Willy and his people were approaching, so I scooped up the candle and scurried back to the hatch. Melted wax burned my palm. My mind raced with questions. What was the significance of the damn candle? Would the blackmailers send my files to the police?
Willy introduced me to his three men, but I didn’t catch a single name. Once inside the cockpit, I studied the candle closely. There were no markings of any kind.
What did I expect, chicken prints?
35
WILLY WAS HUDDLED UP with his three volunteers, who on closer inspection looked more like Hell’s Angels than missionaries. My scrutiny of the plane’s exterior was twice that of a normal pre-flight check. I reached into both engine’s air intakes, half-expecting to find goat chunks, but they were clean. So were the all the various moving parts vulnerable to hexes and voodoo curses.
Ray silently followed me around while I did the inspection. Willy and his men were still in discussion, with maps and documents being circulated between them.
“You leave her unguarded, she’ll be converted to car parts before you finish your first Cuba Libre,” Ray said.
“Don’t you have some spark plugs to change?”
Willy finished calling his plays, and they broke their huddle, the only thing missing was the clap of hands and a resounding “Break!” The smallest of the three men was the only one inspecting the plane with fear in his eyes. They were all in their mid to late twenties, and with the exception of the nervous one, they were thick-bodied, muscular, and wore serious expressions. The pastor removed a cell phone and some brown, letter-sized envelopes, each presumably stuffed thick with cash. Cuba was 100% cash and carry because of the U.S. government’s prohibition of credit transactions on the island. I brought a few hundred of my last reserves too. I hadn’t been allowed a credit card in two years anyway, so it was nothing new to me.
Willy handed me an envelope. “This is for the other day and an advance for Cuba.”
Did Gutierrez know about Willy and his daughter’s interest in Santeria? Was there more to the religious feud than local hegemony? How could I ask without pissing him off? Should I bag the trip because of the candle? I took a deep breath. Screw it. Aside from helping Willy, I needed to find out what “HIS BOAT” meant.
A tattoo of barbed wire around the bicep of one of the men peeked out just below his shirt sleeve. Was it Christ’s crown or an indication of the man’s nature? I did a double-take. Large, black, and with a barbed wire tattoo? He matched the description given by the shark tank survivor of his attacker.
My mind spun, but I managed to complete the balance of the pre-flight inspection. The plane sunk as the threesome stepped on. Barbed wire squeezed into the right seat next to me. His size was even more impressive up close. Ray shut the hatch and ushered Willy away from the engines.
“You can wear that headset,” I said.
After powering up the magnetos and fuel pumps, I started the port engine and held my breath. I checked the hour gauge and noted what the total would be after another 100 hours. Barbed Wire studied my every move.
“I’m sorry, what’s your name again?” I asked.
“Truck.” His voice was commanding, even in the headset. “Truck Lewis.”
The starboard engine kicked in just after I heard his name. “Lewis, like Bruiser Lewis?”
“That’s right, he’s my little brother.” Truck’s short square teeth appeared in a smile, incongruous with his eyes, which were ominous. I had completely forgotten about my fight with Bruiser tomorrow night.
“You skipping town, then?”
“Not exactly—”
“Uh-huh.” He rolled his eyes.
I let out a long exhale and eased the throttles forward. We taxied with the wind to the end of the runway and awaited clearance to take off. Out of habit I reached down below my seat to touch the corner of my waterproof pouch, forgetting for a moment it was gone.
Miami Center’s signal came. I added power and Betty started down the runway, pivoting unsteadily on her tail wheel before lifting heavily into the air.
Before we banked south, I saw a monstrous cruise ship heading in from the west. I wouldn’t miss today’s inrush of Americana descending upon Old Town to imbibe a thousand gallons of booze, smoke a hundred acres of tobacco, and collide head-on with the Cuban American welcoming committee.
“I didn’t see you at Jo Jo’s funeral,” I said.
“Had to see a man about a fish.”
I swallowed. “What are your plans in Havana?”
His eyes were expressionless. “Keep an eye on you and kick some ass.”
Perfect. Now I was transporting a probable felon out for revenge. The shit pile I’d stepped into was up to my waist and rising fast.
36
THE CUBAN AIR TRAFFIC controllor vectored us toward Havana in precise English. So far, so good.
“Why are you keeping an eye on me?” I asked Truck.
“You’re the asshole got me into this shit, right? By taking Shaniqua to the boat?”
“From what I hear you needed to get out of town anyway.”
A sudden laugh rocked his large frame.
“They arrest first and ask questions later in this country,” I said. “Way later.”
I let Betty drift west, and before long the Cuban land mass gained clarity. We were instructed to divert east and line up behind a Yak 42, an aircraft of Russian origin under the flag of Air Cubana, but I held course.
“Up ahead is the Marina Hemingway, where the Carnival was headed.”
“You might be all right after all,” Truck said.
Havana Control reiterated their instructions, but I waited, taking a chance on a quick survey of the marina.
“It’s huge,” Truck said. He was right, we’d never be able to see much of anything in a single pass, and doing more would be too obvious.
I turned east and began our descent to José Martí Airport.
“Grumman one-seven-four-one-November, this is Key West Tower, over.”
My grip tightened on the wheel. Why would Key West Tower be interrupting Havana Control’s guidance?
“Roger, Tower, what’s up?”
“Change to frequency 118.3, Grumman.” It was Donny, his call highly irregular. Truck could hear the radio traffic over his headset, but his attention remained focused out the side window.
I made the change in frequency. “What’s up, Donny?”
“I’ve been asked to relay a message.”
Truck turned toward me.
“10-4, Tower. What’s the deal?”
“The Coast Guard found another body, out where you found Jo Jo. Big difference though. This one had half his head blown off. Bullet wound, close range.”
Truck flew back in his seat as if struck with a cattle prod. He began shouting, and nearly put his fist through the microphone button on the dash.
“Who’d they find? You hear me, who was it?”
“Someone else is on this freq—”
“That’s my co-pilot, Tower.” I held my hand up to Truck, and then pointed to my chest. “Has the body been identified?”
“Affirmative. Rodney Claggett, I repeat, Rodney Claggett.”
Truck and I exchanged glances. Fury blazed in his eyes.
“Pastor Peebles wants you to return to Key West, pronto. He said the FBI blew a gasket when they found out you guys were headed to Havana. Plus, today’s demonstrations were on the national news. Things are getting ugly. You got that, Buck?”
Truck’s face was bunched into a tight scowl. After a moment’s pause he shook his head and pointed a rigid finger toward the Cuban jetliner. He pumped his hand toward the plane. He didn’t need to push the mike’s button, I could read his lips.
No fucking way.
“Negative, Tower. Tell Willy his men want to continue.”
Havana Control was pissed when we returned to the proper frequency. Truck held his index finger to his lips and thumbed back toward the others.
That’s your bu
siness, Bubba.
My hands felt slippery on the stick. Rubber hit asphalt and we floated a hundred yards before the tail wheel touched runway 23. The concrete terminal had planes from a wide array of international carriers lined up like hogs at the trough. The Cuban flag fluttered in the breeze, but my rapture was dashed upon seeing tears on Truck’s cheek. You don’t think a man of his size and rugged appearance has feelings, but even barbed wire will rust.
We were directed toward the end of the terminal where several small jets, one- and two-engined planes, and an odd array of antique aircraft were parked. Betty would feel right at home.
An armed customs officer appeared outside the plane to escort us into the terminal. Willy’s envelope contained $2,000 which I’d placed in my money belt with the few bills already there.
The news about Rodney sank in. I pictured him in the Polo shirt aboard the Zodiac. The odds had just plummeted for anyone else still being alive. Everything considered, the theft of my gear was nothing in comparison, but all of it, including the blackmail and vandalism suggested that whatever had happened was far from over.
Leave the spirits of the dead alone. The calls for revenge in Key West would intensify, along with the media pressure that could enable the president to follow the CANC’s lead and escalate the situation into a diplomatic crisis.
Customs seemed blessedly unaware of current events in Key West. Outside, the heat was oppressive. I had no idea where Truck and his men were going or how they’d get there, but I had a hotel in mind.
“We got somebody supposed to pick us up,” Truck said. He removed the cell phone Willy had given him, dialed a number, and handed it to the nervous one of the three, who said something in Spanish.
After he hung up, I had a sudden urge. “Can I borrow that thing for a minute?”
Truck hesitated, then handed it over.
“Hotel La Concha.” Josh Bentley answered.
“Hey, Josh, it’s Buck. Is Karen there?”
After a brief delay, Karen’s voice sounded. “Buck, I’m glad you called,” she said. “About my book, maybe it would be bad luck for you to read it…” The phone suddenly crackled with static.
“Karen? Can you hear me?”
“Buck?”
“I called to say I’ll check out any of Gutierrez’s paintings you’re interested in, if you still want my help—” The phone cut out.
An old blue and primer Ford pulled up to the curb. A man leaned over to peer through the passenger window. “Redeemer?”
Truck nodded, and the driver jumped out and grabbed the luggage.
“We’ve got a place in central Havana, in Cayo Hueso.” Truck nodded to the skinny guy who’d made the phone call. “Chucky here, he’s our guide. Me and Jimbo are going hunting.”
I finally knew their names, thrown off earlier by the mysterious candle under Betty’s wing. Shit, I’d forgotten about that.
“Can you give me a lift to the Ambos Mundos Hotel in Havana Vieja?”
Truck nodded without asking the driver. The ride into the heart of Havana was surreal. We passed the Presidential Palace, where once Fidel, and now Raul Castro kept his office, Revolutionary Square, where countless emotionally-charged America-bashing speeches had occurred, and across from that a large building that looked like a cheap hotel on which hung a massive mural of Che Guevara’s face.
“What’s that over there with the mural?” I asked.
“MININT’s offices, State Security,” the driver said. “The phrase underneath it says: Hasta Victoria la Siempre, or Always Toward Victory.” He shrugged. “More like poverty.”
We turned onto a seaside boulevard with antiquated buildings on our right side, their façades paint-chipped and crumbling, contrasting with the brilliant absinthe water on the left. It was the Malecon. The Morro Castle appeared in the distance across Havana harbor. We continued to the end of the Malecon, past dilapidated buildings dating back to the 1500’s, then wound through narrower streets until the car’s brakes screeched us to a stop.
“Ambos Mundos,” the driver said.
I grabbed Truck’s bicep and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t do anything crazy.”
He grunted. He’d be looking for trouble, not hiding from it.
“If you talk to your brother, tell him we’re still on when I get back.”
It was his first smile since the news about Rodney.
“Right.”
37
AFTER CHECKING INTO THE hotel I went to the bar and asked for Ivan Machado but was told he wouldn’t be on duty until dinner. I checked my map and arranged for a cab to take me to San Francisco de Paula, a suburb fifteen miles outside the city.
The clue to the key word in the packet of Swiss bank ciphers stolen from my plane was “HIS BOAT.” A serious Hemingway buff, my father’s affinity had rubbed off on me, so my hope was that he used key words I would recognize. When in Cuba ten or twelve years ago on State Department business, he’d visited the writer’s Finca Vigia, or Lookout Farm.
In order to replace the missing key, a verbal password that contained five blanks had to be recited. But the clue contained thirty-three letters. I had no idea what kind of cipher Dad had used, but if I was right, the key word to decode it might be at the Finca. And if I was really lucky, I might learn something about my treasure hunt out at Fort Jefferson, because if I don’t recover my stash before the thieves compare the saved points to the X’s on the chart, they’ll get there first. Ray’s warning about it being in Park waters ate at me. He was right, as usual.
Had I been here under different circumstances, seeing the house exactly as Papa left it, with shoes piled up, typewriter atop his bookcase, a lizard in a jar of alcohol, and a year’s worth of cryptic notes of his daily weight penciled on the bathroom wall would have been a real thrill. But my thoughts were focused on studying every obscure detail, hoping a five-letter word would jump out at me.
After I jotted down two pages of notes, my thoughts shifted to the fate of the Carnival and the situation in Key West. I felt a sense of lingering guilt for ignoring Willy’s order to return home, but learning something in Havana was critical.
“HIS BOAT,” the Pilar, was at the back of the property and also proved to be thought- provoking. I stood on its stern rubbing my fingers along the scarred wood of the gunwales. Was the letter true that Hemingway wrote to his editor, Max Perkins, in 1933? Was all my time searching in the Dry Tortugas—what’s this?
My finger traced a six-sided shape. Just like Fort Jefferson. Then I found an X—
“Oye!” The maid, a.k.a. caretaker, a.k.a. security guard stood below the boat, pointing to her wristwatch. “Vamanos!”
It was a half-hour past closing time, and she was kicking me out. I took a picture of the map carved into the wood. When I climbed down, something else under the name on the transom caught my eye: Key West, its port-of-call.
The dockmaster at the Bight had said the Carnival’s port-of-call was not painted on the boat. Another idea gave me pause. It took another rebuke from the caretaker to bring me back to the present. I filed the thought away until back in Key West.
I pocketed the notes, amazed at finding possible evidence of the gold Hemingway referenced to Max Perkins but no closer to solving the five-space key word for the missing cipher. Ivan Machado should be on duty by now. I just hoped his grandmother’s surprise gift would be a sufficient inducement for him to help me.
38
DURING THE CAB RIDE back to Havana Vieja, I mulled over some bothersome questions. Could Ortega’s connection with the Brothers to the Rescue be more than just familial? Could he have been Poquito’s operative against the Cuban regime? Could they have been captured by a Cuban patrol that then scuttled the Carnival and killed its passengers with an opportunistic crewman keeping Shaniqua’s phone? Would Willy ever confess Shaniqua’s interest in Santeria? Or his own?
The description of the occult religion in my library book included no mention of assault, blackmail or murder as standard operating p
rocedures. Animal sacrifices and incantations to influence the future were far removed from blowing someone’s head off and tossing them into the ocean.
Back at the hotel, I found a note under my door. “Mr. Reilly, Jimbo called to say your truck is missing in Cayo Hueso. Please call.”
My truck is missing? Truck Lewis?
I dug their cell number from my pocket. Surprisingly, the room phone worked. Jimbo answered with a shaky voice.
“Truck went to that dude’s place, the Sancho in Cayo Hueso? Said he’d be back in an hour. That was over four hours ago. Something ain’t right, man.” Truck had wasted no time going to confront Salvo but had made Jimbo stay behind to watch Chucky.
“Rodney getting killed has him crazy,” Jimbo said.
“You guys stay put. I’ll go to Cayo Hueso and check it out.”
“That’s just what Truck said.”
Pacing around the room led me to an idea. It was almost dinnertime. Downstairs, I found the same bartender from earlier. Yes, Ivan was here, he said before disappearing into the kitchen. I tapped my fingers on the bar until a man appeared at my side.
“Yo soy Ivan.”
Older than I expected, he was skinny and balding. There was no resemblance to the fat, white-haired José in Key West.
Once I told him who I was and discreetly passed him the envelope, his droopy eyes lit up. He didn’t open the envelope, but like me he must have calculated it to be something substantial. I tried to appear relaxed, but my heart was pounding double.
“Are you a chef?”
“No. But how you call it? I bust the tables. Dinner people come soon.”
I pulled the corner of a hundred-dollar bill halfway out of my pocket and asked if he could get the night off. The note, equivalent to a week’s pay, sent him running into the kitchen, pulling his apron off as he went.
My confidence grew at the prospect of a translator. I mentally thanked Abuela for sending me to her grandson. He nearly skipped back into the room holding a key aloft. A man in a dirty white apron followed him out and yelled something at Ivan, who saluted and then waved me onward.
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