Charles Ardai - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 102, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 618 & 619, October 1993

The revelry begins slowly tonight — the army of marchers is farther uptown, at the start of the grand parade, and though the parade will pass along Pescador Street on its way to the beach, it begins in a more prosperous area, at the request of that area’s merchants, barmen, and restaurateurs. The crowd on Pescador Street as the hour changes is all native: dressed madly, gaily, beating tambours and stamping its feet, but not in stagey fashion, not, this time, for the benefit of American television.

A pair of drunks stagger around the entrance to El Cantoria, unaware that they do so in front of a dozen policemen. On another night they might be taken in, but tonight they are let be. The police communicate with silent glances and small gestures. Thirty minutes remain.

In his bodega, Ramon Madradas tallies the day’s receipts and makes a note of the amount in a log he keeps on the shelf under the register. He strips off his apron, balls it up, and leaves it lying on the counter. He moves with short, quick steps around the store, checking each aisle, pushing cans of food back into place, restacking a fallen pile of newspapers. He fears the foot-stamping outside and ticks off in his mind the minutes before the parade will reach Pescador Street. There is just enough time to close the shop. Normally he would then climb upstairs to the apartment he once shared with his wife and daughter, but tonight — tonight is the anniversary of their death and of his capitulation, and tonight will be different.

Ramon turns face down a photograph of himself and his family that he keeps beside the register. He lays it down gently, careful not to scratch the delicate frame. Today, Maria would have been nineteen. Lienore would have been forty-six. If Ramon had died when they died, he would never have aged past fifty. But he is fifty-one now and they are dead, the buildings next door and across the street are in the hands of their killers, and Ramon feels pressing down upon him as though it were a physical weight the wrongness of it all, the enormity of the injustice.

Atone! a voice from deep inside him cries. For cowardice and weakness, atone! And Ramon, knowing it for the voice of his soul, shies away, nervously wrings his hands, searches around the bodega for anything to do rather than step outside into the street.

In the back room of El Cantoria, the Jomon arrange their costumes. They are dressed as oriental kings, with spangled vests and bright turbans and made-up faces. Each carries a revolver in the pocket of his sash. The blond checks his wristwatch and looks out through the slats of the front door. It is almost eight-thirty; the parade is coming closer every minute.

At the edge of the sidewalk, the captain of police, who is dressed as a gaucho, glances around at every face he can scan, looking for a sign. All are strained with anticipation — the music and carousing of the parade is almost here. But which face, the captain asks himself, is that of a man about to die? Which is the face of the killer? And where, among all the painted faces and papier-mâché masks, is the man who called in the tip? There is no way to tell. And as the darkness deepens, it becomes more and more difficult to keep everything in view. Faces emerge from shadow and then disappear once more as people dance past streetlights. Lanterns on the walls create as many shadows as they dispel.

The numbers on the captain’s watch dial glow green with faint luminescence. 8:26. Four more minutes. He walks across the street toward the Madradas bodega, whose lights are still on. Perhaps from there he will be able to see something that will help him.

Ramon paces just inside the door. He remembers, all of a sudden, the last look Maria gave him on the day she died. She was leaving in the morning to walk on the beach and with her goodbye kiss she gave him a look of fervent anticipation that seemed to say that she expected something good to happen that day. It was a look he’d seen often in Maria’s eyes; he had taken no special notice of it and no special pleasure. Had he known he would never see it again, he might have held her longer, might have drunk deeper of the moment. Now the memory of it flits before him, teasing him. Already it is gone. He cannot get it back, though he tries. Now he can only picture her dead eyes and Lienore’s blood on the stairs and his own tears as he knelt cringing before the Jomon and begging for his own life to be spared.

The memory hardens him. He flicks off the lights in the store and steps outside.

The lights in the bodega go off. The police captain moves off toward the well-lit comer where he sees two of his lieutenants standing. Maybe they have seen something from there.

The Jomon watch as Ramon emerges from his bodega. They swing open the cantina’s doors and step out into the street. The parade still has not arrived. But it will any minute. Everyone in the street seems to be holding his breath. The Jomon walk slowly across the street.

Ramon looks over the crowd milling about in the street, winces as the wave of sound washes over him. The door slams shut behind him from its own weight. Reluctantly, he turns to pull the night gate down and lock it.

The captain looks at his watch — 8:31.

At last the parade rounds the comer, led by a trio of acrobats who turn cartwheels, shouting. The crowd moves out of their path, flowing onto the sidewalk.

The Jomon reach the sidewalk outside the bodega. They are surrounded on all sides, but everyone is watching the parade as it barrels down the middle of the street. They pull their guns.

Ramon struggles with the night gate’s lock. The key turns but the lock doesn’t catch. He shakes the key; he shakes the lock.

The Jomon stand behind him.

Raise their guns.

Fire into his head. His back. And finally, since a third shot was promised, into the fleshy part of his right leg.

The shots go almost unheard amid the cracks and pops of firecrackers and Roman candles. Almost. But the police hear them and know them for what they are. They glance quickly around to find their source.

Ramon collapses in his pooling blood. The Jomon begin to vanish, moving as quickly as they can through the crowd. A woman next to Ramon screams.

The police captain sees her scream, sees the terror in her face, sees the men moving away from her in three different directions. He blows a shrill blast on his police whistle which cuts through all the other noise. The police push people to the ground as they chase the fleeing killers. One policeman tackles the blond around the knees. Another steps into the black man’s path and, seeing the man’s gun come up, fires point-blank into his chest. The third man disappears into the steakhouse, but the police captain pursues him inside and comers him in the back of the kitchen. Once the man is handcuffed, the policeman leads him back outside.

The street is in chaos. The grand parade, unaware of what it is heading into, continues to pour into Pescador Street. Some of the policemen try in vain to calm the crowd. Two men lie dead in the street, two men lie in handcuffs. No one knows what has just happened.

The police captain stands with one of his lieutenants over the body of Ramon Madradas. He has to shout to make himself heard. “I don’t understand it. Why him? Why would anyone want Madradas dead?”

“Perhaps he failed to pay off a debt,” the lieutenant shouts back.

“But then why did we get the tip on when and where the murder would be?”

The lieutenant shrugs. “Someone wanted Madradas dead and wanted the Jomon caught also.”

“Yes, but who?” The captain holds tight to the cuffed wrists of his captive. He turns and addresses the question to him. “Who?”

The young man shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “He wore a mask.”