In another lifetime, he and Janice would be getting the bicycles out of the garage, getting ready for little forays into the Grove. They’d been talking about the seventeen-mile swing into Shark Valley, out in the Glades, wondering if Isabel was old enough for it this year. Once the temperature dropped enough to put the mosquitoes down for the season, you could truck out to the northernmost visitor’s center, park, unlimber your bikes, and pedal down these asphalt lanes through the sawgrass, past the foraging herons, the raccoons, the turtle families, dodge old alligators asleep on the paths…but he broke off, reminding himself that it wouldn’t be happening, not anytime soon.
Driscoll had been talking while Deal drifted. His pal, Driscoll. Driscoll, who wanted him to believe the fire wasn’t his fault, wanted him to believe it so bad, he was going to find an arsonist to blame. Good old Driscoll. Maybe he could turn up the Easter Bunny while he was at it.
Now Driscoll was hammering on the horn at an old man stopped dead in the left lane of traffic. He was still talking as he glanced behind them and swung the car into the middle lane to pass. “…so when the salesman asks me if I want power windows, I told him, ‘Look, I been drivin’ nothing but what the county gives me for thirty years. What do I need with power windows?’” Driscoll laughed, glanced over to see if Deal was paying any attention. “The guy gets so frustrated trying to sell me power this and automatic that—I don’t want any of it—he finally takes me in to the fleet manager, who asks me what is it I really want. ‘Nothing,’ I told this other guy: ‘Four wheels, a motor, and an AC unit, paint it if you have to.’ So he cuts one of the units out of this year’s allocation for Metro Dade.” Driscoll pounded the dashboard happily. “Now I got a plain vanilla Ford sedan and everybody’s happy.”
Deal pointed at the spot in the dashboard where most cars would have had a radio. “Don’t you ever miss the ball games?”
“Hey, I asked for an AM radio, they told me nobody makes an AM radio anymore. You know what it costs for the cheapest thing they got?”
“I don’t care,” Deal said.
“Yeah.” Driscoll nodded, but he was wounded. “Anyway, I’m going over to Pep Boys. I’ll have them put in some kind of radio, come out way ahead.”
“Sounds good to me, Vernon,” Deal said. It was true. Everyone ought to come out ahead, if they could.
***
It was nearly dark by the time Driscoll found the entrance to the campus and located the parking lot for visitors. The University of Florida at Miami sat on a big chunk of land way west of the city that had once been a county airport. The old control tower was still there, looming over the weedy asphalt lot that had probably once been a runway. CAMPUS POLICE, read a sign on the side of the tower.
“When the Pope came to Miami, he did his thing right over there,” Driscoll said. They were walking toward a cluster of tall concrete buildings in the distance. Driscoll pointed off toward another section of abandoned runway. “They had me on security for that little number. The hot rumor was that the comunistas were going to pull something during the Mass.”
“Was there anything to it?”
Driscoll shook his head. “Not unless they were the ones who cooked up the thunderstorm.” Driscoll laughed. “The Pope got up there on the platform, saw a wall of lightning rolling in, that was the end of it. He said a couple of Hail Marys, two hundred thousand people went home. I guess he figured his connections weren’t that strong.”
Deal glanced around the open field. The sky was crystal blue, holding a thin slice of moon, one star in its cusp, a narrow band of orange in the west. Crickets and tree frogs had set up a racket, but he could hear the background roar of traffic on the Turnpike extension. The wide road was out there, a few hundred yards beyond the trees marking the ragged edge of the horizon.
A few miles beyond that lay the Everglades. Hundreds of square miles of sawgrass and water, the Gulf on the west, the Atlantic on the south, Lake Okeechobee and the cane fields on the north. Nothing in between but grass and water and the things that liked it just that way. He felt a powerful urge to be out there, to be part of it, barely sentient, a creature with his snout just out of the water, his belly sunk in the warm muck below.
“You sure you know where we’re going?” he said to Driscoll.
Driscoll took his arm, guiding him onto a sidewalk that took shape amid the weeds. “Just stick with me, pardner.”
***
“…so what we say, it is not in Cuba the way what you hear, and we say thank you again for this visit to tell you the conditions the way they really are in our country,”
Or words to that effect, Deal thought. He’d been drifting again.
The young man who’d been speaking pressed a button on the slide-machine controller he held and the image of a smiling cadre of field workers vanished, replaced by a blinding square of light.
It was stuffy in the crowded auditorium and Deal had been nodding off during a mind-numbing recitation of facts and figures about the delights of life in Castro’s paradise. No hint of any trouble, except death by boredom. He held up a hand, shielding his eyes from the glare of the blank screen, then blinked fully awake as the fluorescent lights flickered back to life.
There was a polite round of applause from the audience, a mixed bag of tweedy professor types and yuppified students, as the three representatives of the Cuban Youth Brigade stood and bowed. Two young men, one woman, all with steel-rimmed glasses and bad haircuts. They seemed a joyless-looking trio to Deal, hardly the crew he’d hire to travel about U.S. college campuses to boost a country’s image.
“So what’d you think?” Driscoll said, turning in the seat next to Deal.
“Really, truly fascinating, Vernon. They live on an island, they can’t buy fish to eat, but everybody’s happy anyway,” Deal said as Driscoll nodded agreement. “Can we go home now?”
Driscoll held up his hand. “Hold your horses.”
Deal scanned the audience again. The professors were gathering their briefcases, heading for the aisles, the students were yawning, chatting, the girls comparing clothing styles, the boys comparing notes on the girls. Down in front of the stage, there were a half-dozen scruffier types wearing armbands that read USHER directing traffic in a desultory way. If this was college politics, things seemed to have lost their edge since Deal had been in school.
Deal sat back, impatient, as the three Cubans started down off the stage. The ushers joined ranks and blocked off the aisle there. Someone had opened an exit door and Deal felt a cooling draft from outside.
One of the professor types was hurrying the Cubans outside, with the ushers closing ranks behind them. Deal had just turned to ask Driscoll what he was expecting anyhow, but the big man was already shoving himself out of his seat.
“I knew it,” Driscoll said. He was on his feet, trying to wedge past a trio of bookbag-lugging coeds. He called over his shoulder to Deal, “That’s him, the little prick in the back.”
Deal followed his gesture to the rear of the auditorium. There was a tiny Hispanic man near a set of doors, dressed incongruously for this crowd in lime-green slacks, a yellow guayabera, and a porkpie hat. He was carrying a canvas duffel bag and was rooting around inside it, until he looked up and saw Driscoll, lurching out into the aisle, trying to kick his foot free of a huge knapsack.
The little man dropped his duffel bag, had bolted for an exit before the thing hit the ground. As Deal stood, the rear doors of the auditorium flew inward with a crash, and a mob of chanting students streamed inside, blocking Driscoll’s pursuit of the little man.
“Cuba sí! Castro no!” the intruders were chanting as they streamed down the aisles. “Cu-ba yes! Cas-tro no!” All of them Cuban, apparently. Mostly males, in their twenties, some women. Razor cuts and perms. Shirts by Polo, crisp chinos, lizard boots and alligator shoes. No shortage of jewelry or manicured nails. Deal remembered his own student days from the sixties, the ragtag crew that had taken over the student newspa
per, camped out in the administration building. By contrast, this looked like a noisy contingent of business majors.
Shouts and screams erupted at the exit door where the Cuban brigade was on its way out. Deal turned to see the Cubans and their escorts dodging missiles flying through the open doorway. Rocks, Deal thought. Big white rocks. Then realized what they really were. One egg splattered against the Cuban guy who’d been speaking, another broke over the face of an usher.
The little man had long since disappeared and Driscoll was being carried with the tide of protesters toward the disturbance at the exit doors. Deal saw him elbow one of the protesters aside, trying to get to the unoccupied stage. He jostled past a short Latina carrying a sign with a NO CASTRO emblem on it. She yelled something in Spanish, then raised her sign and rammed the wooden standard into the back of Driscoll’s head.
Driscoll lost his balance, went down sprawling into a group of screaming coeds. One of the ushers, egg yolk still dripping from his chin, turned to see what had happened. A guy in a pinstriped shirt stepped forward, bringing his fist up from deep right field.
It was the perfect sucker punch, catching the usher, a black man with close-cropped hair, flush on the cheek. The usher’s glasses flew straight up. He went over backward, his arms windmilling into the group still dodging eggs at the door.
The place was pandemonium now. Everyone screaming, throwing punches. A professor, Coke-bottle glasses askew, had made it up onto the stage. He clutched the lectern, pounding the mike, shouting, “Order! Order!” until somebody jerked the power cord and the mike flew out of his hands.
Deal vaulted the aisle in front of him, clearing an elderly couple quaking in their seats. He landed across an empty row, felt a chair arm gouge his ribs, take his wind away. He came up gasping for air, staggered toward the place where Driscoll had gone down. A kid with slicked-back hair was dancing into the midst of the screaming coeds, shooting some kind of karate kick at someone, darting back, then lunging forward again.
Deal had a glimpse of Driscoll—a smear of blood across his mournful face—trying to lift himself off the carpet. His big head snapped back as the kid danced forward, skittered back. Deal lurched out into the aisle and drove his shoulder into the karate dancer’s chest. The blow took the kid by surprise, sent both of them crashing into the opposite bank of seats.
Deal felt a fresh jolt of pain in his side as they went down. He flailed for the kid, had him for a moment, then lost his grip. He felt a sharp blow on his face, then another. The same karate kicks nailing him now. He felt another bloom of pain as his nose flattened under the kid’s heel.
He rolled backward, lashed out with his own feet, caught the kid in a leg whip that would have cost him fifteen yards in his playing days. The kid went down, losing his breath as he slammed against the floor. That was the thing about institutional carpeting, Deal thought. Thin stuff, thin padding underneath. Not much between you and the concrete slab.
He caught the kid by the foot as he tried to scramble away, twisted till he heard something pop. The kid screamed and twisted, and Deal found himself holding an empty shoe. There was another kick, a stockinged foot bouncing off his forehead now.
“You little asshole,” Deal said, and grabbed the kid by his pants leg. He got a good grip, twisting the fabric in his fist, dragged the kid close, and sank his teeth into a set of stockinged toes. His head was throbbing. He wanted to lock into a toe joint, grind down until he felt digits separate, maybe work on up: ankle, knee, an arm or two—weaselly little bastard—but eased off despite himself, was going to be content to climb up onto the kid’s chest and slap him silly…
…when a bright star exploded in his head and he felt himself tumbling backward, his arms, his legs, everything gone suddenly numb.
He found himself lying across Driscoll’s lap at the bottom of the aisle, the two of them wedged up against the apron of the stage. The place was swarming with campus cops now. Most of them seemed no older than the students, but they were laying about with their batons in what Deal thought was a satisfactory way.
Deal got a glimpse of a kid in camel-colored slacks limping out a doorway at the back of the auditorium, glanced down to find himself still holding a shoe.
A brand-spanking-new loafer, the leather buttery-soft in his hands, a gold logo glittering brightly at the instep: a guy on a pony with his mallet raised.
“Ain’t that just the way.” It was Driscoll’s voice, the ex-cop grabbing the loafer, tossing it away in disgust. He found a handhold on the stage, helped Deal up too. “It used to be the hippies beating the shit out of the rich folks,” Driscoll said, helping Deal upright. “Now look what’s happened.”
Deal glanced around. The mêlée was over. The Cuban Youth Brigade members were gone, most of the protesters had disappeared, even the elderly couple had made it out one of the rear exits. A couple of the protesters were in handcuffs, hollering that they wanted “counsel.” A campus cop was headed toward Deal and Driscoll, a wary look on his face.
Deal coughed, felt fire in his chest. He turned to Driscoll. “There was a reason why we came here, wasn’t there?”
Driscoll was breathing heavily, swiping at the blood on his upper lip. He pointed aimlessly toward the back of the room. “There was a reason, all right. Only thing is, the little bastard got away.”
***
They were in a room on the ground floor of the control tower now. A kid in a yellow windbreaker had driven them over in a golf cart, had called an EMS team on a portable phone as they jounced along.
One of the medics, a slender Hispanic woman with long sleek hair, ran a penlight across Deal’s eyes, probed his rib cage, stood up with a smile. “Nothing for me to do,” she said cheerily. “Take some Advil when you get home.”
Deal nodded, drew a breath as deep as he dared, the pain still dancing there. He’d need a crane to get out of bed in the morning. Across the room, the medic’s partner was fixing a broad strip of adhesive across the bridge of Driscoll’s nose.
“Don’t worry about it, pardner. It’s been broke plenty of times before,” Driscoll said. He fingered the tape as the medics packed up. “Might have straightened it out a bit, in fact.”
A young cop came out of an office, closed the door behind him on more angry shouts for “counsel.” The cop consulted a clipboard under his arm, shook his head, walked over to where Deal and Driscoll sat. “One of the guys in there punched an usher, hurt him pretty bad. The guy claims he was defending his girlfriend from an attack by the usher. Either one of you see anything?”
“If it was the same little shit that hit me with her sign, she didn’t need any protecting,” Driscoll said. He rubbed the back of his neck stiffly.
Deal shook his head. “It was a sucker punch, all the way. If it’s the same kid, anyway. I didn’t see his face.”
The cop shrugged. “There’s a tooth still embedded between this kid’s knuckles. Besides, he admits it. He says it was self-defense.”
“Bullshit,” Driscoll said.
The cop gave him a look. “We called downtown. They corroborated your story, Lieutenant.”
“I’m not on the force anymore. You don’t have to call me Lieutenant.”
“What they told me about you, you’re still Lieutenant in my book,” the young cop said.
Driscoll looked uncomfortable with the compliment. He gestured across the room where the duffel bag the little man had been carrying sat on a tabletop, a couple of strange-looking jars beside it. “What was in the bag?”
The cop glanced at the things. “A carbide and water setup,” he said. “Stink bombs.” He turned back to Driscoll. “You saw the guy who was carrying it?”
“Not really,” Driscoll said.
Deal stared at him in surprise. Driscoll avoided his gaze, looked back at the cop. “It was kind of crazy in there, you know?”
The cop didn’t seem convinced, but after a moment he turned to Deal. “We’ve got the statements of two of
our officers, a couple of professors, some of the students. That should be enough. But if we need you again…?” He left his question unspoken.
“Sure,” Deal said. “Whatever.”
“Don’t forget to put out an APB on that other guy: a kid with one shoe and a set of teeth marks on his big toe,” Driscoll said.
The young cop laughed and started away. Then he seemed to think of something. He turned back, his face solemn. “The sad fact is, that one’ll probably be sitting in class over there tomorrow, taking notes on hospitality management.” The cop jerked his thumb in the direction of the classroom buildings. “Feeling justified about what he and his buddies pulled here tonight.”
Deal rubbed his forehead where a lump had formed. You could get a lump from a stockinged foot, apparently. Something he’d have to remember. He took another look at the cop. At his nametag. Corporal Oller. Jet-black hair, olive complexion, dark eyes. “You’re Cuban?” Deal asked.
“Sure,” he said. “But I’m not crazy.” He shook his head. “You can’t really blame these kids, though. They hear it at home, they hear it on all the Cuban radio shows, they even hear it from some of their professors—they’re bound to start to believe it.”
“What’s it?” Deal said.
“The whole back-to-Cuba myth,” he said. “That someday soon Castro will fall, we’re all gonna get on our boats and go sailing home, make everything just like it used to be.” He shook his head. “Meantime, we all have to stand united against the commies and the pinkos here in the U.S. to make sure this all happens as soon as possible. And man, you better believe you’re with the program or you’re against it. That’s how you get stuff like what happened here tonight.”
Oller checked over his shoulder at a glassed-in office where a graying, heavily jowled man with captain’s bars sat engrossed in paperwork. He lowered his voice and leaned closer to Deal. “One of the ‘Free Cuba’ groups hears that Jose Feliciano wants to do a concert in Havana, that’s it. He doesn’t even have to go there. It’s enough he was thinking about it. Poof! No Cuban store sells Jose’s records any longer. No Cuban is supposed to buy his stuff. As far as the Cuban community in the United States is concerned, Jose Feliciano doesn’t even exist. He might as well be dead.”
Raw Deal Page 13