Havana es-3

by Stephen Hunter

  Then, being ready for action, he went and found that action at the Senora Fugolensia's, and a good time was had by all. If the neighbors knew, they never told, for that is not the Cuban way. And if Senor Fugolensia, the assistant district manager for Dumois-Nipe, ever found out, there was no drama, no gossip, no fury. Everything was pleasant and relaxed, because everyone understood how it was in these matters. So the young man had a wonderful time, really, growing fat and sleek and lazy, until Havana seemed just a bad dream. He knew he would go back but, well…maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not until next week or the next, and when it came to pass that he was discovered, the agent of his betrayal was not a spy or a snitch or a traitor or an American gofer, but simple chance. One day the next week, Captain Latavistada and Frankie Carbine happened to be driving through Cueto, as they had been driving through all the dusty towns around Mayari, including Guaro and Alto Cedro and Felton and Antillas, and it was Frankie who happened to be looking a certain direction. He saw the young man sitting in a cafe.

  They followed him.

  Who could have predicted it? And the young man was laughing and tickling his older lady and wondering also when all this would be finished, and he didn't even notice the captain getting the Mendoza 7mm light machine gun out of the trunk of his car, while Frankie checked the magazine in the Star machine pistol. The young man was too busy thinking of love and destiny.

  Chapter 31

  It took a while, going through several operators and various connections and then, finally, she was not there. So he waited up in his room, feeling unpleasant about all this. He knew it was both right and wrong at once and that's what he hated so much about it. He knew this was an opportunity, that it could lead them to a better life, a life undreamed of, seen only in magazines. Yet he did not trust these men at all, not even a little bit. They wanted something too much. He hated that sense of the pressure against him, their wills, expressing themselves in small ways. It wasn't like the service. In the service you had orders, in the highway patrol you had procedures, and everything was what it was and no other thing, not really. This was different. Maybe what one boy said was the right move and maybe what another said, and if you guess wrong it all blew up in your face. It was all part of a world he'd never quite trusted, expressed in a secret language of gesture and pause and hint that he never quite understood. He didn't see how he could be comfortable in such a place. But there was the issue of family, too: if he could make a certain kind of success for himself and for them, if he could give his son opportunities, didn't he oweit to the boy? His old man had never given him shit for opportunities, and he wouldn't be like that. He'd die before he was like that. If nothing else, he would give the boy some opportunities.

  He tried again, though it was too soon. Back in Arkansas it would have been about 6:00 P.M.; she should be back home now, making supper for herself and the boy. But it was summer. The boy was out of school. He'd been in school when all this had begun, now he was out, as it was getting into late June. Who knew where they'd gone? Maybe they'd gone out for a little picnic or over to the Blue Eye drive-in, where the boy had the hot dogs and root beer that he loved so much. Maybe it was a church gathering or a―

  But she answered.

  The operator explained to her that it was long-distance from overseas and clicking and snapping filled the wire and then it was just the two of them.

  "Oh, hi," he said, "it's me," as if it could be anyone else.

  "Good lord, Earl, I jump six feet every time the phone rings. I was in the garden the last time and couldn't get here in time."

  "I'm sorry. It's these operators. She hung up too fast."

  "How are you? They called from the congressman's office and said you'd been hurt a little, but they didn't have any details. They said you were a hero and would get another medal. But they didn't say anything else. So I called Colonel Jenks and he didn't know either."

  "Sorry, I should have called. Yes, I was hurt some, but it wasn't a thing. I'm fine. I'm out of the hosp―"

  "The hospital!"

  "It's all better. I have a limp, but it'll go away."

  "Good lord, Earl, what happened?"

  "Oh, it was a law-enforcement situation, there was a little shooting, and I got nicked. It's nothing."

  "Earl, you never learn. Now you are risking your life for less than nothing, meaning that braying toad Harry Etheridge, whom I wouldn't trust any further than I could throw the Frigidaire."

  "Boss Harry is nothing to take home, you are right on that score."

  "Earl, you get back here. Your boy misses you terribly. He just looks out the window like a sad sack. I can't get him to play ball or anything. The last time you were gone for so long, he was so young he didn't really understand. Now he knows you're gone and I can see him hurting inside. He's getting quieter and quieter."

  "Well, see, that's the thing. As you know, Congressman Harry's gone home. But see, I have an opportunity here."

  "Oh, lord."

  "It's with the government. There's some work they think I can do for them. They like me, they've made me what looks like a right fine offer."

  "Earl, you are happy in Arkansas and so am I. You don't need anything from the government. Last time you worked for the government, you were shot seven times, all over the Pacific. I thought that was over, but now you're with the government and you've been shot again. And all so soon after the last time you were away-and it took a full year before you were fully yourself on that one, and God knows what you did, and not even Sam will tell me a word about it. You just say, as you always say, 'It was nothing.'"

  "Junie, it's the boy I'm thinking about. If I got a big job in Washington we could live in a much nicer place, he could go to better schools and have a life we can't dream of."

  "Yes, that's wonderful, it's all for Bob Lee, but it involves some kind of helling around and there'll be more shooting and in your heart of hearts that's what you love. You're an old dog so used to blood sport you still go all slobbery at the thought. I know you, Earl, but I also know that as big a hero as you are, you will run dry on luck one time out. Maybe the next time out. That boy doesn't need a hero, he needs a father. No boy can live up to a hero. He'll die trying and you'll already have died being one."

  "Junie, I have to take this chance. I'd be no good to myself if I didn't, honey. I won't wait so long to call the next time."

  "Oh, Earl," she said, "you never change. Not a bit, not in all these years. I love you."

  "I love you too, Junie."

  She hung up and the click sounded loud and far-off at once.

  He looked around, trying to chase the black dogs that nipped at him and made him hunger for a drink, because that was the sure thing that would chase them off. Only then they'd come back, meaner than ever. He knew he couldn't stay in the room, since it was still early and he could feel Havana somehow happening outside the walls.

  So he told himself he needed some air. He took the elevator down, just a big crewcut American in an old khaki suit and a white shirt and old Marine Corps brogues, and walked through the lobby, filled up with louder duplicates of himself, and out into the streets. Across the way, the Parque Central was jammed up with people who mingled this way and that or argued baseball or drank beer. They sure seemed happy. The Cubans loved to talk and drink and hug and smoke. He never saw a people that knew how to have a better time. He wandered a bit through the crowds and under the trees, thinking he might mosey over there to that Hotel Inglaterra where a party seemed to be going on, but then the crowd seemed to push him in a different direction, he left the park, he wandered down busy streets drawn by the sound of the jivey, fast-stepping Cuban music. Who could deny the magic of that stuff? All kinds of little bars and clubs seemed jammed up and swinging hard, full of revelers, and he tried to pick a one that he'd feel comfortable in. He wandered along cobblestones and didn't feel like going as far as the Bodeguita del Medio, and after a while he found a clean, well-lighted place called La Floridita that looked less Cuban tha
n the other places, more big-city America.

  In he went, finding himself in a dark hall that was all bar at one side and all people everywhere else, while a mambo crew wandered about, paying out that blood rhythm of the Cubano music. Earl took a reading and divined that he liked the place, that it was too crowded for problems and that there were enough Americans here so he would feel pretty much at home. He slipped through crowds of merrymakers until he found space at the bar. Some kind of party was going on and the place was full of action; he could feel whatever it was pounding in the air, loud as the music, a hum of drama. It was as if ballplayers were here, but they couldn't be, because it was the end of June, the season had been running near to three full months. Maybe movie people, but Earl didn't know anything about movie people, so none of the faces were recognizable to him. He turned his back on it, and when the barkeeper came up, in his red jacket and black tie, so fancy, Earl tried out his brothel Spanish to get a gin and tonic with no gin, but plenty of tonic. The cooling of the liquid helped some, and he had another pretend-drink, just minding his own business. Everyone seemed to be drinking milkshakes in cocktail glasses and behind the curved bar there was some kind of highly idealized view of the harbor as it must have looked from a conqueror's ship heading inward. It was somewhere along in here when he became aware that a new person was next to him, and that she was staring at him.

  He looked over.

  Well, sometimes it happens. She was what the boys would call a knockout. She was dark and brown, and he saw not Cuban, but some sort of Asian-Filipina, maybe. But she had white in her too, and something fierce in her eyes that he'd only seen in Japanese field-grade officers, a kind of bravado and swagger that just drew you in.

  "You're a big one," she said.

  "I happen to be, yes, ma'am."

  "Are you tough?"

  "What?"

  "I said, are you tough?"

  "Not really."

  "Damn."

  "What's the problem."

  "I've got this big guy pawing me. He won't take no for an answer. Coming here was a big mistake, but I can't seem to get away."

  "Ma'am, I can't fight him for you. It doesn't work that way. I don't need the trouble and people get hurt bad in fights. Best bet is call a cab and walk fast for it and he's probably too drunk to come after. Or have the barkeep call the cops."

  "You're a cop yourself, I can tell."

  "That's true. But I'm not on any kind of duty here. I'm just telling you what I think would work for you."

  "Yes, that would work in Manhattan. But this is Havana and this guy's a god around here. These cops and the barkeepers all love him."

  "Well, I could walk you out and get you a cab a block away. Don't want no trouble."

  But trouble, alas, was already there.

  Earl felt a hand on his arm, and he was spun around with just enough force to imply the possibility of violence, and he found himself staring into the square, handsome face of a large American male. The fellow looked like some kind of Viking, bronze and broad and incredibly alive with hostility, a gristle of white beard clinging to but not quite obscuring his pugnacious jaw.

  "Say, bub," the man said to him, "what the hell is going on here? Is he bothering you, Jean-Marie?"

  "No, he is not bothering me. You are bothering me. Please, I just want to get out of here."

  "You hear that, mister?" the man said. "You've upset the gal and she wants to leave. Who do you think you are, anyway?"

  Earl was aware immediately that this was a strange situation. Everybody was staring at him. A semicircle had formed around them, the music had stopped, even the clink of the glasses landing on the marble tabletops had stopped.

  "Sir, the lady asked me to call her a cab, that's all. I think I'll just go ahead and do that, if you don't mind."

  "Well, pal, it seems I do mind. Hmmm, don't we have a problem here though. It's called face. I'm bracing you so I can't back down, and you don't look like you've got much back-down in you either."

  "Sir, I don't want any trouble."

  A broad grin spread across the man's face, as if he'd just drawn better cards against good cards.

  "Do you know who I am?"

  "No, sir."

  "Sure you don't. You know, this happens to me all the time. Guys get lit up when they see me and they get all scratchy because they want to be the lion. So they come up to me. Oh, and when I don't back down, then all of a sudden they don't want to be the lion anymore. That's all right. I'm going to go easy on you. I'll just walk away with my female friend here and you go back to your little soda pop and it'll be―"

  "That'd be fine, sir, if that's what she wants."

  "I don't want to go away with you, Mr. Hemingway," said the Asian woman, Jean-Marie. "I want to stay here."

  "Well," said Earl, "there you have it."

  The big man looked Earl up and down.

  "I'm a boxer," he said.

  "Done some of that myself," said Earl.

  "I could flatten you in two seconds."

  "I don't think so."

  "Oh, well, I guess you showed me. Look, pal, let's part friends, okay?"

  And with that the man threw his punch. It was absurdly telegraphed, as he pivoted just a bit, cocked his right shoulder, cocked his arm, and set his right foot before launch. The big fist flew at Earl like some sort of softball pitch from a woman, and as it swept toward him, Earl almost cracked a smile.

  He ducked under it easily enough, then slipped an equally slow and oafish thing thrown with the left, where the man was not nearly as coordinated, and then Earl kicked hard, and both the man's legs flew out from under him and he hit the tiles with a crash. His arms and legs flew akimbo as he rolled, breathing hard, then he drew himself together as if to make another rush at Earl.

  Earl bent close.

  "Now, sir, I'd stay down. You could get hurt. I can use either my left or my right to work jabs into your middle and then knock you into 1965 with the other. I'll kill your guts so your hands quit and when they die, I'll kill your head. I don't want to go to no prison for breaking your jaw or nothing. You just stay put, and have a good laugh along with the rest of the folks."

  The man just glared at him, but made no move to get up.

  Earl stood, turned to the exotic woman and said, "You know, let's get you that cab."

  "Excellent idea," she said.

  They walked out hastily, pushing through the crowd that parted to let them by, turned left at the sidewalk, and soon separated entirely from La Floridita, down another nameless street, also choked with bars and people.

  "Who are you?" she said.

  "You wouldn't know the name. I'm nobody. Earl Swagger," he replied.

  "Oh!" She leaned back and appraised him. "The bodyguard. Yes, that's who you'd be, all right. You're the big hero. Everybody says you're joining the bright young men on the third floor."

  "I don't know what that means," Earl said.

  "Oh, you can't keep secrets here, in a little town like this one. Really, I'd have thought you're a little straight-ahead for those boys. They think they're really clever. I wouldn't get too close to them. Roger's all right, but that creepy little assistant of his? I hate the way he pretends like he's not paying attention but you can see him writing everything down in his subconscious."

  "Thank you for the advice."

  "And I have to know. You really didn't know who that man was?"

  "No."

  "Mr. Swagger, you are priceless. Really, I love it. Served him right, the blowhard. Hemingway. The writer. Famous, rich. He's a big fisherman and game hunter."

  "Seems I've heard the name," said Earl, trying to place it, "but I can't say where. Shotguns, is that it? He's some kind of shotgun expert."

  "I'm sure he is. Well, you made him look foolish."

  "I can't worry about that. He made himself look foolish." Earl scanned the street for a cab. "Look, there's one. Cab! Cabbie!"

  His command voice got through the babble and the cab pulled over.


  Earl escorted her to it, opened the rear door.

  "There you go," he said.

  "You're not even going to buy me a drink or wait for me to invite you over?"

  "Ma'am, I probably got myself in enough trouble back there. I don't need no other tonight."

  "No, I think the little boys you play with will think you're really cool. Not that you care. That's what I like about you, Mr. Swagger. You really don't care what people think, do you?"

  "To be honest, no, I guess I don't, ma'am."

  She reached in her purse, and pulled out a card.

  "Please don't call me ma'am. I'm not your great aunt. I'm Jean-Marie Augustine. I manage the TWA office here in town; my husband's a pilot, not that he's ever here. Anyway, this is a dangerous town, Mr. Swagger. I'm giving you my card. If you need a friend, you give me a call. I know people, I can make phone calls, I speak Spanish like it's my own language, because it is my own language. I can help you."

  "Thank you," he said, "but I'm not planning on staying around long."

  She laughed.

  "That's what I said when I got here ten years ago. Good night, Mr. Swagger."

  "Goodnight, Mrs. Augustine."

  "By the way, you belong on this street. This is the street where you live."

  "My street?"

  "Yes, look."

  She gestured to a painted sign on a building front right at the corner that identified the thoroughfare: Calle Virtudes, it said.

  "Kai-yay Ver-tude-ez," she said hard and fast, with a particularly forceful roll to the R's of Verrr-tude-ez.

  "What?"

  "It's the street where you live. I can tell."

  "I don't get it."

  "In English, it's Virtue Street."

  She smiled, closed the door and the taxi rolled away.

  Chapter 32

  "You go in back. If you see him, kill him. Shoot him many times. Stand over him and fill him with bullets. I will do the same from here."