by Jose Latour
The Orkin Man had been spared tender-age traumas. His middle-class parents were educated, progressive, intelligent people, and he had enjoyed a happy childhood. When as a kid he wanted something extra, he had to earn it by washing the family car or buying groceries. Good grades and daily collaboration in household chores were his permanent obligations. Allowing a dog into the family had been a major decision that involved moving from a fourth-floor apartment to a house in the suburbs with a big patio, so he was asked to be the best fifth-grader that school year and to promise he’d assume the responsibility for feeding, bathing, vaccinating, walking, and taking care of the animal in every other way.
Some of his happiest memories were linked to Robinson, one of the several thousand bulldogs named after Edward G., the movie actor. The Orkin Man was an only child, and Robinson came to be his favorite playmate from the age of ten to the day his father and mother perished in a car accident. The maternal aunt who was awarded custody of the fifteen-year-old loathed dogs and sent Robinson to the city kennels to be snuffed. It was the second big shock the teenager experienced and one of the reasons why he became a rebel with cause, and then a criminal.
Overjoyed at being back in this place he liked so much, filled with anticipation for the approaching sexual encounter, and digesting the lobster perfectly, the salesman didn’t notice he was being watched. Notified at home of the find, Grava ordered the caller to wait for Contreras, suspecting a previously arranged meeting. The fifth race was about to start when the Orkin Man signaled an espresso vendor, one of the eleven agents in the dragnet. The smiling man poured from a thermos into a tiny paper cup as he boasted, “This is cream, my friend, pure coffee cream.” The client gave him a five-cent coin before sipping the very strong, hot infusion.
After the sixth race, the Orkin Man went down to watch the walk. Sweet Flash looked like a winner in her lustrous beige hair; she jumped in front of the Negro trainer who held her leash as though delighted by the prospect of spilling her lungs out chasing a puppet. The Orkin Man ambled over to the betting windows and laid twenty-five pesos to win, at 4-to-1 odds. He couldn’t imagine that the man right behind him was ready to collar him the minute the order was given.
Gate doors opened with a mechanical thud and seven fireballs bolted after the screeching prey. From the start, Sweet Flash was last. The irritated bettor swore under his breath, ripped the tickets, and left the dog track recalling the Spanish adage: “Bad luck in games of chance, lucky in love.” As he watched the traffic for a chance to cross the street, two men grabbed him by the arms.
Next morning, the sports pages of El Mundo printed an exceptional seventh-race photo depicting Sweet Flash as, in her start-off leap forward, she crashed her head against the doghouse’s top railing. The caption wondered how the bitch could finish only one second behind the winner after suffering such a severe blow. But Arturo Heller never learned that consoling piece of information.
…
For four consecutive days Contreras acted like a strongly sedated mental-asylum patient. He slept long hours at night, took mid-afternoon naps, digested placidly, and excreted abundantly. His brain coasted along in neutral. On the fourth day of seclusion he decided to take a peek at the world.
Squinting somewhat at the smallest type, he read practically every word of a forty-page Información. The Pope’s wake was still ongoing; His Holiness’s bedside doctor had been accused of leaking confidential information to the press; from all over the world cardinals were heading for Rome to vote on a successor. Quemoy and Matsu had been heavily shelled. A proposal to hold a Geneva nuclear disarmament conference had been tabled. Lebanon suffered under civil war.
In Cuba, a presidential campaign waged with constitutional rights suspended was in its closing stages, the winter baseball season had begun, there was a new ten-cent tax on every 250-pound sugar sack. A bus driver had been stabbed to death by the father of a teenager run over and killed a few days earlier by another bus driver who resembled the dead man. Two small merchant ships were being adapted to move Honduran bananas to Florida.
Contreras lifted his eyes from the paper and let it rest on the opposing wall. Ships, ports, Central America. What if he had to leave Cuba in a hurry? It was the first important question he had asked himself in ninety-six hours. He didn’t know anyone at the airport or in the airline business, but had been chums with Silvio Molledo for over twenty years. Sharing the same cynical outlook on most issues, they had the kind of friendship that didn’t need constant fertilizing. Each man knew the other was good in his trade, maybe the best, and that fostered a Top Man–to–Top Man respect, kind of. Money always changed hands when they did business, but more as an inescapable fact of life than as payment for services rendered.
Those who earned their keep at the Port of Havana knew that the manager of Vapores Luis Luis was sort of a master key that opened all waterfront padlocks. Born in 1896 in an eighteenth-century house at the corner of Oficios and Lamparilla Streets, Molledo had held all sorts of jobs in the harbor without ever taking a day off. He knew everybody worth knowing at all the piers. In Flota Blanca, Arsenal, Vaccaro, Paula, Santa Clara, San Francisco, La Machina, and Regla, Molledo dealt on a first-name basis with a little over a thousand people, including Customs inspectors, brokers, captains, naval officers, pursers, boatswains, sailors, agents, clerks, smugglers, stevedores, cops, stoolies, drivers, beggars, and traders. He was decidedly the man to see if you needed to arrange something really tricky and had the dough to pay for it.
Contreras went back to the paper. The last thing he read nearly two hours later was on the final page of the rotogravure. The fad in men’s fashion, dubbed “the boot,” consisted of turning up a jacket’s sleeves an inch or so. He ordered and had lunch, emptied the ashtray in the toilet, flushed it, then bunked down for a nap. Around four o’clock he showered, listened to the radio for a while, and took a stroll before heading for the car. He turned the ignition and, as he revved the engine, thought he should fire it up on a daily basis, just in case.
After supper, Contreras turned on the small Olympic TV set, didn’t like what was being aired on any of the five channels, and marched to the pergola to delight in the smell of wet earth, the crickets’ chirping, and the twinkling stars, until the wooden armchair made his back and buttocks suffer. By 10:45 he was in bed, sleeping like a woodcutter who had swung his ax for ten hours.
Next day—Thursday the sixteenth—he ordered El Mundo in addition to Información, napped for only half an hour, and in late afternoon walked away from the clinic pretending to be bored to death, a guy who just wanted to stretch his legs and kill some time. He zigzagged around the neighborhood, pausing to stare at whatever caught his eye: a beautiful house, a luxuriant tree, or the nice sorrel-colored horse grazing in a vacant lot. After twenty-five minutes of apparently aimless wandering, and before total darkness could reveal the light of a match, Contreras stepped into a neglected garden where thriving bougainvillea, croton, and bellflowers partly concealed an abandoned, half-demolished brick house behind their exuberant growth. Standing on the broken floor tiles of what had been a bedroom, he made sure that the two-gallon milk jug containing 150,000 pesos remained undisturbed two feet underground alongside the mildewed wall where he’d hidden it in his final—and certainly most tiring—task the previous Saturday.
On the seventeenth, sleep became elusive and he tossed and turned for nearly an hour.
Contreras devoted Saturday morning to a careful inspection of his lair. Both cabins stood on the farthest angle of the lot’s irregular perimeter, beneath the shadow of two huge oaks. The cabin next to his admitted only medical staff—at odd hours, and one person at a time—apparently for after-duty rest.
Pacing off the walkways, wearing pajamas, shod in the same cheap sandals handed to other patients, Contreras smiled absentmindedly at doctors, nurses, attendants, and patients. He ambled along with hands clasped behind his back, convincingly acting the part of a slightly unbalanced person hoping for a quick r
ecuperation. But his mind was filing away all that might be convenient to know in an emergency: entrances, exits, windows, padlocks, switches, fences, vehicles, and routines.
On Sunday, when the cleaning lady returned from the nearest grocery store, where she bought him cigarettes, razor blades, and toothpaste, Contreras again scouted around. Repressing an urge to split her sides, a nurse freed him from a menopausal nymphomaniac suffering an acute relapse. A little later he took a seat at a dominoes table and played with three other inmates, until his partner hurled the 9-9 piece at the shaven head of a silent schizoid because instead of saying “Go” when he couldn’t match either end, the poor nut would stamp his feet on the ground.
Next morning Contreras began feeling affected by ennui. He was fed up with speculation and prophecies on who the next Pope would be; irritated by news dispatches concerning Nationalist China, the Near East, and the Algerian revolution; nauseated by official statements about the fairness of the coming elections in Cuba. He was bored by TV shows and radio broadcasts, sick and tired of checking the car daily, of walking around like a caged beast, of eating tasteless food. His early-morning erections were making him seriously consider sending for Teresa, who could also give him a fresh rinse.
Only visits to the hidden treasure and brief exchanges with Pedro, the night watchman, got him back to normal. He often wondered about the resignation with which he waited out his prison term. How come? Lack of alternative. The toughest challenges to willpower come from feeling free to make a choice, he concluded. On the twenty-third, a Thursday, Contreras decided he would remain holed up until February, shaving off two months from his original decision.
On Friday he sent for two beefsteaks and two beers and had supper in the cabin, then strolled leisurely to the pergola, smoking a cigarette. An overcast sky made the moon look unreal, adult bats flew around as their nestlings shrieked inside nearby cavities, and the call of an owl, perhaps in love, scared away the rodents she hoped to devour.
It occurred to Contreras that the lack of notoriety concerning what they had pulled off had induced part of his uneasiness. Neither newspapers nor radio and television stations had devoted a word or a second to it, and deep inside he believed they deserved some social recognition for having successfully hit the best pros in the world. All of a sudden, Gallego’s idea seemed less absurd. Perhaps if he made a brief trip to the city he could tap his sources and visit Teresa. Maybe even get a pair of reading glasses, Contreras added to himself, sighing deeply: old age knocking on his door. He gave himself a week to think it over, and with a quick flexion of the forefinger flipped the butt. It fell on the lawn.
“Good evening, Señor Suárez,” an approaching man said.
“Good evening, Don Pedro,” Contreras replied, turning in his seat.
The night watchman, a sixty-two-year-old pensioner from the judiciary, had held the position of usher at six different Havana courts for thirty-six years. Pedro wore gray khaki pants, a dark blue, long-sleeved corduroy shirt, and black lace-up shoes. A black Spanish beret covered his bald head. From his shoulder hung a bulky clock, where a circular paper chart registered the punchings Pedro made every fifteen minutes using seven different keys scattered all over the place. In the mornings, the clinic’s administrator retrieved the used chart, checked that Pedro hadn’t snoozed, inserted a new one, and wound up the timing device for the next night. Pedro was a very busy night watchman who sincerely believed nobody could possibly suspect his astonishing propensity for quixotism.
“How are you tonight?” Pedro asked as he readjusted his belt. In a leather holster, the butt of a .32-caliber Colt top-break revolver could be seen. The weapon had been fired twice since it was manufactured in 1883.
“Much better, thank you.”
“Nights are a little chilly this time of the year.”
“Yeah. I’m wrapping myself in the bedspread,” Contreras commented as he offered his pack of La Corona.
Pedro pulled one out. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
The night watchman lit up with a Japanese benzene lighter.
Contreras felt like keeping the ball rolling. “I see you carrying that gun and can’t help thinking you don’t need it.”
Pedro cocked his head, an amused expression on his face, and blew smoke out. “And I see you unarmed and can’t help thinking you ought to pack.”
Contreras turned on his self-control and remained impassive. Then he rose from the armchair to face the night watchman, look into his eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean, amigo?”
Pedro arched his eyebrows. “It means that in this place patients are loonies but attendants are not fools, Señor Suárez.”
Contreras didn’t feel like a cigarette but lit one nevertheless to gain time. “You believe somebody might try to shoot me? Are there dangerous patients here?”
“No, sir, there’re no dangerous patients in this clinic. What I and other people here believe is that you came down from the Sierra Maestra with a job to do.”
Contreras had to call forth all of his acting capabilities to bury in his chest what probably would have been the biggest outburst of laughter in his life. His mind pondered alternatives at full speed.
“That’s an outright lie that places me in a difficult position. Any batistiano working here might—”
“Everyone here is against Batista,” Pedro interrupted.
Contreras massaged his forehead with his left-hand fingers before speaking. “Listen, man, I can’t—”
“Of course, compadre, you can’t talk about it,” Pedro barged in. “Can’t say why you’re locked up here, dyed your hair, shaved your mustache, changed cars. But the word is you came to boycott the elections.”
The night watchman thought Contreras’s smile conspiratorial.
“Look, amigo, do me a favor, will you? Tell everybody to keep their mouths shut. They might compromise a harmless man and his no-less-innocent friends.”
Don Pedro nodded gravely. “I’ll pass on your message. And if you need assistance … let me know.”
“Thanks.”
“Liberty or death,” Pedro said as he took his first step toward the next clock key.
“Liberty or death,” Contreras felt prompted to mumble back.
He fell asleep around 2:30 A.M., once he had carefully considered the opportunities and dangers presented by the amazing conversation.
…
At 6:35 A.M., on October 17, a Friday, Señor Joaquín Sosa, eyes heavy with sleep, opened the front door of his apartment to two men in civilian clothes who flashed badges and asked him to let them in. They wanted to explain something to him and ask a few questions.
Ninety-nine point nine percent of Cubans faced with such a request in 1958 would have gulped, smiled sheepishly, and waved the visitors in. But Señor Sosa was not an ordinary Cuban. In fact, he belonged to that small percentage of good souls living on this planet who never tell a lie, commit a misdemeanor, or kill one of God’s little creatures, except for cockroaches and mosquitoes. Señor Sosa didn’t smoke and was a confirmed teetotaler. As a responsible employee, he had never been late in twenty-seven years of working for the Cuban Telephone Company; as a faithful husband, he had made love only to his wife; as a devout Pentecostal, he believed that the Lord was his shepherd and that not a living soul could bear any grudge against him. For all these reasons, Señor Sosa was a fearless man.
The sergeant and the corporal couldn’t believe their ears when Joaquín Sosa adamantly said they would have to return in the evening, after 7 P.M. As the balding man explained that he was hard-pressed for time and proudly proclaimed he’d never been late for work in twenty-seven years, the cops exchanged a glance. Then the sergeant told Señor Sosa he had five seconds to make up his mind. They would go in peacefully or they would go in after kicking his big fat ass so many times he wouldn’t be able to sit at his fucking office chair for the next six months. An openmouthed Señor Sosa realized that the Lord was caring for
some other lamb in that precise moment, so he stepped back and let them in.
Señor Sosa had traces of dry shaving lather near both earlobes; his right cheek was clean, the left one showed white stubs. He wore an undershirt, pajama trousers, and leather slippers. The cops chose two rocking chairs and the sergeant told him the reason they were there. Señor Sosa was so absolutely astounded he didn’t know what to think or do, not even when the cop finished the story and demanded the evidence they would otherwise requisition.
So, the head of the family asked to be excused, went to his bedroom, and found his wife behind the door, listening in, terrified to the bones. Some hurried whispering took place. Through the shared bathroom they entered their daughter’s bedroom and shook her awake. Esther reacted like a tigress when her father explained. With her firm breasts hardly bobbing under the flimsy pajama top, statuesque bare legs visible beneath the hem of the shorts, and long auburn hair framing her lovely face, Esther stormed into the living room carrying the stool. She put it down on the floor, right in front the gaping cops, termed the charge a preposterous fabrication, defied them to rip the stool open right now, in her presence, and demanded that they then free her fiancé immediately.
