Havana Run

by Les Standiford

  Deal nodded. “There’s a nurses’ station up there?”

  “Yes, but the cousin of Miguel is tonight in charge there.” She glanced at the hulking young man in the corner. “There will be no questions there.”

  “And there are guards?”

  “Two,” the doctor said. “One approaches competence, but he is afflicted with a weakness of the flesh. There is an aide on the floor in whom this man has shown a particular interest.” She broke off to glance at her watch. “It will not be long before his fondest fantasies begin to take their shape.”

  “And the other?” Angelica asked.

  The doctor shrugged. “He is a fool who would likely be asleep in any case. Tonight he will drink the tea that is brought to him, then dream like a child.”

  Deal glanced at his own watch. “I guess we’re just about ready, then.”

  Dr. Aponte nodded. “I will make the call,” she said. Her gaze met Deal’s steadily, then swung with the same assurance toward Angelica.

  “We are ever indebted to you,” Angelica said.

  Deal nodded his agreement.

  “It is nothing,” the doctor said. “We do what must be done.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “I wish I could be of help, gentlemen,” Fuentes was saying. He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Whatever has happened to John Deal, I can assure you that none of it is my doing.”

  He gave Vines a mild look from across the stateroom of the Bellísima. He had perched himself on the edge of the big table where Russell had grazed a groaning buffet only days before. Now it had been set up as a conference table, with notepads and pens laid out in readiness for a meeting of seven or eight.

  Fuentes glanced about the empty places at the table, then back at Vines, who stood just inside the doorway that led out to the darkened decks. He crossed a leg and plucked at the razored crease of his slacks before continuing.

  “My sources report no knowledge of this disappearance, no alarm raised within the government, nothing. But then again, I am sure you already know as much.” He gave Vines another glance.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Fuentes,” Vines responded. “I’m just tagging along, trying to lend a hand to some fellow citizens.”

  “Spare me, Mr. Vines,” Fuentes said. He turned to Driscoll and Russell Straight, who were standing together near a teak-faced bar that took up most of one wall of the room. “Your helpmate maintains a network of well-paid informants within this country. Some of them are double agents. Others are schemers who would say anything so long as they are paid. A few might provide useful information, but they tend to be so addled by their rancor toward the current regime that it is difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Vines?”

  “Why don’t you tell us about your own sources, Fuentes?” Vines responded.

  Fuentes smiled. “I consult with certain business interests within Cuba, that is all. These men rely upon my discretion, of course. That is why we are able to do business together.”

  “Why don’t we cut the Spy versus Spy crap, gentlemen,” Driscoll cut in. He put the glass of soda water he’d been toying with down and stepped away from the marble bar top.

  “Russell’s already made it clear why Fuentes brought Deal over here.” Driscoll glanced at the man, then turned back to Vines. “And my guess is that you’d do just about anything to find out the names of the ghosts who are supposed to be sitting around this table right now.” He picked up one of the notepads, glanced at its blank face, then tossed it back on the table.

  “None of that is my concern, though. I want to know where John Deal is, that’s all.”

  He paused, fixing them in turn with his no-nonsense stare. “Let’s just assume for a second that both of you are telling the truth, so far as that’s constitutionally possible. If neither one of you knows what’s happened to him, and if it’s true that he’s not on the government’s radar screen, then who the hell does know?”

  “Deal could have simply gone off on his own for some reason,” Vines said. He checked his watch. “If we were in the States he wouldn’t have been gone long enough to warrant an official investigation.”

  Russell started forward at that, but Driscoll held him back. “Yeah, and pigs are dive-bombing Guantánamo while we speak,” Driscoll told Vines.

  He turned to Fuentes. “Who else might want to get their hooks into Deal over here?”

  Fuentes shook his head. “If we were in Mexico or Guatemala, I might theorize the possibility of a kidnapping ring, but that sort of thing is unheard-of in Cuba.”

  Driscoll glanced at Vines, who nodded corroboration. “Say what you will about the current regime, domestic crime and terrorism are not issues.”

  “There is the Vedado Project,” Fuentes offered.

  “The what?” Driscoll said, turning to him.

  Fuentes made a gesture with his hands. “Nothing the current regime is proud of. It is a loosely knit group dedicated to the eventual formation of a democratic government in Cuba.”

  “University professors, disgruntled ideologues, workers’ groups and other grassroots organizations,” Vines chimed in. The disdain in his voice was palpable.

  “Real people, huh?” Driscoll said to Vines. “What’s your beef with them?”

  “This is hardly a group poised to help the country with the massive task of rebuilding itself,” Fuentes said.

  Driscoll nodded. “No fat cats, in other words.”

  Fuentes shrugged, and Driscoll turned back to Vines. “Let me guess. This is just a bunch of annoying people who’ll probably demand a say in how things go down here once El Jefe gets the heave-ho.”

  Vines stared, apparently stumped for a comeback. Fuentes glanced away, as if impatient for this to end.

  Driscoll regarded them in silence for a moment, then finally shook his head. “Whoever these people are, they must be doing something right.”

  “What makes you say that?” Vines asked.

  Driscoll shrugged. “Because there’re three groups of assholes they already managed to piss off.” He ticked off the count on his fingers. “So tell me, who’s in charge of this bunch you’re talking about? Who keeps tabs on what they’re up to?”

  “Don’t ask him,” Fuentes said, glancing at Vines. “He couldn’t tell you what house Castro was sleeping in tonight.”

  Vines shrugged. “These are not kidnappers, Driscoll. These are people who have meetings and talk about things. They circulate petitions.”

  “They sound like idiots, all right,” Driscoll said. “Tell me, does anybody get in trouble for any of this?”

  “Any number have been imprisoned,” Fuentes said. He lifted his palms upward. “Deaths have been rumored, but who can say?”

  “Not the ones who are dead, that’s for sure,” Driscoll said. And yet for all his disdain for the two men in front of him, he couldn’t fathom what interest such a group as they had told him about might have in Deal, or vice versa. He broke off, glancing at his watch.

  “There’re a couple of places Russell and I want to check out yet this evening, Fuentes. You mind if we make use of the car?”

  “Tomás is at your service,” Fuentes said.

  “I’ll be glad to come along,” Vines added, pushing away from the door where he’d been leaning.

  “That’s all right,” Driscoll said. “Russell’s kept his eyes open. We’ll be just fine on our own.”

  He gestured to the big man at his side then, and the two of them were out into the night.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “Ma-tan-za!”

  Barton Deal had drifted off to sleep, he realized. He blinked awake at the sound of the crooning voice from the bed next to his and saw that the lunatic next door had somehow managed to work one hand loose from his leather restraints again. The last time, the guy had simply taken the opportunity to masturbate violently for the hour or so it took a nurse to wander i
n and discover what had happened. It was a little different this time.

  “Ma-tan-za!” the man repeated and jabbed himself again with the shard of broken water pitcher he was holding in his hand. The handle was all there was left of the pitcher, really. He must have shattered the rest away by banging it against the heavy steel side table that separated their beds.

  Barton Deal wondered why he hadn’t been awakened by the crash. Maybe it was the good drugs, he told himself. One benefit of the current system.

  His neighbor had left himself a nice pointed edge to work with, though, Barton Deal saw. The man had traced a fine network of lines on his chest and stomach, delicate scrimshaw work that created an oozing outline of what must have been some hellish country. Matanza meant “killing place.” That’s what the guy seemed to be adding to his map right now.

  “Ma-tan-za!” the guy called again, and jabbed himself just beside one nipple. A bubble of blood rose obligingly up.

  Barton Deal turned his head in the other direction, to the place where there might have been others in their ward. There was a third bed, unoccupied, shoved into a corner against the far wall. In the space where a fourth bed might have been placed were two folding chairs and a small table where the guards usually sat.

  One of the guards seemed to be missing just now. The other, the fat one, was asleep, his head thrown back over his chair, his snores ratcheting off the high ceiling. It sounded like two mismatched sprockets trying to mesh, Barton Deal thought, steel teeth snapping, pieces flying everywhere. The guard must have slept through the shattering of the water pitcher, too.

  There was another cry from the bed to his right and Barton Deal turned in time to see the next “killing place” marked out, a dot about halfway between the man’s navel and his groin. “I’d take it easy, pal,” he said. “You’re gonna go nuts.”

  The man’s head snapped up. He stared at Barton Deal as if he hadn’t been aware there was anyone else in the room. “Mmmmmmmmm,” he murmured, waving the bloody glass handle between them. “Mmmmmmmmmmmm.”

  Barton Deal had another look at the restraints over there. What if the guy ran out of the room on his own map, managed to wiggle all the way loose?

  He glanced next at the door to the ward. Closed, closed, closed. Time had become a rather fluid concept, and without any notion as to when the other guard had left the room, it was hard to say when he might return. Pee-pee, smoke or number two, Barton Deal wondered. If it were the latter, it could take forever.

  There were no call buttons in the ward. Lunatics always using them for hangman’s nooses, he supposed. Or clogging the lines, trying to get in touch with God.

  You could try screaming, but he had noticed that it didn’t cut a lot of ice in the nut hatch. He could always try just getting up to run, but there was the small matter of the manacle clamping his leg to the bedpost.

  What the hell, he was thinking. He shouldn’t distract the guy from his work. With any luck maybe he’d bleed to death before he worked his way out of Camagüey Province or wherever he thought he was.

  In point of fact, the guy had left off his dark stare and returned to the examination of his grisly map. There must have been something missing, because he bent and began to trace a bright, bubbling line that rippled over his ribcage and out of sight.

  Nothing to soothe the savage breast like art, the old man was thinking, and that is when he saw the door to the ward swing inward. He thought it would be the hawk-faced guard, back from his sally to the crapper, but it wasn’t him at all, but doctors, doctors, come to see him, he thought, and maybe a nurse or two as well.

  Big burly fellow leading the way, and if he was bothered by what was going on in the bed next door, he didn’t show it. There was a dark-haired Latin lovely following close on the big guy’s heels, and she never took her eyes off his. This was what you wanted in a health-care professional, he thought. A good-looking woman who cared about her patients. An odd expression on her face, though, or was it just that she seemed familiar?

  Right behind her was a woman he knew he had never seen, one with a pale complexion and a pinched face. If you need to know something, ask her, he thought. She knew it all and it was killing her. She hadn’t seen the loony with the self-service tattoo yet either, but when she did, everyone look out.

  And this last one, maybe the chief cook and bottle washer. Mr. Sawbones, everyone-else-out-of-the-way, himself. Not a brain surgeon, you could tell. Wouldn’t have the patience for it. But a no-bullshit kind of guy, clear enough to see. He liked the cut of this one’s jib. He’d seen his type before.

  Not really a man so much as a boy in a man’s body, the old man was thinking. And a good boy, he thought, wondering why his vision was blurring up. Mr. Sawbones was shoving past the rest of them, headed toward him now. His mouth was moving, saying things. Things that were hard to understand.

  “Dad” he thought was one of them. He could have sworn that was the word he’d heard.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  She had peeled away her clothing expertly, he thought, first her own—smock, white uniform slacks, and nothing but a camisole beneath—then his. She had lingered at his pistol belt, a hand upon that weapon, another clasping his own, a wicked smile on her lips all the while.

  She’d approached while he was smoking—he’d been certain she would, eventually—had met his own gaze brazenly, asked for a cigarette, brushed his hand as she accepted his light, allowed herself to stand too close as they lingered at the end of the dimly lit hallway. In moments, it had unfolded as he had known it would.

  After all, his was an important position, and he had discovered its aphrodisiacal powers long ago. As to whether women were excited by his authority or were simply too fearful not to submit, he neither knew nor cared. What was important was the bliss itself. And there had been a great deal of that over the years. An apparently inexhaustible supply.

  There seemed little doubt about what had drawn this vixen to him, however. She’d raised her cigarette in such a way, had touched it to her lips, her tongue, had watched him all the while…

  In moments, smoking had been forgotten, there had been a moment’s frenzied embrace, and she had led him to this unused room, this unused bed.

  Most glorious of all had been her body’s gradual coming into view, bronzed and robust, just as he’d envisioned it. Voluptuous, he thought, as she positioned herself above him. But not one ounce of unnecessary flesh beyond that. Perfect, he thought, as she settled silkily down upon him. Absolutely perfect.

  Of course, a fool might have taken her for overweight, he thought, as she began to move. But it would have been an illusion cast by the mounding of those magnificent breasts on an otherwise slender body. They had burst from beneath her smock, erupted from the filmy fabric of her undergarment, tumbled free to surpass all his imaginings.

  And she had so eagerly pulled him to her, buried him between those wondrous mounds. Madre de Dios.

  Dark aureoles the size of saucers, budded nipples erupting at their centers like berries from dreams. He’d suckled there like a man found dying in the desert.

  Would suckle more, he thought, pulling her down to him as she groaned and twisted atop him. She held fast to the rails of the bed as she writhed and bucked, and it occurred to him just how perfect such a bed was for these purposes. Good for sickness, too, certainly. But just as useful to keep from being flung off the present course. He felt her pubic bone grind against his—a cruel blow that only excited him the more—heard a sigh from somewhere that was as thrilling as a sob.

  He clutched the rails of the bed himself and thrust up, yearning for more violent collision, when he heard the cry from down the hall. Curses, he thought, and in an unfamiliar tongue. He stopped, his hands frozen on the bedrails, understanding finally it was the raspy voice of the one he’d been brought to guard.

  “Hallelujah! The gang’s all here. Sonofabitch. Come the cavalry to the rescue!”

  None of the words
were clear to him, but the import was. He tried to swing his legs out from under the writhing woman atop him, but if she had heard the commotion outside, there was no sign.

  “My god, my god,” she moaned. “It is a monster. It is magnificent. Give me, give me, give me more.” Her head was thrown back, her hands clamped to the bedrails in a death’s grip.

  He rose on one arm and drove the flat of his hand against her breastbone. She flew backward like a doll.

  More shouts sounded from the ward he’d deserted. And there came the sounds of a clattering tray.

  He swung his feet to the cool tiles of the floor and groped in the dim light for his trousers. There was no time for anything more.

  He’d begun to understand some things by now, and the notion that it was his undeniable power that had swept this woman from her own post and to this bed was undergoing great revision, moment by fleeting moment. She had lured him to this place, he thought, and the thought was enough to enrage him.

  Once the truth had dawned, he did not hesitate an instant. There was no need to hesitate. Whatever he did could not be questioned, no matter the magnitude of the deed. It never had been; it never would be. One instant’s business here, then out into the hallway to see what came next. And what was Hector’s part in all this, he wondered, a partner so stupid he would rather sleep or eat than fornicate.

  He turned to her with his pistol raised, one knee braced at the side of the bed. He aimed between those perfect breasts, and squeezed. He was astonished when nothing happened. The pistol required the slightest touch. It was a fact he knew quite well.

  He squeezed again, but still no explosion came. It was his surprise and agitation that kept him from realizing for so long.

  He saw it all in a flash, though, in his mind’s eye, one of her wretched hands upon his member, the other on the pistol. The safety, you idiot, she’s thrown the safety on.

  He glanced down at the weapon dumbly, his finger fumbling for the catch. Anger and confusion were being slowly eroded by some new emotion, but not rapidly enough.