TORO! TORO! TORO!, page 9




Sitting in a side aisle of the darkened theater, Paco Machismo munched popcorn and watched a former Olympic swimmer suing from tree to tree. Paco had never learned to swim; neither could he read, so the subtitles went ignored; but el número uno was deft with languages and knew a good deal more English than the monosyllabic ape man.
At the point in the film where the evil white hunters start a grass fire to stampede grazing herds of eland, elephant and wildebeest toward their ivory-poaching Arab cohorts, Paco sat upright in his seat and studied the screen intently. This was the scene he was waiting for. The black-and-white footage of running animals was real, and the contrast between the stark African landscape and the rubber-plant jungle of the Hollywood set produced a scattered laughter throughout the audience. Paco wasn’t laughing. His face was as serious as that of a medical student observing a hysterectomy.
A process shot of Tarzan scanning the burning horizon; cut to: stampeding zebras beneath a flaming thorn tree; cut to: elephants trumpeting; and now—it was coming again at last, and Paco held his breath—cut to: three browsing rhinoceroses. The first caught a scent of smoke and lifted his two-pronged head. Slowly, the huge beast began to trot. The others followed at a slow shuffle.
Paco edged forward on his seat, spilling popcorn and licking his dry lips. The rhinoceros broke into a full headlong gallop, charging blindly across the open plain. For such bulky creatures, it was amazing how fast they ran. Paco was sweating in the refrigerated air of the movie theater. This was the third time he had seen the film today.
The harsh, inhospitable landscape of Extremadura breeds a people accustomed to endurance and hardship. Out of the poverty of this arid and unforgiving region was born a race of conquistadors: Cortez, Balboa, the Pizarro brothers, all were extremeños. The faces of the spectators who crowded the small bullring on the outskirts of Sueño de Duende were stamped with the same stern determination. One look at their flinty eyes and firm, unsmiling mouths recalled civilizations put to the torch, a noble race enslaved, Sun Kings at swordpoint. The empresario Don Pepe Bacalao y Piñas watched the somber crowd fill the arena and knew that he could expect no sympathy here for el Chicote’s clumsiness.
The novillero had been acting strangely all afternoon. When the empresario picked Carlos up at the hotel he had expected one of those excesses of temperament which for the young man served to mask a total lack of valor. But the matador said not a word at the sight of the hearse. He entered the unlucky vehicle without complaint and rode up front next to the driver, staring sullenly out of the window all the way to the Plaza de Toros.
And in the bullring el Chicote had ignored the empresario from the start. Usually, before a fight, Don Pepe spent every available minute consoling the trembling torero, whispering encouragement into his ear and reassuring him of success, but today el Chicote wanted no part of him, preferring the idle gossip of the monosabios to his own cogent advice.
The corrida at Sueño de Duende was strictly the minor leagues, with only one picador in attendance and the matadors placing their own banderillas. The paseo was a ragtag affair, almost a parody of big-city processions, and Don Pepe watched the motley parade, tempering his melancholy with memories of Arturo Madrigal beginning his career in the same provincial bullring. El Chicote always looked good in the paseo. Marching in parades suited his fraudulent dramatic nature and Don Pepe looked on ruefully as his boy strutted across the arena. “If only they awarded ears and tails for marching in formation,” the empresario thought with an unhappy sigh.
As the novillero with senior standing among the three nonentities fighting today, el Chicote drew the first bull, a monstrous spotted creature well over five years of age. From the experienced, menacing way he slowly circled the arena it was obvious that the animal had been fought before in the amateurs. Don Pepe groaned and cradled his head in his arms on top of the barrera. The medical bills would surely absorb every céntimo of the scanty purse.
Don Pepe watched el Chicote stride valorously to the center of the arena and incite the bull with a sharp stamp of his foot. Where were the trembling knees, the ashen face? The boy must be drunk. The first pass, a serene veronica, brought a loud “Olé” from the crowd and the cheering increased in volume as the precise and delicate capework continued. The empresario watched as if in a dream; it was almost like seeing the first performances of Arturo Madrigal once again.
Don Pepe hurried to speak with Carlos at the conclusion of his faena when the boy walked to the barrera to wipe his sweating face and take a drink of water, but el Chicote was back in the arena before he could reach him, skillfully maneuvering the bull into position for the picador. The loyalty of the spectators was insured when the novillero waved the pikeman off after only two thrusts of the lance.
Don Pepe’s amazement grew along with the crowd’s enthusiasm as el Chicote gracefully placed three pairs of banderillas, each pair from increasingly difficult terrain until the last two went in with the young matador’s back against the barrera. El Chicote dedicated the bull to his cheering audience and went to work immediately with the muleta and sword. While the boy’s early capework had been elegant fantasy, his performance with the cloth had the calm, unhurried dignity of tragedy. Naturals, pases de pecho, concertinas, cucarachas de gamba: all the most demanding passes in the repertory, joined together seemingly without effort. The spectators howled their “Olés.” Don Pepe was certain he was witnessing a miracle.
When the moment came for the kill, a hush fell over the arena. An inept sword stroke would ruin all the beauty which had gone before and the anticipation in the Plaza de Toros was almost palpable. The matador profiled the bull, standing very straight and sighting along the heavy curved blade of his sword. A slight gesture with the muleta provoked the bull’s charge and the crowd gasped as the huge animal impaled himself on the extended sword. Chicote leaned on the weapon and it sank to its flannel-wrapped hilt between the brute’s muscled shoulders.
The matador jumped back, arms spread in triumph, as the bull swayed and went down, all four legs in the air. The spectators were screaming, hurling hats, flowers and botas into the arena in celebration. Don Pepe felt drunk with joy. Then, before the astonished eyes of the jubilant crowd, the young novillero’s shining black hair shifted and fell, tumbling in glossy waves almost to his waist.
The cheering stopped while near a thousand mouths hung in open amazement at this incredible transformation. “It’s a woman,” someone called from the stands.
“It’s la Fabalita!” cried another, who followed the bullfight news from the capitol. “Sí, sí, Fabalita,” the spectators agreed as the cheering resumed, louder than before, and as the first enthusiastic young men jumped into the arena and rushed to lift their heroine triumphantly onto their shoulders, the cry grew near-hysterical: “Fabalitaaaaaaa…!”
The empresario applauded behind the barrera. He had no rational explanation for this miraculous transmutation, but he accepted it with the aplomb of a fairy-tale milkmaid witnessing the unexpected change of frog into prince. Whatever the explanation, Don Pepe knew his fortune was assured. Before the afternoon was out he would have la Fabalita’s signature drying on a contract.
Doña Carlota Madrigal waited in the shade of a cork tree in the plaza, across from the entrance of the Hotel Ambiente. She sat on a wrought-iron bench with a knitting bag open on her lap. Her narrow yellow eyes never blinked. She watched as Don Pepe and his novillero left the hotel and drove off in a rented hearse.
The chimes in the little chapel opposite the plaza tolled away each quarter-hour and still she sat, observing the crowd passing along the street on the way to the bullring. As the time for the corrida approached, the sidewalks grew deserted. Only a few last-minute stragglers hurried past the Hotel Ambiente; and when the distant call of the trumpet carried across the rooftops of Sueño de Duende, there was not a single soul in sight.
Doña Carlota closed her knitting bag and rose sinuously to her feet. Without a sound, she glided across the plaza and crossed the empty street. She avoided the lobby of the Hotel Ambiente, sidling around cautiously to the service entrance in the rear. Bales of dirty linen were piled outside the laundry room, but the washerwoman had abandoned her scrubbing to steal off to the bullfight.
Inside, Doña Carlota found a stack of maids’ uniforms, freshly starched and ironed. Within seconds she was buttoned into one of the iron-gray smocks and had knotted a black apron around her waist. A dark-blue kerchief concealed her hair, and over her nose and mouth she wore, as she had seen the other maids do, a broad gauze dust mask. She shoved her knitting bag into a large pocket in the apron and, taking a mop from the broom closet, started for the back stairs.
On the third-floor landing, in a small metal cabinet above the fire extinguisher, Doña Carlota found the passkey. Silently, she hurried down the hallway, her slippered feet sliding across the worn carpet. A phone call to the desk that morning had yielded the correct room number and she paused for a moment outside the door and looked both ways down the deserted corridor before quietly slipping the key into the lock.
The gypsy puta didn’t bother to turn her proud head as Doña Carlota entered. The little trollop sat with her back to the door, covered by a shawl like a woman in church.
“Perdóneme, señorita, I will take but a minute to prepare the bed and sweep the floor.” Doña Carlota reached into the pocket of her apron and withdrew a slender steel knitting needle. The haughty bitch ignored her. Not fit for decent work herself and yet too proud to exchange a few words with the maid. Doña Carlota clenched her teeth in a cobra’s frozen smile and leaned the mop against the wall. “Is the señorita not feeling well?” she hissed. “I felt surely she would accompany her novio to the corrida.”
The slut by the window only coughed in reply as Doña Carlota moved stealthily across the room, the needle gripped like an abbreviated rapier in her right hand. She stood for a moment behind the seated girl, completely still, her yellow eyes glittering in cold fury. Then, reaching out quickly, Doña Carlota seized the gypsy wench by the neck with her left hand and drove the stiletto-sharp knitting needle deep into her temple with her right.
The girl made a sound halfway between a yelp and a whimper and slumped to the floor, the steel needle standing straight up out of her head like a radio antenna. Doña Carlota reached down and tugged the maroon shawl away for a closer look. Now it was her turn to yelp.
This wasn’t the gypsy girl, it was Don Pepe’s novillero! A thin line of blood ran down his cheek and puddled in the socket of his staring eye. Doña Carlota was truly horrified. She was a simple countrywoman and unaccustomed to perversions. Although she had read of such things in the tabloids, this was the first time she had ever seen a transvestite with her own eyes. Señora Madrigal sat down in the chair recently occupied by the corpse on the floor and said five quick Ave Marias to regain her composure.
viernes
“Come in, come in, please.” Lucky Sam Wo bowed like the number one son and ushered his American visitors into his studio. “I am honored, gentlemen.”
“Quite a place you got here, professor.” Abe Wasserman drifted through the room in a blue nimbus of cigar smoke.
“A regular Gyro Gearloose,” was Marty Farb’s comment.
“Chiro Girluz?” Sam Wo frowned. “I am not familiar with this person, Girluz.”
“A famous American inventor,” Abe said, “beloved by schoolchildren from coast to coast. Tell the professor what a thrill this is for us, Marty.”
“This is a real thrill for us, prof,” Marty said. “You live in this place or only work here?”
“My work and my life are one. The happiest mechanic never closes his toolbox.”
“You must be very happy then,” Abe said. “I never seen so much equipment scattered around one place before.”
“A tool for every purpose,” Sam Wo said. “I like to keep many projects going at once. In this way, industry creates the illusion of chaos.”
“Where do you hide this mechanical bull of yours, prof?” Marty studied the disarray spread across a workbench with the air of a man looking in the little windows at the Automat.
“It’s quite large, you know, and gets in the way, so, when not in use, it resides in storage.” Lucky Sam pointed over a dusty stack of cardboard cartons toward the rear of the studio. “But there is more room here in the front. Better for viewing. You wait, I will bring the machine.”
“Before you do, professor,” Abe said, “I have a couple of papers here I’d like you to sign.” He opened a legal-sized leather envelope and stacked a number of documents on the corner of the workbench.
“Papers? What is the nature of these papers?”
“Just some standard release forms, prof. You know, absolving Toro Productions from any responsibility for damage caused by your robot. And a contract, stating that we don’t owe you anything; that you got no claims on us. It’s all like we talked about back at the office.”
Sam Wo pulled on his spectacles and scrutinized the legal forms. “Everything looks in order,” he said. “Where do I sign?”
“Here.” Abe pointed. “And here on the other side, and here… and right here. I guess that does it, professor, or should I say partner?”
Abe and Lucky Sam shook hands as vigorously as politicians at the opening of a shopping center. “Partner!” They smiled in harmony.
“My friends, it will take only a short time to show you the machine,” said the Chinese inventor. “Please make yourself comfortable and I will return in, how do you say? a jiffy.”
Abe and Marty were all smiles. They waited until Lucky Sam was out of earshot in the back of his studio before Abe whispered, “Got what you need?”
“It’s a piece of cake,” Marty said. “The lock on the door is a standard Conklin type with a reverse spring action. I could open it with a credit card. No alarm system of any kind that I can see. How are the signatures?”
“Nice and firm; lifting an impression should be simple.”
Marty chuckled. “What a perfect setup. There’s enough stuff around here for a make without even planting a thing. I counted three different calibre silencers on the workbench: real beauties. And last time I seen one of them magnetic alarm deactivators was when Louis Bepe and Champagne Eddie were in the fur-heist business.”
“Shhh!” Abe held a warning finger to his lips. “I hear the Chink coming.”
It was the automated bull, moving in a slow bovine shuffle, head down and lowing. Lucky Sam walked behind like a drover. In his hand he carried a compact control unit, the size and shape of a pocket calculator. The robot animal lumbered past the astonished American producers and came to a stop by the door.
“That’s incredible, professor,” Abe said. “I could swear it was breathing.”
“If we were outside in the park you could see it run.”
“What’s wrong with its head?” Marty investigated a space between the horns where a square section of hide was missing. The shine of machine-tooled steel showed from underneath.
“A final detail as yet unfinished,” Sam Wo said. “The taxidermist is coming this afternoon with a piece made to order.”
“How many of these bulls you got, professor?” Abe asked. “A whole herd?”
“No, no, this prototype is the only one I’ve built.”
“That’s strange,” Marty said, “I could swear the toreador’s girl friend bought some kind of mechanical toro. Didn’t Paco say it had a bunch of wire sticking out of its head?”
Lucky Sam Wo’s almond eyes brightened. “Excuse please, would you be more explicit? Whose girl friend has a bull with wires in its head?”
“Paco Machismo, the bullfighter we hired,” Abe said. “He’s been shacking up with this teen-age singer, some Irish chick. She bought herself a genuine Spanish fighting bull to show the folks back home; only it’s got wires in its head just like yours, professor.”
“How curious. If you would give me the girl’s name, I would like very much to examine this peculiar animal.”
“Figure someone’s beat you to the punch? The mechanical bull business turns out to be pretty competitive, don’t it, Marty?”
“Looks that way,” Marty said.
“Gentlemen, I guarantee you that my invention is unique,” Sam Wo pushed a button and his bull nuzzled Marty Farb’s cheek. “Nevertheless, I’m sure you both will agree that it would be foolhardy not to look into the matter.”
“Professor, it never hurts to know what the other guy is up to; that’s rule number one in any business.”
“Nunca!” Paco Machismo stamped his foot. The crack of his heel against the parquet was as final as a slamming door. “Never, it is an impossibility.”
His manager, Alfredo Gazpacho, simply shrugged. “But Paco, what can we do? The contracts are signed.”
“I spit on all contracts.”
“It’s five hundred thousand U.S. dollars, Paco.”
“I spit on money of any denomination.”
“Paco—”
“And I spit on those who manage money—whose minds are poisoned by its touch.”
“Don’t count your bridges before they’re burned, Paco. And as for your spit, save it for the arena where the crowd enjoys a show of valor.” Gazpacho settled with an exasperated sigh onto the padded leather of a Miës van der Rohe Barcelona chair. “How can you be so arrogant?” he asked softly. “What were you before you had any money? A bakery boy who couldn’t read or write, who slept on the dirt floor behind the bread ovens. You still haven’t learned to read or write, although you spend a fortune for tutors; but I suspect the silk sheets on your bed are more comfortable than sleeping on cardboard.”
“I’ve earned what is mine.” Paco folded his arms and glowered out the window.
“I’m not denying that. It’s your petty tantrums I’m tired of; your refusal to face the realities of life. What have you got, Paco, that is worth more than money?”