TORO! TORO! TORO!, page 8




The two old criminals touched glasses and drank, smiling through the foam into beer as mellow and golden as the Tenerife sunset.
domingo próximo
On Sunday mornings Doña Carlota Madrigal was at her post in the bell tower an hour before dawn. The churchyard of Sueño de Duende crowned a poplar-covered hillside high above the town, and the rising sun lit first the bell tower, next the treetops and, by degrees, the weathered façade of the ancient church. Sunday was a busy time in the churchyard. The earliest arrivals came for six o’clock Mass and there were always a few who lingered among the tombs. Doña Carlota carefully scrutinized all the mourners with her ten-power binoculars.
A bit after nine, she spotted the rumpled figure of the empresario Don Pepe trudging up the dusty path toward the churchyard. Doña Carlota smiled. When Pepe came by the house yesterday afternoon to pay his respects, she silently let the pompous old fool bluster his way through twenty minutes of awkward small talk before she asked, “Have you been to see Arturo?” The first thing in the morning, he had promised, and as much as Carlota detested the man, she was secretly pleased at seeing him keep his word.
Don Pepe stood with his head bowed before the ornate monument housing Arturo Madrigal’s mortal remains. After a decent interval, Doña Carlota watched him make the sign of the cross and shuffle off down the gravel walk. She knew the empresario had not influenced her son’s decision to abandon a career in science for the bullring, but Pepe was responsible for the bookings, and if he hadn’t packed the schedule so full that final season perhaps Arturo might have lived to retire and become the herpetologist God intended him to be.
The sound of voices among the poplars interrupted her speculation: “Is he gone? Can you see?” Doña Carlota raised the field glasses to her yellow eyes with the speed of a striking viper.
“Shhh! I hear his footsteps still.”
“Can you see him?”
“No, he’s gone out through the gate.”
“That was close,” a young man said, emerging from the shrubbery. “Who would have expected it at this hour?” Doña Carlota studied his face through the binoculars: a weakling, she decided, a man lacking in pundonor.
The girl who followed him had the haughty look of a gypsy. “Who is he?” she asked.
“Don Pepe, my manager. I don’t want him to see the two of us together before the corrida.”
The corners of Doña Carlota’s mouth tightened with scorn. So this was Pepe’s new sword; what a pale shadow compared with her Arturo. On the morning of the corrida, when he should be on his knees in the chapel, here he is, hiding in the bushes with his painted gypsy puta. No wonder Pepe didn’t bring him to meet her yesterday afternoon.
“It’s over here,” the girl called. “The one with the angels.”
Doña Carlota watched them approach her son’s tomb. The binoculars followed every move.
“Don Pepe was the manager of Arturo Madrigal,” the novillero said. “Right until the end.”
“Is this true?” The gypsy girl’s sullen expression brightened.
“He recognized the same seed of greatness in me, but I have had mal suerte with injuries since my first season.”
“I would call your luck fantástico,” the girl said, “at being even remotely connected to such nobility. Arturo Madrigal was an artist of the first rank. There was the soul of a poet in his capework.”
Carlota Madrigal was sickened to hear these words of praise for her son come from this harlot’s mouth. A thing of the gutter; vermin not fit to touch the bottom of Arturo’s shoe. What right had she to even breathe his name?
“Look how handsome he was.” The girl knelt by the side of the tomb and reached out her hand to touch the statue’s marble cheek. “See his noble face. Here was a man without equal.”
Doña Carlota ground her teeth in silent fury. She watched through the field glasses as the gypsy whore bent over Arturo’s effigy and rubbed her filthy lips against his image. The little puta would die for that! Before the day was out, slowly and without mercy; Doña Carlota vowed to purify her son’s defiled memory with the blood of this worthless slut. It was the very least a mother could do.
Mercy Malone ate Sunday breakfast with her bull. Before leaving the house, she filled a thermos with hot tea, and on her way across the city, she bought a half-dozen deep-fried churros from a sidewalk vendor who forked them from his pot of boiling oil and tied them together on a length of flat green reed. El Camión’s stall was a pleasant place for a picnic, with lots of clean, dry straw to sit on and the sweet smell of new-mown hay in the air.
Mercy hardly ever saw Paco anymore. She had moved into a guest bedroom at the Machismo town house three nights after he stood her up on a dinner date. There was a picture in the society section of the next morning’s newspaper showing him at some posh midtown disco, doing the boogaloo with a recently divorced condesa. Mr. Machismo could shove it for all Mercy cared. If the management of the Francisco Cortina Riding Academy weren’t so bloody stuffy, she would ask about sleeping there in the stall with el Camión.
Mercy sat, dunking crisp bits of churro into a cup of tea, and stared at the hulking animal, admiring his sleek strength and the scimitar spread of his fearsome horns. After breakfast she would curry and brush him and rub his hoofs with oil. The top of el Camión’s head needed extra grooming, especially the area between the horns, which had a peculiar crooked look, like a woman with her wig askew.
Mercy stood up for a closer examination, dusting greasy churro crumbs from the lap of her tartan maxiskirt. El Camión waited placidly and she stroked the big bull’s neck and whispered low murmuring sounds into his ear. Something was definitely wrong with the top of his head. Mercy ran her hand between el Camión’s horns and lifted half his scalp as easily as a grounds keeper replaces a worn section of Astroturf.
“Jesus deliver us,” the girl gasped, recoiling with horror. But she returned for a closer look, fully expecting a surgeon’s-eye view of blood and bone and finding instead only a second layer of bullhide. The scalp she held was a dummy, crudely sewn into place on the bull’s head. Underneath, Mercy made another discovery: curling from el Camión’s cranium, like sofa springs burst through the upholstery, were a pair of interconnected copper wires.
El Camión trembled with pleasure as the delicate two-legged who smelled of spring flowers rubbed his shoulders and neck. This slight creature had hair the color of sunshine; the color of summer straw; the color of the rolling hills on the ranch where he was born. Lost in his electronic nirvana, the fighting bull perceived the girl as the embodiment of all his most treasured memories. Her smell and color, the bright cornflower blue of her eyes, brought back the happy magic of calfhood. Her caresses recalled the tender touch of his mother’s muzzle. The melodic sounds she made were sweeter than birdsong or the purl of spring water over stones. The big animal felt a rush of warmth and joy whenever she entered his stall. El Camión was in love.
When Marty Farb entered the hotel suite of Toro Productions he found Abe Wasserman hidden behind his newspaper, a curl of cigar smoke the only sign that someone was home. “Hey, Marty,” Abe called without looking up, “remember Freddie Zink?”
“Sure, Fat Freddie from Canarsie. What about him?”
“He’s got a TV pilot that he’s promoting now, a daytime quiz giveaway. Just get a load of this: the name of the show is ‘You Bet Your Sweet Ass,’ and here’s the gimmick: the contestants come to the studio with all their valuables, cash, jewels, stock certificates, the deeds to their homes, safe-deposit-box keys, what have you; and they make bets with the m.c. to win prizes, like say, a man might bet his wife’s wedding ring for a crack at a brand-new station wagon.”
“That sounds like Fat Freddie, all right,” Marty Farb said. “When he was making book in Queens back in the old days, he’d take anything you had, including the fillings outta your teeth, to settle a bet.”
“Yeah, but this is the best part.” Abe scanned the next paragraph in Variety. “Listen to this: if a contestant bets his whole bankroll and loses, he still has a chance at the grand prize. On stage, they’ve got this giant meat cutter, you know, like one of the pastrami slicers at the deli? Only this sheer’s got a blade six feet in diameter, sharp as a razor. It can cut paper-thin. The contestant sticks his tuchas through the slot and bets by the slice. Each time he misses a question they take off another couple of millimeters. Some babe in a bikini runs the machine. She trims this poor bastard’s tushy just like she was building a Reuben sandwich.”
“Freddie Zink always wanted his pound of flesh,” Marty said, reaching for a cigar. “If there ain’t any more hot items, maybe you wanna hear some real news?”
“You got something on the Chink?” Abe folded the copy of Variety and tucked it into a desk drawer.
“Naturally. I had Harry do some digging over at Interpol and Professor Chop Suey’s got a record as long as your grandfather’s underdrawers: thirty-four arrests and no convictions.”
Abe whistled in appreciation. “Smart operator,” he said. “What sort of charges they got him on?”
“You name it: extortion, conspiracy, counterfeiting; plus he’s been an accessory in just about every big heist on the Continent for the past twenty-five years. This is no ordinary one-from-column-A Chinaman; he’ll mastermind any caper you come up with for a percentage, plus supply whatever special hardware the job requires. There are a lot of big-time cops who’d give anything for a make on Lucky Sam Wo.”
“You know what I’m thinking?” Abe Wasserman asked, contemplating his manicured fingernails. “I’m thinking the Chink is made to order. It was our lucky day when that little fortune cookie walked into the office. The name of the game is ‘You Bet Your Sweet Ass,’ only this time, the meat in the slot is yellow.”
Elsewhere, the empresario Don Pepe was having his problems. What other than bad luck could he expect from a day which began with a visit to a graveyard? He should have known the consequences of hanging around Arturo’s tomb on the morning of a corrida. Every time he saw those carved marble angels it brought to mind the repossessed Chrysler. (Surely it was a sacrilege to mourn for a lost limousine while pretending to pray for the soul of a departed friend.) It came as no surprise to Don Pepe that all of his troubles this morning should be automotive.
He paced the oil-stained concrete floor of Sueño de Duende’s only garage. Sunday was the mechanics’ day off and the place was empty and silent, except for the empresario’s echoing footsteps. Garages depressed Don Pepe. The smell of gasoline and rubber filled him with despair.
When the garage owner finished his phone conversation and stepped from his glass-walled office, the empresario hurried over, rubbing his hands imploringly. “What about that big Mercedes up on the rack?” he begged. “I’ll pay double.”
“Out of the question, Pepe, that’s the mayor’s car. It’s here for a tune-up and a lube job.”
“I only need it for an hour or so,” the empresario wheedled. “Who would be the wiser?”
“No, Pepe, not even for old times’ sake,” the garage owner said. “All the money on earth wouldn’t tempt me to insult the alcalde by renting his car out to a bullfighter.”
“All right, I understand; but you and I have done business so often in the past—tell me again, what happened to the old Alfa I rented for Arturo Madrigal’s first fights?”
“A total wreck. The train from Sevilla struck it at the crossroads three years ago. There wasn’t enough left over for spare parts.”
Don Pepe wrung his hands like a man in pain. “I’ll settle for anything, even that yellow Fiat taxicab with the dented fender parked out back.”
The garage owner placed his hand consolingly on the empresario’s shoulder. “Believe me, Pepe, I would like to help you,” he said. “I would give you the taxi for nothing if it were running, but my boys ripped out the transmission only yesterday. I’m afraid the only surviceable vehicle at my disposal is the one we spoke of earlier.”
Don Pepe sighed and shook his head. “You know how matadors are, so superstitious. Riding to the arena in such a car as that would surely throw Chicote off his form.”
“But it is black and has dignity. It is not a frivolous vehicle, Pepe.”
“Claro que sí, it is truly a handsome machine; but it has, shall we say, unpleasant associations.”
The garage owner shrugged. “What more can I do, my friend? All my cars are either under contract or in the shop for repair. There’s simply nothing else available.”
“Then I have no choice,” Don Pepe said. “I can’t have my boy walk to the arena, how would that look? I’ll take it, but at the discount we agreed upon before.”
“Naturally,” the garage owner said as the two men approached the long black ‘48 Cadillac hearse parked in the corner. Discreet gray curtains hung in the windows and small silver vases filled with plastic flowers brightened the somber interior. “Look at it this way, Pepe, if all I’ve read of your boy Chicote is true, you’ve picked the appropriate vehicle. The novillero can ride up front on the way to the corrida, and in back after our big bulls have finished with him.”
“Pull the straps tighter, please.” Esmeralda Fabada hung onto a bedpost as Carlos Carretera tugged at the fabric binding her chest.
“Doesn’t it hurt you, Fabalita?”
“No. It’s much better than having those things flopping around under my shirt.” With her breasts strapped flat and her long hair pinned and tied back into a matador’s coleta, Esmeralda looked decidedly boyish, although years younger than Carlos, whose features betrayed the rigors of his bohemian existence. “I will have to use some makeup after all,” she said, studying her face in the hotel-room mirror, “so I can have sunken cheeks and dark circles under my eyes just like you, Carlos.”
A few dabs of eye shadow did the trick. The resemblance, if not perfect, was reasonably exact. The girl and the novillero were almost the same height and weight; both had black hair and brown eyes; even the mole on Carlos’s upper lip was duplicated with eyebrow pencil above Esmeralda’s more sensuous mouth. “My own mother would be fooled,” Carlos said hopefully.
The suit of lights was laid on the bed like the glittering silhouette of a man asleep. Esmeralda dressed slowly, savoring each button of the white lace-front shirt and taking time to get the knot exactly right in the slim silk necktie. She felt Carlos watching her as she sat on the bed and pulled the elastic pink stockings above her knees. The pants were next, knee-length and tassled. Esmeralda adjusted the suspenders and regarded herself in the mirror. A young matador stared back from the depths of the age-flecked glass. “Today I am a stand-in for el Chicote,” she thought, reaching for the short embroidered jacket, “but someday soon, I will appear in a traje de luces of my own with my hair down and free: la Fabalita, Queen of the Corrida.”
“My own mother—” Carlos repeated.
“Never mind her,” Esmeralda snapped. “What about your manager, will he be able to tell?”
“Never. His eyesight is failing but he’s too vain to wear spectacles except when reading. If you don’t look him straight in the face, he’ll never know the difference.”
“Bueno. I will leave you now.”
“Wait, Fabalita.” Carlos stood in front of the door and held up his hand like a traffic policeman. “There’s another problem. What about the maid?”
“What about her?”
“She’ll see me when she comes in to clean the room,” Carlos said. “Everyone in the hotel knows that I am el Chicote. I’m supposed to be at the bullring. The maid will put one and two together and we will be exposed.”
“That is a problem,” Esmeralda said. “Why don’t you hide under the bed?”
Carlos was indignant. “A Carretera does not hide under beds,” he sniffed. “Besides, if she’s efficient, she’ll find me down there when she sweeps the floor.”
“What about the closet?”
“Out of the question!”
“Wait a minute,” Esmeralda said. “The closet—of course.” She hurried to the far corner of the room and threw open the closet door. Hanging on hooks inside were her clothes; her red skirt and white rayon blouse, the fringed maroon shawl her grandmother had given her. “If I’m supposed to be you,” she said, “why shouldn’t you become me? Here are my clothes, I’m sure they’ll fit.”
“Me, dress as a woman?”
“Would you prefer hiding under the bed?”
“What about your long hair? Surely it will seem strange that mine is so short.”
“You can wear my shawl over your head. Sit facing the window with your back to the door.”
“Well, I suppose there’s no other choice.” Carlos gathered Esmeralda’s clothes in his arms and disappeared behind a sun-faded velvet screen. In a few moments he stepped back into view and lifted the hem of the pleated red skirt above his hairy shins in a mock curtsey. “How do I look?” he lisped.
“Well, no sailor would give more than half a pack of cigarettes for you, but you’ll fool the maid,” Esmeralda said, starting out the door.
“Fabalita, will you do me one more favor?”
“What is it this time?”
“My trousers and jacket, will you leave them with the management to be cleaned? I always do this while I’m at the bullring; aside from my traje de luces, it’s the only suit I own.”
“Kreegaaaa!” Lord Greystoke screamed, hurtling through the jungle on the end of a vine. Cheeta, the faithful chimp, was one vine behind, chattering inanely about bananas. Jane and Boy stood holding coconuts on the bamboo porch of the treehouse…