Frame 232

by Wil Mara

  These people knew who Clemente was; of that he was certain. But they were feeling protective, like they were all members of the man’s personal security detail. Hammond was keeping notes and had already encountered several examples of blatant misinformation. The lead he was following now had sounded promising, as they all did at first—a tip from a punky-looking kid who said he knew a bartender who could tell Hammond everything he wanted to know. The bartender’s name was disseminated for twenty dollars. It cost Hammond another ten for directions to his place of employment.

  He emerged from the alleyway into a tiny courtyard. Several structures surrounded it, all in apparently operable condition. There was a neoclassical fountain in the center that looked as though it hadn’t functioned in ages. There were more people here too. A middle-aged couple enjoyed each other’s company at a candlelit café table under an archway, the man leaning back smoking a cigar, the woman holding a glass of wine. On the opposite side of the courtyard, two sun-leathered men sat on upturned crates, hunched over a game of chess, the board on a crate of its own. And there were children, in spite of the lateness of the hour, running around the fountain clad only in ratty cargo shorts, the outlines of their ribs clearly visible against the smooth brown of their skin.

  It took Hammond several moments to figure out which of the buildings housed the bar. The absence of posted address numbers only heightened his irritation, as did the fact that advertising of any kind was forbidden in this country. The only way you really knew what was where was by living here. Since he didn’t meet that criteria, logistics made even the most basic tasks tiresome. He wondered how a person could hope to accomplish anything in such a deliberately halting society.

  His destination, he finally determined, was a three-story building that looked like something out of an old spaghetti western. The triple-arched front porch supported a large balcony occupied by more café tables and more young couples unafraid to display their affections in public. The women wore bright salsa dresses, the men tight black pants and white silk shirts with broad-wing collars. Behind them stood a pair of open doors, and beyond that a formerly elegant dance hall now served as a discotheque. Hammond could not see this, but he could hear the pounding beat of Latin-flavored hip-hop and could see the swirling lights.

  As he approached, one of the young men began hurling expletives down. The girlfriend, perched on his lap, giggled and kissed him on the cheek. Hammond heard and understood every word but offered no response. The idiot was still crowing when Hammond went up the three brief steps and pulled the screen door open.

  The bar’s interior possessed as much character as the town around it. The carpet, still beautifully patterned in spite of being worn shiny, led to a long bar built from a dark and handsome wood of some exotic variety. The mirror behind it had become so aged that it offered no more than a pensive reflection. Crystal chandeliers hung from a high ceiling that had been smoke-cured to an inconsistent light brown. In the back, a spiral staircase ran up to the discotheque. Hammond could still hear the music through the ceiling, albeit in a mercifully muted form. It was further smothered by the more civilized danzón music that drifted through a handful of large and strategically spaced speakers on this floor.

  The crowd here was older than the adolescent herd upstairs. The men wore Panama hats to conceal their retreating hairlines; the women wore dresses that wrapped around their increasingly plump frames and makeup that, along with the poor lighting, made them almost desirable again. Some patrons were already thoroughly drunk, others well on their way. A few heads turned when Hammond entered, but most paid him no mind. The fact that there were other customers of Caucasian lineage was a contributing factor. This was something Hammond had also read about in his guides—American citizens who visited Cuba illegally, traveling through third-party countries and making sure their passports weren’t stamped by Cuban authorities, all to take advantage of the tropical clime, easy companionship, and perpetually desperate economy.

  Hammond found an unoccupied sliver of space at the bar and wedged himself in. A very young bartender, looking more respectable than any of his kin with slicked-back hair and a smart red vest, approached.

  “Qué se le ofrece?” What would you like?

  “Una Coca-Cola, por favor.”

  Some heads turned, and the boy paused. The confusion printed on his face seemed to say, You mean, without alcohol?

  As if to clarify, Hammond added, “En una lata o una botella, no abierta.” In a can or bottle, unopened. He didn’t particularly like soda, but he liked alcohol even less and had no intention of drinking anything that required tap water.

  The bartender gave a stoic nod and squidged off down the rubber mat. While he was gone, Hammond spotted the person he was looking for. At the other end, leaning on one elbow and chatting with customers, was a man in his early sixties. He was heavy around the waist and had dark hair that was too fine to control in such a humid environment; it ran in every direction. Like his young coworker, he was clad almost regally in pressed black pants, a white shirt, and a red vest with gold buttons. But the most arresting feature by far was the dark patch that covered his right eye.

  His younger colleague reappeared and set down the Coke, which came in a frosted can, along with a ridiculously small glass half-filled with ice.

  “How much?” Hammond asked, continuing with his excellent Spanish.

  “One,” came the reply, along with a raised finger.

  Hammond removed a five from his pocket and set it down, watching the boy’s face. There was an instant—fleeting but detectable—when the kid’s eyes widened at the sight of American currency.

  “You can keep the rest,” Hammond said, “but please do me one favor. The gentleman down there, with the eye patch. Would you ask him to come over here?”

  The boy nodded and snatched up the bill. When the older bartender turned to appraise Hammond, the person he’d been speaking with—a man of remarkable bulk—leaned over to get a look at Hammond for himself. Neither of them projected a particularly welcoming deportment. The bartender tossed one last remark to his friend, then pushed himself away and came forward at a leisurely pace.

  Upon his arrival, he set his hands well apart on the bar and said, “Qué quiere?” What do you want?

  “Information,” Hammond said. He had reached into his pocket and taken out another folded bill—a ten this time.

  The bartender’s good eye gave the note only the briefest acknowledgment. It was an impressive display of self-control when one considered the average salary in Cuba was about less than twenty dollars per month. “What information, exactly?”

  Hammond reached in again and took out a third bill—a twenty. This was shown in a flash, almost like a magician’s trick, then laid over the ten and kept under his palm.

  Again, the man seemed unmoved.

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  The bartender smiled. All the teeth were there, but it had been many years since they possessed their original color or positioning.

  “Many people come in here looking for someone,” he said.

  “I doubt many come looking for this one. His name is Olivero Clemente.”

  This time there was a reaction, one that managed to be subtle and dramatic at the same time. The man’s one eye narrowed while the eyebrow rose. The smile vanished, the mouth re-forming into a twisted expression of revulsion. And the man leaned back slightly, as if he’d just detected an unpleasant odor.

  Hammond had seen similar reactions earlier in the night. He knows, he thought. The kid I paid was right—he knows Clemente, and he knows him well.

  “I have nothing to tell you.”

  “You’re lying,” Hammond said. It came out too quickly and with too much acid, but he was past the point of caring.

  “What was that?”

  “I know you know him. I was told by others that you would know about him, know where I could find him. I insist that you tell me.”

  There was a brief pause
in their volley, during which the bartender gave Hammond a look of incredulity that said, Are you serious? Then he smiled again. “Good-bye, señor,” he said and began to turn away.

  Hammond reached over and grabbed him, a move so abrupt that several people gasped. The bartender turned back, clearly shocked, looking first at the hand holding him and then at its owner. The mountainous figure of a man that he had been speaking with earlier rose from his stool at the other end of the bar. Hammond was aware of this and of the fact that he was even larger than originally estimated.

  “It is most important that I speak with him,” Hammond said in a low, steady tone. “It may be a matter of life and death.”

  He released the bartender and went yet again to his pocket. His hand revealed five twenties this time, all neatly folded into little rectangles. It had occurred to him on the trip down that he should also bring a supply of fifties and hundreds, feeling they would be dazzling enough in their mere appearance to loosen even the tightest lips. But the guides had corrected his instincts—it was nearly impossible to change out American bills of such denominations.

  He pressed the twenties into the bartender’s hand. “Please, señor, whatever information you can give me . . .”

  The recipient stared at the money for a moment, almost as if unable to believe it was really there, then deposited it in his own pocket and leaned in close.

  Hammond’s heart began pounding. Here it comes.

  “It is you who may find yourself in a life-and-death situation,” the bartender whispered, “if you do not forget about this man.”

  Hammond’s face darkened with fury; he struggled against an instant, blinding-hot desire to physically harm another human being. Then a hand fell on his shoulder. He fully expected to find the monstrosity from the other side of the bar behind him. When he looked back, however, he found another kid, early twenties, with peach fuzz around his mouth and a lean, muscular body that was kept well displayed in a tank top one size too small.

  The ten-ton beast was there too, standing just behind the kid. “It’s time for you to go,” he said. There were others, too. An insta-gang, Hammond thought, and he noticed that the rest of the patrons were giving them a wide berth.

  He looked back at the bartender and said, “No disimule.” Stop pretending. Then he felt the tip of a blade poke into the flesh of his lower back.

  “Vamos,” the kid said. Let’s go. The rum on his hot breath blended pungently with the reek of his unwashed body.

  “Desaparécete,” Hammond replied without turning. Get lost.

  He was jerked away from the bar, arms slithering around him like tentacles. People began moving back, clearing a space for what would come next. Some lingered, eager to see. Others went off to find new stations, indifferent to what was obviously a common occurrence here.

  Amid the growing cheers, the ten-ton beast came forward and swung his cannonball fist into Hammond’s gut. Hammond doubled over with a groan, but since he was being held tight, he did not go down. His attacker moved in again and used a knee to deliver the second shot—to his face. Stars exploded in Hammond’s brain, and blood began running warmly out his nose and down his chin. The third blow, a punch to the jaw, felt like a cinder block. Hammond was released and allowed to drop to the floor. Dazed and breathless, he remained flat on his stomach as the crowd laughed and pelted him with obscenities. He struggled onto all fours and watched the blood drip onto the carpet. Finally he got to his feet. The bartender with the eye patch was still there, his face impassive.

  The kid with the knife came behind once again. “Now, let me show you to the door.”

  “I know where it is,” Hammond shot back, grabbing a pile of napkins from the bar and pressing them against his nose. He pushed his way out and cut through the courtyard with long strides as the delinquents on the balcony began berating him again. One took a lime from his drink and tossed it down, where it missed its target by no more than a foot and bounced away.

  On the floor above the balcony, through the louvered shade of a private room, a pair of eyes followed Hammond as he went around the dead fountain, reached the mouth of the alley, and disappeared.

  31

  STANDING IN FRONT of his dresser mirror, Rydell tried again to get his tie just right. This was the third attempt, and after feeding it through the knot and pulling it down, he felt his blood pressure surge as the front flap fell two inches short of the narrow strip in the back.

  He undid it in a mad flurry and whipped it onto the floor, cursing vividly. Then he took several deep breaths and sat on the edge of the bed. The sheets were in a swirled mess behind him. It was a rare morning when Rydell left his bed unmade, but then it was rare for the sheets to have been twisted into such a state in the first place. He was a sound sleeper who barely moved during the night. He’d had mornings when he literally peeled the sheets back, got up, and with a single motion returned them to a made position.

  Last night had been a very different affair, maybe one of the least restful nights of his life. He’d lain there for hours, eyes aimed at the ceiling, replaying Sheila Baker’s answers over and over in his mind. Each was more chilling than the last, thrusting lancets of fear into his eroding psyche. They have all the pieces of the puzzle now. All they need to do is locate the man who can put them together. He wondered again if Galeno Clemente was really still alive, still out there somewhere. Even if he wasn’t, what about the brother? Surely Hammond would find him. How much did he know? Some of it? All of it? Hammond is the key. You have to act, and you know what needs to be done. There are no remaining options.

  He rose from the bed and scooped up the tie, and his thoughts flowed back to the woman. He was deeply relieved he had retracted the green light for Birk to eliminate her. The man had all but begged, but Rydell had said to hold off and simply mind her for a while. Rydell’s intuition had told him she might still have some value. That had turned out to be most prescient, as half the nation was now trying to figure out where she was. If Birk had slipped up and Baker’s body had been found somewhere . . . that could’ve been a problem.

  Rydell began working on the tie again. Take care of Hammond, the voice in his mind pressed, and you’ll be in the clear. He wasn’t even certain he wholeheartedly believed this, but what else was there to do?

  When the tie came together at last, he relocated to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. He had never been particularly fond of it, but he knew he’d have no chance of getting through this day without at least one cup. He checked his watch—7:04. Still plenty of time. He downed the cup in three gulps, then went into his den and got behind his desk. The e-mail address he needed was on his personal computer, buried in an invisible folder and then a password-protected file. He hadn’t used it or even thought about the owner of it in years.

  He prayed it was still valid.

  Police Chief Gilberto Diaz sat behind his antique desk filling out paperwork when a knock came at the door. He was dressed impeccably, as always, in his Policía Nacional Revolucionaria uniform—short-sleeved gray shirt with epaulets, dark cotton trousers, and patent-leather jackboots. A matching black beret with insignia sat off to the side of his desk, along with his sidearm. He looked starched and clear-eyed, every hair in place. He was only four years shy of sixty, yet his stately gray mane was thick and lush and exhibited no signs of diminishing. It seemed the perfect metaphor for everything else about the man, whose unblemished complexion and full frame seemed to radiate health and vigor.

  He called out, and the door opened. The two men who walked in were junior officers, each on the force less than a year. They patrolled the central region of Matanzas, in the area around the Palacio de Junco. It was not uncommon for writers, musicians, painters, and other creative types to gather there and commiserate about the government’s limitations on their respective crafts. One individual in particular, a homeless and streetwise poet named Enrique Sardina, had crystallized into a natural agitator, stirring up the kind of passions the Cuban government wo
rked so hard to smother. Diaz had sent these two officers to bring him in for questioning and, his answers notwithstanding, incarceration.

  Diaz stood and walked around to the front of his desk, a sheaf of papers and a pen held in the same hand. “En qué puedo ayudarlos?” he asked, smiling. What can I help you with?

  The men exchanged nervous glances. Then one said balefully, “Lo localizaron hace una hora.” He was spotted an hour ago.

  “And?”

  “And we pursued him . . . but he got away.”

  Diaz looked from one to the other, his eyes giving no indication as to the thoughts that lay behind them.

  “We apologize,” the second officer said sheepishly. They bowed their heads toward the checkerboard-tile floor, the shame like a rash on their faces.

  “Well, it is disappointing,” Diaz told them, his smile retreating only slightly, “but it is the way it goes sometimes. I have every confidence you will secure his capture tomorrow or the next day.”

  Their astonishment was as plain as the fear had been a moment earlier. The younger of the two, an adolescent-looking boy named Javier whom Diaz had recruited personally, stared at the man with worshipful adoration.

  “We will, sir,” he said, snapping to attention. “You will be pleased.”

  “I’m sure I will. All right, you are both dismissed.”

  “Thank you, sir,” they said in unison, then strode out with military stiffness.

  They are in awe of me, Diaz thought as he walked back to his chair. All of the boys. And this was the truth—all the officers under his direct command, most of them still in their twenties, treated him with the kind of easy, willful respect that only came from true affection. The secret, he had told himself a thousand times, was to give a little every now and then, loosen the leash. So many of his equals did not understand this. Cracking the whip every moment of the day might be an alternative method of harvesting respect, but it was respect of the anemic, fear-based variety, and that usually came back to haunt you. If you made the effort to show a little kindness, you never had to worry about having your throat cut. Even with those above him, from his bosses at the Ministry of the Interior to friends he had made through the years at the Council of State, he had always known when to push forward and when to pull back. The real key to his survival, however, had been the simple fact that he went out of his way not to make enemies.