Act of Betrayal

by Edna Buchanan

  Security cameras were mounted in every corner. Were they being monitored? Was I being watched? Did I dare use a bathroom? Stacks of newsletters lay on an ornate glass-topped table. The masthead read Cubanos Unidos, “Cubans United,” an oxymoron if there ever was one. Miami has more than a hundred Cuban human rights and dissident groups with personalities and strategies ranging from left to far right. They are consumed by passion and politics, todo el mundo, fighting among themselves ever more fiercely, their numbers growing as those eager to be major players in a post-Castro regime sense that the time is drawing near.

  As I browsed the reading material, the man made his entrance. Tanned and fit, he wore a Savile Row suit of cream-color linen over a pale Egyptian-cotton shirt. The silk tie looked like Versace. His wingtips were soft Italian leather and his belt alligator skin. He moved with a quick assurance and presence, smiling confidently. Though soothing strains of classical music were being piped throughout the house on a central stereo system, I could have sworn the Marine band was playing “Hail to the Chief” somewhere in the background.

  His grip was strong and warm, and he held my hand in his a moment too long. His bold eyes were deep-set and hypnotic.

  “Ms. Montero,” he said softly. “So we meet at last. Please”—he motioned—” sit down.” I sank into a comfortable leather chair near his desk while he took his seat behind it.

  My eyes swept the grand surroundings. I imagined the behind-the-scenes strategy sessions, the moving and shaking and political scheming that had taken place in this room. “What a wonderful place to live and work. If these walls could talk, what secrets they could tell.”

  He looked startled, then spread his hands, displaying the monogrammed initials on the cuffs of his shirt, in a gesture of helpless embarrassment. It was as though all this opulence had somehow been forced upon him despite his protests.

  “I am a simple man, Ms. Montero. A guajiro. In my own country I would be tilling the fields this day, a man at peace with Mother Earth.”

  Somehow I couldn’t picture him plodding behind a plow in his two-thousand-dollar suit and wingtips.

  He politely acquiesced to my use of a tape recorder and showed no objection to my initial questions. The man was surprisingly simpatico, given his reputation and my colleagues’ dire warnings. We discussed the administration’s plan for democracy in Cuba and the groups who advocate negotiations with Castro, ideologies, philosophies, and the work of human rights activists. Then he expressed his ideas regarding the situation at Guantanamo, the futures of Radio and TV Mart/, and the embargo.

  “It must be tightened,” he said passionately. “I want the embargo tightened to the degree that nothing, not even air, reaches Castro. So he suffocates and dies.” The heavy gold signet ring glittered on his clenched fist and dark fire danced in his piercing eyes.

  He launched into his vision of the future. “The end of Fidel’s dictatorial regime began with the failure of communism in Eastern Europe. East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia all provide us with a glimpse of Cuba’s future. The winds of freedom,” he said, voice rising passionately, as though delivering an emotional speech, “will sweep away the Communists and Cuba will be rebuilt from the ground up.”

  “What about property rights?” I asked quietly. “Can the exiles who fled long ago reclaim property from those who have lived on it now for decades?”

  “Ahh, a practical woman.” He smiled, showing perfect, even white teeth. They must be capped, I thought. “That is a sensitive, very complex question, but I promise you that the issue will be settled fairly, in a most democratic fashion. Great change is coming, not only in Cuba, but here. Miami must expand its airport, highway, and port facilities to accommodate the resumption of trade with a free Cuba.”

  “And what will your role be in that free Cuba?” I tried to look innocent.

  His expression became cagey, eyes shrouded, as though nudged by an invisible public relations adviser.

  “Whatever role I am privileged to play,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Financial?” I prodded.

  “Most certainly,” he replied quickly. “I plan to invest millions when there is a free market in Cuba.”

  “What about the presidency?”

  “I have never said I wanted to be the president of Cuba.”

  “You would refuse the job?”

  He paused as though thinking, fingering a paperweight, a solid cube of polished wood.

  “What if you were drafted?”

  “The people must choose.” He shrugged. “Whatever the people want. We all must make sacrifices for the cause of Cuba libre.”

  He leaned forward. “I am Cuban first, last, and always. I do not want to be president, do not seek the presidency. I will serve only if the Cuban people demand it.”

  Maybe I was cynical, but I suspected that if they didn’t, he just might kick the crap out of them.

  The butler appeared at that moment to serve small, sweet guava pasteles and delicious cafe cubano in delicate bone china demitasse cups, far more elegant than the Styrofoam to which I am accustomed. I watched the butler, the same refined man who led me to Reyes’s study, as he performed the task unobtrusively and efficiently. I held my question until he left the room.

  “Why does your butler wear a gun in a shoulder holster?”

  Reyes did not seem rattled by the question or impressed by my keen powers of observation.

  “Exile has not been easy, Ms. Montero. For many years I was forced to wear a bulletproof vest at all times, to protect my own life. My name always surfaced near the top of the death lists circulated by Castro agents. Security is even more paramount today, now that Fidel has become a desperate man. All those in my employ are trusted members of my own security force.”

  I nodded. “On the more personal side, have you ever been married?”

  “No.” He smiled wistfully, leaning back in his chair. “My passion has always been Cuba,” he said softly.

  I sighed. Where had I heard that one before?

  The most important questions had been covered and we were chatting so comfortably that I could not resist treading on dangerous ground. Perhaps the jolt of cafe cubano made me reckless.

  “I don’t understand your animosity toward our newspaper.”

  “Animosity? On my part?” His face darkened. “I can show you documentation of the distortions, comments taken out of context, all part of your newspaper’s campaign of attacks, plots, and attempts to discredit me and my work, a personal vendetta.” His voice rose and he gestured angrily. “We who have been forced into exile by Fidel Castro’s tyranny refuse to accept the tyranny of racism and bigotry promoted by your newspaper. Those who operate your newspaper scheme constantly to destroy my credibility. I denounce them.”

  I tried not to flinch as he rose from his chair, shook his fist, and picked up speed. “I denounce them! They try to destroy me because I repudiate them and their views. They choose to ignore the holocaust taking place ninety miles from these shores!”

  South Beach’s aging Holocaust survivors might think his use of the word a bit strong.

  “Believe me, Mr. Reyes, no one at the paper has the rime—or any reason—to plot against you.” If he had me thrown out now, I still had enough for my story, I thought. “If you could only visit the newsroom on deadline, you would understand.”

  His smile was sardonic as he sank back into his comfortable chair. “My enemies at your newspaper are not those who work under the pressure of deadlines. You will find them in positions of power, in the boardroom. They issue the orders.”

  I sighed, remembering Reyes’s marathon rants on Spanish-language radio, sipped my coffee, and wondered again about surveillance cameras in the bathrooms.

  “You are very thorough. Obviously you will speak to others who know me.”

  I nodded, relieved that he seemed calmer.

  “Who might they be?”

  I shrugged. “Torriente, Masferr
er, maybe Jorge Bravo.”

  He waved the last name away like a pesky insect. “Viejo loco, he has troubles of his own right now. He is nothing.”

  “He may well go to jail this time,” I agreed, pleased that the conversation had taken a new direction. The Coast Guard had caught the aging would-be commando thirty-five miles off the Cuban coast in a fishing boat armed with machine guns, grenade launchers, assault rifles, and twenty thousand rounds of ammo.

  Bravo was currently free on bond, charged with possessing six unregistered machine guns. “He could face a maximum ten years and a quarter-million-dollar fine,” I said.

  “The man is crazy.” Reyes’s index finger waggled in a circular motion toward his head. “Terribly misguided. He should stick to selling vacuum cleaners.”

  “Is that what he does?” Since being repatriated from a Cuban prison after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Bravo had spent most of his rime organizing disastrous anti-Castro missions.

  “Forget him,” Reyes said disdainfully. “If you must speak to someone, why not the President? Is he good enough? Or Governor Fielding?”

  I smiled nervously as the butler quietly cleared away the coffee service.

  “This is the third time we have spoken recently,” Reyes commented, changing gears. “What was that first call?” His brow furrowed in thought, reminding me of Ricardo Montalbin. “Ah, yes, the unfortunate departure of Alex Aguirre. Do the police know the bomber?” He folded his hands expectantly, awaiting my answer.

  “I haven’t spoken to the detectives today,” I said. “But not as far as I know.”

  He shook his head solemnly. “How quickly the world forgets. And the runaway, the young man? Has he returned home?”

  “No, but I’m working on new developments. There seem to be a number of missing teenagers who all fit the same pattern.”

  “Incredible,” he murmured politely. “Your work must lead you down many fascinating paths.”

  “Including this one.” I flashed a friendly smile. “Shouldn’t Ron Sadler be sitting here with you? I’m not a political writer.”

  He looked slightly surprised and paused for a moment. “But we are connected, you and I.” His voice dropped to a more intimate tone. “History binds us together. We have so much in common.”

  “Actually,” I said skeptically, “we have little in common.”

  He shook his head indulgently. “You are so like your father.”

  I sat with my mouth open, stunned, wondering if I had heard right.

  “Surely you knew.” He reached across his desk and pushed the stop button on my tape recorder. “Tony Montero and I were boyhood companions in Camaguey. We served together as young men, side by side, guerrillas in the Sierra Maestra.” His eyes took on a nostalgic look, as though steeped in memories. He pursed his lips. “We shared a prison cell at the Isle of Pines. We were companeros.”

  I caught my breath, fumbling, trying to collect my thoughts. “I had no idea…” A thousand questions crowded my mind.

  He gazed at me intently, the softest of smiles playing around his sensual lips. “And Catherine. How is your mother? The beautiful Catalina. I see you favor blue as she always did.”

  “You know my mother?” The image of worldly journalist, the veneer of sophistication I had tried so hard to achieve, crumbled.

  “Ahhh,” he sighed, eyes alight. “No one could dance the merengue like your mother.”

  My pen fell to the floor and my eyes crossed as I bent to pick it up. Merengue? My mother? Were we both thinking of the same woman here? Reyes could not have flabbergasted me more had he announced that he had killed JFK.

  “You have her grace,” he continued. He perused me thoughtfully. “You possess so many of your mothers qualities. Rubia, muy delicada. But I have not heard you laugh. Her laugh always had a sound to it. La musica.”

  I cleared my throat, puzzled. “She never mentioned you. I had no idea you knew my father. I was only three when he was killed.”

  He nodded, expression pained. “I was there. We were captured. He died for Cuba. A hero. A martyr. I was to be next, but managed to escape two nights later. I have not seen Catalina for years, but I know she is well. Friends keep me informed. And, of course, I have always followed your career with great interest.”

  “You knew who I was? That I worked for the paper?”

  “El mundo es muy chiquito. There are no secrets in Miami. I see my friend Tony in you, too. A writer—what he always wanted. He would be proud. He always kept a journal.”

  “I’ve never read anything he wrote,” I said eagerly. This was all news to me.

  “A pity.” He looked dismayed. “Catalina never shared his letters with you?”

  “No.” Why hadn’t she? I wondered.

  Reyes stared at the ceiling, as though trying to remember. “Now, do I still possess Antonio’s diary or was it given to your mother?”

  “What diary?”

  Hand to his forehead, he concentrated. “I am trying to recall what happened to the diary of your father. He kept it faithfully, in prison. I may have it. It belongs to the people.” Conviction strengthened his voice. “It should be published.”

  “You’re sure it exists?”

  “Without doubt. I was in prison with Antonio for many months. No day passed that he did not speak of you and your mother and write for hours in that book of his. It survived, passed hand to hand after his … execution. His words kept hope alive for so many. Why can’t I recall its whereabouts now? Perhaps locked in an old trunk with other mementos of those times. In a storage room here, or at my office. I will have my assistant try to locate it.” He snatched up a gold Mont Blanc pen and scribbled a quick note on a memo pad.

  I was thrilled.

  “Or”—he paused—” was it given to your mother?” He looked at me expectantly.

  “I didn’t even know it existed until now,” I said, shrugging, bewildered. “I’m sure I would have if my mother had it. She would have said…” Or would she?

  “I hope you can find it,” I said with feeling. The book could be my bridge to the past, to the father lost so long ago. The possibility of seeing something written in his own hand, reading his words and learning his thoughts, thrilled me.

  “He kept his diary like The Gulag Archipelago of Solzhenitsyn. When Cuba is free, the traitors whose names he wrote there must be tried for war crimes,” Reyes exclaimed. “This book is prima facie evidence. The world should know their names. It must be published, if it still exists.”

  “I hope it does,” I told him.

  “Leave it to me,” he said reassuringly. “We will find it.”

  Reluctantly I steered the conversation back to our interview, switched on the recorder, and cleared up a few last questions, but my heart and mind were racing. My mother’s angry silence about my father had frustrated me all my life.

  “Of course I will be available to answer any further questions,” Reyes said. “And I will call you at once when I succeed in finding Antonio’s diary.”

  He walked me to the arched entranceway and we shook hands again. His eyes were alert and intense.

  “Your earrings,” he commented.

  “My mother gave them to me.”

  “Yes.” He laughed with genuine pleasure. “Did she tell you where she got them?”

  “No,” I said. “I think they’re antiques.”

  “Ask her,” he said, reminiscing. “About the days when they were crafted for a beautiful woman by the finest jeweler on the Calle de Oro in Havana.” His eyes were warm. “I am so proud,” he said, “as though you were my own daughter. You may have been born in Miami, but your heart is Cuban. Never forget your cubania. Remember me, please, to dear Catalina.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be pleased that you thought of her.” I smiled serenely and strolled sedately to my car, aware of his eyes on my back. The setting sun, a scarlet disk, shimmered on an indigo bay. The view was spectacular but a whiff of somet
hing bad, a sewer smell, stung my nostrils. Something blowing in off the bay. I pulled out of the driveway and proceeded through the electric gate. The guards had gone. Reyes stood alone, still watching, in front of his magnificent home.

  The tires of the T-Bird crunched out onto the road. I rolled around the corner past the stately royal palms, out of his sight into the gentle dusk, then floored it and roared into the twilight like a bat out of hell.

  8

  I circled the parking lot, my frustration intensifying. My mother’s convertible was not in its usual spot. No one answered the doorbell, so I pounded with the metal knocker until a door down the hall inched open and a reproving neighbor peered out. Where the hell was she when I needed answers? I slipped my card under her door and took the three flights of stairs down, too hyper to wait for the elevator. Disappointed and annoyed, I didn’t want to go home. All that would make me feel alive was sex or work, and the only man I wanted was a thousand miles away. Thank God for the brightly lit newsroom.

  Ron Sadler, who rarely worked late, was lurking.

  He read the frustration on my face.

  “I knew it. How bad was it?” he cried, scarcely concealing his jubilation. “He went crazy, right? Were you kicked the hell out?” He glanced at his watch. “Christ, where have you been all this time? Any way to salvage the piece?”

  Ryan and two other reporters watched eagerly from their desks.

  “Actually, Ron, I’ve spent the entire afternoon with Juan Carlos Reyes.” I smiled sweetly. “Great interview. The man is absolutely charming.”

  Ron’s eyes bugged behind his nonreflective lenses as his mouth opened in disbelief. “You’re shitting me.” I could have sworn he was wearing pancake makeup.

  I opened my bag, spilling the used tapes onto my desk. “The man’s a pussycat.” I shrugged. “Didn’t duck a single question.”

  “Reyes?” Ryan broke the silence. “The one who punched out that CNN reporter?”

  “Did you ask the tough questions, Britt?”