Killing Castro

by Lawrence Block

  Then they made love. It was warm, intense, demanding. She was anxious to please. Turner felt like a master, a god, a man.

  Afterward, he and Ernesto walked through the streets of downtown Havana, stopped for a glass of beer here and there, smoked Cuban cigars and relaxed in the soft warmth of Havana at night.

  “And you wish to leave this?” Ernesto demanded. “This ease, this blissful atmosphere? This for Brazil?”

  “I enjoy Havana,” Turner admitted.

  “Of course you do. You will stay.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You will go to the government,” Ernesto said, “and you will tell them that in the United States you killed a man and a woman, and that you stole into Cuba illegally. They will permit you to stay. They will assist you.”

  And Turner started to laugh. The irony of it was magnificent—he would be asking for help from the man he proposed to kill!

  “Good food and good drinks,” the businessman said. “And good little women, best in the world. But I’m getting out of here, Harper. I’ll tell you, give me the States any time. You can relax there. They appreciate business, don’t try to push a man out once he gets where he belongs. Here it doesn’t work that way.”

  Garrison looked at him. The man was fat and he perspired easily. He had said that his name was Burley, Lester Burley—call me Les. Garrison neither liked nor disliked him. They were in the bar at the Nacional and they were drinking. Soon Garrison would go upstairs, and then Estrella would join him for the evening. He didn’t mind putting up with call-me-Les Burley until then.

  “You’re in business here, Burley?”

  “Les,” Burley corrected. “Yes, I’m in business here. Nothing fancy, import and export, actually. Mostly cigars, buying tobaccos and selling them to a few cigar makers in Tampa. Ever been to Tampa?”

  “No,” Garrison said.

  “You’d like it—good town. Couple factories there—Havana Royale, Garcia Supreme—I sell ’em a lot of their stuff. Handle it, you might say. You’re in real estate, Harper?”

  Garrison nodded.

  “Meaning you buy and you sell?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This trip business or pleasure?”

  “A little of both,” Garrison drawled, slipping into his role. “Pleasure before business, I always say. Sort of a motto of mine. But if a chance comes along to make a dollar or two—”

  “Up to you, of course,” call-me-Les said. “But I wouldn’t sign anything, wouldn’t put out any cash, wouldn’t buy any Cuban real estate. Not if I were you I wouldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Burley moistened his lips. “Same reason I’m closing shop and getting the merry hell back to the States. Don’t know what I’ll get into once I’m back there. Been in Cuba for years and years. More or less have to go into something concerning tobacco, what with my name. You understand?”

  Garrison didn’t.

  “Burley,” call-me-Les said. “Burley tobacco. For pipe smoking. Just a coincidence, but a funny one. Don’t you think?”

  “Oh,” Garrison said. “Certainly.”

  “I’ll find something in the States. Not like this country—there a man with drive and know-how still finds opportunities. This place used to be like that. Now they’re turning it Socialist, even Communist. And that’s why you’re a damn fool to pay out good money for a piece of property here. You wouldn’t have it long enough to enjoy it. You’d just buy the blame thing and watch them take it away from you.”

  Garrison nodded thoughtfully. Actually he wasn’t paying much attention to Burley. He was thinking about Estrella, remembering the last time they had been together. Now he noticed that Burley was eyeing him, waiting for him to say something.

  “You mean confiscations,” he said. “I thought they were done with that.”

  “Not by a long shot. It’s just starting. Oh, they took over the big companies already, the oil and the land. Maybe that’s enough for Castro. It’s beginning to look as though nothing’s enough for that boy, but I guess you never know.”

  “No?”

  “Nope. Because he plays ball with the Russians. He gets guns and aid and God-knows-what from them, and that means trouble. I’ll betcha he has an idea he’ll kinda parlay this whole thing into an empire. You know—commissar of all South America, or something like that.”

  Burley moistened his lips again. “But he won’t last forever. The Commies like him now because they can use him. He’s useful, he’s handy. But they’ve got their eye on the whole South American setup and they want it for themselves. And if by some fluke he ever got hold of it, they’d knock him off so fast he wouldn’t know what happened to him. He’d find himself on the outside looking in. After that he’d find himself on the inside, looking out.” He guffawed at his own joke and then spent the next ten minutes explaining it.

  Garrison waited. A slender girl brought drinks and he swallowed half of his. In a few minutes, he thought, it would be time to go to Estrella. She would be better company than this idiot of a cigar salesman who insisted on being called Les. Garrison had had the totally monotonous experience of hearing Burley recount in detail his amatory adventures since age sixteen, and now he was explaining the political picture in Cuba. It was hard for Garrison to decide which was less interesting. Sex was more exciting to him than politics, but at the same time Burley had a way of making any subject a bore.

  “You see what I mean, Harper?”

  “Sure,” Garrison said automatically. “Sure, Les.”

  “So just you watch. I’ve got a hunch Castro’ll be dead within the next two months. Want to bet on it?”

  “No bet. I think you might be right.”

  Of course he will, Garrison thought. I’m going to kill him, you poor damned fool. I’ve got the gun in my room. Want to have a look at it?

  “Here’s how it goes, Harper. Castro gets killed—by the Commies, who would rather have their own man in than him. He’s bullheaded and overconfident and he can be ordered around only as long as he’s getting something out of this Russian deal. Actually, he has no strong convictions. He just likes to run off at the mouth. You know what they used to call him at the university? Loudmouth!

  “And you know what the Russians want? To grab Cuba, bump Castro off and then spread a big propaganda blanket saying the U. S. arranged everything and Castro was killed by Americans. Then the whole island goes Communist and we’ve got one hell of a mess on our hands. Brother, I want to be long gone by then.”

  “Sure,” Garrison said, completely disinterested in Les’ predictions, right or wrong. “Well, take care, Les,” he said, getting to his feet.

  “You got to go?”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, dropping money to cover the check. “I’ll see you.”

  “Well, at least let me pick up the tab—”

  Garrison didn’t let him. He left, went to the newsstand in the lobby, picked up a fresh cigar. He took the elevator to his room and let himself in. Everything was as he had left it, and Estrella hadn’t shown yet.

  He walked to the window, raised the shade, looked out at the plaza where Castro would be speaking. The big public speech was due on July 26th, of course. The anniversary of the movement. And that was the day Castro was going to die, unless one of the other four got to him sooner.

  Which seemed doubtful enough.

  July 26th was a little less than three weeks away. He laughed; maybe he should have told Burley to revise his figures, should have told him that Castro would be dead in three weeks, not two months. Good old call-me-Les, with his ear pretty damn close to the ground, let me tell you. He would probably drop dead of apoplexy if he knew that John Harper, boy real estate speculator, was the man who was going to put an extra hole in Fidel Castro’s head.

  Garrison yanked down the window shade, went over to the bed again. The hell with it, he thought. There were plenty of little things to laugh at, things like call-me-Les Burley, but the big things weren’t that funny. He had probl
ems of his own.

  Estrella was the problem. The easy answer was too easy—get rid of her, forget her, go back to the States and let her rot. That was the right answer but it didn’t take care of the problem.

  Because the problem was that he wanted to take her back with him. She was a new type of woman—she didn’t ask for anything, didn’t want anything, didn’t waste words and didn’t get in his hair. She was with him when he wanted her, with him completely and totally. She left him alone when he had to be alone. She knew how to keep her mouth shut.

  And he wanted to keep her. That was what it boiled down to—she was a fine little possession and he didn’t want to let go of her. And taking her back didn’t exactly fit in with his plans, with the pattern of his life. He was going to have to leave in a hurry, a hell of a hurry. He didn’t have time to go through war-bride ceremonies. And he might have to lam it hard, might have to bribe some fast-buck pilot to run him home in a hurry. You traveled light in Garrison’s business. The first thing you had to learn was not to attach yourself to anything—not to a home, a city, or a thing. You lived out of one suitcase and you were ready to leave that suitcase behind in a jam.

  You sure as hell stayed away from love.

  Women were fine—they were part of the rewards of the business—expensive, high-flying, one-night gigs. But not love. God in heaven, not love!

  A knock at the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Estrella. Let me in, ’arper.”

  He opened the door. She was in his arms, soft and warm. The same excitement was there. It happened every time, the heat, the tension, the desire. Every time.

  And afterward:

  “I love you, ’arper. I love you.”

  “I love you, Estrella.”

  Three days hadn’t changed anything. Three days, and as many movements along the road toward Santiago, had done nothing to lift the tension in the rebel band. Garth did not talk to Fenton. Nor did he talk to Manuel, and since no one else spoke English, he, consequently, did not talk to anyone. He spent his time watching Maria. He never went near her, but he never stopped watching her.

  And the tension grew. Castro was due within the week. They were in position now, a position they presumably could hold when the time came. Their camp was in the hills, but they were near a rock formation that overlooked the road. From these rocks an ambush would not be difficult at all. Manuel had explained it to Fenton but actually little explanation was necessary.

  There were ridges of rock on either side of the road. The road had been cut through and the rock remained around it. Shrubs grew from cracks between boulders to provide additional cover. When the time came, the rebels would station themselves, half on either side of the road. There were ten of them now—Manuel, Maria, Garth, Fenton, Taco Sardo, Francisco Seis and four new recruits whose names Fenton did not know yet. They would wait for the motor convoy with Castro at its head. Then, as a triumphant Castro sped to Santiago, they would open fire and kill him.

  “We may have much luck,” Manuel said. “Fidel’s brother, Raul, he may be with him. In the car. We may get both birds. Is that how it is said?”

  “You mean two birds with one stone.”

  “That is what I mean. It would be good, killing them both. It would be very good.”

  Fenton said nothing. He was geared for killing, geared and primed to kill Fidel Castro. It did not occur to him that it would be good or bad to add Fidel’s brother to the list of casualties. That did not seem to enter into it.

  “Fidel and Raul,” Manuel was saying. “I will have much name, amigo. I will be the man who executed both the Castros. That will put me very high in the eyes of the people. Is it not so?”

  “Of course,” Fenton said.

  “And I shall have followers. My name will be a unifying force, a force tying Cubans together to rally against the Castro butchers. They may shout my name, amigo.”

  Fenton nodded uncertainly.

  “When Castro is dead,” Manuel began. “What will you do then?”

  “I don’t know,” Fenton said honestly. Somehow, he had not given the question any thought. His whole being was geared now to one thing only, the destruction of Castro. What happened after that did not matter. After Castro was dead, Fenton would wait for cancer to kill him. It hardly seemed to matter where he waited, or what he did while he waited. He would be waiting for death.

  “You could stay in Cuba.”

  “Why?”

  “With us,” Manuel said. “There will be much fighting, of course. A revolution, a full revolution. You have fought with me already, and you could continue to fight with me.”

  “With you?”

  “Of course,” Manuel said. He took a knife from his jacket pocket, opened the blade, idly sliced a slender branch from a tree. He began trimming the twigs from the branch.

  “I used to make fishing poles in this manner,” Manuel said. “When I was a boy.”

  Fenton kept his mouth shut.

  “Here in Cuba,” Manuel went on, “there would be a place for you. A better place than in the United States.”

  “What sort of place?”

  Manuel shrugged. Now he was using the knife to peel bark from the branch. He was very deft with the knife. He removed the bark to expose the clean, white wood beneath.

  “The other day,” Manuel began, “Maria told me what took place.”

  “You mean with Garth?”

  Manuel nodded.

  “He knocked me out. I was lucky to come to in time to be much good.”

  “You were very good,” Manuel said. “When I first met you, I thought you were less of a man than you are. I mean that I did not know you would be good at the fighting. I thought you were a quiet man, you know?”

  “I am a quiet man.”

  “You have much heart. I did not know that then. I know it now. Because of what happened with Maria, because of the fighting we have been in together. You have much heart, amigo.”

  Fenton did not know what to say. He was pleased. He felt … alive, useful. He was very pleased.

  “Later,” Manuel went on. “You will stay with us, yes?”

  “If you want me to stay.” Why not, he thought. There was no place to go, nothing to do but wait for death. He might as well wait in Cuba. He could die fighting, could die at Manuel’s side. Manuel was his friend, his comrade in arms. Better to die at his side than in the teller’s cage at the Metropolitan Bank of Lynbrook.

  “I want you to stay.”

  “Then I will stay, Manuel.”

  Now Manuel was cutting the branch into small sections, then idly tossing the sections into the brush. “There will be good things for you,” he went on, his voice quiet but intense. “When Castro dies, the revolution will begin. And the revolution will take little time. The Castristas will flee the island just as the Batistianos fled before them. And then, amigo, Cuba will be ours.”

  Fenton said nothing. Something was bothering him, gnawing at him. He was unsure what it was.

  “Someone will have to lead the nation,” Manuel went on. “Someone will have to be the strong man, the ruler.”

  “Who do you mean?”

  Manuel did not answer directly. “A man with reputation,” he said easily. “A man the people know. A man, for example, with the scalps of Fidel and Raul at his belt.”

  “You mean yourself?”

  Manuel shrugged. “Someone must take the job. And it would be good to have a man as an assistant. An American, so that the United States will know that Cuba is with the Americans and not the Communists. A man like yourself, for example.”

  They left it there. But later Fenton thought of the conversation and something like sickness spread through his body. This was the revolution, this was the rising of the people—with Manuel already hungry for power, long before Castro was dead. This was the revolution.

  Well, to hell with it. He had his job to do and that was all that concerned him. Castro was a dictator and he would die. The revolution would go
on and he, Fenton, would join it.

  In time, Manuel, or someone like him, would be the dictator—probably as despotic a one as Castro, perhaps worse. But that was no concern of Fenton’s.

  He would be dead before it happened.

  EIGHT

  It was a short while past midnight on the first of January, 1959. Fulgencio Batista loaded a limousine with his luggage. His second wife and three of his children were with him, ready to leave the presidential estate at Kuquine. Batista said farewell to his servants, told them that the family was off on a brief trip. Then, with his limousine flanked by secret service cars carrying troops with submachine guns, the dictator headed for Camp Columbia.

  Within two hours, Batista’s plane was in the air, headed for sanctuary in the Dominican Republic. Like a thief in the night, the strong man of Cuba had stolen out of his own country. His time for power was over and he could now do nothing more than save his own life.

  The revolution was an unqualified success. The following day Castro and his bearded followers rode in triumph through the streets of every principal city of the islands. Crowds thronged after them, screaming Castro’s name at the tops of their lungs. The Twenty-sixth of July Movement, a movement pledged to the hilt to freedom and liberty, had triumphed.

  The victory of Castro was the defeat of Castro. The shouts of acclaim for the revolution were that revolution’s death-knell. Because men who win wars are poor at making peace, and men who win fame as rebels are all too often unequal to the task of governing the land they have liberated. The switch from traitor to hero is too sudden, the new role too difficult to play properly.

  There have been exceptions—George Washington in America, for one. But the exceptions are few and far between. It is all too simple for the men who overthrow dictators to step nimbly into the dictator’s shoes, all too easy for the liberator to place his own chains upon his nation.