Chapter 17 16 gangsters

As soon as the navy left, Esteban rushed to the parking lot to find a car.Joe changed out of his uniform while Dion backed the truck up to the dock and the Cubans started moving the crates out of the warehouse. "You can handle it here?" Joe asked Dion. "Coping? We've got it all done. Go save her, we'll meet up there in an hour." Esteban pulls up in an open military scout, Joe jumps in, and they head for Route 41.In less than five minutes, I saw the delivery truck half a mile ahead, rumbling along a road so straight and level that you could see the end of Alabama.

"If we can see them," Joe said. "Then they can see us too." "Will be gone soon." The road was on their left, surrounded by bushes of palmetto, and then crossed a road paved with broken shells and entered scrub and palmetto.Esteban turned left and the car started bouncing.It was a gravel dirt road, and half the dirt was mud.Esteban was driving impatiently and recklessly, and he could feel it all. "What's his name?" said Joe. "The kid who died?" "Ji Yaomo." Joe remembered well the boy's eyes shut, and he didn't want Graciela to do the same.

"We shouldn't have left her there," Esteban said. "I know." "We should have thought that they might leave one of them alone with her." "I know!" "We should leave someone to wait with her and hide by the side." "Damn it I know!" said Joe. "What's the use of talking about it now?" Esteban slammed on the gas and the car flew over a pothole in the road and landed hard on the other side, making Joe fear that the car would flip over and they'd hit their heads. But he didn't tell Esteban to drive slower.

"We've known each other since we were kids, when the dogs on my farm were probably taller than us." Joe said nothing.A swamp appeared in the pine forest on the left.On both sides of the road passed bald cedars and rubber gum trees, and some plants that Joe hadn't had time to see clearly, all green and yellow blurred into one piece, like a picture. "Their family is migrant farm workers who migrate with the seasons. You should really go and see the village where they live for a few months every year. Americans don't know, that's really poor. My father found that she was very smart, so he asked her parents Hired her as a maidservant. But my father hired a friend for me. I had no friends then, but horses and cows for company."

They took another bump in the road. "It's a strange time for you to tell me this now," said Joe. "I loved her," Esteban said, loudly over the engine. "Now I'm in love with someone else, but for many years, I felt like I was in love with Grace Ella." He turned to look at Joe, who shook her head and pointed forward. "Watch the way, Esteban." Another jolt, this time both of them lifted their hips off their seats, then dropped back down. "Did she say she did this for her husband?" Talking helped control the fear and made Jo feel less helpless.

"Humph," Esteban said. "He's not a husband, not a man." "Isn't he a revolutionary?" This time Esteban spat. "He's a thief, a... a... estafador. You call him a liar in English, don't you? He looks like a revolutionary, he can recite poetry, and she fell in love with him. She lost everything for this man— — her family, she never had a lot of money, and she lost all her friends except me." He shook his head. "She doesn't even know where he is." "I thought he was in jail." "I've been out of prison for two years."

Another bump.This time the car flew sideways, and Joe's side of the rear wing swept a small pine tree, and the car fell back to the ground. "But she went on sending money to his house," said Jo. "They lied to her. Said he had escaped, that he was hiding in the hills, that a gang of vultures from Nevis Murrayjon was after him, and that Machado's minions were after him. They and She said she couldn't go back to Cuba to meet him, or they would be in danger. Nobody else was after him except his creditors. But you can't tell Graciela that; she'll say anything about him. Can't listen."

"Why? She's smart." Esteban cast a quick glance at Joe and shrugged. "People would rather believe lies that sound better than the truth. She is no exception. It's just that her lies are bigger." They missed the fork, but Joe saw it out of the corner of his eye and hailed to stop.Esteban hit the brakes, and the car coasted twenty yards before finally coming to a stop.Then he backed up and turned into the fork. "How many people have you killed?" Esteban asked. "None," said Joe. "But you're a gangster." Joe saw no need to say he wasn't a gangster but an outlaw, because he didn't feel the difference anymore. "Gangsters don't necessarily kill people."

"But you will certainly be willing to kill." Joe nodded. "same as you." "I'm in business. I offer a product that people want. I don't kill people." "You are armed Cuban revolutionaries." "That's the lofty goal I'm after." "But for this purpose, people will die." "That makes a difference," Esteban said. "I kill for a reason." "What reason? Fucking ideal?" "Exactly." "What ideal is that, Esteban?" "No one should dictate another's life."

"Funny," said Joe, "outlaws kill for the same reason." she's not there. They left the pine forest and headed for Highway 41 without a sign of Graciela or the Marine who had been left to hunt her.Nothing but heat, the hum of dragonflies, and white roads. They drove down a half mile, turned back to the dirt road, and drove north a half mile.As they turned back, Joe heard what he thought was the cry of a crow or a hawk. "Turn off the engine, turn off the engine." Esteban complied, and the two of them stood up in the roofless military reconnaissance vehicle, looking at the road and the pine trees, and beyond, the swamp with cypresses, and the sky as bright as the road. .

There was nothing but the hum of the dragonflies—and now Jo suspected that it would never stop, morning, noon, or night, always, as if there were a railroad track that a train had just passed. Esteban sat back, and Joe sat down too, and stopped suddenly. He thought he saw something to the east, in the direction they'd just come from, something— "There." He pointed, and just as she ran out from behind a pine tree instead of in their direction, Jo realized she was too clever to do that.If she came toward them she would have to dash through fifty yards of palmetto and young pines at full speed. Esteban started the engine again, and they rolled off the shoulder, into a ditch, and back on the road.Joe was gripping the top of the windshield when he heard a gunshot—a surprisingly low crisp sound, even though there was nothing near them.From Joe's vantage point, he still couldn't see where the shooter was, but he could see the swamp: he knew she was going for it.He touched Esteban with his foot and pointed to the left, just slightly southwest of the direction they were traveling. Esteban turned the steering wheel and Joe caught a glimpse of dark blue, just a flash, then saw the man's head and heard his gunshot.Just ahead, Graciela knelt into the swamp, and Jo couldn't tell whether she had tripped or been shot.They had run out of hard ground and the shooter was on the right.Esteban slowed down after driving into the swamp, and Joe jumped out of the car. It was like jumping on the moon, only this one was green.Bald cypress rose like huge eggs from the turbid green water, and the ancient toon tree sprouted a dozen or more trunks, standing upright like palace guards.Esteban steered to the right, and Joe saw Graciela rush to the left between two bald trees.He heard a musket fire, much nearer this time, as he felt something heavy crawl to his feet.The bullet grazed the bald cedar where Graciela had just been hiding, tearing off a piece of bark. The young soldier came out from behind a bald cedar about ten feet away.He was about Joe's height and build, with rather bright red hair and a thin face.He held his Springfield rifle over his shoulder, staring down at the sights, the barrel pointed at the bald pine.Joe raised his .32 automatic, let out a long breath, and fired at the soldier ten feet away.The soldier's rifle turned up and down so grotesquely that Joe thought he had shot only the rifle.Then the rifle fell into the tea-colored water, and the young man fell with him, and then he fell with a splash and sat in the water, blood gushing from his left armpit, blackening the water. "Graciela," he called. "I'm Joe. Are you all right?" She peeped out from behind the tree, and Jo nodded.Esteban circled behind her in the military scout car, she climbed in, and the car came back toward Joe. Joe picked up his rifle and looked down at the marine.He was sitting in the water with his arms across his knees, his head hanging down, resting and breathing. Graciela climbed out of the military scout vehicle.In fact she was half falling out, half staggering at Jo.He reached out to hug her and straightened her up, feeling her heart beating so fast.It was as if someone had been stabbing her with a cattle stick. The soldier looked up at Joe, breathing in with his mouth open. "You're white." "Yes," said Joe. "Then why did you shoot me?" Jo looked at Esteban, then at Graciela. "If we leave him here, he'll be eaten in two minutes. So we either take him..." As the soldier's blood continued to flow into the green swamp, he heard more crocodiles.Joe said, "So we either take him..." "He knows what she looks like, too clearly." "I know," said Joe. "He treated it like a game," Graciela said. "what?" "Catch me. He's like a little girl, laughing all the time." Joe looked at the soldier and the soldier looked at him.There was fear deep in the kid's eyes, but the rest of him was only rebellious and savage. "If I were to beg you, you'd be mistaken—" Joe shot him in the face, and the bullet spattered a patch of fern pink.Several crocodiles waved their tails expectantly. Graciela couldn't help giving a little cry, and Joe almost did too.Esteban looked him in the eyes and nodded, which Jo understood meant thanks, because it had to be done, and no one wanted to do it.Fuck, Joe can't believe he did it, he stands amidst the sound of gunshots and the smell of gunpowder, a puff of smoke from the barrel of that . . A dead man lay at his feet.From a fundamental point of view, this man died only because Joe was born that year. They didn't say anything, and each climbed into the scout car.As if given permission, two crocodiles immediately attacked the carcass—one lurched out of the mangrove with the regular gait of an overweight dog; When the car left, the two crocodiles had come to the corpse at the same time.One attacks the arm and the other bites the leg. Back in the pine forest, Esteban drove southeast along the edge of the swamp, parallel to the road, but not yet up. Joe and Graciela sat in the back seat.Crocodiles and humans weren't the only predators in the swamp that day: A mountain lion stood at the water's edge, licking the reddish-brown water.It was the color of some trees, and Joe might never have seen it if it hadn't looked up just as they passed twenty yards away.The mountain lion must have been at least five feet long, with damp legs that were graceful and well-built.Its underbelly and throat were milky white, and its damp fur steamed as it looked at the car.Joe met its crystal eyes, which seemed as old and golden and unfeeling as the sun.For a moment, in the midst of utter weariness, he thought he heard it talking in his head. You can't beat this. what is this?He wanted to ask, but Esteban turned the wheel and they left the edge of the swamp, bouncing violently over the roots of a fallen tree, and when Joe looked again, the mountain lion was gone.He scanned the bush for another look, but saw no sign of it again. "Did you see that big cat?" Graciela glared at him. "Mountain lion," he said, gesturing with his arms outstretched. She narrowed her eyes, as if worried that he might have sunstroke, and shook her head.She was in a complete mess—it looked like most of the injuries on her body were not flesh and blood.The place where he had hit her face before was swollen of course now, and got bitten badly by mosquitoes and deer flies, not only that, but also fire ants, which left red rings all over her feet and calves. White pustules.Her gown was torn at the shoulder and left hip, and the hem was ripped.Her shoes are missing. "You can put it away." Joe followed her gaze, only to realize that he was still holding the gun in his right hand.He put the safety on and put it in the holster behind his back. Esteban turned onto Highway 41, stepped on the accelerator hard, the car shook and sped forward.Joe watched the pavement of broken shells recede rapidly, watched the relentless sun in the merciless sky. "He's going to kill me." Her wet hair fell over her face and neck. "I know." "He hunted me down like a squirrel looking for lunch. He kept saying, 'Honey, honey, I'll shoot one in your leg, honey, and have you.' That 'possess you' means Yes or no……?" Joe nodded. "If you spare his life," she said, "I'll be arrested. Then you'll be arrested." He nodded.He looked at the mosquito bite on her knee, then looked up, past her gown, into her eyes.She also looked at him for a while, then turned her eyes away.She looked at a piece of orange orchard passing by outside the car.After a while, she turned back to look at him again. "Do you think I feel bad?" he asked. "can not tell." "Not really," he said. "Nor should it be." "I don't think it feels good either." That pretty much sums it all up. I'm no longer an outlaw, he thought.I'm a gangster.And this is my gang. In the backseat of the military scout vehicle, the spicy scent of citrus overwhelmed again by the stench of the swamp, she and he stared at each other for a full mile, neither of them speaking until they reached West Tampa.