Koko. Peter Straub
Underhill
Koko liked Roberto Ortiz. He liked him very much. I thought I could just show you my passports and drop off my material, he said, Miss Balandran and I had planned to see Lola, it’s getting late for a meeting now, Miss Balandran particularly wanted me to see Lola, it’s a form of entertainment well known in this city, could you come around to my hotel tomorrow for lunch, you’ll have time to look over the material in the file…
Do you know Lola?
No.
Koko liked his smooth olive skin, his glossy hair, and his confident smile. He had the whitest shirt, the glossiest tie, the bluest blazer. He had Miss Balandran, who had long golden legs and dimples and knew about the local culture. He had been going to drop something off and arrange a meeting on his own ground, as the Frenchmen had done.
But the Frenchmen only had each other, they did not have Miss Balandran smiling so prettily, urging him so quietly, so sexily, to agree.
‘Of course,’ Koko said, ‘you must do as your beautiful escort says, you must see all the sights, just stop in for a second, have a drink and let me take an initial look at what you’ve brought…’
Roberto Ortiz never noticed that Miss Balandran flushed when Koko said ‘escort.’
Two passports?
They were sitting in the chairs, smiling up at him with such confidence, such assurance, their clothes so beautiful and their manners so good, knowing that in minutes they would be on their way to the nightclub, to their dinner and their drinks, their pleasures.
‘Dual citizenship,’ Ortiz said, glancing slyly at Miss Balandran. ‘I am Honduran as well as American. You’ll see all the Spanish-language publications in the file, besides the ones you’re familiar with.’
‘Very interesting,’ Koko said. ‘Very interesting, indeed. I’ll just be back in a moment with your drinks, and we can toast the success of our venture as well as your night out on the town.’
He went behind the chairs into the kitchen and turned the cold tap on and off, banged a cabinet closed.
‘I wanted to say how much I’ve enjoyed your books,’ Roberto Ortiz called from the living room.
On the counter beside the sink were a hammer, a cleaver, an automatic pistol, a new roll of strapping tape, and a small brown paper bag. Koko picked up the hammer and the pistol.
‘I think The Divided Man is my favorite,’ Roberto Ortiz called out.
Koko put the pistol in his coat pocket and hefted the hammer. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
They were just sitting in the chairs, looking forward. He came gliding out of the kitchen and he was invisible, he made no noise. They were just waiting for their drinks. He came up behind Roberto Ortiz and he raised his arm and Miss Balandran didn’t even know he was there until she heard the squashy sound of the hammer hitting Roberto Ortiz’s head.
‘Quiet,’ he said. Roberto Ortiz collapsed into himself, unconscious but not dead. A snail trail of blood crawled out of his nose.
Koko dropped the hammer and quickly moved between the chairs.
Miss Balandran gripped the arms of her chair and stared at him with dinner plate eyes.
‘You’re pretty,’ Koko said, and took the pistol from his pocket and shot her in the stomach.
Pain and fear took people in different directions. Anything having to do with eternity made them show you their real selves. No part of the animal was wasted. Remembrance, the whole thing they had been, just sort of took over. Koko figured the girl would get up and come for him, move a couple of steps before she realized half her guts were still back in the chair. She looked like one hell of a fighter, like a scrapper. But she couldn’t even get out of the chair – it never even crossed her mind to get out of the chair. It took her a long time even to move her hands off the arms of the chair, and then she didn’t want to look down. She shit herself, like Lieutenant Beans Beevers, down in Dragon Valley. Her feet went out, and she started shaking her head. She looked about five years old all of a sudden.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Koko said, and shot her in the chest. The noise hurt his ears – it really bounced off those stucco walls. The girl had sort of melted back into the chair, and Koko had the feeling that the sound killed her before the second bullet did.
‘All I got is one rope,’ Koko said. ‘See?’
He got down on his knees and put his arms between Roberto Ortiz’s twisted-up feet to pull the rope out from under the chair.
Roberto Ortiz didn’t as much as groan the whole time Koko was tying him up. When the rope tightened over his chest and clamped his arms, he pushed out a little air that smelled like mouthwash. A red knot the size of a baseball had flowered on the side of his head, and a trickle of blood matted the hair behind the knot in a way that reminded Koko of a road on a map.
From the shelf in the kitchen he fetched the cleaver, the roll of strapping tape, and the brown paper bag. Koko tossed the cleaver on the floor and took a new washcloth out of the bag. He pinched Roberto Ortiz’s nose between his forefinger and thumb, pulled up, and stuffed the washcloth into Ortiz’s mouth. Then he peeled off a length of the tape and wound it three times around the bottom half of Ortiz’s face, sealing in the washcloth.
Koko took both sets of cards out of his pockets and sat cross-legged on the floor. He placed the cards beside him and rested the handle of the cleaver on his thigh. He watched Ortiz’s eyes, waiting for him to wake up.
If you thought there were good parts, if you were a person who thought about the good parts, this was the good part now, coming up.
Ortiz had webby little wrinkles next to his eyes, and they looked dirty, full of dirt, because his skin was that olive color. He had just washed his hair, and it was thick and shiny black, with the sort of waves in it that looked like real waves, one after the other. You thought he was handsome, until you noticed his boxer’s dented little blob of a nose.
Ortiz finally opened his eyes. Give him this much, he got the whole situation right away and tried to jump forward. The ropes caught him short before he even got started, and he wrestled with them for a second before he got that too. He just gave up, sat back and looked from side to side – tried to take everything in. He stopped when he saw Miss Balandran melted into her chair and he really looked at her and then he looked straight at Koko and tried to get out of the chair again but kept on staring at Koko when he realized he couldn’t.
‘Here you are with me, Roberto Ortiz,’ Koko said. He picked up the regimental cards and held the good old Rearing Elephant out toward Ortiz. ‘Recognize this emblem?’
Ortiz shook his head, and Koko could see pain floating in his eyes.
‘You have to tell me the truth about everything,’ Koko said. ‘Don’t go out on a lie, try to remember everything, don’t waste pieces of your own brain. Come on, look at it.’
He saw how Roberto Ortiz was concentrating. The awakening of some little cell way back in his head flared in his eyes.
‘I thought you’d remember,’ Koko said. ‘You showed up with the rest of the hyenas, you must have seen it somewhere. You walked all around, you probably worried about getting your spit-shine boots all dirty – you were there, Roberto. I asked you here because I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to ask you some important questions.’
Roberto Ortiz groaned through the washcloth and tape. He issued a plea with his big soft brown eyes.
‘You won’t have to talk. Just nod your head.’
If you saw a leaf shaking.
If the chicken froze on one foot.
If you saw these things, no part of the animal was wasted.
‘The Elephant stands for the 24th Infantry, right?’
Ortiz nodded.