Marchand Woman

by Brian Garfield

  “Now you know she wasn’t a plant,” Carole Marchand said mildly.

  No, he thought, actually he didn’t know that at all. Maybe Rosalia had been the target after all—how could he be sure they weren’t afraid she’d expose them? Maybe they’d known she was falling in love with Anders. Maybe they’d killed her to keep her silent.

  What he said was, “They’re going to pay for it. I don’t much care why they did it.”

  Then he thought, Pull yourself together, you’ve got to be cold now. He needed dispassion. He said, “This bastard Cielo—presumably Rodriguez—bought some fairly heavy weapons from a dealer in Mayaguez. Mainly mortars and a couple of small artillery pieces. They were delivered to a farm. That’s all the dealer knew about it—he took the money and delivered the merchandise. I ran a check on the serial numbers of the banknotes. They match the numbers on some of the ransom bills—if we need more confirmation of that kind. I had a look at the farm where he delivered the guns. Nothing there now, they’ve cleared out. Most likely they used it just once and they’ll never use it again.”

  “Do you mind coming to the point?”

  Anders said, “I reported to O’Hillary. A few hours later he got back to me. This is off the record now. Officially we’re still engaged in the hunt for these terrorists. But unofficially my orders, as of noon today, are to lose the file down behind the file cabinet somewhere. You see the connection?”

  “Right,” Crobey said. “The arms buy makes our boy respectable.”

  “Spell it out for me,” Carole Marchand commanded.

  “They’re picking up heavy ordnance,” Anders said. “This buy will be one of dozens, I imagine. They’ll spread the purchases around to avoid drawing too much attention. It begins to look like a major paramilitary operation. You can buy a lot of weapons for ten million dollars. O’Hillary’s analysts likely have it sized up that Rodriguez shows every sign of intending to mount a well-equipped mobile striking force for an attack on Castro’s headquarters.”

  “With a handful of men?”

  “We don’t know for sure how many men there are, do we. Anyhow look what the Israelis accomplished at Entebbe with a handful of troops. It’s not numbers that count in a palace coup—it’s tactics and planning. They could wipe out the Cuban leadership if they handle it with enough sophistication.”

  She said, “That’s a farfetched extrapolation from a few flimsy clues, isn’t it?”

  “The agency works that kind of scenario all the time.”

  “In other words O’Hillary thinks Rodriguez may have a chance of overthrowing Castro so he’s ordering you to keep hands off?”

  “It’s one possibility.”

  “It’s what I thought all along,” she said, “more or less.”

  “There’s another possibility,” Anders said. He felt so weary he could hardly get the words out. “Your idea that there had to be someone here in San Juan with enough political clout to sic the local police on Harry—somebody with that much clout might also have enough influence in Washington to put pressure on the agency to soft-pedal the investigation.”

  She said, “And the murder of Rosalia—one of your own agents—doesn’t even put a dent in those policies. You folks sure are expendable.”

  Anders managed a lopsided hint of a smile; and Crobey said, “Are you filing for a divorce from O’Hillary?”

  “Not yet. Officially I’m still under orders to locate the terrorists. Locate ’em but keep hands off. Those are the orders I’m obliged to obey, aren’t they? After we locate them—we’ll see.”

  Crobey said to Carole Marchand, “The first rule is cover your ass. Glenn doesn’t think of himself as a bureaucrat but it rubs off on everybody.”

  “As opposed to Harry here, who’s of pure and noble character,” Anders said without heat. “You’re both missing the point. If I can show legitimate orders then I can maintain my freedom of action. There’s no point going out of my way to shut off communications. I may as well keep making use of the apparatus as long as it’s available to me. And to hell with O’Hillary’s private instructions.”

  “Watch closely, ducks, and you’ll notice that amazingly enough, at no time do his hands leave his arms.”

  “As of now,” Anders went on, feeling the anger rise within him, “I’m in this right up to my hairline. No more reservations. I want to nail these bastards and to hell with Fidel Castro. Put a gun in my hand and Rodriguez in the sights—that should settle the question quick enough.”

  Something made a sudden noise—a slam of sound: The truck jiggled and Anders went into his pocket for his gun, whipping his eyes around—it was two kids: Their baseball had bounced off the truck fender.

  “Jesus.”

  Crobey climbed out and the kids scuttled back. Crobey went along the curb and picked up the baseball. He talked in Spanish to the kids and tossed the baseball to one of them; the kids swallowed and nodded their heads and put their backs to him and ran like hell. Crobey got back into the truck. He glanced at Anders. “Shooting them wouldn’t have done a whole lot for your image, Glenn.”

  Anders was rattled; it was clear to all of them; excuses or apologies wouldn’t change it. He didn’t really care. His future had been shot down last night with a bullet on the steps of El Convento. That had been his second chance; now he’d missed it. It was time to quit: Take early retirement and put O’Hillary out of his life and mark time in an Arizona suburb ranchette writing letters to the editor and taking up hobbies.

  There was only one possible escape from that: The sense of justification he might derive from destroying the destroyers who’d taken Rosalia from him.

  Crobey said mildly, “That house in the next block with the pink Pinto in the carport—that’s Rodriguez’s house.”

  “What?”

  “He hasn’t been back since that night he ditched your plainclothes cop,” Crobey said. “Will you relax a little?” He tipped his head toward the house he’d indicated. “The wife’s name is Soledad. They’ve got three girls, various ages, the oldest about fourteen I think. Or maybe twelve—kids grow up faster these days, don’t they. The family name on the mailbox is Mendez. Ernesto Mendez, that’s the name he goes by when he’s not being Cielo and/or Rodrigo Rodriguez.”

  A battered camper-bodied pickup truck came crunching down the street, turned in at a driveway and let off a woman with her hair in yellow plastic curlers who began to unload brown grocery bags from the seat. Crobey’s voice went on, droning in his ear with that faint Liverpudlian overlay: “The neighbors believe him to be an adjuster for a casualty insurance company, which is a fair dodge because it explains his absences—he’s away investigating claims. He belongs to a local National Guard regiment, the kind where they train every Thursday night and one weekend a month. A couple of old pals of mine have been asking questions around. They’ve come up with some interesting bits and pieces. This National Guard outfit has a little rat-pack of noncommissioned officers all of whom seem to have served with Mendez-Rodriguez at some unspecified time in the past, for which I tend to read Bay of Pigs. It turns out, on inquiry, that every last one of the members of this little rat-pack happens to be away on important business at the moment—extended business trips.”

  “You’ve been busy. What else have you found?”

  “We’re still about thirty bricks short of a full load but we’re getting there,” Crobey told him. “These two buddies who’ve been working for us on Carole’s payroll have talked to several of the National Guardsmen in that outfit. Not rat-pack types but other chaps in the same unit. It seems the first lieutenant in command of that particular platoon is one Emil Draga, age twenty-four, graduate of the University of Florida at Coral Gables.”

  “The name sounds familiar.”

  “The family name ought to. Try this on—Jorge Vandemeer Draga-Ruiz.”

  “Ah. The boy’s father?”

  “Grandfather. The old boy’s pushing ninety.”

  Anders looked at Carole Marchand. She hadn’t s
poken for a long time. Between the bucket seats her hand lay across Crobey’s; Anders marked that and drew its meaning. He said to her, “That could be the source of the police clout you were looking for.”

  “I know.”

  Carole Marchand said, “What if we asked him a few hard questions at the end of a gun?”

  Anders smiled a little at her naïveté. “I’m sure that man’s guarded by a security system as heavy as a medieval baron’s moat. You’d never get within half a mile of him.”

  “We could get him to come to us,” Crobey said.

  “How?”

  “Leave that aside a minute. The question is, if we get the old goat under a gun, do you go along with it or do you blow the whistle on us? He’s a powerful old bastard. He’s probably got four senators and a dozen congressmen in his pocket.”

  “And that’s supposed to scare me off?”

  “It’s the kind of thing that’ll cost you your job and your pension.”

  “I doubt that. These old Cuban families aren’t that influential anymore. They’ve turned into White Russian emigrés—nobody pays that much attention to them.”

  “Draga’s just a little bit different from most of them,” Crobey said. “To the tune of maybe three hundred million dollars.”

  Anders kept glancing fitfully up the street toward the Mendez-Rodriguez house, reassuring himself that no one was going in or out. He said, “I’d be happier if we had better evidence the old man’s involved. Suppose we get him under a gun, as you say—suppose he turns out to be the wrong man? Suppose he doesn’t know anything about this business? We’ll have made ourselves an enemy strong enough to blast us out of Puerto Rico permanently. Then what happens to the hunt for Rodriguez?”

  Carole Marchand said, “Harry and I are willing to take the chance. We believe Jorge Draga has got to be the power behind Rodriguez.”

  “A minute ago you were accusing the CIA of jumping to conclusions on the basis of flimsy fragments.”

  “All right, the shoe’s changed feet—we bought your reasoning. Why shouldn’t you buy ours?”

  Anders picked at a ragged fingernail. Carole Marchand said, “You can get out of the car right now if you like. We’ll do this by ourselves if we have to. But we’re a little short of manpower and we could use your help. I thought, in view of what happened to Rosalia, you might be inclined to throw in with us.…”

  The last of the day’s sunlight was creeping up toward the low roofs across the street. The two young baseball players had disappeared—gone inside for dinner, probably.

  Crobey said, “The two blokes I’ve been using here are Cubans. They owe me favors and I’ve been collecting. But they hate Castro. I don’t think we ought to depend on them to help us do anything except collect information. I’m sure they won’t go up against Rodriguez in a firefight—there’s a limit to their obligations to me. They wouldn’t have strung along this far except that Carole’s paying them good money. What I’m doing is giving you the full picture. Odds against. There’s only the three of us, unless you can recruit people from the agency.”

  “Not much chance of that. I couldn’t do it without O’Hillary getting wind of it.”

  Carole Marchand said, “Then it’s just three of us. If you’re in.”

  “And just two of you if I’m not. What happens then? How can you fight him by yourselves?”

  Her reply was a defiant stare.

  “I think you’re nuts.” He looked at Crobey. “She’s nuts. I never thought you were. What’s in this for you? I hope it’s enough to pay your funeral expenses.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve arranged to sell my body to science.”

  “Come on, Harry. If I buy in, how do I know you won’t disappear when we need you?”

  “I trust him,” Carole Marchand said.

  “Sure—but you’re infatuated with him.”

  It only made her smile, a reckless bawdy sort of grin. She was, he thought, a remarkably likable woman. Clearly she had captivated Crobey; and he found that to be an amazing thing.

  Anders sighed out a long exasperated breath. His chin dropped toward his chest and he contemplated the veins in the backs of his hands. He made a few faces and glimpsed the tail ends of various rationalizations and in the end he said, “All right. How do we get our hands on Draga?”

  Chapter 16

  She felt cramped in the truck seat—too many hours of sitting. The night was muggy and the shirt was pasted to her; she felt unclean. She said, “What if someone has to pee?”

  “You go in the bushes, ducks.”

  The armory was a low pink stucco shoebox. A high chainlink fence enclosed a paved yard on which squatted two dark green tanks, their cleated treads glistening under the lights, and several trucks and Jeeps. Beyond the armory the road rolled away through open fields.

  Anders, in the back seat, yawned audibly. It was the only sound any of them made until Carole shifted in her seat to ease her rump. They had run out of conversation more than an hour ago.

  Harry seemed imperturbable but she’d detected signs of unease in Glenn Anders. The death of the girl had unraveled his nerves.

  Along both shoulders of the dusty road cars were parked—she’d counted forty-odd. Crobey had told her to ignore the rest, they were only interested in one of them. Nobody intended to start a fight with the entire platoon.

  She felt conflicting pulls toward Anders. There was an urge to comfort him; but something else held her back—a lingering distrust. He was one of them, the apparatchiks. She dealt with his kind all the time: the people who ran the studios. A movie executive was a sorry creature whose guiding principle was fear: “Let’s take another meeting. We want to keep our options open.” Things were stalled forever by their dithering. And in the end the decision usually was negative; very few heads of production had ever been fired for turning down a project. It was always safer to say no. Soon Anders might begin to remember he was an organization man. He had never altogether forgotten it: I’d be happier if we had better evidence.…

  Harry’s hand dropped casually upon her shoulder and she tipped her cheek against his knuckles, wondering what would become of them.

  There was a plan of sorts—she wasn’t sure she had faith in it. The first step was to isolate the old tycoon and force information out of him. That was dicey, as Harry put it. But if they could pry the location of Rodriguez’s hiding place out of the old man then they would keep the old man on ice while they made their way to what Harry with a straight face had designated as the Bad Guy’s Hideout.

  The weapon of Harry’s choice was gas and they’d spent nearly twenty-four hours and the major part of Carole’s cash to obtain cartons of Mace canisters, tear-gas grenades and the military handcuffs that now crowded the rear compartment of the Bronco beside Anders’ seat. Ballistic arms were there as well—the light automatic guns Harry had been disassembling in Santana’s house—but if they had to resort to those they would fail. The guns were only for defense: to cover a running retreat.

  She stirred, lifted Harry’s hand off her shoulder and tried to read the luminous dial of his diver’s watch. “How much longer, for God’s sake?”

  “Settle down. This is mañana country. A couple hours of lectures and then the boys probably shoot a few racks of pool—most of them haven’t got all that much to go home to.”

  It was frightfully hot, a night for long cool drinks; she squirmed in her sweat and poked her head half out the open window in the search for air. Below the truck a crowd of red ants were dragging a huge dung beetle stubbornly across the earth. She had done her hair up with a few pins in an attempt to leave her neck bare and cool but it hadn’t helped. She desperately wanted a shower.

  Harry had withdrawn his hand and she sat far over on her side of the seat, not so much watching the armory as thinking about Harry. It was always her tendency to expose the ludicrous side of things: Can you honestly picture yourself facing this man across the breakfast table every day for the rest of your life? If wh
at she felt toward him was infatuation, what would happen when it wore out? God knew she was not at ease in Harry’s world. She could not bear the thought of losing him—but what was the alternative? Think about the derivation of that word “wedlock.”

  Then she thought, I am putting the cart ahead of an unborn horse. But she had no pride left. She would demand that he marry her. Or at least live with her. It came to the same thing; in her tradition—inescapable—marriage was not an experiment but a contract. And now she felt like a Victorian belle—setting her cap for him.

  And then what?

  Abruptly she turned to face his profile. “Harry?”

  “What, ducks?”

  “You could be a stunt director.”

  “A what?”

  “In the movies. Stunts. Airplanes, special effects. You know.”

  “I did that a couple of times. In Yugoslavia a few years ago. A guy I knew was making war pictures.”

  “Didn’t you like it?”

  “The truth. I love it. But I felt like a damn silly ass, play-acting at war.”

  “You were young then.”

  From the back seat Anders said with a nervous laugh, “Harry’ll never be old.”

  But Harry kept his eyes on Carole, grave and gentle—she felt an outpouring of love: She touched his cheek fondly. She was thinking that in nature, no matter what the species, only one male in a hundred was any good. I’m not about to let him go. And to hell with the impossibility of it.

  Harry said, “If that’s a job offer I think I’ll take it. This was going to be my last caper anyhow, wasn’t it?”

  She breathed, “Oh, Harry!”—like an ingenue; and threw herself into his arms.

  “Heads up,” Glenn Anders said, very mild. “Here they come.”

  Entangled with Harry she twisted her head to bring the armory into her field of vision. Men emerged in clusters, all of them in fatigues. A good deal of talk; some calling back and forth, good nights and hasta luegos. She straightened in the seat in abrupt alarm. “How do we know which one he is?”