Scarface by Paul Monette Read Free Book Online Page B

thick,” he said, holding his thumb and forefinger four inches apart.
    Manolo retched. With a shaking hand he fingered a small Negrito charm on a chain around his neck. “We’ve had it, Tony,” he whispered. “Yemaya is angry with us.”
    “Oh shit, not you,” retorted Tony with disdain. He’d managed to duck the Afro-Catholic malarkey all the while he was growing up, but the prisons were rife with it. Men in cages needed their mystic fix. Tony looked down at the cheap glass charm—Chango, god of fire and thunder, his sharp teeth glinting, his eyes rolling deliriously, head crowned in gold. Chango had no power on the sea. The sea was Yemaya’s kingdom.
    “Help me, Tony, while we still got time. All we need’s a pin. Little rouge—little eye shadow. Ask one o’ them broads.” His trembling hand gripped Tony’s shirt. He was practically crying.
    “Knock it off!” cried Tony, pulling away. “I don’t go for that mystical shit. It’s your fear talking, chico. You make your own fate. There’s no such thing as gods. You hear me?”
    As if in answer, the mainmast shuddered and began to crack. Planks flew up from the deck, and deep in the belly of the ship timbers began to rend. The captain came scrambling out of the wheelhouse. He looked up at the mast and slowly crossed himself. The refugees had scattered from their huddles. Screaming and stampeding, they raced for the rails. Their eyes were riveted on the quaking mast, trying to gauge where it would fall. A huge wave broke on the starboard side, sucking ten people into the sea.
    Manolo rose to his knees and drummed his fists on Tony’s hip. “See what you did!” he bellowed. “Yemaya heard you! Take it back!”
    Tony stood with his feet apart, his gaze wild as he searched the deck. He seemed to be the only one still upright. The others just clung to the rails and pleaded at the sky. Those who’d lost their relatives to the surging of the waves raged and gnashed their teeth. Nothing could comfort them. Tony saw a couple of sailors cutting free the lifeboats below the wheelhouse, close under the swaying and splintering mast. He reached down and dragged his raving cousin to his feet.
    “You shut up now, chico. We’re getting off this tub.”
    He gripped Manolo about the shoulders, and they lurched across the heaving deck. Another wave hit them broadside. Tony and Manolo went sprawling, and another handful of refugees tumbled into the sea. One of the lifeboats sprang loose from its fittings and slid down the deck. Only one boat still held in its ropes, ready to be launched to the open water. Tony crawled to it, one hand gripping Manolo’s collar. The younger man had passed out.
    The mast came down with a shattering roar, crushing the wheelhouse, cutting a horrible swath along the port side of the prow. Several refugees were pinned. Others were knocked in the water. Now they could hear the tearing down below, as the bones of the ship broke up and the sea began to pour. Tony hauled Manolo into the lifeboat. He beckoned to several people at the rail, but they were in shock. Only the quick and the strong made their desperate way to the safety of the dory. Ten or twelve had clambered in when the last rope snapped, flinging the lifeboat over the side. It smashed into the water.
    Tony grabbed the rudder. One of the sailors took the oars. The sea was so rough, they were pulling away from the trawler fast. The air was thick with the shriek of refugees, as those in the water struggled to stay afloat. Several of the men in the lifeboat reached out over the sides to the women and children, hauling aboard perhaps twenty in the first chaotic minutes. Tony tried to keep steering in a circle, but a wave would nearly swamp them and toss them aside. When he next caught sight of the trawler, it was a couple of hundred yards away. It still held together, but even in the gale-force wind Tony could hear the wail of surrender rising from its deck.
    A strange and giddy laugh made