can. The latest scrawled message was not so delicate as the one directing the Wreck Room habitués’ attention to the lamentable shortage of garbage cans in Haiti. The message was straightforward, soliciting no enigmatic response, offering only a puzzled beginning:

A Green Sailor looks north to Cuban Martyrs
. Justo still couldn’t figure it. Zobop must have been in the Wreck Room last night. As Justo drove into ascending mist he tried to follow the trail of Zobop at the same time he pleaded for Rosella’s forgiveness, begged protection of
the Saints for what he was about to do. Justo had gone down on his knees and begged the Saints to save him before, save him from betraying Rosella. Never had he betrayed Rosella, had always adhered to his strict moral diet. Now he was headed for a wetting beneath Angelica’s oceanic sheets, in search of the Zobop fish of fear.
Zobop
, sounded like a Memphis bebopper from the fifties. The only piece of shadow where Justo thought he glimpsed the shape of logic had to do with the toad in the cemetery. In South America those who believed in Macumba had a special way of dealing with a powerful rival who stood in their way, which was to write the name of the rival on a slip of paper and stuff it in the mouth of a black toad, then sew the toad’s lips closed. So many Colombian Cowboys up in Miami believed in the effect this toad lip sewing had on their cocaine-running rivals it was rumored all the Florida toads had been used up and crates of fresh ones were airlifted in daily from Bogotá. Maybe Zobop had a powerful rival, maybe someone was cutting across Zobop’s territory? But why would the toad have been placed on Abuelo’s grave? No, this did not smack of a drug deal. Justo knew most all those players in town, none were called Zobop or used Macumba. Macumba was for South Americans, Key West was Cuban, it was a Santería town. What was happening was outside the accommodation as Justo knew it. Curses were often planted in obscure crevices of the cemetery during nocturnal services, but no one had ever offered a bufo toad with its mouth nailed shut. Certain squeamish elements of the island’s citizenry discovered rat jaws, dog hearts and cat eyes when they arrived with dawn’s light at the cemetery to pay their respects with bountiful bouquets of plastic flowers, but never was a bound goat with a slit throat discovered.