Ascension Day

by John Matthews

  When he’d earlier tried Bob Stratton – twice at ten minute intervals – and there was no signal or dialling tone on his cell-phone, he realized that there were patches of poor reception on the open road. He finally got hold of him as he approached Cienfuegos, but it was mixed news: while Stratton had managed to get the internet café girl to pick out two possibles, one wasn’t at his last known address and the other, as soon as he opened his door in Long Beach, Stratton knew wasn’t the same man as on the internet cam.

  ‘So the only option left is to try and track down the first guy gone AWOL from his last known – Roland Cole. If I can find a credit card linked to Cole’s last address, then trace it to a new address, I might get lucky. But, you know, with only the few hours we got left now?’

  ‘I know.’ Crystal clear: tall order, don’t hold your breath. ‘Phone me if you get a break, or I’ll phone you. I’m suffering some connectivity problems here.’

  Palms, sugar-cane, towering tobacco plants with fronds as high as two-storey houses – the scenery was spectacular, but most of it sped by in a patchwork blur as Jac’s speedo needle crept over 130 k.p.h. on every clear, flat stretch where he could get away with it, one eye peeled for traffic police.

  But as the miles rolled by, Jac felt the waves of tiredness come back. As if the caffeine could only keep him going for so long – his hands shaking increasingly on the steering wheel, combined with the high-speed vibrations of the car on the often rough road surface, starting to set off tremors through his entire body. That shaking, along with the wild adrenalin rush of the past days and hours, all that was keeping him going – and when that fever-pitch hit overload and he finally burnt out, the rest would come crashing back in: the tension, the lack of sleep, the emotional drain, the dog-tired exhaustion – mental and physical – the feeling at times that he could hardly make it another yard, let alone hundreds of miles.

  And as the caffeine and his body’s nervous tension lost its last grip, he’d fall asleep. The snap of a finger, blink of an eye as he sped along.

  Twice already he’d pulled himself sharply back awake, a shudder running through him as he realized that sleep had grabbed him for a second, maybe two; and as it mugged him for a third time, forty-five kilometres before Trinidad, he was suddenly reminded of caution two, potholes, with a bang.

  As Jac’s eyes snapped sharply open, he thought for a second that he’d swerved into a ditch or side-shoulder – but then he saw the truck coming straight towards him. The pothole had jolted him into the oncoming lane! Jac swung sharply back again, braking, the truck also braking then and missing him by only a couple of yards, its horn blaring hard as it swept past.

  Jac kept going – the truck had slowed to almost a stop as Jac looked in his mirror – and a mile further on, when it was safely out of sight, he pulled over, closing his eyes as he waited for his wild trembling to settle. Madness! Madness!

  But it was hardly any better after almost two minutes of slow, deep breaths, and Jac feared that if he kept his eyes closed any longer, he might fall asleep. And so he pulled out again, turned the radio up loud so that hopefully Perez Prado and Benny More could keep him awake, grabbed a coffee at the first stop seven kilometres up the road, then stopped again 80k beyond Trinidad for another to keep him going.

  Fuelled by that mix of caffeine, mambo-rhythms and adrenalin-staved exhaustion, his eyes red-rimmed, nerves ragged, he finally ran up the steps of the Sancti Spiritus post office at 12.53 p.m.

  The man he approached at the counter ahead had limited English, but when Jac showed him the mailbox number, he pointed to a side counter. ‘Amparo… she do correos apartados.’

  Thankfully, Amparo’s English was far better, but as Jac explained what he wanted, she started to frown.

  ‘I’m sorry, senor. I’m not allowed to give out the addresses of people holding boxes – apartados. It’s against regulations.’

  ‘But, please. This is very important. I’m an American lawyer,’ Jac slid Ayliss’s card across the counter, ‘and a man’s life depends on this information. It’s vital that I locate the holder of this mailbox urgently.’

  ‘I understand, senor. But it really is difficult… impossible for me to give that information.’ Amparo inclined her head in apology as she said it. A striking woman in her late forties, with soft brown eyes and the first tinge of salt in her black hair, Jac could imagine that twenty years ago she’d been stunning.

  Plan two. But as Jac turned his palm on the counter to reveal two fifty-dollar bills, he knew instantly it was a mistake. Her eyes hardened again; she looked genuinely offended.

  ‘That… that won’t do any good. The regulations are very strict.’ This time as she said it, her eyes glanced to one side, as if unseen eyes might be watching them.

  Jac closed his eyes for a second. Oh God! For it all to end here with soft-eyed, hard-eyed Amparo.

  ‘There is one thing I could suggest,’ Amparo said, a more hopeful tone as she flicked a page in a leather-bound register to one side. ‘I notice there’s a package arrived for that apartado today – which means the postman will put a notification through their door tomorrow. If you want to leave a message here, I can make sure they get it when they pick up the package in a day or two.’

  ‘That’ll be too late,’ Jac said with a heavy sigh, his eyes closing fleetingly again. Plan three. He could still feel all the bubbling tension of the long drive, and his hand shook heavily as he unfolded the newspaper clipping from his pocket and spread it before her. ‘You see this man here – Larry Durrant! He’s going to die tonight at six o’clock, unless I can speak first to the man who has this mailbox.’ Jac prodded the article with one finger, his voice rising. ‘You see the day for him dying here… la fecha. It’s today! And that… that’s me mentioned there – Darrell Ayliss.’ Jac took Ayliss’s passport out and turned it towards her, as if her doubting him might be part of the problem. ‘You see now why it’s vital I contact this man, and why I… I don’t have much time left. Because after six o’clock tonight, it’ll be… be too –’

  The emotions suddenly rose in Jac’s throat, choked off the rest of his words. He hadn’t planned this part of it, even though, as the tears welled in his eyes and started running down his cheeks, his breaking down had softened Amparo more than anything else so far; she looked close to relenting.

  As he’d mentioned time and looked towards the clock, he’d suddenly had an image of Larry looking at the clock by the death chamber at that moment, wondering what had happened to him, whether Jac was just another in a long line of people to desert him, let him down; until now, in his dying hours, there was finally nobody left. Forty hours since he’d last spoken to Larry, when he’d told him he was chasing down some final, vital leads… and now!

  ‘I’m sorry, senor. So sorry.’ Amparo reached one hand across the counter to touch his arm. ‘If I could help – I truly would.’

  And looking back at Amparo at that moment, her eyes glistening with emotion, he believed her. She would. If she could.

  ‘That’s okay. I… I understand.’ And, embarrassed by his tears and worried that if he stayed a second longer, he’d break down completely, Jac turned and walked away, his step echoing emptily on the marble floor of the correos… footsteps through Libreville… Larry’s last steps towards the death chamber, with now nothing left to stop him dying…

  He should have turned his back and walked away on day one, left Larry as he was then, at peace and ready to go to his God, instead of filling his head with false hope and empty promises.

  The tears streamed down Jac’s face as he walked away, his shoulders slumping more with each step. All over. All over. Apart from Stratton’s snowball in hell – more false hope – nothing left to do.

  Jac wiped at his tears with the back of one hand, and, the catharsis already half spent as he reached the steps of the Sancti-Spiritus correos and took a fresh breath of the air outside, all that was left was to take a leaf out of his father’s book, look to the bright side, c
onsoling himself that he’d done everything he could, everything; far, far more than anyone else would have. And now at least he’d be able to sleep… no doubt for three days solid. Find a small local hotel and –

  The touch against his arm made him jump. Amparo!

  She handed him a piece of paper, still glancing around for those unseen eyes. ‘This is the holder of that apartado. On the coast near Tunas de Zaza.’

  Jac looked at it: Brent Calbrey, Villa Delarcos. ‘How far?’

  ‘Forty, forty-five minutes drive. Six kilometres from Punto Ladrillo heading to San Pedro. You can’t miss it. Big white villa with four or five holiday casitas in its grounds.’

  What had changed Amparo’s mind? – the tears and his deflated slump as he’d walked away, or being able to give him the message away from prying eyes – Jac didn’t know, and at that moment he didn’t care. He leant over, giving her a big hug.

  ‘Amparo, you’re beautiful. Guapa… guapa!’

  Amparo smiled awkwardly, a couple of people approaching the correos also smiling, probably thinking they were two long lost lovers with the embrace and both their eyes glassy. But as they parted, Amparo’s eyes had shifted from soft to thoughtful, faintly troubled. She touched his arm.

  ‘And, senor. Good luck. Suerte.’

  When Nel-M approached the Sancti Spiritus correos counter almost four hours later, Amparo wasn’t as helpful.

  Nel-M suspected that Ayliss might well have played the death-row card, so he kept to a similar story, saying that he was connected with the DA’s office seeking urgent information before the execution that night. But Amparo just kept repeating something about regulations, didn’t budge, despite him at one point showing her $500 in his cupped palm.

  One consolation, Nel-M thought: it looked doubtful that Ayliss would have got anything either – but when he’d asked Amparo if anyone had called earlier asking for the same information, she’d shook her head, No, despite the flicker of recognition in her face he thought he’d seen when he’d first mentioned Durrant and death-row.

  As Nel-M headed down the steps of the Sancti Spiritus correos, he had much the same feeling, nothing left to do, that Jac had had in that same spot four hours earlier – but then that nagging doubt pinched again, and he looked back thoughtfully. He wondered whether, however much he’d tried to shield it, Amparo had sensed how frantic he was. Certainly, that’s how he felt: the nightmare in Vancouver, the run-around with Truelle and the long flight to Cuba, now the breakneck drive to Sancti Spiritus; the three-day fly-kill holiday from hell. But, aware of that, he thought he’d covered with his best warm and gracious smile, the cool and collected DA official trying to get information, rather than the patience-long-gone, bubbling-acid-nerves hit-man.

  Nel-M’s eyes shifted to a bar across the road. One way he might get to know.

  A dead-and-alive town, Sancti Spiritus’s ramshackle buildings looked like they’d been slowly crumbling since the 50s, with a hotchpotch of blue and pink shutters that tried, but failed, to offer some relief. Apart from the post office, the bar’s blue shutters appeared to be the only ones in the street to have received a recent lick of paint.

  Over a beer, Nel-M talked to the barman, and – after a lot of finger-pointing and juggling between the barman’s basic English and the few Spanish words that Nel-M was able to translate – he got some idea of who’d visited the post office earlier that day.

  Americanos, Nuevo coches, Nel-M quickly picked up were the key words. He’d noticed that there were very few new cars on the road apart from his own. The barman explained that nearly all new cars were rental cars for tourists or taxis; the rest of Cuba either didn’t have a car or relied on old relics, most of them left over from the Batista days.

  Nel-M nodded and sipped at his beer. That explained the Buddy Holly time-warp when it came to cars. But that also meant, as with his own BMW series-5 now parked in front, Ayliss’s car would have been one of the few new ones to have pulled up outside the post office earlier.

  Nel-M stood up from his bar stool as he described Ayliss. ‘Big man… quite fat. Gordo. Black hair oiled back.’ Nel-M swept one hand over his own hair. He didn’t know the Spanish for cream suit, so tugged at his own light-grey jacket and said, ‘Blanco… white suit. New car. Nuevo coche. Four hours ago… cuatro horas!’

  And finally there was a gleam of recognition in the barman’s eyes. ‘Si… si. Car like yours. Muy similar.’ He pointed to Nel-M’s car outside, then frowned as he tried to remember the make. He took a beer mat and drew a few interlocking circles.

  Audi! That would at least narrow it down, Nel-M thought. But as the barman continued, with something about the man in the white suit hugging a woman, Nel-M began to think that maybe it wasn’t Ayliss after all. As he looked towards where the barman was gesticulating, Nel-M suddenly jolted, his expression as if he’d seen a ghost. He held one hand up towards the barman. No need for further explanation.

  Nel-M squinted sharper as a man across the road took the last step and entered the post office. Truelle!

  Nel-M kept the same hand held in the air as he moved closer to the window, as if he was a conductor holding an orchestra in silence; a pregnant, expectant pause as they waited for it to come down again for the crescendo finale.

  And a minute later, as he saw Truelle emerge holding a padded buff envelope, walk thirty yards down the road and get in a white classic Corvette, that hand did finally come down, as with an, ‘Old friend… amigo!’ he rushed out to his car to follow.

  When Jac arrived at the door of Villa Delarcos at just before 2 p.m., Brent Calbrey, a tall gaunt man in his early sixties with a heavy tan and wavy grey hair, informed him that he’d just missed ‘Lenny’.

  ‘By about half an hour. He’s headed into town.’

  ‘Sancti Spiritus?’

  ‘Yeah. Few things he wanted to pick up. Things he likes that I didn’t already have in the fridge. Oh, and he said he was also going to the post office.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Post office. Jac looked back down the road. ‘I… I probably passed him on my way up. What’s he driving?’

  ‘My car.’ Calbrey smiled tightly. ‘White Corvette, ’71 classic.’

  Jac couldn’t remember if he’d passed one or not. There were a lot of old American cars on the roads. ‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’

  ‘A couple of hours, he said.’ Calbrey raised an eyebrow. ‘Can I give him a message?’

  ‘No, it’s okay. I’ll try and catch him later.’ Jac didn’t want to leave a name, possibly frighten Truelle off. He turned away.

  ‘Old friend?’

  ‘Yeah, old friend,’ Jac said over his shoulder, smiling wanly.

  And, as he was a few paces away, Calbrey called after him, explaining that ‘Lenny’ might return direct to the ‘casita’ rather than the main house itself. ‘Its entrance is forty yards along.’

  Jac looked towards where Calbrey pointed and the white Moorish-style bungalow, a smaller version of the main house, on a small promontory with panoramic views over the sea lapping fifteen yards its other side. Everything was white, Jac thought: the villa and ‘casitas’, Calbrey’s Bermudas and cheese-cloth top, the Corvette. Jac nodded his thanks and, as he got back into his car, looked anxiously at his watch.

  He couldn’t just sit there for two hours, knowing that meanwhile Larry’s life was ticking away. He started up, heading back to Sancti Spiritus. But halfway there, his foot suddenly eased from the pedal. Two hours? Hardly would he have arrived there before Truelle was heading back out to the villa. And if Truelle heard that meanwhile someone had called for him, he might rush off again, go to ground.

  No, the only safe thing was to wait there and watch. At the next side road, he did a hasty three-point turn, headed back; and, eighty yards along from the bungalow, with a clear view of it and the main house, he parked and waited. Watching hawkishly every car that approached and passed, though there weren’t many: seven in the past hour.

  But as an hour became
an hour and a half – two hours – he found himself looking repeatedly at his watch, tapping his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel in rhythm with his pulse and mounting tension, the constant tremor in his body becoming heavier.

  Waves of tiredness were again swilling over him as he watched the unchanging scene ahead punctuated by the occasional car. Three times he’d shook himself back awake as he felt himself close to the brink.

  He put the radio on again as a precaution; though he’d have thought that with the tension running through him and his constant finger-tapping, that alone would have kept him awake.

  But that rhythm after a while formed its own soporific monotony, along with the long spells of static vista, the occasional passing car, the hum and click of cicadas, the surf lapping gently fifty yards away; and as that rhythm finally combined with the music from the radio, became one medley, it dragged him gently towards what, for the past twenty-four hours, he’d been staving off with raw tension and adrenalin, caffeine, mambo and salsa. A deep, satisfying sleep.

  44

  Last meal.

  Lockdowns one… two. Breakfast, lunch, supper, exercise hour… final lockdown. Life at Libreville. Except it had been no life; just various regimented stages towards death, Larry now realized.

  And now there were only a few stages left: medical examination, last eighteen paces to the death-chamber, strap-down and final injection.

  He’d already had an extra-curricular examination from the infirmary medic who’d put fourteen stitches in his shiv wound the night before. Flesh wound, nothing internal damaged. But Torvald had asked the medic down to check it again two hours ago, just to be sure.

  Larry only ate half of his last meal. Not only because he didn’t feel like it, but because in the end it didn’t bring back old days in the Ninth; it just reminded him all the more that he was here at Libreville, with cooks who didn’t have the slightest idea how to make a good P0’Boy. Libreville had steadily eroded most of his good memories over the years; he didn’t want to spoil more with his last meal.