Dry Bones (37 page)

Maybe.

Immediately after the visit from Detective Hanlon, Dunne sent a telegram to Schwimmer in Europe providing the address in Florida to which all future correspondence should be addressed. He telegrammed Roberta. Her cruise ship was due back in San Diego the following day. He told her to go directly to their home in Florida. He’d left his job at ISC. Their belongings in New York were being packed and shipped.

Two days later, he spoke with her on the phone, did his best to keep it short.

“What happened?”

“I’ll explain when I get home.”

“Did you leave on good terms?”

“Good enough.”

“We can rent a place in New York for ourselves, and if you want to keep busy, you can always go out on your own. For now, you can sit back and take it easy.”

“Sounds good.”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

He stayed a couple of nights at the Hotel Pennsylvania under a phony name. He wrote to Bassante. He let him know he was going back to Florida and the PO Box to which all correspondence should be sent. He included Schwimmer’s address and the fact he was looking for help in continuing the search for Heinz—help for which he’d be willing to pay.

A letter postmarked Bonn arrived in Florida soon after Dunne had settled in. It was from Schwimmer. Bassante had contacted him. Perhaps he could be useful. More important, Schwimmer was in touch with a German prosecutor who’d recently been appointed to office. A Social Democrat who spent the war in exile in Sweden, he made known his dissatisfaction with the studied inaction of his colleagues in identifying and indicting war criminals: “He believes it’s time the Federal Republic make clear that, far from being a closed book, the investigation of Nazi war crimes is a story still to be written.”

Schwimmer gave the prosecutor a copy of the Heinz dossier that he’d received from Dunne. He delivered another to an official with the Israeli Reparations Mission in West Germany. As well as passing it to Tel Aviv, the official asked the same question as the prosecutor: Where was Hemmer/Heinz now?

Schwimmer confessed that he had no idea. The house in Hamburg was empty, the import-export business shut down. He contacted Hans Bleier in Buenos Aires. No sign of Hemmer/Heinz there.

“Till we crack this nut,” Schwimmer concluded, “there’s little more we can do.”

Several weeks went by without any more letters from Schwimmer. Dunne called Alvin Capshaw (byline: Mr. Grapevine) at the
New York Standard
, who’d worked under Bartlett at the OSS churning out articles and press releases. Mr. Grapevine rented his name for freelance pieces, like the one in
Modern Detection
, and ran items in his widely read gossip column that press agents regularly fed him and that he printed in exchange for meals, drinks, theater tickets, ringside seats, and the occasional hooker.

Pleasantly surprised to hear from Dunne, Mr. Grapevine chuckled when Dunne told him that the favor he was calling to ask for was a two-line item in his column:
Longtime bloodhound and OSS vet Fintan Dunne hot on the trail of WWII bad guy. “Stay tuned for the caper’s finale,” sez Fin.

“Sounds like you’re working on a novel,” Capshaw said.

“Trying to stay busy, that’s all.”

“I thought all you guys did down in Florida was play golf and take naps.”

“No golf but plenty of naps. In between, I’m working on tying up some loose ends from the war.”

“Well, I’m always glad to help out a buddy from the old outfit.” Capshaw ran the item at the head of his column.

Thanksgiving came and went. Still nothing from Schwimmer. On the day before Christmas, Roberta left the house early to do some last-minute shopping. Dunne made a pot of coffee, went out on the patio, sat by the pool, and read the paper.

The lead stories all focused on the mounting success of the rebels in Cuba. There was heavy fighting around Santiago de Cuba in the east. The rebellion seemed to be gathering strength. Yet it was hard to tell what was really happening. Fulgencio Batista,
onetime army sergeant and former president who’d seized power in 1952, claimed his forces were killing and capturing mounting numbers of rebels. The impressive toll, however, never seemed to add up to anything decisive.

A former American general was quoted as believing that Batista was trying to lure his opponents out of their guerilla strongholds for “a pitched battle in which his 40,000-strong army and American-equipped air force will crush the rebellion once and for all.” He noted “this strategy echoed what the French, with infamous result, had unsuccessfully attempted against the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu.”

The press reports contained plenty of indications that the sand in Batista’s hourglass was running out. The Eisenhower administration had cut off new arms shipments. There were rumors in Washington the CIA had advised the president that, although it enjoyed overwhelming numerical superiority, Batista’s combination of thugs, mercenaries, and hapless, unmotivated recruits would eventually fall apart.

The main American aim at this point, one columnist posited, was “to grease the skids” for Batista’s departure. Power would be handed over to military professionals. The
barbudos
—the ragtag company of “bearded ones” who spearheaded the rebellion under Fidel Castro—would be admitted to a secondary role in the transition government.

Elections would be held. A new government, though more democratic than the old, would “respect and protect the substantial American business on the island.” Left unsaid—but clearly understood—was that this included the casinos run by the American mob.

Despite the turmoil, it was obvious that the lure of Cuba remained strong. There were splashy ads for all the big Havana hotels and casinos: Capri, Riviera, Sevilla Biltmore, Plaza, Deauville, Habana Hilton, etc. Though the swanky Nacional didn’t have any
rooms left, “a limited number of reservations were available for the New Year’s Eve Midnight Supper & Show.”

Dunne finished his coffee and put aside the paper. If Bartlett even saw that item in Capshaw’s column, he’d probably chuckled. He had more important matters to attend to than the deluded pretensions of a two-bit ex-flatfoot. No need to react. The fly had proved easy enough to chase away. That was the thing about flies. They could be a nuisance. But unlike Pohl, who represented a real threat, you needn’t call in the artillery to deal with them. In the end, they were nothing more than a short-term bother, a fleeting buzz, easy enough to shoo. Or swat. Dunne swam a couple of laps in the pool. The Christmas tree, hung with ornaments and silver tinsel, was visible behind the palm ferns and the sliding glass doors.

Christmas Eve, they ate dinner by the pool. Roberta went inside to finish wrapping presents. He went off to Midnight Mass.

Peace on earth to men of good will.

It didn’t look likely anytime soon.

They exchanged presents when he got back. They went to bed and made love. He woke before dawn. He turned on the Christmas-tree lights. He went onto the patio and lay on the chaise longue. He put Bing Crosby’s Christmas album on the record player. The lights’ festive glow faded with sunrise. A warm breeze fussed with the treetops.

Christmas in Florida. Every bit as out of place as a polar bear in the Bronx.

Time had its own momentum. The days after Christmas dragged by. After his swim, Dunne lay on the chaise longue. Sun, warm and gentle, rested on cheeks and eyelids.

Ring, ring, ring.

Dunne sat up with a start. He reached over to turn off the
alarm. There was none. The ringing was from the phone inside the house. He lay where he was, expecting it to stop. It didn’t. He threw on his robe and went inside. A longtime peeve: What kind of idiot didn’t understand that if the phone rang thirty times and nobody answered, either nobody was home or the somebody who was home didn’t feel like answering.

He picked up the receiver. “Who the hell is this?”

“Fin?”

“Yes.”

“Stefan.”

“Where are you?”

“Havana.”

“Cuba?”

“I’ve found him.”

“Who?”

“
Him.
”

“In Havana?”

“Can you come?”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Now?”

“Fin, it’s
him
.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“I need you.”

“You’re sure it’s him?”

“Beyond any doubt.”

“Where in Havana are you?”

“The Barcelona. I need you
now
.”

Roberta laughed. “Havana? Why not see if Mount Vesuvius is about to explode? You could book a room at the Pompeii Hilton.”

It took a while to tell her the whole story, the detailed
narrative he’d never shared before. Van Hull, Bartlett, Dr. Niskolczi, the Schwimmers. He tried to leave nothing out.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“That doesn’t make sense. This isn’t a vacation.”

“I won’t get in your way. But I’m coming.” A simple statement of fact that he knew from experience not to argue with.

In the afternoon she booked their flight. The Barcelona still had a room available. She booked that, too.

B
ARCELONA
H
OTEL
, H
AVANA

T
HEY SHARED A TAXI FROM THE AIRPORT AT
R
ANCHO
B
OYEROS TO
downtown Havana with a couple from the Midwest. The wife was blonde, attractive but bulky. The husband owned a Ford dealership in Minneapolis. They’d made a spur-of-the-moment decision to come to Havana. It had nothing to do with the weather. Neither of them minded the cold. Some years they went to New York for New Year’s.

Havana, however, offered a triple play. He wanted to look into the opportunities in Cuba. In the decades ahead, this was going to be one of the fastest-growing car markets in the Americas. Along with business, there was the nightlife. “We’re going to take in some of those live sex shows.”

His wife slapped his hand good-naturedly. “Jack, please, they’ll think you’re serious. We have reservations for tonight at the Flamingo, and Jack used his connections to finagle seats for the New Year’s Eve extravaganza at the Tropicana.”

“And who knows?” the husband added. “Maybe we’ll have ringside seats on a revolution? From what I read in the papers, it looks like this might be the next banana republic to give
el presidente
the boot. Could be exciting to watch—though not as exciting as a sex show.”

“Oh, Jack, stop. This nice couple will think you’ve only one thing on your mind.”

“They’ll be right.”

She slapped his hand again. “Jack says we’ve got nothing to worry about. It happens all the time down here—revolutions, I mean. They only shoot one another. Nobody wants to drive away the Americans and ruin the tourist trade. Still, I’d have preferred New York.”

They passed an army roadblock. The soldiers, looking bored and leaning against their truck, waved them through. The cab dropped the other couple at the Plaza, then proceeded to the west side of the Prado, to the Barcelona. Roberta went ahead to the bar. Dunne stopped at the front desk.

The English-speaking desk clerk had the formal but friendly manner of a true Habanero. He frowned when Dunne asked what room Señor Schwimmer was in.

“Señor Schwimmer? I don’t believe we have a guest by that name. But let me check.” He turned the guest register sideways so that Dunne could follow his finger as he traced the columns of guests’ names and signatures. “See for yourself, Señor Dunne, nobody here by that name. Is there another hotel you wish me to check with?”

“That’s all right. Must be a mix-up. Are there any messages for me?”

“No, señor. No message at all.”

He joined Roberta in the hotel bar. She was sipping a daiquiri. He ordered one for himself. He lit a cigarette, rested it on the ashtray rim. “I’ve already made my New Year’s resolution. I’m giving up cigarettes.”

“You’re lucky there’s no statute of limitations on making New Year’s resolutions. This is the tenth year in a row you’ve made the same one.”

The bartender delivered his drink.

“
Cuándo es el próximo tren para Habana?
” Roberta raised her glass.

Dunne touched his to hers. “
No comprendo.
”

“It’s a colloquialism Wilfredo Grillo liked to use. Literally: ‘When’s the next train to Havana?’ It means, What do we do next?”

“We wait for Schwimmer to contact us.”

“How long’s that?”

“We won’t know until he contacts us.”

At dusk, they walked to the Malecón. A steady wind from the north sent wave after wave crashing into the concrete wall. The sun sank into the clouds and spread a crimson-tinged, mushroom-shaped light.

The Prado was more crowded on the way back. Nighttime Havana was coming alive. They stopped at Pigalle, a French-style bistro on Calle Trocadero. The mostly Cuban clientele filled the dimly lit room with festive chatter. Two men got into a political argument. When they seemed ready to come to blows, the manager summoned the police.

The men were gone by the time two plainclothesmen arrived. They ordered the manager to turn up the lights. The room went silent, whether with relief or dread was hard to tell.

On the way back to the Barcelona, Fin and Roberta bumped into the couple from Minneapolis. They’d just left the bar at the Plaza. It was abuzz with the news President Batista had sent his children to New York “on vacation.” There were also reports of a battle between the rebels and Batista’s forces at Santa Clara in the center of the island.

“It’s reported that Dr. Guevara, one of Castro’s top lieutenants, has been killed,” the wife said. “Maybe we really will get to see a revolution!”

Warm air swirled in from the Gulf, collided with cool air from the north: a recipe for stormy weather. But it stayed still and close. They slept with the ceiling fan on, unusual for December. Dunne woke at seven. Roberta had her back to him. He dressed in the bathroom. He rotated the doorknob slowly. Roberta rolled over. “Give me my handbag, will you, please?”

“I wanted to let you sleep.” He handed her the bag. “No need to get up now.”