Cuba Straits

by Randy Wayne White

  “What happened?”

  “An important man fell off the roof, I think. Or jumped. It is not something I can ask.” The driver cleared his throat, oddly emotional.

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “I think this man would have chosen a taller building if he had wanted to die. Yes, I am sure of it. We must go to another place for beer, señor.”

  “I’ll look for myself,” Ford told him, and threaded his way through a wall of gawkers.

  General Juan Simón Rivera, revolutionary and former dictator, was beneath a tarp, his shoes and his face not yet covered, hair and beard as black as the blood in which he lay. Perhaps he had been shot or stabbed—no way to know—but the man’s head rested at an angle so grotesque that his neck had to be broken. Ford was sure of it, just as he suspected that Rivera hadn’t died from the fall. The skull was intact, no lacerated scalp, no pressure-bloated eyes. The general—a barroom brawler, a heavyweight in the ring—had been murdered by someone bigger, faster, stronger, unless there were wounds hidden by the tarp.

  Anatol Kostikov, Ford thought. You son of a bitch.

  He stood there, not blinking. Death had a weight to it, and a silence that drowned out street noise, and, for an instant—a single, solitary tick of the clock—Ford was in a rainforest at Juan Rivera’s side once again. The moment passed, and with it more than a decade of revolution, death, baseball, drunken nights, and small confidences—all gone.

  He wanted to ask questions and eavesdrop. He wanted to observe the behavior of cops working the scene, and pry information from people around him, but that was foolish. Instead, he returned to the street, where the driver was still getting his emotions under control.

  “I hope it is not your friend, señor. If he was, you should be proud, and my condolences. But you must leave right away. Soon, they will begin questioning people who appear overly interested.”

  Ford peeled off a few bills. “Why would I be interested? I’ve got to find another cab.”

  In the village of Cojimar there was no hotel, so Tomlinson rigged a hammock aboard No Más. At sunset, he sat in the bar of La Terraza and enjoyed Cuban baseball on a TV with an antenna made of aluminum foil.

  It was the end of a busy day that wasn’t done yet. After giving so much baseball gear away, everyone recognized him on sight—not good. He’d felt uneasy paddling the canoe back to No Más. Next, it was down the steps for a visit with Raúl Corrales, who invited him to stay for dinner, but he had refused, thinking, If things go wrong tonight, they’ll think he knows about the letters.

  Tomlinson liked Raúl a lot.

  So here he was, sitting alone with two old friends—cold beer and baseball—watching a TV from the days of Barney Fife and the Beav. That was fitting. Nostalgia dulled his anxiety. Yeah . . . sort of like time-traveling back to Mayberry. No traffic in the streets through the open doors, and dark out there in a country that rationed electricity. With cash and his new visa, there was no need for a passport, but he would have felt fidgety traveling without the thing—by car or in a cab.

  A dugout canoe was a different story.

  Tomlinson now had a hand-drawn chart of the area, thanks to the grandson of Hemingway’s guide, plus a lot of detailed advice about landmarks and tides. He had told the fisherman the truth—a partial truth anyway. Tonight he was going to search for his missing dinghy.

  “Think I’ll turn in early,” he announced to the bartender. Got up, stretched, and yawned, while the bartender informed him that, in Cojimar, seven-fifteen was considered late.

  Tomlinson doubled the man’s tip, went to his boat, and putted into deeper, safer water with the canoe in tow. He had memorized the chart, no need even to look at the thing. Near the wooden bridge, he dropped two anchors, set them with the engine, then secured everything aboard. Old habit. In strange harbors, expect sunshine but be prepared for kimchi to hit the fan.

  As a final precaution, he tied the canoe portside so it couldn’t be seen from shore, then switched off the lights. Being watched by cops in a military jeep was bad enough, but the black Mercedes had really spooked him. The vehicle had left before noon, returned around five, then vanished before sunset. No cognitive proof of who was at the wheel, but his extrasensory powers warned of sinister shit and mucho bad juju.

  A restless half hour later, Tomlinson was gone. He was in the canoe, paddling like hell, hugging the shoreline for almost two miles before he saw the towering trees he’d been told about, and then campfires of a village. Beyond was the mouth of a creek. All exactly as marked on the chart.

  The opening into the creek was guarded by shoals on both sides. Using the paddle as a rudder, he banged over some oysters, then entered the creek, thinking, Be there . . . Please be there . . .

  After five minutes of hanging moss and shadows, that mantra changed to Where the hell is that bonehead?

  Tomlinson wasn’t telecommunicating with his lost dinghy.

  No moon out, but the stars were bright. The creek narrowed, and on the western bank was a little clearing with a path through the trees. It was the sort of path boys make when they aren’t playing baseball. He beached the canoe, stumbled up the bank, and whispered his fears out loud: “That little dumbass gave me bogus directions.”

  Nearby, a pile of banana leaves exploded, and Figueroa Casanova scared the hell out of him again. Sat up, asking, “Brother, what took you so long?”

  • • •

  CASTRO’S BRIEFCASE was in a white burlap sack with a shoulder strap. “A cane-cutter bag,” Figuerito explained. “That’s why I’m short, ’cause I planted so much cane before I went to crazy prison. A boy carry all that weight, how’s he gonna grow? In Cuba, no campesino with brains would steal a cane-cutter bag.”

  Tomlinson had to ask, “Where’d you get it?”

  “Stole it,” Figgy replied. “Same with this . . .” A machete, the length of a sword, which he used to signal Follow me.

  It was nine-fifteen. Figgy led the way through trees, past barking dogs and hovels of cement where people slept behind bars. Stopped and waited for Tomlinson to catch up before he placed the bag on the ground and made a sweeping gesture. “This is it. Been twenty years since I was a youth here and this is where I played.”

  “Played what?”

  “You don’t see any hoops, do you? What do you think?”

  It was a rock-strewn clearing, chicken wire for a backstop. In right field, a fifty-gallon drum smoldered with trash. Tomlinson took it all in before saying, “Looks like a good spot for a dental clinic. Why are we here?”

  “To show you, why else? Oh yeah, lots of bad hops. An infielder lose his teeth if he don’t have good hands on a field with this shit.” Barefoot, he kicked a stone away. “These little putas, there is a bad hop in every single one. How is your head, brother? You’re still talking sort of strange.”

  Tomlinson touched the spot where the boom or something heavy had hit him just before No Más had pitchpoled. “One of God’s little love taps. All pain is illusory, man. Then you die. The question is, do we have transportation?”

  “After we dead? Of course. Everyone knows that.”

  “No, amigo, tonight. Did you find us some wheels?”

  Before dawn that morning, the last thing Tomlinson had done before Figgy rocketed off in the dinghy was remind him, We need a car and fuel. But nothing fancy, because we want to blend in.

  “Same answer,” the shortstop said. “Only better ’cause we’re still alive.”

  In an alley where chickens roosted was an old station wagon with dents—a 1955 Buick, but now with a Ford engine—and no tailgate because racks of cages had replaced all but the front seats. Figuerito had leased the car from a woman who sold eggs but couldn’t drive. He got behind the wheel, turned the key, and said over the noise, “Eighty dollars U.S. Think that’s a fair price?”

  “How long can we keep it?”

/>   “Long as we want, I guess. Isn’t that what lease means? The woman, she didn’t know either.” He switched the engine off and closed the door.

  “Did she recognize you?”

  “Nobody remembers I lived here and they stopped asking questions real quick. I told people I was a ballplayer headed for the Estados Unidos and would use this”—he hefted the machete—“to chop their damn hands off if they touched my boat, especially my fast engine. Or an arm if they complained to the Guardia about me using a creek that is practically mine, since I damn-near drowned there twice as a youth. See? All true.” He smiled, but the smile faded. “I didn’t know I was lying when I said I could swim good. You saved my life, brother. Twice you saved me, because it was smart, just like you said, for me to take the dinghy and let you deal with the police.”

  Tomlinson, preoccupied, watched the streets, worried engine noise had drawn attention. The car had smoked and sputtered like a Nazi Messerschmitt. “The way I remember it, you saved mine. But let’s focus. The important thing is, we don’t draw attention. Next time—this is only a suggestion, understand—instead of cutting an arm off, maybe tell them something like ‘I have faith in your integrity.’ You know, lay a guilt trip on them.”

  “Yeah, guilt,” Figgy said. “Now I owe you my life. That’s what I’m saying. I’ve never been in water that deep and, Mother of God, so dark under them waves. If it was shallower like I’m used to, yeah, I can swim pretty good.”

  “Uh-oh, car lights,” Tomlinson said. “Don’t look.”

  The shortstop spun around. “Where?”

  At the end of the block a diesel Mercedes crept past, followed by a military jeep. Tomlinson feared the cars would turn, but they didn’t. “I saw them in Cojimar earlier. A couple of cops. I don’t know who’s in the Mercedes.”

  “It’s the Russian,” Figgy said.

  Tomlinson had started toward the river. “Who?”

  “The giant bear-man. Same man who called you a pussy in Key West.”

  Tomlinson stopped. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, that’s what he called you. You forgot already?”

  “That’s not what I mean. This afternoon, the Russian guy came to me in a clairvoyant flash . . . But hold on a sec. It’s dark, the windows are tinted, how do you know it’s him?”

  “It was sunny this afternoon, so I saw him just fine,” Figuerito replied. “He drove by in that nice Mercedes. Didn’t even wave, the maricón.”

  “You waved first?”

  “Sure. This isn’t Miami. In Cuba, you have to be polite to a man with a car like that.”

  “Hmm. The same Russian guy you assaulted in Key West,” Tomlinson mused, then added in a rush, “Quiet . . . I think they’re coming back.” He gave the shortstop a push toward a trash barrel, where they both hunkered low. “You’re sure he saw you this afternoon?”

  “If he hadn’t, he would’ve run me over. But he didn’t recognize me ’cause I was carrying this sack. Carrying this machete, too. What’s a Russian care about a peasant cane cutter? Pissed me off he didn’t wave. Made me wonder if maybe that bad Santero, Vernum Quick, warned him it was okay to chase me, but not—”

  “Shit-oh-dear,” Tomlinson whispered, “they’re looking for someone. Probably us.”

  The jeep, lights out, reappeared two blocks away, while the quieter Mercedes approached from the opposite direction. No lights from the Mercedes either. On these dark streets, headlights would have ricocheted off the tin roofs and brightened the sky.

  “We’ve got to move,” Tomlinson said. “Only two choices: try to slip past them in that old Buick or run for the boat. What do you think?”

  Figuerito, holding the machete, said, “I’d rather kill the Russian and drive his Mercedes. I’ve never been in a Mercedes before. Maybe if I sneak through the alley . . . Hey, brother, let go of my pants.”

  Tomlinson had latched onto Figuerito’s belt. “We’re not killing anyone. Cops have guns. You want to get us shot? Hey—is there a place to hide near here?”

  “There’s the egg woman, but that house of hers is hardly big enough for her and the chickens.”

  Tomlinson whispered, “Uh-oh . . . now what?”

  A block away, the jeep had stopped, one cop already out, carrying a flashlight, while his partner popped the rear hatch and spoke a command to something inside—a dog. The dog, ears pointed, was wearing a sort of vest. He jumped down onto the street, circled, then hiked his leg to pee.

  “Is that a helicopter?” Figuerito asked. “I’ve always wanted to ride in one of those, too.”

  “Are you nuts? It’s a German shepherd, for christ’s sake. Okay, let’s go—on our hands and knees. Where does the woman live?” Tomlinson began to crawl toward the nearest shack.

  “You gotta get your head checked, brother. That isn’t a dog unless dogs can fly.”

  He heard it then, the whine of a powerful engine, but it was a boat, not a helicopter; the distinctive seesaw roar of a boat negotiating sharp turns, moving fast on the river where he had beached the canoe.

  “In my village,” Figgy said, “we got a doctor. She’ll look at your head. There’s something bad wrong if you think a helicopter is a dog. Try closing one eye.”

  Finally, Tomlinson turned to look. “We are so screwed,” he said, because he saw it, a chopper flying low. It was following a searchlight, coming toward them at an incredible speed. Something else: the Mercedes had returned, sat squat in the middle of the street to seal off the block.

  “I think we should leave now,” Figgy said. He wiped his hands on his shirt, then dropped to his knees. “Are you ready?”

  “Oh god, yes.”

  Single file, they crawled into the next lot, pursued by the ceiling fan thump-a-thump-a-thump of the chopper and the squelch of police radios. Houses here were tiny, built shoulder to shoulder amid a poverty of weeds and smoldering trash, each backyard a tangle of clotheslines and scrawny dogs chained to trees.

  Figgy talked as they crawled: “I couldn’t hurt a dog, but it’s different with people. Some anyway. If they come to catch me or rob my mu-maw—my abuela, you know?—it doesn’t bother me. There’s a cliff near my village. Or did you forget that, too? It drops straight down to the sea.” He looked back. “Are you sure you don’t want to steal that Mercedes?”

  Tomlinson replied, “Somehow, the timing doesn’t feel quite right,” but he was thinking, I should have slapped a restraining order on myself years ago. My sorry ass belongs in the insane asylum.

  Mostly, he worried about the German shepherd nailing him from behind, until the helicopter screamed past at tree level and, for an instant, blinded Figuerito with the searchlight.

  “You shouldn’t have waved,” Tomlinson said. “Christ, why’d you do that? Not with a machete in your hand. Get down before they circle back.”

  Figgy, rubbing his eyes, replied, “Pinche par de pendejos,” which was profanity that could not be argued.

  The helicopter didn’t circle. From the safety of some bushes, they watched it hover over the river. Soon, the jeep sped toward it, followed by the Mercedes, while the helicopter drifted seaward, following something or searching.

  “I heard a boat,” Tomlinson said. “Fast one, a really big engine. Maybe they’re after the boat, not us.” But then remembered the canoe and the dinghy. “Yeah, we are totally screwed.”

  “Never have I seen a light so bright,” Figgy remarked, still rubbing his eyes. He made some comparisons—stadium lights, the sun—before asking, “A boat with a motor? A big motor or a big boat?”

  “An oversized outboard, yeah. Which way is the woman’s house? Let’s get out of here.”

  “That river is too shallow for a big boat—unless the captain is a magician. Well . . . except for the spot with the tire swing where I nearly drowned. In the Estados Unidos, what is the brightest light you ever saw?”


  They were jogging through backyards, with the river, the helicopter, and cars behind them. Tomlinson didn’t respond.

  Unless the captain is a magician. The phrase stuck in his head, although he tried to convince himself, Naw. Impossible.

  It couldn’t be Marion Ford.

  • • •

  FIGGY TOLD the woman who owned chickens but couldn’t drive, “If I was going to lie, I would have chosen a happier lie. If the Guardia finds us in your house, they’ll arrest you, too. I have no passport or birth certificate, and the gringo is carrying illegal drugs. You should also know that if the helicopter comes to take us away, don’t look up or you’ll be blinded.”

  The woman listened to this and more, often glancing at Tomlinson as if to ask Is he crazy? Or drunk?

  Finally, she posed the question herself. “Why would I let two strangers stay in my house? I have only one bed, and no food. Well . . . eggs, of course, and sometimes a rooster who is too old to screw. Is there something wrong with your head?”

  “I’m tired of that question,” Figuerito replied. “The judge who sent me to the crazy prison didn’t believe me either.”

  “An insane asylum?” she asked. Manicomio was the word in Spanish.

  “No,” the shortstop replied, “the prisión demente near José Martí Airport. Everyone knows the fences and baseball field there. From the outside, it looks nice, but it’s not.”

  The expression on the woman’s face—horrified—but then she smiled. “Whoa! What a fool I am—you’re joking, of course. You are an entertaining pair, you two.”

  “You can’t hear the helicopter? Step outside, walk to the river. There is a bad Russian there the size of a whale. You’ll see a Mercedes. I wanted to steal it, but this gringo wouldn’t let me.”

  “A Mercedes . . . in this village?” She was laughing now. “Such an imagination. What you are is a wild boy full of the Ol’ Nick. At first, I was sorry I opened the door. Now I’m not.”

  Figgy replied, “As long as you understand. Our plan is to stay until the Guardia leaves, and we will pay you . . .” He turned to Tomlinson for a dollar amount.