Blood's a rover

THE EYE.

He hears “Scalp them.” He can’t do it. He’s hurled in the sand. The dead man’s face is powder-burned. A skin flap is loose. His knife slips into the eye socket. His grip falters. The blade severs the eyeball. He shuts his eyes. He can’t look. A two-handed thrust cracks ocular bones. He puts a foot on the dead man’s neck and steadies his work plane. His knife blade is serrated. He saws through to the scalp flap. Foot pressure forces blood from a neck wound. It soaks his boots. He’s a pump station now. The scalp removal takes ten minutes. Foot pressure re-routes the blood through the nostrils, eye sockets and ears.

Then crackle sounds and smoke and-

That’s wrong. I always get the scalp and wave it. Froggy always applauds me.

Crutch woke up. He was steam-room wet. Smoke poured from the air conditioner. He grabbed a soda siphon and spritzed out the fire. Sparks crackled and fizzed. The smoke dissipated and left a muck residue.

The room was broiling. He opened the windows and let air in. He stripped the bed and soaked the sheets in cold bathtub water. He rigged a wall-to-wall clothesline with some mason’s cord from his suitcase. He hung the sheets up and turned on a desk fan. It created a cool breeze.

The Eye, The Dream. His sixth or seventh re-run.

He got out his codebook and work sheets. He got out Gretchen/ Celia’s address book. He started counting letters, numbers and the spaces between assumed words. A month’s work. Substitution code. The letters K and S identified. Gobbledygook. No make on full-length words.

Crutch studied and drew theoretical lines. The sheets puffed. The fan rearranged grit in the air.

The phone rang. Crutch picked up. Mesplede said, “The Cubans are here.”

Partners now-the drugstore killers.

The Brylcreem guy was Wilton Morales. The Ipana guy was Chic Canestel. The Clearasil guy-Cruz Saldivar. Vick’s VapoRub-Felipe Gomez-Sloan.

Everybody swapped handshakes and backslaps. The guys looked similar and blurred into one spic. Four mid-sized men. All fortyish, all fit. All bulged up from concealed weaponry.

It was 8:00. The mandate was night ride. Mesplede mentioned coffee. Canestel proposed speed.

Saldivar pulled out six vials. Morales said they’d clouted a Rexall in Miami. Look: Mollencroft liquid methedrine, a potion for narcolepsy.

They fueled up in the parking lot. The dope was acidic. Pepsi chasers kept it down. Gomez-Sloan had a ‘62 Impala. It had Jeep tires and an off-road transaxle. They piled in and drove north.

They hit the Autopista Duarte. It was two lanes, undivided. The city dissolved into scrubland and cane fields fast. Darkies cut cane under arc lights. Pale-skinned guys on horseback bossed them around. The lights made whole rural sweeps glow.

Signs announced the Plaine du Massacre. The river divided the D.R. and Haiti in the northwest. “Massacre” meant more than carnage in pure French. Froggy dug the irony. Trujillo massacred boocoo Haitians up to ‘60.

The meth hit home. Crutch went head-to-toe orgasmic. It hit the other guys. They talked blue streaks verging on purple. It was all French and Spanish. Crutch tuned it out and brain-screened womens’ faces. Closed loop: Dana Lund, Gretchen/Celia, Joan.

There was no other traffic. It was jungle-dark. Gomez-Sloan ran his brights full-time. The terrain shifted. They went up over hills. Mountain ranges hemmed them in-the Cordillera Central and the Cordillera Oriental. They climbed steady and strong. The Chevy had a giant tank full of high-test gas. They cut through towns: Bonao, Abajo, Jarabacoa. They saw scroungers combing garbage dumps. They were all black. Mesplede called them “Haitian arrivisites.” They had voodoo amulets around their necks. One guy wore a bird-wing headdress. One guy had a blood-painted face. Froggy switched to English and laid out his Trujillo hit tale.

It was early ‘61. The Goat was drinking at the Red Trough and nipping at Russia’s Red Tit. JFK said enough. Likewise the Dominican army boss and the D.R. gentry. Terry Brundage hired the crew. Two crash cars, one escape car, four shooters. It was a pincer movement/auto wreck outside Santo Domingo. The Goat and his bodyguards came out blazing. The inclose shooters killed the bodyguards. Mesplede sniped the Goat from an off-road perch.

The Chevy climbed. The air got thin. They cut west at Moca. The Rio Yaque del Norte was due west. Haitian wetbacks ran across the road with squishy tennis shoes and soaked trousers. One guy was handcuffed. A cop on horseback chased him. More horse cops popped out of the brush. The darky weaved and ran straight into a dog pack trailing leashes. The dogs leaped and went at his face. The Chevy topped a hill. Crutch heard howls and screams and no more.

They cut back north. Dawn came up. They hit the shoreline outside Puerto Plata. Still: no fucking beaches, just rocks to the surf. Mesplede said they needed a safe inlet. We stash our boat there. It must be Haiti-close and thus Cuba-accessible. The Windward Passage separates Cuba from Haiti. The Mona Passage separates Puerto Rico from the D.R. We score heroin in Puerto Rico and sell it in Haiti. We stage Cuban coastal runs off the north shore. We are south of U.S. Coast Guard patrols. The Haitian and Dominican navies are moored on the Caribbean. We have the north-shore Atlantic to roam.

They got out, stood on the rocks and pissed in the ocean. They were speeding at six thousand rpm. The tri-lingual chatter was parrot squawk. Crutch kept it zipped.

Morales said, “The Crutchfield boy never speaks.”

Mesplede said, “No, but he is competent and persistent.”

Canestel zipped his fly. “He is a pariguayo.”

Crutch laughed. The other guys laughed. They stood on the rocks and bullshitted. The Cubans told Bay of Pigs stories. Crutch talked up his wayward-spouse gigs. Mesplede riffed on the Tiger Mystique.

The origin: Tiger Kab in Miami. Garishly painted taxis and anti-Castro ops. The mob’s Saigon-to-Vegas dope funnel. Tiger Kadre/Tiger Krew, arriba! Cuban runs off the Florida Keys in the vessel Tiger Klaw.

Tiger Kab was in L.A. now. It washed casino-build money. Tigers were fierce and beautiful creatures. We must honor their impeccable dignity and our symbiosis with them.

Saldivar tiger-growled and batted Gomez-Sloan. Morales and Canestel tiger-hissed.

Mesplede said, “We are the new Tiger Krew. Our PT boat will be the new Tiger Klaw. We will paint tiger stripes on the hull and fly Castroite scalps from the radio antenna. The numerical designation will be PT-109, to ironically defame the man I killed in Dallas.”