King Bongo by Thomas Sanchez

Author:Thomas Sanchez [Sanchez, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-76610-6
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-04-26T16:00:00+00:00

Hurricane knew the song, “Twenty Years.” He knew the singer, María Teresa Vera, her mournful voice floating on a simple melody sketched by a three-string guitar. He thought he was dead in heaven and María Teresa was singing just for him. He started to weep, then his weeping became uncontrollable sobbing. He was a strong man, an athletic man, but the song exposed him for the soft emotional fruit that he was.

Hurricane cried himself empty. María Teresa’s voice was still there. It wasn’t coming from paradise, it was close and tinny; it came from a car radio. When had the car arrived? Had the American thugs come back to finish their job? Had Pedro and Paulo returned to kill him because they realized he had heard their names?

A car door slammed shut and the singing stopped. Footsteps walked across bones to where the three bodies had recently been dumped. The footsteps started again and came to Hurricane. He heard a rustling sound; something was being taken out of a pocket. A gun? There was a soft tapping, then the scratch of a match being struck. The scent of phosphorus and tobacco wafted in the air.

A man’s voice asked, “You want a smoke?”

Hurricane bobbed his head up and down in a yes.

A hand reached down and pulled out the necktie stuffed into Hurricane’s mouth.

Hurricane’s tongue had been jammed up in a bent position at the back of his throat for so long that he could barely move it. His mouth was parched, he needed water, not nicotine. “Wa … wa … water.”

The man ignored his request. “You’ve got red ants crawling all over your face. They’re having a ball, wiggling their legs like they’re playing drums on your skin. Can’t you feel them?”

Hurricane couldn’t feel them, his face was too numb and swollen, but he realized he had heard their drumming.

“I’ve been coming to this field for weeks,” the man continued. “You’re the first live person I’ve seen. Somebody didn’t finish the job on you.”

Beneath Hurricane’s exhaustion, terror returned. Maybe this man had come to finish him off.

“I wonder if you had a hand in killing those three girls over there?”

Hurricane shook his head.

“But you might know who dumped them? Those bodies are fresh.”

Hurricane didn’t know who this man was, whose side he was on. He didn’t like the questions the man was asking, so he said nothing.

“You know, when a guy is tied up and blindfolded, he’s in no position to bargain.”

Hurricane felt the metal tip of a gun barrel press against his forehead.

“Who killed those girls?”

Hurricane spluttered, “Not me!”

“Why are you out here like this?”

Hurricane took a chance. “Some guys kidnapped me and dumped me. I swear, I had nothing to do with those girls. I was tied and blindfolded the whole time.”

“Yeah, sure, you’re just an innocent redheaded lamb.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“I’ve seen you before.”

“Let me see who you are. Do that, and I promise I’ll give you answers.”

“I thought you didn’t have answers?”

“You haven’t asked the right questions.

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