Jack and Susan in 1953

by McDowell, Michael

  The storeroom was no more than eight feet wide, but it ran the width of the house. He could see a door at the farther end, and he moved carefully toward it, trying not to knock over any of the jars and bottles arranged on the sagging shelves, nor to cry out when a large spider dropped down from the ceiling, ran across his neck, and then squeezed into the small space between his broken arm and the cast that covered it.

  Jack could feel the spider crawling down toward his elbow. It was cool and dark in there, and that spider—Jack was certain—intended to set up a colony around his elbow.

  He debated a moment how he ought to deal with this door: cautiously open it, hoping the door would make no noise and that no one was in the next room. Go through boldly and quickly, and obtain another hiding space. Or press his ear against it, to listen for movement on the other side.

  He decided on the first option, but as he placed his hand upon the knob of the door, he felt it already turning.

  He immediately stepped back and flattened himself against the wall beside the door. The door swung wide, into the storeroom, concealing him behind it. He heard two voices speaking in Spanish, a man and a boy’s, and they were just on the other side of the thin door that was his only protection. Jack held his breath. He could now feel the spider creeping down his arm toward his wrist.

  Jack recognized the man’s voice as Rodolfo’s. Jack heard them pick up what sounded like metal canisters filled with sloshing liquid.

  The kerosene.

  They went away, leaving the door to the storeroom open. Jack was about to move from his hiding place when he heard footsteps approaching again, and he quickly dropped back tight against the wall. It was either Rodolfo or the boy getting more cans of kerosene.

  Whoever it was again did not shut the door. Jack remained motionless for several minutes. He listened intently, but could hear nothing. Once he detected a footfall in the room directly above, but it wasn’t repeated.

  He eased the door back enough so that he could get out from behind it. He could see no more canisters of kerosene, and figured therefore that Rodolfo and the boy would not be coming back. It was still possible that one of them—or even a third person—was sitting very quietly with a gun in the very next room.

  Jack’s eyes had already searched out the corners of the storeroom. The only thing that resembled a weapon was a garden trowel, which wasn’t much of a weapon.

  He picked it up anyway, thinking that he possibly could throw it hard.

  He peered warily around the doorway into the next room. This turned out to be the kitchen, pink and empty. Jack stepped silently in and exchanged the garden trowel for a butcher’s knife.

  There were two doors here to choose from, and he picked the one toward the front of the house.

  It opened into a formal dining room, and though the window onto the sea was open, the chamber reeked of kerosene. The yellow damask cloth covering a massive Sheraton table was soaked with it, and the liquid dripped from the corners of the cloth. The draperies had been splashed as well, though not far up, so Jack surmised that this was the child’s work.

  Jack crept to the next door and peered around. He was at the entrance hall now. He could cross it to what looked like a parlor on the other side, or he could ascend the stairs to the second floor.

  He listened for some clue that would tell him what to do next, but he heard nothing.

  He decided on the parlor, so he started carefully and quietly across the foyer.

  Halfway across he heard the voices in the next room, Rodolfo’s and the boy’s. They were coming his way.

  As fast and as quietly as he could, Jack mounted the stairs, giving thanks to James Bright’s unhappy ghost that he had installed such thick carpeting on the stairway.

  At the top of the stairs, Jack had another choice. Right or left? To the right, at the end of the hall, he saw an open door, and that made his decision. All the other doors, after all, might be locked.

  Below him, he heard Rodolfo giving what sounded like a command to the boy in Spanish. Then Rodolfo’s voice grew closer; he must be coming up the stairs.

  Jack moved down the hallway as quickly as he could.

  One of the doors he passed was ajar, and he swung it open and jumped inside, thinking that even if Rodolfo came inside he could once again hide behind the door as it opened. He closed the door till it was again just barely cracked.

  He wasn’t alone in the room.

  Libby lay on the bed, staring at him stuporously.

  “Jack?” she said.

  “Shhh!” he said as he flattened himself against the wall beside the door.

  “Jack!” Libby was vastly relieved to see him. In another moment, Jack knew she would begin a wholesale retelling of her latest round of woes.

  “Shut up!” Jack hissed as loudly as he dared.

  He heard Rodolfo moving along the hall outside.

  Jack held up his hand for Libby to lie still and quiet, but Libby had begun to writhe on the bed.

  Jack saw for the first time that her hands and her wrists were bound beneath her. He also noticed that this room had been given the kerosene treatment as well.

  He listened for Rodolfo but heard nothing. The Cuban had evidently passed on down the corridor.

  Jack crept over to the bed, turned Libby over, and with the butcher knife sliced through the ropes that held her. This was not easy, for the ropes were strong, Libby was writhing, and Jack had still the use of only one hand. Once her wrists were free, he went to work on the ropes that bound her ankles.

  “Where’s Susan?” he whispered.

  “Did she get out of the trunk?” Libby whispered back.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know where she is.”

  From out in the corridor, came a kind of whoooosh! They both looked up in surprise. Jack, knife in hand, dropped to the floor and pulled himself across the slickly waxed floor till he was hidden beneath the bed.

  “Pretend you’re still tied up!” he cried in a whisper he hoped would carry up through the mattress but not outside the confines of the room.

  Looking toward the door, Jack saw it swing open, saw what he assumed were Rodolfo’s shoes and trouser cuffs. And then he saw a lighted match drop to the floor, where it promptly extinguished itself.

  But a second match did the trick. A puddle of kerosene near the door went up in another whoooosh that told Jack exactly what the first noise had been.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  LIBBY SCREAMED, and Jack heard Rodolfo’s well-modulated laughter disappearing down the hallway.

  Jack rolled out from under the bed, scrambled to his feet, and clamped his hand over Libby’s mouth.

  Libby bit him. On his good hand.

  The bedclothes were already on fire. Jack dragged Libby off the bed, and she landed with a thump on the floor. He dragged her up past the flames and toward the door of the room.

  “Shut up!” Jack cautioned her. “He thinks you’re still tied up!”

  “I should have married you,” Libby said. “I really should have.”

  Holding Libby back, Jack peered out into the hall. He caught a glimpse of Rodolfo as he turned down the stairs.

  Jack stepped out and down the hallway toward the room at the end; Libby followed at his heels, as close as Woolf would have done under similar circumstances.

  “Jack!” cried Susan from the bed.

  They were separated by a low wall of flame, fanned here by the sea breeze blowing in through the open window. The wallpaper had caught as well, and little yellow tongues of flame were licking upward. The torn mosquito netting above Susan caught suddenly and burned as quickly as a spider’s web with a match put to it.

  Jack ran to the opposite corner of the room, picked up a small rug, and threw it across the burning floor. Almost immediately, small flames began leaping up through the webbing, but it was enough to allow Jack to cross to the bed. Libby began coughing with the smoke.

  “I want to get out of here!” she cried. “I don
’t want to burn!”

  Susan flipped herself over so that Jack could get at the netting ropes with the knife. In a few seconds she was free.

  The carpet over which Jack crossed was burning fiercely now, and the room was filling with smoke.

  “Cuba was your idea for a honeymoon, wasn’t it?” Jack remarked.

  Without another word, they grabbed hold of the bed, Jack at the head with his good hand on a post, and Susan at the foot, pushing with both hands. They moved the bed over the worst of the flames, jumped up onto the high mattresses, and then crossed over to relative safety.

  Now the hallway was beginning to fill with smoke. The bedrooms where Susan and Libby had been tied were burning brightly now, and smoke was pouring up the stairwell from the first floor. They saw that the entire staircase was on fire.

  Quickly, the three of them moved down the hallway on both sides of the staircase and tried all the doors; all the rooms were unlocked, but there was apparently no other staircase to the ground floor.

  “We’ll have to climb out of a window,” said Susan.

  “Fine,” said Jack, holding up his broken arm, “you two go ahead. You’ll also be able to draw Rodolfo’s fire. I’m sure he and his little friend are out there somewhere watching, just to make sure that nobody makes a last-minute escape.”

  “Sorry,” said Susan, “I wasn’t thinking.”

  Fortunately, because of the strong cross ventilation, it was still possible to breathe in the upstairs hallway. But that also meant that once the various fires had really established themselves, they would spread with dangerous rapidity.

  Jack stood at the banister beside the burning staircase and peered over onto the marble flooring of the entryway twelve feet below.

  “That’s how we’ll have to go,” he said, and began kicking at the banister.

  After a moment, Susan joined him, and then Libby. Together they managed to loosen a section of banister. “Don’t let it fall,” Jack warned, “because we’d have to fall on top of it.” They lifted it up and flipped it over onto the burning stairs. A little more fuel at this point wasn’t going to make things much worse.

  “Libby,” Jack said, “go find as many blankets and bedspreads as you can carry.”

  Libby and Susan dashed down the hall into some of the rooms that weren’t burning; in a few moments they returned, arms laden with comforters, pillows, and other bedding. They dropped them onto the marble floor beneath.

  “Who’s first?” Jack asked.

  “Libby,” said Susan.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “It has to be you,” said Susan. “So do it.”

  Libby got down on her hands and knees, and inched backward over the edge. Jack held one of her wrists, Susan the other. She was so achingly slow about it that Susan gave her a little shove, and the margarine heiress shot out into the empty space and Jack and Susan were nearly pulled over with her. She dangled for a moment, then Jack and Susan’s grips began to slip.

  Libby fell to complete safety atop the pile of quilts and blankets.

  Jack and Susan looked at one another.

  “You next,” said Susan.

  “Hardly gallant,” protested Jack.

  “I don’t have a bad arm,” Susan pointed out.

  She was right. Jack sat on the edge, legs dangling down. He tossed down the butcher knife, their only weapon, and Libby retrieved it.

  “There’s no way to do this properly,” said Susan, for Jack’s balance was all off because of his broken arm.

  “I know,” said Jack. “So just push.”

  Susan did, and Jack fell, flailing and crying out, and landed square onto the pile that Libby had rearranged beneath him. He was jolted a bit, but he did no further damage to his arm.

  As soon as Jack had rolled out of the way, Susan sat on the edge and pushed herself off.

  At the bottom she twisted her ankle, and Libby helped her up. It was impossible to stand, much less to walk, without considerable pain.

  The dining room on one side of them was on fire, as was the living room on the other side. Here on the first floor the smoke was much thicker, and all three of them were coughing.

  The smoldering curtains on either side of the front door suddenly burst into orange flame.

  “What about Rodolfo?” said Libby, choking as she inadvertently breathed in the thick smoke. “You said he was waiting out there with a gun.”

  “I’m sure he’s gone,” said Susan. With that she pulled open the front door.

  A wonderfully refreshing breeze immediately fanned away the worst of the smoke around them, and allowed them to see that Rodolfo stood there, revolver in hand, right outside the door.

  Because the setting sun was in her eyes, Susan couldn’t see the smile on his face, but she knew it was there.

  “One. Two. Three,” he said. “I do not like shooting people.”

  “Then don’t,” cried Libby. “I’m your wife!”

  She took a step forward, and he raised the small weapon at arm’s length—aiming it directly at the center of Libby’s head.

  Libby stopped, then burst into tears. As if being shot between the eyes by her husband just before she was about to escape from a burning building were just one terrible thing too many to happen to a young woman who was supposed to be enjoying herself on a romantic tropical honeymoon.

  At this critical instant Rodolfo flinched—flinched because directly behind him, a sopping wet Woolf barked loudly. Woolf barked not because Jack and Susan were about to die and he was upset; he barked because he had just discovered the pleasures of saltwater surf, and wanted to share his happiness.

  Rodolfo, nonetheless, flinched.

  And Jack and Susan took advantage of that momentary falter. Together they rushed forward, both of them hitting Libby in the back. Libby lurched forward out of the burning house and fell against her husband, and knocked him to the paving of the front porch of The Pillars.

  The pistol discharged and the bullet shattered one of the panes of glass in the dining room window.

  Jack had fallen atop Libby who was still atop Rodolfo. Susan jumped to her feet, and as hard as she could, stomped Rodolfo’s hand that still held the revolver. It clattered to the paving, and Susan gave it a strong kick, sending it several yards away into the yard. Armando, seeing his opportunity, appeared suddenly around the corner of the house, and charged after the gun.

  Woolf, however, got there first, and snatched it right out from under Armando’s grasping hand. He ran back to Susan with it, hoping she would continue the game of throw-and-fetch.

  “Over here, Armando,” Susan said with a thin smile as she pointed the revolver at him.

  The boy obeyed, not realizing that Susan could never have brought herself to shoot a child. Not even one that she had seen murder her own uncle.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THEY DROVE BACK to Havana in the Cadillac, a tied-up Armando in the back seat between Libby and Woolf. Jack sat in the front seat and slept as Susan drove.

  Rodolfo was in the trunk, and Libby grinned with irrepressible satisfaction every time she felt him kicking against the partition at her back.

  Back in Havana, the difficulties with the police were eventually settled, though Jack ended up spending two nights in jail, Woolf was very nearly put to sleep in the Havana pound, and an assistant manager of the Internacional threatened to throw Jack and Susan out of their room because Jack had abandoned his Ford in a cane field in a remote corner of Pinar del Río province.

  Richard Bollow had not died on the racetrack, but he was in the hospital. He had been, in fact, James Bright’s lawyer, but he was also a member—more or less—of the García-Cifuentes clan by marriage: he was the stepfather of a brother-in-law of Rodolfo.

  It was Bollow, renouncing his allegiance to the family in exchange for clemency and a promise of protection and a large amount of cash from Libby, who provided the details of the story: the García-Cifuentes clan had started out years before as sharecroppers on
an estate not far from James Bright’s, and had gained a substantial amount of money through the surreptitious cultivation of illegal substances—marijuana and coca, to be specific. With this money, they’d also rented land from James Bright, who for this sort of thing was the ideal landlord, since he didn’t personally oversee the use of his property. The patches of marijuana and coca they grew interspersed in fields of sugarcane were profitable. With the profits, the son Rodolfo had been sent away to Catholic school. Proving himself there, he had gone on to college, though not—as Jack had discovered—to Harvard.

  Though they were by all accounts a handsome lot, the members of the García-Cifuentes clan were not known for their polished manners. Thus, Rodolfo was often useful in the negotiation of certain exchanges, the implementation of certain devious plans, and the establishment of connections between the family and members of the Batista government, who not only demanded bribes but appreciated a handsome and well-mannered courier to deliver them.

  Through a confederate in the provincial registry the García-Cifuentes clan had discovered the contents of James Bright’s will and that Susan Bright was his legatee. The original plan had been for Rodolfo, already in the United States, to meet Susan, woo her, and wed her. The uncle would then be killed, and the García-Cifuenteses would come into the possession of the land they so much coveted, and from which they had already made so much money.

  It was at this time—shortly after Rodolfo appeared in New York—that James Bright had discovered the fields of marijuana and coca on his land. He also found out that his beach was being used as a dropping-off point for arms shipments to the antigovernment rebels operating in the mountains of Pinar del Río. The García-Cifuenteses were evenhanded when it came to dealing with the dictatorship and the rebel cause.

  James Bright had burned down the fields and set watches on his beach. It was not because he supported the Batista regime any more than he did the rebels—he simply thought that no sane man got involved in politics.