Field Grey

by Philip Kerr

  As things turned out the stars weren't good for the American NCO either. He staggered up on deck looking like the ace of diamonds, or perhaps the ace of hearts. In the centre of his white shirt was a small red stain that grew larger the longer you looked at it. For a moment he swayed, drunkenly, and then he dropped heavily onto his backside. In a way he looked the way I was feeling now.

  'I'm shot,' he said, redundantly.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO: CUBA, 1954

  It was several hours later. The shot sailor had been taken to hospital in Guantanamo, Melba was cooling her high heels in a prison cell, and I had told my story, twice. I had two headaches and only one of them was in my skull. There were three of us in a humid office in the building of the US Navy masters-at-arms. Masters-at-arms were what the US Navy called the sailors who specialised in law enforcement and correctional custody. Policemen in sailor suits. The three who'd been listening to my story didn't seem to like it any better the second time. They shifted their largish backsides on their inadequate chairs, picked tiny bits of thread and fluff from their immaculate white uniforms and stared at their reflections in the toecaps of their shiny black shoes. It was like being interrogated by a union meeting of hospital porters.

  The building was quiet except for the hum of the fluorescent lighting on the ceiling and the noise of a typewriter that was the size and colour of the USS Missouri; and every time I answered a question and the Navy cop hit the keys on that thing it was like the sound of someone - me probably - having his hair cut with a large pair of very sharp scissors.

  Outside a small grilled window, the new day was coming up over the blue horizon like a trail of blood. This hardly augured well since, not unreasonably, it was already clear that the Amis suspected me of a much closer acquaintance with

  Melba Marrero and her crimes - plural - than I'd admitted. Clearly, since I wasn't an American myself, and smelt strongly of rum, they found this relatively easy.

  On a light blue Formica table covered with coffee-coloured cigarette burns lay a number of files and a couple of guns wearing tags on their trigger guards as if they might have been for sale. One of them was the little Beretta pocket pistol Melba used to shoot the petty officer, third class; and the other was a Colt automatic stolen from him several months earlier and used to murder Captain Balart outside the Hotel Ambos Mundos in Havana. Alongside the files and the pistols was my blue and gold Argentinian passport, and from time to time the Navy cop in charge of my interrogation would pick this up and leaf through the pages as if he couldn't quite believe that anyone could go through life being the citizen of a country that wasn't the US of A. His name was Captain Mackay, and as well as his questions, there was his breath to contend with. Every time he pushed his squashed, bespectacled face toward mine I was enveloped in the sour aura of his tooth decay, and after a while I started to feel like something chewed up but only half digested deep inside his Yankee bowels.

  Mackay said with ill-disguised contempt, 'This story of yours, that you never met her until a couple of days ago, it makes no sense. No sense at all. You say she was a chica you were involved with; that you asked her to come away on your boat for a few weeks, and that this accounts for the considerable sum of money you had with you.'

  'That's correct.'

  'And yet you say you know almost nothing about her.'

  'At my age it's best not to ask too many questions when a pretty girl agrees to come away with you.'

  Mackay smiled thinly. He was about thirty, too young to find much sympathy for an older man's interest in younger women. There was a wedding band on his fat finger and I imagined some wholesome girl with a permanent wave and a mixing bowl under her chubby arm waiting for him back home in some erector-set government housing on a bleak naval base.

  'Shall I tell you what I think? I think you were headed for the Dominican Republic, to buy guns for the rebels. The boat, the money, the girl, it all adds up.'

  'Oh, I can see you like the addition, Captain. But I'm a respectable businessman. I'm quite well off. I have a nice apartment in Havana. A job at a hotel casino. I'm hardly the type to work for the communists. And the girl? She's just a chica.'

  'Maybe. But she murdered a Cuban policeman. Very nearly murdered one of mine.'

  'Perhaps. But did you see me shoot anyone? I didn't even raise my voice. In my business girls - girls like Melba - they're one of the fringe benefits. What they get up to in their spare time is-' I paused for a moment, searching for the best phrase in English. 'Hardly my affair.'

  'It is when she shoots an American on your boat.'

  'I didn't even know she had a gun. If I'd known that I would have thrown it over the side. And maybe her, too. And if I had any idea that she was suspected of murdering a policeman I would never have invited Señorita Marrero to come away with me.'

  'Let me tell you something about your girlfriend, Mister Hausner.' Mackay stifled a belch, but not nearly well enough for my comfort. He took off his glasses and breathed on them and somehow they didn't crack. 'Her real name is Maria Antonia Tapanes, and she was a prostitute at a casa in Caimanera, which is how she came to steal a side arm belonging to Petty Officer Marcus. That's why he recognised her when he saw her on your boat. We strongly suspect she was put up to the assassination of Captain Balart by the rebels. In fact, we're more or less sure of it.'

  'I find that very hard to believe. She never once mentioned politics to me. She seemed more interested in having a good time than in having a revolution.'

  The captain opened one of the files in front of him and pushed it towards me.

  'It's more or less certain your little lady friend has been a communist and a rebel for quite a while now. You see, Maria Antonia Tapanes spent three months in the National Women's Prison at Guanajay for her part in the Easter Sunday conspiracy of April 1953. Then in July of last year her brother Juan Tapanes was killed in the assault on Moncada Barracks led by Fidel Castro. Killed or executed, it's not clear which. When Maria got out of prison and found her brother dead, she went to Caimanera and worked as a chica to get herself a weapon. That happens a lot. To be honest quite a few of our men use their weapons as currency for buying sex. Then they just report the weapon stolen. Anyway, the next time the weapon turns up it's been used to kill Captain Balart. There were witnesses, too. A woman answering Maria Tapanes's description shot him in the face. And then in the back of the head as he lay on the ground. Maybe he had it coming. Who knows? Who cares? What I do know is that PO Marcus is lucky to be alive. If she'd used the Colt instead of that little Beretta he'd be as dead as Captain Balart.'

  'Is he going to be all right?'

  'He'll live.'

  'What will happen to her?'

  'We'll have to hand her over to the police in Havana.'

  'I imagine that's what she was worried about in the first place. Why she shot the petty officer. She must have panicked. You know what they'll do to her, don't you?'

  'That's not my concern.'

  'Maybe it should be. Maybe that's the problem you've got in Cuba. Maybe if you Americans paid a little more attention to the kind of people who are running this country-'

  'Maybe you ought to be a little more concerned about what happens to you.'

  This was the other officer who spoke now. I hadn't been told his name. All I knew about him was that dandruff fell off the back of his head whenever he scratched it. All in all he had rather a lot of dandruff. Even his eyelashes had tiny flakes of skin in them.

  'Just suppose I'm not,' I said. 'Not any more.'

  'Come again?' The man with the dandruff stopped scratching his head and inspected his fingernails before beaming a frown in my direction.

  'We've been over this all night,' I said. 'You keep asking me the same questions and I keep giving you the same answers. I've told you my story. But you say you don't believe it. And that's fair enough. I can see the holes in it. You're bored with it. I'm bored with it. We're all bored with it, only I'm not about to cash my story in
for another. What would be the point? If it sounded any better than the original I'd have used it in the first place. So, the fact now remains that I can't see any point in telling you another. And since I don't care to do that, then you'd be forgiven for thinking that I don't really care whether or not you believe me, because it seems to me there's nothing I can do that'll convince you. One way or another you've already made up your minds. That's the way it is with cops. Believe me, I know, I used to be a cop myself. And since I no longer care whether or not you believe me then it would be entirely lair for you to conclude that I don't seem to give a damn what happens to me. Well, maybe I do and maybe I don't, but that's for me to know and you to decide for yourselves, gentlemen.'

  The cop with the dandruff scratched some more, which made the room look like a snow scene in a little glass ball. He said, 'You talk a lot, mister, for someone who doesn't say very much.'

  'True, but it helps to keep the brass knuckles off my face.'

  'I doubt that,' said Captain Mackay. 'I doubt that very much.'

  'I know. I'm not so pretty any more. Only that ought to make it easier for you to believe me. You've seen that girl. She was every sailor's hard-on. I was grateful. What's the expression you have in English? You don't look a gift horse in the mouth? And if it comes to that, then neither should you, Captain. You've got nothing on me and plenty on her. You know she shot the petty officer. It's obvious. And it only starts to get complicated when you try to tie me in to some kind of rebel conspiracy. Me? I was looking forward to a nice vacation with lots of sex. I had plenty of money with me because I was planning to buy myself a bigger boat, and there's no law against that. Like I already told you I have a good job. At the National Hotel. I have a nice apartment on the Malecon, in Havana. I drive a newish Chevy. Now why would I give all that up for Karl Marx and Fidel Castro? You tell me that Melba, or Maria or whatever her name is - that she's a communist. I didn't know that. Maybe I should have asked her, only I prefer talking dirty when I'm in bed, not politics. She wants to go around shooting cops and American sailors, then I say she should go to jail.'

  'Not very gallant of you,' said Captain Mackay.

  'Gallant? What does it mean - gallant?'

  'Chivalrous.' The captain shrugged. 'Gentlemanly.'

  'Ah, cortes. Caballeroso. Yes, I see.' I shrugged back at him. 'And how would that sound, I wonder? She was only trying to protect me? Give her a break, Captain, she's just a kid? The girl had a tough childhood? All right. If it makes any difference, you know, I really think the girl was scared. Like I already said, you know what will happen when you hand her over to the local law. If she's lucky they'll let her keep her clothes on when they parade her around the police cells. And maybe they'll beat her with an ox-dick whip only every other day. But I doubt it.'

  'You don't sound too upset about it,' said the cop with dandruff.

  'I'll certainly pray for her. Maybe I'll even pay for a lawyer. Experience informs me that paying is more useful than praying. The Lord and I don't get on the way we used to.'

  The captain sneered.

  'I don't like you, Hausner. The next time I speak to the Lord I'm just liable to congratulate him on his good taste. You've got a job at the National Hotel? Fuck you. I never liked that damned hotel either. You've got a nice apartment on Malecon? I hope a hurricane comes and wipes it out, you Argentine cock- sucker. You don't care what happens to you? Neither do I, pal. To me you're just another South American greaseball with a smart mouth. You can't think of a better story? Then you're dumber than you look. You used to be a cop yourself? I don't want to know, you piece of shit. All I want to hear from you is an explanation for how it is that you were helping a murderer escape from this miserable fucking island you call home. Did someone ask you a favour? If they did I want a name. Someone introduced you? I want a fucking name. You picked her off the sidewalk? Give me the name of the damned street, you asshole. It's talk or lock, pal. Talk or lock. We went fishing tonight and we caught you, Hausner. And I get to toss you in my ice locker unless you tell me everything I want to know. Talk or lock and I throw away the fucking key until I'm satisfied there's no information left in your lying body that you haven't puked onto the goddamn floor. The truth? I don't give a shit. You want to walk out of here? Give me some plain straightforward facts.'

  I nodded. 'Here's one for you. Penguins live almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere. Is that plain enough?'

  I pushed the chair back on two legs, which was my first mistake, and smiled, which was my second. The captain was surprisingly quick on his feet. One moment he was staring at me like I was a snake in a bassinet, the next he was yelling as if he'd hammered his own thumb, and before I could wipe the smile from my face, he'd done it for me, kicking the chair away and then grabbing the lapels of my jacket and lifting my head off the floor only so that he could punch it back down again.

  The other two each caught one of his arms and tried to pull him off, but that left his legs free to stamp on my face like someone trying to put out a fire. Not that this hurt. He had a right as big as a medicine ball and I wasn't feeling anything very much since it had connected with my chin. Humming like an electric eel, I lay there waiting for him to stop so that I could show him who was really in charge of the interrogation. By the time they got a ring in his pointy nose and hauled him off I was just about ready for my next wisecrack. I might have made it too but for the blood that was pouring out of my nose.

  When I was absolutely sure no one was about to knock me down again I got off the floor and told myself that when they hit me again it would be because I had truly earned a beating and that it would have been worth it.

  'Being a cop,' I said, 'is a lot like looking for something interesting to read in the newspaper. By the time you've found it you can bet there's a lot that's rubbed off on your fingers. Before the war, the last war, I was a cop in Germany. An honest cop, too, although I guess that won't mean much to apes like you. Plainclothes. A detective. But when we invaded Poland and Russia they put us in grey uniforms. Not green, not black, not brown, grey. Field grey they called it. The thing about grey is you can roll around in the dirt all day long and still look smart enough to return a general's salute. That's one reason we wore it. Another reason we wore grey was maybe so that we could do what we did and still think we had standards - so that we could manage to look ourselves in the eye when we got up in the morning. That was the theory. I know, stupid, wasn't it? But no Nazi was ever so stupid as to ask us to wear a white uniform. You know why? Because a white uniform is hard to keep clean, isn't it? I mean, I admire your courage wearing white. Because, let's face it, gentlemen, white shows everything. Especially blood. And the way you conduct yourselves? That's a big disadvantage.'

  Instinctively, each man looked down at the blank canvas that was his immaculate white uniform as if checking his zipper; and that was when I collected a nose full of blood in my fingers and let them have it, like Jackson Pollock. You could say I wanted to express my feelings rather than just illustrate them; and that my crude technique of flinging my own blood through the air at them was simply a means of arriving at a statement. Either way they seemed to understand exactly what I was trying to say. And when they finished working me over and tossed me in a cell I had the small satisfaction of knowing that, at last, I was truly modern. I don't know if their blood- spattered white uniforms were art or not. But I know what I like.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THREE: CUBA AND NEW YORK, 1954

  The drunk tank at Gitmo was a large wooden hut located on the beach, but for anyone who wasn't drunk when he was locked up in there it was actually positioned somewhere between the first and second circles of Hell. It was certainly hot enough.

  I'd been imprisoned before. I'd been a Soviet POW and that was not so good. But Gitmo was almost as bad. The three things that made the drunk tank nearly unendurable were the mosquitoes and the drunks - and the fact that I was ten years older now. Being ten years older is always bad. The mosquitoes wer
e worse - the naval base was not much more than a swamp - but they were not as bad as the drunks. You can stand being locked up almost anywhere so long as you can establish some sort of a routine. But there was no routine at Gitmo, unless you could count the routine that was the regular dusk-to-dawn turnover of loudly intoxicated American sailors. Nearly all of them arrived in their underwear. Some were violent; some wanted to make friends with me; some tried to kick me around the cell; some wanted to sing; some wanted to cry; some wanted to batter the walls down with their skulls; nearly all of them were incontinent or threw up, and sometimes they threw up on me.

  In the beginning I had the quaint idea that I was locked up there because there was nowhere else to lock me up; but after a couple of weeks I started to believe that there was some other purpose to my being kept there. I tried speaking to the guards, and on several occasions asked them by what jurisdiction I was being held there, but it was no good. The guards just treated me like every other prisoner, which would have been fine if every other prisoner hadn't been covered in beer and blood and vomit. Most of the time these other prisoners were released in the late afternoon, by which time they'd slept it off and, for a few hours at least, I managed to forget the humidity and the forty-degree heat and the stink of human faeces, and to get some sleep; only to be awakened for 'chow' or someone washing out the tank with a fire hose or, worst of all, a banana rat, if rats these truly were: at thirty inches long and weighing as many pounds, these rats were rodent stars who belonged in a Nazi propaganda movie or a Robert Browning poem.

  At the beginning of the third week a petty officer from the masters-at-arms office fetched me from the tank, accompanied me to a bathroom where I could shower and shave and returned my own clothes.