Night of the Jaguar Read Online Free PDF Page B

he’d quickly made it clear she was not only to learn from Ajax, but about him. And report back.
    â€œGood evening, Comandante,” she said.
    â€œCompañero.”
    â€œCompañero.”
    The visitor looked her up and down; his gaze seemed to linger on her purse. Then he looked across the street at the disco. “I don’t like norteño music myself. Too Mexican, if that’s not ungrateful of me. The Mexicans are, after all, great friends of the revolution.”
    â€œYes, I mean, no, I don’t like norteño either. It’s just…”
    He reached out and tapped her purse once, sharply, with the tip of his finger. “You go armed even when off duty?”
    â€œSometimes, yes. It’s not loaded—I mean there’s no round chambered.”
    â€œDo I make you nervous, Lieutenant?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell I should. After all, I am asking you to report on Captain Montoya. He is your partner, your teacher, really. And a hero of the revolution. Doesn’t that make you feel the least disloyal?”
    â€œUm…” She slid the purse off one shoulder, then rehung it on the other. She regretted wearing the goddamned cowboy hat.
    â€œAnd you are ready to make a report, aren’t you?”
    â€œSí, Comandante.”
    â€œCompañero.”
    â€œCompañero.”
    â€œAnd you’re not writing any of this down.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAnd how is Montoya?”
    â€œFine. Well, we had a tough day. A suspect got killed…”
    â€œWe know. The bishop is already making a hysterical fuss about the priest, blaming it on us as if we’d crucified the poor bastard in the Plaza. La Prensa will have morgue photographs splashed over the front page. What happened?”
    â€œThe priest was dead when we got there.”
    â€œI mean with Montoya.”
    â€œAjax, Captain Montoya talked the soldier out. He seemed compliant. Then he pulled a gun. We had to shoot. The guy was crazy.”
    â€œThe soldier?”
    â€œYes.”
    The visitor moved so he could see both their reflections in the store window. “Tell me about Montoya. Was he sober?”
    â€œSober?”
    â€œSober, meaning not drunk.”
    â€œYes, he was sober.”
    â€œIs he stable?”
    â€œStable?”
    â€œLieutenant, you keep answering questions with questions. I chose you in the hope you could observe and report, now do so.”
    â€œYes, compañero. He was stable, rational. He’s just…”
    â€œWhat?”
    Gladys moved the purse back to the other shoulder. “He’s kind of an asshole.”
    The visitor threw his head back and laughed, showing all of his very white teeth. She could tell from the state of those teeth how high up in the government he was. You didn’t get that kind of dental care unless you were.
    The visitor studied her face a while. “It seems I have chosen well. Did you read his file?”
    â€œI wasn’t given it.”
    â€œNot Montoya’s. The soldier’s.”
    â€œYes. I did. Hard to believe what they put him through.”
    â€œDo you know why the Contra are that way? Give me your purse.”
    Gladys handed it over. She rocked back and forth in her boots, relieved now that she was in them. Had she high heels on, she might have toppled to the ground.
    â€œThe Contra are that way because they don’t fight for anything. An ideal. A goal.” The visitor unzipped the purse. “Only against something. Us. This actor-president Reagan came to power with a movie-script foreign policy that he will fight communism like the cowboys he played in B-films fought Indians.”
    He took her pistol out.
    â€œBut the Soviets are Indians with nukes. Reagan can’t attack them. So he makes this Contra army to attack us. In this way he is like the old US cavalry—if they couldn’t get at the braves, the warriors, they attacked the women and children in the