“Here,” said Bill. “I’ll drink to the empire of the banana. I’ll drink to bananas forever in the U.S. of A. And I’ll drink to these two young guys, who I’m sure will be as tough on the playing fields of politics as they are on the tennis court.”
Walter—everyone still called him this, though “Frenchy” was beginning to catch on with a certain soignée crowd—sat quietly through Roger’s report. He had been doing the journeyman’s labor, liaising with cops and spooks and gangsters, calling plantation foremen and simpatico college professors and the like while Roger toured, lobbied, represented, looked glamorous and savvy and cool. Walter had not slept in three days, and he yearned for a good night’s sleep.
“What do we know?” Ted asked. “Not the bullshit you give the papers or the ambassador, but the inside stuff, the skinny.”
The funny part was that poor Roger didn’t know either. He had no head for details.
“Walter, can you brief the boys?”
“Sure, Roger. We know that a certain fiery radical leader, who had already attracted a large if unorganized following for his astute publicity ability and talent for speechifying, was nearly killed by the Secret Police about a month ago, not far from here. He escaped. It appears to have been a botched operation set up clumsily by the Secret Police Political Section, without authorization from anybody. He disappeared, presumably into the slums of Santiago or possibly one of the neighboring towns or farms. We had been watching him some time.”
“You know where he is now?”
“Er, not really. He’s smart, he’s clever, he’s treacherous, he’s now supremely motivated and presumably mentally destablized. He was never the coolest cucumber in the fridge and something like this could turn him cuckoo. But we’re not trying to prevent him from acting; we’re not praying we skate by this time. Oh, no. Our hope is that he does try something. And we think he will. He lacks patience. For all his talent, he’s a rather shallow man. If he does this thing, whatever it is, we are positioned to deal with it swiftly.”
“How, Mr. Short?”
“Sorry, sir. Can’t tell you. Top secret.”
“Not even a hint?”
“No, sir.”
“Well,” said Roger, “we have a man who’s a specialist in these matters. You might call him our numero uno manhunter. If there’s a trail, he’ll follow it. If there’s a shot, he’ll make it. And there will be a shot.”
You fucking idiot! Frenchy thought behind a face as bland as a nickel. You have just given up everything to impress two schmoes from a banana company.
“Here, here!” said Ted. “Here’s to the shooter.”
“Here’s to the man who gets it done for keeps,” said Bill.
“Here’s to an American hero,” said Roger.
“Here’s to a professional,” said Frenchy. They all raised their glasses, drank deeply, and sat back to enjoy the night and the unperturbable future.
Chapter 38
The crowds were everywhere, just getting warmed up for Sunday night’s craziness. Poking its way through them, the car was stopped at least twice by outlaw mambo bands and their followers, who surged into the streets to provide the atmosphere of anarchy necessary to lubricate the proceedings.
“Mr. Jones, I hope you can keep your mind on your work with all those babes around,” said the younger officer, eyeing the flesh jiggling by, loosely packed into brief dresses.
“Mr. Jones knows what he’s doing. Roger wouldn’t have picked him otherwise,” Lieutenant Dan said, with an obsequious look back at Earl, who felt involved as a go-between in some strange ritual between Dan and Roger he couldn’t begin to understand.
The two naval officers ultimately delivered Earl to the Hotel Casa Grande. It looked like a white wedding cake turned upside down, all square and creamy and shuttered up tight but with a vast marble-floored porch fronting the green square in central Santiago, whose space had been seized by the entire human race preparing to lose its soul.
He waited in line for twenty minutes because the place was so crammed, and he worried there’d be no room for him. But there was; and he was led upstairs. It was an extremely nice room, maybe the nicest he’d ever been in. He tried not to be impressed; he tried not to think, Wish Junie were here now. He took a shower, ignored the music, grabbed a night’s sleep, and the next morning went looking for field gear, on the sound principle you can’t go manhunting in street clothes.
He had a checkbook issued by Frenchy, and could use it to pick up anything he wanted. That was one of the perks of working for the best outfit, Frenchy had assured him. No questions asked. If you need it, if it makes you happy, then you buy it.
Carnival was everywhere, but he pushed his way through the crowds, roamed across the Plaza de Armes, and found that most places were still open. At a sporting goods store better than anything in Blue Eye—or Fort Smith or even Little Rock, for that matter—he found a pair of very fine Abercrombie & Fitch hunting boots that cost more than most suits he’d ever bought. They were thick, sinewy leather, dense and soft, and protective. Jesus Christ, $75 for boots! He held them, smelled their supple leather, their weight, the waxy waterproofing that ran across the welt. They were quality, no doubt about it.
Go ahead. What differences does it make?
But something held him back. Instead, he bought the much cheaper Stoeger boots, the six-inch size, for only $5.95. They were fine. They were okay. There was no trouble with them, though the leather was duller and darker.
Then he went to the clothing department and acquired quickly a pair of Filson tin cloth bloused trousers in a dark green, a Filson shirt of the same cloth in the same shade, and a brush-brown waterproofed duck hat with a ventilated opening above the brim to let the air circulate. A canteen, a day-pack, a poncho and a pair of binoculars completed the wardrobe. He added gear: a waterproof flashlight, a compass, a good Buck knife, a plastic cigarette pack carrier, mosquito repellent, a first-aid kit and six pair of socks.
“Oh, a hunting trip, señor?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“In the Sierras, the boar are very active this time of year. Big brutes, they go three hundred pounds. Their tusks are like razors and they are very violent, valiant animals. They do not surrender. I have seen them charge with two legs broken. They are like a fine bull. It will be a good hunt, I know.”
“I expect so.”
“Ammunition? We have extensive ammunition. Oh, except for .22 and 12-gauge. For some reason there’s been a run recently and we are sold out until the new shipment. But you wouldn’t hunt boar with .22.”
“No, I wouldn’t. But I’m all set in that department.”
“I wish you luck, señor. You will have a wonderful time. Carnival this week, hunting the next. The best of all manly pleasures, hunting in both its manifestation. The pleasures of the flesh and of harvesting the flesh. What could please a man more?”
“Well, you make a good point, sir. I do hope I enjoy myself.”
Even without the extravagance of the Abercrombie & Fitch boots, it still came to more than a hundred bucks! He wrote the check, feeling somewhat larcenous and compromised in the process. He expected some trouble too, as a stranger in a strange town who barely spoke the language. But there was no trouble. This was a well-to-do place, used to catering to wealthy American executives who fished or hunted dove or boar for their leisure, who paid by checks that never bounced. So it was not a problem.
Next stop was a laundry where he had all the new gear washed, to get the stiffness and the wrapped-in-a-factory smell out of it.
“You still open?”
“Yes, señor. Till seven, like any day. We must work before we play.”
“Ain’t that the truth. So, can you do this new stuff for me? Get the smell out?”
“The hat too, señor?”
“Yeah, the hat. It’s like a derby. Make it soft like I’ve worn it a hundred times.”
“Si, señor.”
“And you have a big dryer out back,
right?”
“Yes, señor.”
“Here’s what I want you to do. Put these boots in a laundry bag. You have some change in the register?”
“Si,” said the man, looking at him quizzically. He’d obviously never been asked to dry boots, then if he had change, in the same breath.
“Good. Throw all the change in the laundry bag with the boots. Let it run the whole time I’m gone. And I know it’ll be loud. But I’ll pay, believe me, whatever you want. I want the boots banged up and the leather softened by the action of the coins. I may have to wear ’em tomorrow, and I want them as soft as possible. Okay?”
The two Cubans exchanged a look that expressed the universal befuddlement in the presence of the insane, but Earl didn’t care.
“Be back in couple of hours. Is that enough time?”
“Yes.”
He went for lunch, wandered a few blocks, getting shoved this way and that by the crowds, finally wandered into a lunchroom. Was he in Cuba? He had a hamburger and a Coke and some french fries. Everybody in the lunch room was an American, except the help.
Then he walked a bit, picked up the washed and folded clothes, no longer new, and the softened boots, went back to the hotel, laid everything out, took the rifle from its case, ran the bolt several times to feel its smoothness and solidity, checked the security of the sling, checked the scope settings, wiped the lenses with lens tissue, and tried to relax.
Impossible.
He put a call in to America, to Junie, because it had been some time and he felt restless and unsure. Something far inside was unsettled, as if he had a gripe and didn’t want to be far from a john. But it wasn’t that, it was just a little something.
Someone picked up.
“Hello?” It was the boy’s voice.
“Bobby! Oh, Bobby, it’s Daddy!”
The boy’s voice, dullish in the answer, suddenly lit up with pleasure.
“Daddy! Hi, Daddy!”
And so Earl talked with his son. Except he could not. At key moments, he found words often difficult to produce.
“So, how are you?”
“I’m fine, Daddy. Seen lotsa deer. Them woods is full of deer.”
“I’ll get you one this fall, you bet on it.”
“Yes, sir. Daddy, you aren’t mad at me ’cause I din’t shoot that one in the spring?”
He saw that the kid had assembled the two phenomena in his mind: his inability to shoot the springtime deer and his father’s immediate disappearance.
“No, sir. Not one bit. No, I am not. You’ll be fine, young man. We’ll get you a nice one in the fall, if that’s what you want. Now, is Mommy there?”
“No, sir. She’s over to the church.”
“Well, you tell her I miss her. I miss you, too. Bob Lee, Daddy loves you very much. You know that, don’t you.”
It was the only time he had ever used the word love with the boy.
“Yes, sir.”
“I think I can polish this off soon. I’ll be home. Bob Lee, I’m going to bring you a nice present, you’ll see. And then it’ll be like I was never gone, and I won’t go nowhere no more, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now tell Mommy I called.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bye now.”
“Bye.”
He hung up, feeling like he’d just failed some test. He’d meant to say so much. But he’d said nothing.
Lord, he needed a drink. Just one damn little one, a splash of gin against the cold ice, leavened by the tonic, almost a soda pop with just the softest little buzz to it. But that way was the road to hell, with no way back.
Instead he went to the window to observe the full spectacle of carnival. And there was a lot to be enjoyed: the music seemed everywhere and everywhere there was music there were the crowds. He could sense that the gaslit plaza across the way was jammed with them, and there were neon-lit amusement rides, temporarily erected across the way, as well as vendors selling all manner of drinks, the whole thing a great ocean of human want and need in the warm dark. The gaslamps flickered, giving the whole thing even more sense of life. It was like one huge parade.
Just watching it all, he didn’t feel so cut off. He wasn’t the killer. He wasn’t the one man among them designated to put the crosshairs on a living being and press the trigger. This one was different from combat. He’d killed, too many times, but always an armed man trying to or planning to kill him, or his men. He’d never shot a prisoner, he’d never shot a wounded Jap. He shot what would hurt him and his and nothing else.
And now?
What am I? Dear lord, who have I become and in whose service am I prepared to do this deed? Why is this what you have to do to get a nice house in Washington and pretty clothes for your wife and a good school and college education for your son?
He had no answers and the questions hurt. He decided to go down to the restaurant, have some dinner, and turn in early.
The bar on the porch of the Casa Grande was jammed. A variety of smaller carnival parties had somehow collected into a single one, and two or three competing mambo quintets wandered the floor, issuing manifestos of pleasure and rhythm. Everybody was smoking, everybody was touching, everybody was shaking. It was an orgy of human groping. It overlooked the park and all the tables were crowded.
He headed toward the bar with his usual routine in mind, which was to enjoy the sense of celebration, the closeness of other if strange human beings, but not to drink and lose himself. He slid through the throng, dodging dancers, slipped through darkness, found a relatively isolated spot at the bar at the end of the long porch, and parked on a stool.
“Señor?”
“Ah, rum and coke. Charge me the whole ticket, but no rum. Put an umbrella in it. Okay?”
“Of course, señor.”
Soon enough it came, soon enough he was sipping, looking out to the square where the real action was, where the life of the city at play really took off. The smoke seethed, the bar was strung with lights, the music rose and jiggled.
He smoked, had another drink, enjoyed a brief if debilitating fantasy about bringing Junie and the boy down here, hoping they’d enjoy what was so special about it, yet knowing they wouldn’t. An hour or so dragged itself by, and he thought enough time had passed so that he could get to sleep.
Instead he saw someone waving at him from a busy table of Americans, all of whom were staring at him with equal parts adoration and passion. She detached herself and he recognized her immediately: the woman Jean-Marie Augustine, the Filipina, rapturously beautiful tonight in a low-cut tropical dress that showed her smooth mahogany shoulders, her cleavage, and the tightness of her body through hips and legs, down to pretty red toes in some kind of high-heeled sandals. She had a flower in her hair and as she approached, he tried not to feel excited at her attraction to him and his to her, and he tried not to be intoxicated by the intensity of her sweet perfume, and he wondered, near panic, what the best way to get out of here fast would be.
“Well, hello,” she said.
“Hi, there. I thought you were a Havana gal.”
“Oh, I am, definitely. But carnival. I mean, you have to come. It’s the best show on earth.”
“These folks know how to throw a party, that’s for sure.”
“Oh, and this year, they say the fireworks might be on the ground as well as in the sky. I had to come up and get a look at it.”
“I wouldn’t pay too much attention to rumors. They’re always wrong.”
“Except that what would the famous Sergeant Swagger be doing up here if there weren’t something big going on? You don’t seem the type to come up for a big party.”
“I just do what these young kids tell me.”
“You’re quite the celebrity. The man who bested the mighty Hemingway. Now they say you’re up here on some secret mission for the boys on the third floor, to defend our interests. The bodyguard who became a government agent and saved the banana for America. God bless the banana, staff of
life.”
“I don’t even like bananas, not a bit. But between you and me, I don’t think these boys could find the sky if they didn’t have a sign marked ‘up.’”
She laughed.
“Look, why don’t you join us? It’s some businesspeople, all wealthy and connected. The Bacardi crowd. They know who you are. They’d like to bask in your glamour. It would be like John Wayne or Joe DiMaggio coming over and sitting with them. You’d find it pretty amusing, I think. Most of them are worthless.”
“Once they saw what a down-home buckra I was, they’d go back to yakking about the stock market. I really ought to head upstairs. I don’t think there’s a chance in hell of a thing happening here, because nothing on this island happens on time, but I ought to be ready just in case.”
“So mysterious. But that’s what I’d expect from the manhunter.”
“You are well informed, I have to say.”
“Down here, everybody talks, everybody gossips. You can’t keep a secret. All right, Sergeant Swagger, mystery man of the Caribbean, I’ll go away and let you do your duty, as all marines must. You still have my card, right?”
“Yes I do, Mrs. Augustine.”
“Please call me Jean. Everybody does. I’m just Jean, the famous Jean of the Havana smart set.”
“Jean, then.”
“So if you need help and these young kids you’re working for, even though you detest them, can’t do a thing for you, you call me.”
“Sure.”
“And thanks for being such a good guy that night with that big jerk. You were terrific. Guys like you, always married, always decent. Always. Just my luck.”
She gave him a kiss on the cheek, squeezed his arm and slipped away through the crowd.
He finished the rumless-and-Coke, threw down too much money on the bar, and found a quiet way out.
He showered but could not sleep. He lay in the darkness, waiting for it to come but it didn’t. He tossed, turned, tried to quell his mind. The smell of the woman was still in his mind, and possibly what she represented: a whole world of unimagined possibility. And this business too, with its promise of the fancy job in Washington, some idea of a big house, a fine school for the boy, a sense of becoming something so far beyond what he was supposed to become it disturbed him.
Havana Page 22
