Randy White: Tampa Burn

CIUDAD DE MASAGUA REPUBLIC OF MASAGUA CENTRAL AMERICA

APRIL

Several hours before Praxcedes Lourdes abducted Marion Ford’s son, he was sitting in a smoky cantina with his getaway driver, bragging about his new fame.

In Spanish, he said, “‘The visitor who burns men alive.’ It’s what the poor assholes in Nicaragua call me. The peasants. And in Guatemala. The ‘night visitor.’ They use my name to scare hell out of children. To make brats behave when they disobey. Understand? At a certain age, kids stop believing in Santa Claus. Even some of the saints. But they’ll never stop believing in me.”

Prax was smoking a Cohiba cigar. He inhaled, perhaps smiling, though it was impossible to tell because he wore a mask made of thin wire mesh. Guerrilla fighters wore identical masks during Nicaragua’s Contra war to hide their identities. Eyebrows and pink cheek flush were painted on the outside-a clownish touch.

Lourdes liked that.

The man always kept his face covered. When he traveled or went out at night, he wore surgical gauze, the kind that protects from germs. Because of certain Asian viruses, it was no longer an oddity.

At other times, he wore a bandana or a bandage wrap, plus sunglasses-except for now, in this dark bar. The Contra mask, though, was his favorite because he could smoke and drink, and also because it provided him with a face when he looked in the mirror.

The driver watched smoke sieve through the mesh. He averted his eyes.

“Not long after General Balserio paid me to come to Masagua, your people started calling me Incendiario. Using only the one word. That’s a better name, don’t you think? It sounds like a rock singer in the United States. It’s got star appeal. Sexy -not that you coffee peons know anything about show business.”

Prax made a card-fan with his hands, as if creating a marquee above the table, and said with flair, “The great Incendiario. Like I’m star of this half-assed revolution, more famous than your generals. Which I am. In the mountains, when people say my name, they whisper. You know why?”

The driver was staring at the table, aware the man was not speaking to him; an answer wasn’t expected. He was bragging to please himself. Even so, the driver replied, “It’s because the people of Masagua are superstitious. They don’t believe that you are-” He paused. He’d almost said “human.” “That you really exist.”

Lourdes leaned forward slightly. His Spanish was unusually accented-French Canadian with a dose of Florida cracker. The accent was amplified when he grew strident, and he became strident now.

“No. It’s because Masaguans are stupid turds, like most people. No smarter than a bunch of sheep, including your genius generals. What I had to teach them was, if you kill a couple thousand enemy, nothing changes. But if you scare two hundred thousand of them shitless-make their families afraid to leave the house at night- that’s when a war starts going your way.”

The mask seemed to bob oddly. Another smile?

“But not you, Reynaldo. I don’t scare you. Do I?”

The driver reached to take a drink of his rum, but stopped because he realized his hand would shake if he lifted the glass. He said, “Why should I be scared? In my village, we speak well of you. We hear the rumors”-he shrugged as if unconcerned, but his laughter was strained-“crazy stories. Lies. But we fight for the same cause, so we know you’re a good man.”

In reply to Lourdes’ dubious gesture-the way he tilted his head-the driver spoke a little too loudly when he added, “It’s true. We teach our children that you are a great revolutionary. That they have no reason to fear you.”

“No reason to fear me?”

“As God is my witness! That is what we teach children.”

Signaling the waitress for another drink, Praxcedes said softly, “Talking to God like he’s your pal. That’s brave. They send a hero like you to drive the car.”

Sarcasm? Reynaldo couldn’t be sure.

He was glad when Prax changed the subject, saying, “The boy and his mother live in what used to be a nunnery, Claustro la Concepcion. It’s across from the presidential palace, next to the market.”

He was back discussing the kidnapping.

Reynaldo nodded. “I know the market. We sold vegetables at the Mercado Central every Sunday. I know the city as well as any man.”

“Um-huh. Brave and a genius, too.”

That inflection again.

“If you know the city, then you know about the tunnel that connects the convent with the park.”

Reynaldo answered, “A tunnel? A tunnel runs beneath the street from the convent?”

Praxcedes blew a stream of smoke into the older man’s face. “There’s something you don’t know? Then keep your mouth closed while I explain.”

The driver sat motionless, silent, as Prax told him that the convent, where the boy lived, had been built in the 1500s. The tunnel had been built in the 1600s, during the Inquisition.

He said, “The nuns dug the tunnel to save dumb Indios, just like you, who were sentenced to death. I was telling you about my fame? History, that’s how it started.

“During the Inquisition, Spaniards burned Indians at the stake if they wouldn’t turn Catholic. Thousands of them. When the Indios screamed, if they called out to God-like for mercy?-the priests wrote their words on paper. To those assholes, that was a form of conversion. It’s what they wanted.

“I’ve got a laptop computer with a wireless connection,” Lourdes said. “I’m not like the rest of you ignorant hicks. I do research. All the time, I’m learning. The Catholic thing, burning men alive to win a war. When I read it, I thought, Perfect. Even though it was years after what the soldiers did to me.”

Lourdes stopped and stared at his driver. “You’ve probably heard all kinds of stories. About why I look the way I look.”

Reynaldo dipped his head twice, slowly. Yes.

“Later, when we’ve got the boy, if you don’t screw up, maybe I’ll tell you what really happened. The details. Would you like that?”

He watched the driver think about it for several seconds.

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll understand. The church, the government, they’re both the same. Big shots trying to screw you if they can.”

With a whistle of scorn, Prax took a kitchen match, struck it, and leaned close to refire his cigar.

Reynaldo looked long enough to see, floating above the flame, one sleepy gray eye and one lidless blue eye leering out at him from the mask. Prax wore a hooded brown monk’s smock that was common in Central America. The hood was back, so Reynaldo could also see the damage that fire had done to the man’s scalp. The top of his head appeared to be a human skull over which gray skin had been stretched too tight, torn, then patched with melted wax. There were tufts of blond hair growing out of white bone.

When Prax spoke certain words, he lisped, which suggested that his lips and face were also scarred.

When Reynaldo had first received the assignment to drive Incendiario, he’d been excited. He’d hoped, in a perverse way, that he would be among the few to see the great man’s face.

After only a few hours, though, Reynaldo regretted his decision to drive the car.