Havana (18 page)

It was a quiet night at the little bar called La Bodeguita del Medio. The first wave of johns had gone off with the first wave of marias, the gamblers hadn't won or lost enough to come to celebrate or drink themselves into oblivion, no marine regiments or naval crews were on liberty, and so Earl sat alone, under a slowly spinning fan that looked like the prop on a Wildcat, and contemplated the bottle.

It lured him.

It beckoned him.

He didn't want to give in.

It sat before him on the bar, in the darkness, glinting magically, promising so much.

Fuck it, he said, and gave in.

He swallowed half with one swig, sucking greedily.

“Doesn't it go down better with something to drink?” asked someone next to him.

Earl set the aspirin bottle down before him, took a long swallow on a concoction he called a ginless-and-tonic and washed the dry, scratchy feel of the tablets from his throat.

“Yes,” he said. “It does.”

“How's the wound?”

“It hurts like hell.”

“Why don't you take something stronger?”

“Boy, do I want to. But if I do, three weeks later I wake up in Shanghai with a Chinese wife, seven kids, four sets of grandparents and six new tattoos.”

“Ah,” said the man, “you are such a creature of discipline—the secret, I suppose, of your many excellent accomplishments.”

Earl didn't have to look, but he did anyway. The man was still thin and papery, with dry skin, sharp, hard, bright eyes, a gray crewcut, dressed in a baggy suit.

“The last time I saw you, you was selling vacuum cleaners. What was the name then?”

“Actually, I've forgotten. I sometimes grow hazy on details.”

“I think it was Wormer or Wormhold or Wormgeld.”

“That sounds like something I'd come up with.”

“Vurmoldt. Yeah, Acme Vacuums or some such. Maybe Ajax. Of Nebraska.”

“I wonder where I got the Nebraska from? There can't be any vacuum cleaner companies in Nebraska, can there?”

“Wouldn't know.”

“You're certain you're not drinking anything with alcohol in it? I rather enjoy the blur at the end of a busy day of selling vacuum cleaners. I'd be pleased to buy you one.”

“I'd be pleased to accept one from you tonight and damned tomorrow. That's how it is. Sorry, but I do appreciate the offer. Anyhow, I should buy you one. I think I owe you one.”

“Very well. I will have a mojito. This place is famous for its mojitos. Movie stars come here for the mojitos.”

Earl got out a wad of bills, hailed the bartender and ordered another ginless-and-tonic for himself and a mojito for the gent on the next stool.

The two men watched the ritual as the waiter crushed sugar and rum and mint sprigs together, added lots of rum, a little spritz water, a few ice cubes, and, to top it off, still more rum, puncturing it with a straw. Then he added a little American flag on a toothpick before handing it over.

“Why, how patriotic,” the vacuum salesman said. “Here's to the U.S. of A.!” and he took a nice long draught through the straw.

“I do like a man who enjoys his drinking,” said Earl. “You know what, I am glad I ran into you. Here, take a look at this.”

Earl reached into his pocket and came out with a brass casing less than an inch long. He set it on the tile of the bar.

“Now what do you suppose that little thing is?” he asked.

“Why, could it be from a gun?”

“You know, I believe it is.”

“Guns are very dangerous, you know.”

“So I've heard. Anyhow, it took some digging, but I finally figured out this came from a Soviet PPsH 41 tommy gun. It's in 7.63mm.”

“A commie tommy! How alarming!”

“Yep. The commiest tommy there is. Anyhow, the other day I was busy getting killed. Seems some feller didn't like me and he was about to part my hair with an automatic. Suddenly he goes all swiss-cheesy. Someone stitched him six times with that commie tommy. Then, before he could fall, he stitched him six times again.”

“Ah! Well, one can hardly miss with those guns, I'd imagine.”

“Actually, it ain't so damned easy. Most folks, they squeeze the trigger and the gun runs away on them. They miss the target but redecorate the room. I had a gun something like that in the war; they're pretty hard to master.”

“Your point is?”

“Whoever saved my bacon knows how to shoot. Has been around a long time. Knows infantry weapons, the way a soldier would. Would that fit you?”

“Ah, well,” said the man. “One hates to tell stories on oneself. I learned some of those skills recently. If I recall correctly, it was called World War II.”

“Yep, believe I heard of that one. You said you was in the German army.”

“Did I? Well, possibly I meant a European army. There are so many countries over there, one can hardly keep them all straight.”

“But there's a big red one, isn't there? Seems I read about that one. They had lots of commie tommys. Know anything about that one, mister vacuum cleaner salesman?”

“Oh, it all gets so mixed up, you know? And it's late.”

“So I don't reckon I'm getting a straight answer. My question being, who the hell are you, and why have you saved my ass twice? Why do you keep showing up like a movie sidekick? And why did you follow me to this little place? I made you an hour ago as I'm moseying down Emperado, and I'm not even any damned good at this game. I been sitting here waiting. And that's another peculiar thing. I had the distinct impression you
wanted
me to see you, and a smart fellow like you, if you didn't want that, why there's no way I'd have caught on.”

“I'd give you a straight answer if I had one. But I don't. I did, yes, come here for you. Not for questions or answers, but just to tell you something.”

“I'm all ears.”

“It's just this. I mean to warn you, as one ex-soldier to another ex-soldier: this is not your kind of fight. If you want to fight the wicked communists, go to Korea or Cyprus. They have them also in Malaysia, Kenya, Burma and Indochina. They're all over the place. Fight them straight on, in a war, and kill them, or die, if you're finally unlucky. That's something you're so good at. But, Swagger, not here. This is Havana. Things are different here. Duties aren't as clear as they are in a war.”

He smiled, finished his mojito.

“Thanks awfully for the drink. Now I must go.”

“It's the least I can do, friend. And I still owe you and I do prefer to pay off my debts.”

“Swagger, you owe me nothing. I operate at so many levels that what helps you can also be construed to help me. Enjoy the night, my friend.”

He put his Panama on, smiled rakishly, and left.

Earl watched him slide elegantly through the half-empty bar, wondering how the world conjures up a fellow so mysterious and capable at once.

The trunk of the black, unmarked 1938 De Soto, parked near the university, was nearly full: a Mexican Mendoza 7mm light machine gun and a thousand 7mm rounds; a Star RU-1935 9mm submachine gun; ten thirty-round magazines, full; three Model 97 Winchester shotguns, riot-gun configuration; three hundred double-ought shells; three Ruby revolvers in .38; seven automatic pistols in 9mm and .45, mostly Stars and Obregons. Also truncheons, bullwhips, hand and leg irons, hand grenades, flares and billy clubs, blindfolds, ropes, chains—the usual duty issue of the Cuban Military Intelligence Service.

In the front of the same car were Ramon Latavistada and Franco “Frankie Carbine” Carabinieri, both in linen suits, with open white shirts, sunglasses, and panama hats pulled low over their eyes. Though it was night, and much cooler, the two men sweated, and kept running handkerchiefs over their damp foreheads as they sat and waited and smoked and sat and waited and smoked. It never occurred to them to take off their sunglasses.

“He ain't gonna show,” said Frankie.

“I fear you are correct,” said Ramon.

“What the fuck?”

“Exactly. What the fuck?”

“It's like he knew.”

“It is like that. It is like someone is watching over him.”

“And he done gone thataway.”

“What?”

“Oh, something stupid we say in the States. Meaning, he's vamoosed. From the pictures. You ever go to pictures?”

“No picture can compete with the reality of my daily life.”

The crowd was thinning. The speakers had been dreary. First was Ortez, the liberal, with much praise for the paradise of England. Then Lopez, the socialist, with even more praise for Russia. Then the Señora Ramilla, who had been bombed in the Spanish War and was blind in one eye, with colorful remembrances of parades on the Ramblas and the sense of unity among the young people.

Alas, and so disappointingly, the young orator who counted, who could spellbind and inspire, who could make the blood sing and the heart throb as he laid out his vision of a Cuba for Cubans and an end to El Presidente—he did not attend, though he was on the program. And since most of the crowd had come to hear him, there was a palpable air of disillusion. A leader's first obligation was to lead, not to disappoint.

“Man, what a wasted day. My people are not going to be happy.”

“Nobody will be happy till we find this
cabrone.
”

“What does that mean, ‘cabrone'?”

“Homosexual.”

“Is he?”

“No, I call him that because to call him that is to spit on him.”

Latavistada started the car and nudged it rudely into the street, not particularly caring whether or not he hit any members of the dispersing crowd. A few young men raised their fists against their arms to display contempt, one so rudely that the captain nearly got out and beat him senseless with a sap, but instead coolness prevailed, and the two new pals sailed out into the Cuban night.

“I will call the Political Section,” said Latavistada. “Possibly they have something new on him. If not, we'll go to a fellow named Kubitsky, a newspaper reporter on the
Havana Post
who is known to keep tabs on things. Then we'll swing by Castro's apartment one more time. We may not get him tonight, but we will get him, and soon, I guarantee.”

 

But the rat had fled. Nothing produced the necessary information: not phone calls, not sightings, not stakeouts, not interviews with witnesses and colleagues, willing or not. Even the man's wife, Mirta, a sullen abused creature with an unruly baby, had no idea where he was when she was approached obliquely in the laundry by a female SIM agent, and drawn out. There was no need to interrogate her more directly, for surely that information would reach the young man with the speed of light, and then he would learn he was being hunted.

“Maybe he went home.”

“Where is home?”

“This is a good question. I have heard he is from the east. But where exactly is not known. Who is this man? We know what he does and what he believes, we do not yet know who he is.”

“This information, would it be tough to come by? You could get it—”

“You could get it many ways,” said Ramon. “You could torture for it or bribe for it, or spy for it. Alas, I find these ways uncertain as well as slow. You think Cubans are lazy and shiftless, my friend, no?”

“Pal, I never—”

“Well, I will show you the one organization in Cuba that teems with efficiency. We will have this information in—” he paused, looked at his elegant watch, and continued, “—two hours. This you will find so amusing, Frankie Carbine.”

Frankie watched them go in. They arrived in six black two-ton trucks and poured out, ten men from each vehicle, with clubs and rifles, commanded by sergentos with whistles and pistols, the whole thing working with brutal precision. The soldiers liked to hurt people, that was their secret. As they thundered up the famous hundred marble steps of the University of Havana, atop its green Arcadian hill, so untouched by the tarnish of reality, they flailed at anyone who came within their range, breaking limbs, shattering noses and teeth, sending screaming students bouncing down the way amid a spray of loose papers and flung-aside books. They screamed. They were primitive men, from the country, nurtured in violence, held in monstrous discipline, seething to release themselves in brutality. They never disappointed. Now they reached the top, diverted slightly, and swarmed into the law school building.

By the time Ramon and Frankie reached the administration offices on the third floor of that building, it was pretty much in ruins. Blood splashed everywhere, like some kind of modern art painting, forming anarchistic splotches on tile and wall and window. A few poor students, bruised and bashed, still tried to crawl out, and now and then a policeman would kick them in the ribs.

“Wow,” said Frankie.

“It's a good thing, generally, to teach youth that it must show respect for authority. This place is a fountain of revolution. It produces treason and sedition and liberalism with boring monotony. These young people, they think they are entitled to so much, they think so much should be changed, they have no respect for the lives their parents have built for them. I would be even harsher than El Presidente. I would shoot ten every month, regular as clockwork.”

They went through torn-up office after torn-up office, at last finding the inner sanctum of record-keeping where, industriously, the two men pillaged first the C's and then the many Castros who had, over the years, applied to the university for admission. It didn't take a long time, for there were very helpful photos, and, as it turned out, Latavistada had an attribute ever so valuable to a secret policeman: a photographic memory.

“Ah, here, I think. Frankie, this? Does this seem right?”

“I ain't ever seen the guy.”

“No, this would be him.”

He handed over a photograph, while he studied the file. What Frankie saw made almost no impression on him, as images seldom did. He drifted a little, then made an effort to concentrate and saw an oval face not without its appeal, the eyes dark and sharp, under a crop of dense black hair. The nose was strong; the guy almost looked Italian, or Sicilian even. Yet the face also was so young. It had no lines, no strength, no passion to it, only a voluptuary's indolence.

“He looks rich.”

“What an excellent observation. He is. It says here he comes from Biran, above Santiago, almost in the Sierras. His father has an estate and works, or worked, for many years for United Fruit. You see, it's always the same, this business. It's always about fathers and sons. This little prick wants to show his papa he's a bigger man, that he will amount to something. So where papa controls a thousand acres, sonny will someday control the nation.”

Frankie had no idea what the Cuban was talking about.

But then he said, “And here is where he will flee. Back to Oriente and the mountains, where he is son of the favored lord, out of reach of the law. Well, Frankie, we shall reach him, no?”