The Tattooed Soldier (22 page)

He yells at Mosca but can barely hear himself because the gunfire is still ringing in his ears. He slaps Mosca across the face, nearly knocking him to the ground, wanting to shoot him for being so trigger-happy, for complicating the assignment.

Leaving the bedroom, Longoria walks back across the little courtyard, stepping over the blocks, and returns to the living room, where the woman is of course screaming her head off, having lost all the composure she displayed so fiercely just a moment ago. He can see now that leaving her with Buitre wasn't a good idea. He and Sapo have already torn her dress half off and are tugging at her brassiere. They see him and stop, remembering his orders.

“My baby,” the woman yells. “My baby.”

“Dead,” Longoria says, regretting it almost immediately, because now she really turns hysterical. She is wrestling with Buitre and Sapo, who are trying to keep her pinned to the floor.

The woman is kicking at the air. She is screaming that deep mother's scream that Longoria has heard before. And now Mugre and Mosca are in the room and Buitre is grabbing his crotch, salivating at the sight on the floor. The woman's scream pierces the numbness that has filled Longoria's ears. The situation is completely out of control. He expected to shove the subversives quietly into the Jeep and drive them to the barracks for interrogation and clandestine execution, but now there is furniture turned upside down, a child's corpse in the next room, a half-naked woman writhing on the floor. The prisoner will be screaming in the Jeep, she will be crying all the way to the barracks, it will be useless to question or torture her.

Gunfire indoors. The sound echoes. His head is throbbing.

“Just five minutes,
sargento
,” Buitre says into his ear. “Just five minutes with her.”

Deeply disgusted, Longoria raises his gun, stands over the woman, and fires a bullet into her skull. He has done this so many times. It is almost a reflex.

Buitre and Sapo let go of her and move away as if her body were already beginning to rot and decay. The Lorenzo Amayas look at the corpse, then back at Longoria. There is no more screaming. All Longoria can hear is the buzzing in his ear, like the drone of a distant airplane.

The Lorenzo Amayas have been caught by surprise, and for a moment all the cruelty in their eyes is replaced by something else:
This sergeant with the tattooed arm is serious, he is even crazier than we are.
They step away from the seeping pool of blood that is now forming by the woman's head.

This woman is prettier as a corpse than when she was alive, Longoria thinks. Prettier now that she isn't screaming anymore.

*   *   *

Elena recognizes fascism coming through the door. She looks at the soldier, sees the gun in his hand and the animal on his arm, and knows that she does not have much time left on this earth. After the initial shock, a sense of sadness and regret that is almost like joy.
Vegetables in the sink and a killer in my living room.
Almost a smile on her lips.
They want Antonio, but I will not give him to them. I will not. Why am I so calm? This is unnatural. I am not a brave woman. But this man has come to kill me and I am not afraid.

The feeling stays with her even as the tattooed man pulls her down by the roots of her hair, even as the other men tear at her dress. This is happening to someone else. She is floating above the room, defying gravity, bouncing like a balloon against the ceiling, watching this happen to a woman in a blue apron. They are turning over furniture, they are breaking vases and dishes, books are falling to the floor, but Antonio is safe, Antonio isn't here.

And then the sound of gunfire and the trance is broken. She feels the impact of the explosions on her body, sound and shock waves piercing skin. Her son, her blood, the baby from her womb. She has forgotten about the baby, and isn't that typical. Carlos. They are shooting Carlitos.

Only screams are left inside her.
My baby.
She is a living scream. She wills herself to stand, to rise to her feet and run to Carlos, but she is anchored to the ground. They are ripping something from her, links of liquid and tissue, now alive again, bleeding and raw. Now there is only regret and pain, unbearable.
I didn't protect my baby.

Elena looks up and sees the tattooed soldier raising the barrel of his gun to her head. Surrender. No, never surrender. One more scream before the flash of light.

*   *   *

He would call Guatemala City and tell the major that it was impossible to work with this pack of delinquents. He would tell them that if they didn't give him a new batch of men he would request a transfer. He would transfer out of the Jaguars to a real unit where he didn't have to work with criminals.

They left the house and headed for the Jeeps. The street was deserted, although it was more than likely that many people were watching them from behind the dark slats of their shuttered windows. Longoria stared at the windows and spat onto the cobblestones.
Let them look at me. Let them get a good look.

As they drove away, Longoria picked up the dossier and looked at the picture of the woman he had just killed, and then at the picture of the missing husband, who had saved himself merely by being absent when he was supposed to be home. There was a sheet of paper attached to the photograph, some sort of intelligence report Longoria hadn't bothered to read before. Almost immediately, to his great dismay, he noticed that the document listed the man's employment at the Department of Public Works and his hours: 8:30 to 12:00, 1:30 to 5:00. Longoria looked at his watch: 11:03 a.m. The husband was at his job just a few blocks from here; he wasn't supposed to be home at all. Longoria considered driving to the Department of Public Works and grabbing him there, but it would probably be too brash, even for the Lorenzo Amaya Brigade, to kidnap a man from a government office. It wouldn't go over well at headquarters. They could go back to the house, but by now they had lost the element of surprise. Someone would warn the man and he would flee.

If the Lorenzo Amayas hadn't been drinking with the mayor, if they had been ready to leave at 7:00 a.m., they would have arrived early enough to surprise the subversive, who, according to this document, left for work every morning at 8:15. Longoria could blame no one but himself for this screw-up, for failing to take note of the most basic piece of intelligence.

I am slipping. I am losing my professionalism. I am losing the love of my work.

After completing the afternoon's assignment—the assassination of an elementary-school teacher—and circling back to the mayor's house to use the phone, they went on to Momostenango, their route taking them through the center of San Cristóbal again. They were driving through what passed for the Parque Central when Buitre whispered into Longoria's ear from the back seat.

“
Sargento
, I have to go to the bathroom.”

“What? But we just left the house. Why didn't you go there?”

“We were in a hurry. I forgot.”

Mosca stopped the Jeep, and Buitre disappeared into a
tienda
to ask the proprietor for the use of her toilet. It was the only
tienda
on the square that was open, Longoria noticed, probably to serve the small group of people waiting to board a bus that was idling nearby.

Longoria got out of the Jeep for some fresh air. All around him there were women with baskets, young children at their sides. There was a stack of newspapers by the
tienda
's entrance, and Longoria stepped across the cobblestone street to buy
La Prensa Libre.
Articles about a new leader in the Soviet Union, a man called Gorbachev. The Sandinistas fighting with a Catholic radio station. None of it was very interesting. He tucked the paper under his arm to read later and bought a chocolate ice cream from a vendor who had parked his cart next to the bus.

Across the street Mugre and Mosca were leaning on the Jeep talking. Longoria took a seat on a cast-iron bench near the
tienda.

With a shudder and a hiss the bus door opened, and the waiting crowd began to board. Longoria looked up and watched briefly as a man tied a basket to the roof. The bus driver slipped the engine into gear with a loud clunk.

Buitre emerged from the
tienda
, adjusting his fly.
“Sargento, ya terminé.”

“Wait for me in the car. I'll be there in a second.” Longoria wanted to finish his ice cream.

As the bus rolled by just a few yards from his tennis shoes, Longoria caught the eyes of one of the passengers, a man who was staring at him from behind the window. People stared at him all the time; the tattoo and his military haircut drew their eyes. The thing to do was to stare back until you scared them, but Longoria was too bored now even for this, so he just looked away.

After the bus had rumbled down the street, Longoria noticed Mugre and Mosca wrestling by the Jeep, grabbing at each other's hair.
Little boys, I work with little boys.
As he walked across the cobblestones to tell them to knock it off, Mugre managed to get a foot behind Mosca's leg and sent the overweight killer toppling to the ground.

 

 

PART THREE

ANTONIO AND GUILLERMO

 

11.
FIRE ESCAPE

 

Antonio squatted on the lawn by the playground, about fifteen yards from the chess tables. The tattooed soldier had finished his game and was talking to some of the men who had been watching him. He opened his arms wide, raised a palm in the air, made circles with his fingers. He pointed to the chessboard and turned to the bearded old man who had just defeated him, drawing imaginary lines like an army general or a soccer coach. He appeared to be speaking very fast.

The shaved head, the tattoo of the yellow panther. The soldier from San Cristóbal right here in MacArthur Park. To see him speak and gesture seemed fantastic, like watching a statue or a hunting trophy come to life. Just a few minutes ago he belonged only to Antonio's memory, an image that had darkened and splintered over the years, like an oil painting from a distant century. Now the soldier stood in the California daylight, his features sharp in the crystal air, the wrinkles under his eyes, the lines of the tattoo, all there for Antonio to examine and inspect.

The soldier's sudden appearance in the park was a gift, Antonio decided, something to be celebrated with loud laughter. He broke into a smile. It was a miracle, a sign from the heavens. At moments like this you could begin to believe in things like history and fate. His heart pumped fast and strong, filling his chest with wild vibrations, making his fingertips tingle. He looked around and quickly took in the layout of the park, a sunny April day with families strolling by on the grass. Just a few hundred feet away, in the park's northwest corner, there was a small amphitheater with wooden benches facing a concrete stage. A girl chased a boy through the empty rows of seats.

The soldier stepped onto the asphalt path and began walking toward Antonio, hands tucked in his pockets. Antonio turned away in a panic, looking down at the grass. The man's muted tennis-shoe footsteps passed just a few yards behind him, a soft thump on the hard surface of the path.

As the sound of the footsteps faded, Antonio jumped up.
Don't let him get away. Attach yourself to him.
Carried forward by the vision of the soldier leaving the park, Antonio almost tripped over José Juan, who was still sprawled on his back, snoring.

The soldier walked toward the corner of Seventh and Alvarado, Antonio following a good twenty paces behind. He passed an ice cream vendor with boredom written on his Olmec features as he rang the little bell on his heavy white cart. A young couple was posing for a picture by one of the palm trees, the photographer in the baggy gray suit urging them to stand closer together. They giggled nervously and smiled, not noticing when the soldier cut behind them, ruining the picture; the photographer looked up and muttered while the intruder passed through his field of vision.

The soldier reached the crowded corner at Alvarado and stood waiting for a green light like any pedestrian about to cross the street. When the light changed and the people spilled off the sidewalk, Antonio lost track of him for a few moments and feverishly scanned the bodies in the crowd until he found the stiff blue rectangle of his back.
If I hold on to the navy T-shirt I won't lose him. The tattoo is starting to fade, it was brighter before.
Antonio could not allow the soldier to escape twice. If the soldier slipped away, how would Antonio find him again in this enormous city?

When I first saw this man, on that day so many years ago, I ran. Now I am moving with him, I am moving at him, I am not running.

The soldier stopped to look at some cassette tapes a street vendor was selling; squatting down, he picked one up and inspected the cover. He was a man who listened to music, and for a moment this fact was startling and strange. As Antonio watched from a few paces away, the soldier put the tape back neatly in the rows of merchandise and continued along the sidewalk toward the bus stop on Alvarado, next to a newsstand displaying Mexican tabloids with full-color pictures of mutilated corpses. Antonio's eye caught the screaming boldface headlines of a magazine called
¡Alarma!
: “
THE JEALOUS WIFE SHOT HER HUSBAND!
Aquí está la cara de la degenerada
.”

The soldier joined a large cluster of people waiting for the bus. When it arrived he was one of the first to step on, Antonio the last. Antonio stood near the front door and looked down the aisle. The driver did not seem to notice or care that Antonio hadn't paid his fare, so dense was the crush of passengers. The soldier was lost somewhere in the forest of swaying bodies.

Several blocks later the soldier exited through the rear door. Antonio pushed past a few startled passengers and barely made it out the front.