Chapter Six
Sanity is madness put to good use.
– George Santayana
The food looked and smelled fantastic-grilled lamb and fish, black beans, rice, fried plantains, asparagus, fresh tomatoes, a heart of palm salad, mango mousse-but Lisa refused to eat. She wanted to be as focused as possible, strong, and ready. A dull ache throbbed from the pit of her stomach and a sick numbness filled her head.
All she could do was sit stiffly, watch, and marvel at the poise of her daughter, who picked at her food and acted like nothing was wrong.
Lisa wanted to whisper some words of encouragement, tell Olivia how proud she was, or how much she loved her. But her daughter was completely focused on the man at the head of the table, nodding and listening intently.
He’d been speaking nonstop for the last forty minutes. It was part sermon, part political diatribe, part history lesson delivered with table-pounding, arm-waving, snarling passion. The general theme: the exploitation of Latin America.
He started with a description of the Aztec, Incan, and Mayan civilizations, and explained how everything had changed with the arrival of the Europeans, who killed hundreds of thousands of Indians, forced the survivors to work as slaves in silver and gold mines, and spread infectious diseases like small pox that decimated entire tribes.
He talked about the aggressive paternal energy that came from Europe and how it had joined forces with the Church to form a lethal, compassionless river of fire that burned through indigenous cultures that had worshipped and respected Mother Earth. And how this pattern of exploitation had extended for hundreds of years and still continued.
The dynamic had always been about filling the huge appetites of the aggressive Europeans. Their unending greed and lust for blood and money had taken many forms-plundering natural resources; demanding cheap labor to toil in their mines, on their farms, and in their factories and assembly plants; consuming vast quantities of oil to run their cars and heat their homes; and procuring beautiful young women and narcotics to quiet the unease in their souls.
He explained that people from Europe and the United States were spiritually empty and, therefore, compelled to surround themselves with riches and symbols of power. When material things didn’t fill the spiritual void, they turned to drugs to try to escape their existential reality.
“But you people can’t be honest,” he said with fire in his eyes. “We dutifully fill your demand for drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, and you turn around and blame the problem on us. We give you our people to clean up your shit, pick your crops, and work in your kitchens, but you refuse to give them citizenship and self-respect. Instead, you hunt us down like dogs when we try to cross the border and throw us in jail.”
Lisa’s lower back ached and she felt exhausted and dizzy. The Jackal continued to pile on the guilt with the zeal of a latter-day Che Guevara.
He seemed to be gathering speed and intensity, shifting from one topic to another-the sex trade, the selling of stolen babies, the indiscriminate spraying of crops, the rising incidence of cancer in Central America and Mexico, the dwindling monarch butterfly migration to Michoacán, Mexico.
And the more he spoke, the more keenly her daughter seemed to listen. Olivia leaned toward him, taking it all in, even nodding sometimes as though she agreed.
What the Jackal had said so far left Lisa with more questions than answers. Was he a drug cartel leader or a revolutionary? Was he explaining why he was going to have to kill them, or trying to win them over?
His speech, the situation, even her daughter’s composure left her feeling naked and vulnerable. When she couldn’t take any more, when she thought she was going to faint and fall from her chair, she said, “Please, stop.”
The Jackal’s blazing eyes turned to her, and she felt ashamed. This wasn’t what she expected from herself.
Hiding her face behind the cloth napkin, she said, “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling well.”
The Jackal didn’t appear annoyed. Instead, a kind, knowing smile stretched across his face.
“It’s my fault, Señora,” he said. “I speak too much. But I feel things strongly and get carried away.”
“No, no, not at all,” she said awkwardly as she stood. “I think I’d better say good night.”
“Not yet, please.” He stood, too, with the help of his bodyguards. When he grabbed Lisa’s wrist, she felt a dark, violent, primal energy course through her body.
He said, “Allow me a minute to show you ladies something before you leave.”
The Jackal escorted them out the French doors and down some steps to a patio.
He stopped under an arbor and switched on a light, which illuminated a large cage built into the foundation of the house. In it were about a dozen golden-and-brown animals that looked like a cross between dogs and wolves. Seeing their owner, they rose and started to pace expectantly in front of the thick iron bars.
“Magnificent, aren’t they?” the Jackal asked with the expression of an eager teenage boy.
Lisa nodded. The hypnotic movement of the animals and the look in their eyes filled her with a strange, exotic energy.
“The one on the right, she is Chantico, named after the Aztec goddess of fire,” he explained. “And the big one with the stripe on his back is Tlaloc, after the god of fertility.”
The Jackal pushed his head between the bars, and the animals gathered around and started to lick him feverishly. Throwing his head back, he produced an eerie high-pitched whine that sounded like a baby crying. The animals in the cage whined back, as though they understood and were responding.
The exchange between animals and human continued for several minutes. Then the Jackal leaned close to Lisa and whispered, “You’re an animal, too, Señora. We’re all animals underneath, living with the law of the jungle. The strong prey on the weak. The weak wait for a moment to strike back.”
Some impulse in her caused her to shake her head and say, “No. There’s more to us humans. You should know that.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her tight to his chest. So tight that her breasts were smashed against him and she could feel the beating of his heart.
“Of course you’re right, Señora,” he whispered so that his hot breath brushed her lips. “You’re a sophisticated woman. Which is why I can see in your eyes that we understand each other. Maybe I’m a black plague to you, something you look on with disgust, but we’ve met before on the plains of Analocha and the altars of Teoni. I might seem insane to you, but even my disease has a purpose, which your body and blood will cure.”
Lyrics to the Buck Owens classic echoed in his head as Crocker parked his bike near the curb and moved closer past some maple trees to try to peer through one of the windows of the ground-floor apartment just east of Wilson Boulevard in Arlington.
“There’s no fool like an old fool, that’s loved and lost at least a hundred times.”
He didn’t want to interfere in his dad’s life, but he couldn’t allow him to be played, either.
Through a sheer pale-yellow curtain he saw a dim light inside beyond the kitchen but couldn’t make out anyone inside. So he circled the block. Light rain fell as he walked and remembered all the people he’d known who’d fallen victims to drugs-numerous friends growing up, a girlfriend, his brother, and his stepson, Carl (Holly’s son), who got involved with drugs as a teenager and was gunned down on the street by a drug dealer.
Crocker hated what drugs did to people-destroying their wills and draining their self-respect. His brother was the only person he knew who had escaped more or less intact.
The third time he passed the window, the kitchen light was on. Moving closer, he saw a dark-haired woman standing with her back to him. A tall man entered the room behind her. Crocker saw her reach into a drawer and tear off a piece of aluminum foil. The man pulled something out of his pocket and squeezed her butt.