Sailor & Lula (18 page)

“You mean like in the blood,” said Perdita.

“Sorta, yeah.”

They were bouncing along in the Cherokee on the dirt road between Zopilote and Rancho Negrita Infante. Perdita had purchased everything she required in the hardware store in Del Rio and she was excited. Romeo's babbling usually made her uneasy but today she didn't mind listening, giving him the feedback he needed to process his thoughts.

“When I was a kid in Caribe, you know,” he said, “my family used to go to the harbor when my Uncle Roberto went to sea. I was seven years old the first time I remember it clearly. There was a big gray boat tied up at the dock.
‘Margarita Cansino'
was the ship's name, in giant black letters. And underneath that was painted the port of origin,
‘Panama.'
We were there to hug Tio Roberto and wish him a safe journey, which, of course, I did. But I was so impressed by the size of the ship and the thought of it sailing out into the ocean beyond the Gulf, beyond the Caribbean, that the idea of traveling entered my dreams. From that moment I knew I would voyage out far into the world beyond Caribe.”

Perdita, who was driving, did her best to avoid the ruts and large rocks in the road. She lit a Marlboro with the dash lighter.

“But yet here you are,” she said, “still not so very far from there.”

“I've come back, of course. After all, this is my home. I told you about when I lived in New York, in Paris, in Los Angeles. I was in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, too. In Caracas, Miami, La Paz. One day I'll go to Egypt, to China, to Madagascar to see the fabulous monkeys. I am already twenty-seven years old, but I have plenty of time to travel. Soon there will be enough money for us to travel whenever and to wherever we want.”

“It makes me happy to have you include me in your plans,” said Perdita.

Romeo laughed. “And why not? You're the proper one for me. Four years younger, beautiful, smart, strong. Someday we'll have children.”

“You'll inform me, of course, when the time for that is appropriate.”

“Of course,
mi amor
. You'll be the first other than me to know.”

“
Bueno, jefe.
And what other plans do you have for us?”

“It's enough for now to finish this business we have.”

“I've been thinking about it, Romeo. I think what we have to do is take someone off the street. An Anglo.”

Romeo looked at Perdita through his brown-lensed Body Glove glasses.

“An Anglo?” he said.

“That would make the most impression.”

Romeo turned his head and stared out the open window at the desert. The hot breeze caused by the Jeep's passage plastered his black hair to his forehead.

“Kidnapping,” he said.

“What?” said Perdita. “I couldn't hear you.”

Romeo gritted his teeth and let the wind hit his face. Believe it, he told himself. Life with this woman will be without apologies.

Perdita stopped the Cherokee at the entrance to the Rancho Negrita Infante. She cut the engine and got out, leaving the driver's door open. A few feet from the Jeep she squatted, coiled her skirt around her and urinated on the sand. Romeo watched Perdita from the passenger seat and grinned.

“Always liked it that you don't never wear panties,” he said, as Perdita climbed back in.

“Easier that way,” she said. “Used to I wore 'em, but one day I just left 'em off. Now I don't think I own a pair.”

Perdita started the Jeep up and proceeded toward the complex. She liked this drive, the dust and white sun. It was like being on another planet.

“You know I never asked you,” Perdita said, “about how the ranch was named.”

“Story is some local woman got pregnant by a black American soldier, and when the child was born it was black, too, a baby girl. So some of the villagers—they're called
‘Los Zarrapastrosos,'
the ragged ones—took the baby and killed her and buried the body out this way in an unmarked grave.”

“Why'd they do that?”

Romeo shrugged. “Ashamed, I guess. Surprised they didn't kill the mother also and bury them together.”

Perdita wiped the sweat from above her upper lip and pulled the hair out of her eyes.

“Jesus but I hate that kind of ignorant shit,” she said.

There was a main house, a large shack, really, about twenty-five feet by thirty feet, made of tarpaper and wood. The windows were rough squares cut to accommodate removable boards, but they were nailed shut. There was a smokehole above a black cauldron that at the moment contained a boiled hog brain, a turtle shell, a horseshoe, the spinal column of a goat, and dried blood. On the otherwise bare walls were cheap representations of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Jesus Christ. On the floor next to the crudely built altar was a
Book of Rites
from La Iglesia Lukumi Babalu-Aye.

“Leave the door open, honey,” Romeo said to Perdita. “Get some of the stink out.”

“We have to clean this place up, Romeo. Get your boys in here with some brooms. Dump the garbage. They leave their goddam empty bottles and cans everywhere.”

“
Si,
señorita. I will see to it immediately.”

Romeo laughed and grabbed Perdita, pulling her to him and kissing her. She shoved him away and began emptying her bags of candles.

“Hey,
santero
, let's do this, okay?”

Romeo and Perdita cleaned up the house themselves, and then Romeo hauled the debris away in the Jeep. He dumped it in a trench his men had dug about a mile away. Gray shit swirled in the brown air. It reminded Romeo of the August day he came back to Tampa after completing the year he'd been stationed in Lebanon with the Marines. Maria-Jose, his grandmother, had asked him, “They let you visit the Garden of Eden?”

Adolfo Robles drove up in his 1950 Dodge pickup and leaned out the window.

“What we up to, Romeo?” he asked. “We got something going later?”

Romeo took a black kerchief from his back pocket and wiped the sweat and dirt from his face and neck.

“Something big, Adolfo. Meet me back at the house.”

Adolfo nodded and grinned, jammed the Dodge into gear and drove
slowly away. Romeo kicked some dirt into the trench. He'd been one of the lucky ones, having survived the bombing of his Marine barracks in Beirut. More than two hundred sleeping men had died and Romeo had been barely roused by the noise of the explosion. Standing and sweating next to a garbage pit in Mexico, he was convinced there was a noble reason he'd been spared. Romeo pulled out his cock and pissed into the pit. He stood there after he'd finished, fondling himself, watching the steam rise. The air smelled burned.

“The island of Petit Caribe, where I was raised,” said Romeo, “is approximately one mile long and three miles wide. There were only two automobiles on Petit Caribe back then and of course one day they collided with each other.”

Adolfo laughed. “But how could that happen?” he asked.

“How everything happens, Adolfo. It was in fact impossible for it
not
to happen. This is the working of the world.”

Romeo and Adolfo were sitting on the bottom step of the porch drinking Tecates. Perdita was inside arranging the chairs and candles.

“Look, here is a letter I just received from Caribe, from my cousin, Reggie, who takes care of the old family property.”

Romeo took an envelope out of his back pocket, opened it and removed a piece of paper. “Listen,” he said.

“There are constant difficulties on the island,” said Romeo, “the same as anywhere. There is no more sense made there than here. You must control your own hand, Adolfo, remember! The rest is unimportant.”

Adolfo nodded and studied his left hand. After a few seconds he drained the Tecate and, with his right hand, tossed the can as far as he could.

“I had a friend in Tampa a few years ago,” Romeo told Adolfo as they rode in the Dodge truck toward the border. “Eddie Reyes, a Cuban from Marianao. He lived for a while with my family, even after I left there. I don't know where he is now. Eddie had been a cop but quit the force and was going to law school at night when I met him. He worked during the day in a meat packing plant.

“This Eddie would take several showers each day, very long showers during which he would scrub himself all over many times and use great quantities of soap and shampoo. Then he would spend an equal amount of time drying himself. Eddie had much hair on his body and lots of curly black hair on his head, and of course he had a beard. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that this bathing and drying process took up most of his time.”

Alfonso, who was driving, shook his head and laughed.

“He sounds like a crazy man,” he said.

“Yes, he was probably a little crazy,” said Romeo, “but let me tell you why. One night when Eddie was a cop he was sent to investigate a burglary in progress and a junkie got the drop on him. The junkie made Eddie lie down on the ground on his back and stuck the dangerous end of a forty-five automatic between his eyes. The junkie told Eddie he was going to kill him and pulled the trigger. Eddie shit and pissed in his pants and the gun jammed. The backup cops arrived and the junkie panicked, dropped the forty-five on Eddie's chest and tried to run but the other cops caught him.

“The junkie never went to jail. He gave the cops some information they needed about some other scam and he was allowed to plead guilty to a charge of firing a weapon in a public place. Even though the gun never went off! He got away with a suspended sentence. When Eddie heard about it he quit the force and got the job in the meat packing plant. Eventually he started taking law courses. I always figured all the washing he did was connected to the junkie trying to shoot him. It made Eddie a little strange, I guess, still trying to clean off the shit and piss.”

“Maybe it would have been better if the gun had not jammed,” said Alfonso. “It must be difficult to live in such a desperate way.”

Romeo stared out the window at the passing desert. There was nothing moving other than the heat waves.

“Maybe,” he said, “but still, it's better to be desperate than dead.”

Perdita and Romeo watched the people pass. They sat at a table behind the front window of the South Texas Barbecue, drinking Lone Star. Perdita's idea was to identify a likely prospect, follow him and in some way lure him back to the Rancho Negrita Infante.

“What are you gonna say, honey?” asked Romeo. “Come with me to the Casbah?” He laughed. “We ain't exactly Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr, you know. Or, I tell you everything you ever want to know about Lukumi Babalu-Aye? Introduce yourself as a Python Priestess of
Palo Mayombé
and you'd appreciate his allowin' Adolfo to lop off his head with a machete so's we can drain the blood from his body, then hack it apart, cook it up and serve him at the Zombie Jamboree?”

Perdita puffed desultorily at a Marlboro.

“Better you point, I'll follow, club him down, dump him in the Jeep and take off. No tricks.”

“That's a nice one,” said Perdita, pointing to a young guy crossing the street toward them. “Blond, tan, good shoulders.”

“You gonna fuck him or eat him?”

Perdita raised a cobra eyebrow. “Both, maybe.”

“He's not alone,” said Romeo. “There's a girl with him.”

“Could be we'll both get lucky,
macho.
Let's go.”

Romeo and Perdita got into the Cherokee and cruised slowly along the Boulevard Botánica, keeping a close eye on the young couple, who were taking in the tacky bordertown sights.

“College kids,” Romeo said. “Down from Austin, or maybe just Southmost.”

The couple went into a bar and Romeo parked the Cherokee in front of it. When the couple didn't come out after ten minutes, Perdita said, “Let's go inside.”

The place was called El Loco's Round-Up, and the young couple, along with several other people, were gathered around a tall, white-haired gringo who was leaning against the bar and talking. Romeo and Perdita went over to listen.

“Everybody who becomes involved with the movie business learns about it the hard way,” said the man. He looked familiar to Romeo, but he couldn't quite place him. “When I went out to Hollywood I was fresh from my daddy's insurance company,” the man continued, punctuating his speech with sips of J.W. Dant. “I didn't hardly know which hole a woman peed out of. Pardon me, ladies,” he said, smiling, “but that's the truth.”

“Who is this guy?” Perdita whispered.