by Noel Hynd
“Of course. You mentioned an uncle and my best friends at the FBI filled in a few blanks, also.”
“That was nice of them,” Guarneri said.”What about a CIA check?” he asked. “Surely you got a briefing there too.”
“You asked me that already and the answer hasn’t changed. I talked to several CIA people,” she said. “The subject was Roland Violette more than you. If they had anything on you, they weren’t willing to share it with me,” she said.
“I’m flattered. Or insulted,” he said. “Eventually I’ll know which. Can’t ever trust them, you know,” Paul added with a smile.
“Who? Trust who?” she asked.
“CIA,” he said. “Bunch of rats if there ever were some. Goes way back. Batista. Kennedy assassination. Bay of Pigs. Five hundred plots against Fidel. Jimmy Rosseli. Sam Giancana. Lucky Luciano. I don’t think those button-down buttheads in Langley have told the truth one percent of the time when it comes to this island. They’ve told the same lies so many times they actually believe them.”
“I know,” she said. “But there are some people at the Agency I know personally. Them I trust. Most of the time, not all of the time.”
“We’re on the same page, then,” Guarneri said. And he drained his glass. “You haven’t heard from ‘the Violet,’ right?”
She snuck a glance at her phone again, just in case there was a message waiting. There wasn’t. “No,” she said.
“Then I suggest we proceed with my mission here,” he said. “If you hear from your pigeon, we’ll recalculate the time.”
“Fair enough,” Alex said.
“How much do you know about this place?” Guarneri asked. “I mean, really know?”
“What place? The hotel? Havana?”
“Cuba.”
“I’m learning fast,” she said. “And I’m getting the idea that an hour of hanging with you is worth two weeks of study back in New York.”
“That’s probably true. Look, bribery is a way of life here, just like anywhere else in Central America,” he said, rambling. “There’s no legal way to get ahead so everyone jockeys for an illegal way, or at least those who are still trying to get ahead. Most of the population here has been beaten into the ground. The clever people have left, the wealthy people have left. The only people of any import who are still here are the people who can’t beat the system. Most work for the government. You know how that operates. The people pretend to work and the government pretends to pay them. You know what would work best?” he asked. “You know what would get this place moving again? If the Castro Brothers drop dead at the same time, the embargo gets lifted, American companies pour in, and the economy gets jump-started …”
While Paul talked, Alex sipped her drink. Then she watched as the two undercover policemen ditched their beers onto the bar. They snapped to attention. They were more in her line of vision than Paul’s. A wiry little man had come into the room, white shorts, badge, and a hefty sidearm. He seemed to be a commander of some sort. The cops at the bar were afraid of him, and a team of uniformed people followed. Everyone in the area gave way.
Horribly, the realization was upon her. Her heart kicked in her chest. “Paul, put down your drink and shut up,” she said.
He stopped in midsentence. “What?” he asked.
Alex nodded toward the bar as a tense scene unfolded. The wiry little man was vehemently chewing out his undercover guys, who looked scared to death. Other drinkers moved away. The other uniformed officers lurked behind their commander who was making the guys in the plantation shirts sweat.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He looked, took a second to focus, then looked away.
“Uh-oh. We’ve overstayed our welcome,” he said with rising urgency. “That’s a political division of the police department. That sawed-off little stump with the ‘stache is a commander. He’s ticked because his guys were goofing off. He’s only going to be on the street checking if something big is afoot. The shotguns tell us they’re ready for serious trouble.”
“It’s worse than that, Paul,” she said.
“Why’s that?”
“Take a good look,” she said. “And try to get the booze out of your system. Don’t you recognize him? That’s the commander from the beach.”
He looked again and turned away fast when he recognized the man. Paul cursed long and low. “Okay. We need to get out of here,” he said. From a mood of boozy reverie, he was suddenly sharp as a tack again.
“Fast. But not together,” Paul said, leaning back and turning away. One of the men with a shotgun was scanning the room.
“They’re blocking the door,” Alex said. “We have to walk right past them to get out.”
“Yup,” Paul said. “That’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
“Me? Alone?”
“In thirty seconds,” he said, “before they start giving this room a thorough toss.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Leave through the men’s room window,” he said. “It’s got a grate that lifts off.”
“How do you know?”
“I checked it earlier,” he said.
“What if they have that exit covered?”
“Then I’m sunk,” he said.
“How about I go through the window and you try to waltz past them?” she suggested.
He shook his head. “Won’t work, Alex. They’re more likely to recognize me than you. I get the window, you get to flirt past the toros like a good Latin chica.”
“You’re a pig.”
“I know. We’ll discuss that later.”
He reached into his pocket and drew out a set of keys. He opened the ring and separated one key from the rest.
“Listen carefully. Five blocks from here, south on the Calle 43, there’s an old Toyota Land Cruiser. Dark green, beat up, looks like a Jeep, and a license plate ending in four-three-one. It’s a family jalopy. So I’d appreciate being able to return it without bullet holes.”
“You’re cautioning me about bullet holes after the landing we had?” she demanded.
“Yes, I am,” he went on. “I want to return the Jeep without a problem at the end of our visit. Anyway, it’s just past the La Sultanado intersection. This is an extra ignition key in case I don’t get there.”
“What about the door key?”
“There are no doors. This is Cuba.”
He handed her the key. “Are you checked into a hotel?” he asked, as the cops were starting to wander through the crowded room.
“Posada Cubana. Across the block down a side street.”
“Good. I’ll find it and meet you there tomorrow between noon and three if we get separated,” he said. “If I don’t turn up, assume I was arrested. Now. Go to the car. Right now. I’ll try to meet you there. If I don’t show up, leave in ten minutes.”
“Where should I go?”
“Anywhere for a couple of hours. Just lie low. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“What if you don’t show up tomorrow?”
“My problem, not yours, so have a nice life. Now you get out of here first,” Paul said. “And do it now. Flash a smile, a leg, whatever you have to do. Anything to get past these guys. You won’t have a second chance.”
“Okay,” Alex said. She knew the drill.
He gripped her hand quickly to give her courage, then released.
She hooked her bag over her shoulder, brushed back her hair, and turned. She moved quickly through the crowd without looking back. She passed one uniformed man, then another. She smiled and winked. They pretended not to notice her but obviously did.
Success so far. Then, twenty feet from the door, she felt a rough hand on her arm. She turned and gazed into the censorious brown eyes of a uniformed policemen.
“¿Cubana? Turista, Señora?” he asked. Tourist?
She stopped but didn’t answer. She only glared.
“¿Habla español?” he asked. Do you speak Spanish?
&n
bsp; “Si, hablo español. Pero soy turista,” she answered. Yes, but I’m a tourist.
It occurred to her in a heartbeat that Cuban women weren’t supposed to be in places like this, and if they were, they were probably catering to the sex travelers. They might have thought she was a hooker. Here was an incident that could get out of control.
“¿Tiene pasaporte?” he demanded again. Passport?
Another uniformed man sidled over. The captain started to turn away from the undercover men he was berating and took an interest in Alex as well.
“¿Nacionalidad?” the second one asked. What country?
They were good at bullying women. She could tell. “Mexicana,” she answered.
“¿Pasaporte?” the first man said again.
With evident annoyance, she reached into her bag and pulled out her Mexican passport. No better way to test a CIA product than to run it past foreign police. This was, however, not an anxiety that she needed at the moment. By the time she held the passport out, she was surrounded. She had drawn all four of them. Was this Paul’s plan? she wondered. Let her create the diversion while he worked his way through the window?
She handed over the passport.
She stood quietly and watched as the Cuban officers studied her passport. She waited. Her dress stuck to her ribs.
From beyond the four men, came one strong arm. The commander’s. His name tag said MAJOR MEJIAS. He took the passport. He stared at it, looking down, looking up, looking down again, and then looking back up.
“Yours?” he asked.
“Who else would it belong to?” she asked.
“Good question,” he answered. “Let’s find out. Espera.” She was to wait.
He stepped away for a moment, still holding her document and pulled a cell phone from his pocket. One of the cops with a shotgun went to the door and stood. One cop remained with her as the others continued to wander through the room. Alex wondered whether Paul was gone by now. She threw a glance in his direction via a wall mirror. Their table was empty. The drink glasses remained.
She looked back at the man who stood next to her. He was looking at his commander and had removed a set of handcuffs from his belt. She wondered if she should just run. She glanced at the door. The officer with the shotgun was staring at her. No chance.
Major Mejias was on the phone. He looked serious and seemed to dwell on something in her passport, some detail. Then he had a sneaky smile. He laughed to whoever was on the other end. He looked at Alex, then looked away, then back to her. He rang off, came back to her, and still in Spanish asked, “So. You are Anna Tavares?”
A beat. “I am Anna Tavares.”
“And that is your actual birthday?”
“Of course.”
He closed her passport and stared into her eyes, as if he were trying to burrow into her to find a hidden truth.
“What work do you do back home in Mexico?” he asked. “¿Trabajo?”
“I work for a newspaper.”
“Which one?”
She had rehearsed the lie. “El Universal,” she answered quickly.
“You’re a writer?” he asked.
“I work in the financial department.”
He held her passport. “If I phoned there, your paper, they would know you, Anna Tavares?” he asked.
“Of course they would,” she lied boldly. “Once you got past the switchboard. You know what Mexico is like.”
His eyes narrowed. “I know quite a bit about the world beyond Cuba,” he said.
“What are you suggesting, Major?”
“Nada,” he said. Nothing.
“Then what’s the problem? Have I done something wrong?” She was ready to bolt to the door, as hopeless an act as that might be.
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” Mejias said. “You have the same birthday as my daughter. Same day, same year. Extraordinario. I just called her to tease her.” He handed back the passport.
“You called your daughter just to tell her you had a woman in front of you the same age as she?” Alex asked.
“I did.”
Alex knew better than to say anything else, though much ran across her mind.
“You are very pretty,” Major Mejias said. “Same as my daughter. I like to talk to pretty women. Maybe you would like to stay and have a drink with me. We can talk about the world. How would that be?”
“Am I free to go?” she asked indignantly.
“Why wouldn’t you be?”
“Your men are blocking the door.”
“They won’t be as soon as I tell them not to,” he said.
“And when might that be?”
“I don’t know,” he said. After a pause, he asked, “Does the name Roland Violette mean anything to you? What if I told you Roland Violette was dead?”
She felt a surge within her. She kept a lid on it. She had been in these situations before and knew the tactic. He was looking for any reaction, any weakness. She shrugged. “I’d say send my condolences to his family,” she answered boldly. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Mejias stared deeply into her eyes, then broke a grudging smile. “See that the Violette name remains unfamiliar to you,” he said. “You’ll live a longer, happier life.”
He handed back her passport and signaled to his officer at the door. The officer stepped aside.
“Adios,” she said.
“Hasta la vista,” he said. He tipped his cap.
She was out the door in a flash. As soon as she was around the corner, she weaved in and out of shops and pedestrian traffic till she was convinced she was alone.
FORTY-EIGHT
Five minutes later, sweating and breathing hard, Alex was walking down a quiet side street. She spotted Paul, arms folded, leaning against the fifteen-year-old Toyota version of a Jeep. The vehicle was a clunky old beast with a canvas top and open sides.
“Good to see you,” he said.
“Are you always so blasé?” she snapped.
“Not always, no.”
“You had an easier time than I did,” she said.
“But your passport worked,” he said, “or you wouldn’t be here.”
“They stopped me. They examined my passport and quizzed me about Violette,” she said sharply. “I was able to BS my way past them, but not by much. And if Violette is in play, that means Cuban intelligence knows what’s going on. That means they have at least a vague idea of who they’re looking for. You might be clean but I’m not.”
He blew out a long breath. “I hear you. Anyone follow you?”
“I don’t think so.” She settled slightly. “I did my best to lose anyone following.”
“We need to get moving,” he said.
He held out a hand to help her up into the Toyota. She accepted it. There were no seat belts, and the car had a strange smell, as if fish had been stored there at one point and forgotten. As she settled into the shotgun seat, Guarneri came around the vehicle and climbed into the driver’s seat.
“How was the squeeze through the window?” she asked.
“Fine if you don’t mind a few nicks and scrapes.” He showed where his arm had been scratched and his shirt torn. “And if you don’t mind a couple of Cubans laughing at you as you go up over the sink and out the window,” he said. “But it’s better than a bullet, so I’m not complaining.”
“Do me a favor,” she said. “Just get us out of here.”
“That’s what I’d planned.” He turned the key and the Toyota clanked to life. “Okay, look,” he said, “before we get moving, let me bring you up to speed, and you bring me up to speed. I have an uncle on the island. Uncle Johnny — Giovanni. You know about him if you’ve read the FBI file.”
“He’s the one who went in the other direction,” she said. “Right?”
“If you mean pro-Castro, Marxist, and worked for the government, yes,” he said. “He was a young Commie, and now he’s an old Commie. And his health is failing. He and my dad were estranged for year
s. That’s where I was.”
“Where?”
“Visiting. My uncle lives about eighty miles from here. Along the shore beyond Matanzas.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Yesterday. I went straight out there the day we landed,” he said.
“Instead of looking for me?” she asked.
“I looked, but I had to keep my head down too. You and I had our backup plan, and it worked.”
“Sure — and I forgot to thank you for leaving me on the beach,” she snapped.
“You left me on the boat!”
“You ordered me out!”
“And I saved your life doing it,” he said.
“My life wouldn’t have been at risk if it weren’t for you!”
“So we’re even,” he said. “And you said yourself that your head would have a hole in it if I hadn’t phoned you at just the right time in New York. You owe me.” His tone was midway between playful and deadly serious.
In the same spirit, she punched him in the shoulder. “How’s that?” she said.
“That’s great. Makes me feel like I’m back in Brooklyn.”
She shook her head, exasperated.
“Look. Are we on vacation here?” he asked.
“No, we’re not on vacation!”
“Then you can’t blame me for doing what I came here to do, same as you’re doing what you came here to do. Now, I got an aging red uncle. I hate his politics, but he’s also flesh and blood. Flesh and blood of a generation that’s in short supply for me, so we got to do what we got to do. Okay?”
“Okay.” She paused. “You said you had two uncles here.”
“That’s right. Salvatore’s the other one.”
“Where’s he?”
“Here in Havana. Been here for years.”
“How old is he?”
“You read the FBI report. Born in 1931. You do the math. Why are you asking if you know the answer?”
“Am I going to see him?” she asked.
“If things go smoothly.”
“There’s that phrase again.”
“There’re those questions again.”
“Do I get to talk to Uncle Salvatore?”
“If you want.”
“Will he answer me?”
“If he feels like talking.”
