Cuba Straits

by Randy Wayne White

  Tomlinson, ducking his head because the ceiling was so low, asked her, “How much is the most beautiful dress in Havana? And shoes to go with it? A woman who lives alone deserves to feel as special as anyone else.”

  Her name was Olena, a widow in her fifties who had been beaten down by work and loneliness, but still had a spark of Africa in her eyes. In her body, too. It was in the saucy way she said, “There’s only one bed, so you crazy boys will have to sleep on the floor . . . or take turns.” Then later, with the lights out, doors locked, she asked, “Is it for true you have drugs? What kind?”

  “Just ganja,” Tomlinson said. “Don’t worry, we won’t smoke in here.”

  Olena’s response: “You’re too selfish to share?”

  Figgy, who’d been bouncing off the walls, mellowed after that. In a cluttered room that smelled of incense and chickens, they passed a joint around. The helicopter left, then the jeep and Mercedes made a slow tour of the streets and left, too. They rolled another one and drank aguardiente. Olena, who had done more in life than sell eggs, offered Tomlinson advice. “If you don’t want the pesquisa to notice you, you’ve gotta change how you look.”

  “¿Pesquisa?”

  “The secret police,” she explained. “Clothing is just a costume, and all costumes are a disguise. I know. I was a dancer at the Copacabana before my life went to hell.”

  Olena could still dance. Tomlinson liked that about her, too. And trusted her enough to wait while she rousted a neighbor, then brought him a change of clothes. A whole new look she created for him.

  “This is so me,” he said in front of a mirror. “I always wanted to be a Rastafarian. But don’t you think my beard should be a little darker? Or braided—that could work, but not too much. I don’t want to look like a pirate.”

  Something else she returned with was local gossip about the cops and the helicopter. The boat Tomlinson had heard was probably Bahamian gangsters from Cay Sal or Miami Cubans up to no good. She hadn’t gotten the whole story, but rumor was that the boat had been shot out of the water when it was a mile or two offshore.

  “But they often lie about shooting Miami Cubans out of the water,” she added.

  He and Figgy departed at ten-fifteen in the old Buick, a car Olena said she was too smart to drive, so be careful, don’t trust the brakes, and never, ever go fast enough to need third gear.

  “Rides good for a station wagon, don’t it, brother?” Figgy had to yell over the roar of a broken muffler and six squabbling chickens caged in back. Already the car was doing fifty and they weren’t on the paved road yet.

  “Gad . . . how many joints does it take to numb that metabolism of yours? Olena warned us about shifting to third. You didn’t hear?”

  “No problem. That’s why I’m still in second. See?”

  Tomlinson didn’t look. He kept his hands on the dash, eyes front, because what he saw was a car with its lights off, partially screened by trees. Too late he yelled, “Speed trap, slow down.”

  No . . . it was the Mercedes.

  Figgy, watching the rearview mirror, told him, “Grab my machete from under the seat,” and then he did it: shifted into third gear.

  The Mercedes held back but at any time could pass with guns blazing or ram them off the road.

  The girl, Sabina, tried to scream when she saw Vernum step out from the shadows of the tree but only made a chirping noise, she was so scared. Then fumbled the mace canister, dropped the candle, too, which had gone out, and began bawling. Just stood there, a tiny, trembling creature wearing pink-and-white pajamas, and waited for Vernum to take her.

  A demon doesn’t live inside this brat, he realized. She’ll wet her pants and go limp, just like all the others.

  After that, well . . . pure pleasure, the euphoria of total control.

  When he grabbed the girl, though, she fought back. Somehow found the candle and speared him in the face—hot wax that burned like hell—then bolted downhill into the woods.

  This little chica could run. But he was quick, Vernum Quick, and he caught her from behind. She tripped; he stumbled but was still on his feet, until he went over a ledge that wasn’t high but angled sharply toward the river. A thicket of bayonet plants grew on the rocks below, each blade an elongated thorn. They stopped his fall, but his hands and legs were bleeding by the time he got back to the top of the hill.

  The girl was gone.

  He swore at himself—pendejo—then ran toward the house. He checked the yard, listened for voices and slamming doors. Nothing. No lights on inside, no cries of concern from Marta. He searched the banana grove, circled the property, then returned to where he’d last seen the devil brat. “I know you can hear me,” he said, but not loudly. “I won’t hurt you . . . but I’ll by god hurt your mother and sister if you don’t come out.”

  He zigzagged through the woods, repeating that warning. Behind him, bushes rustled. He reversed course and soon heard a mewing sound from somewhere near the ledge, but it stopped the instant he stopped. An animal, perhaps . . . or a whimpering child. He said it again, louder: “I’ll torture your mother. Where are you?”

  Vernum didn’t have a flashlight, but he had dry matches from the car. At the top of the ledge, he lit a match. “Would you rather hear what I do to her? Or your sister scream? What a sick little brat you are not to care.” He waited until the match went out. He lit another, then another, and flicked each dying flame toward the bayonet plants. Finally, he’d had enough. “Selfish little puta, God will punish you for this.” He threw the matchbook. “I’m warning you: I’ll kill you if you ever tell a soul.”

  Near the tamarind tree, Vernum found the girl’s machete; picked it up, liked the feel, and decided to use it instead of the knife. On the porch, he tested the door. Unlocked. He opened it just enough to get a whiff of perfumed soap and kerosene, and to confirm all was quiet inside. That silence, the silence of sleeping females, registered in his belly. In his brain, the demon sniffed for warmth.

  Vernum turned, looked into the darkness of trees, stars, lightning bugs. The little brat was still out there somewhere. Probably on the road or the path along the river, running to a neighbor for help. Vernum considered his options and weighed the risks. Within a kilometer were fishermen who lived in shacks and fools who cut sugarcane because they weren’t smart enough to do anything else.

  Peasants, nobodies, the demon in his brain promised. Do it now. Feed while we can.

  But what if the fishermen had a radio? Or even a car? Vernum cupped his ears, strained to filter a distant silence from the buzz of insects and frogs. Beyond the trees were cattle; a heron squawked . . . and something he hoped not to hear: an engine—motorcycles, possibly—on the road that followed the river to the sea. High-pitched, powerful twin engines, Hondas or Yamahas that were too expensive for Cubans to own. And driving too fast on a single lane of sand that curved with every bend of the river.

  A pair of drunken tourists, the demon insisted. What are you waiting for?

  The hunger in Vernum was taking control. He knew it, recognized the throbbing pressure behind his eyes, so he had to think clearly while he could. He pictured the motorcycles stopping for the girl. Pictured the riders using a cell phone to call police. He pictured . . .

  Who cares! The word of a child against a respected Santero? Besides . . . there are no motorcycles, you idiot. Do those damn bugs really sound like motorcycles to you?

  Could he have imagined it?

  Yes . . . maybe. The powerful engines—if he’d actually heard an engine—were suddenly gone, displaced by screaming insects.

  With his thumb, Vernum tested the machete’s edge. Sharp. But what about the devil brat? Should he hide and hope she came sneaking back? Or go ahead, rush what awaited him in the bedroom, before neighbors could alert police?

  He cracked the door again and sniffed: two females inside, breathing, fragile, alone. Their sce
nt severed a last cognitive thread.

  The demon moved from Vernum’s head into his eyes.

  • • •

  BENEATH THE LEDGE where the zombie man had stood was a hole that opened into a space with a straw mat and a floor neatly swept. It was cramped, but Sabina thought of it as a cave, or sometimes a burrow when she brought rabbits along for tea. She hadn’t done that in months, though. Tea parties were for children, not a girl who would soon be eleven. Also, it had been upsetting to kill and clean her furry guests when her mother wanted fried conejo for dinner or rabbit fricassee. Some Sunday mornings—the traditional time for butchering—this was where she came after washing off blood, a secret escape where she could rage against life’s unfairness and cry her misery dry.

  Sabina was crying now but used her hands to silence her mouth while the zombie rained sparks down from the sky. After that, no doubt he was a devil, not human. Then a final warning before he left: God will punish you for this . . . I’ll kill you if you ever tell a soul.

  Chastened by the truth, Sabina’s mind had censored the devil’s profanities. It was true. She was selfish, she knew it. Only a terrible person would refuse to save her own mother . . . or, at least, run home and call out a warning. Trouble was, fear had done something to her legs and she was dizzy from hyperventilating. What if the zombie man hadn’t left? He would grab her, then attack Maribel and her mother anyway.

  I hate you, I hate you, I hate that damn devil . . .

  She lay curled in a fetal position for what seemed a long time, then crawled to the hole that opened onto bayonet plants and stars in a high black sky. “I’m coming out,” she warned. “I have a knife and I’ll cut you like a rabbit if you bother me.”

  On her hands and knees, she exited the hole, and added new threats as she went up the incline to the ledge. “I’ll blind you with pepper juice . . . I will order the gringo to tie you with rope and feed you to sharks.” Oddly, those threats reshaped Sabina’s fear into a tentative boldness. Her imagination took over as she crept toward the house.

  I’ll bite his finger off and have him arrested. If he hurts Mama or Maribel, God will strike him with lightning . . . I’ll push him down the well and bury him where pigs shit—then I’ll hide where he can’t find me.

  False courage got her to the edge of the yard, where she stopped and gulped. No sign of the zombie man, and the house appeared unchanged but for a frightening oddity: the porch door was open wide and a kerosene lamp burned in the kitchen.

  Someone was inside.

  She began to hyperventilate again, then remembered, The machete. She had dropped it between the tamarind tree and the pump. With a weapon, even if he had entered the house, she could . . . do what? Sabina tried to think it through but went numb when a dead branch snapped behind her.

  She spun around: shadows, lightning bugs, then pop—another dead branch. Her thumping heart cloaked a slow, distant rhythm . . . the sound of something big was coming up the hill, moving cautiously so as not to be heard. Then, for an instant, he appeared, a gray shape moving from tree to tree. It was a man—the zombie man—who had tricked her. Not fast but on a straight line, almost as if he could see in the dark.

  Sabina lost her nerve then. She sprinted toward the house, screaming, “Mama, he’s going to kill us all!”

  • • •

  THE LOOK in the mother’s eyes when she heard the little brat scream . . . Delicious.

  Vernum licked his lips while the demon retreated so he could think. On the floor next to the bed was the teenage daughter, gagged with electrical tape, arms wired behind her. He had taped Marta’s mouth, too, although sparingly—such a beautiful Indio face. He hadn’t had time to finish wiring her hands or, more importantly, to position her legs as he wanted.

  “Don’t move,” he told her. “I’ll kill your daughters first.”

  Marta’s horrified reaction . . . Exquisite. He had to force himself out of the room, through the kitchen where the lamp burned, to the door where he stood looking out, the machete in hand. There she was: the devil brat running hard, knees pumping beneath baggy pink-and-white pajamas while her eyes focused on the darkness behind her. It was as if she were being chased. But then turned to holler, “Mama . . . Maribel, wake up!” which is when she saw Vernum and stopped so fast, she sprawled belly-first in the sand. Then was up again, confused, in a panic, and bolted toward the banana grove.

  Vernum went after her through the darkness.

  Banana plants multiply at the roots; grow in dense thickets, their leaves as wide and long as a man. He used the machete to hack his way through, not because he had to, but for effect. With each swing of the blade, the girl yipped or sobbed or cried out. Easier to track her while she evaded or hid like a rabbit down a hole.

  “Why are you running, little chica? You are old enough to learn to enjoy yourself. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  No reply, just her steady sobbing, the crash of foliage, then silence while she attempted to hide again.

  This time, Vernum saw her but pretended he didn’t. She had wedged herself between two banana stalks, a space too narrow for a snake yet wide enough to cloak all but one tiny foot. Her toes hung there in the shadows like a blossom of bananas, a tempting target for the machete . . . but not yet.

  Vernum had some fun. “I give up. This girl is too damn smart. Guess I’ll go back to the house and cut off her mother’s—”

  “Sabina . . . Sabina?”

  Shit. It was Marta Esteban calling from the porch.

  “Where’s my daughter, you bastard? Oh my god . . . answer me, Sabina.”

  Vernum parted the leaves. Marta was on the steps near a kerosene lantern, biting at the wire on her hands, almost free. Behind her, the teenage daughter appeared.

  “Maribel, I told you to run. Go—do what I say!”

  Christ, it was all falling apart. There were three witnesses now. Well . . . if he couldn’t enjoy their bodies, it was better to kill them all and be done with it.

  The devil brat’s tiny foot hung there, a ripe target, although she began to sob when Marta called her name. Vernum, done with games, pushed his way toward the girl. “You stupid chinga, you’ll never run from me again.” He grabbed her ankle and pulled. Sabina screamed and kicked at his face.

  “Go away—I have a knife,” she hollered.

  He yanked her from the tree and stood over her, a looming darkness as he raised the machete . . . and that’s when the girl proved her special powers. A specter materialized from within the foliage, a demon that was gorilla-sized and had one glowing green eye.

  Vernum, staring, dropped the machete, reached for his Santería beads, and whispered, “Bienvenido espíritu santo . . .” but too late to stop the creature, or the crushing weight that choked him to the ground.

  • • •

  A DEMON, a beast, controlled by a child . . .

  Stupid peasant nonsense.

  That solitary green eye had shocked Vernum into believing for an instant, but he was conscious now. He had preached the reality of demons and devils so often that part of him accepted it as true. But there was a small, secret voice in his head that reminded him it was all a fairy tale, the same voice that guided his hunger and had for years cloaked his deceptions and kept him alive.

  That little puta has the power of demons? Bullshit.

  A man, not a demon, had abducted him. But who? Until he understood, it was stupid to reveal that he was awake enough to see and hear and think. Better to remain deadweight that could be lifted or rolled or, for the last several minutes, had to be dragged like a plow. Painful. His head banged off rocks. Leaves, dirt, cactus needles abraded his skin. No matter. His only hope was to play dead until an opening presented itself.

  Vernum Quick was a survivor.

  His abductor had bound his hands and ankles with plastic strips, material that took only a second to cinch tight. Then did the
unexpected—pinched Vernum’s nose until he had to open his mouth to breathe. This allowed something flat and hard to be inserted, an object that tasted of chemicals but in fact was epoxy. The flat object had immobilized Vernum’s tongue when he closed his mouth. The epoxy on his lips had sealed almost instantly.

  Super Glue—popular in the United States.

  The meaning of it all was terrifying: this man had abducted people before. An expert, he went about his business methodically, no hesitation, and the most frightening thing of all: he didn’t speak. Not a word. Like a machine . . . No, like an assassin.

  Kostikov. Vernum believed it was the Russian until he risked cracking one eye. Wrong. It was a big man with shoulders, but not a giant. And strong enough to drag him by the feet through the woods, down the hill to the river, where finally he stopped to rest . . . no, to roll his shoulders, then piss.

  Vernum’s eyes blinked open and he watched. The Cyclops eye was some sort of night vision optic. The man wore boots and dark clothing. He zipped his pants when he was finished and retrieved a bag he’d placed on the ground. Inside were items taken from Vernum’s pockets. Each was inspected as if evaluating its worth.

  The wallet and satellite phone held the man’s interest. He knew how to use the phone, punched buttons, probably checking previous calls and contact information. That was okay. No names had been entered. The man stayed busy for several minutes, long enough to dull Vernum’s interest, but then startled him by asking, “How long have you known Anatol Kostikov?”

  Christ . . . even with his lips glued shut, he’d almost tried to answer. A trick, Vernum realized. A shrewd bastard who spoke Spanish with a gringo accent. How did he know about the Russian?

  “Stop pretending. I don’t care if you see me.” The man came closer. “You were out for less than a minute. If I’d shut off the blood to your brain much longer, yeah, you’d be in bad shape, but I’m careful about how I do things.” The man paused long enough to open the wallet. “Vernum Quick. Is that your real name or do you work for the DGI? Nod if you’re with Cuban intelligence.”