Dry Bones

by Peter Quinn

  Schwimmer confessed that he had no idea. The house in Hamburg was empty, the import-export business shut down. He contacted Hans Bleier in Buenos Aires. No sign of Hemmer/Heinz there.

  “Till we crack this nut,” Schwimmer concluded, “there’s little more we can do.”

  Several weeks went by without any more letters from Schwimmer. Dunne called Alvin Capshaw (byline: Mr. Grapevine) at the New York Standard, who’d worked under Bartlett at the OSS churning out articles and press releases. Mr. Grapevine rented his name for freelance pieces, like the one in Modern Detection, and ran items in his widely read gossip column that press agents regularly fed him and that he printed in exchange for meals, drinks, theater tickets, ringside seats, and the occasional hooker.

  Pleasantly surprised to hear from Dunne, Mr. Grapevine chuckled when Dunne told him that the favor he was calling to ask for was a two-line item in his column: Longtime bloodhound and OSS vet Fintan Dunne hot on the trail of WWII bad guy. “Stay tuned for the caper’s finale,” sez Fin.

  “Sounds like you’re working on a novel,” Capshaw said.

  “Trying to stay busy, that’s all.”

  “I thought all you guys did down in Florida was play golf and take naps.”

  “No golf but plenty of naps. In between, I’m working on tying up some loose ends from the war.”

  “Well, I’m always glad to help out a buddy from the old outfit.” Capshaw ran the item at the head of his column.

  Thanksgiving came and went. Still nothing from Schwimmer. On the day before Christmas, Roberta left the house early to do some last-minute shopping. Dunne made a pot of coffee, went out on the patio, sat by the pool, and read the paper.

  The lead stories all focused on the mounting success of the rebels in Cuba. There was heavy fighting around Santiago de Cuba in the east. The rebellion seemed to be gathering strength. Yet it was hard to tell what was really happening. Fulgencio Batista, onetime army sergeant and former president who’d seized power in 1952, claimed his forces were killing and capturing mounting numbers of rebels. The impressive toll, however, never seemed to add up to anything decisive.

  A former American general was quoted as believing that Batista was trying to lure his opponents out of their guerilla strongholds for “a pitched battle in which his 40,000-strong army and American-equipped air force will crush the rebellion once and for all.” He noted “this strategy echoed what the French, with infamous result, had unsuccessfully attempted against the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu.”

  The press reports contained plenty of indications that the sand in Batista’s hourglass was running out. The Eisenhower administration had cut off new arms shipments. There were rumors in Washington the CIA had advised the president that, although it enjoyed overwhelming numerical superiority, Batista’s combination of thugs, mercenaries, and hapless, unmotivated recruits would eventually fall apart.

  The main American aim at this point, one columnist posited, was “to grease the skids” for Batista’s departure. Power would be handed over to military professionals. The barbudos—the ragtag company of “bearded ones” who spearheaded the rebellion under Fidel Castro—would be admitted to a secondary role in the transition government.

  Elections would be held. A new government, though more democratic than the old, would “respect and protect the substantial American business on the island.” Left unsaid—but clearly understood—was that this included the casinos run by the American mob.

  Despite the turmoil, it was obvious that the lure of Cuba remained strong. There were splashy ads for all the big Havana hotels and casinos: Capri, Riviera, Sevilla Biltmore, Plaza, Deauville, Habana Hilton, etc. Though the swanky Nacional didn’t have any rooms left, “a limited number of reservations were available for the New Year’s Eve Midnight Supper & Show.”

  Dunne finished his coffee and put aside the paper. If Bartlett even saw that item in Capshaw’s column, he’d probably chuckled. He had more important matters to attend to than the deluded pretensions of a two-bit ex-flatfoot. No need to react. The fly had proved easy enough to chase away. That was the thing about flies. They could be a nuisance. But unlike Pohl, who represented a real threat, you needn’t call in the artillery to deal with them. In the end, they were nothing more than a short-term bother, a fleeting buzz, easy enough to shoo. Or swat. Dunne swam a couple of laps in the pool. The Christmas tree, hung with ornaments and silver tinsel, was visible behind the palm ferns and the sliding glass doors.

  Christmas Eve, they ate dinner by the pool. Roberta went inside to finish wrapping presents. He went off to Midnight Mass.

  Peace on earth to men of good will.

  It didn’t look likely anytime soon.

  They exchanged presents when he got back. They went to bed and made love. He woke before dawn. He turned on the Christmas-tree lights. He went onto the patio and lay on the chaise longue. He put Bing Crosby’s Christmas album on the record player. The lights’ festive glow faded with sunrise. A warm breeze fussed with the treetops.

  Christmas in Florida. Every bit as out of place as a polar bear in the Bronx.

  Time had its own momentum. The days after Christmas dragged by. After his swim, Dunne lay on the chaise longue. Sun, warm and gentle, rested on cheeks and eyelids.

  Ring, ring, ring.

  Dunne sat up with a start. He reached over to turn off the alarm. There was none. The ringing was from the phone inside the house. He lay where he was, expecting it to stop. It didn’t. He threw on his robe and went inside. A longtime peeve: What kind of idiot didn’t understand that if the phone rang thirty times and nobody answered, either nobody was home or the somebody who was home didn’t feel like answering.

  He picked up the receiver. “Who the hell is this?”

  “Fin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stefan.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Havana.”

  “Cuba?”

  “I’ve found him.”

  “Who?”

  “Him.”

  “In Havana?”

  “Can you come?”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “Now?”

  “Fin, it’s him.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I need you.”

  “You’re sure it’s him?”

  “Beyond any doubt.”

  “Where in Havana are you?”

  “The Barcelona. I need you now.”

  Roberta laughed. “Havana? Why not see if Mount Vesuvius is about to explode? You could book a room at the Pompeii Hilton.”

  It took a while to tell her the whole story, the detailed narrative he’d never shared before. Van Hull, Bartlett, Dr. Niskolczi, the Schwimmers. He tried to leave nothing out.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  “That doesn’t make sense. This isn’t a vacation.”

  “I won’t get in your way. But I’m coming.” A simple statement of fact that he knew from experience not to argue with.

  In the afternoon she booked their flight. The Barcelona still had a room available. She booked that, too.

  BARCELONA HOTEL, HAVANA

  THEY SHARED A TAXI FROM THE AIRPORT AT RANCHO BOYEROS TO downtown Havana with a couple from the Midwest. The wife was blonde, attractive but bulky. The husband owned a Ford dealership in Minneapolis. They’d made a spur-of-the-moment decision to come to Havana. It had nothing to do with the weather. Neither of them minded the cold. Some years they went to New York for New Year’s.

  Havana, however, offered a triple play. He wanted to look into the opportunities in Cuba. In the decades ahead, this was going to be one of the fastest-growing car markets in the Americas. Along with business, there was the nightlife. “We’re going to take in some of those live sex shows.”

  His wife slapped his hand good-naturedly. “Jack, please, they’ll think you’re serious. We have reservations for tonight at the Flamingo, and Jack used his connections to finagle seats for the New Year’
s Eve extravaganza at the Tropicana.”

  “And who knows?” the husband added. “Maybe we’ll have ringside seats on a revolution? From what I read in the papers, it looks like this might be the next banana republic to give el presidente the boot. Could be exciting to watch—though not as exciting as a sex show.”

  “Oh, Jack, stop. This nice couple will think you’ve only one thing on your mind.”

  “They’ll be right.”

  She slapped his hand again. “Jack says we’ve got nothing to worry about. It happens all the time down here—revolutions, I mean. They only shoot one another. Nobody wants to drive away the Americans and ruin the tourist trade. Still, I’d have preferred New York.”

  They passed an army roadblock. The soldiers, looking bored and leaning against their truck, waved them through. The cab dropped the other couple at the Plaza, then proceeded to the west side of the Prado, to the Barcelona. Roberta went ahead to the bar. Dunne stopped at the front desk.

  The English-speaking desk clerk had the formal but friendly manner of a true Habanero. He frowned when Dunne asked what room Señor Schwimmer was in.

  “Señor Schwimmer? I don’t believe we have a guest by that name. But let me check.” He turned the guest register sideways so that Dunne could follow his finger as he traced the columns of guests’ names and signatures. “See for yourself, Señor Dunne, nobody here by that name. Is there another hotel you wish me to check with?”

  “That’s all right. Must be a mix-up. Are there any messages for me?”

  “No, señor. No message at all.”

  He joined Roberta in the hotel bar. She was sipping a daiquiri. He ordered one for himself. He lit a cigarette, rested it on the ashtray rim. “I’ve already made my New Year’s resolution. I’m giving up cigarettes.”

  “You’re lucky there’s no statute of limitations on making New Year’s resolutions. This is the tenth year in a row you’ve made the same one.”

  The bartender delivered his drink.

  “Cuándo es el próximo tren para Habana?” Roberta raised her glass.

  Dunne touched his to hers. “No comprendo.”

  “It’s a colloquialism Wilfredo Grillo liked to use. Literally: ‘When’s the next train to Havana?’ It means, What do we do next?”

  “We wait for Schwimmer to contact us.”

  “How long’s that?”

  “We won’t know until he contacts us.”

  At dusk, they walked to the Malecón. A steady wind from the north sent wave after wave crashing into the concrete wall. The sun sank into the clouds and spread a crimson-tinged, mushroom-shaped light.

  The Prado was more crowded on the way back. Nighttime Havana was coming alive. They stopped at Pigalle, a French-style bistro on Calle Trocadero. The mostly Cuban clientele filled the dimly lit room with festive chatter. Two men got into a political argument. When they seemed ready to come to blows, the manager summoned the police.

  The men were gone by the time two plainclothesmen arrived. They ordered the manager to turn up the lights. The room went silent, whether with relief or dread was hard to tell.

  On the way back to the Barcelona, Fin and Roberta bumped into the couple from Minneapolis. They’d just left the bar at the Plaza. It was abuzz with the news President Batista had sent his children to New York “on vacation.” There were also reports of a battle between the rebels and Batista’s forces at Santa Clara in the center of the island.

  “It’s reported that Dr. Guevara, one of Castro’s top lieutenants, has been killed,” the wife said. “Maybe we really will get to see a revolution!”

  Warm air swirled in from the Gulf, collided with cool air from the north: a recipe for stormy weather. But it stayed still and close. They slept with the ceiling fan on, unusual for December. Dunne woke at seven. Roberta had her back to him. He dressed in the bathroom. He rotated the doorknob slowly. Roberta rolled over. “Give me my handbag, will you, please?”

  “I wanted to let you sleep.” He handed her the bag. “No need to get up now.”

  “It’s all right. I’ve been awake a while. I was having terrible nightmares.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t remember.” She fumbled among the contents of the bag, lifted out a palm-size, snub-nosed, silver-plated pistol. “Here, take this.”

  “You took that on the plane?”

  “Customs officers haven’t sunk so low they’d search a lady’s handbag.”

  He slipped the pistol in his pocket. “Loaded?”

  “Would I give it to you if it wasn’t?”

  The clerk who’d checked them in was back at the front desk. He approached Dunne as he came down the stairs. “Un momento, Señor Dunne, por favor.”

  “Sí, qué pasa?”

  “In the dining room is a man who asked for you. I offer to call your room. He says his wish is not to disturb you so early. He waits until you came down to breakfast.”

  “Did he give his name?”

  “No. Perhaps the señor of whom you inquired yesterday, yes?”

  “Quizá. Gracias.”

  In a banquette in the rear corner of the dining room, beneath a huge antique mirror, sat the sole patron, his distinctive, sharp-beaked face poised above a half-eaten grapefruit. Turlough Bassante beckoned Dunne, “Come, have a seat.”

  Dunne sat across from him. Out the glass doors to his right, where he remembered there used to be a patio and a small garden, a pool glimmered in the morning sun. Habana vieja genuflected to Habana nova, even the old hotels compelled to offer some version of the amenities routinely available in glass boxes like the Hilton and Flamingo.

  “Why don’t you have some breakfast?” Bassante signaled for the waiter.

  Dunne ordered a café con leche. “You’re with Schwimmer?”

  “He asked me along.”

  “He didn’t mention you’d be with him.”

  “Would that have altered your decision?”

  “No, but I’d prefer not to have any more surprises.”

  “I didn’t contact him. He contacted me.”

  The waiter took away Bassante’s grapefruit and delivered Dunne’s café con leche. “Where is he?”

  “In the Vedado. You know where that is?”

  “The rich folks’ neighborhood.”

  “Nouveau riche, mostly.”

  “Let’s not play Twenty Questions. Tell me straight.”

  Bassante rested his elbows on the table. He refolded his hands, put them together as if to pray, tips of index fingers touched tip of nose, briefer’s pose, same as in Bari, gestures as distinctive as eye color or fingerprints.

  He’d written Schwimmer, who contacted him when he came to New York. Schwimmer made clear he understood the power and resources possessed by those determined to thwart his search for Heinz. Louis Pohl’s demise left no doubt about the ends they’d go to. Yet the criminals and their accomplices—and their protectors—couldn’t be left in peace; and if he didn’t succeed, someone somewhere would. Justice would be done. Not perfect justice. But enough that the world could never again deny or hide or ignore what happened.

  Bassante caught the waiter’s attention. He asked for half a cup of café americano and a double shot of rum. “What about you, Fin?”

  “A little early for rum, don’t you think?”

  “My first and last of the penultimate day of 1958.”

  Though impressed by Schwimmer, Bassante said, he didn’t have a “road to Damascus” moment in which he suddenly decided to put aside his resolve “to stick to caves and crevices.” Yet he wasn’t surprised to hear himself say he wanted to help—that he’d do all he could—and wouldn’t accept anything beyond reimbursement for expenses.

  “Why the change?” Bassante shrugged at his own question, as if unsure of the answer. “In the end, I suppose, I did it for selfish motives. Years ago, I sent a request to General Donovan to be transferred from my role as a briefer and sent on a mission. I didn’t want that transfer. I’d briefed enough agents who neve
r came back or were physical or psychological wrecks when they did.

  “I couldn’t admit it to myself at the time, but I phrased the request in such a way I was certain it would be rejected. It’s never stopped haunting me. I knew this would be my last chance to get that transfer, so I took it.”

  Bassante traveled to Bonn with Schwimmer, who’d cultivated a contact within the BND. A former member of the Abwehr, the military intelligence operation run by Admiral Canaris, Schwimmer’s contact avoided the fate of Canaris and his circle, who were executed by the SS for plotting to overthrow Hitler. He harbored a deep loathing for the former SS members now working within the BND and described to Schwimmer the rivalries rife within the organization. This included the existence of a top-secret unit that was said to report directly to the CIA.

  Schwimmer’s source confided that the unit was being reorganized. Its chief had been whisked out of the country. The reason was unclear. Rather than send him back to his former hideout, there was an unconfirmed report that he’d been temporarily parked in Cuba.

  “That struck me as an odd choice,” Bassante said, “till I gave it more thought. In fact, it’s perfect: A country in turmoil, consumed by conflicts that concentrate the attention of participants and spectators alike; the dictator in power unlikely to do anything to aggravate or complicate relations with the U.S.; the insurgents too absorbed in taking power and setting up a new government to care about much else.

  “I came to Havana to see what I could find out. A buddy from Counterintelligence who retired here put me in touch with a local private investigator. I didn’t get too specific. I gave him a general description of the person I was looking for. Turns out that Havana is a very small big city. Everybody knows everybody else’s business, and when a foreigner takes up residence—especially when he rents a mansion and is accompanied by bodyguards—interest is high.

  “The investigator got back to me within a few days. He was sure he’d located the person I was looking for. Rumor was that the foreigner was a Swiss or German, a doctor who was planning to operate as an abortionist for an exclusively wealthy clientele. I went out and scouted the place. I caught a fleeting glimpse of him in the backseat of his car as it left the driveway. He was leaning forward to say something to the chauffeur. It was Heinz. No doubt about it. He apparently feels supremely secure in Havana—and why not? Chaos has always been his friend. Amid the current turmoil, he’s no doubt aware of how little anyone cares about his presence.”