by Dan Simmons
“Sí señor.”
DRIVING BACK FROM THE FUNERAL in the rain and evening gloom, Hemingway said, “Tell me one reason I shouldn’t hunt down Lieutenant Maldonado.”
“Because he might not be the one who did it,” I said.
Hemingway had glared at me. “Who else could it be? You told me last week that Agent Twenty-two was following Caballo Loco.”
“Don’t call him that,” I said.
“Caballo Loco?”
“Agent Twenty-two.”
“Who else could it be but Maldonado?” demanded the writer.
I had looked away from the rain-streaked windshield. “I told Santiago not to follow him… or anyone… while we were away. I don’t think he would have done it after I ordered him not to.”
“He must have been carrying out surveillance on somebody,” said Hemingway.
I shook my head. “That road where Octavio found him goes to the shacks where he used to live when his mother was alive. The Negro said that Santiago used to go out there sometimes to sleep when things in the city got too crazy.”
Hemingway drove for several minutes in silence. “Lucas,” he said at last, “who else would have killed the boy?”
“I’ll tell you later,” I said.
“Tell me now or forget the fucking later,” said the writer. “Tell me who you are and who you work for and who you think might have killed that boy, or get out of the fucking car now and don’t come back to the finca.”
I hesitated. If I told Hemingway any of what he’d asked for, I would no longer be working for the FBI or the SIS. The wipers slapped back and forth on the windshield. The heavy rain on the taut convertible top of the Lincoln sounded much as the rain had on the boy’s coffin. I realized that I no longer worked for the FBI or SIS.
“I’ve been working for the FBI,” I said. “J. Edgar Hoover sent me down here to spy on you and to report back to him through a liaison.”
Hemingway pulled over to the side of the road. Trucks splashed past us. He turned sideways on the front seat and watched me as I spoke.
I told him about Delgado. I told him the background on Teddy Schlegel and Inga Arvad and Helga Sonneman and about Johann Siegfried Becker. I described the Abwehr and FBI money drops to Lieutenant Maldonado and his superior, Juanito the Jehovah’s Witness. I told him about my contacts with the BSC’s Commander Fleming on my way to Cuba and with the OSS’s Wallace Beta Phillips once I arrived. I told him about the rifle shot during the fireworks attack on his neighbor Steinhart’s party and about the second radio transmission I had intercepted during our trip to the tourist cave.
“What does the second one say?” demanded Hemingway, his voice flat.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s in a numerical code I’ve never seen before. I don’t think we were meant to decrypt it.”
“Are you implying that we were supposed to intercept and decode the first transmission… the one about the two agents landing next Thursday?”
“I think so,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Hemingway looked out past the thrashing wipers. “They’re all circling around us—the FBI, maybe ONI, your British group… what’s its alphabet soup?”
“BSC,” I said. “I think so.”
“OSS,” continued Hemingway. “German intelligence…”
“Both branches, I think,” I said. “Abwehr and RSHA AMT IV.”
“I haven’t a fucking clue about that,” said the writer. “I didn’t know that there were two branches of German intelligence.”
“I know,” I said. “You really don’t know shit about any of this.”
He glared at me. “But you do?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Why are you telling me all this now?” demanded Hemingway. “And why the fuck should I believe anything you say, since everything you’ve told me until now has been a lie?”
I answered only his first question. “I’m telling you because they killed the boy,” I said. “And because they’re setting us up for something that I don’t understand.”
“Who killed the boy?”
“It could have been Maldonado,” I said, “If Santiago was careless and the lieutenant knew he had been followed, Caballo Loco could have waited until we were gone, followed the boy out to those shacks, and cut his throat.”
“Who else?” demanded the writer.
“Delgado could have done it.”
“An FBI man?” Hemingway’s voice was contemptuous. “I thought that you fucking draft dodgers only shot other draft dodgers.”
“Delgado is… a special case,” I said. “If he’s who I think he is, he’s killed other people. And I’m not sure who he’s working for anymore.”
“You think he’s gone over to the krauts?”
“Possibly,” I said. “The German intelligence networks in this hemisphere aren’t worth shit, but they have lots of money. They could buy a mercenary like Delgado.”
“Who else could it have been, Lucas? Who else could have done that to the boy?”
I shrugged. “Schlegel, although he doesn’t seem the type. Schlegel could have paid one of the Germans or German sympathizers around Havana to do it. Helga Sonneman could have done it—”
“Helga?”
I went into more detail on the woman’s dossier.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” muttered Hemingway. “Does everyone know Hitler and his pals on a personal basis?”
“Even your guests,” I said.
“My guests?”
“Ingrid Bergman’s met him,” I said. “Remember? And Dietrich was approached by German intelligence to work for them.”
“And she told them to go fuck themselves.”
“So she says.”
Hemingway showed his teeth. “I don’t like you, Lucas. I really don’t like you.”
I said nothing.
After a moment of silence—even the rain had stopped—he said, “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kick your lying ass out of the car now and shoot you if you ever come near the finca or my kids again.”
“I’ll give you one,” I said. “Something complicated is unraveling here. Someone wants you to intercept those two agents being landed on the thirteenth.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But there’s a complex game going on, and your pissant Crook Factory is being used as a pawn in it. I think you’ll need my help.”
“So that you can report everything to J. Edgar Hoover?”
“I’m finished with that,” I said flatly. “I’ll still be reporting, but nothing important is going to the Bureau until we get this worked out.”
“And you think this is dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“For Gigi and Mouse, or just to me and you?”
I hesitated. “I think that everyone around you right now is at risk.”
Hemingway rubbed his chin. “The FBI would actually kill an American citizen and his family? His friends?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Hoover prefers to destroy people through leaks, innuendo, blackmail, and the IRS. But we don’t even know for sure that the danger is coming from the Bureau. The British are involved here somewhere, as are the OSS and both branches of German intelligence.”
“Estamos copados,” said Hemingway. “We’re surrounded.” He liked the sound of that phrase, I knew, but this time his voice was very serious.
“Yes,” I said.
He got the Lincoln back on the Central Highway and drove us back to the Finca Vigía.
I WENT INTO THE MAIN HOUSE before driving to the rendezvous with Delgado. Hemingway was in the living room, in his flowered chair next to the tray-table full of bottles and glasses. There was a large black cat on his lap and eight or ten more lying on the carpet nearby. I saw that he had opened at least one can of salmon and two small tins of sardines. Hemingway was holding a glass of what looked to be straight gin on his knee. From his rock-steady gaze and molded exp
ression, I knew that he was very drunk.
“Ah, Señor Lucas,” he said. “Have I formally introduced you to my dearest friends, los gatos?”
“No,” I said.
“This dark beauty is Boissy D’Anglas,” said Hemingway, stroking the back of the purring cat’s head. “And you know Friendless. And that smaller one is named Friendless’s Brother, although he’s a she. And that is Tester, and the skinny one is Tester’s kitten, a wonder cat. And the chubby one at the edge of the carpet there is Wolfer, and next to him is Good Will, named after Nelson Rockefeller, our esteemed goodwill ambassador to this poor, ignored gaggle of insignificant countries south of the great and powerful Estados Unidos.
“Friendless has been drinking milk and whiskey along with me all morning, Lucas, but he has had enough and so will not perform for you now. Cats do not perform for anyone, Lucas. Did you know that? They just do what they damn well please, but will drink whiskey with milk for you if they love you and if they damn well please at that moment. And, oh, this is Dillinger, named after the dead gangster with the big cock, of course. I think the name gave him a superiority complex, but no longer… Marty had Dillinger and the other males neutered when we were out on our first sub patrol. Did you know that, Señor Lucas, Señor spy Lucas, Señor informer Lucas?”
I heard your brawl, I thought. I heard you screaming at her and she at you. I said nothing.
Hemingway grinned. “Bitch.” He rubbed Boissy’s neck. “Not you, baby. I sent her a cable today, Lucas. Marty. Didn’t know where the fuck she is now, so I sent copies to Haiti, Puerto Rico, Saint Thomas, Saint Barts, Antigua, Bimini, and all the other stops on her fucking agenda. Want to know what the cable said?”
I waited.
“It said ARE YOU A WAR CORRESPONDENT OR WIFE IN MY BED?” Hemingway nodded as if satisfied, set the black cat delicately on the carpet, and stood carefully to pour three more fingers of gin. “Want a drink, Special Agent Joe Lucas?”
“No,” I said.
“Conceited bitch,” said the writer. “Calls Operation Friendless rot and rubbish. Says we’re all jerking off. Says I haven’t written a word worth reading since I finished For Whom the Bell Tolls. Bitch, I said. They’ll be reading my stuff long after the worms have finished with you, I said.” He sat down, took a drink, and squinted at me. “Did you want something, Lucas?”
“I’m going to town,” I said. “Taking the car.”
Hemingway shrugged. “Sure you don’t want a drink?” he said.
I shook my head.
“If you don’t want to drink good gin with me,” he said pleasantly, “I could arrange to get you some cold tea. Or you could drain a bucket of snot and then suck the puss out of a dead nigger’s ear.” He smiled again and gestured toward the table covered with liquor bottles, ice buckets, and glasses.
“No thanks,” I said, and went out of the living room, out the door, across the terrace, and down to the car parked in the drive.
ON THE WAY INTO TOWN, trying not to rehearse the imminent meeting and possible confrontation with Delgado for the thousandth time, I thought about Maria.
I had not told the whore about the boy’s death, of course, but Maria seemed to sense that something was wrong all last evening and had been quiet and sensitive to my need to be alone. When I had tried to sleep, she had lain on the cot next to mine, her hand touching my cot but not me, her eyes watching me as I stared at the ceiling. When I rose to go up to the guest house and work on my idiot memo to J. Edgar Hoover, she had found my canvas sneakers and my denim shirt, bringing each without a word and looking at me with sad eyes. For an instant then, I had imagined what it would be like to be a normal human being, sharing one’s sadness with another, talking about things that ate one to the marrow. I had shaken off that thought the night before with whiskey and my fantasy memo to the Director, and now I shook it off as the twin smokestacks of the Havana Electric Company came into sight down the Central Highway.
The .38 was on the seat next to me. It was uncomfortable driving with it against my back. I had loaded an extra cartridge in the chamber I usually left empty under the hammer and put half a dozen extra cartridges in the pocket of my vest. That last was almost certainly a silly gesture: if Delgado and I had things to settle today, they would be settled before I needed to reload. But then again, it was always better to carry extra ammunition and not need it than to… etc., etc.
I parked the car in Old Havana and started the six-block walk to the safe house. I should arrive right at the appointed time.
Wallace Beta Phillips had been accurate, of course, in his assessment of what had happened that night on Simón Bolívar Street in Veracruz, Mexico. The two Abwehr agents had arrived ninety minutes before the rendezvous time and positioned themselves in the front room to ambush me. By that time, I had been there, hidden in the closet just inside the hallway, for almost two hours. Phillips had mentioned that one of the neighbors had seen “a child throwing a rock” at the front door just before the shooting began. It had not been a child but a fifty-three-year-old barfly dwarf named El Gigante whom I had paid one hundred and fifty pesos to throw the rock and run like hell.
Today I would not be arriving early.
The .38 pressed into the small of my back, but the way I had it rigged, Delgado should not be able to know it was there unless he searched me. The vest was loose, and I had practiced reaching under it and drawing the weapon many times. It was still a clumsy place from which to draw and fire a pistol, but a shoulder or belt holster would be too obvious, as would my usual habit of tucking the weapon into my beltline just above the left front trouser pocket. I found myself wishing that I had brought the .357 instead of the .38, in case I had to fire through the old walls or doors of the safe house, but the larger gun was too difficult to conceal.
If I were Delgado and I wanted to eliminate any threat from Special Agent Joe Lucas, where would I be waiting? Possibly outside or in one of the ramshackle huts or rotting tenements along this narrow street. But there was always the chance that Special Agent Lucas might take the alley or another approach to the safe house. Where in the house? In the small, windowless room off the larger room. Perhaps lying on the floor, in the dark, the back door barricaded so that no one would come in that way, then wait for Lucas to silhouette himself in the front doorway. Perhaps wait another second or two for Lucas to come all the way into the main room with nothing but the small table to hide behind, the wall behind him stopping the slugs and muffling the sound of the shots. Then just walk away and leave the body for the rats.
The safe house door was open slightly. The windows were paneless and dark. I resisted the urge to check the .38 in my back belt and walked up to the rotting stoop, then in the door.
Delgado looked up from his usual place across the table. He was straddling the chair and resting his chin on the back of his right hand, on the back of the chair. I had noticed that he was left-handed. His left hand was out of sight at his side. Instead of the usual white panama suit, he was wearing a crisp, loose guayabera today. His skin looked more darkly tanned and his hair lighter than usual.
I set the manila envelope on the table and remained standing, watching the other man’s cold, gray eyes as his left hand came up into the dim light.
As was his habit, Delgado tore open the sealed envelope and read the report. “You’re kidding,” he said at last.
I stood at ease, balanced with my legs apart, my left hand in my left pocket, my right arm hanging easily at my side.
“A fucking tourist cave?” he said. “Kids finding beer bottles? Pigs committing suicide on a disappearing sandbar? That’s it?”
“It was ONI’s call,” I said. “They sent us.”
Delgado snorted. “ONI.” He tossed the two pages onto the table. His left hand went below the table’s edge while his gaze stayed hard and level on me.
“You didn’t see the Southern Cross during all of this dicking around?”
“No,” I said. “But she’s back in Havana Harbor.
They have a berth over at Casablanca now.”
“And you didn’t pick up any ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore transmissions from her?” asked Delgado.
I shook my head, studying his reaction intently. Delgado was very quick when he wanted to be. If he began to move, I would have to go for a body shot… a head shot would be too risky. I did not know where his weapon might be—it could be rigged under the table and aimed at me now, in which case I was fucked—but other than that, it did not matter so much how quick each of us was but how steady we were once we began firing. I had loaded hollow points and had notched the noses of the slugs with my knife. If even one of those found flesh, there should not be any more argument. But, of course, Delgado would have done the same.
His left hand came up quickly. I did not start and my right hand did not move.
He tossed the black and white photograph onto the table. “Do you know this man, Lucas?”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice staying disinterested. “I’ve seen his file. Johann Siegfried Becker. SD. What about him?”
“He’s not in Brazil anymore,” said Delgado, watching me.
“I know,” I said. “May’s SIS threat estimate said that he was in Berlin.”
Delgado shook his head slowly. “He’s in Havana.” After a minute, he said, “Aren’t you going to ask why?”
“Does it relate to my job here?” I said.
“Not one fucking bit,” said Delgado. “Which is to say, you’re not really doing any job here, are you?”
Two boys ran across the lawn outside. I watched them without turning my face away from Delgado. I had stepped to my left upon entering so that my back was not to the open door. I had no idea how many people were working for and with Delgado. One might be waiting across the street in the abandoned tenement, waiting for me to leave, the scope of his rifle all sighted in on a spot I would have to pass on my way back up the street. Well, there was nothing I could do about that except concentrate on keeping the small hairs on the back of my neck from writhing.