Suspicion of Rage

by Barbara Parker

  Nicolás hesitated, then dived into the gutter beside the front wheel of the truck. He hid the whiteness of his hands in the sleeves of his black pullover and lowered his face to his arm until only his eyes peered out.

  He heard an engine at high speed, another car coming, blue light flashing, the letters PRN on the side. It braked and slid. Doors opened, men jumped out. Chachi went one way, then the other, then back. He looked small, like a kid in a nightmare game of tag.

  He tried to slip past them at right angles. One of the cops grabbed him by the neck of his jacket, slinging him around. Chachi raised his hands and bent over, shielding his head. Someone kicked his legs out from under him. He curled into a ball on the ground. The men surrounded him and kicked him, and the sticks rose and fell in the glare of the lights.

  Twenty meters away, Nicolás buried his face in the crook of his elbow and bit down on the fabric to keep from screaming aloud. When he next lifted his eyes, the men had Chachi under the arms, taking him toward the open door of the patrol car. His head rolled on his shoulders, and his feet dragged. Nicolás wanted a bomb, a pistol, a machine gun—

  "Here! Look here! There's a man in front of my house!" The shrill cry came from the steps.

  Nicolás looked around and saw an old woman on the porch in a nightgown. She was screaming, pointing at him, one finger extended.

  "Thief! Murderer!"

  One of the men shouted, and they started running toward the truck. Nicolás struggled to get out of the narrow space between the wheel and the curb.

  A car door slammed shut, and tires spun on the pavement as one of the patrol cars took off and accelerated. Headlights raked the street and shone in his eyes.

  Nicolás turned toward the shadows and ran.

  The sun would not come up for an hour, but already the rooster in the courtyard was calling the night a liar. Perched on the back of a broken chair, the bird extended his neck and screamed that morning was here.

  Mario Cabrera tilted a wooden slat in the window to look out. A single bulb by the stairs did little to relieve the gloom of the courtyard. Water dripped into an algae-slick wash tub from a spigot wired to the wall. Tomatoes and onions grew in a patch of earth where concrete had been taken out for this purpose. Above the patched tile roof of the second floor, darkness pressed down like a heavy black curtain. The rooster fluttered away to find another perch, and into the empty night came the low rumble and clank of a train.

  The apartment was in Cerro, not far from the railroad tracks that went south from the city along the west side of the harbor. Raúl had rented it from the cousin of a man who had died several years ago. The death had never been reported, and the cousin had made some money on the place. To keep the neighbors happy, Raúl had brought them a pig in the back of his Fiat. It lived in a pen in a corner of the courtyard eating scraps, unaware that soon it would be stretched over coals, oiled, and basted with garlic.

  The people here needed the food more than they needed to report strangers in the building. When the sun rose on this street, the men might set up little tables and earn a few pesos refilling cigarette lighters with hair spray; the women would walk to Vedado or Centro to sell the fruit they had bought on the black market. Criminals, all of them. No jobs, no licenses. They had to live. Nobody sent them dollars from outside.

  "Mario, what are you doing?" Raúl asked.

  "I thought I heard something."

  Raul's teeth flashed in his dark face when he grinned. "It's just the whores coming home from work." He turned off the gas stove and poured hot milk into the cups. He had already made the coffee, and Tomás had bought some loaves of fresh bread from the back door of a bakery. Mario went to the table to break off another piece for himself and spread it with butter.

  The table had been dragged into the center of the room. An extension cord from the apartment next door allowed them to turn on a lamp. It shone on a row of photographs that Olga Saavedra had brought with her. The diagram she had made of General Vega's house, interior and exterior, lay in the pool of light on the table. Brushing away bread crumbs, Mario studied the layout of rooms, upstairs and down. The general's office. The bedrooms. The garage.

  Olga sat on one end of the sofa with her eyes closed and her cheek in her palm. She looked like she wanted very badly to go home. She opened her eyes when Raúl waved a cup of coffee back and forth under her nose. With a shake of her head, she sank farther into the sofa. Raúl gave the cup to Tomás.

  There were five of them here from the Movement. Mario did not include Olga Saavedra in that number. Aside from himself, Raúl, and Tomás, the others were friends of Nico's who knew electronics. Their job was to find some two-way radios or build them if they couldn't be found. This would be necessary if Mario wanted to get cleanly away after he shot General Vega.

  Nico and Chachi hadn't showed up. It was possible they had been delayed, but with no telephone here, it was hard to guess what had happened.

  Tomás said, "There are only eight photographs. Where are the others on the roll?"

  Olga Saavedra said, "That's all I took. I couldn't get any more. His wife hates me. She has her eye on me all the time, so you make do with what I brought you."

  Raúl grinned and sat heavily beside her, making the sofa creak. "If I were Vega's wife, I would hate you too."

  Shoving him away, she wrinkled her nose. "Don't you take baths? You stink."

  "You like it." He waggled his tongue at her.

  "Disgusting." She got up and walked to the window. Her blond hair swung on her shoulders when she turned to look at Tomás. "Can I go?"

  "Not yet." The light shone on his white shirt, his thin arms. "When was the last time you slept with the general?"

  "I'm not sleeping with him."

  "So you told us. When was the last time?"

  She shrugged. "A couple of weeks ago. Why do you ask me that?"

  "He has a wife, and wives are suspicious. You should stay away from him. Tell him you're busy."

  From across the room Mario said, "Where do you usually go with Vega?"

  "Go? A hotel. The house of a friend. Why?"

  Mario looked at the others, the solution to their problems having become obvious. "If she meets him, we can be waiting, or she will let us in. He comes to us. That would be simpler, wouldn't it, than trying to go to him?"

  "I won't do that," Olga said. She cut off the idea with a quick slash of her hand. "I can't. We aren't alone. The general has a driver who waits for him. He watches the street. I took the pictures, and that's all I do, no more."

  Raúl started laughing. Mario glanced at him, then asked Olga, "Do you know this man, the driver? Can he be bought?"

  "No."

  "She knows him," Raúl said. "She used to screw him. A generous guy to share her with the boss."

  "That was fifteen years ago! He's nothing to me, or I to him."

  "Are you sure Vega's wife doesn't suspect you?" Tomás asked. "You said she hates you."

  "She doesn't know, I tell you. She never said anything to me, not like that. Marta Quintana hates me because I wear good clothes, and I like perfume. You should hear what she says to me. I suck the juice from the Revolution and give back nothing. Such stupid things she says. Stop interrogating me, Tomás. I'm tired."

  Peering through his glasses at the photographs on the table, he said, "Mario, what do you think? Can you work with only these?"

  Mario moved the photographs onto the diagram of the house so they corresponded with the rooms. "I believe I can get inside the house at least once before the operation. I need some pictures of the neighborhood. I want to know the fences, the intersections. Where is the. CDR located?"

  Tomás nodded. "I'll see to it."

  Sprawled on the sofa, Raúl put his hands behind his head. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt, and the muscles bunched in his arms. "Tell us more about this girl from Miami. Is she going to let you in her panties? If not, maybe you can put it to Vega's wife."

  Mario remembered the girl's soft pin
k sweater, her flawless white skin, the small gold crucifix on the curve of her breast. "Shut up before I break your jaw."

  "Ooooh! Do we like this little beauty?"

  Tomás pointed at Raúl. "Enough. We are one heart, one mind. Remember that. All of you."

  When the others began to argue how to take pictures of Vega's neighborhood in Miramar, Mario said he was going outside for a smoke. He went through the courtyard and pulled open the sheet-metal door to the street, careful not to let it squeak on the hinges. He sat on one of the plastic crates on the sidewalk, took out his cigarettes, and remembered he'd left his matches inside.

  Raking his braids off his face, he leaned against the wall, tired to his bones. Tonight his mother expected him for dinner at her house. The people from Miami would be there. Anthony Quintana and his family. His daughter. Mario needed to sleep for a few hours. To take a bath and put on some good clothes.

  But first he had to see about Nico and Chachi. It wasn't like them not to show up. Tomás had suggested that somebody go around to their apartment and check on them. Mario had said he would do it.

  Footsteps sounded, and two men dressed completely in white came across the narrow street. White shoes, coats, pants. They would wear white for a year as initiates in santería. Walking down Infanta a couple of hours ago, Mario had heard drumbeats and chanting. He had come nearer, and from the sidewalk had looked directly into a living room blazing with lights and color. A woman twirled in the center of the room, and the people shook gourds and shouted and sang. Olofi-onise, on-ishe ko— God grant us all good things—

  The poor had to believe in something. Mario's parents believed in the Catholic God, or said that they did. Mario believed that this street and this dawn existed. Where they came from, no one could know. This dawn, and this day, and the next, would flow like a river. The people on this street would continue in their poverty. Whether the actions of one man would change anything, Mario didn't know. He expected no reward on this side or the other, but a man who saw and did nothing was already dead.

  The door squeaked and moved inward. Olga Saavedra waited until the men had walked around the corner to come out. Her Mercedes was half a block away, visible under a dim streetlight. She reached into her fake Louis Vuitton bag for her car keys. "This place is terrible. I hate coming here."

  "It's safe. Nobody asks questions."

  "I'm not coming back. That's it."

  Mario looked up at her, an odd view of breasts and chin and the point of her nose. Why had she come at all? Tomás had met Olga Saavedra when she'd done a TV documentary about the musicians at the Varadero hotels. She wasn't in love with him. She was older. She had a car, a job, money.

  "Why are you in this, Olga?"

  "Why do you care?"

  "Because I'm not sure I trust you."

  Her face turned down so she could see him directly. She smiled. "You have your reasons, I have mine." She tossed her keys in her hand, then sat on a crate next to him and slid a cigarette out of the pack he held on his thigh. "This isn't my favorite, Popular, but I'm getting desperate."

  He said, "I don't have any matches."

  Olga found a lighter in her bag, and Mario lit a cigarette for each of them. She crossed her legs and settled back. She was wearing tight black pants with a slit at the ankle, and as she swung her foot in its high-heeled sandal, her toe ring sparkled. "I'll tell you why. Someday, love, everything will change, and I'm going to be on the right side. I want them to know it."

  "Them?"

  "Those who take over."

  Mario smiled, and smoke drifted from his lips into the still air. "We can't know who will take over. Your reason doesn't make sense."

  "It's as good as yours. You want to send a message. Who is listening? Really, who?"

  He gestured toward the doors and windows in the long, low wall of concrete across the street. "They are."

  "They're asleep," she said.

  "Not for long."

  "Oh, my God." Olga Saavedra laughed quietly. "When you light that fuse, I want to be out of here." She was silent for a time, then said, "Do you really have to do this?"

  "Yes."

  "Why? He is not so important." "He is the first break in the wall. Do you care about him?"

  "No. I hate him. I only meant... how can you do it? You know ... to kill a man inside his own house. Can you do that? What if his wife is there? Or his children? And if they see him die... all the blood—"

  "Quiet! Are you drunk or only stupid?"

  "Don't be mean. I like you. You're a nice person, I can tell. Un ragazzo simpatico. That's Italian."

  "I know."

  "I've been to Italy two times," she said. "Paris once, but only to change planes on my way to Rome. Paris is so pretty from the air. The Eiffel Tower was like a little toy, and I could see the river. What is that river called?"

  Mario smoked his cigarette. "The Seine."

  "That's right. You're very smart." Olga touched his hand and turned one of his rings around so she could see the head of the silver snake that lay across its own tail. "Such beautiful hands. Long fingers. Good for a musician, no? I bet you have lots of girlfriends." She nudged him with her shoulder. He could smell her perfume, feel the heat of her body.

  At the east end of the street, the roofs of the buildings had become distinct from the sky. Dawn had pulled them back to earth. The tiles were no longer black, but their usual reddish gray. Birds on the electric wires had started their song.

  Olga said, "Tomás says that you know Anthony Quintana, the son of Luis Quintana. He's a great friend of your family. Is that true?"

  "My parents know him."

  "So do I." The early light turned her eyes green as new shoots of grass. "We are friends for many years. His mother's family, they got out. They're very rich, very connected to the government. I might ask him to arrange for me to go to the United States. He could do it."

  Mario put his elbows on his knees, moving away from her. "If you want out so badly, why didn't you stay out when you had the chance?"

  Laughing, she replied, "Because how did I know? How did I know it was my last chance to get out of this circus of horrors? They locked the door. Maybe they think I will run. They are right." She played with one of his braids, then her breath was in his ear. "Mario, can I give you some advice? Let someone else take Vega. You get out of here. You could have a good life, a boy like you."

  Tapping his cigarette, he watched the ashes fall to the sidewalk between his feet. He brushed off the toe of one dark blue canvas shoe. The rubber was peeling away from the fabric.

  She leaned back against the wall. "Myself, I will get out too. I will. Have you seen Spain? I would like very much to live in Spain. Oh, my God, you would love it. I might go to Costa Rica. I'm sure I could find a job there. I used to be a TV journalist, did you know that? People would see me on the street. 'Oh, look, it's Olga.' "

  A sudden and unaccountable fury clenched Mario's throat and sent the blood to his head. "Olga Saavedra, the famous Olga. You worked with my father. You accused him of selling videos to foreign journalists. You set him up, and they fired him. He spent four years in prison."

  "That wasn't my fault." Bewilderment clouded her face, and unable to reach for anything more logical, she blurted out, "José Leiva is your stepfather."

  "He's my father, and you betrayed him."

  "I didn't." Olga shifted away.

  "So if I don't trust you now, figure out why."

  "Maybe you're not as nice as I thought."

  "I'm not nice. Get out of here, Olga Saavedra, before somebody thinks you're for sale."

  She stood and threw her cigarette at him. "Go to hell." Her eyes moved to the door. Tomás was there, a slight figure in wire-rimmed glasses. She shouted, "Mario called me a whore."

  Tomás said, "Keep your voice down, Olga. Mario is sorry. Go on, apologize to her."

  Mario made a tired laugh. "Tomás, shut up."

  "Yes, Tomás, shut up." Olga turned and angled directly for
her car. Her high heels clicked on the pavement.

  "Let me have a cigarette." Tomás took one from Mario's pack, then pulled it through his fingers one way, then the other. "You've got to control your temper, my friend. We're at a critical stage. We can't start attacking each other. Our enemy isn't Olga." He leaned down to light his cigarette off Mario's. "Come back inside. We have things to discuss."

  They heard the diesel engine crank, then clatter to life. The Mercedes pulled away from the curb and turned the corner. Its lights were off, but they weren't needed. Gray light filtered through the clouds.

  "I don't trust her," Mario said.

  "I know you don't, but she's all right. Olga ... Olga wants to be important."

  "That's not good enough."

  "You trust me, don't you? Leave her alone."

  "She betrayed José Leiva," Mario said.

  Tomás sighed. "Olga was trying to survive. At the time, it was Leiva or herself. In a totalitarian state, we are expected to turn on our friends. Perhaps to help us now—to help you—is her way of redeeming herself."

  "It is very strange, Tomás, to hear you, of all people, speak of redemption. Have you become religious?"

  He allowed a thin smile. "I was only giving you my interpretation of Olga. Come inside."

  Standing up, Mario extinguished his cigarette under his heel. He noticed a movement behind Tomás. A young man in black clothing was running toward them. His hair stuck to his forehead in dark, sweaty points.

  "Nico?"

  When Tomás turned to see, Nicolás fell on both of them. "You're here. I was afraid you'd already gone. They got Chachi. They took him. They beat him up. I was all over the city hiding until I was sure nobody was behind me."

  "Inside." Tomás threw his cigarette away, and the two of them pulled Nicolás through the door.

  Mario put a finger to Nico's lips as a warning. They hurried him across the courtyard. A woman on the walkway above watched disinterestedly over the railing as she drank her coffee. They took Nico into the apartment and closed the door. It was still dark inside except for the one lamp on the table.