“What kind of security?” I asked. It sounded naïve.
“They will do nothing different, amigo. But this is their town.”
On the way back to Mexico City, those irrational thoughts of ‘what if’ flooded over me. What if the man and his two sons had been killed? What if the little girl had been in the garage? The mother? The fact that they hadn’t didn’t seem to chase the ‘what if’s’ away.
I could also imagine Gearheardt’s comment. Jack, the garage owner should have put his shop somewhere besides where the United States and Russia are using their surrogates, like Mexico and Colombia, to blow each other up. Gearheardt and his witticism, his naked cohorts and his cockeyed schemes seemed far away from the realities of my normal routine.
I knew it was dangerous to have feelings in my job. And the man and his family would recover, with a new and probably better shop. Still …
“Jack, amigo, here is your car.”
We were pulling in front of the restaurant where I had met Rodrigo only a couple of hours before. I got out as he stopped, but held the door open and leaned back in. “Rodrigo, do you think you can still get a line on the Colombian? I would think he would hightail it back to Bogotá after this.”
“Maybe, Jack. But I don’t think so. He is probably paid very well. And he didn’t deliver the bombs. Sometimes that is not a happy thing to tell the Colombian bosses. I will check around. With my Colombian cousin, and at the school with my son. He is a student there.” He started the car. “Did you see him, Jack? Did you get a good look at him?”
“They all look alike to me, Rodrigo.” I laughed but there was some unfortunate truth there. “I am sure he was young. Probably a student. He gave me the finger. Not the thing a senior agent would probably do.” I started to close the door. “You might ask your son to watch out for a Colombian student who shows up on the campus injured or limping.”
“Don’t forget the money, Jack. I can pick it up at the cantina tomorrow?”
“It will be there. Do you think $2500 will be enough?”
“More than enough. But I might have some expenses also, no?” He drove off.
I had a beer in the café before I started back to the embassy. I knew I needed to be under control to tell this story to Major Crenshaw. Somehow I didn’t think Major Crenshaw would worry about blowing up a Mexican auto shop. The money to repair it—that might be a different matter. I remembered the grand that I took from the egg money and felt better that I would only have to request fifteen hundred from the Agency.
As I cruised through Chapultepec Park on my way back to my office, I glanced at the elegant apartment buildings in Colonia Polanco. I imagined a naked Cuban woman lounging in one of them. I shouldn’t have, but I felt better just thinking about that. As Gearheardt would say, “If free money and naked women can’t cheer you up, you may be dead.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
NO SHIRT, NO PANTS, NO MARTA
Luckily, Crenshaw (Major Crenshaw—I was not supposed to even think of his name without ‘major’ in front of it) was not in when I made it back to the embassy. Juanita wouldn’t tell me where he had gone or when he would be back. She didn’t like Major Crenshaw, but she was a loyal assistant.
“Will he be back this afternoon, Juanita?” I asked.
“Even if I did know, I would not tell you.”
“So you don’t know.”
“I do know. I am his assistant.”
“It’s okay not to know, Juanita. Major Crenshaw hardly trusts anyone.” I started to my office. I stopped and took a wild guess. “Is he riding his burro into the hills, Juanita?”
I looked at her and she was flustered. “I cannot tell you about his riding burro, Señor Armstrong. Especially about the burro.” She paused. “He is not riding burro today.”
The jackass was probably meeting his Cuban contacts in the hills north of Teotihuacan. That was burro country. Did we have burro parking in the embassy? Did he take an embassy car to where he parked his burro? The guys he was meeting probably had to leave luxury condos in the Zona Rosa and have drivers take them to the hills so that they could meet with the bozo from America who rode around on a donkey. Were burros donkeys?
I closed my door and flopped onto my tattered embassy-issue couch by the window. Thoughts of Marta gamboling around my office in the buff began to overcome the sadness of blowing up a poor Mexican’s livelihood. I was Americanized again.
I wrote up the action report for my Colombian file, filled out a request for funds for the auto shop and extra security, and spent an hour with another agent who was also involved in the military intelligence project. His assessment was that the risk of the operation wasn’t worth the potential information that we might find.
“This looks like ‘make work’ to me, Jack. So what if the Mexicans are holding back information from us? I’ve never seen them generate any intelligence worth buying. And buying is the only way to get intelligence at this level. So why bother to infiltrate?”
“You were enthusiastic last week, Eric. Why the change?”
“Crenshaw has me on a special assignment that’s eating up all my time.”
“That’s Major Crenshaw. Under the honor code I’m afraid I’ll have to report that you didn’t use Major when you referred to him. Your career’s over.”
“My career is over if anyone finds out what I’m doing for Major Crenshaw. If I tell you what it is, will you promise on the life of the many brothel children you no doubt have never to reveal to anyone what I’m about to tell you?”
“I have no brothel children, and I’m not really sure I want to know what Major Crenshaw has his top agent doing.” I got up to leave.
“I really would like to tell you, Jack,” Eric said, rising also and grabbing my arm. “He has me trying to find out how many committed Christians are in the Cuban spy network in Mexico City.”
“How do you—”
He shrugged and held his hands out palms up. “Beats me.”
I shook my head in sympathy. “Have you thought of checking Sunday mornings in the churches?” It was hard for me to register this information as not somehow humorous.
Eric stroked his chin. “Actually I hadn’t thought of that, Jack. You mean just take our list of suspected Cuban activists and see if I can find them in church?”
It was frightening to me that I might have given Eric the best advice he had so far received. So I left without answering.
Back in my office I looked through the files that had to do with the Mexican intelligence services and decided that Eric might have been right. The danger of the Mexicans finding out that the CIA was targeting them probably outweighed the intelligence we might discover. And there were other ways to find out what they were up to. I wrote ‘suspended’ on the outside of the file, a short memo to Crenshaw outlining my conclusions, and marked the file for the archives.
The Colombian connection was another matter. I was convinced that money was flowing into student radical groups at the University of Mexico. And I was also certain that American students were getting terrorist training somewhere. Probably through Cuba. There was a connection there and I was determined to find what it was, Gearheardt plan or no Gearheardt plan. The real world of my business shoved wild ideas off of my priority list. Still, there was definitely something going on. Crenshaw had some bug up his butt. Gearheardt knew more than he was letting on. Why I, a lowly junior Agency officer, was in the middle of things, was beyond current speculation.
When I opened the door to my apartment, I saw figures scurrying out of the living room toward the bathroom and my bedroom. “What the hell is going on?” I yelled. I was pretty sure I knew. After a moment, Gearheardt strolled into the living room as I was hanging up my shoulder holster.
“Hey, Jack,” he said. “You’re home early.” He was dressed in Levis and a polo shirt. “I just stopped by to give you a message. I’m heading out to meet someone now.”
“Barefooted?”
He looked down at his feet.
“What happened to my shoes?”
“Gearheardt, I don’t care what you and Marta are up to. I just don’t like this arrangement. I used to have a social life of my own before you showed up.”
“If you’re talking about Greta, from the Austrian Embassy, you might want to check in with her, Jack. She stopped by this afternoon.”
“Let me guess. Marta was here nude.”
“I prefer to call it ‘au natural.’ Doesn’t rhyme with lewd that way.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Gearheardt. So what did she say? What did you tell her?”
“I didn’t tell her anything. Marta handled it herself. Convinced her we were just making some blue movies in the bedroom. I was in there yelling ‘action’ and ‘cut’ and I think she bought it.”
I wished I could even consider that he was kidding. “Great. Good thinking.” I ripped my tie off and threw it on the easy chair. “I suppose you led her to believe that I was in the bedroom with you.”
“Why would we be using your apartment if you weren’t home, Jack? She might have called the police.”
He retrieved his shoes from under the couch and was slipping them on. “We could have told her we were a couple of spies just waiting for you to come home so that we could practice some espionage. That sound better, Jack? Imagine that story getting back to the Austrian Embassy.”
I plopped onto the couch as Marta, wearing my robe, walked into the living room. Before I could decide my attitude toward her, she said, “May I get a drink for you, Jack? You look very tired. You need to be ready for a good time and good business tonight.”
“Ola, Marta. Yes, I’ll have some Scotch. And no, I am not going out tonight. I am exhausted. I’ve had a long day. And I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing for you,” I turned to face my pal, “Gearheardt.”
Gearheardt just laughed. He picked up my tie and wrapped it around his neck. “Jack, don’t you think Washington was tired when he had to row across the Delaware? Don’t you think MacArthur would have preferred staying home rather than marching to Bataan? We’re not in a game that allows for ‘tired’ or ‘too busy.’ When there are people trying to assassinate our leaders, bomb our institutions, spy on our citizens, do you think we should fight them only from eight to five? When it’s convenient and there’s nothing good on TV?” He stood and slipped on a sport coat that looked suspiciously like one that I owned. “You know better, Jack. That’s why I know I can count on you.” He smiled at me. Charming and annoying. “And Marta.”
Marta had in fact returned with my Scotch. She smiled and I deliberately did not envision taking her out to a club in her short, tight skirt. “Gracias, Marta,” I said. She waited, prescient, while I drank the liquor in one long swallow and sat the glass back on the tray. She headed back to the kitchen. “Gearheardt, even after all the years I’ve known you, I don’t know if you are really as uninformed as you seem to be, or if you just do it to infuriate me. Somehow your inane speeches actually make me feel guilty about not carrying out your idiot plans.”
“That’s the ticket, Jack.” As if I had agreed to something. “Let me tell you about this evening.” He looked at his watch and then sat down across from me. “I told you before that I need a certain structure in place to make every thing happen. Right? Tonight you can do me the favor of putting another piece in place. The Cubans that Marta will introduce you to are not on my team.”
“So I’m on a Cuban recruiting mission? What makes you think any of these guys will have any interest in being on your team?”
“I don’t want them on my team, Jack. That’s the thing. I want them on Crenshaw’s team. And you work for Crenshaw.”
“Gearheardt, wouldn’t it just be easier for you to tell me what’s going on? Recruiting Cubans for Crenshaw? That doesn’t make sense at all.”
Gearheardt rubbed his chin and looked at the floor. Evidently taking what I was saying under consideration. I knew he trusted me. Finally he said, “Jack, did you wonder why you, a junior Agency officer, were asked to be Acting Chief of Station in Mexico City? You have a number of very qualified agents in the embassy. Ever cross your mind that they were overlooked?”
It had. Frequently. The explanation that the Mexico desk in Langley gave was that since the position was for only a short period, it wouldn’t make sense to interrupt the other agent’s routines and on-going operations. I really hadn’t bought that, but I didn’t know of a better explanation. “I suppose so, Gearheardt. I guess you’re going to tell me it was your doing.”
He laughed. “I wish I had that much pull, Jack. But I’m just a contract officer. They hardly know I exist except when I cause them a bit of rouble.”
“In other words, everyone at Langley probably knows you.”
“Well, yes. But that doesn’t give me much leverage in things like picking the COS.”
“So what’s your point?” I knew I should shut up, throw him and Marta out of my apartment, and get on with my life. “If you weren’t involved, so what? Langley might not have had any reason particularly. Maybe it was a typo”
“No typo, Jack. It was the Pygmy.” He held his palm toward me. “No, I mean it. The Pygmy is running this show. He thought that if we could get the operation going while you had no boss in Mexico City, we could move things along quickly. Unfortunately, Langley decided to rush a new Chief of Station down here. I knew Crenshaw when he was running around Africa carrying a spear. So I suggested that the Pygmy get him sent down here.”
“He rode a burro into town.” Not that I was buying Gearheardt’s whole story.
“It was good enough for Jesus.”
Which could have meant that Gearheardt was a born-again Christian. That he was spoofing Crenshaw. That he simply thought it was a time-honored mode of transportation. In any event, I should have stuck with my earlier notion of throwing him out of my apartment. But it was Gearheardt. And he was under contract to the CIA. And so was I.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Just follow Marta’s lead, Jack. Perfect tits don’t mean you’re dumb.” He smiled at Marta who smiled back. “Maybe it’s ‘doesn’t.’ Would it be ‘perfect tits doesn’t mean you’re dumb?’ The ‘having’ is understood. So—”
“Gearheardt, for Pete’s sake, just leave it alone. If you don’t want me to ask more questions, just say so.”
He shrugged and looked at his watch again. He looked very collegiate. A blazer over a polo shirt, worn with jeans and loafers with no socks. I wondered if he were really going to meet someone in the scheme, or out to the campus to cruise for American college girls down for graduate school. He stood. “Jack, I will never not let you know as much as you shouldn’t know to keep yourself out of trouble as far as knowing goes.”
I think he was serious. “Thanks.”
At the door he smiled big teeth at Marta. “Take care of my boy, Marta. And keep your clothes on.”
“Gearheardt, you do understand that I have gone far beyond where I should have gone with all this. Just by not discussing it with my case officer, I’m breaking the rules. To say nothing of common sense.”
“And I won’t let you down, Jack. You will get the authorization you need when you need it.” He left.
The club that Marta took me to was unexpectedly not a dive. A watering hole for kings and potentates—probably not. But it was white tablecloths and waiters that actually came to your table. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Gearheardt ran with a higher class crowd than my gang of runners and informants.
It was the Club Tristiza, a word only vaguely familiar but sounding festive enough. It was in a part of town that I hadn’t visited frequently, near the floating market. Leaving my little BMW 1600 with the white-shirted valet parking crew was the toughest part. I assumed that while I was dining and dancing with the very luscious Marta, my car would be a part of various robberies, kidnappings and sundry criminal transactions; this deduced from the conversation I heard patches of when I handed the youth the keys. Then I fe
lt bad that I was making such bigoted assumptions and followed Marta into the club.
The greeter seemed to recognize Marta, or maybe he asked everyone to please keep their clothes on.
The patrons, I noticed as we were shown to a table near the dance floor, were somber. The music being played by a five-piece band in tuxes and lacy shirts was a Latin American dirge, what the Mexicans called an endecha. They sat on the small stage under faint red lights. Two couples moved slowly around the dance floor, neither laughing nor talking. When the music stopped, no one clapped. The couples shuffled wordlessly back to their tables. The ones I observed grabbed wine glasses and drained them as soon as they sat down.
Marta and I ordered our drinks, both red wine, and I smiled the smile of any guy on a first date not sure what to talk about. Marta was scanning the room, looking, I assumed, for anyone that she might know. I saw no signs of recognition cross her face before she looked back at me and smiled.
“Marta,” I said.
Before I could think of what followed that, a man whose description might define swarthy took the stage in front of the band and tapped the microphone. He began to speak in a slow Spanish, emotional and slurred, very difficult to understand. I heard Cuba and Castro a number of times before the man burst into tears and was led from the stage. The room was silent except for the clink of wine glasses and a few sniffles.
“For God’s sake, Marta, what is this place? This has to be the most depressing nightclub in the world.”
Marta’s eyes were teary when she spoke. “In my country, in all of Latin America, we do not hide our emotions, Jack. We celebrate them. Club Tristiza is a place where we can come and be sad. If we are lonely or missing a loved one. If we are in a strange land and missing our country and our family, we need to share those emotions.”
Goodbye Mexico Page 6
