Flight from a Firing Wall

by Baynard Kendrick

  I said, “Bully for you, but you forgot the VA.” He wasn’t listening.

  He charged right on, “So I have one of your buddies on board,” and ate an onion out of his glass to get up more steam. “He’s down below in a cabin. Dead or dying, I couldn’t care less, but he’s probably just sleeping off a shot that my mate had to give him to keep him quiet. Just another part of your clever scheme that didn’t work. It didn’t work, see.” He pointed a finger at me.

  I swallowed the last few drops of sherry trying to wake up from this vivid dream.

  “Pretty neat, but it didn’t work. You come toddling up here figuring that I’m all ripe for a bite, but you just don’t know Orville Harrington, buster. There isn’t going to be any big payoff scene. Not a stinking thin dime. You can take your sleeping plant off of here in a wagon and throw him in any ditch you want to. No payoff. Not a dime. And you’d better watch your own health, Doc. I don’t like stoolies who call the Coast Guard and tip them off to stop and board me for a two hour search, when I’m merely trying to help some old coot of a Cuban. I had to tell them he was Soledad’s father to prove that my skirts were clean.”

  I lit another cigarette with a shaky hand. I needed time to do a medical work-up on this mutton-headed megalomaniac and his paranoiac delusion that I had set him, and his black blockade-runner, up for a routine US Coast Guard search. I didn’t have any time. Any minute now he’d start to froth, rip the Knabe off the floor and use it on me like a flyswatter. The prognosis was most unfavorable, but it was going to take a shock treatment to make him listen to reason.

  I said, “I didn’t call the Coast Guard to stop you. I don’t even know what your racket is, any more than I know you, but it could be you have enemies, chum, or even friendly business rivals who feel you’re maybe doing too well for your own good and theirs. What’s to stop them from tipping off the Coast Guard that you’re running in a few Chinese, some Russian spies, or a cargo of diamonds and rum?”

  “Do you think for a minute—?” He stood up looking awfully mean.

  “I don’t think anything. It’s you I’m asking to do the thinking. Your wife, as you know, phoned her sister this morning that you were bringing in this very ill man and wanted to keep him under wraps. I don’t know who he is or where you got him, but he seems to have told her a hell of a lot about me.”

  “We picked him up in an open boat. He babbled all this stuff to Soledad, not me. I wish we’d left him to feed the sharks.”

  I knew he was lying in his teeth, but I said, “Okay. If I wanted to put the arm on you over this single refugee, or anything else, I’d have been waiting here with a reception committee instead of having you stopped down Biscayne Bay.”

  “What sort of a committee, wise guy?” The first note of doubt was in his tone.

  “The Sheriff’s office, the Harbor Patrol, the Coast Guard, the Miami Police, the boys from Immigration, and maybe a few for good luck from the FBI and the CIA. They wouldn’t have swallowed that routine about Soledad’s dad. You’d have landed with an unreported refugee who may be down with yellow fever. As a matter of fact, you’ve landed with one right now.”

  “Well you better get him off of here, and in a hurry!”

  “How? I haven’t got any wagon handy and I don’t know a good ditch where I can dump him without being seen. I’d better leave him right here with you and let you report it, or drop him overside after dark. You’re the one who’s not afraid of those bureaucratic bums. You may be caught with your pants down but, as you said, your skirts are clean. Adiós amigo.”

  I knew I would never make the door, but I had actually taken two steps in the right direction when his thumb and finger closed like ice tongs on my shoulders and twirled me around. “Now how much is the shakedown?”

  “Five hundred Tractors for Freedom, ten million bucks, and the Kerritack dipped in white enamel so the Coast Guard won’t know her.”

  “I know when I’m over a barrel. How much to get that Cuban ashore and keep your mouth shut? I don’t like dealing with a clown.”

  “Then it’s no dice, Orvie. I’m the worst of those Lousy Latins you hate so, for right now I’m simply loaded with laughter. You haven’t got enough money in the bank to rob me of the hilarious sight of seeing the Great Man, himself, over a barrel with his clean skirts hoisted up to his neck and his dirty pants pulled down.”

  That got him. “Let’s face it, Dr. Carrillo. I was blistered at being stopped by the Coast Guard, and when I get blistered I have a bad habit of talking out of turn. So please accept my apologies for offending you.” He had started to crawl, and I finally had him on the run. “Now, both of us want to get this patient ashore without any trouble. I’ll welcome any suggestions from you as to how it can be done.”

  “Do you have a telephone on board?”

  “We’re not plugged in yet. Only the ship-to-shore. But there’s a pay phone in the booth on the dock.”

  “How soon will you be plugged in?”

  “Any time now, probably very soon.”

  “Okay. Give me the Kerritack’s number where I can call you, if I have to, or where the night doctor on duty at the Public Health Service can reach you. He will probably want to.”

  “Public Health Service?” He was suspicious again. “I knew I was a fool to trust you.”

  “I’m a bigger one for trying to help you. Now simmer down and listen or you’re going to have this sick man for a permanent passenger to lug around from port to port.”

  “What are you trying to do?”

  “Call a public ambulance to pick him up and take him out to the VA Hospital, where I’m on the staff, and enter him as an emergency case.”

  “As a veteran of what? The Castro Revolution?”

  “Certainly not. This is a documented boat, isn’t it?”

  “You’re not dragging me and the Kerritack into this mess.”

  “You’re already in it, up to here.” I showed him where. “Now I intend to get you out of it by getting clearance from the Public Health Service to get this man in the Marine Division of the VA Hospital. They’ll take him in without any question when I vouch for his critical condition.”

  “Take him in as what?”

  “Just what you’re going to tell the Public Health doctor when he calls you—you’re the owner of the Kerritack, a documented vessel, and the man that Dr. Carrillo wants admitted is a member of your crew. There’ll be no investigation, nothing, just so long as you keep your temper down and play your part. Otherwise …” I shrugged. “It’s entirely up to you.”

  He plucked at the space where his neck should have been and said very softly, “If you double-cross me …”

  “Why should I? I’m in this as deep as you.”

  “We don’t even know this codger’s name.”

  “Then let’s find out, if he’s awake by now and still alive. Did you search his clothes?”

  “Captain Edwards tried to find out his name when he picked him up, and Soledad, too. He wasn’t putting out, except how to get in touch with you. He was wearing a militiaman’s uniform, an officer I think, but I’m not too sure. Edwards went through it after he went to sleep and said he found nothing. It’s hanging in the locker and you can look for yourself. Come on.”

  I followed him up forward and down to a cabin on the deck below. He took out a key and unlocked the door. We stepped inside. The air conditioner was humming but the air was stuffy. Only a nightlight was burning, very dim; Harrington flipped a bed light on. The man in the bunk was very tall, and was out like a light. He lay on his back with the covers pulled up to his chin. His eyes were closed tight under iron-gray brows. Under his thin hawklike nose, the hairs of a pointed wide mustache moved gently with every breath over his cruel mouth and predatory chin.

  “Know him, Doctor?”

  “No more than you do.” I felt that that was close enough to the truth not to be a lie, for I was convinced that Harrington knew him well or he wouldn’t have brought him in. I failed to mention that
he was my father-in-law, and that the last time I had seen that face it was peering impassionately out from behind a tree near the ruins of the Iglesia de Paula, hoping that his squad of militiamen would finish the job of gunning down me and my wife.

  “What name shall I give him, Doctor?”

  “García—García anything. There are pages of them in the Miami phone book. Pick a first name at random. Put him in a sailor suit and I’ll run him ashore.”

  “Any reason for picking on García?”

  “Only because it used to be the name of a good cigar.”

  7

  In A flowery decree of September 21, 1963, Fidel and Raul had stated that in the “beautiful tradition of the Rebel Army its highest rank is that of Major (Comandante), a tradition which it is fitting to keep in the best interests of the Revolution.”

  This promulgated decree, which seemed at first sight to leave the Ejército Rebelde, or Rebel Army, a trifle light in the Field Officer Department, lacking, as it were, Chicken and Light Colonels and the necessary Brass to keep them in hand, was neatly solved in the “beautiful tradition” of the Communists everywhere by dividing up the Majors and giving a bite to everyone.

  First we find: Comandante en Jefe (Major in Chief), the equivalent of a Lieutenant General in the USA. Second: Comandante del Ejército (Major of the Army)—Major General in the USA. Third: Comandante de Cuerpo (Corps Major)—Brigadier General in the USA. And finally, the plain lowly Comandante (Major)—the equivalent of a full Colonel in the USA.

  The insignia on the olive-green uniform I took from the locker were those of a Corps Major—gold stars in five-sided gold frames. Ernesto certainly had it made. There were only two more steps up to go and he’d be sleeping with Raul and brother Fidel. The Party had a great admiration for any member who was loyal enough to shoot his own daughter. I ran my forefinger slowly over the emblems wondering why they didn’t tarnish or melt from the heat of the hatred in my touch. My throat was suddenly full of bile. The uniform grew heavy in my hands as though the blood of a thousand women and children were drenching it, turning it into a winding sheet, foul and unclean.

  I rid myself of it just before I puked by tossing it to Orvie. “Wrap this up and I’ll take it along. I’m going ashore to phone.”

  “What are you going to do with this?” He held up the uniform.

  “Keep it in my car until the heat gets off. I don’t think it’s a costume he’ll want to wear around town.”

  “Hadn’t you better ditch it?”

  “Look,” I said. “You picked this man up in a rowboat. Remember? Or do you? Some day soon, in spite of everything, I’m going to have to tell somebody a story of how he got here, and I can’t just say he dropped in out of the sky. We’re going to need that uniform to back us up.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’? I’m not going to get involved in this—”

  “This is where I came in,” I told him. “Either you play this my way, or I exit right now.”

  He tossed the uniform in a corner and said, “Okay.”

  I found three dimes in my change pocket and Orvie produced two to add to the kitty. “Don’t forget the sailor suit.” I looked from Orvie to the still form on the bunk and wondered for the moment which of the two I hated the more.

  The seafaring types had all vanished into their floating homes when I went down the gangplank to telephone. There is nothing quite so corroding to the process of thinking clearly as bottled up spleen. It struck me full force that the sight of my comandante father-in-law had stuck a lancet into a five-year-old pustule of unreasoning hatred that had swelled up inside me like a boil.

  There are several kinds and degrees of shock, and I wasn’t quite clear as to the type I was suffering from. It was obvious that temporarily all my senses had been sharpened to an unnatural keenness. The dock was lighted with half-a-dozen shaded bulbs on posts along each side, a glaring gibbous Miami moon, and a dim bulb tucked away somewhere up in top of the pavilion.

  The lighting system struck me as being inadequate. The shadows were too velvety black and I found myself reluctant to take that last step from the security of the gangplank into a theatrical setting of a world that didn’t exist at all. Pausing just long enough to analyze my hesitation, I discovered that my mind and my heart were filled with chaotic plans for courses of action which ranged from coldbloodedly murdering Ernesto García, once he was in the hospital, to getting up a dossier of his illustrious career and forthwith turning him over to the tender mercies of American law. How easy it is for the addled mind to toy with sheer futility!

  The single sweet sherry consumed in the Harrington floating saloon, instead of being an appetizer, was sitting in my stomach like a lump of taffy and adding to my squeamish feeling of disgust and inadequacy. The assorted smells of cooking seeping up from the galleys of the three or four boats I passed nearly finished me.

  The telephone booth was all of two feet square, and had formerly served as a sweatbox in a prison camp before being stolen by an escaping murderer and bootlegged to the telephone company. It was rigged up at night as a booby trap for those who were in the market for something and wanted to look in the yellow pages. Since my mind was full of nothing but “Ambulance Service,” I had lost enough blood to the swarm of voracious mosquitoes which had followed me inside to serve as a full transfusion, before I was able to solve the combination of that box full of sadistic electronic ingenuity.

  The remains of a Miami telephone directory, with a corn-meal mush of yellow pages in the back, was fastened underneath a shelf by a six-inch chain. When I got in the booth and closed the doors, a light went on. Then there wasn’t room enough in the coffin, what with my body and the mosquitoes, to flatten out the Dependable Buyers’ Guide, and consult it.

  The answer was to step outside, kneel down, and reach eagerly in for the chained-up treasure. This, of course, was playing dirty pool and had been foreseen by the inventor. To perform this cheating maneuver it was necessary to open the doors. When you opened the doors, the light in the booth went out and even with the help of the gibbous moon you couldn’t see.

  I beat them by using my Zippo lighter, an essential part of my medical kit which I always carry with me. It wasn’t too comfortable kneeling, but the mosquitoes enjoyed it and the needs of my patients always come first, and once on the trail of an ambulance I am not to be thwarted by the antics of a heartless corporation.

  I ripped out page 46 from the yellows, and page 652 “United States Government,” from the whites, got back on my feet and closed the doors. The lights came up and I dropped in my dime. I had found an ad which said: “TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR AMBULANCE $12.50. NO METERS, NO HIDDEN CHARGES, PROMPT, REASONABLE. RELIABLE.”

  That seemed to be a pretty good deal. It turned out to be a Funeral Home not more than a couple of miles away. When I told my sorrowful tale, I found out why they didn’t have any meters or hidden charges. It was fifteen bucks flat for Coral Gables, and five bucks more for “Oxygen, Plane, Train, Boats, Mental or Alcoholic.”

  We had a little badinage. They said I hadn’t read the ad in full and I had to admit that I’d missed the fine print where the “no hidden charges” were hidden away since one of my eyes had been closed by mosquito bites. They said I must be calling long distance since all the mosquitoes in Miami were under careful control. We settled for a final $25.00, probably because I mentioned the patient was a Cuban, which was the same as being “Mental or Alcoholic.” I told them to pour on the oil and get there. After all it was Orvie’s money I was spending, not mine.

  By the time my other four dimes had been spent on “United States Government,” outside of suffering from loss of blood, and badly needing a shot of plasma, everything was lined up fine. I’d squared things with Dr. Shaw, my Chief of Staff, and Public Health had only taken 30¢ to come through.

  Back on board the yacht, I found Harrington and the unlicensed practitioner, who had hypoed the Comandante into a stupor, waiting for me in the impromptu sick bay. The mate was n
amed Mr. Shannon, and while he wasn’t quite as formal as Captain Jack Edwards he had his points. It turned out that he had been medic on a submarine, but neither of them volunteered to tell me what country the sub belonged to, so I didn’t press it.

  “Is everything set?” Orvie sounded anxious, which suited me fine. “How did it go?”

  “Everything’s cleared. He’s getting into the VA hospital as a member of your crew. I gave his name as ‘Ernesto García’—just in case they call you.”

  “Where did you get that name?” I watched him give a double-take.

  “Off the top of my head. What’s the matter with it?” I scratched six bites on the back of my neck and it made them itch worse as I saw him stew.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all,” he said finally. “I just wondered. Do you think they’ll call?”

  “I doubt it. What’s with you? I thought you were going to get that sailor suit on him.” I pointed to a blue sailor suit hung over the back of a chair.

  Shannon said, “He opened his eyes and groaned. I think he’s coming around.”

  I said, “Unless they’re dead, they usually do.”

  “I took his temperature, rectally. It’s a hundred and five, and his pulse is around a hundred and twenty. Mr. Harrington and I decided that instead of dressing him, we’d better wait for you.”

  “What sort of knock-out drops did you give him this noon?”

  Shannon looked at Harrington for clearance. “Demerol.”

  “How much?”

  “A hundred mg’s.”

  “By mouth?”

  “No, sir. Hypodermic, subcu. He’s a big man, Doctor.”

  I shook my head. “Too big to have been fuera de combate— knocked out cold for eight hours on a hundred mg of Demerol. Come clean, Mr. Shannon. Nobody’s going to report you to the A.M.A. This old boy’s in pretty bad shape. Crítico, I might say, and I need a fast case history before that ambulance gets here, if I’m going to be able to help him or maybe even save him.”