Flight from a Firing Wall

by Baynard Kendrick

  “I’m guessing, but from the symptoms you’ve described to me, it’s very possible.”

  “What chance do you give me?” he asked me, almost carelessly.

  “In the absence of jaundice, Weil’s is almost never fatal.”

  “But I have jaundice?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are my chances? Don’t play doctor with me.”

  “With jaundice the mortality rate averages about 16 per cent,” I told him honestly. “But in my opinion you have no cause for worry. We got you in time. I’m putting you on massive doses of penicillin. If things go well you should be out of here before too long a time. I’m turning you over to another doctor.”

  “For personal reasons?”

  “No personal reasons. I’m going away.”

  “¡Madre de Dios!" he broke out wildly with a last surge of strength. “Do you think to succeed where I have failed? Cuba is no longer the Pearl of the Antilles. The two-legged rats who infest her now have turned her into an open cesspool. The disease they are spreading is made in Moscow. It is deadlier than any epidemic that you know. If you hope to find Milagros and bring her alive from out of that mammoth privy, I’ll do as much as you’ve done for me. I’ll tell you exactly what chance you have, and that is absolutely none. You will both end your lives at el paredón. Chico, I implore you in the name of all that is holy to believe me, for I above all people living am in a position to know.”

  “I didn’t say I was going to Cuba.”

  “Chico, once a man has resigned himself to dying in a battle against hopeless odds, the determination in his face is bound to show.” He turned toward the wall. I went out and shut the door.

  I left my report, and said good-bye to Dr. Shaw. Somehow, I doubted that I would ever see my father-in-law, Ernesto García, again. I never prided myself too much on prognosis, and on that one I certainly couldn’t have been more wrong. I never saw him again in Miami, but in less than a month, in Cuba, he’d had me sentenced to die at Fidel’s firing wall.

  BOOK II

  THE TANTIVY

  16

  Dr. Luis Martínez picked me up at my apartment at four o’clock the following afternoon. I had lowered the blinds, shut off the electric refrigerator and given what little food it contained to the MacDonalds, together with the apartment key and a check for three months’ rent.

  I was going on an extended vacation, starting with a fishing trip down around the Florida Keys. The Macs thought I was entitled to one. I told them I had had the telephone disconnected, stopped the Daily News, and left my forwarding address, c/o Luis Martínez, with the Post Office. They told me to have a good time, and to drop them a postcard, if I got a chance. I said I would try to do both, and choked over having to tell two such nice people a bloody lie.

  The door of the screen porch banged behind me with a ring of too much finality. I was wearing a pair of tennis shoes, white cotton pants, and a white shirt with a wide collar open at the neck. The ends hung outside of the V of a light sleeveless pullover sweater. The sweater had a hole in it near the waistline one size larger than my bullet holes, but less than half the size of the one in my head. I had on a dirty Panama hat with a narrow black band and a wide brim. My luggage consisted of a going-away present from Dr. Shaw—a secondhand physician’s bag crammed to overflowing.

  Luis opened the door of his Cadillac and stared at me in amazement when I climbed in. “Is that what the well-dressed assassin should wear? That outfit never came from J. C. Penney’s. It looks like you’d been shopping in one of the stores on San Rafael—say about twenty-five years ago.”

  “¡Buena suposición!" I told him. “I call them my fishing clothes, but actually they’re the disguise I wear when I’m engaged in dirty work for the AFAO.”

  “I thought you were wearing a cassock when you came in.”

  “Not even a cassock. They took it away from me. I was wearing just my two bullet holes and my skin. I bought this outfit from a refugee, two or three years ago. He probably won it at a cockfight in the Valla Habana.”

  “It looks it. The hat’s particularly charming. What’s in the bag? A bomb?”

  “Apparently a little bit of everything—compliments of Dr. Shaw. I can treat glanders in horses, deliver babies, or go on a kick with morphine. The only thing he forgot was my prescription pad.”

  Luis said, “You can have some printed when you learn what prison you’re going to spend the rest of your life in. Have you got any money?”

  “Two hundred dollars in small bills. A hundred in each shoe. They were too big, anyhow.”

  He said: “You can’t take money into Cuba. It’s against the law.”

  “¡Nueces!” I said. “I’m already a fugitive from justice. What’s the law?”

  “Nuts to you too,” Luis said. “If you’re worrying about what’s going to happen about your precious father-in-law, Comandante Ernesto García, whom you so cravenly deserted in the hospital, skip it. As soon as he’s well, and out, Clooney has promised to look after him.”

  “I’ll bet!” I made a noise with my lips.

  He let it pass. “Have you got a gun?”

  “Not even a knife, except the scalpel in my kit bag. My mission is to get medicine to Villaverde, and find Milagros. Remember? One of those Message to García missions, as it were.”

  “¿Está Ud. bromeando?— Are you kidding?” he demanded. “You’re making me actively ill.”

  “I’m a doctor, not an assassin as you have intimated,” I reminded him courteously, knowing his thin skin. “I might get excited and shoot somebody, if I had a gun.”

  “My private sources in Cuba inform me that your picture is posted in every office of the G-2 and that the entire militia and Rebel Army has orders to shoot you on sight. Furthermore, you are listed in the files as a trigger-happy ruthless killer.” He started the car, backed out into Almeria, and headed downtown.

  I said, “I’m relieved to know that you are in such close touch with the old folks at home. What have you been doing—listening to the cuckoo coo from that radio station in Tuinucú? Or did one of your carrier pigeons finally get through?”

  “Among the more loyal members of my organization, right here in Florida, there are still a few aficionado radio operators who are on the job day and night, luckily for you.”

  “Amateur is that word you’re struggling for,” I informed him. “I believe they are affectionately known as hams, but I’m not sure. Why is it so lucky for me? Also, if it’s easier for you, I can speak Spanish, too.”

  He tried me out with: “Cállate, ya has hablado bastante— Shut up! You’re talking too much! We haven’t got much time and I have to brief you.” I lapsed into a dignified silence.

  “Joe Slade, that skipper of the Angelus II you met, is taking you down to Cuba. You’re leaving from a private dock on the Oleta River as soon as we can get there.”

  I ventured a question, “How much is all this going to cost?”

  “Nothing—to you. It’s all with the compliments of the Friends of Cuba and the AFAO.”

  “I have enough in the bank to stand my own share.”

  “We’re not open to bribery for breaking the law, as you have admitted you were doing, so kindly shut up as I asked you to, and let me proceed.”

  “Well, proceed. You have the floor.”

  “You’re headed for La Isabela, but you’re not going to land there. You’ll get a signal to go east or west from one of the Dromedary Keys.”

  “There are a thousand Cayos del Dromedario. What sort of a signal?”

  “Maybe they’ll shoot up rockets. How do I know? Once I turn you over to Joe Slade you’re his headache from there on. Now listen to this and remember it, and don’t write any of it down. If you go west you’ll be landed at one of the beaches near Matanzas.”

  “Varadero?”

  “Not likely. Fidel has taken over an estate and is living there.”

  “Well, it’s only about eighty miles from La Isabela,” I pointed ou
t. “I thought maybe you’d reserved me a suite at the Varadero Internacional, or gotten me a spot to bunk down with Fidel.”

  Luis said, “You’re not going to Atlantic City, but before you’re through you’ll probably wish you were. You’ll be landed somewhere on a beach as close to Matanzas as they can get you. Then it will be up to you to get there.”

  “Where?”

  “Matanzas. Are you familiar with the city?”

  “My aunt and uncle lived there, and I was married there.”

  “Then remember this address. It means your neck: Jovellanos 32. It’s a private house about four blocks from the Parque Central, near Salamanca. Rap lightly—three—two—and one, and ask for Juan Jiménez. That’s your first contact for Villaverde—if you’re lucky enough to get that far. Have you got it?”

  “It’s burned into my brain, with my neck at stake. Are we making any stops on this excursion?”

  “Key West, for gas. That’s all.”

  I did some fast figuring. A hundred and sixty miles to Key West; another hundred and sixty miles to La Isabela; add another hundred back to Matanzas. I said, “I forgot to pack my parasol. That’s better than four hundred miles. Only mad dogs and Englishmen wander around Matanzas in the noonday sun. I’ll get heat prostration before I’m arrested.”

  “You’ll be landed before 4 a.m. if Slade’s schedule is right. He figures that will give him time to make his getaway. It may be even earlier if you have to go east from La Isabela and land at Caibarién.”

  “Terrific!” I said. “I spent part of my honeymoon there. They have the best fishing in Cuba. Also there’s a club house at Cayo Los Ensenachos beach, with cabanas. That’s only a short three hours’ jaunt from there by launch. Maybe I can persuade good old Joe Slade to stay.”

  He ignored me while we stopped at a light, then went on with his strategic parroted plan of action just as though it was his own precious hide, not mine, that was to be fed to the lobsters in Buena vista Bay.

  “You’ll have to land at Cayo Francés if you go to Caibarién. The fish barges come out there to load the big freighters at the docks there. It’s too dangerous for Slade to attempt to go inshore through all those islands at night.”

  “No es nada,” I said. “I can call a taxi, or the water’s warm. What’s a twelve-mile swim into Caibarién across the bay?”

  “It’s closer to thirteen miles,” he corrected idiotically. “There’ll be a freighter there at one of the docks, loading up with frozen fish, the Lucretia. Slade will land you on barge #12. You ask for Juan Jiménez—”

  “Of the Matanzas’ Jiménezes?”

  He passed that too. “He may take you in in an outboard himself, or give you one to use. Maybe you’ll have to row. It all depends. At any rate you’ll be provided with transportation across the bay.”

  “Then?”

  “Once you’re in Caibarién, you go straight to the Hotel Unión and ask for—”

  I raised a pleading hand. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Juan Jiménez! Then, if he’s kept the dining room open for me, I can order the same dinner I had with Milagros the last time we ate there: Moro crab cocktail, lobster salad, grilled pargo— red snapper here—in garlic sauce, Hatuey beer and coffee. Who could ask for anything more?”

  “Chico, you won’t survive this trip by playing the fool,” he said sadly. “You’re not listening, you’re fight talking. With all the help I can give, you don’t stand a chance in a million of coming back alive anyway. You’re right about asking for Jiménez, only this time the first name is Justo. Mark it down in your mind. Juan until you get to the Unión. After that Justo.”

  I said, “For three years I’ve put up with your backhanded phone calls to the AFAO, Luis, but it’s tough to swallow this Jiménez horseplay.”

  “You’d better try to choke it down if you hope to stay alive in Cuba. The key to Villaverde’s underground is the letter jota in Spanish. In English the letter J. The cover names for all of Jorge Villaverde’s agents, contacts, or friends start with jota, as his does. For example: Jerónimo, Jesús, Joaquín, Jonás, Julián and so on; while the women might be Josefa, Juana, Juanita or Judit. In addition to those contact proper names, your first sentence of address should have a word or two in it beginning with jota. A clean contact will answer with the same.”

  “I get it, but it’s going to play hell with my bar technique,” I told him. “I used to ask if I could buy a drink before I got a dame’s name. Now I have to slide on a stool and ask, ‘Are you Justina?’ If she says Yes, then I follow up with, ‘I’m a doctor. Would you like to borrow my jeringa—syringe? Or have you already had your jeringazo— enema, today?’”

  That held him for a couple of blocks, then he said, “You’ll probably end up by calling everyone jefe jumento—stupid boss, like you do me. Now sec if you can repeat a single one of the instructions I’ve given you since we left your house.”

  I fed them everyone back to him juego a juego, or play by play, to coin a phrase in double-J.

  We drove on in silence after I had finished. It was getting close to sailing time. There was nothing much more left to say. We were driving eastward down some street (I think it was Ninth) and I remembered driving Miss Langley down it a couple of weeks before and translating signs as we drove along: Carnicería—meat market. Sastrería—tailor shop. Zapatería—shoe store. Almacén—department store. Cine—movie theater, featuring one picture in Spanish and one in English, Grade B.

  At Miss Langley’s request, we had stopped beside seven Cuban boys, identically dressed in two-toned shoes, brown slacks, and yellow sports shirts. I rolled down the window to hear what they had to say. They were heatedly discussing a baseball game, criticizing one of the Yankees who had made a lousy play. We got out and followed them into a drug store, labeled Farmacía. They ranged themselves at the soda fountain and ordered Cokes. The ball game continued without any rumble, holdup, or blood on the floor.

  We went back out and got in the car and I did some more translation work. She said, “They’re just like a bunch of American boys really, aren’t they?”

  “I’m glad you feel that way. What makes you think so?”

  “I guess it’s because they all dress the same way. Travel in bunches—I don’t know.”

  I said, “They’re all being brought up like American boys today.”

  Thinking back on it, I pointed the signs out to Luis as we rolled along and asked him, “Miami or Camagüey?”

  “Miami,” he said. “There’s just one difference. A lawbreaker like you would be in prison now, or dead, if anyone knew you were trying to duck out of Camagüey.”

  17

  All the way up Biscayne Boulevard, to just south of 163rd Street Causeway, where my transport to Cuba was tucked away at a private dock on the Oleta River, I watched the people on the sidewalks moving about in aimless intensity, full of the happy knowledge that very shortly they would be going home. They moved in and out of shops and restaurants, bars and grills, movies and tourist courts; buildings that were crowded together in solid walls on either side. A million automobiles streamed through the gulch in a two-way torrent.

  Some peculiar chemical change that I couldn’t define was taking place inside of me. I realized finally that the unpleasant churning that was causing my insides to boil so audibly was an ever-growing feeling of envy toward all those nice unconscious souls who didn’t have to cut the umbilical cord attaching them to that womb of safety known as the United States, and be born, or reborn into a seething pot of fear.

  The citizens of the USA from the moment of their birth, or actually from the moment of their conception, are wrapped in pretty padded layers of protection and safety. I had found out, myself, through almost half of my life how pleasant such a protective padding could be.

  Yet, history has shown that countries could smother to death between the feather mattresses of utter security. Rome got too soft and went that way. So America, the country that has everything, laid itself down on the analyst’
s couch and adopted national worry, which is really a very poor substitute for lack of fear.

  Americans worry about school, about being too young or being too old, about making too much money or not making enough, about income tax—having too much or none to pay—about getting a new car or finding a place to park it if they get one, about the chimera called “The National Debt” which they read about but will never see (although, frankly, I’ve never known anyone who lost a moment’s sleep over that one).

  They harry themselves about the rise and fall of stocks and bonds, or why they have none, about the H-bomb, politics, and religion—living and dying and whether or not their destination is Heaven or Hell. They relish a wonderful torment about their wrinkles, their bowels, their appetites, their diets, their drinking and smoking, the stench of their armpits, their sweetness of breath, and the horrible state of their clothes, hair and skin. Most of all they worry about their worrying, and the state of nerves and tension it is putting them in.

  They take their thrills vicariously, gorging themselves on violence through the printed word, the movies and TV. They have never seen death rain down from the skies reducing their cities to smoking rubble. In more than a century their land has never known invasion, let alone the far worse numbing horror of being occupied.

  They have met with earthquakes, floods and fires, tornadoes and raging hurricanes, but all of those have been sectional—accepted acts of nature and God, striking too quickly and passing too swiftly to create any lingering sense of national terror. They have never cringed under a despot’s heel. Never known the stalking specter of famine that leaves their children with bony limbs and bloated bellies. Nor has any American living today survived the ravages of a plague, and seen bodies piled high in the charnel house of a public square.

  Only those Americans who had tasted the brutal blast of battle away from home, in the air, on and below the sea, in trenches and foxholes, in steaming jungles, on freezing mountains, and blistering deserts; those who had lived with death on every hand, and vomited over the sweetish smell of rotting corpses, friend and foe, could have the remotest idea of those spasms of terror that opened wide the kidneys and bowels. Only they were capable of understanding the manifold blessings of living in the salutary freedom of a country where worry had taken the place of consternation and horror.