The Good Assassin

by Paul Vidich

  “Sí, sí,” Graham assured the pleading men, but he directed Mueller to the heavily armed Cuban soldiers who had fanned out on the narrow causeways between the ponds. Green helmets, tan fatigues, Thompson submachine guns, and each with the shoulder patch of a snarling lion.

  “Who are they?”

  “Policía Militar,” Graham said. “Ribero’s men. Thugs and butchers.”

  Mueller stayed in the jeep while Graham grabbed his medicine kit and disappeared with the two men into the darkened house. There was no door, and cinder blocks on the first floor ended where rusting rebars sprouted, waiting for the next phase of construction. An overcrowded bus spewing black exhaust sped by, sending rangy black hogs and children scampering out of harm’s way, and when the road was empty again, they approached. An older boy with a tattered baseball cap and chipped-tooth smile was eager to practice his English. He asked about the World Series and the Yankees’ chances, then he asked for a cigarette, and as the conversation continued the shy younger ones closed in and gazed with wide eyes. Mueller asked what was wrong in the house.

  “Hurt,” the older boy said. He smiled, proud of his English.

  “Que cosa?”

  The boy smacked his fist into his palm, then again, and threw himself to the ground. The younger children tittered nervously at the exaggerated pantomime.

  “Choque,” the boy said, rising. He repeated his pantomime, slapping fist into palm, and his face calibrated serious concern. He pointed to the Cuban army transport and again smacked fist onto palm.

  Mueller stepped from the jeep and entered the home. Closed shutters kept sunlight from the room and his eyes slowly adjusted to the space, dimness resolving to tolerable sight, and then he realized he was watched by a quiet group. No one spoke. The only sound came from a woman at the foot of a narrow bed who wheezed shallow breaths, something between pain and grief. Her hands were clasped prayerfully at her forehead and she leaned forward to the small child before her, covered to the waist in a thin sheet. Her face was puffed up, red, with swollen eyes, and she looked terrible in her anguish. She didn’t notice Mueller, but an old man with a cane stared. Mueller saw three other adults—men and women—expressions flat, eyes calm.

  Graham sat by the boy, his medicine bag open on his lap, and he was gathering up the instruments he’d removed. The boy had his eyes closed, hands at his side under the covering sheet. Mueller saw that the boy appeared to be sleeping soundly, deeply—removed from the concern of people surrounding him. He looked peaceful. His head was sunk into the pillow and his eyelids still and dreamy.

  Graham stood. He whispered something to the grim father. The mother had not moved. She stared, grieving, at her dead son.

  Mueller followed Graham out into the sunlight, and he heard Graham confide, “They thought I could do something.” He lifted his bag of Band-Aids, antibacterial cream, gauze, and surgical scissors, shaking his head.

  They sat in the jeep. Graham waved off the children who pushed forward. He looked at Mueller. “It’s enough to make you cry. Six years old. He ran into the road after a baseball. The pity is they thought I could do something for him.”

  Graham turned the ignition. Unprovoked, he spoke again. He addressed Mueller, but he could have been speaking to himself. “I’ve wasted time, and now I don’t want time to waste me.” He smiled at Mueller. “It’s taken me a long time to understand what it means.”

  Mueller said the professor’s name.

  Graham smiled. “Pompous teacher and a pederast, but otherwise a decent fellow. Big fan of The Great Gatsby. He liked to think of himself in that class of sad young men. Nothing to live for. Nothing to die for. I wanted nothing to do with him.”

  They drove off in a cloud of dust, but upon reaching a small bridge on the other side of the hamlet they came upon the Policía Militar. The array of rectangular salt ponds and connecting paths was perfectly free of undergrowth. A long, decaying shack on the edge of a pond was crowded with weeds, and its sheet-metal roof rusted. Bleached gray siding had been poor cover for three salt farmers who stood before the squad of soldiers, hands cuffed behind, shirts torn, eyes claiming the ground.

  “I know him,” Graham said, nodding at Captain Ribero. “Worked with him.” The sun was merciless and reflected on Graham’s forehead. “Just follow my lead. He means to be menacing and he is.”

  Graham slid out of the jeep, Mueller following, and they crossed the short distance to the perfectly still prisoners surrounded by threatening soldiers. Captain Ribero stepped forward as the Americans approached.

  Mueller thought him tall for a Cuban. He was light-skinned, with a narrow, aquiline nose and gaunt cheeks. He wore silver frame sunglasses under a broad-brimmed campaign hat whose crown was pinched symmetrically in quarters. His uniform matched his squad’s brown boots with tan leggings, flared breeches, and white ammunition bandoliers across chests. But Captain Ribero carried a Colt .45 in a leather holster and on the opposite hip a sheathed Bowie knife. Dry dust of the coastal plain covered his boots and filled in the dark creases where perspiration had come through his shirt.

  Mueller saw it all at once. Three prisoners stripped of shirts, one already bleeding where he’d been struck in the ear. Nine heavily armed Policía Militar. Men and women from the hamlet gathered at the edge of the salt pond bearing witness. A pregnant young woman wept inconsolably, while an older woman comforted. Worried faces of the hamlet watched from a short distance.

  “Comunistas,” Captain Ribero said to Graham. He spat. They had stopped five feet apart. The only indication they knew each other was Captain Ribero’s shorthand judgment and the wariness with which they approached each other. “Hiding there.” He pointed to the shack. “They ran.” His hand made an arc across the maze of narrow causeways that crossed the open salt flats.

  A fourth prisoner was being dragged from the shack, where he’d remained hidden when the others ran. He was made to stand apart from the group, his unsuccessful effort to hide now a crime. One soldier knocked him to the ground with his rifle butt and another kicked him in the testicles.

  The soldiers stood beside their three prisoners waiting to restrain if one made a move to help. But none did. They stood erect, eyes forward, composed, almost stoic before the agony of their companion. They looked off at nothing to avoid letting empathy corrupt their feelings. They expected the soldiers to inflict pain on them too and Mueller saw each summon the courage for the ordeal that awaited.

  Captain Ribero held up a new M1 Garand rifle, which he displayed to Graham. “We found this. They shot my soldier.”

  Captain Ribero walked to the three prisoners and unsheathed his Bowie knife. He walked back and forth in front of the captive men, speaking quietly to each, telling them he wanted the truth about who fired the shot, and that he would not tolerate lies. He held the Bowie knife, flicking the twelve-inch blade toward their faces, snapping his wrist in a cutting gesture. He went down the line repeating his question, stopping at each man, staring into each frightened face, but he got no answer, so he did it again, this time raising his voice. His frustration turned to anger. It all happened in a second. His arm shot forward. He grabbed a young man by the ear, pulling him from the line, yanked back his head, and slashed his throat with the blade.

  Captain Ribero resumed walking back and forth, speaking softly to the two remaining prisoners, resuming his request to know the truth, while the rebel who’d lost to Ribero’s whimsy writhed on the ground, hands clutching a neck that bled out life. The two prisoners began to tremble. Shrieks of horror came from the pregnant woman.

  Mueller yelled, “Tell him to stop.” But, stunned, he had yelled this at Captain Ribero. Mueller turned to Graham, but Graham had already stepped forward.

  “That’s his way of getting answers,” he snapped, body tensing as Captain Ribero cut another throat.

  “God damn it,” Graham yelled in his two-acre voice. “Cut that shit out.” He leapt forward toward Captain Ribero, fist clenched. He strode across the dry ea
rth, his intolerance livid on his fuming face.

  Captain Ribero quickly slit the third prisoner’s throat to show that he was not to have his authority questioned. He waved his knife at the one surviving prisoner on the ground. “I have my answer.” He wiped his blade on the survivor’s shirt and slid the knife back into its sheath.

  He walked up to Graham and presented the M1 Garand. “Where do they get these?” he demanded. “Donde? Digame.” He walked away. The Policía Militar gathered in their transport and drove off along the coast road.

  Mueller and Graham stepped back from the weeping women and grim men who collected the dead. There was nothing they could do. Not even the brilliant sun could lighten the dark pall on that patch of bleeding earth.

  The two Americans returned to their jeep. Graham took a moment to speak, and when he did, he was bitter. He explained that the stories of torture and murder by the Cuban army, while hard to believe, were, as they had just seen, not exaggerations. He had reported these incidents to the ambassador, but no one wanted to believe the stories. No one wanted to have their opinions compromised by the facts. He said that torture and wanton killing had corrupted Cuban army discipline and no army that slaughtered innocents would prevail.

  “And he was stupid. Three dead men. No useful information on the rifle. A whole town turned sympathetic to the rebels.” Graham turned the ignition and angrily shifted the stick shift into first gear. “Idiot.”

  The rest of the day unfolded in the same way as the morning, moving from hamlet to hamlet—but there were no more executions to contend with, and no dead children. Their mood never recovered from what they’d witnessed. Mueller stayed in the jeep while Graham went about his job dispensing food supplies. The day ended in a still and exquisitely brilliant sunset. The Caribbean shone peacefully; the sky was a benign immensity of muted blue, and they drove along the coast road exhausted by the morning’s drama. Graham voiced his views on poverty, civil rights, the dignity of the human soul, and the stillness of grace he’d seen on the dead boy’s face—a child whose future was taken by chance. A boy who remained innocent in his youth—who would never know the terrible corruptions of life.

  Mueller looked from the passing landscape at Graham, surprised by his musing. Nothing Mueller knew of Graham’s past prepared him for the transformation he heard in his voice. When had he ever heard Graham talk of sorrow and tears? It bothered him that he couldn’t see through the charade. He had watched Graham, the Pied Piper, followed by barefoot children, and he tried to assemble a picture of the man who’d done terrible things—horrible things—over the years. Vienna, Budapest, Guatemala City. Mueller remembered what the director had said, how a man can change. Even the best of us miss the signs, and then when we see them we don’t know whether to promote the change or contain it.

  The memory came out of nowhere. Mueller looked over at Graham behind the wheel, eyes forward, and he felt a deep empathy for the man. That made Mueller uncomfortable.

  3

  * * *

  CONTRADICTIONS

  MUELLER HEARD Liz’s loud call to dinner, the repetitions separated by the chime of a struck cowbell. His clothes had become infused with red dust after a day driving in an open jeep, and he’d put on pants and a shirt borrowed from Jack, which fit poorly. The call was a summons to the feast Liz had prepared to belatedly celebrate his visit.

  Mueller was at the writing table when he heard Liz’s call. He looked at what he’d written, trying to hold a fleeting thought against the distracting chime. He’d been prompted to write the details he’d witnessed, trying to reconcile opposing impressions of Graham—the man carrying a holstered pistol when he drove his jeep, eyes alert and wary, like a hawk, and the other man, the Graham who dispensed food, succored a sick child, found outrage in sudden executions. Mueller recorded these impressions, but he made no judgment, took no position. And yet Mueller felt the tug of evidence pull him to commit more than facts to the page. His fingers gripped his pen, his mind working with a feverish clarity to coax the shy thought that would make sense of the contradictions.

  And then the chime. He looked up. The thought vanished. He pushed aside the journal. Mueller had been skeptical of the director’s estimate of the time he’d be in Cuba, and now Mueller had exceeded by half even his own pessimistic view. He saw no way to reach a quick conclusion. He looked to the open window. The flat tableland was dotted with tall palms, and the air drifting in carried hints of squatters’ fires clearing land. Night’s coolness brought with it the sounds of insects. A full moon rose low on the horizon and it bewitched the sky like a glowing dragon illuminating the savanna. Stars were blighted by the approaching weather.

  “The hurricane is approaching,” he wrote. “I don’t know what that means to my time here.”

  • • •

  Mueller had been seated at the dinner table when he saw Jack lumber in, arriving late, he said, after working at the dipping vats where a prize bull had stubbornly refused to enter. Jack was in a foul mood that he promptly sedated with a double scotch. His boots thick with red dust, his shirt stained with perspiration, he sat slumped in his chair while the interrupted conversation revived, but everyone at the table was aware Jack stared at Katie. His sudden appearance and his sullen mood put off the group. If he had something on his mind, or a gripe, he kept it to himself. Katie, Liz, Graham, and Mueller sat across from one another at the long table in the courtyard, while Jack was in his usual position at one end. The sky overhead had deepened and a flickering candle had burned down.

  “You destroy the film?” Jack asked suddenly. He refilled his not yet empty glass.

  “The camera is safe,” Katie said aggressively.

  “I’m sure it is. But that’s not what I asked. What’s on the roll?”

  Katie was quiet, defiant.

  “What other pictures are there?” Jack asked. “Any of us? Any of Liz? These people are not sophisticated but they are clever. You won’t know the mood of the man who pulls you over until he is cruel or arbitrary. There is no appeal.”

  “We should get her to Havana,” Mueller said. “Then to Miami.”

  “When?”

  “Soon,” Liz said.

  “How soon? Not with the storm that’s coming.”

  “Why are you in such a foul mood, Jack?” Liz asked.

  “I’m not in a foul mood. Those photographs are dangerous. I asked her to get rid of them. She’s a guest in our house and she is putting us at risk. She can come and go from Cuba, but we have this ranch. We aren’t about to leave.”

  Katie took four film canisters from the equipment bag at her feet. She opened one and exposed the long black strip of negatives against the flickering candle. She did the same with the second, third, and fourth rolls, dropping the curled strips to the patio. She glared at Jack. Her voice was violently polite. “That should buy me time, shouldn’t it?” Katie looked at the stunned faces around the table. “I’m not being weak or compliant,” she said. “There are other things more important than photos of faces, beaches, or a blood-stained bathroom. But now there is none of that.” She smiled hostilely at Jack. “You’re safe. All this is safe.” Her hand swept the courtyard.

  No one noticed what Mueller had noticed. The others were astonished by her dramatic performance, and Jack looked satisfied, and Mueller was the only one who saw that Katie had destroyed her unexposed rolls and not the ones with the incriminating images, which were in a different side pocket of her bag. Mueller clapped at her bravado maneuver, but said nothing.

  The incident brought the evening to a premature end. Jack rose in a righteous huff and lurched forward to Mueller. “George, can we talk?” He looked at Graham. “Alone, if you don’t mind. You’ve got a room on the second floor, I understand. Ask Maximo if there is anything you need.” He called the short caretaker, who came hobbling from the kitchen. “Ayuda el señor, por favor.”

  Jack led Mueller by the arm to the courtyard’s gate. “He’s a good caretaker. Funny man. Good humor ca
n make a big man out of anyone.”

  Mueller walked beside Jack on the gravel road that led past the outbuildings and moved along the pastures that surrounded Hacienda Madrigal. Mueller knew that Jack’s brooding silence trapped thoughts that were waiting to spill out. When he did speak, they were already away from the house, and his words came quietly, his feelings modulated to a flat note that revealed nothing, so Mueller had to listen closely. But he detected in Jack’s voice a tentative quality and a hint of something he thought he’d never heard—vulnerability? Or was it fear?

  “A pair of catastrophes,” Jack said quietly, not so much declaring himself as musing.

  Then his mood changed again. He pointed toward the east, where the evening sky was darkened by a weather front. High cumulus clouds rose in a black mass and deepened the sky’s gloom.

  “Hurricane Ella crossed the leeward islands two days ago,” he said. “It’s headed toward us.” He added, “Here in Cuba even the hurricanes have English names.”

  He smiled and then was silent again. “It started as a tropical depression and strengthened to a tropical storm six hours later. By the end of the week it was a hurricane and it will make landfall in two or three days.” He kicked the dirt. “Flooding will be the biggest danger.” Jack swept his hand across the dark shapes of his herd and then said, “A big hurricane, which is what they are predicting, will flood the river over there.” He shook his head. “It will take people’s minds off the war.” He nodded vaguely. “The rebels have moved out of the mountains and they’re coming west toward us.”

  Jack was quiet for a long time, lost in thought, but they had the durable bond of youth, which held them together through long periods of separation, and it made them tolerant of each other. And with that came casual trust. Jack, with his intimate relationship to the land, had taken the lead and was a few steps ahead of Mueller. Jack stopped and stared placidly at the cattle’s motionless shapes. He seemed to Mueller unusually meditative. They stood in silence looking toward the western sky, a beckoning intensity without a speck to tarnish the dark canvas, but to the east, the dark clouds were an ominous harbinger.