"Ask him sometime. It's a classic. Our names," he said, "mean something. They link us. You're more than just a wannabe gangster with dreams of grandeur. Inti Maimi was a real mover, up there with Ford Tasso. In the end I decided it wasn't what I wanted and walked." He grimaced. "How I survived is beyond me. I was a marked man. They'll stand for everything here-murder, rape, incest-but not ingratitude. That's a Cardinal sin. I had everything anybody ever wanted and I tossed it away with contempt. I should have been a dead man."
"Dorry took pity on him," Leonora interjected. "He put out word that nobody was to hurt him or knowingly let any harm come to him. As much as many would have liked to kill him, nobody disobeys Dorry."
"Pity?" Y Tse shrugged. "I don't think he's capable of pity. I think there was a darker, selfish motive, but…" He stopped and was silent a long time. Eventually he lifted his head and gazed around. "Have you seen Harry Gilmer recently?" he asked Leonora.
"Who?"
"Harry Gilmer. Short, fat guy, meets with me a few times a month. You know Harry. You've eaten with us plenty of times. He's always telling those awful mother-in-law jokes."
"No," she said. "The name doesn't ring a bell."
"You must!" he shouted, becoming livid. "You know him, Leonora. You do!"
"I'm telling you," she said firmly, "I know nobody by that name."
"Oh." His face fell and his rage dissipated. "That happens a lot here, friend Capac," he sighed. "Get used to it. People vanish. One day they'll be walking around, big and brash, the next…"
"Dead?" I asked.
"No. Dead would be fine-everybody dies, especially in this line. This is more than death. This goes beyond. This is obliteration." He pointed at Leonora. "She knows Harry Gilmer, but she won't admit it. Nobody will. If you go to his home, you'll find nobody there, no neighbors who'll ID him, no postman or milkman who remembers delivering. If you check the files in Party Central, you won't find anything on him. He's gone. Never was, never is, never will be. Understand?"
"I don't think so," I said.
"They've wiped him out. They've taken Harry Gilmer and made it so he never existed. No records, nobody who'll say anything about him. Nothing. They've swept every file, forced or bribed everyone who knew him into denying his very existence. That's the cruelest thing there is, to take away everything a man ever was. It makes life seem so meaningless."
"Who did it?" I asked. "The Cardinal?"
"I suppose. Nobody ever talks about it, so I can't say for sure. But he's the only one with that kind of power. The only one who can coerce people like Leonora into denying a man the courtesy of a memory."
"Y Tse," she said calmly, "I swear I never knew this Harry Gilmer. We have discussed this before. He has an illness," she said to me. "He invents people and makes accusations of this sort when nobody acknowledges them. Is that not so, Y Tse?"
He shook his head sadly. "Maybe. There's plenty who'd say I'm wrong in the head. But I can remember him as clearly as anyone. Him and the others. I've seen the list, too, that damned Ayua-" He stopped abruptly and stared at his fingers. "Take care, friend Capac," he said bitterly. "Watch out for this city. Don't let it do to you what it did to me. Don't become another Inti Maimi."
I leaned across the table, determined to push the point now that he'd brought it up again. "Our names," I said. "What's the link? What were you going to say a few minutes ago?"
He smiled. "The Cardinal hates guesswork. He'd shoot me here and now if he heard me guessing. But screw him. I stopped answering to him a long time ago. Here's what I think. I was The Cardinal's golden boy. He wanted me to take over when he passed on. There were a few of us-me, Ford, a couple of others-vying for pole position, but I was his favorite.
"I let him down. I proved him wrong. But he doesn't want to admit his mistake. I think he believes I was the right man, and if he could find someone like me-somebody with large dollops of the younger Inti Maimi-and train him, raise him up and make him the star I should have been… that'll justify his decision. It will prove he was right, that the failure was mine, not a reflection on his choice."
He rose and stood beside his chair, adjusting his robes. Leonora was silent. "I think, friend Capac, that The Cardinal has chosen you to fill my shoes, to prove to everyone-including himself-that his judgment is sound. I think you're being groomed to take over when he dies. This is the first step on a long, difficult road, but one which leads to gold, diamonds, all the riches you ever imagined. And more.
"I think he's planning to make you the next Cardinal.
"Goodbye, Leonora. Goodbye, friend Capac. See you soon."
And he left, leaving me motionless in his wake, heart beating erratically, breath coming in jerks.
The next Cardinal.
He was mad, no doubt about it. His prediction was probably the product of a wild, deranged mind. But still… the next Cardinal! Even if he was wrong, his words provided me with more scope for fantastic imagining than I'd ever known. And upstairs in Shankar's, surrounded by the echoing chatter and gabble of gangsters, veterans and young pretenders to the throne, I let myself dream.
paucar wami
Johnny Grace was an Irish Cuban who'd grown up in the harsh east of the city and headed a small but vicious gang, the Grace Brothers. They'd terrorized their home territory-no small feat-for three years and now Johnny had decided the time was right to expand west. He was looking for The Cardinal's green light. Ford Tasso wanted me to meet with him.
"Johnny'll be a little pissed when he sees you," he said. "He asked for me and he won't like having to deal with an underling. He might make a scene."
"How big a scene?" I asked, worried. There wasn't much that frightened me, but a pissed Johnny Grace was near the top of the short list.
Ford smiled. "Kid, would I send you in if there was any real danger?"
"Without even thinking," I pouted.
He laughed and clapped my back. "It'll be OK. He'll growl a bit but it'll be bluster. Stand firm. Let him rant. Don't show fear or apologize. In the end he'll calm down and you can talk."
"About what?" I asked.
"Sound him out. Ask him how he plans to expand. What's in it for us? Whose turf is he after? Will he create problems we don't want to deal with? Is he going to be a threat to our friends? Ask questions, make him talk, find out as much as you can. This is the first of many meetings. You don't have to pump him dry."
"Any chance he'll attack me?" I asked.
Ford shrugged. "He knows we'd come after him if he did. But he's a mad Cuban Mick. Who can tell?"
"Should I take a gun?"
He shook his head. "You take a gun into a dark alley with Johnny Grace, and things go wrong, you're fucked. Without a gun he'll just kick the shit out of you if he loses his temper. But if he sees a piece…" He didn't have to finish.
Adrian and I dressed for the occasion in the Skylight. We'd been fitted for new suits earlier that week and eased ourselves into them.
"I feel like a pimp," Adrian complained.
"You look like a pimp," I comforted him.
"Do I have to come?" he asked. "I'm just your chauffeur. I'm not paid enough to get involved with crap like this. Why can't I just drive, like I normally do, and sit it out in the car?"
"I want you there," I told him. "I might need you if things go wrong."
"If things go wrong with the Grace Brothers, I won't make the slightest difference and you know it."
I stopped trying to knot my tie. He was genuinely upset and I couldn't blame him. "Adrian," I said softly, "you're the only friend Ihave, the one person I can rely on. This is a big day for me and I'm about a hair's breadth away from losing my nerve and bolting. I need somebody to hold me in place. You don't have to come. I won't force you. But I'm asking, as a friend, will you help?"
He considered it. "No," he said, then laughed and pulled up his socks. "You'll owe me big for this."
"I'll see that you never want for anything again," I promised. "Neither in this world nor the next." I paused. "Which might not be as far away as we'd wish."
We picked up Vincent in the lobby. He was coming along to observe me in action. He acted as if we were off to the movies. He lay in the back of the car and made us feel at ease with cute little stories. Like, "I saw Johnny Grace chew a man's balls off once. No kidding. He stripped him, went down on him and gnawed the fuckers off!" And, "Don't look at his feet. He's clubfooted and hates it when people stare. You let your eyes drop below his knees, he'll come at you like a pit bull."