Cuba (13 page)

music coming through the open windows.

“Goes around and comes aroundea”…Tommy Carmellini

agreed. “I wonder just how many different social

diseases are circulating in this building tonight.”

When they were outside on the sidewalk strolling

along, William Henry Chance pulled a cigar from

the pocket of his sports jacket, which was folded

over his left arm. He bit off the end of the

thing, then cupped his hands against the breeze and lit it

with a paper match. The wind blew out

the first two matches, but he got the cigar going with the

third one. After a couple purr’s, he sighed.

“Smells deliciousea”…Carmellini said.

“Cuban cigars are the real deal. Gonna be the

new “in” thing. You should try one.”

“Naw. I just might like cigars. I’ve made it this

far without smoking, I’m going to try to go all the

way.”

They paused outside a nightclub and listened to the

music pouring out. “That’s a good band.”

“If you close your eyes, this sorta feels like

Miami Beach.”

“Miami del Sud.”

They walked on. “So what do you hear?”

“The pacifiers are working. All three of them. This

afternoon Vargas talked to his subordinates about this and

that, the minister of finance had phone sex with a girlfriend,

and Castro’s top aide talked to the doctors for

an hour.”

“How is the old goat doing?”

“Not good, the man said. The doctors talked about how

much narcotics to administer to ensure he didn’t

suffer.”

“Any guesses when?”

“No.”

“The Cuban exile, El Gato, where does he

fit in?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“He’s in the casino now with three Russian

gangsters, people he knows apparently, playing for high

stakes.”

“El Gato is supposed to be an influential and

powerful enemy of the Castro regimeea”…Chance

muttered. “Sure does make you wonder.”

“Yeahea”…sd Carmellini. He and Chance both knew

that the FBI had an agent and three informers in El

Gate’s chemical supply business looking for

evidence that it was the source of supply for some of the

makings of Fidel Castro’s biological warfare

program. So far, nothing. Then El Gato

unexpectedly comswanned off to Havana. Chance and

Carmellini were coming anyway, but now they had a new

item added to their agenda.

And Castro was dying.

“I’d like to know what the Cat is going to tell all

his exile friends when he gets back

to Floridaea”…Tommy Carmellini said.

“Maybe if he winds up in the right offices

we’ll find out, eh?”

That reference to the executive pacifiers made

Chance grin. He puffed the cigar a few times while

holding it carefully between thumb and forefinger.

“You don’t really know much about smoking cigars, do

you?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yes, sir.”

Chance put the cigar between his teeth at a jaunty

angle and puffed fearlessly three or four times.

Then he took the thing from his mouth and held it so he

could see it. “Wish I could get the hang of itea”…he

said. “Cuba seemed like a good place to learn about

cigars.”

He tossed the stogie into a gutter on the street.

“Makes me a little light-headed.”…Chance grinned

sheepishly and wiped a sheen of perspiration from his

brow.

He stood listening to the sounds of the crowd and the

snatches of music floating from the bars and casinos,

thinking about biological weapons.

Angel del Mar

was only a half hour past the mouth of the harbor when

the fisherman beside Ocho Sedano pulled at

his arm to attract his attention. Then he shouted,

“We will reach the Gulf Stream soon. The swells

will be larger. We are too deeply loaded- We

must get rid of what weight we can.”

The boat was corkscrewing viciously. Ocho

nodded, passed Dora to the fisherman, pulled open

the wheelhouse door and carefully stepped inside.

The captain worked the wheel with an eye on the

compass. The faint glow from the binnacle and the engine

RPM indicator were the only lightsthey cast a

faint glow on the captain’s face and that of Diego

Coca, who was wedged

in beside him, the gun still in his hand. Both men were facing

forward, looking through the window at the sheets of spray

being flung up when the bow smacked into a swell with

an audible thud. The shock of those collisions could be

felt through the deck and walls of the wheelhouse.

“You are suicidalea”…the captain shouted at

Diego. “The sea will get worse when we reach the

Gulf Stream. We are only a mile or two from

it!”

Diego backed up, braced himself against the aft

wall of the tiny compartment, pointed the pistol in the

center of the captain’s back. He held up his hand

to hold off Ocho.

“You took the moneyea”…Diego said accusingly to the

captain.

“Don’t be a fool, man.”

“America!

Or I shoot you, as God is my witness.”

“You want to dro’wn out here, in this watery hell?”

“You took the moneyff”…Diego shouted.

Ocho stepped forward and Diego pointed the pistol

at him. “Backea”…he said. “Get back. I

don’t want to shoot you, but I will.”

Ocho Sedano leaned disforward. “I think they are

right, what they say. You

are

crazy. You will kill every man and woman on this

boat. Even the babies.”

“The boat is overloadedea”…the captain said without

looking at Ocho. “We have to get some weight off.

Throw the fishing gear over, the baggage, everything.”

Ocho pulled the door open and stepped out onto the

pitching deck. He took Dora from the fisherman,

pushed her into the wheelhouse, and pulled the door

until it latched.

“We must get rid of some weight. Everything goes

overboard but the people.”

The fisherman nodded, took the bags near

his feet and threw them into the white foam being thrown out

by the bow. Then he grabbed Ocho’s bag and tossed it

disbbf the young man could stop him.

Madre mia!

Walking on that bucking deck was difficult. Ocho

made

his way forward, picking up every sack and box in reach

and throwing it into the sea. Some people protested, grabbed

their belongings and tried to prevent their loss, but he was

too strong. He tore the bags from the women’s

grasp and heaved heavy boxes as if they were empty.

Up the deck he went toward the bow, drenched every time

the bow went in, throwing everything he could get his hands

on into the foam created by the bow’s passage.

Other people were throwing things too. Soon the deck

contained only the people, who huddled in small groups,

their backs to the spray. The nets- hanging on the

mast were lowered to the deck, men put into the sea and cut

loose.

Near the bow the motion was vicious. The salt sea

spray slamming back almost took him off his feet.

He caught himself on a line that stabilized the mast,

then worked his way aft holding on to the rail.

He thought the boat was riding easier, but

maybe it was only his imagination.

Then they got into the Gulf Stream. The swells

grew progressively larger, the motion of the boat

even more vicious.

How much of this could the boat take?

People cried out, praying aloud, lifted their hands

to heaven. He could hear the women wailing over the

rumbling of the engine, the pounding of the sea.

He tried the door to the wheelhouse.

Locked!

He rattled the knob, twisted it fiercely,

pulled with all his strength.

“Open up, Diego.”

He pounded futilely on the door.

Six people were huddled in the lee of the tiny wheelhouse,

blocking the door. One of them was Dora. He

leaned over her, pounded futilely on the door with his

fist.

He looked down at Dora, who had her head

down.

Frustrated, drained, sick of himself and Diego and

Dora,

he found a spot against the aft wall of the wheelhouse

and buried his head in his arms to keep the spray from his

face.

He was drifting, thinking of his mother, reviewing scenes

from his childhood when Mercedes shook him awake.

Still under the influence of the painkilling drugs, Fidel

Castro opened his eyes to slits and blinked

mightily against the dim light.

“Maximo is here, Fidel, as you asked.”

He tried to chase away the past, to come back to the