“You took off your clothes in here?” It just slipped out.
Marta ignored me, finishing her wine and signaling the weeping waiter for another round. As he slipped into the kitchen through a swinging door I glimpsed bright lights and heard normal sounds of people talking and enjoying being alive.
“I thought maybe Castro died or something,” I ventured.
Even the clinking and sniffling stopped. All heads near our table swung toward me. I raised my glass. “Viva Castro,” I said. No one joined my toast but they stopped staring.
The band began playing, this time with a young woman singer who was not bad looking except for her streaked mascara. The song she sang evidently had something to do with ‘love’ falling in a river and something about a horse that was magic and somehow saved ‘love’ except that someone’s lover or carpet cleaner had a knife and someone got stabbed. I wished my Spanish language course had lasted a bit longer before I was posted to Mexico City. For the first time, I felt ‘set up.’ I was in a strange land, working for strange people, without a language, with few friends (except Gearheardt), and a vague sense of mission. Just before I started to cry, a man approached the table and greeted Marta.
“Ola, Marta. Como esta?” He was slick. I knew that I should not make snap judgments based on first impressions. But my first impression was that this guy had a tee shirt under his suit that said I’d rather be molesting schoolchildren.
“Esta es mi amigo Jack,” Marta said to the man, pointing to me.
I rose and extended my hand. “Mucho gusto,” not meaning it.
The man ignored my hand. In fact ignored me and spoke to Marta.
As I sat down I said, “Why don’t you go screw yourself.”
His look and raised eyebrows told me he spoke passable English. Marta kicked me under the table. I wasn’t sure I understood all he said next, but I was pretty sure that even if he cut my heart out, it wouldn’t fit up my ass. We weren’t getting along so far and I hoped this wasn’t one of the contacts that Gearheardt and Marta wanted me to make. This guy was Cocky, Clever, and Cuban. Long ago Gearheardt and I decided to kill anyone that passed that test with a sixty-six or better, as long as they got the last one right.
Marta seemed all business as she invited the Cuban to join us. His reluctance lasted about five seconds. I said nothing as Marta’s spiked heel onto my instep kept my mind busy. They began a conversation that was difficult to interpret as well as to hear with Marta (the shameless hussy) leaning close to the man’s ear. I did think I heard Crenshaw’s name mentioned, a burro, and me.
My mind wandered, thinking about the Cubans I met in North Vietnam and the stories of their torture techniques. When I checked back in, Marta and the lizard were looking at me.
“Marta says to me that you work in the American embassy,” the lizard said. It seemed to pain him to speak to me.
“I am an economic development officer in the embassy.”
The lizard looked at Marta and shrugged.
There was a loud thump as Marta’s kick missed my leg and hit the booth. “Jack,” she said, “there is no reason to be secret. I have known Victor for a long time.”
“You have known Victor many times?” The joke was lost on Marta.
“Yes, he is a man that was kind to me after he killed my father.” (Maybe I misunderstood her). She went on. “Victor is an important man. I told him that you are an important man also.” Why didn’t she just paint a bulls-eye on my suit coat? And why did I envision Gearheardt somewhere cavorting with naked women and tequila while I chatted with the lagarto?
Marta was still talking. “I believe that Victor would be a good man for you to know, Jack.” She turned to Victor, who was the only other person in the club not breaking into tears. “Jack might be able to help with your mission, Victor.”
Victor began a lengthy tirade, directed to Marta and suitably subdued in the funereal surroundings. I caught enough of it to understand the basic theme; ‘what in the hell have you been telling this slimeball about me?’ When he finished he stood and looked down at me. I braced myself for an assault, either physical or verbal. But he turned on his heels and left.
“I think that went awfully well,” I said.
Marta understandably ignored my feeble sarcasm. She was writing on a section of the wine list. She tore it off and held it up to my face. “This is the number you will call.”
I took the paper, looked at it closely, and held it to the candle. It flared quickly and was gone. “Screw the lagarto,” I said. “You want another drink? Or would you like to cry or something?”
Marta might be on loan to Gearheardt (whatever the hell that meant) but she needed to have a bit stronger sense of who was running this particular side of the operation. Assuming there was one. I wasn’t about to suck up to a rabid Ricky Ricardo. If the Cubans were interested in me, they could get in touch with me. This wasn’t just machismo (although Marta admittedly brought out a bit of that) but good sense. Never go into another man’s game with your dick in your hand. (This was advice that Gearheardt had give me. I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant, and I knew it was not elegantly put. But I had a vague sense that he was right).
Marta was worried that she had done something wrong. “Gearheardt will not be happy with this, Jack. This is part of his plan. Victor and his friends will be waiting for you to call. And Victor is not a lizard.”
I patted her hand. “Don’t worry about Gearheardt,” I said. “Remember I know something about this game too. If Victor takes the bait,” I looked around to see if I had spoken too loudly, “he’ll get in touch. You can’t force yourself on a man with a mission, Marta.” The band broke into an agonizing rendition of Volga Boatmen which prompted a brooding Russian type to begin boo-hooing and I decided I had had it with the Club Tristiza. “Let’s go. This place is giving me the creeps.” I patted her hand again when she didn’t respond. “Unless you want to take off your clothes or something.”
She smiled and I liked her even better. In the car I tried to find out exactly who Victor was and how much she had told him about me. I found out very little. She was good, or dumb. Or both. Victor had been a childhood friend in Havana. When he went into the Cuban army, he changed. Back in civilian clothes, he was cold and secretive. But Marta, she claimed, had charmed him and became what I took to be his mistress for a short while. I had heard her right; she did suspect that he had been responsible for her father’s death. I had begun to make sense of her wanting to help Gearheardt use the bad Cubans for his purpose when she followed up with, “My father was an evil man, Jack. I do not want to tell you.”
A girl with an evil father and a mother who encouraged her to run around bare-ass naked becomes the mistress of a man who is responsible for having her father killed and turning her mother into a prostitute. I ould see why Gearheardt trusted her with the Agency’s secrets, to say nothing of putting my life in her hands. A nice stable girl. Damn Gearheardt.
But I didn’t try to call Greta that night, and wasn’t sure that I would try the next day.
I went straight to bed, not thinking for a moment about the lovely Marta prancing around my apartment dressed in her thigh holster. And I left the next morning while she was still sleeping on the couch, my souvenir serape pulled up over he bare shoulders.
CHAPTER OCHO—BECAUSE I LIKE OCHO
WHOSE HAND IS THIS I’M BITING?
“I suppose it would be too much trouble for you to arrange to have lunch with me, Mr. Armstong?”
Crenshaw, Major Crenshaw, had snuck down the hall and opened my office door without alerting me. He scared the heck out of me when he spoke.
“No, sir. I would be thrilled (thrilled?) to have lunch with you, sir. May I arrange it? Or are we in the embassy cafeteria?” Why did I sound like an obsequious suck-toad when I talked to Crenshaw?
“I’ve had Juanita arrange a table at a small cantina I know near the embassy. I think you’ll find the food quite good.” He left my door open as usual, and I hea
rd him at Juanita’s desk. “Did you check on the carpenters, Juanita? I’m really quite anxious for them to complete the new door.”
After I closed my own door, I spoke to Gearheardt. “Gearheardt, you rotten bastard, if you’re listening, give me a call. You and I need to talk.” I had assumed he would be contacting me if Marta had reported my ‘lack of cooperation’ with her Cuban contacts. I knew that Gearheardt would understand that I didn’t want to seem too interested in them. Marta did not know the subtleties of the game.
Juanita knocked discreetly and brought the morning’s dispatches and messages.
Rodrigo had called. A new lead and a sighting of the Colombian by one of Rodrigo’s many ‘men.’
The Agency in Bogotá had responded with a cryptic note:
Your subject son of prominent businessman. No known connections with communist organizations or other enemies of U.S. Suggest you use caution if implicated in terrorist activities. Need leather type and color.
It only took a moment to figure out the reference to leather (the jacket I had ordered) but deciphering the “use caution if … activities” was as clear as the Mexico City air. Were they suggesting danger to the target? Or fear of diplomatic problems because the kid was the son of someone important? Or maybe they thought he himself was involved in terrorist activities. What were the terrorist activities they referred to? I looked back through my message chart and found I had not mentioned terrorist activities to the Bogotá office. I wasn’t sure it meant anything, but as Gearheardt said ‘We’re paid to be paranoid, and I, for one, like it.”
Juanita was in the doorway after another tentative knock. Her blouse was a soft, demure cotton fabric that was impossible to see through. She had it unbuttoned down the front to just above her waist.
“Señor Major Crenshaw says for me to tell you that he will meet you at the cantina, Señor Jack. He had one errand to do before he meet with you.”
“Which cantina am I to meet him at, Juanita? I like your blouse, by the way.”
“Your cantina, Señor Jack. You do not think it is too, como se dice, revealing?”
“Not by any measure, Juanita. I don’t want to embarrass you, Juanita, but are you not wearing a brassiere?”
“It would show unless I buttoned up my blouse, Señor Jack. Señor Major Crenshaw said to me that he did not want to see my brassiere ever again.”
“Has he seen this blouse?” I was on my feet, putting on my jacket.
“He will not look at me. He is red in the face when he passes my desk.”
I patted her arm as I went past her. Her perfume was exquisite. “I think you’ve won an important victory, Juanita. You should be proud.”
At the door to the hallway, I stopped. “Juanita, if Señor Pepe calls, tell him that I must hear from him tonight. Señor Pepe. If Rodrigo calls, tell him that I also need to talk to him before he talks to his friend. Have you got that?”
“Si.”
She seated herself behind her desk, leaning forward as she scooted in her chair. I became red in the face and left for my lunch with Crenshaw.
I stood just outside the door to El Caballo, the cantina owned by my friend, Mr. Chavez, until I spotted Crenshaw inside. Entering, I caught the eye of Mr. Chavez and quickly signaled that he did not know me.
“Well, hello, Major Crenshaw,” I boomed at his tableside as if I had run into him by chance, “do you mind if I join you?”
Crenshaw frowned up at me as if I were a child. “Of course, Jack. I invited you to lunch. Remember?” The guy had no sense of humor at all. We were near the back of the cantina, against the wall, with a full view of the small place. Only a few Mexican patrons were resident. Mr. Chavez lounged with his elbows on the bar, chewing a toothpick and studying a prospectus for condos in South Texas.
“You see the bartender, Jack? No, don’t look around. Just to put you at ease, you should know that he works for me. Very trustworthy and full of information that you would be surprised to find that he knows.” Crenshaw grunted smugly. “It doesn’t take me long to start setting up a network, Jack.”
Particularly when I pay Mr. Chavez to approach you the first time you are in the cantina, Major Crenshaw. So Mr. Chavez was ‘double dipping.’ As long as he kept me posted on what Crenshaw was up to, I had no problem. I just wanted to know who Crenshaw was meeting. And I wanted to make sure that Crenshaw was not aware that I had met Gearheardt here on two occasions. Mr. Chavez assured me my association with Mr. Gearheardt was a secret. Or, for only two thousand more pesos, double secret. It seemed reasonable and I paid.
We ordered, with Crenshaw making an elaborate showing of his appreciation of ‘real’ Mexican food, not the tourista fare. This resulted in him getting something that appeared to be pig entrails stuffed with pig extrails. It looked and smelled ghastly and Mr. Chavez wouldn’t catch my eye when I looked suspiciously at him behind the bar, snorting into his fist.
Crenshaw gamely choked down the entire mess, using most of the hot sauce from our table and the surrounding tables to deaden his palate. I actually felt sorry for him and admired his dedication to maintaining his dignity. His patrician face, and bearing, was rather admirable altogether and I made a mental note to try to give the guy a chance at his new job. He could no doubt use my support whether I liked his mannerisms or not.
“Jack,” he said as he wiped excess hot sauce from his lips, “I want you to fire Juanita.”
What a jerk the guy was. I finished off my tacos without looking up at him.
“She is a distraction in the office (a welcome one I thought to myself but didn’t say) and I am not at all convinced of her loyalty to the U.S. mission. I am not sure how a local became secretary to the COS anyway.”
I could have told him that the previous secretary provided by Langley looked like Lon Chaney in drag and had less personality. The former COS had vetted Juanita himself and felt comfortable with her loyalty. He also kept her under surveillance almost twenty-four hours a day, she being his mistress.
“I would think that would be your department, sir. She is your secretary and, by the way, I believe she’s a loyal employee.”
“Don’t be cute with me, Armstrong. You know what I’m talking about, the distraction in the office. No one who dresses like that can be trusted anyway. And since you seem to have such affection for her, I thought you might like to break the word to her. That’s enough on Ms. Sanchez. Let me get on to why I asked you to lunch.”
“Sir, would it be possible for Ms. Sanchez to just work directly for me? You can get a new assistant and I wouldn’t have to break in a new assistant that knows nothing about my projects.”
To my surprise, Crenshaw agreed with no objection. “Very well, Armstrong. You owe me one. May we get on with business now?” He shoved the empty plates to the edge of the table, searching in vain for a waitress to remove them. Finally he stacked all of them and set them on the next table, scowling at the apathetic proprietor still lounging at the bar.
“Let me first remind you that you are to discuss this with no one. And I mean no one. Is that clear?”
“No one, right sir?”
Crenshaw hesitated and then said, “Yes, no one.”
“Got it.”
Crenshaw wrinkled his brow and hesitated again. “Armstrong, I’m not sure why you seem to tip toe around insubordination with such frequency. But I’m putting it down to that damn Marine Corps attitude that everyone who isn’t or wasn’t a Marine is just not up to snuff in your book. I’ve seen it before in former Marines.”
“Yes, sir.” Actually I was as uncomfortable with my attitude as Major Crenshaw was. My responses just seemed to slip out. In truth, the Major was rather intimidating. I wasn’t sure whether it was my years with that damn Gearheardt or my nervousness at withholding information about my dealings with Gearheardt that made me appear insubordinate around the Major. “I understand, sir. And I’m sorry that you weren’t a Marine.” Damn. It slipped out again. “I mean I’m sure you would have made a grea
t Marine.”
“I didn’t want to be a Marine, Armstrong! But let’s get on with it. I have places to go this afternoon. We don’t have much time. Let me explain.” He leaned closer to me across the table in a manner that invited me to lean across the table also.
“The Agency is certain that there will be an attempt on the life of the President of Mexico. It will happen, we believe, at the Cinco de Mayo celebration when the President begins his speech. Are you with me so far? Good. As you also know, you will be at the ceremony, armed. Can you guess why you will be armed, Jack?”
“To protect the President, sir? I assumed that much.”
I ordered a beer. As it was set in front of me, Crenshaw looked at his watch and then my beer, but said nothing.
I continued. “Since you mentioned to me the other day that I would be armed at the ceremony I’ve been wondering, won’t the President be guarded by his own men? He surely will have a bodyguard and there will be troops all around. So I’m not exactly sure …”
“But none of them will recognize the potential assassin, Jack. You will.” Crenshaw smiled and leaned back as if he had trapped me in an important point.
I sipped my beer, needing to think before I responded. I hoped I looked calmer than I felt. This was the time to tell Crenshaw about Gearheardt. If I didn’t do it now, I was going to be out on my own.
“And how could that be, Major Crenshaw?”
I’m not sure why, but I had made my choice. My ego led me to believe I could still play this game from the middle. And Gearheardt was my best friend. And no one loved America more than Gearheardt. And maybe Crenshaw and Gearheardt were playing on the same team. A lot of ‘ifs.’
“Jack, we have reason to believe that the assassin, I am sad to say, is one of our own.”
“An American?”
“An American agent.”
I blew out my breath. “That’s hard to believe.” I wanted to get away from Crenshaw before I blurted out something incriminating, but I also needed more information. “Do you know who, sir?”
Goodbye Mexico Page 7
