Flight from a Firing Wall

by Baynard Kendrick

  “Yes, I know him all right,” I said bitterly. “He’s my father-in-law and still is, I suppose, if my wife, his daughter, Milagros, is still alive. That’s what I have to find out from him, Miss Langley …” Once I had started I told her about the Kerritack and all.

  She heard me out with the look on her face that some nurses have when a patient is dying. Then she said, “You can’t go through life obsessed with the image of a dead girl. You have to get the truth or you’ll be dead too.”

  “The truth?” I made a noise which was supposed to be some sort of a laugh, but which came out as a hopeless croak. “This man was a coronel under Batista, and now he’s a comandante in Fidel’s Rebel Army. The truth isn’t in him.”

  “Oh yes it is, Tony!” The twinkle in her eyes had vanished. “The truth is in everyone. It’s not my place to offer suggestions to a doctor, but I’ve seen some most obnoxious characters spill their guts—with the help of just a few injections of sodium amytal or Pentothal.”

  She went out quickly without waiting for an answer and left me there stupidly counting the drops of D5S as they slithered down the plastic tube and into his arm.

  When I got out of the elevator down in the lobby my white-haired Man of Distinction was just pushing a clip board back through the opening in the grille of the Registration Office now deserted for the night. I didn’t need to waste any time looking. The last name listed under Admissions was that of Ernesto Garcia, and I knew damn well they hadn’t put that accent (') over the “i.”

  Outside, I got in my car and he got in his and we were back in business again, only this time he was going to learn the Havana method of chopping off a tail. I was headed for Luis Martínez’s home and I was bound and determined to arrive there alone.

  9

  You may live through any great soul-shaking upheaval, such as a revolution, an earthquake, or a war, with millions of other people, but the effect produced on each individual is something that is entirely his, or her, own. Some survive a holocaust marking the end of all that they have ever known by developing an utterly unnatural sensitivity. Every event is magnified. Tiny annoyances, once laughed off, assume a false importance. The most innocent of jesting remarks may flick them on the raw.

  Some survivors rail and storm against the circumstances or people that caused the disaster. Others become filled with a hate so consuming, and a desire for revenge so hideous, that in the end they lose all logic and their brains cease to function. Some give way to hopelessness and feel numb and lethargic. Let any one of these effects take all possession of you for too long a period and you’re headed for a place on the couch at twenty-five dollars an hour.

  Pulling away from the hospital with the Chevy openly trailing me, I decided that the only thing that kept me on an even keel was that while none of those nasty effects had taken full possession of me, I suffered from a slight trace of them all.

  Havana was the capital of a police state under Batista, and its security forces became even stronger and more ruthless under Fidel. As an operator in Villaverde’s underground I couldn’t have lasted fifteen minutes if I hadn’t known how to shake off a tail. Seguirle los pasos—to shadow, they call it down there. “They hired someone to shadow him” would come out in Spanish: “Contrataron a una persona para seguirle los pasos.” Literally that is: “to follow his steps,” which doesn’t exactly apply to following another car. In France your shadow becomes un pisteur, while in England he’s a tag. It really makes no difference. In any language or any country a tail, to me at least, means trouble. That is unless you’ve hired one to protect you from another. Any other breed of tail is a spy. He’s following you either to arrest you or kill you, or to finger you for someone else who has those ideas in mind. At the very least you’ll end up in a mess as I had with the lovely Liliana. I’ve never yet had anyone tail me to give me two tickets for the opening night of a show.

  In Cuba I never had any doubts about my follower’s object. He was either after my place of contact with the underground, or trying to get enough stuff on me to reserve me a spot, about three from the end, in the next batch headed for the firing wall. There everything was cut and dried and I knew all the answers. Getting a taste of it in Miami, in the land of the free, oddly enough worried me much more. The answers just weren’t apparent, and there is always more menace in something you don’t understand.

  For the past two years I had lived in a two-room apartment on the ground floor of a private home on Almeria Avenue, just a few minutes walk from the hospital. The furniture along with the house which belongs to an elderly couple, the MacDonalds, dates back to the days of the Florida boom. Still, it’s been well kept up and is comfortable. The addition of an air conditioner, my books, a TV and a stereo of my own have made the place quite homey. Among its other assets are a screened side porch and a private entrance set in a colorful garden rich with poinsettias and gardenias, plus the MacDonalds, considerate landlords who leave me strictly alone.

  On leaving the hospital with my trailing Chevy, I took De Soto Boulevard and turned right on Sevilla, just a block this side of Almeria, where I could go four blocks to Segovia, make two left turns and be home. I had made up my mind that when I got there if Mr. Whitehead was still with me I would flag him down, introduce myself, ask his business, and add a very polite request that he leave me alone. In the event that he proved to be a pleasant companion I might even ask him in for a drink, assure him that I was bedded down for the night and that he was free to knock off work for the day.

  If he turned out to be the stubborn type and my open confrontation failed to confuse and confound him, I could at least make a pretense of going to bed. Then if an hour’s wait failed to discourage him, I could always shake him off with a personally conducted tour through the intricacies of Coral Gables and proceed to Luis’ residence on my own.

  It was a brilliant piece of startegy worthy of Luis Martínez himself, and I must confess that after stopping at the corner of Segovia and Almeria, and waiting five minutes without any signs of following headlights, I suffered a terrible letdown. It was a bad anticlimax to find that the cause of all my clever planning had deserted me entirely.

  Still, I remembered hopefully that he was one of those really sneaky types, and had pulled that disappearing act on me between the lunchroom and the hospital just a short time before. The chances were good that if I drove just a few doors down to my apartment and parked in the driveway with the lights off, and gave him another five or ten minutes, if he kept on running true to form he would probably show.

  Deeply involved in my half-witted musings, I turned into the gravel drive that led to the garage in the back of the house and braked down just in time to keep from demolishing Liliana’s small red sports car that had almost shattered my spine in the parking lot less than ten hours before. I switched off the lights and ignition and sat there staring at the familiar outlines of my own screen porch.

  Sweat dotted my forehead when the air conditioner stopped. I reached across and slowly rolled the right-hand window down. The smell of the gardenias was cloying. A street light threw its rays in just far enough to stop abruptly at the edge of the porch and make the darkness almost thick enough to feel. Back of the curtain of clinging vines that crept up the screen and shielded the porch I saw the spots of two cigarettes glow bright and dim.

  I reran the puzzling reels of the day and didn’t like them. One cigarette could have meant that Liliana, unable to resist the pull of my manly charms had tracked me down for a tender rendezvous. I freely admitted that just a slight nudge might revive that rosy glow. Two cigarettes was one too many. The direction of this little drama, that I had unwittingly become involved in, was what any fair critic might have called piojoso, or just plain lousy. That second uninvited character, using my porch for a smoking room, simply had no part in the show.

  Still mindful of Orvie’s kindly warning about the state of my health, I warily, and not without some misgivings, got out and left the comparative safety of my ca
r. When I stepped on the porch and closed the screen door behind me, I was bathed in a wave of soft Spanish and Latitude 50 perfume.

  It was Liliana all right, and it was just what I needed to find that she had brought sister Soledad along, only this time not half so insulted as she had been in the Kerritack’s saloon. I accepted a thousand apologies for the secret invasion of my home, and covered my surprise at Liliana’s statement that she simply had to talk to me, by being at least for the moment the perfect Cuban gentleman: “No ha sido nada, señoras. Después de todo, todavía está temprano.” “Think nothing of it, ladies. After all, the night’s still young.”

  They followed me into the living room, settled themselves and accepted my offer of coffee. I went into the kitchenette and put a filter in the Chemex coffee maker. Watching them as I puttered around I was conscious of a most unpleasant feeling of foreboding.

  Their costumes for the evening call were funereal black dresses with form-fitting bodices topping voluminous skirts. The severity was unrelieved except for a diamond clip at Liliana’s throat, and a double-strand pearl necklace on Soledad, which weighed against the background of the Kerritack was certain to be real.

  No lone semiwidower could have asked for two more striking visitors, but their expressions were too serious. Those somber black dresses added a note of gloom to what normally should have been an occasion of good cheer. I served the coffee in dolorous silence, sat down facing them, passed cigarettes around, and waited on edge for one or the other of these comely harbingers to give forth with a pronouncement of my doom.

  They outwaited me, and I finally opened brightly with, “I’m naturally interested to know how you found my place of residence.”

  “Dios mío, you’re listed in the telephone directory,” Liliana said impatiently.

  The only answer to that was to sit and look silly, but I didn’t have to look silly for long. Soledad’s black unreadable eyes stared at me over the rim of her cup as she sipped her coffee. She set it down in the saucer with a sharp click and took over. From there on in it was her turn. “Liliana tells me you’re a gusano—a worm,” she said without a change of expression.

  I said, “That sounds like an insult—to repeat your own words of this afternoon.”

  “Today it has two meanings, insult or compliment. It all depends on who says it, and where you stand. Suppose I meant it as the complimentary one?”

  “Then I’d say, Thanks for the compliment! or ¡Gracias por la galantería!”

  “Well, it was meant that way. Liliana and I are here because we want you to trust us.”

  “Splendid,” I said. “She mentioned something to me about trust before lunch today.” I took a swallow of coffee. “It’s a very interesting situation, señoras, almost as fouled up as our country is. You come here asking me to trust you, and I in turn must ask, ‘Why should I?’ Mutual trust is a game that it takes two to play.”

  “Two or more,” Soledad reminded me. “Sometimes entire countries have to indulge in such a luxury, for without it there would be no Organization of American States, no NATO. You apparently don’t analyze things very deeply, Dr. Carrillo, or you would see at once that Liliana and I have shown our good faith merely by coming here to talk with you.”

  “You sound as though you considered me a criminal, señora—”

  “¡Al contrario! In spite of the fact that you’ve taken one of the most dangerous men in Cuba, Comandante Ernesto García, a major in Fidel’s secret police, removed him from my husband’s yacht without notifying a single one of the lawful authorities, and surreptitiously spirited him away, we have risked our lives to come here and bring you information.”

  I let ten stupified seconds tick away. There was something in that Kerritack setup that I was missing entirely. I opened up cautiously feeling my way. “Less than three hours ago, your husband knew nothing about this refugee that you claimed had been picked up in a rowboat this morning. Now, señora, you seem to have his life history right at the tips of your fingers. You must have some very remarkable news sources right here in Miami to have learned so much in so short a time.”

  Liliana stirred uneasily in her chair, disposed of her cup and saucer, crossed her legs and smoothed down her dress. “I’ve told you Tony’s story, Soledad, and I believe him from the bottom of my heart. Somehow, I know he is one of us or I would never have taken the risk of bringing you here. I know better than anyone what a dangerous game you are playing with Orville, and I love and admire you for it. But you are handling this wrong, querida hermana. Our time is short. You must trust him fully and tell him the truth about the work you are doing for Cuba, or I will tell him myself. It’s the only way.”

  I tried to tear my eyes away from the voluptuous lines of her body under the chaste black dress, and to stop my ears to her very sincerity and the warmth of her tone. A burning wave of heat flashed through me that was a combination of hate and desire—hatred of the cruel fate that had forced me to live alone, and desire for a normal life with the wife I still loved, or if she was gone the human need of Liliana, or any woman to hold in my arms and call my own.

  I got up quickly, collected the cups and saucers and took them into the kitchen, all too conscious that for an instant I had lost control and played the fool by uttering some sound like an audible moan. “Rosy glow, hell!” I was thinking when I returned and sat down. “You’re getting close to the point of cracking up from living alone.”

  I forced the tremble out of my voice and said, “Answer me just a few simple questions and I think we can make a deal.”

  Soledad said, “You don’t need to ask them. I already know what they are.”

  “Go on.”

  “First: Why am I married to a man like Orville Harrington, who has made a fortune giving aid and comfort to Fidel Castro as the main supplier of badly needed machinery parts and replacements, through his Am-Baha Import-Export Company?”

  I nodded and waited.

  “Well, it’s love, Dr. Carrillo,” she said surprisingly, and added quickly when she saw my scowl, “but not love for him as you seem to think. I hate him, and everything about him. My love is for the freedom of Cuba that I some day hope to see, and for the old man who is dying down there now, giving his life to snatch it back from Russian and Chinese hands and restore it intact to Liliana, you, and me. I am speaking, of course, of Liliana’s uncle and mine, the brother of our mother who is now in Puerto Rico—Dr. Jorge Villaverde.”

  And so the pieces all straightened out and fell into line and I fought for words that didn’t sound banal. All I managed was, “You are Villaverde’s nieces?”

  She nodded gravely. “For two years now I have been his one communication line between Cuba and the American authorities in Miami. That is why the Kerritack has been allowed to come and go freely between here and Matanzas without molestation by the Coast Guard’s Cuban Patrol—except for gentle reminders to watch his step, as when he was stopped this afternoon.”

  “And the parts he supplies—”

  “Are shipped secretly on his own vessels from the Bahamas to avoid detection by the United States. Trade between the Bahamas and Cuba in itself is not illegal. They are apparently not so important as the information I am able to furnish, and my ability to avoid any narcotics being smuggled in, as I have done many times.”

  I drew in a breath and took the plunge. “And what do you know of Ernesto García?”

  She thought that over carefully, then said reluctantly, “Probably not as much as you do, and certainly not as much as my husband does. That story about picking him up in a rowboat was a lie.”

  “I guessed that. What was the truth?”

  “He was brought on board at Matanzas yesterday from a Rebel Army ambulance with a doctor in attendance. The doctor said he would die without proper medical attention and medicine which was unobtainable in Cuba. It was the Comandante, himself, who told us how to get in touch with you.”

  I switched to postpone the inevitable question. “You said that your
uncle, Dr. Villaverde, was dying. Do you know what the trouble is?”

  “His heart, I believe. He is old and has been through much and only his courage and spirit have kept him going so long. If medicine is not available for the Comandante, how much can be had for the man who started the anti-Castro underground?”

  “Where is he now?” I realized my foolishness as soon as the words were out, but my wits were badly scattered with thoughts of Milagros.

  “Santiago, Camagüey, Cienfuegos, Pinar del Rio. ¿Quién sabe? The day that anyone knows where he is is the day that his usefulness to Cuba is gone. Always he knows when the Kerritack is coming, and always I am contacted by some different person to pass my messages along. That is all.”

  “Not quite all,” I forced myself to say. “You also must know that Comandante Ernesto García is my father-in-law.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then equally you must know the fate of my wife, his daughter, Milagros. ¡Dios mio! Is she alive or dead? I have to know.”

  Once again she hesitated. Liliana plucked at her diamond clip, almost tearing it from her gown. “Tell him the whole truth, Soledad. It’s really easier if you know.”

  “Then she’s dead,” I said dully. “I was sure of it when I didn’t hear.”

  Soledad said, “Perhaps it would have been easier if I let you go on thinking so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s very much alive, Dr. Carrillo. Very much her father’s daughter. In fact they’ve made her royalty among the Russians and Fidel’s army. They call her for a cover name Reina Roja— the Red Queen.”

  ¡Reina Roja! I pressed my palms hard against my eyes in a futile attempt to shut out the cascade of crimson that had finally taken over everything. I was dimly aware that Soledad had risen and that the warmth of her hand was against my cheek.

  “Chico, before you consign her to perdition, it is well to remember what you believed of me such a short time ago,” she said gently. “In a world gone topsy-turvy neither people themselves, nor what they do are ever exactly what they seem.”