“Scum of the earth,” Guevara spat out the window.
“Do you intend to execute the homosexuals?”
“No,” he said curtly. “El Comandante”—Che’s very first reference to Castro, Blackford noted—“has decided to send them to rehabilitation centers.”
“And the pimps?”
“They will be—they are being—executed.”
“And the prostitutes?”
“Prostitution is now forbidden.”
“As it is forbidden in Russia?”
“I have been to Russia, Caimán. There are no prostitutes in Russia.”
Blackford thought it wise to let it go; go along with the fiction that communism had eliminated paid sex. Almost let it go. “As there is no alcoholism.”
“That is a cultural problem. The Russians have always had that problem. Peter the Great complained about it.”
Blackford said nothing.
They drove in silence through Zanja, and in due course Guevara resumed describing the parts of Havana they traversed. But his narrative had somehow become routinized, though from time to time he would pass along an animadversion about how-it-used-to-be under the Yanqui-backed Batista government, with all the corruption, and the sloth, the bribery, the repression. Blackford said nothing, but he felt he must ask the crucial question, touch on it …
“Che, is Premier Castro encouraging our exchange?”
Che drew on his fresh cigar. He whispered to Catalina and again Blackford could not tell whether Cecilio could overhear it. To Blackford Che said, “Fidel Castro is the undisputed leader of the Cuban revolution. I would not undertake anything that would damage it. Or him.” Again Che was pensive for a few moments.
But by the time they had come to the harbor he was again aroused, and told of plans to nationalize the fishing industry and make it more efficient. “There are great resources out there,” he said pointing to the ocean. “All of Cuba could subsist on the fish that die of old age.”
Blackford counted eight cargo ships in the crowded, oily harbor, half of them Russian, the other half of Panamanian or Costa Rican registry. Around the northeast end of the harbor he was shown the most resplendent of the prerevolutionary beaches. “All these residences,” Che said proudly, “are inhabited now by the workers.”
“And the big houses?”
“They are occupied by the cadre.” Pause. “Fidel ordered many of his associates, and many of the men and women with … heavy responsibilities to occupy them.” Pause. “I myself live in an apartment. But that is a matter of personal choice. Fidel does not tell me where to live.”
“Of course.”
And they were back, the two buses driving up to the front entrance of their cottage, which Blackford and Cecilio now regularly referred to as the Walden-Hilton.
The bodyguards milled about awkwardly, at a distance of no more than twenty yards. Blackford spoke:
“We are most obliged to you, Che. That was a most interesting tour. Would you care to come in? We can offer you only a rum or a vodka.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Yes, I guess I knew that. We also have coffee and tea, and whatever else Manuel can concoct that you might want?”
“No. Not today.” Afterthought: “Thank you.”
“When will we meet again?”
“I must go over your comments today and think about them. Tomorrow, no. Tuesday, perhaps.”
“Might it be possible for Velasco and me to go out again tomorrow? Perhaps with Major Bustamente?”
“What would you want to see?”
“Perhaps visit the museum, the library; perhaps to lunch out, somewhere not conspicuous, perhaps the Floridita.”
“You have a good knowledge of Havana. Did you fly a U-2 over the city before arriving?”
“No. I helped with the invasion, and we needed to put together a tourist guide for the conquistadores. I mean, for the imperialist conquistadores.”
Che cocked his head, as he looked at Blackford in concentration. There was, once again, one of his short pauses. Blackford had gambled, but apparently he had won.
“You may go—with Bustamente—wherever you like. I mean, Caimán, wherever you like within reason.”
“You are very hospitable. I will need to send another message to Washington tomorrow. Perhaps before the tour. May I urge you to move expeditiously at our meeting on Tuesday on the matters central to my … mission? Which is,” Blackford said this deferentially, “after all, to implement your own suggestions of last August.”
Che nodded his head. “Hasta luego, Caimán.”
Eighteen
That night Blackford instituted a new social convention at the Walden-Hilton. “I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of this before,” he said to Cecilio as he lifted the round aluminum table from the veranda over his shoulders, two of its legs jutting out, one each over his shoulders, his left hand dragging the chair along the beach. Cecilio carried his own chair, and with his right hand a basket with the ice, the canned fruit juice, and the bottle of rum. Alejandro, although he had become energetically amiable after Che Guevara’s second visit, did not volunteer to help with the logistics of the CIA’s Happy Hour on the Beautiful Downtown Beach of Havana. He obliged by coming to a halt and settling down a good five yards before the usual twenty-yard interval, leaving them perfectly secure for freewheeling talk.
The chairs dug in, never mind the rickety angles caused by the sand. The table on which the two glasses, ice, and cans were laid out sank home, finding the bedrock. The drinks poured, they sat and talked about Che Guevara and the afternoon’s experience. “Did you,” Blackford wanted first of all to know, “catch any of the comments whispered by Guevara to Catalina?”
“No,” said Cecilio, looking down at the sand. “He—he spoke too—softly and whatever little bits I could almost hear were in a kind of private code between them.”
“I was afraid so. A pity. It would be nice to know what his perspective is right now.”
“You asked him the crucial question”—Cecilio pried the subject away from what Guevara had said to Catalina—“the question about Castro, and what his position is toward our negotiations.”
“You noticed his reply? If I were a Philadelphia lawyer, I’d be a little suspicious. He said he would never do ‘anything’ to hurt Castro. Okay, so he is negotiating in effect with the President of the United States on a deal which, if the deal is brought off, he, Che, is certain will ‘help’ Castro. But that doesn’t mean, does it, that Castro knows about the negotiations?
“Second point: He said he would never do anything that Fidel would not approve of. Well, that doesn’t tell us, right away—does it?—that Castro has approved the outline of the deal? What it tells us is that Che won’t end up doing anything Castro disapproves of. Well, he’s hardly in a position to do anything Castro disapproves of, is he? Castro would not necessarily ‘disapprove’ of his talking to us, on the understanding that nothing that comes out of these discussions is binding on Castro. So, Che may be reasoning: I have on my own initiative undertaken negotiations, the successful resolution of which would in my judgment help Cuba and be approved of by Castro.
“And that,” said Blackford, raising his glass, “is not the same as saying, ‘I am talking to you on orders of Fidel Castro to discuss a deal the outlines of which Fidel Castro has approved.’” Blackford brought his glass to his lips. “Let us, Cecilio,” he said in mock gravity, “toast to the beauty of Euclidean analysis.”
Cecilio, flicking his cigarette out to sea, said, “The Spanish are not greatly moved by Euclidean logic. Euclidean logic does not add up to Christianity. Fidel Castro is a failed Christian. He is not a logician. Why would he want to hurt his people as much as he has done?”
“Because he can only exercise the kind of power he wants to exercise by assuming absolute power, and you can’t do that without getting in the people’s way.”
“There are other ways to exercise power. Francisco Franco has all the power he
needs. No one can threaten Francisco Franco. But life under Franco is tolerable—if you do not try to unseat him.”
“But Franco does not have absolute power. And Fidel Castro insists on absolute power.”
“Then why would he negotiate at all with the United States?”
“It does not dilute his power, does it, to negotiate? If he gets what he wants?… Anyway, you must go again to the Swiss Embassy tomorrow, but this time with a detailed cable. McCone knows all of us have reservations about Guevara. Let him in on our thinking. If it’s okay with you, Cecilio, I’ll leave out your sunburst that Castro is, really, a Christian by temperament, and therefore not logical.”
“Perhaps you should not send the cable at all at this point, Blackford. Wouldn’t it be better to communicate after we are more sure than we are now?”
Blackford admired the two or three early stars that appeared around them. They seemed to have energized a soft wind in happy celebration of the stellar legions’ incipient liberation from darkness. He paused to consider Cecilio’s point, and wondered that he could not get at its analytical root.
“No, I think they should have our thoughts on this right away. We can give them our modified thinking as it develops. After all, we have a perfectly secure channel.”
Cecilio said nothing.
After dinner, Velasco took from the coffee table several of the magazines he had bought at a kiosk during their afternoon tour and told Blackford he intended to go to bed early, and would retreat now to his room. Blackford was rummaging in his portable library in his suitcase, and came up with a slender volume in hand.
“Before you go,” he said reading the title of his new book, “what is La Ratonera?”
“‘La ratonera’ is the mousetrap.”
“Oh. Sure. That’s the Agatha Christie that’s been playing in London for something like ten years. Actually I saw it once. But it doesn’t matter—I don’t remember the plot. Good night, Cecilio.”
In his room Velasco lay on his bed, smoking. By the time he had put out his third cigarette he knew what he would do. “God help me,” he whispered as he heard Blackford’s typewriter tapping out the cable for the next day. All-important, until it was well over, for Blackford not to know. If it didn’t work out—especially if he was caught—Blackford must be ignorant of the circumstances. Moreover, Blackford might not approve. And in some matters, never mind that Velasco was subordinate on this mission to Blackford, he felt more experienced. He set his alarm for six. Blackford regularly rose at about seven to take his run along the beach.
At six Velasco went into the living room. He reached into the jacket pocket of Blackford’s light gabardine jacket and, as he expected he would, came on Blackford’s typewritten cable. It contained all the political and formal speculation he had ventilated the evening before on the beach.
He put it back, put a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter, and began to hunt and peck. A few minutes later Blackford appeared, wearing pajama bottoms and yawning, “What gets you up at this hour, and what are you doing on the typewriter?”
“A letter to an old friend in San Antonio. I’ll ask the Swiss ambassador to send it in the pouch to Switzerland and mail it from there. Sorry it woke you.”
“Doesn’t matter. Did you know, Cecilio, that the detective—his name was Trotter—wasn’t really a detective but was—get this—the murderer! They tell you that, in London after ten years of The Mousetrap—it’ll probably run twenty years—they figure every American tourist is bound to see it. So if a taxi driver feels you haven’t tipped him enough, he’ll say to you as he drops you off at the theater, ‘By the way, guv’nor, the detective is really the killer. Don’t let Trotter fool you.’”
Velasco laughed and turned back to the typewriter. He wrote, after the usual designation code, “GUEVARA AND TRANSLATOR TOOK ME AND VELASCO ON INTERESTING TOUR OF CITY. MANY WAITING LINES, OBVIOUS SCARCITIES OF ALL GOODS. GUEVARA SEVERAL TIMES ADVERTED TO THE DAMAGE DONE BY THE BLOCKADE, BUT NO SPECIFIC PROGRESS BEING MADE ON NEGOTIATIONS. HE SAYS HE CANNOT SEE US TODAY, MONDAY, BUT WILL ATTEMPT MEETING ON TUESDAY SO THAT NEXT COMMUNICATION WILL PROBABLY BE ON WEDNESDAY. OAKES.” He folded the sheet of paper and put it in an envelope in his pocket.
After breakfast Joe Bustamente arrived, as ever with good cheer. He asked if Velasco was ready. Velasco said he was, and turned to Blackford for the cable. Blackford reached into his jacket over the chair, picked out the envelope and handed it to Velasco, who put on his blue cotton jacket, like those most Cubans wore these days, ever since Castro had mounted his “blue” campaign, emulating Mao’s green. He had asked Alejandro, last week, to buy him one. He walked out the door.
In Ambassador de Keller’s office he bowed and was shown a chair while the ambassador gave his instructions over the telephone to his secretary. “It won’t be a minute, Señor Velasco.”
“No trouble at all,” Velasco said. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Certainly not,” said de Keller, lighting up his own cigarette.
“Forgive me if I ask you,” Velasco said, “but there may be a need to send a further message later on today. What are the hours when transmission is possible?”
“You mean when Pedro Nogales is here?”
“Yes.”
“We shut down between twelve and two. Nogales goes home for lunch. He lives nearby.”
“And after that?”
“He is here from two until six. In an emergency we can call him over. Or, the deputy knows how to use the codes. You can always leave your messages for transmission after Nogales comes in.”
“My principal does not like that practice.”
“Well then, you are perfectly welcome to wait here until Nogales arrives,” said the ambassador, with the air of everybody-has-his-own-peculiar-habits.
There was a knock. It was Nogales, who greeted Velasco and asked whether he should merely take his message.
“Thank you,” Velasco smiled at the ambassador. “I shall accompany you.”
In the intelligence community questions are not asked about other people’s security habits.
In the code office, Velasco reached into his pocket and pulled out the envelope with his own bland, uninformative message, and handed it to Nogales. While he opened the envelope Velasco’s eyes moved as he concentrated on the office, looking for whatever it was that years of training had taught him to register, even as a magnetometer measures magnetic intensities. He spotted the papers on the desk.
“Excuse me, Señor Nogales. It suddenly occurs to me there is a sentence that needs to be added to the communication. Might I have it back?”
“Certainly.”
Velasco inclined in the direction of the desk, then paused, in a posture that clearly solicited permission to proceed.
“By all means,” Nogales said. “Sit down, use the desk.”
Velasco nodded his thanks, placed the ersatz message in front of him and crouched over it, pen in hand. It was a matter of seconds. An electrical utility bill sat there on top of the heap. Mailed to Pedro Nogales, Apartamento 8A, Séptima Avenida No. 81, Miramar, Habana. To the cable he added, “ON THE OTHER HAND HE IS UNPREDICTABLE SO YOU MAY HEAR AGAIN BEFORE THAT.”
He thanked Nogales, left the embassy, and was returned by Bustamente to the cottage. Blackford was at the beach, the guard as usual sitting behind him with his improvised parasol.
Now! Velasco said to himself. He scratched out a note. “Blackford: Am making the rounds. Cover for me as necessary—I am theoretically in my room. Will be back sometime early afternoon.” He grabbed from his briefcase what appeared to be an antique letter opener in a velvet case. That and his map of Havana. He ascertained that the guard was still at the beach, his back to the cottage, and walked nonchalantly out, back toward the driveway and then away from the beach, through the hotel property, to Primera Avenida. He would take no pleasure in executing a double agent, though he supposed that if people deserved to die, double agents should head the list. But he could not counten
ance continuing interception of their cables to Washington. Nor initiate a protest to Che Guevara that could only be substantiated by revealing that he had overheard Guevara’s own private conversations with his aide. There was only this one way to go, and it was a way in which he had, under other auspices, been trained. He flagged a taxi and gave him an address.
Séptima Avenida ran through a middle-class residential area, a street so narrow the sun never really got at it. Velasco sauntered toward that end of it that edged, a few blocks farther down, into the beginning of the diplomatic district. The end through which Pedro Nogales would naturally come to on his way to his lunch. The end through which he would pass to return to his office. It was exactly noon. Either it must be done now, or else after Nogales’s lunch. Velasco’s practiced eye looked at the half block before the entrance to No. 81. There was a fruit stand. A liquor stall.
No good. He walked hastily into the apartment building. There was very little light. The elevator was of the antique kind, enclosed by glass and brass grillwork that had not been polished in years. Not exactly private, but then from inside the elevator one could see up one floor if there were others waiting to step into it. He looked up the elevator shaft, and at the old sundial-style indicator registering the floor at which the elevator nestled. There were ten floors.
Cecilio Velasco made up his mind. He walked up to the eighth floor, studying the building’s configuration. To the left of the elevator, in every case, was apartment A. Ahead of it, Apartment B. To the right, Apartment C. Behind it, Apartments D and E. He stopped outside Apartment D on the eighth floor, took out a notepad and bent over it, as if writing a note to leave outside the door of someone not home. Cigarette in his mouth, hat tilted over his face, he waited.
He calculated that it would be very soon. He would be deterred only if two people stepped out of the elevator together. At thirteen minutes past the hour he saw the elevator cable rising. He stared down through the grilled grate. The elevator stopped two or three floors below. Good. One less possibility of extra traffic. It resumed its rise and it was between the seventh and eighth landings when Velasco could see that the elevator carried a single passenger.
See You Later, Alligator Page 13