There were the two old men in the warehouse, the ones who’d cheerfully taken his money, and then lied about knowing Luis. Going back to them was worse than stupid, even if they hadn’t known Luis, which of course, they did. Then there was the Santería priestess. Michael wouldn’t go back to her if his life depended on it. She was the kind who would take his money, make wild promises, then give him a bullshit story when it all fell through.
That left the former army officer in Chinatown, the one who’d first led him to the print shop. He had willingly taken Michael’s money, too, and would undoubtedly demand more, but his information had panned out. What’s more, his threadbare living conditions made it unlikely he was politically connected. He was probably one of the forgotten ones, Cubans who had done their duty, thought they would be taken care of afterwards, and had come back to a country that was broke and helpless. The guy was scrounging now, trying to “resolver.” He was probably as close to a mercenary as Cuba had.
So, after breakfast Michael borrowed Luis’s bike and rode it down to Chinatown. Luckily, the officer was there, in the same dingy yellow undershirt, with the same chest hair sticking out. His ornery mood hadn’t changed either, until Michael flashed a wad of cash at him.
His face brightened. “What can I do for you, Americano?”
Michael explained what he needed. The man scratched his hairy chest, then wiggled his fingers for the money. Michael peeled off a few bills. He was down to his last few thousand. The man counted the money, then stuffed it into his pants pocket. He went into another room and came back with a scrap of paper and pencil. He scribbled something and handed the paper to Michael.
“I do not know if this man is still in Sierra Chaquita,” he said. “Maybe yes. Maybe no.”
If he heard that one more time, Michael thought he might slug someone. The Cubans’ blasé attitude toward life would never work in the States. Then again, this was life in Cuba. Maybe yes, maybe no. Never good.
“What—or where—is Sierra Chaquita?”
The man laughed. “It is our name for Regla. You will see.”
Michael heaved a sigh.
The officer seemed to understand Michael’s frustration. “Take Marti to the first side street beyond the power plant. You will be behind a warehouse. Walk around to the front. You will see an office. Go inside. If the man is still there, tell him I sent you.”
“I don’t know your name.”
He smiled. “Tell him Chinatown sends regards.”
Like the movie, Michael thought.
“Yes. Chinatown.” The officer nodded as if he’d read Michael’s mind. “That’s all you need to say.”
• • •
The view from the ferry that chugged across the bay framed Regla as an industrial area with dingy warehouses, smokestacks of varying heights, and a shabby wharf. Regla was home to those who couldn’t afford Havana prices. In return for the lower cost of living, its residents shared space with shipyards, a power plant, and an oil refinery, which belched a stomach-churning stench into the air. Once a center for Cuban rebels, over the years Regla’s energy had dissipated, like a balloon that had lost its air.
Michael walked the bike off the ferry and started down Avenue Marti, Regla’s main street. At a square past the Church Nuestra Señora de la Virgen, famous for its statue of a black Madonna, he dropped the bike. Not only was it slowing him down, but it was calling attention to him. He might as well have a target painted on his back. He didn’t expect the bike to be there when he returned—he’d buy Luis a new one when they got to the States.
He asked a gnarled black woman in the square for directions to the power plant. She vaguely waved toward the right. He started down the street. At intersections, he caught glimpses of crumbling houses and streets, old American cars on blocks, and people, mostly black, not doing much of anything.
Ten minutes later he passed the power plant. Solid wood walls cordoned off the side streets adjoining the plant, and guards stood at attention. Michael tried to appear inconspicuous and kept walking. Remembering Chinatown’s directions, he eventually got to a side street that wasn’t walled off and turned down it. A little black girl pushing a doll in a baby carriage eyed him curiously as he passed.
At the end of the street to his left was a field where a group of boys were playing baseball. The thwack of the bat as it connected with the ball, the ensuing shouts and cheers sounded familiar and comforting, and for a moment, Michael imagined he was back in Chicago. Then he looked the other way. To his right was a rocky, uneven patch of tall weeds and grass, and beyond that, the wharf. He started across the grass. As he got closer, the briny smell of salt water and dead fish assailed him.
A moment later he was in front of the shipyard. It was a dreary-looking place, with rundown piers, docks, and warehouses. A few freighters were docked near the piers, but it was eerily silent. It was nothing like Chicago’s Lake Calumet harbor, which his grandfather had taken him to when he was a kid. The opening of the St. Laurence Seaway a few years earlier had triggered an expansion of the entire harbor, and shipping in South Chicago was booming.
Here, though, the despair was almost palpable. Which made it a place to keep your wits about you. With one eye on the dark water, he shook off his backpack, retrieved his pistol, and stashed it in his waistband. The movie Chinatown had stayed with him, especially the scene where Roman Polanski slashed Jack Nicholson’s nose. That had to do with water, too, he recalled.
He made his way to a small office in one of the warehouses. So far Chinatown’s information had been spot on. The door to the office was open, and Michael could hear a fan inside blowing air. He knocked. No response. He knocked again. This time a voice, sounding disgruntled, almost hostile, replied.
“Estamos cerrados. We are closed.”
Michael stuck his head in the door anyway. “Your door is open.”
Behind a shabby-looking desk was a middle-aged man, bald, with a mustache. He didn’t look up from what he was doing, but there were only a few papers on the desk, and no pencil, pen, or computer. Not even an adding machine. He’d probably been napping. Finally he looked up.
Michael didn’t attempt to explain but read the name on the scrap of paper from Chinatown. “I’m looking for Esteban Diaz.”
The guy raised his eyebrows.
“Chinatown sent me.”
The man straightened. Michael didn’t know if that was a good sign or not.
“I feel like some air,” the man said after a pause. “Walk with me.”
Diaz strolled to the edge of the pier. Michael followed. A gull lifted off, flapping its wings, as though surprised to have been disturbed in such a lonely, desolate spot.
“What is it you’re looking for?” Diaz appraised him.
“I need to arrange a boat out of Cuba. To Miami. For three people. As soon as possible. Can you help?”
Diaz rubbed his chin, covered with about a week’s worth of stubble. He tipped his head to the side, appraising Michael. Then, “Chinatown, eh?”
Michael nodded. He wondered how the two men knew each other. Angola? He didn’t ask. It was irrelevant. He waited for Diaz to continue. It seemed like a long time. Then, “You may be in luck. I have a shipment coming in from the Keys.”
Michael didn’t ask what Diaz was bringing into Cuba. Certainly contraband. Weapons or drugs? Or more prosaic things, like gourmet food or stereos? Which they could store unobtrusively at the warehouse. The less he knew, the better. Regla was known to be a smuggler’s paradise.
“When?”
“I expect them any time. Maybe tonight.”
Michael’s pulse sped up. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? But apparently it was. Chinatown and Diaz’s bond must run deep.
“How much?” Michael asked.
The guy held up two fingers. “Thousand. In dollars. One now. One later. Come back tonight. After midnight. With your passengers.”
If he paid Diaz, he would be broke. Still, he would soon be back in the U.S. The ha
rd part would be persuading Carla and Luis to pack up their entire lives in a few hours and flee. He promised himself he would replace their belongings with bigger and better things. Then again, Carla didn’t care about material possessions. Nor did his father.
But that wasn’t his chief concern. Why did Diaz want them to come back here? The wharf was practically next door to the heavily guarded power plant. And the lighthouse at El Morro, which wasn’t far away, had a powerful searchlight that raked the bay every night. A vessel leaving Regla after dark might be spotted, stopped, boarded.
Almost any other wharf would be a better choice. Maybe he should case the Mariel Harbor west of Havana, although it was heavily guarded too, since the boatlift a decade ago. Or one of the beaches outside Havana. Maybe this was a set-up. Maybe he should walk away. He tried to keep his suspicion in check.
“Will we be leaving from here? Is it safe?”
Diaz nodded. “Security police patrol the entire coastline. Which, oddly enough, makes Regla one of the safer places.”
“How is that?”
The man gave him a cagey smile. “The guards you should worry about are at the power plant. But they like their rum. Especially when my friend, who is one of them, brings it to them for free. By two in the morning, they will be falling down drunk.”
“What about the searchlight from El Morro?”
“The boat captain will hug the shoreline until you are well out of the bay. The light will not reach you.”
Michael wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know.”
“I do not know when there will be another boat,” Diaz said. “As you know, it is not easy. But, of course, it is your choice.”
Michael weighed the risks. The timing. The location. The people involved. But he didn’t really have a choice. They had to get out of Cuba. He handed Diaz the money.
• • •
Luis scratched his cheek in amusement. Miguel was so much like his mother, at least the Francesca he remembered: full of grandiose plans and determined to carry them out, no matter what the consequences. He recalled the time he found her at dawn curled up on the porch of the house in Havana where he’d lived. She’d simply run away so she could be with him. He realized then that she would do anything and everything to get what she wanted. Now her son—their son—was the same way.
He went into his bedroom and rummaged through his wardrobe. If, by some miracle, Miguel were able to put together an exit plan, what would Luis take? Aside from his books, which he knew he couldn’t bring, there wasn’t much. A few shirts, pants, shoes. He considered the Makarov he’d been issued in the army. It had been stashed in the back of the wardrobe since he’d come back from Angola. The pistol needed a thorough overhaul; he wasn’t even sure it would fire. He even gazed at the rug over the loose floorboard where the map was hidden and wondered whether to take it. It didn’t have any meaning for him; it had been Ramon’s scheme, not his.
He was still debating when he heard a muffled noise from the front of the house. Someone was opening the door and trying to be quiet about it. He called out. “Carla? Miguel? Is that you?”
There was no answer. Luis started out of his bedroom, but before he had taken two steps, a blur of khaki flew at him. He had the impression of a beefy Caucasian man, stocky but surprisingly nimble. The man rammed into him, knocking him to the floor. The man promptly threw himself on top of Luis and started pummeling him. The first blow, to his gut, made Luis groan in pain. The attacker followed it up with another into his kidneys. Luis gasped and tried to curl into a defensive position to block the assault, but the man’s weight prevented it. Luis cried out at a particularly sharp blow to his head, turned his head to the side, and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them a moment later, he saw that the man had a gun and was using it as a cudgel.
Luis tried to roll back and forth on the floor in an effort to gain momentum and extricate himself from underneath the man. If that didn’t work, at least he might be able to wrestle the gun away. But the man outweighed him by at least fifteen pounds, and the most Luis could do was to free his left arm. Although he was right-handed, he threw up his left hand trying to grab the gun. A tug of war ensued, both of them rolling on the floor, each with a hand on the gun, looking for purchase. Then, with a huge effort, the attacker grunted, snatched the gun from Luis, and fired point blank into his head.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Michael was surprised to find Luis’s bicycle in the same spot he’d left it. As he pedaled from the square back to the ferry, the weight that had been pressing down on him started to lift. The bike hadn’t been stolen, and by tonight they would be safe, well out of Havana on a boat bound for Florida. If Carla were here, she would say it was a sign. That his meeting with Diaz had been the right move. That they were supposed to leave Cuba.
As he rode back to Lawton the sky lowered. Brooding clouds squeezed the air into a humid sludge as heavy and thick as a wet blanket. Sweat poured off Michael as he pedaled up the hill to Luis’s home. When he arrived, he laid the bicycle down in front—there was no kickstand—and went to the front door.
Then he stopped.
Luis’s door was open wide. He knew his father often kept the door partially open during the day to catch the breeze. But not this wide. Was a visitor there, a visitor Luis was trying to make more comfortable? Or was his father trying to signal something by leaving the door open? And if so, what?
Michael crept to the door and leaned his ear against it. It was quiet. No movement, rustles, thumps, or other sounds inside. Where was the idle chatter between Luis and Carla? The sounds of cleaning up, washing dishes, cooking? He spun around. The street was clear of people. No one strolling past. No children playing. No birds singing, either. Fear ballooned in his gut.
He backed up and circled the yard. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He came back to the front of the house. He took another look down the street. Still no one. He took out his gun, released the safety, and slipped inside.
When he saw what had happened, his stomach pitched.
Everything in the front room had been tossed. The tiny sofa lay on its back, its cushions ripped to shreds. One of the two chairs was upside down. His father’s books had been hurled everywhere. The lamp was on the floor, its light bulb shattered. Shards from the bulb stuck out between books.
Michael called out for his father. Then Carla. No one answered. He racked the slide of his gun and started to case the house. The kitchen was empty, the breakfast dishes stacked in a drain-board by the sink. But the cabinet doors were open, and the few cans Luis had stored had been flung on the floor.
He stopped outside the tiny bedroom he and Carla shared. Aiming the gun, he pivoted fast into the room. No one was there. But someone had been. Their mattress had been slashed and the few clothes they’d brought were scattered on the floor. He checked the bathroom. Nothing, but the bathroom cabinet was empty. A half-used tube of toothpaste lay on the floor.
He aimed the pistol again and swung into his father’s room. The doors to Luis’s wardrobe were open, his clothes strewn on the floor. The bed was torn apart too, the mattress humped in one corner of the room. The chair beside the bed, the only upholstered chair in the house, was ripped. Michael sank down on the bed frame and covered his eyes. He thought for a moment maybe the police had paid them a visit, but he didn’t think they would have trashed the house.
Someone was clearly looking for something. Walters. Still, he wanted to believe that Carla and his father had escaped. He dropped his hands and scanned the room more carefully. When his gaze rested on the mattress, he went cold. Red blotches stained the mattress. He got to his feet. He’d assumed his contact, in his rage, had hurled the mattress into the corner, but now he could see it was partially covering something. As if to conceal it. His jaw clenched, his hands shaking, Michael went over and raised the mattress.
His father’s body was crumpled underneath. A gunshot had blown off most of his head. Streaks of red and brown spattered the walls. A second sh
ot to the chest had produced a pool of blood on the floor that, in the tropical heat, was already congealing. Flies were beginning to settle on his father’s face—which meant Luis had not been dead for long. Michael dropped the mattress and ran to the bathroom.
• • •
By the time Michael pulled himself together, the only remnant of his grief was a profound exhaustion and a trembling in his hands that wouldn’t stop. He tried to compensate with precise movements designed not to waste any energy. He forced himself to compartmentalize. Detach. Strategize.
When the police found Luis’s body—which would happen sooner than later—his father’s neighbors would pretend to know nothing. That was Cuba. Eventually, though, with enough pressure, they would crack. They would tell them about the visitors who’d been staying at the house: a young man and a woman. He and Carla would become the prime suspects and targets of an investigation. Unless Carla was dead, too. He squeezed his eyes shut. God couldn’t be that cruel. Still, he had to put as much distance between himself and Lawton as he could. He shouldered his backpack and slid his gun in his waistband.
Steeling himself, he walked back into Luis’s bedroom. He kept his head down so he wouldn’t have to look at the body. He went to the side of the bed. The woven rug was still in its place. It was probably the only thing in the room that hadn’t been touched. Michael squatted down and picked it up. He pressed the heel of his hand on the floorboard; it snapped up. He peered inside. The envelope containing the map was still there. He lifted it out and slipped it into his backpack. Then he snapped the floorboard back in place, and put the rug back.
He headed to the door. He was almost out of the house when he stopped, turned around, and went back to the front room. He didn’t see what he was looking for, and he didn’t have time to hunt for it. He was ready to give up when he caught a metallic glint peeking out from under a pile of books on the floor. He went over and pulled out the picture of Luis and his mother in Santa Clara, the one that Luis kept on the tiny table by his sofa. Michael turned over the frame, removed the photo, and put it in his backpack, too.
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