Jack and Susan in 1953

by McDowell, Michael

  Libby said nothing, but she didn’t contradict her husband.

  “How are the casinos?” said Susan. “Do they make you very happy, Libby?”

  Libby nodded uncertainly.

  “I remember,” said Jack, “that you came to see me one day, Rodolfo.”

  “Yes…”

  “And we made a little bet as to who would make it to the altar first. I guess you won. I’m sorry, by the way, that I couldn’t stay for the reception. You were very kind to come by the building that morning and invite me, Libby.”

  Jack and Susan smiled happy, honeymoon smiles at each other across the table, as if whole universes of circumstance had whirred and wheeled to produce just this particular little quartet of marital happiness. But Jack and Susan’s eyes also spoke to each other, saying, Something is wrong here…

  Libby and Rodolfo were not looking at each other with honeymoon smiles. Libby was silent, and that was about like the Sphinx turning into a chatterbox. Rodolfo was quiet from an apparent desire to give nothing away.

  Give nothing of what away?

  “The show is tremendous,” Jack said. “It should start again in a few minutes. There’s this song that goes ‘hum-de-la-de-hum-de-la-de’…”

  “You forgot the words,” said Susan. “It goes ‘Ah-de-do-do-do-do-do-oh-ha-ma’…”

  “I saw in the paper that your uncle was murdered,” said Rodolfo suddenly. “I am very sorry.”

  Susan blinked and glanced at Libby. Libby’s mouth was open.

  “Yes,” said Jack soberly. “We were actually talking to him when it happened. A small boy ran up and slashed his throat with a knife.”

  “Oh, Susan!” said Libby, looking at her with real compassion. Susan was suddenly ashamed of herself. Maybe there was more to Libby than Susan had ever given her credit for. But there was no help for it, and Susan knew she had to play out the role she had assumed. James Bright had expressed more than vague uneasiness to Susan about the motives and methods of the García-Cifuentes clan. It was now important that Jack and Susan appear—at least to Rodolfo—to be thoughtless and carefree.

  “Yes,” said Susan quickly, “it was terrible. But we were told—by the police, by everyone—that such things happen.”

  “A child did it?” said Libby.

  “No doubt he was…what is the word?” suggested Rodolfo.

  “Simple?” Jack suggested.

  Rodolfo nodded. “Deranged.”

  “Yes,” said Susan, “probably that was it. Just another mentally defective nine-year-old roaming the streets with a knife, slashing random throats on the piers of the harbor.”

  A few moments of silence passed awkwardly. A waiter appeared, and when Jack and Susan did not take this opportunity to say good-night, but asked for another round of what they’d had before, Rodolfo bit his lip.

  Which means that he’s not comfortable with us here, Jack thought.

  Which means he’d like very much for us to go away, Susan decided.

  For the next quarter-hour there was a little desultory talk of Havana and its nighttime splendors, and no more mention of interrupted weddings, jilted fiancés, or harborside murders.

  The master of ceremonies waddled out and announced—in Spanish and English—that the third show of the evening would begin in just a few minutes. Jack and Susan exchanged glances—this sort of communication was getting easier for them—and they both rose to take their leave. It would be too noisy to continue any conversation. With a little nod of her head, Susan left it up to Jack to plan for another meeting between the two couples.

  But there was no need, for Rodolfo said quickly, “Please. It has been such an unexpected pleasure to run into you both again. This is my city, as New York was yours. You both were very kind to me there, so please allow me to be kind to you here. In the morning, Libby and I will be attending the Gran Premio—the auto races. Please allow me to send two tickets over to your hotel. We would be so happy to see you both again.”

  He glanced at his wife—almost for the first time, it seemed to Susan.

  “Oh, yes,” said Libby absently, then adding with fervor, “Yes, Susan, please do come.”

  “What I want to know,” said Jack, “is will you still love me when my arm has healed?”

  He lay with his good arm encircling his wife’s shoulder. His left arm in its cast was resting on the seat of a small chair that had been drawn up to the side of the bed.

  “We won’t know, till it does heal, will we? I imagine I will. Will you still love me if we don’t ever find any of this mysterious fortune?”

  “Possibly. Though, given the choice, I’d rather be married to an heiress of incalculable wealth than to a drudge who totally supports her injured husband.”

  “Just remember,” said Susan, “if we go back to New York, I don’t have a job either.”

  “I don’t even know how we’re going to pay for this room.”

  “I’m an heiress in name only,” Susan sighed.

  “Then what we’re going to have to do,” said Jack, “is track down the boy who killed your uncle, find the will, have it probated, cash an enormous check, and then pay the hotel bill.”

  “Yes,” said Susan, “these things are actually quite simple once you attack them logically.”

  It was a difficult situation. They had little to go on.

  There was one thing, however, that they hadn’t talked about for awhile: the business of Rodolfo and Libby’s marriage. It was clear to both Jack and Susan that Libby was the sort to run out and marry someone on the spur of the moment, but why had Rodolfo abandoned Susan? Susan, after all, had agreed, in so many words, to marry him. Rodolfo’s defection was much more of a mystery than Libby’s.

  But what totally confused Jack and Susan, as they sweltered through the hot Cuban night, was whether the two questions were related—Libby and Rodolfo’s marriage, and the murder of James Bright. It hardly seemed likely…

  Despite their lack of sleep, Jack and Susan spent a busy morning. They rose, bathed, and breakfasted. Then, with Woolf straining at his leash, they walked to Richard Bollow’s office, and found him not in. His assistant or secretary or whatever he was, was not in either. The door of the office was locked, and even the sign that had read Richard Bollow had been taken down. That certainly looked suspicious.

  They went to the neighborhood police station and tried to get a little information about the lawyer, but the police were not helpful. No one there seemed even to have heard of Bollow. The police, in fact, seemed more interested in whether Woolf had had his full complement of shots, and whether his license was in order. Jack was sternly warned that if the dog bit anybody he’d be shot.

  Even at ten o’clock in the morning, McGinty’s bar was open, and the same bartender who had served them on their previous visit was on duty. But he professed not to know Richard Bollow by name, and when Susan described the lawyer carefully, the bartender shook his head.

  “The one who drinks so many daiquiris…” Jack suggested.

  Susan translated, but the bartender shrugged, as if to indicate that such a description applied to some large portion of his clientele. After the fat man with the white beard had taken to drinking daiquiris, everybody drank them now, whether they liked them or not.

  They couldn’t think of anywhere else to turn for the moment, so they hailed a taxi and were driven out to the racetrack in one of the western suburbs of Havana. This was one of the newer monuments to the decision of the Batista government to legalize gambling, and it was one of the less appealing. The racecourse was a large dusty oval, with some dusty flower beds in the center where dusty yellow roses bloomed. At one side of the track was a low grandstand, and directly behind this a low building where refreshments were sold and the bets were placed. The sky seemed very wide and high here, and the sun hung in it like a naked bulb in a cheap hotel room. An enormous crowd had gathered for the races that began at noon.

  Jack and Susan decided to forgo both the refreshments and the betting, and
went directly to the box to which Rodolfo’s tickets admitted them, Woolf still in tow. To their discomfiture they discovered that their box was directly behind that of President Batista.

  “Friends in high places,” grumbled Jack. “Just what we need.”

  “He’s not here yet,” said Susan. “And heads of state have a habit of not showing up where they’re expected. Especially dictators. It makes them better targets. Maybe we’ll be lucky.”

  They were.

  They sat alone in their VIP box for the next half hour, while the crowd of dusty unimportant persons roiled about them. A half dozen well-dressed persons, none of them Americans, showed up with tickets for the box, but Batista did not arrive. Nor did Rodolfo and Libby appear, which Jack and Susan found odd and rude.

  Jack tied Woolf’s leash to a metal railing, and the dog—who had spent his time in McGinty’s licking up all the liquor that had so far been spilled that morning—fell promptly asleep in the hot sun.

  Down on the track, the cars for the first race were being slowly paraded around to the scattered cheers of the crowd. Susan took a pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses from her purse.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know why I packed these, but…”

  She and Jack took turns with the glasses, gazing down at the drivers and cars, and now and then scanning the crowds near the entrance, seeing if they could find Rodolfo or Libby or perhaps the dictator of Cuba.

  “Here I am,” said a small, low voice behind them, and someone was tapping Susan on the shoulder.

  Libby Mather García-Cifuentes dropped into a chair in the row behind Jack and Susan. She was wearing a yellow silk suit, and a black hat with a thick veil. She slumped.

  Libby Mather did not usually slump; she wasn’t the sort.

  “Where’s Rodolfo?” Jack asked.

  Libby pointed off vaguely to the left. “He’ll be here.”

  “Look through these,” Susan said, handing the glasses to Jack. Jack began scanning the crowd for sight of Rodolfo.

  Susan got up and moved back to Libby and peered at her through the veil. A tear coursed down through the heavy makeup on Libby’s cheek.

  Susan reached out and lifted the veil.

  “No, don’t—” said Libby, pulling away.

  “Shhh!” said Susan.

  Jack didn’t turn around.

  Susan then saw that Libby’s left eye was badly blackened. She let the veil drop. The crowd all around was growing more animated as the beginning of the race neared.

  “Libby, listen—” Susan began quickly and earnestly.

  A little sob twitched in Libby’s shoulders.

  Susan grabbed her. “Libby, did Rodolfo do that?”

  Libby nodded, just once, and then said, “He said he’d do it again, if I…”

  “If you what?”

  “Susan!” cried Jack.

  She turned to him. He was still staring through the opera glasses. Down on the track, the cars were lined up for the race, gunning their engines. Over the loudspeakers the announcer was calling out the names of the last driver and the number of his car.

  “What is it!”

  “I see him. I see Rodolfo. He’s right over there by the entrance. And he’s talking to Bollow!”

  The starting gun was fired, and the cars took off in a fury of noise and smoke.

  Roused at last, Woolf jumped up onto a row of empty seats, and began to bark uncontrollably.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE ENORMOUS CROWD at the track rose to its feet, inhaled vast quantities of dust and cigar smoke, and seemed to exhale it all again in one tremendous shout. Then, Jack could no longer see Rodolfo and the mysterious lawyer.

  “I know that’s who it was,” he said, awkwardly climbing over the railing to stand beside Susan and Libby. He too peered at Libby’s veil. A few feet away, Woolf strained at his leash.

  “Rodolfo hit her,” said Susan quietly. With all the shouting around them, however, Jack had no idea what his wife had said. “Rodolfo hit her!” she shouted.

  Jack took a long breath, shook his head, and peered down at Libby. She had turned away in embarrassment.

  Susan made a small subtle gesture, and Jack squeezed past Libby to get on the other side of her.

  “All right,” said Susan quickly and directly into Libby’s ear, “you’ve got to tell us what’s going on, Libby.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Do it, Libby,” said Jack sternly, “or I’ll see that you suffer for having me fired from my job.”

  Libby’s head shot up. “He made me.”

  “He made you have me fired?”

  “He convinced me—he convinced me that you’d been stealing my money. I didn’t really believe him, Jack, but…”

  “But you had me fired anyway.”

  She nodded dismally.

  The cars shot around the track and completed the first lap; the crowd rose again and cheered loudly. Woolf was barking at a little boy who was leaning over the edge of the box trying to sell little packages of candy.

  “Jack forgives you,” said Susan briskly. “I forgive you. But now you’ve got to tell us what’s going on.”

  “I don’t know,” said Libby. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I think I made a mistake. I think I made a big mistake. And now I don’t know what to do.”

  “It’s a mistake that can be fixed,” Susan assured her. “You can go back to New York with us.”

  “He won’t let me.”

  “He can’t stop you,” said Jack. “When we go back—”

  “I don’t think you’re going back,” interrupted Libby.

  “What?” said Jack.

  “I said I don’t think you’re going back to New York either.” She spoke quickly, almost breathlessly. “He’s going to stop you. He’s—”

  “How?” demanded Susan.

  “He’s going to have you arrested—for murdering your uncle.”

  Jack and Susan leaned forward in order to exchange glances. Susan’s glance asked: Are you surprised? Jack’s glance replied: Not a bit.

  Susan shook Libby’s arm. “Are you sure? How do you know this for sure, Libby? How—”

  “I don’t know it for sure, but I heard him talking. And I heard another man talking. I didn’t hear everything, but that’s what it sounded like.”

  “When is he going to try this?” asked Jack.

  Libby raised her veil and wiped away her tears. She winced as she inadvertently touched the bruised skin around her eye.

  “Today,” she said. “Here at the track. If he finds out I warned you, he’ll hit me again.” She looked from Susan to Jack and back to Susan again. “No one ever hit me before,” she said simply. “I didn’t know how much it hurt.”

  “They’re coming this way!” cried Jack. He vaulted down the steps of the VIP box. He’d been at the top of the stands, to obtain a better view of the grandstand. “Rodolfo and about five policemen.”

  Woolf leaped at him, and the leash nearly broke his neck. Susan quickly began untying the dog.

  “We have to get out of here,” said Jack.

  “Take me with you!” pleaded Libby, as she rose hastily. “I don’t care if you did kill your uncle.”

  “We didn’t kill him!” cried Susan. “In fact—”

  Libby sat down again, hard. She stared at Susan. “You don’t think…”

  You don’t think Rodolfo did it? was the sentence Libby didn’t have the courage to complete.

  “No, no,” said Susan soothingly. “Of course not! Can you run in those shoes? If we have to run, I mean.”

  “Shoes or no shoes, we have to run,” said Jack, grabbing Woolf’s leash and starting down the steps toward the aisle at the bottom of the stands. This was not a very easy thing for Jack to do, since the stairs were a great deal shallower than was convenient for the length of Jack’s legs and his left arm was still in its cast.

  “Where are we running to?” demanded Libby, as Susan pulled her out of her seat and down the st
eps, after Jack and Woolf.

  “Away from here,” said Susan. “I can’t believe—”

  “I have a car,” suggested Libby.

  “Libby has a car!” Susan shouted down to Jack. Just then the pack of racing cars shot past the stands beginning another lap, so Jack couldn’t hear over the cheering of the crowd.

  Susan let go of Libby’s hand and caught up with her husband. “Libby has a car. Maybe we can…”

  Jack glanced back up at Libby, who nodded vigorously. “That way,” she shouted, pointing to the right—away from the entrance to the grounds. And, fortunately, away from the direction in which Jack had last seen Rodolfo and the policemen approaching.

  Now they were in a narrow aisle at the bottom of the stands, between the noisy crowd rising up in tiers to their right and the dirt track of the speedway at their left. The grandstand was raised above the track about fifteen feet or so to protect the spectators.

  Jack stepped aside and Susan and Libby squeezed past him.

  “Lead us to your car,” he said to Libby as she went by. Libby nodded, and hurried along as well as she could in her impractical shoes.

  With Susan in the lead the three of them made substantial progress toward the end of the stands, considering the number of small children, popcorn venders, and fat women wandering off to the comfort stations who blocked their path at every other step.

  At last they reached the end of the grandstand. Behind a rickety little gate, a narrow flight of wooden stairs led down to a large field where a large number of automobiles and trucks were parked with no apparent system to their arrangement. Susan held Jack’s arm to help him maintain his balance as he kicked open the lock from the gate.

  Libby and Susan started down the stairs. Libby cried, “Oh, there it is. I see it now—I think…”

  Susan stopped suddenly, grabbed Libby by the shoulder, turned her around and demanded, “Libby, you do have the keys to this car, don’t you?”

  Libby didn’t have time to reply to Susan’s question before they heard a voice behind them.

  “Mr. Beaumont—”

  Jack, just starting through the gate, whirled around, painfully hitting his injured arm against a railing. His good arm became entangled in Woolf’s leash.