by Carl Hiassen
"Come on in, Brian," Garcia said.
The door flew open with a crash.
Garcia's left hand found the butt of his revolver but he changed his mind. Nothing like a sawed-off shotgun to argue for prudence.
"Buenas noches,"the detective said to the man in the soiled undershirt.
"Hello, maggot," said Jesus Bernal. "Let's go for a ride, just you and me."
Since spurning the Nights of December, Jesus Bernal had slipped into a desperate and harried state. He had pinned his grandiose hope of redemption on his last homemade bomb, only to see it claim the wrong victim, some goofball news reporter. Once again serendipity had taunted Bernal, reducing his most passionate and calculated crimes to slapstick. His long career as a terrorist had been marred by such misfortune, and he had come to fear that he might be forever cheated of his place in radical history, that he had blown his last big chance. That morning's press conference had pitched the little Cuban into an orgy of self-pity—he had screeched at the television screen, pummeled the walls, kicked holes in the doors of his motel room. He knewthat the helicopter stunt was a frivolous idea, that the first plan had been the best. He had triedto teach the others about discipline and efficiency, about the fatal dangers of impetuosity. But that fuckhead Wiley was beyond reason, and the dope-wasted nigger and the creepy Seminole Indian had trailed along like zombies. They were babies playing a man's game.
Now they were dead, and so for all practical purposes was Las Noches de Diciembre,leaving Jesus Bernal an orphan of the cause. Wretchedly he wondered what his ex-comrades in the First Weekend in July Movement were saying about him; he could hear the comandante'ssneering laughter. Who could blame the old fart? For all the fanfare about Las Noches,nothing historic had been proven, nothing of permanence achieved. So there was no point calling the old man to beg again for readmission.
Bernal knew his options were limited. Strategically, it would be futile to revive the name of the organization—as far as the world was concerned, the Nights of December no longer existed. Even the fucking stationery was useless.
One possibility was to start his own underground terrorist movement. To hell with the crazy Wileys and the feeble old Bay of Piggers; it was time for daring new blood. Yet there was still the problem of credibility, and shedding the stigma of recent failures.
Which was why Jesus Bernal sneaked into Metro-Dade police headquarters on Sunday evening, December 30.
If all went as planned, Jesus figured he'd never again have to worry about his future; he would be the Reggie Jackson of South Florida terrorism, a free-agent superstar-assassin. The First Weekend in July, Omega Seven, Alpha 66—they'd all be knocking down his door. Then maybe he would form his own gang, recruiting only the best from the others and leaving the faggots and doddering old men to their Eighth Street parades.
Even before the helicopter accident, Jesus Bernal had unilaterally decided to select a new victim. To impress the comandante,the target would have to be a person of prominence and formidable authority. And most important, the chosen prey must represent an abhorrence to The Cause—either compromise, complicity, or total apathy.
Bernal's brightest hope was Sergeant Al Garcia.
The chubby turncoat had invited trouble during the press conference by noting there was no evidence of Jesus being aboard the ill-fated Huey. In his emotionally bruised and paranoid state, Bernal perceived this remark as a slur, something meant to portray him as a sniveling coward who cringed in the background while his brethren risked their lives. In fact, Garcia had mentioned Jesus Bernal only to annoy the guys in the orange blazers; he never thought it would precipitate this kind of visit.
"Take the back stairs," Bernal commanded.
The police station was all but empty on a Sunday night and they saw no one on the stairwell. The two men emerged from a doorway on the northwest side and crossed the jail parking lot, concealed by a tall hedge. Bernal walked stiffly, the shotgun pointed down and held close to his right leg; from a distance he looked like a man with a slight limp.
Garcia's unmarked police car was parked on Fourteenth Street. "You drive," Bernal said. "And stay off the freeways."
They headed south, crossed the Miami River drawbridge, and stopped at the busy traffic light at Northwest Seventh Street.
"Which way?" Garcia asked.
Jesus Bernal hesitated. "Just a second." Across his lap lay the shotgun, its barrel gaping from the crook of his arm. The gun was an over-and-under model, cut back to fourteen inches. Al Garcia didn't need the training manual to figure out what a sawed-off could do. It was pointed at his kidneys.
"Turn right," Bernal said hoarsely. Garcia could make out the faint cross-hatch imprint of the tennis racket on his abductor's face. He also noticed that Bernal's nose was badly broken, though his teeth were straight and gleaming.
They spoke Spanish to each other.
"Where we going?" Garcia asked.
"Why, you worried?" Bernal said tautly. "You think a badge and a gun makes you a hero! Makes you a genuine American! I beg your pardon, Mr. Policia.You are no hero, you're a coward. You turned your back on your true country."
"What do you mean?" Garcia asked, biting back anger.
"Do you not have family in Cuba?"
"An uncle," the detective replied. "And a sister."
Bernal poked the shotgun into Garcia's neck. The barrel was cold and sharp. "You abandoned your own sister! You are a shit-eating worm and I should kill you right now."
"She chose to stay behind, my sister did."
"No creo—"
"It's true," Garcia said. "She married a man in the army."
"Such shit! And your uncle—what lie have you invented for him?"
"He is a doctor in Camaguey, with a family. Four children. This is not a lie."
"Such shit!"
"Put the gun down before somebody sees it," Garcia warned.
Reluctantly Jesus Bernal lowered the sawed-off. He held it across his knees, below the dashboard.
"You think it was easy for me?" Garcia said. "You think it was easy to leave, to start over? I came here with nothing."
Jesus Bernal was unmoved. "Why are you not fighting for your family's liberation?" he demanded.
Rather than say something he might eternally regret, Garcia said nothing. Psychology was not his strong suit; he was a firm believer of the fist-in-the-face school of criminal therapy. Jesus Bernal was a mangy bundle of nerves.
He smelled like he hadn't bathed for a month and his black hair was a dull curly mat. His high-topped sneakers tapped the floorboard, while his free hand knotted and reknotted the tail of his threadbare undershirt. He fidgeted like a little kid whose bladder was about to burst.
"What do you think about this, Mr. Policia?Me catching you, instead of the other way around!" Jesus flashed his new dentures. "Cut over to the Trail and we'll head for the Turnpike."
"But you said no freeways."
"Shut up and do as I say." Bernal reached over and ripped the microphone from Garcia's police radio. He threw it out the window. "You get lonely, you talk to me."
Garcia shrugged. "Nice night for a drive."
"Hope you got plenty of gas," Bernal said. "Garcia, I want to ask you something, okay? How does a scum like you sleep at night? What kind of lullabies does a buitresing? When you close your eyes, do you see your sister and your uncle in Cuba, eh? Do you feel their torture and suffering, while you get fat on American ice cream and go to jai-alai with your Anglo pals? I have often wondered about traitors like you, Garcia.
"When I was very young, my job was to visit the businessmen and collect contributions for La Causa.I had four blocks on Calle Ocho,three more on Flagler Street downtown. A man named Miguel—he owned a small laundry—once gave three thousand dollars. And old Roberto, he ran bolitafrom a cafe. Zorro rojo,the red fox, we called him; Roberto could well afford to be a generous patriot. Not all these businessmen were happy to see me at their door, but they understood the importance of my request. They hated Fidel, with the
ir hearts they hated him, and so they managed to find the money. This is how we survived, while traitors like you ignored us."
"Chickenshit shakedowns," Garcia muttered.
"Shut up!"
Garcia picked up the Turnpike at the Tamiami Trail and drove south. Traffic thinned out and, on both sides of the highway, chintzy eggshell apartments and tacky tract-house developments gave way to pastures, farmland, and patches of dense glades. Garcia now had no doubt that Bernal planned to kill him. He guessed, cynically, that it would probably be a simple execution; kneeling on the gravel of some dirt road, mosquitoes buzzing in his ears, the shotgun blast devoured by the empty night. The fucking turkey buzzards would find him first. The buitres.
Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to piss the little runt off. Maybe he'd get excited, maybe a little careless.
"So what about your pals?"
"Idiots!" Bernal said.
"Oh, I'm not so sure," Garcia said. "Some of that stuff was ingenious."
"That was mine," Bernal said. "The best stuff was mine. The kennel club bombing—I thought it up myself."
"A pile of dead dogs. What the hell did thatprove?"
"Quiet, cono.It proved that no place was safe, that's what it proved. No place was safe for tourists and traitors and carpetbaggers. Any idiot could see the point."
Garcia shook his head. Carpetbaggers—definitely a Skip Wiley word.
"Dead greyhounds," Garcia said mockingly. "I'm sure Castro couldn't sleep for days."
"Just drive, goddammit."
"I never understood your stake in the group," Garcia went on. "I think, what the hell does a hard-core like Jesus care about tourists and condos? I think, maybe he just wants his name in the papers. Maybe he's got nowhere else to go."
Bernal made a fist and pounded the dash. "See, this is why you're such a dumb cop! Figure it out, Garcia. What really happened to the movement? Everyone in Miami got fat and happy, like you. Half a million Cubans—they could stampede Havana anytime they wanted, but they won't because most of them are just like you. Greedy and prosperous. Prosperity is killing anti-communism, Garcia. If our people here were starving or freezing or dying, don't you think they'd want to go back to Cuba? Don't you think they'd sign up for the next invasion? Of course they would, by the thousands. But not now. Oh, they are careful to wave flags and pledge money and say Death to the bearded one!But they don't mean it. You see, they've got their IRAs and their Chevrolets and their season tickets to the Dolphins, and they don't give a shit about Cuba anymore. They'll never leave Florida as long as life is better here, so the only thing for us to do is make life worse. That's exactly what the Nights of December had in mind. It was a good plan, before the great Senor Fuego cracked up, a good plan based on sound dialectic. If it came to pass that all the snowbirds fled north—chasing their precious money—then Florida's economy would disintegrate and finally our people would be forced into action. And Cuba is the only place for us to go."
Garcia's patience was frayed. He knew all about Jesus Bernal Rivera, born in Trenton, New Jersey, son of a certified public accountant and product of the Ivy League; a man who had never set foot on the island of Cuba.
"You're a phony," Garcia told him, "a pitiful phony."
Bernal raised the stubby shotgun and placed the barrel against the detective's right temple.
Garcia pretended not to notice. He drove at a steady sixty-five, hands damp on the wheel. Bernal would never shoot him while the car was going so fast. Even with the gun at his head Garcia was feeling slightly more optimistic about his chances. For ten miles he had been watching a set of headlights in the rear-view mirror. Once he had tapped his brakes, and whoever was following had flashed his brights in reply. Garcia thought: Please be a cop.
After a few tense moments Bernal put the shotgun down. "Not now," he said, seemingly to himself. "Not just yet." Garcia glanced over and saw that a crooked smile had settled across the bomber's griddled features.
The Turnpike ended at Florida City, and the MG was running on fumes. Brian Keyes coasted into an all-night service station but the pumps were off and he had to wait in line to pay the attendant. He watched helplessly as the taillights of Al Garcia's car disappeared, heading toward Card Sound.
Catching up would take a miracle.
Keyes had arrived at police headquarters just as Jesus Bernal and Garcia were getting in the car. He had spotted the shotgun, but there had been no time to get help; all he could do was try to stay close and hope Bernal didn't see him.
Everything was going smoothly until he'd checked the gas gauge.
Keyes hurriedly pumped five dollars' worth. He ran back to the bullet-proof window and pounded on the glass.
"Call the police!" he shouted at the attendant. The man gave no sign of comprehending any language, least of all English.
"A policeman is in trouble," Keyes said. He pointed down the highway. "Get help!"
The gas station attendant nodded vaguely.
"No credit cards," he said. "Much sorry."
Keyes jumped into the MG and raced down U.S. Highway One. He turned off at Card Sound Road, a narrow and seemingly endless two-lane lined with towering pines. The road ahead was black and desolate, not another car in sight. Keyes stood on the accelerator and watched the speedometer climb to ninety. Mosquitoes, dragonflies, and junebugs thwacked the car, their jellied blood smearing the windshield. Every few miles the headlights would freeze a rabbit or opossum near the treeline, but there was no sign anywhere of human life.
As the road swung east, Keyes slowed to check some cars at a crab shanty, then at Alabama Jack's, a popular tavern, which had closed for the night. At the toll booth to the Card Sound Bridge, he asked a sleepy redneck cashier if a black Dodge had come through.
"Two Cubans," she reported. " 'Bout five minutes ago. I 'member cause they didn't wait for change."
Keyes crossed the tall bridge at a crawl, studying the nocturnal faces of the crabbers and mullet fishermen lined along the rail. Soon he was on North Key Largo, and more alone than ever. This end of the island remained a wilderness of tangled scrub, mahogany, buttonwood, gumbo-limbo, and red mangrove. The last of the North American crocodiles lived in its brackish bogs; this was where Tommy Tigertail had recruited Pavlov. There were alligators, too, and rattlers, gray foxes, hordes of brazen coons, and the occasional shy otter. But mostly the island was alive with birds: nighthawks, ospreys, snowy egrets, spoonbills, limpkins, parrots, blue herons, cormorants, the rare owl. Some slept, some stalked, and some, like the scaly-headed vultures, waited ominously for dawn.
Keyes turned off on County Road 905, drove about half a mile, and parked on the shoulder. He rolled down the window of the MG and the tiny sports car immediately filled with insidious bootblack mosquitoes. Keyes swatted automatically, and tried to listen above the humming insects and the buzz of the night-hawks for something out of place. Perhaps the sound of a car door slamming, or human voices.
But the night surrendered no clues.
He went another mile down the road and parked again; still nothing but marsh noises and the salty smell of the ocean. After a few minutes a paunchy raccoon waddled out of the scrub and stood on its hind legs to investigate; it blinked at Keyes and ambled away, chirping irritably.
He started the MG and headed down 905 at high speed to blow the mosquitoes out of the car. He was driving so fast he nearly missed it, concealed on the east side of the highway, headfirst in a dense hammock. A glint of chrome among the dark green woods is what caught Keyes's eye.
He pumped the brakes and steered off the blacktop. He slipped out of the sports car and popped the trunk. Groping in the dark, he found what he was looking for and crept back to the spot.
The black Dodge was empty and its engine nearly cold to the touch.
The two men stood alone at the end of a rutted limestone jetty, poking like a stone finger into the sea. A warm tangy wind blew from the northeast, mussing Garcia's thin black hair. His mustache was damp from sweat, and h
is bare arms itched and bled from the trek through the hammock. The detective had given up all hope about the car in the rearview mirror; it had turned off in Florida City.
Jesus Bernal seemed not to notice the cloud of mosquitoes swarming around his head. Garcia thought: perhaps they don't sting him—his blood is poisoned and the insects know it.
Fevered with excitement, Bernal's face glistened in the water's reflection. His eyes darted ratlike and his head jerked at each muffled animal noise from the woods behind them. In one hand Bernal clutched the sawed-off shotgun, and with the other waved a heavy police flashlight, lacing amber ribbons in the blackness.
Jesus was already contemplating the journey back to the car, alone. The shotgun probably would be empty by then, useless. He grew terrified just thinking about the ordeal—what good was a flashlight against panthers! He imagined himself imprisoned all night by the impenetrable hammock; at first disoriented, then panicked. Then lost! The sounds alone might drive him insane.
For Jesus Bernal was scared of the dark.
"What's the matter?" Garcia asked.
"Nothing." Bernal ground his dentures and made the fear go away. "This is where we say adios."
"Yeah?" Garcia thought it seemed an odd place for an execution. The jetty provided no concealment and the echo of gunfire would carry for miles across the water. He hoped a boat might pass soon.
Jesus Bernal fumbled in his khaki trousers and came out with a brown letter-sized envelope, folded in half.
"Open it," he wheezed. "Read it aloud." He aimed the flashlight so Garcia could make out the document, which had been typed neatly. It appeared much longer than any of the communiques from the Nights of December.
"What is this, you writing a book?" the detective grumbled.
"Read!" Bernal said.
Garcia took his eyeglasses from a shirt pocket.
There were two identical sections, one in English and one in Spanish:
"I, Alberto Garcia Delgado, hereby confess myself as a traitor to my native country of Cuba. I admit to the gravest of crimes: persecuting and harassing those brave revolutionaries who would destroy the dictator Castro, and who would liberate our suffering nation so that all Cuban peoples may return. With my despicable crimes I have dishonored these patriots and shamed my own heritage, and that of my father. I deeply regret my seditious behavior. I realize that I can never be forgiven for using my police authority to obstruct what was good and just. For this reason, I have agreed to accept whatever punishment is deemed fitting by my judge, the honorable Jesus Bernal Rivera—a man who has courageously dedicated his life to the most noble of revolutionary callings."