Night of the Jaguar Read Online Free PDF

had to mind her step on the accordioned sidewalk, which the avocado trees lining the street had broken and buckled with their iron root system bulldozing like tectonic plates just below her feet.
    She passed a few sets of lovers at the bus stop, half asleep in exhausted embraces like warmed candles melting into each other. At the corner where the Carretera Sur began its run south to Masaya, she saw only two vendors selling ice cream and carnitas, but not doing much trade. She didn’t cross to the west side of the street where the Disco Vaquero actually sat—all gussied up in twinkling lights shaped like bull’s horns and a horse head. Between the blinking livestock, the words LADIES’ NITE were also lit up. Mexican norteño music escaped each time the door opened. She took up her usual observation post next to the Optica Nicaraguense at the edge of the Metro Centro directly across from the club. A trio of girls no more than ten passed her, chattering and carrying wide aluminum baskets filled with cheap hard candy, pens, loose cigarettes, matches, combs, and key rings. Where they were selling their odds and ends at this time of night, Gladys could not guess. She turned and watched them hold hands and dash across the street, first setting the baskets on their heads, which they balanced as easily as Gladys wore her cowboy hat.
    She had a discreet look at herself in the darkened store window. The tight Levi’s and white western shirt with blue stitching and real brass snap buttons made her feel as sexy as she hoped she looked. But the words “Made in the USA” in her sister’s mocking voice came to her mind. After the Revo, her younger sister had followed their parents to Miami. The first few years of letters and phone calls had eased the loneliness. But then Gladys had graduated university and chosen the police academy over Miami. She was thrilled to her marrow that she’d been born in time to actually live the revolution generations of her people had dreamed of. Even her father had dreamed of it—just not one run by the Marxist children of fruit sellers and teachers. That was why he’d given up his lucrative medical practice and moved the family to Miami, where they’d spent much of their time anyway. She’d had his blessing to remain, but her training in Havana—the belly of the beast, as if Castro would personally demonstrate how to tie the garrote around the neck of Baby Freedom in its crib—was more than her father could accept, or excuse. The silences got longer and cooler. Her sister knew better than to talk politics with her, so the regular packages of clothes and makeup, jellies, soaps, and candies often arrived with no note at all—but always with the price tags still on.
    Gladys adjusted the new cowboy hat on her head and checked her front in the window; from breasts to hips, she found no conspicuous flaws. She looked into her eyes in the blackened glass and felt her inner predator purr. The only disappointment was the heavy purse. Her sister had not sent a matching one. Gladys hated purses anyway, but the jeans were too tight to pack the Makarov, even in an ankle holster. She never chambered a round when out of uniform, because the pistol could double as a good bludgeon, which she had employed it as more than once. Despite the Revo she’d sworn her life to, Nicaragua was still a backward nation of Catholic machos, and she was a young, pretty dyke. She had learned the hard way that sometimes all the consciousness-raising permitted was a smack in the mouth.
    â€œGood evening, Lieutenant.”
    The visitor’s face hove into view in the glass and froze Gladys like a cobra’s swaying head. He’d introduced himself at the graduation ceremony in Havana. He’d seemed to know everyone and everyone certainly knew him. Gladys had earned top honors, so his offer to partner her with someone like Ajax Montoya had seemed another prize. But