Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes Read Online Free PDF

apartment at gunpoint by a comrade wounded in an earlier shooting. Maybe he would shoot them later. They knew this was a suicidal mission. We can kill Batista or they can kill us all.
    The attack proceeded: Carlos driving the lead car, with Diego and two others, and the Fast Delivery truck following with forty-two men. The truck was unbearably hot, without light, and so overloaded that its six tires were nearly flat. The second car, driven by Aurelio, second in command, with three others, followed the truck. The plan was that once the three vehicles had breached the entrance, another hundred fighters in trucks and cars would arrive shooting heavy weapons, certain to demoralize Palace guards into flight. If the first wave found Palace access impossible, the attack would move against a secondary target—the Cuartel Maestre, the armory of the police—where they would seize its arms, then move to another police station for more arms. There would be no going back. The vehicles moved at inchworm pace through dense traffic. Menelao Mora, at fifty-three the oldest man in the truck, and an ex-legislator in the Cámara and former ally of Prío, told his young comrades what to expect, how to move and never stop. Machadito, holding the rope that kept the rear door from flapping open, saw his girlfriend crossing Aguila and said, “ Mi amor, allí está, ” and his comrades stared at him.
    The truck turned onto Ánimas, the driver’s mistake, and separated from the two cars. Carlos and Aurelio both waited for it to catch up at the Prado, and when the three vehicles were again in tandem they moved onto Colón, and there it was. Carlos very suddenly careened into the Palace driveway, hit the brakes and bolted from the car firing his M-1, running under the arcade of the Palace’s gate, his surprise so perfect that the guards did not slam the gate shut or realize it was time to do that, or even see who was firing the machine gun that was killing them. Diego was behind Carlos, and Aurelio, leaping from the second car, took out the two guards shooting at Carlos’ back. Then others jumped out of the truck—Machadito and Carbó and Menelao setting the pace, the rest in twos and threes shooting, remembering Menelao’s advice—don’t crouch, don’t stop—run to the Palace wall out of the line of high fire from the upper terraces. But those machine guns roared, riddling the truck and pavement with such a hail of bullets that clouds of stone dust rose around the men who instinctively sought cover or stasis in the face of the impenetrable and died throwing a grenade or shooting at the sky. Carlos opened the gate and yelled, “ Arriba, muchachos, it’s ours!” Diego moved through the gate after him and the Palace was breached according to plan.

    On the third floor of Bellas Artes, Renata was explaining to seventy American and English tourists that the young woman in the painting was named Sikan and she had met the sacred fish, Tanze, quite by accident. But for both it was a fateful meeting, for young Sikan would be kidnapped and dismembered as a sacrifice in order to recover the lost voice of the gods which was the voice of the fish. Why it was also fateful for the fish Renata did not have time to explain for the bullets came in through the front windows and then the screaming and warning yells—they’re shooting! Renata now realized Diego would die.
    She yelled to the tourists, Get down, somebody’s shooting. Who’s shooting? What does it matter who’s shooting if they shoot you, get down you fool get down, and the fool got down. Renata knew Diego was now shooting at somebody and somebody was shooting at him. He was saying, We will kill the devil, we will butcher the butcher, as he entered the Palace with his M-1. That young man of such culture and knowledge and courage and beauty would be a sacrifice today. Renata listened as he whispered to her: Be careful, they will know I love you and will remember I kissed you, I shouldn’t