‘No guarantee, Mr Hartmann. No guarantee at all save my word.’
‘And once we have her back, what will you ask for yourself?’
Perez was silent for some time. He once more surveyed the faces that looked back at him, and it was as if he was taking a mental note, a series of snapshots of his surroundings, the people present, so as to always have them to view in hindsight. Hartmann sensed that here was both the beginning and the end of something for Ernesto Perez.
‘For myself?’ he asked. ‘I will stand and face whatever justice is deemed fitting for a man in my position.’
‘You will give yourself up?’ Hartmann asked suspiciously.
Perez shook his head. ‘A man like me never gives up, Mr Hartmann, and that is perhaps where you and I share a little in common. No, I will not be giving myself up, I will merely be relinquishing my power of choice regarding my own fate.’
Hartmann said nothing. He turned and looked at Schaeffer, whose expression was one of total incredulity. There were things he wanted to say, questions he wanted to ask, but in some fashion his mind and his mouth failed to connect.
‘So be it,’ Hartmann said finally. ‘It seems we’ve been placed in a situation where we have no choice.’
‘So be it indeed,’ Perez replied. ‘I would ask for safe housing in a nearby hotel. We shall conduct our discussions either there or here in this office, that is up to you. You can escort me from one building to another under armed guard. You can place me under arrest and keep me watched twenty-four hours a day, but I would ask for sufficient time to sleep and for adequate food. You can record our discussions or have them transcribed by someone else in the room, again that is your choice. I make no conditions as to the security or retention of those things I tell you, and I will trust Mr Hartmann to make a decision as to whether or not any action is taken against any other person whose name I might divulge. Those are the parameters within which we shall work.’
Perez turned to Sheldon Ross and extended his hand. Ross looked at Hartmann, Hartmann nodded and Ross returned the overcoat and scarf to Perez.
‘Shall we?’ Perez asked Hartmann.
Hartmann turned and started walking, Perez following him, and after Perez the collective federal body moved slowly and in single file like schoolchildren crossing the junction.
They walked through the main offices and entered the room at the rear, and here Ray Hartmann and Ernesto Perez sat facing each other.
‘If I could perhaps have a cup of strong coffee, without sugar but with ample cream, and also a glass of water, Mr Schaeffer,’ Perez stated. ‘And while you are attending to that, perhaps you could have one of your people arrange for whatever recording facility might be required?’
Schaeffer nodded in the affirmative, and walked away, neither questioning nor challenging Perez’s right to ask these things of him.
A few minutes later Lester Kubis appeared in the doorway, carrying a case from which he produced desk mikes and cables. He was fast and efficient, and within ten minutes he gave a thumbs-up from a desk situated six feet from the doorway. On it was a large reel-to-reel tape recorder and additional cables running into a PC that would record the discussions directly to CD.
Schaeffer returned with coffee for both Perez and Hartmann, also a glass of water and a clean ashtray.
‘So,’ he said as he paused in the doorway. ‘I’ll be here if you require anything further.’
‘Thank you, Mr Schaeffer,’ Perez said quietly, and then with his right hand he reached out and gently pushed the door to.
Hartmann looked at the old man; his lined face, his intense eyes, his heavy-set brows. The old man looked back and smiled.
‘So here we are, Mr Hartmann,’ he said, and his voice possessed a rhythm and timbre that seemed both relaxed and direct. ‘You are ready for this?’
Hartmann shrugged. ‘I’m ready,’ he replied. ‘For what, I don’t know, but I am ready.’
‘Good enough,’ Perez said. ‘I have a great deal to say, and not a great deal of time to say it, so pay attention. That is all I can ask of you.’
‘My attention you have,’ Hartmann replied. He wanted to ask the man what he meant. How much did he want to say, and how much time did he possess? He wanted to know the answer to these questions, and he knew that it was not because of Catherine Ducane, not for fear of the girl’s life or what her father might think, it was because of Carol and Jess, the fact that what this man had done might make it impossible for him to be there come Saturday . . .
‘Okay.’ Perez smiled. He leaned back in his chair, and before he spoke again he took the glass of water and drank from it. ‘So . . . we shall begin.’
Hartmann raised his hand.
Perez tilted his head to the right and frowned.
‘I must ask you something,’ Hartmann said.
Perez nodded. ‘Ask away, Mr Hartmann.’
‘It’s just . . . well, you said that there was some debt you owed me, that we had crossed paths before—’
Perez smiled. ‘Later,’ he said quietly. ‘It is not important now, Mr Hartmann. What is important here is the life of the girl, and the fact that until this matter is resolved you and I will be sharing one another’s company, and that is something that can be either straightforward or complicated. I have no wish to prolong this matter any more than is entirely necessary, and I am quite sure you have matters to attend to that are an awful lot more pressing than the well-being of the governor’s daughter. You have your own family, I understand?’
Hartmann’s eyes visibly widened.
Perez nodded. ‘You have your own family to go back to, and I can imagine this whole affair has been somewhat of an inconvenience to you already.’
Hartmann didn’t speak. He thought again of his wife and daughter; he thought of their appointed meeting, and whether or not he would make it out of here in time. He felt once again the frustration of being brought to Orleans, of now being committed to staying, and all of this because of the man facing him.
‘You are a dedicated and patient man, Mr Hartmann. I understand the nature of the work you do, and the degree of commitment required to continue spending your days dealing with the sort of things you have to deal with. Perhaps you and I are more alike than you imagine.’
‘Alike?’ Hartmann asked, a tone of antagonism in his voice, antagonism towards not only the man himself, but the sheer nerve he possessed to make any kind of comparison between them. ‘How could you think we were alike?’
Perez leaned back and smiled, relaxed and unhurried. ‘The things we see, the things we know about, the sort of people that populate our lives. They are the same people, you know. You and I are walking along different sides of the same track, and though we might look at something from a different perspective we nevertheless are still looking at the same thing.’
‘I don’t—’ Hartmann started, a feeling of anger rising inside him.
‘Don’t what?’ Perez asked, and his tone was one of worldly knowing and self-assurance that Hartmann found not only unnerving, but galling beyond belief. Perez might indeed have seen the same things as him, might even have been directly or indirectly involved, but here, at least in this situation, Perez was entirely and effortlessly in control. Somehow – despite being the perpetrator of one of the most important federal cases Hartmann had been connected to – he had managed to walk in amongst them and wrest control. He had the upper hand; he knew he had it, and he was going to bet everything he owned on how his cards fell. Irrespective of whatever sense of self-possession Perez maintained, he was still capable of preventing Hartmann from seeing his family at the end of the week. For this, for this alone, Hartmann could feel nothing but anger, even hatred.
‘You don’t believe we share a similarity of nature and viewpoint, Mr Hartmann?’ Perez asked. ‘I can assure you right here and now that there is a very narrow dividing line between the path you have walked and the one I myself chose. A religious man would perhaps speak of the dualist concept, where f
or every part of man that could be considered good there is also an opposed and equal part that is evil. How a man turns is dependent solely upon the events and circumstances of his life, but I can guarantee you that there is no difference when it comes to ethical and moral standpoints.’
Hartmann shook his head. He did not understand what Perez was saying; perhaps his emotional reaction to this situation prevented him from wanting to understand the man.
‘Dependent upon the individual himself there is no difference between right and wrong. What I might consider right is entirely dependent upon what I consider to be the most constructive stance to take. The fact that you disagree with that stance doesn’t make you any more right than I. One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. I believe that is a common saying here in the United States of America.’
‘But the law?’ Hartmann asked. ‘What you have done is a violation of the law.’ He heard the edge in his own voice, the same edge that would surface when he’d been drinking, when unacceptable circumstances had managed to invade his life and upset him.
‘What law would that be then, Mr Hartmann?’
‘The law established by the people.’
‘And what people would that be? Certainly not me. I never agreed to any such laws being established. Were you ever consulted? Did your government ever take the time to ask you what you considered to be the right and wrong thing to do in any given situation?’
Hartmann shook his head. ‘No, of course not . . . but we’re talking of guidelines that have been laid down for centuries about what is generally considered to be right and wrong behavior. These laws are based on what has been proven to be the most survival-oriented action in any given situation.’
‘Survival-oriented for whom?’ Perez asked. ‘And if that is the case then why is the vast majority of law in this society considered a perverse travesty of justice? Ask any man in the street and he considers the police and the courts corrupt, ruled by special consent, by legal technicalities, by nepotism and graft. Ask the average man in the street if he believes that justice can be attained here in your peace-loving and democratic society and he will laugh in your face.’
Hartmann could not respond. Angry and agitated though he was, he knew Perez was right.
‘So what do we have, Mr Hartmann? We have you and I, nothing more nor less than that. I have come here to speak my mind, to be listened to, and when I am done I will tell you what you want to know about the girl. That is the deal here, and there is no other on offer.’
Hartmann nodded. Perez had seemingly orchestrated this scenario, had drawn Hartmann into it regardless of Hartmann’s power of choice, and that was as complicated as it could become. It was a black-and-white situation, no shades of gray between.
‘So once more,’ Perez said. ‘I shall begin?’
Hartmann nodded in the affirmative and leaned back in his chair.
‘Very well,’ Perez said quietly, and started to speak.
NINE
And so I tell you of these things, not because I believe they are important, though in some ways they are, but because I am tired, I am growing old, and I feel that this is perhaps the last time that my voice will be heard. These things go back a great many years, back almost to the start of the last century, and the way these things began perhaps contributed to the way they ended. Cause and effect, no?
These words from my mother. My mother. The sound of her voice even now resonant in my ears. It was she who told me of my father’s land, and his father before him; how the history of that land had borne a people that were strong-willed and unafraid of dying. Death was as much a part of life as anything else, she would say, and it was because of this lineage that I became who I am. Of this I am sure, but to comprehend all I will tell you, it is necessary that we retrace steps that were made by people long before I was born.
I was a small child, and she sat with me, and this story she told me to help me understand some of the passion and violence that were held inside my father. I would listen to the sound of her voice, and when she paused I could hear her heart beating as I laid my head against her chest. Through the window I would feel the breeze from outside, the warmth of the air, and believe that never could someone feel so secure and safe.
‘It was a day that began much the same as any other,’ she said, ‘and yet – almost as if history itself had wrenched open a wound – the blood of men would be spilled before the sun set. Voices would be raised, families would be ruined, and amidst all of this something would begin that has influenced and directed so much of your father’s life. Your father, Ernesto. He comes from these people I speak of, and because of these things he is a strong-willed and decisive man.’
She paused and stroked my hair. I listened to her heart.
‘¡Hijos de Puta! they screamed,’ she said. ‘¡Hijos de Puta! But the words all blurred together like they were one word, and that one word carried hatred and venom and despair and anguish, and beneath that a sense of frustrated desperation, and beneath even that there seemed to be a sense of abject hopelessness, because they knew – each and every one of them – that no matter how many times they shouted, and no matter how loud their collective voice, and no matter how much spirit they managed to muster as they gathered in a raggle-tag disheveled crowd, they couldn’t change the inevitable.
‘There were men on horses, Ernesto . . . men with guns on horses. Smoke billowing out from the narrow wooden huts that gathered along the edge of the trees like children crowding for warmth.
‘It was in a place called Mayari in Cuba, out near Biran in the Oriente Province. Immigrant laborers lived there, one of them a man called Ruz, hailing originally from Galicia in Spain. He came to Cuba for the future it promised. Grew sugar, harvested it, sold it for meager profits, and watched while government men came down to rout out the instigators of a local protest and burned their houses to the ground.
‘February of 1926, and Ruz stood on the border of his land and prayed to a God he barely believed existed, and trusted that his faith would stop the government men from burning his property too. His prayers were heard, it seemed, for within an hour the government men rounded their horses and carried away towards the horizon, and left behind them families without livelihoods, families who knew nothing of the protests, and had they known would not have had the strength to raise their voices. But when it came to their own homes, well then they did find the strength, but it did no good. No good at all.
‘Ruz turned and walked back the way he’d come, and when he reached his own house his wife was waiting for him. Concern lined her face, and when he pulled her close, when he pressed his hand gently against her belly, when he told her that nothing, nothing in this or any other world, would come to harm her or their child, she believed that she could not have made a better choice in marrying this man.
‘For Ruz was a good man, a man of honor, of principle, and come August he would watch as his wife bore a son, and they would watch that son grow, and the son’s name was Fidel Castro Ruz, and he would work alongside his father in the sugar canes, and when he was six years old he would convince his parents to send him to school. And they would talk in hushed voices when Fidel Castro Ruz was sleeping, and they would agree that an education gave a child a future. So they sent him – this brave, bright, wide-eyed child – and Colegio Lasalle would take him in Santiago, and then Colegio Dolores, and through the years to come, as Hitler came, as Franco declared victory against the Republicans in Catalonia, as the Nazis marched on into Czechoslovakia, the child Ruz would study hard and well.’
My mother paused. I looked up at her, her face bright and passionate, but with a passion so different from that of my father. My mother was passionate about living, about making everything good for us, whereas my father was somehow frightening and violent and angry. It was as if he carried all the burdens of the world upon his shoulders and the weight of those burdens was killing him.
‘He was a fine student,’ my mother went on. ‘There didn’t seem to
be anything he didn’t want to know. He worked hard through those years that saw Europe at war. In January of ’39 Franco entered Barcelona. He was allied to General Yague’s Moors, and from the north the Nationalist troops moved forward and cornered the Republicans. By March Franco had taken Madrid and ended the Spanish Civil War. Six months later Germany and Russia invaded Poland, and within forty-eight hours the war had begun. Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway and France, Trotsky was murdered in Mexico City, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor . . . and Fidel Castro Ruz, now a young man of sixteen entering the Jesuit School of Colegio Belen, would watch the world in turmoil. It was as if a hurricane rose up from the heart of Europe, and somehow it drew the rest of the world into its own breed of madness. Castro would survive all of this, and he would eventually give Cuba back to her people. He is an important man, Ernesto, a man you should learn about. You have it in you to be as powerful and wise as Fidel Castro Ruz.’
My mother stopped. She pulled me tight. ‘And what of you? You were alive even then, Ernesto Cabrera Perez. Born not in Cuba, though that was your father’s homeland, and even though you and Fidel Castro Ruz had the same date of birth, 13 August, you were all of five years old, oblivious to what was happening on the other side of the earth. You were here in America, in New Orleans, state of Louisiana . . .’
She turned away then and smiled, as if remembering me as a small child gave her some sense of comfort and solace. I listened to every word she said. She had been the child of a poor family, but she was intelligent and perceptive, reading all she could find, listening to her own parents as they told her about the world. Time and again she instructed me to pay attention to everything around me, to learn to read, to read everything as she had done, and to recognize that life was there to be understood. She wanted me to survive. She wanted me to escape the world within which she had found herself, and make something of my future.
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