Assassin's Honor (9781561648207) (31 page)

Welch repeated himself. “Captain, we're now on Maryland Avenue and leaving Tampa on the way to Ybor City. Where exactly do you want to go in Ybor City?”

“Don Vicente Martinez Ybor's office. Do you know it?”

“Yes, of course. Everyone does. I've known Don Vicente since he arrived six years ago. A good man who has done wonders out there with his town.”

The doctor leaned out the window, calling up to his driver to take us to the corner of Ninth and Fourteenth streets. The landau hit a pothole and jolted, eliciting a curse from Rork topside and bouncing the passengers below into each other. Maria ended up partially on my lap, a very agreeable location in my opinion. She favored me with a caress as she disentangled herself in the name of propriety, making me yearn for more of those potholes.

I took stock of the situation. We were on the final two miles of my five-hundred-mile journey. In spite of mistakes and obstacles, we'd arrived in time to save my friend Martí, help the Cuban cause for freedom, and prevent a war for our country. I was reunited with my love and beginning to bond with my daughter's love.

We hit another pothole, with the same wonderful result. And all was well with the world.

Ybor City, near Tampa, Florida
Friday morning
16 December 1892

Because of the heavy rain earlier, and the road becoming more of an extension of the swamp beside it, another twenty minutes passed, along with several more of those wonderful potholes, before we arrived at the headquarters of the V. Martinez Ybor Cigar Company, a substantial three-story, block-long brick building.

Ybor City was the brainchild of tobacco baron Vicente Martinez Ybor in 1886. The completely planned community featured homes, schools, clinics, parks, swimming pools, churches, and social clubs, all provided at low cost to tobacco workers. Ybor was the grand patron of the operation, even though other employers soon started up, and wielded enormous influence.

I hoped Ybor was at his office, for I knew he could help me. He had years before, when Marrón's killers came after me in
this very town. It was Ybor who, with quick thinking, laid an effective false trail using false information, decoying them off to the other side of the state. He knew quite a bit about that sort of thing from his own history.

In 1869, the twenty-one-year-old fled the Spanish authorities in Cuba in the middle of the night as they were coming to arrest him. His crime? He had given money to dear friends who were fighting for Cuba's independence. After making it to Key West, he opened and ran a cigar factory there, before moving the entire operation to an uninhabited pine woods outside Tampa in '86.

The rain had slowed to a sprinkle when we finally arrived at Ybor's building. My senses were overwhelmed the instant I stepped out of the landau, bringing pleasant memories of good times I've enjoyed in Havana. A fast-talking street vendor was selling chances at the
bolita
gambling game, with an old man insisting on number three, the traditional number of sailors. Aromas of rice and beans and tobacco leaf wafted through the rain-laden air. From inside the factory came the sounds of
lectores
reading newspapers and magazines aloud to the cigar workers, and the little thuds of cleavers on their tables cutting the wrapper leaf. From the café across Fourteenth Street, I heard the staccato smack of dominoes being slammed down on a table, to the glee of the players.

The Welches were heading to their home at Spanish Creek, after dropping off Cano two blocks away at the Las Nuevitas Hotel, and Maria back at the Tampa Bay Hotel. Dr. Welch gave me his two-digit telephone number, saying, “Please call me if I can assist you while you're visiting Tampa, Commander. I'd be glad to have the opportunity to serve our navy!”

“Thank you, Doctor, but I won't be here long.”

Shaking hands with Cano, I told him, “I'm looking forward to seeing you again soon. We'll sit down and have a private talk about Useppa's future. What're your plans here?”

This was as far as I could go right then—my permission and blessing for a marriage would have to come later, after that talk.
To his credit, Cano didn't argue or continue to plead his case for marrying my daughter, but instead told me he was going to see some people he knew to pass his warning on to Martí. I wished him well on that and meant it. It would be a secondary insurance for success for my mission. Of course, I never told him my mission or plans.

With a wink and a kiss, I suggested to Maria we meet at one o'clock at the Tampa Bay Hotel's boathouse on the Hillsborough River, assuring her my duties would be completed by then and we could spend an hour together. Then I kissed her again and they were gone.

Inside Ybor's factory, a clock struck 10 a.m. as Rork and I climbed the iron steps at the front. The light patter of rain had ended and the clouds thinned enough for the sun to come out. The wind had veered more northwesterly and the worst of the squalls were done.

Rork was in a good mood. “Well sir, methinks we've finally made it, an' nary too soon. Can't wait 'til this whole mess'll be nothin' more than a laugh over a pint o' suds. Ooh, an' speakin' o' pints, me gullet would fancy one with a bite o' lunch today, afore we head back to
Benny
an' Uncle Sam's Navy hardtack an' salt horse.”

I was feeling pretty good right about then too. “Capital idea, Rork! We'll do that right after speaking with Don Vicente. Hey, since we're in Ybor, I bet we can find some Cerveza Tropical de Cuba and decent
arroz con pollo
.”

Even as I made the cheery comment, instinct reminded my brain all was
not
well. I suddenly realized the old man buying the number three chance at
bolita
had been watching us intently for the last several minutes, with cautious glances toward an alley off Fourteenth, next to the café. What really alerted me originally was that the old man had just nodded to someone in the alley. Now I saw who he was nodding to—a man looking at us through a pocket telescope.

Turning around so the telescope couldn't focus on my lips, I said quietly, “Rork, do not look around right now, but we
are being watched. By professionals. Two men at least. The old fellow buying
bolita
is one. The other is a younger, bigger man in the alleyway, just north of the coffee house. Number two man is using a telescope. Follow along with my ploy so we can get close enough to the man in the alley to intercept him and find out what's what. Ready?”

He nodded. I slapped him on the shoulder and, raising my voice to be heard, declared, “Great idea, Rork! Old Garcia can wait. I think a touch of rum would go down my throat just fine this morning. Hell, it's almost noon.” Another slap to my friend. “Yessir, nothing like the hair of the dog that bit you! Maybe they have some rum at the café over yonder. Let's go see.”

We wandered across the street, the telescope man shifting his position to behind some lumber piled in the alley. He was fairly large, light skinned and clean shaven, and dressed like a typical Cuban merchant in faded blue cotton suit with a floppy straw hat. The
bolita
man was far spryer than my first appraisal indicated, and he made his way across the street to our rear, by the cigar company's iron steps. Meanwhile, Rork and I kept up a good-natured banter about our thirst all the way over to the alley's entrance.

“See him?” I inserted into our banter.

Rork nodded yes.

“Let's get him now!”

We ran the eighty feet to the lumber pile. At fifty-three I couldn't run as fast as I used to, and at sixty-one Rork couldn't run as fast as me. Our target was obviously much younger and more agile, for he was out of there like a buck in full flight, leaping over some barrels and dashing around the back corner of the café. I continued after him south bound through a narrower alley. Rork altered course to starboard and ran south down Fourteenth Street, parallel to the alley, in case our prey should cut to the west.

Whilst running toward the lumber pile I glanced back, but the old man was gone. By the time I emerged from the alley onto
Eighth Avenue, our buck was nowhere in sight. Rork crossed Eighth and pointed to the front of a saloon on that corner, then to me. Next he pointed to the back of the salon and to himself. It seemed logical to me.

I walked through the front door of the saloon and into a darkened barroom. It was still early in the day for drinking and only a few men were sitting there, chatting in Spanish. That stopped instantly and everyone stared at me, a lone Anglo intruder in a blue uniform. None of the patrons wore our man's clothing, so I presumed he'd gone out the back and headed cautiously in that direction. The lone bartender glowered at me, one hand kept under the bar.

I heard a chair scratch across the floor behind me and turned. At a table with four men, one of them stood and asked, “Who you are? What you want here?”

He was a roughest of the rough-looking crew, so I judged it time to get official.

“Commander Wake, U.S. Navy, looking for the man who just ran in here. He has information on a sailor who deserted and I want to talk to him. Who are you?”

“Don Manuel Saurez,” he said, in a way which was meant to impress me. It did, for I knew the name and the reputation. Saurez was the
bolita
king of Ybor City, and kept tight control over the illegal gambling operation. His nickname was derived from his homeland of Galicia in northwest Spain, a place many Cubans came from originally.

“The famous El Gallego?” I said, pulling out a dollar. I walked over and slapped it down on the table. “In that case, please put me down for a dollar on ball number three, for my missing sailor.”

It got the response I wanted: a roar of laughter from everyone in the place and a complete change of atmosphere. Saurez snatched the dollar and said, “In honor of the sailor who deserted, I accept your wager. I hope you win when the balls are chosen tonight.”

He cast a look at the bartender. That nasty character withdrew his hand from under the bar and gestured toward a back room door, then began polishing bar glasses. Saurez sat down, the noisy talk started up again, everyone studiously ignoring what was about to happen while at the same time keeping the corner of one eye on the back room door.

I opened the door, revolver in my right hand. The instant the door opened, out he came, right into my torso with a punch which stunned me. I never got off a shot. He ran around a corner and down a hallway. No one helped me as I, more than slightly embarrassed, went down the hallway after him, right hand holding the revolver and left holding my aching abdomen.

I am pleased to report poetic justice made an appearance three seconds later, for the exact same thing happened to my assailant. Just as he was about to open the rear exit of the saloon and make his getaway, the door flung open and Rork swung his right arm around at stomach height.

Rork may be sixty-one, but he still knows a thing or two about throwing a punch. It doubled our adversary over and knocked him on his back, his head hitting the plank floor with a loud thump. Rork had also removed his false left hand, exposing the wicked marlinspike beneath. His face frightfully masked in maniacal rage, he then straddled the man and placed the spike between his panicked eyes.

Rork got close and whispered in his ear, “Do . . . not . . . move.
¿Comprende?
”

A terrified affirmative sound emerged.

“He's all yours, sir,” Rork informed me.

“Thank you, Rork. Good timing.” I knelt down next to the man. “Orden Público?”

A vigorous shake of his head was his reply. The wide-open eyes shifted my way, then looked away to the main bar for help against these two crazed gringos, but everyone there was having a wonderful time playing dominoes, ostensibly ignoring us.

“I'll search him, Rork.”

The telescope was a German Ziess model, the short kind used by militaries in Europe, including the Spanish army. I found no weapons, no identity document, nothing that would show his nationality or profession. I searched him again, head to toe, and found something inside the top of his left sock. When I pulled it out, the man whimpered.

My discovery was a simple brass button. The back showed it was made by the Durant Company of New York. The front had an oval shield divided into quadrants. The upper right and lower left had a fighting lion, the upper left and lower right had a castle. Topped by a crown, the shield was the ancient crest of the kingdoms of Leon and Castile—of Spain. But the most important part of the button for me were the two large letters embossed on it, one on each side of the crest. An
O
and a
P
.

Orden Público.

“You are with
El Cuerpo Militar de Orden Público
. ¿
Y cómo está mi buen amigo, Coronel Isidro Marrón?
” That made him squirm and moan.

Not many Americans knew of this infamous Spanish battalion that terrorized the Cuban people in the area of Havana. The button was from their uniform.