Hemingway's Notebook

by Bill Granger

  In the main cabin, a large man with brown, loose skin and gray hair sat at a table playing blackjack. The second player was a woman with long blond hair and very shrewd eyes. Her skin was brown and tight and her body was meant to be seen and touched. She wore bikini pants and a button-front silk blouse that was unbuttoned.

  “Stick,” she said.

  “Nineteen,” he said. His name was Theodore Weisman and he ran dope and women and gambling on the west coast of Florida. The east coast had long since been divided by old alliances in the family, going back to Meyer Lansky, the man who fixed the World Series once. Teddy Weisman was of a younger generation. But he was nearly sixty years old and the years weighed on him because there was not enough time left to do all the things he wanted.

  Dee dealt the cards again. She had dealt in Vegas for a while, looking for a break. The break came unexpectedly, when Weisman decided to give her a place to sleep. Right next to him.

  They played out of boredom. They played because it could not occur to them to do anything else while they waited in the gray morning light in the middle of the shallow sea.

  “Hit me,” Teddy said.

  “Stick,” she said.

  She had two queens. The large man took the first hit, which brought him to fourteen. He had to gamble on that. He called again and another queen fell in front of him. She took two dollars and left two on the table and he pushed two to the center and she folded the cards and dealt again.

  Again and again. The only sound in the cabin was the sea pushing at the Fiberglas hull, slapping in regular beats. And the sound of the cards slapping on the table.

  The door to the cabin opened. A man with black hair, wearing a white shirt and designer jeans, stood in the hatch. “They’re here.”

  “ ’Bout time.”

  “Had the same problem we had in this sea.”

  “It always rains in Florida, Tone,” said Teddy, not looking up from the cards. He had seventeen. It was enough. “Okay, Tone,” he said, dismissing the big man. “Dee, get to the galley with Tone, make me some sandwiches. And a couple of Heinekens.”

  “Maybe he don’t drink beer for breakfast,” said Tone.

  “I give a fuck what he drinks,” said Teddy, taking the money. Dee sidled out of her seat and took her money and shoved it in her panties.

  “Dee, you disgust me,” Teddy said. “Putting dirty dollar bills next to your snatch like that. You get a disease.”

  Tone, behind Teddy, grinned at Dee as though they had private jokes.

  She glanced at him and then at Teddy, who wasn’t smiling. “I got no pockets.”

  “Button your blouse, you look like a bimbo. I mean, you may be a bimbo but try not to look like one when I got visitors, okay?”

  “Don’t start on me.”

  “You got it wrong, Dee. I already started. What you want to watch for is the finish.”

  “Come on, Teddy.” She gave him a squeeze. He smelled her body. She pressed her belly to his face for a moment so that he could smell how young she was.

  “You know I hate weather like this.”

  He smiled, patted her bottom. “Afraid I’m gonna let you drown? This boat ain’t gonna sink, that’s for sure. This boat sinks I’m on it, I sue somebody,” Teddy said. He was trying to make it light.

  “That’s what they said about the Titanic,” Dee said.

  He laughed like a big man. He had a hoarse chuckle. He had been a big man when he was in his forties. He had problems now, all kinds of problems. He wasn’t big anymore. He didn’t have time to do all the stuff he wanted to do.

  “Wash your hands before you make the sandwich. Make BLTs. Couple of them. Get the glasses frosted, Tone.”

  “You got it, Teddy.”

  “Good boy, Tone.”

  Tone and the woman crowded into the galley and closed the hatch door. Dee smiled at Tone and bumped him with her pelvis. He smiled and touched her breasts beneath the silk. She shook her head and washed her hands.

  The coast guard cutter was white with red-and-blue piping on the bow. Two of the yacht crew took lines from the cutter and the distance between the two boats closed. A man appeared on deck, covered against the spray with a yellow foul-weather jacket. He climbed the rail of the cutter and dropped five feet to the deck of the yacht. Then he ducked belowdecks and the crew of the yacht released the lines and the cutter growled away, into the pewter sea.

  The sky was dark and lower than it had been at dawn.

  “Okay,” Teddy said into a microphone to the pilot. “When we got the cargo, head on back but slow.”

  The receiver squawked and Teddy shut it off.

  Frank Collier ducked through the hatch into the main cabin. He had seen Teddy Weisman many times before they had connected for business reasons.

  “You look good, Frank. You look like you wanna be a sailor,” Teddy said in his growl.

  Frank nodded, shook hands, and took off his yellow jacket. Frank Collier had a strong grip when he shook hands. He was from Notre Dame, one of the few to make higher rank in CIA. The FBI usually recruited from the Catholic colleges. The CIA was the domain of the Protestant eastern establishment.

  Teddy’s hands were strong as well. He had started as a juice collector in Chicago forty years before. He had known how to use his hands and be strong and never show weakness. Even now when his flabby body was betraying him.

  “I like boats,” Frank said. He felt close to the old man for some reason. A lot of people didn’t trust Teddy. Maybe Frank didn’t trust him either. But he liked the old man. “Sailed in my uncle’s yacht on Lake Michigan when I was a kid. He was in construction.”

  “Tom Collier,” said Teddy.

  “That’s good guess,” Frank said.

  “I never guess, kid,” said Teddy. “Your uncle was a crook.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Frank Collier.

  “Hey, all right. I like you, Frank.” The old man smiled. “I like you from the start. Only reason I do business with you people again, I trust you. Fucked twice in Cuba, I ain’t gonna be fucked again, ain’t gonna be holding no douche bag this time.”

  “Everything is all right.”

  “Except them nuns got killed.”

  “Yeah. But that’ll blow over. That won’t touch this. Gautier’s men are on Island Begin, waiting for Z-hour.”

  “I love the way you guys talk, like you was being overheard by the G making a bet on the phone. Z-hour. The fuck, I can’t help it, I like it.” He grinned and it was meant to overwhelm Frank. Frank wasn’t a fool; he knew what charm was for.

  “Everything is Go.”

  “So when is Go, Frank?”

  Frank stared at him. He was part of Angel but he wasn’t part of it. “Everything is Go,” Frank said again.

  “What are you now? Gonna start playing games. Fuck you then, I thought we knew each other.”

  “Six hours, Teddy. Six hours and a hundred guys on the beach. The best. Trained men. Tear the country a new asshole in forty-eight hours.”

  “And my guy is set,” said Teddy. “There. In the pocket. He’s got twenty guys now in the capital.”

  “That’s the deal,” Frank said. He couldn’t help it. It was getting to him. His leg started jiggling up and down under the table. There was a vibration. Teddy said, “You got to go to the bathroom or something?”

  “Nothing,” said Frank Collier. “Nothing. Everything is set on your end.” He said it like a wish.

  “Everything. One of my main.”

  “Anthony Calabrese,” said Frank.

  “Yeah. You know mine and now I know yours. Trust. That’s what we didn’t have in Cuba. Everyone fucking everyone else.”

  “Lack of guts. We pulled back when we shouldn’t have.”

  “Yeah,” said Teddy and his eyes were lazy now, remembering, trying not to show anything.

  The hatch to the galley opened. Dee came in with a tray of sandwiches and two green bottles of beer and frosted mugs. She put them down on the table. She looked
at the government man. She didn’t like him. She thought he was a pussy. She told Teddy that once. Teddy said he had a wife and three kids. That explained it, Dee had said.

  “The bread’s got holes in it, I tole you,” said Teddy.

  “Holes is for him, not you, Teddy. I made the sandwiches. Your bread ain’t got no holes in it.”

  “Okay. Just so my broad’s got holes in her,” said Teddy, trying to smile, annoyed because the bread with holes stared at him. The holes were eyes. He hated bread with holes, hated to sit at a table where someone ate bread like that. It turned him off. She knew it.

  “Ignore the holes,” Dee said.

  “Maybe Frank don’t like bread like that neither.”

  “No, no, it’s okay. Food is food. I didn’t eat.” He wished the woman would go away.

  Teddy watched Frank Collier. “Okay, Dee, beat it.”

  “Gee, ‘Thanks for the sandwiches, Dee,’ ” said Dee.

  “Thanks,” said Frank. His leg was jiggling again.

  “Beat it,” said Teddy.

  “Some people are polite,” Dee said.

  “Some broads know when they got it good,” Teddy said.

  Dee closed the hatch behind her. Teddy made her mad. Tone grabbed her breast and tried to kiss her. “Go away, Tone,” she said. “We’re on the fucking boat.”

  Teddy and Frank ate for a moment in silence. The beer was cold and the bubbles broke on the back of their throats.

  “Six hours, Frank,” said Teddy, making a salute with his mug.

  “Six hours.”

  “Anthony takes out Ready, takes out Celezon. Nobody can function. Gautier makes his move on Manet, then he’s got a wide road to the capital. Just that easy.”

  “The first wave in six hours. The second assault eight hours later, on Madeleine itself. We’ve got two men down there, been there three days.”

  “Who killed the sisters, Frank?”

  “Manet.”

  “Naw. Manet didn’t have the road. Who killed them?”

  “Why would it be Ready? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What about Celezon. What about his voodoo cops?”

  “If they did it, then Celezon wants to move on Ready. That’s just as well. Let them kill each other and Anthony Calabrese kills who’s left.”

  “Okay,” said Teddy, biting the sandwich. “Just so you thought about it.”

  “Gautier is in our pocket. Your pocket. You’ll have a casino in six months. You’ll own the island.”

  “Like Havana in the old days.”

  “Better. More money. More tourists. Everyone gambles.”

  They chewed and drank beer. “Drugs stay there,” said Frank.

  “That’s the deal. I don’t screw you, you don’t screw me. Everyone needs a partner sometimes. A good partner takes what’s his and leaves what ain’t. I got no interest in drugs. Everyone is smuggling. I get squeezed, I got so many chumps to deal with, it drives me crazy. I’m ready to consolidate. Business. Caribbean Amusement Investments. Banks. Nice and legal and very pro Uncle.”

  “They secure the southern half of the island, rip Manet apart. Manet is a paper company. Ready lets them be rebels. But Ready got too greedy. His army is paper, too. He steals too much, he makes too many trips to Switzerland. He should have kept the army up.”

  “He should of,” agreed Teddy. “You guys got good sources.”

  “It isn’t that hard,” said Frank and he felt good about it. Nothing was that hard when it came down to it.

  “Still, you got good sources.”

  “He’s blown out of the water when he comes down the coast road to take on Gautier. Calabrese sabotages the capital, kills Ready or Celezon or both if he can, whatever is left of that army and the security police—well, it’s not enough. Gautier’ll have two hundred and fifty men within twelve hours of the first wave.”

  “Eighteen hours from now.”

  “That’s it,” said Frank Collier.

  “And Gautier is sure.” They had gone over these things a hundred times. They spoke to reassure each other. It was the waiting. Frank jiggled his right leg again under the table.

  “Gautier loves America. He loves us. We’ve got a base there.”

  “And we got Gautier,” said Teddy. “He loves money, too.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  Teddy tried a growling chuckle. “Who doesn’t. Right.” They sat for a moment and stared out the porthole at the gray, swelling sea. The porthole was streaked with spray and rain.

  “There wasn’t supposed to be a storm. We checked all that. That’s what I hate when you do the homework and something fucks up anyway,” said Frank.

  “He’s coming from twelve miles off. This ain’t gonna stop him,” said Teddy. “Don’t worry, Frank. Gautier’ll be there on time.”

  “I got to worry, Teddy. You got no worries. If nothing happened, nothing came off, it costs you nothing.”

  “It cost me Anthony. It costs me what I been doing on St. Michel, getting in with Ready and those people. It costs me, Frank, don’t think it don’t.”

  The white yacht pushed through the waves with authority, rising and falling. In six hours, at Ismaralda Key in the middle of the chain that stretched from the mainland to Key West, Frank Collier would debark and get in his rental car and take the drive back to his rooms at Key West. The first signal would come by the middle of the afternoon. By midnight, it should all be under control. By dawn, it should all be over.

  He couldn’t help it. He drummed his fingers on the table and stared out the port.

  But no one was on the stormy gulf on the long trip down to Ismaralda Key except for a couple of commercial fishing boats and a peculiar black ship with black hull and deck and a sailing mast pushing down for the keys. The two boats ran parallel for a while about half a mile apart but the black ship was fast and more skillfully piloted. It pulled ahead and before they all reached the keys, it was gone.

  “Who’d want weather like this,” Frank asked at one point.

  Teddy, playing solitaire, looked up and realized what Frank was talking about.

  “Dope runners,” said Teddy Weisman. “I know that boat. I used it a couple of times.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “No, Frank. This is business. I tell you things, you keep that out of mind unless I tell you to remember.”

  And Frank Collier, for the first time, caught in a boat with this strange man on a shallow, stormy sea, felt he was not in control.

  20

  YVETTE

  Rita Macklin awoke and gray dawn surged against the windowpanes. It might rain. She felt very warm beneath the covers and she realized she was naked. She blinked in the darkness of the room and could not see where she was.

  She had dreamed of the nuns all night. She had dreamed of the metal tray, gleaming with bone and brain mashed into the bowl of the skull.

  She sat up in bed as the door opened.

  Yvette wore a silk dressing gown and crossed the large room to her and sat down next to her. Yvette’s face was pale. Her hand was cool to the touch.

  “Celezon brought you here,” she said.

  “Where am I?”

  “In the palace. Colonel Ready wants you detained.”

  “I’m a prisoner?”

  “No. Celezon brought you here. I told you.”

  Rita felt the chill of madness settle around her again. They were all mad. Which only proved that she might be the mad one after all.

  “I think he means to kill you. Now that he has your friend. Was your friend an American agent after all, as Celezon told me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Devereaux. It is French, no? He was killed this morning about two in the morning, I think it was. Celezon said the people in the hills brought the notebook.”

  She had remembered how it had been for her when she had discovered her brother was dead in Laos long ago, when she had not wanted to believe the words of the telegram or the sympathy offered by the
priest who came to the house afterward. And, for a long time, because they never found his body, she believed he was alive. If you believed them when they told you the truth, the bleakness of the truth would twist your heart more than if you lied to yourself for a long time and let the lie replace hurt until the hurt could be measured in small doses into yourself. It was the only way to take truth as a poison so that it did not kill you.

  But she wanted to die.

  “Who killed him?”

  “Manet. In the hills. And then he sent that notebook to Colonel Ready. Colonel Ready has replaced all authority, all decency. Even the faith of the people.” Said with a strange and glittering madness of tone. Yvette’s dark eyes fixed her in the gloom of the unlit morning room. “Celezon brought you here, it was all right until you recovered. But you have to get out of St. Michel, you have to tell someone what is happening here before everything is destroyed.”

  “Where is Devereaux? Is he in…”

  “The morgue? No. I see you love him. I understand.” She touched Rita’s hand absently. “They buried him in the hills.”

  The sob broke the soundless room and Yvette put her hand on Rita’s mouth then and forced her to lie down and she held her hand over Rita’s mouth until the great sob might only be little cries of fear and hurt.

  “I’m sorry. But we are hiding you at great cost.”

  “Who?”

  “Celezon. Me. The patriots. Ready has taken our country and killed the faith of the people.” Said with simple madness.

  “I don’t believe any of this.”

  “Here,” she said.

  And it was the ring that she had given Devereaux once. He would not wear a ring or any jewelry, but he had taken the ring and bought a chain in Ouchy and worn it around his neck like a talisman. “Dogtag,” he said once, smiling to her. They had smiled about the ring. The ring reminded him of her, he once said, in the way of perfume or a remembered evening shared when they both listened to a sad chanson.

  “Who is Colonel Ready?”

  “An American agent. He is a renegade, I think now, but he was. He was brought here. He took… over… the… country.” Slowly, almost painfully. “Celezon is my brother.”