King Bongo Read online

  “I thought he lost his license.”

  “What is lost once can be bought twice.”

  “But he’s no longer a private dick, is he? The President said there would be no more private dicks. No guys can carry guns except police and soldiers. The President suspended all the licenses.”

  “Suspended some, stretched others,” the voice corrected. “Sometimes there’s a state of emergency, sometimes not. It all depends on how the children behave.”

  Bongo interrupted, “I’m in the insurance business now, Mr. Wu. It’s simpler. The only way to make a living with a gun these days is to be on the side of the President, or with the bearded boys in the mountains.”

  Ming finished frisking Bongo. “Shall I unlock the door for him, Mr. Wu?”

  “Listen,” Bongo said with irritation, “I was told she was here. That’s why I came out.”

  “Unlock it for him,” commanded Wu.

  Ming dug a key out of his pocket and opened the back door. Bongo got in and the door slammed behind him. The key clicked and locked the door again.

  The air was filled with cigarette smoke and a distinctive perfume. Wu sat on the far side of a plush leather seat, reclining against silk pillows. Bongo’s attention was caught by a creature balanced on Wu’s knees. She was fragile and wispy, with an inviting flowered face and a sulky pout.

  “Thank you for bringing her, Mr. Wu.”

  Wu’s cheeks hollowed as he inhaled another drag from the cigarette smoldering at the end of a carved ivory holder. He let the smoke leak slowly from his nostrils. He was not a man to be rushed, always speaking with measured care; words were not random noises to be shot haphazardly out of one’s mouth. Havana was a town of fast-talkers, but if you were Chinese and your people had come here as nothing more than yellow slaves to replace black slaves, you kept your own counsel. You listened. If you were smart, you kept on listening. You let the other guy blab away so you could read him. You could read his whole life in less time than it takes to boil a kettle of tea if you just kept your mouth shut.

  Bongo inhaled the smoky perfumed air. He had never smelled anything so delicious in his life. “I didn’t think you would really bring her.”

  Wu said nothing.

  “How much will she cost me?”

  Wu remained silent.

  Bongo shifted uneasily. “I didn’t mean to insult you by talking money. It’s just that I’ve never seen one this beautiful, and you have brought me so many beautiful ones.”

  Wu sank back deeper into the pillows. He spoke in a soft, conspiratorial tone. “A Chinese emperor used to travel in his golden carriage through the countryside holding one this beautiful on his knees. Her perfume filled the carriage. Her perfume was so heavenly it made everything outside, no matter how rancid or ugly, seem beautiful. This one is fit for such an emperor.”

  “Can I have a closer look?”

  Wu didn’t answer. His cigarette was finished and the perfume was even more overpowering, a syrup that a man could swim in.

  “If you won’t take money from me, Mr. Wu, what do you want?”

  “One thing not yet done. One thing promised.”

  “What do you want done? I mean, you know me. I keep my promises.”

  “Promised now, done another time. Always something to be done in time.”

  “That’s true. So I owe you one. What’s the promise?”

  “Will you love her?”

  Bongo was caught off guard, fearful of giving the wrong answer.

  Wu sighed. “She traveled all the way from China to be with you. Do you know how difficult a journey that is? Can you appreciate her effort? Do you know how big a risk she took, a risk that could have spoiled her beauty, ended her life? Do you know how fragile she truly is?”

  Bongo knew, Bongo appreciated. He wanted to show proper respect. “May I have a closer look at her fragile beauty?”

  “Ming!” Wu commanded his bodyguard in the front seat, “Fire!”

  Ming leaned over from the front seat, where he had been watching everything in the rearview mirror. He flicked a Zippo lighter and its flame fully illuminated Mr. Wu.

  Wu wore a long blue silk tunic with gold thread woven through it. His face was a tea-stained porcelain color and a satin skullcap fit tightly on his head. Balanced on his knees was a sight that made Bongo inhale sharply.

  From a clay pot, a splendid orchid’s shiny stalk shot out of a green spray of leaves, culminating in a lavish display of a purple-tongued bloom taunting the air around it.

  As discreetly as he could, so as not to disturb Mr. Wu’s reverential gaze, Bongo asked, “May I know her name?”

  With a long, mellow sigh, Wu released the precious syllables: “Vanda dearei.”

  “Vanda dearei,” Bongo repeated in a whisper. “I already love her.”

  Wu gazed fiercely at Bongo. “You’re not just saying that?”

  “Of course not. You know me. I’m one of your best customers. May I smell her?”

  “Yes.” Wu gave the orchid a little bounce with his knees.

  Bongo leaned over, his nose close to the inviting bloom, but not touching it. He didn’t want Mr. Wu to think him capable of anything improper.

  “She’s not a little hooker,” Wu emphasized.

  “You’re right, but she does have a kind of promiscuous dazzle.”

  “What does she smell like?” Wu’s question had a challenging edge. “What is the perfume of her essence?”

  Bongo closed his eyes, concentrating on the heavenly scent without being distracted by beauty. “Sticks of cloves burning. Vanilla steaming.”

  “Is that all? Can’t you do better?”

  Bongo opened his eyes. The taunting purple tongue was right before him. He inhaled deeply, afraid to venture an answer for fear it would be wrong and Mr. Wu would not let him take her.

  “Let’s say you just got married,” Wu prodded Bongo. “You married a girl from Camagüey in the center of Cuba. Those girls are the blackest coffee on all of the island. Let’s say you married one of those beauties, you had your honeymoon night, it was bliss, and the next day your wife disappeared. You had to search for her because she betrayed you, or maybe she didn’t betray you but was kidnapped. You searched and searched but couldn’t find her. You were going crazy, you couldn’t sleep, you couldn’t think, you wanted to kill yourself. Finally the police called and they said they had someone who might be your wife at the morgue and they wanted you to come and identify her. So you go there. It is a depressing place. You go into a cold room. The police roll out a cart with a body on it covered by a sheet. They begin to peel back the sheet and you close your eyes, because you don’t want to see her once-smiling eyes now lifeless. You keep your eyes closed and they ask, ‘Is this your wife?’ And you just stand there, you don’t want to know. ‘Yes or no?’ they demand. You keep your eyes closed and lean toward her. She’s not breathing; she’s dead. You are afraid to inhale her scent, afraid to breathe. But you must know the truth. What do you smell?”

  “Cinnamon! Goddamn it, cinnamon!”

  Bongo pulled back from the flower and jolted upright.

  A knowing expression spread across Wu’s face. He passed the plant to Bongo. “She’s yours. The only one in all of Cuba.”

  Bongo felt the weight of the treasure in his hands. “I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Wu.”

  “Oh, I will find a way for you to thank me. Something to be done, a promise to keep.”

  “I already paid you the final installment for the Broughtonia ortgiasana I bought last month.”

  “That orchid was a little hooker. She was shameless with her blossoms.”

  “I’m giving her a chance to reform.” Bongo winked. “So far she’s behaving.”

  “You have a hothouse full of wayward girls,” Wu scolded.

  “That’s how nature made them.”

  “I should never have got you started.”

  “You told me it was a noble addiction, a vocation for royalty.”

  “
Expensive.”

  “I’m willing to pay.”

  “Now that you have dear Vanda, you will be a changed man. More virtuous, less promiscuous. You run after life too much. You should slow down, let it come to you. Everything good will come to you if you have the patience to wait.”

  “It’s a modern world we live in, Mr. Wu. Every year faster cars, more television channels, faster girls.”

  “Girls go faster, but they are still going to the same place, the husband-man. When they get there they stop.”

  “That’s why I stick to my orchids.”

  “They can betray you too, don’t be too sure.”

  “I’ve got a good girl waiting for me inside the club. I’d better get back to her.” Bongo slid over to leave.

  Wu pulled Bongo back. “Don’t go in there. Don’t take Vanda inside. Take her home. She’s too innocent for what goes on in the Tropicana. Take her home and be happy.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Wu. I want to take Vanda in and show her to that special girl I’m with.”

  “Both girls might not be safe in there.”

  “They’ll be safe. They’ll be with me.”

  Wu sighed. “Go back inside if you must.”

  “Happy New Year, Mr. Wu.”

  “It’s not my New Year,” Wu said. “Ming, let him out.”

  Ming unlocked the back door and swung it open.

  Bongo stepped from the car and someone slammed into him so hard he almost dropped the orchid.

  The woman who had knocked into him threw her head back and laughed. She wasn’t much of a woman, more like a girl, a tall girl with a short haircut and dressed like a boy. Atop her head was a white U.S. Navy sailor’s cap cocked at a jaunty angle. She was never without the cap, and never without her odd laugh, a kind of heigh-ho cackle, like wind rapping across the tin roof of an abandoned barn on the American plains. She had two Cuban sailors at her side, black men in white uniforms. She liked navy men, regardless of nationality. That’s why she was called Sailor Girl, and that’s why she always wore her sailor’s cap; she never left home or walked into a bar without it.

  Sailor Girl grabbed Bongo’s hand and shoved it inside her shirt and over her breast. It was a small breast, not much meat to it. The nipple was hard with excitement.

  “What do you feel?”

  “Your tit.”

  “Don’t be so explicit!”

  “Hmmm. I feel your heart beating.”

  “It’s the beat of all Havana fucking on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “Yes!” She let go of his hand and laughed. She hugged her two sailors closer. “Bongo, do you have any idea how much I like this crisp bacon in a white uniform?”

  “I’ve noticed your appetite over the years.”

  “Well, those Tropicana bastards won’t let me bring my bacon into their cabaret. They say it’s because these boys are burnt bacon. What kind of crap is that? This bacon is from their own navy!”

  “Don’t feel bad. The President’s bacon is burnt too.”

  “That’s why he’s the President, so he can slip his burnt bacon into all the places normally forbidden to him.”

  “Some say that’s one of the reasons.”

  “What do you say?”

  “I’m not political.”

  “Don’t go into the Tropicana, then. Come with us. Help me sneak these boys into Sans Souci. I’m going to rip up the dance floor.”

  “They won’t let you in with these gentlemen. You know how it is.”

  “Fuck how it is.”

  “That’s the American way.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t political.”

  “I’m not. Just realistic.”

  Sailor Girl turned to Ming. “What about you, chopsticks? You want to go to Sans Souci?”

  Ming silently stroked his dragon necktie.

  “Come on, sticky rice,” challenged Sailor Girl. “You’re not afraid to go where your yellow ass isn’t wanted, are you?”

  Ming glared at her. “Like Mr. Wu said, it’s not my New Year.”

  “All of you Chinese boys are the same, afraid to make a move, just sticky rice.” She kicked the back door of the Victoria. “Hey, Wu, why don’t we all go over to your laundry and smoke a magic pipe? Every night there is New Year’s Eve.”

  “Ming!” Wu’s voice commanded from inside the car. “Drive!”

  Ming jumped into the Victoria, the twelve-cylinder engine growled and the car roared away.

  “Everybody on this island is chickenshit!” Sailor Girl shouted at the disappearing Victoria. “The only ones who aren’t chickenshit are those bearded boys fighting up in the mountains.”

  “If that’s the way you feel about it,” Bongo advised, “why don’t you go to the mountains and find yourself a bearded boy?”

  “I will.” Sailor Girl threw her head back, her mouth opened in a laugh, her white teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “You just keep your eyes on me, Mister Drummer Boy. I’ll fuck one of those rebels so hard his beard will fall off. I swear I’ll do it.”

  “Good luck.” Bongo turned and walked toward the Tropicana.

  A white Cadillac Eldorado convertible careened around the circular drive, headed straight for Bongo. He jumped aside, landing in the flowered arms of a hibiscus bush. He caught a glimpse of the driver inside the speeding car.

  The driver wore a white tux and his blond hair was slicked back from his tanned face. It was Guy Armstrong. Such an American name. A name like that didn’t come from a mother, but from a vote by a Wall Street brokerage house. Seated next to Guy was his wife, a haughty beauty with cool blue eyes in a marble-white face. Elizabeth was her regal name, perfect for someone who appeared to be above the commoners of the world, speeding past in her Cadillac chariot.

  As the Armstrongs raced by like they had just robbed the casino, Bongo thought that either they had not seen him or they didn’t give a damn if they ran him down. The odd thing was that slouched in the car’s backseat was Hurricane Hurler, the Havana Sugar Kings pitcher. Like Bongo, he was half Cuban, with an American father.

  Bongo got up from the side of the road and dusted himself off. Nothing broken, and the orchid was safe. He walked up to the glass entrance doors of the Tropicana. The uniformed attendant snapped to attention, saluted, then threw open the doors to the paradise under the stars. Inside, at the velvet rope, the Judge smirked disdainfully before letting Bongo pass.

  The tables were crowded with people and covered with buckets of champagne, party hats and whistle poppers. Bongo passed where Zapata had been sitting, but he was gone, and so were his two goons in their cheap suits.

  A fierce conga beat blasted from the orchestra on the elevated bandstand. The Panther pranced onstage, leading a high-kicking line of nearly naked beauties with outlandish headdresses of glittering glass beads and blinking lights.

  Mercedes was seated at the table in front of the stage, right where Bongo had left her. She turned with a smile and a wave, calling for him to hurry before the hour struck so they could have their midnight kiss.

  Bongo clutched the orchid to his body, protecting it against the bump and push of the crowd as he struggled toward Mercedes. The crashing sound of tape-recorded thunder broadcast from loudspeakers, a rain of colorful confetti showered down. The booming voice of the master of ceremonies announced that it was only seconds until midnight. The crowd took up the gleeful countdown to the New Year:

  Five

  Four

  Three

  Two

  One

  HAPPY NINETEEN FIFTY-SEVEN!

  Mercedes raised her hand to her lips to blow Bongo a kiss as a bomb exploded.

  The force of the blast hurled Bongo back. In a flash of blue light he saw Mercedes, her flesh disintegrating, her bones shattering, her body flying apart.

  Bongo fought his way up from the floor. Screaming people stampeded for the exits. He looked back to where Mercedes had been, but there was only a red vapor in the air and a circle o
f burnt people covered by blood.

  Then another fear overtook him. What about his sister, the Panther? He fought harder against the surrounding panic, desperately trying to get to the stage. He couldn’t make any progress. Dancers on-stage were screaming in shock, the flesh of their exposed bodies pierced by shards of glass, blood streaming from their wounds. Bongo kept struggling. The tide of the crowd surged against him.

  The conga night had been split wide open with the tick of a time bomb. The world had been blasted to hell.

  2.

  Sinners and Saints

  Oklaaahoooma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain. Oh, the air so sweeeeet—”

  “Would you stop your singing?”

  Leaping Larry Lizard glared across the bar counter at Broadway Betty. The narrow slits of his scowling eyes dared her to make another peep, just one itsy-bitsy peep and he was going to smack her silly. Except he couldn’t bean her in front of her husband, Johnny PayDay, a bald little schmo whose muscles bulged and twitched beneath his discount-store suit that was nine fashion years behind the times. The bald schmo even wore a tie with a hula girl in a grass skirt and bare tits on it. Guys like PayDay, who had been in the war out in the South Pacific, they always had to wear some sort of badge saying they were there, fought the big one and banged all the local tail.

  “Don’t be so hard on her,” Johnny PayDay said. His voice was like a letter sent by ship, arriving way too late to have any impact on Lizard.

  “You shut your trap, too,” Lizard snarled. He was the boss here. He wasn’t about to let things get out of control. Just because everybody was hungover didn’t make it a holiday. “Don’t think the meter stops running the first day of the New Year. No free rides in this town. This is Havana.”

  PayDay tried to mollify him. “I know I wasn’t flown here for no holiday.”

  “Then if you’re such a bright bulb, why did you bring your wife with you?”

  “It’s family time, Christmas and New Year’s stuff. And she’s never seen the Caribbean.”

  “How many times have I got to tell you that ain’t the Caribbean?” Lizard hooked a big thumb over his shoulder, pointing out of the Hotel Nacional’s Terrace Bar through the huge plate-glass window, where the sun’s high-noon rays smacked the surface of the glittering water beyond. “It ain’t the Carib, it’s the stinking Atlantic. Same goddamn piece of water that the Statue of Liberty pisses in. Same goddamn piece of water they dump all New York City’s shit into. Don’t be a romantic sap. This is Cuba, not Hawaii. By the way, you dress like a sap, except for that tie, it’s a killer. Those hula girls must have been some hump. Tell me, did you ever get one to—”