Cuba Straits

by Randy Wayne White

  Ford, although he believed himself to be open-minded, seldom changed his mind, but this situation was beginning to realign itself. A mother, unaware she was being conned, had spent her last cent and stayed behind rather than risk harm to her daughters.

  “That’s why you must take us home—like you promised. If the bad man comes looking for Maribel, what will Mama do in the house all alone?”

  Ford asked, “The man who lied about his boat?”

  No, this was a different man, which the child explained, a Santería priest who pulled three girls into a cane field and stabbed one to death, then did something worse, although the ten-year-old in the flowered dress didn’t think that was possible.

  “But Maribel knows,” Sabina said, “because that’s what she saw before she ran from the cane field and hid.”

  Before dawn, meteorites showered seaward over clouds from the south, but the clouds weren’t clouds, Tomlinson realized. It was Cuba.

  Maybe Figgy was right, he thought. Maybe I’m not dead.

  It wasn’t the first time God had taken His cuts and missed.

  He’d been dozing on the foredeck, a space reserved for the dinghy, but the dinghy was gone. Same with a lot of other gear swept overboard when that freight train wake hit them, a wave the sailboat had surfed in the wildest ride ever until the bow buried and they’d pitchpoled.

  Figueroa had been swept over, too.

  After that, events were fuzzy and very, very wet. There remained, however, the memory of the little shortstop saying, Brother, you are unconscious. It would be wise, I think, to wear a helmet if we make this trip again. Later, another lucid vision: Figgy, a wrench in his hand, saying, That puta Vernum Quick is the cause of all this. Him and his magic. I will beat that Santero when we meet in hell.

  Around midnight, Tomlinson’s brain had rebooted sufficiently to take stock. The boat’s cabin resembled a trailer park after a tornado, but a few true valuables had survived: his vinyl records, a little brass Buddha, three baggies of heirloom grass, his baseball bag, and a minor miracle: the leather briefcase, the initials F.A.C. barely damp.

  A sign, Tomlinson decided. In a day ripe with omens and harbingers, the message was clear: continue south, but carefully. No more of this blind hipster bullshit, blundering into the unknown. After that, all planning was prefaced by a simple rule: stop being creative, and try to think like Doc Ford.

  It was five-fifteen a.m. For more than an hour, No Más had been allowed free rein to drift and settle low in the water while a mild Bahamas breeze did its work. Tomlinson stood and stretched. Cuba, yes. A few twinkling lights up there in the hills, a whiff of woodsmoke beneath a cavern of stars. More convincing was the knot on his head.

  Better luck next time, big fella. Guess I’ll hop back on Your crazy carousel.

  He climbed aft over the broken mast and a tangle of cables, tangs, and turnbuckles that he’d done his best to secure. No Más’s little diesel, still warm after twelve hours of constant work, started at the touch of a button. Almost no fuel in the tank, however, thus the wisdom of drifting.

  After a glance astern—no dinghy there either—Tomlinson throttled toward land, and then a distant navigation tower that, hopefully, marked the entrance to a fishing village, but certainly wasn’t Havana.

  When the gunboats stop me, he thought, I’ll know for sure.

  • • •

  THE CUBAN MILITARY was ever on alert for vessels that strayed within the twelve-mile limit, yet No Más, waddling like an injured duck, went unchallenged as Tomlinson rounded a point and motored into one of the prettiest little harbors he’d ever seen. No yachts or crotch rockets here, just a few fishing dories beached amid garbage, and a guard tower built in the time of the Conquistadors. Bougainvillea, hibiscus, and roofs of red tile. Dogs yapped; people stared, then looked away.

  Weird, Tomlinson thought. Almost like they’re expecting me. Or maybe they’re always afraid.

  On the other hand, maybe it was because he was naked except for a red bandana tied around his head. He was surprised when he realized that.

  Damn—a couple of cops watching, too, and someone else inside a car parked with one door open. A woman in uniform, it looked like.

  Well . . . shit-oh-dear.

  He swung down into the cabin and reappeared wearing jeans and a tank top that were sodden and stunk of diesel fuel. Ahead was a cement pier, but most of it had collapsed. The only other place to tie up was built over the water, an ornate structure with French doors that might have once been a restaurant or, with luck, might still be a restaurant.

  Was that coffee he smelled?

  Yes, it was. Twenty minutes later, he sat at the bar of La Terraza with an espresso, a cold Cristal beer, and a papaya he’d bought from a vendor in the street. No food available from the kitchen at seven-thirty a.m., but the manager seemed eager to have the tall gringo stick around.

  Interesting.

  Tomlinson’s suspicions were confirmed when the two cops he’d seen arrived with a woman from the customs department; the woman in a uniform of blue, the cops in gray.

  “We’ve heard reports of this incident you described,” the woman said after listening to his story. “Did you see the name of the vessel, any identifying marks? Or, perhaps, it all happened too fast.”

  What Tomlinson had seen were military goons laughing down at them from the cruise ship’s fantail, but the way the woman glanced at the cops put him on alert. She had intentionally provided him with an out. Why? Or was this a subtle warning?

  Possibly. Figueroa had identified the goons by their Russian uniforms—something the Cuban government wouldn’t want confirmed by an eyewitness.

  “It’s hard for me to think straight,” he replied, “so I’m glad you speak English.” He lifted the bandana to show the knot on his head, then straightened it and smiled at her necklace of white and blue beads. “I’m just getting into Santería. Those colors, they honor Yemayá, correct? Goddess of the sea and sensuality. Wasn’t she Changó the war god’s first lover?”

  A slight nod from the woman as she tugged at her collar. “Please answer the question.”

  “It’s all a blur,” he replied, because that’s what she wanted to hear.

  No Más’s documents, along with his passport, were in a waterproof bag, which she opened and went through one by one while the cops stood at the door and glowered. The woman asked several more questions: Did he have money? How much? Could he arrange for more money if allowed to stay while his boat was repaired?

  A small van arrived. A team of four clomped down the steps to the quay. “They’re going to search everything,” the woman said. “Experts, the best at what they do. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  Another warning.

  That goddamn Russian grizzly narced us out, Tomlinson thought. Figgy was right about him.

  He said, “Yes. They’ll find two baggies of very good ganja. And something else—it’s hard to talk about. I didn’t mention there was someone traveling with me.”

  The relief on the woman’s face was visible. She gentled him along, saying, “Better me than a judge in Havana. Where is this person?”

  “Swept overboard. Yesterday by that ship or freighter or whatever it was. I was knocked unconscious, so maybe I dreamed that he survived, that he somehow got back to the boat and helped me. I want to believe that, but when I woke up—this was before sunrise—I knew he was gone.”

  “Drowned,” the woman said. “That’s the last you saw of this person? When the wave knocked you both into the water.”

  Tomlinson sniffed and looked through the amber bottle in his hand. “On my boat, you won’t find his papers. He told me he didn’t even have a birth certificate. Last night, that really got to me for some reason. Like he’d never been born, so I searched through all that mess wondering if I’d imagined the whole damn thing. But I didn’t. Kind of a
strange little guy but a hell of a shortstop. His name was Figueroa Casanova.”

  The woman, who was stocky but had a good face and warm eyes, recognized the name but tried to pretend otherwise. “Are you sure he didn’t wait until you were close to shore, then jumped?”

  Tomlinson had to smile at that. “He couldn’t swim. Even if he could, all your people will find is his shoe, a baseball shoe. You know, spikes? That was enough for me.”

  “To you, this shoe proves he existed? Or that he’s dead?”

  “A size eight,” Tomlinson replied, “take your pick. You saw me on the boat naked, so it sure as hell doesn’t belong to me.”

  • • •

  HE HAD LANDED in the village of Cojimar, a name that was familiar, but he didn’t remember why until a man with curly hair and a beard entered and sat at the bar. Ordered a demitasse, black, lit a cigarette, and struck up a conversation about photos on the wall. There were many: portraits of leathered fishermen, close-ups of their hands, a cast net beaded with sunlight, and fish, blue marlin and sharks, all black-and-white gothics from the 1950s.

  “The great photographer Raúl Corrales made these images,” the man said. “He lived here, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.”

  Tomlinson, browsing as if in a museum, listened for a while. “These are timeless. None of this photoshopped, digital crap. Yeah . . . a true artist. Did you know him?”

  “Very well, before he died. I’m Raúl Corrales Junior.”

  Tomlinson grinned and shook the man’s hand. “Buy you a beer?”

  It was almost noon.

  “Another coffee,” Raúl said. This time, he spooned in raw sugar, the granules big and brown like salt. “There are images you haven’t seen in the next room. One in particular that Americans like—a giant shark we still call El Monstruo.”

  The Monster of Cojimar, Tomlinson realized.

  In 1945, four local fishermen, drifting outside the harbor, caught the largest great white shark in history, which took hours to land, and several more hours to tow home. The entire village turned out, an event captured in black-and-white and framed on the wall: men, women, children sitting atop a shark that was twenty-one feet long and weighed seven thousand pounds.

  “The Monster had been stealing blue marlin and swordfish from their lines, so our fishermen had to do something or go broke,” Corrales explained.

  They returned to the bar and talked about photography, then Florida. Every Cuban has a relative within driving distance of Miami. Raúl’s daughter lived in Orlando. Tomlinson said, “I’ll call her when I get back . . . if I get back,” and began to relax by ordering another beer.

  He had been fidgety, a little nervous, before Raúl showed up, but now didn’t feel so alone. The customs cops, who were finally gone, had found only the two bags of grass, but not the third bag, which was hidden, and not the briefcase, which had gone over the side with Figuerito, its faithful guardian. Tomlinson had been through too many customs shakedowns to admit how much cash he was carrying, but that’s not what worried him. Would the woman, whose name was Berta, return with official permission to stay until No Más was seaworthy? He was screwed if she didn’t because the cops had confiscated his passport.

  There were other concerns. He had to find a safe place to moor his sailboat. Were there hauling tracks in this little bay? More pressing was his need for a map and private transportation.

  The shortstop and Castro’s love letters were central to this issue.

  Raúl had inherited his father’s perceptive eye. “I’m curious about the ring you’re wearing. I’ve seen that symbol before.”

  From his pinky finger, right hand, Tomlinson removed a small gold ring and said carefully, “I bought it in the East—the pyramid is so old, you can barely see it.”

  “José Martí, our national hero, belonged to the same fraternity,” Corrales said and handed the ring back.

  It was not the reply Tomlinson had hoped to hear.

  “There’s another thing I’m curious about. Do you mind? We don’t get many visitors here.”

  “Fire away, man. The customs agent, her name’s Berta something, she’s supposed to be back in an hour or so, hopefully with my visa. Until then, I’m all dressed up with time on my hands.”

  The man smiled but was already ahead of him. “No visa. I thought so. Other damaged boats have tried this harbor—not many, but a few—and you’re the first they didn’t take to Havana for questioning. It’s none of my business, but are you famous? A former athlete, perhaps?”

  “Well . . . I wrote a book a while back. There’s still the occasional groupie, thank god, but, no, I’ve been wondering myself why the cops left me at a bar. Figured the local economy needed”—Tomlinson paused to think—“I look like an athlete to you?” He swiveled his chair around. “Raúl, I appreciate the compliment, but let’s put our cards on the table here. If you were sent to spy on me, far out. We all have to eat. So ask what you need to know, then we can get back to discussing these amazing photos.”

  Corrales chuckled over his coffee while his eyes confirmed they were alone. “So plainspoken, gringos from the States. A spy? Hardly that. I asked because I heard they found baseball equipment on your boat.”

  Word traveled fast in this village; probably true of the whole island. The Coconut Telegraph, Buffett called it. Tomlinson spoke as if sharing a confidence. “It has to be tough to keep a low profile in a place like this, huh? I thought my equipment went overboard when this goddamn cruise ship swamped me in the Gulf Stream.”

  Corrales had heard about that, too, but stuck with baseball. “Do you play? Every afternoon, at the top of the hill, the village has a game. Men, and a few boys who are good enough.”

  A surge of serotonin brightened the room. “Play, hell yes. I pitch a little and can steal a base; a slap hitter, unless the ball’s in my wheelhouse. Think they’d let me? Wait . . . you’re saying they need gloves and bats more than players?” He touched his forehead. “I’m a little slow today. Okay, no problem. When I leave, everything I’ve got stays with your village team.”

  The refugee problem, Tomlinson suspected, is what the man actually wanted to discuss. It was in what came next: a polite vagueness with much hidden between the lines.

  “That’s quite a large boat you have. Is the hull damaged or just the rigging? Either way, there’s a wooden bridge at the mouth of the river. If you can get under the bridge, fishermen here can fix just about anything.”

  “You know someone who can help?”

  “Me—if the proper officials give permission. There’s no crane, of course. We still wait for low tide and careen sailboats like in old times. Slower, but the results are the same.”

  “Screw technology,” Tomlinson replied. “It’s turned good sailors into video drones. The mast needs to be stepped and the stays re-anchored, but I’ve got all the hardware. Three or four days would get it done.” He hesitated, made eye contact. “You’re right, my boat’s too big for one person. Plenty of room for friends of yours, if they’d like to go for a ride.”

  Corrales didn’t wince, exactly, but came close. “That’s not what I had in mind.” He took his wallet out, removed a few pesos, and something else—a business card, possibly. “My flat’s next door, down the steps, on the water. We shouldn’t talk again unless they issue you a visa. You see, there’s a reason I laughed at your remark about spies: my father was Fidel’s official photographer during the Revolution.”

  “For real?”

  “His work is in museums. The famous image of Che Guevara in his beret, the campesinos on horseback with flags? Everyone knows those images. Which is why everyone knows me. I’d be a poor choice to spy on anyone.”

  “My god,” Tomlinson said. That’s why Cojimar had sounded familiar: Castro’s photographer and the monster shark. “Is your family still—”

  “That is a question you sh
ouldn’t ask. Something happened after the Revolution—I don’t know what, but that hasn’t changed my faith in the government. Understand?”

  No, but Tomlinson nodded anyway.

  “If you are granted a visa, stop by. I have more photographs. Boxes and boxes full”—a pause for emphasis—“that you might like to see.”

  Boxes of photos. Was that what they were discussing? If so, things were still in the probing stage. Corrales placed his hand on the bar, the business card beneath it. “Do you have a good memory?”

  “Photographic”—Tomlinson smiled—“as long as you’ve got something to write with.”

  On the card was a Masonic pyramid and a Havana address for something called the Sons of José Martí.

  • • •

  HE WAS BEING WATCHED: soldiers in a jeep made rounds every half hour; an old black Mercedes with tinted windows parked and re-parked, but no one got out. Finally, the Mercedes left.

  Around noon, Berta delivered the visa, then dropped him at the top of the hill to watch the villagers play baseball. T-shirts and a few ragged uniforms, one catcher’s mask, no shin guards, and only a couple of baseballs, both wrapped with tape. Tomlinson headed back to his boat at a jog until a girl on a tractor offered him a lift. She waited and returned him to the field, where the game stopped while he sorted through his equipment bag. Teams consisted of a dozen men, the rest teenagers or younger, one of them a lanky girl. Rather than risk embarrassing the adults, Tomlinson called the girl and boys closer.

  “My boat’s being repaired, so I’ve got no use for these things,” he said. “Would you mind taking care of them?” On the ground were four baseball gloves, a dozen balls, yet the bag still bulged with equipment. He had played every position on the field but catcher and believed in arriving prepared.

  “Is he a wealthy fascist?” a boy asked.

  Tomlinson had to battle a tear when he heard that. “Little comrade”—he smiled—“you give me hope for the world. No . . . there are still a few of us who are simpatico. What position do you play?”