Cuba Straits

by Randy Wayne White

  “Of course you didn’t. In the girls’ room or the hammock, you made that clear.”

  “I know, but before the words were out of my mouth I realized it sounded so cheap. A man like you, a man of character, would never . . .”

  Never? Ford was easily undone by tears. He wanted to tell her that recent one-night stands within twenty-four hours with a stranger didn’t constitute a man of character. Instead, he spoke in soothing tones as he searched the porch, hoping to see a handkerchief or a towel. “Calm down . . . try to breathe . . . I’ll be back with something so you can blow your nose.”

  She was still crying when he returned empty-handed. “Marta?” he said. Then more firmly: “Marta.”

  It was a while before she could look at him. “Don’t you understand? I’m disgusted with myself. You gave us money for a hotel. Sabina begged and begged and I should have listened. But I swear, what you think happened tonight didn’t happen. It’s my daughters I’m worried about.”

  Heartbreaking. Why did good women, no matter how smart, how solid, blame themselves for the cruelty of predators who viewed victims as faceless objects? Ford chose his words with care. “No matter what happened, you and the girls aren’t at fault. You are not at fault, Marta. So if you’re worried I think you’re somehow tarnished, trust me, that’s not why I have to go. Anyone who blames you is a damn idiot. Do you understand?” While she sniffed and nodded, he took her hands and helped her stand so they were facing. “Sabina will be okay. I can tell. What, Maribel?”

  She didn’t speak until he tilted her chin with a finger. “That . . . person didn’t touch her. Well, he tied her hands and feet, but he wanted me first, I think. Then he heard Sabina and ran outside.”

  The relief Ford felt didn’t rival the anger that had been building all evening.

  “Marion”—she spoke his name for the first time, but in a whisper—“did you kill him? I hope you did. I wouldn’t tell anyone ever. If you killed him, then I’ll know we’re safe.”

  Ford couldn’t risk the truth—Vernum Quick was bound, gagged, and cabled to a tree, still alive—so he pulled Marta into his arms and held her because what the hell else could he do but pretend to be kind and caring and worthy of this woman’s misplaced respect? “You’ll never see him again,” he said. “That’s all I can say. Do you believe me?”

  Her head bobbed up and down against his chest.

  “But you’re still afraid.”

  Another nod but more emphatic.

  “Okay . . . let me ask you something.” He was thinking of the little palm-sized 9mm Sig Sauer that was now in his briefcase. “Have you ever fired a pistol before?”

  Vernum, trussed in the trunk of his own car, said to Ford, “Jefe . . . why don’t you talk? I hate it when you do this. That’s why, huh? Mind games. I’ve had training, man. My KGB handler, the one we want to kill, he does educational videos. That we want to neutralize, I mean. I’m more valuable than you think, Jefe. Give me a chance, you’ll see.”

  Jefe, pronounced “HEF-fay.” Eager to please, the Santero was addressing him as “Chief” because he was scared shitless.

  Ford didn’t bother with Super Glue and a tongue depressor. If he needed an answer fast, applying solvent took too much time. “I’m going to make two stops,” he said. “If you lied to me, I’ll set your car on fire and walk away. Think before answering. Vernum . . . is there anything you left out?”

  Yes . . . several minor details that weren’t minor, but he had an excuse. “How many times have you shut off the blood to my brain, man? Jefe, please, if you don’t think that affects my . . .”

  Ford found the man’s jugular vein—end of explanation. He balled cotton into Vernum’s mouth and used duct tape.

  The Lada had a bad clutch. It needed a ring job and the starboard headlight was out. No big deal in Cuba. In Havana at eleven-twenty, there would be a few cars and donkey carts, but sparse. In the countryside, even on main highways, no matter the time of day, there was no traffic. Just the occasional transiting of a Chinese bus that stunk of propane, a Russian half-track hauling cane, a car or two on wobbly tires, then long spaces of silence and wind over asphalt that had been engineered for the future but led to nowhere but the past.

  The bombs of the Cold War had never been deployed—except here where they had detonated in spirit. Their mushroom gloom had emptied the highways in a slow-motion panic that joined two centuries yet isolated the young, the hopeful. Instead of aspiring, instead of coveting their first success, they sold tamarinds and mangoes by the roadside in the silence of asphalt, unaware they were the newest casualties of a long-gone war.

  Ford drove to the main road and, after a few miles, turned left toward Vista del Mar, then another left on a rutted lane toward Plobacho. Didn’t see another car, not one, only the sparks of candles and kerosene poverty through trees, while, on the highest hillside, a satellite tower strobed a single red warning to pilots from the north.

  That reminded him to check Vernum’s satellite phone. He had to hold it away to see the screen . . . but nothing new to read.

  Kostikov hadn’t responded. That could mean only one thing: the Russian knew something was amiss. His next move would be to find Vernum. Right now he would be in his Mercedes, somewhere between Cojimar and Plobacho, watching a laptop or meter locked onto Vernum’s phone. This phone.

  • • •

  WHAT MARTA had called Pauper Cólera Vernum called Campo Muerto—“the field of the dead.” He said a leper colony had burned to the ground here in 1917, but they continued to bury the poor and diseased until the Department of Health had sent in bulldozers fifty-some years ago and changed the name.

  “Peasants are superstitious,” he explained. “It’s better not to frighten them, but no one comes here anyway. I told you, man, I knew the perfect spot.” Vernum, with his legs free, no longer gagged, was talkative, full of attitude even with his hands cuffed behind him. “But”—he paused to stress the importance of what came next—“this is between us. A covert action, right? I can’t wait to see the look on that fat Russian’s face when we bring him here.”

  They wouldn’t have to bring the Russian if they didn’t hurry. Kostikov would find the place by himself.

  Ford said, “He should be in a hospital by now, if what you told me is true. You screwed it up somehow. Or were exaggerating.”

  “Jefe, how many times have I explained? You know more about the Russians and uranium poisoning than I do, man.”

  What Ford knew was that Vladimir Putin, a former KGB hit man, now president, sometimes ordered agents to use polonium-210 to murder his enemies. A dose the size of a grain of sand, if pure, was so lethal that even if it was immersed in an ounce of water, the victim would die in agony within a week. To Putin, an additional benefit was that his agent would die, too, just from handling the stuff.

  Plausible deniability.

  But the effects of polonium were dose-dependent. If enough wasn’t ingested or injected, or if the dosage was diluted, the symptoms—diarrhea, vomiting—might linger for months. There was no antidote, but the victim would recover.

  According to Vernum, he’d been smart enough to realize what was in the fountain pen, so he had drained the contents into a vial. To the vial, he’d added olive oil. “To make it taste good,” he said. “I put a few drops on his jerked chicken sandwich. The man has had the shits ever since, so I know it’s working.”

  Vernum also claimed he’d cut Figueroa with a blade contaminated with the stuff, but was less sure about that. Rather than listen to it all again, Ford gave him a push and said, “Shut up and walk.”

  They were on acreage that had been cleared years ago but had gone wild with weeds and wetland vines that thinned as they ascended a hillock that had been piled high by a dredge or contoured by earthmoving machines. Columns of brick sprouted from the bushes in a random pattern, like stalagmites in a roofless cave . . . then a
brick wall with holes punched through. On the river side, viewed from the top of the hill where Ford stopped, was the husk of a building with a towering chimney or cupola, no roof, and only three walls.

  “Is that where you dumped the bodies?” he asked.

  Vernum had admitted killing only two girls, but then imagined himself locked in the trunk of his 1972 Lada while the car burned. After that, he had upped the number to five but insisted, “As a Santero, I took an oath to weed out the bad ones. You know, possessed by evil. Hey—it’s true. There’s a ceremony, man, very strict the way every detail has to be prepared. The purest turpentine, a coconut rind sliced in fourths with a knife that’s been cleaned and sharpened. I can’t, you know, share all the secrets, but it’s about purification. It’s about feeding certain spirits what their hunger craves. Life must feed on life. I don’t expect you to understand, but how else you gonna deal with something so bad?”

  Until then, Ford had refused to be baited. “The Esteban girls are evil? Maribel hardly says a word. And the mother, don’t blame some bullshit ceremony on what you planned to do to her.”

  Vernum was immune to insult. “How many times I say this? Man, I don’t expect gringos from the Estados Unidos to believe, but it’s true.”

  “Good. I’d have to tape your mouth again.”

  “All I’m saying is, your religion doesn’t train you—”

  “Keep moving,” Ford warned, and started down the hill.

  Vernum hustled to catch up. “It doesn’t train you to recognize the signs. The evil ones, they get more powerful as adults. Are you Catholic? Catholics understand that demons are real, man. We can’t see them, of course. They’re like parasites. They move at night like a worm seeking, what do you call it, fertile ground. But, Jefe, when a demon finds the right person—a child with a bad disposition, say—they slip in through the mouth or nose. Pretty soon, you’re dealing with a devil who’s a total maniac. See? Now you understand why I do what I have to do. As I told the Russian, I’m well suited for this type of work.”

  Ford’s jaw flexed. He checked his watch. They were almost to the brick shell of what had once been a sanitarium run by nuns—a leprosarium.

  Vernum couldn’t stop talking. “When a demon roots inside the brain of a kid, it’s actually a kindness. You know, end their misery before it gets worse. That youngest girl—what’s her name?—the brat squirted acid in my eyes and laughed, she threatened to bite my fingers. A goddamn child.”

  Ford had to smile, but only because he could picture Sabina doing it. Vernum was ballsy—hands cuffed, struggling to keep up, his face a mosaic of stitches, yet still preaching in his superior, street-hip way. No . . . he was justifying his own crimes.

  “My KGB handler, for instance. Sometimes the things I do, things you do in your profession—I think you’ll agree—it’s necessary for the good of others. You saw the video I shot. That’s how the Russian dealt with that German traitor.”

  Some, but not all, of the video. Ford, in a remote part of his brain, had critiqued the way Kostikov had played Vernum, the aspiring spy, against the German agent—a blonde he recognized from Tomlinson’s brief stardom on Facebook. His methods worked but were heavy-handed. A truly gifted operator would have manipulated the scenario so that when the woman went out the door, even the pilot would have believed it was accidental.

  Anatol Kostikov of the KGB: low marks for creativity. Zero for professionalism. In all Ford’s years, he had never witnessed such pointless, joyous cruelty. A similar flaw defined the difference between arson and pyromania. It was weakness. Weakness could be targeted.

  Ford stopped beneath the towering chimney, then moved a safe distance away. Hurricanes and the years had twisted it like the spine of a cripple. The damn thing could come toppling down beneath the weight of the stars, or one croaking frog, or a breeze that pushed sulfuric musk across this plain where the diseased had died and were dumped into holes. The air, the earth, and the weeds were contagious with dread. Even Ford, a scientist, could understand why locals avoided this place.

  He used the flashlight. Painted the chimney, which was the size of a furnace cupola—a crematorium, possibly. The building’s foundation was primitive cement . . . a couple of collapsed rooms . . . a wedge of steps to a root cellar or basement, where rats scampered. Nearby, more rats atop the remains of a well or cistern . . . then, at a distance, a trench lined with bricks, bricks piled everywhere. Several likely locations. “Okay,” Ford said. “Show me the bodies.”

  Vernum didn’t move. “Someone was here,” he said. He sounded spooked.

  “So what?”

  “Unlock my cuffs. Man, you saw what they left behind but you just didn’t understand. I need the flashlight.”

  Not a chance. Ford figured it out for himself. Near the steps was a sunflower bound with red ribbon. A little pile of cowrie shells with painted eyes . . . a cigar and an empty rum bottle. At the base of the well, another sunflower, where rats quarreled among the seeds.

  “No one comes here,” Vernum said. He was scared—but probably more worried about revealing evidence that he was a child killer. Or maybe not, because then he said, “They’re in there . . . inside the chimney.”

  “All five bodies?”

  “Isn’t that what I just said? There’s an opening at the bottom. Hurry up. I want to get out of here.”

  Ford shined the light. “I don’t see it.” Gave the man another push, and kept prodding him, until the chimney dwarfed them both, and there it was, hidden by weeds: a brick conduit into the chimney. The outline suggested the shape of an oversized oven. He’d been right. A crematorium.

  Ford kicked weeds away. The chimney’s base was the diameter of a large room, but the opening was less than the width of his shoulders. “Sit on the ground with your back to me,” he told Vernum. He emptied his pockets to streamline himself but kept the flashlight and his phone, which he switched to video mode.

  “You’re crazy, man. Crawl in there on your knees?” Vernum looked up, the chimney six stories high, rows of bricks missing, whole sections segmented like blocks hanging by a thread. “I don’t want to be sitting on my ass if that falls. You bang into it wrong, kick something loose. Jefe . . . why you need pictures? Get them later, man, after we do the Russian.”

  Ford stared at the Santero until he dropped to the ground, facing the river. “Don’t do anything stupider than you already have,” he said, then got down and probed with the flashlight. What he saw caused him to thread his head and one arm into the space. Then attempted to wiggle his shoulders through. The space within stunk of fur and darkness.

  High above, a brick broke free, fell for a silent second, and hammered into the ground. Another brick fell.

  Vernum’s voice: “Shit, man . . . didn’t I tell you?”

  Ford held his breath even though he knew Vernum was on his feet, running. He lay motionless . . . exhaled, then took a shallow breath and shot video because he didn’t want to do this ever again. A slow pan: rib bones . . . swatches from a chiffon dress . . . a femur protruding from leggings that were once a girl’s pajamas.

  He didn’t speak. Even when he remembered the Russian’s phone out there with his wallet, but not the keys to the car. Sound was energy. His voice would reverberate up the chimney like smoke or an eroding wind. Vernum, his hands cuffed behind him, would be easy enough to catch.

  When he did, Ford’s first question would be What did you do with their heads?

  On the road that tunneled beneath Havana Harbor, Figgy couldn’t help blasting the horn just to hear the echo. After three years in an insane asylum, he valued life’s simple pleasures, and he had never driven a Buick station wagon before.

  Tomlinson, who had spent most of the trip looking over his shoulder, said, “Jesus Christ, why not flag down a cop and tell him we’re late for our firing squad?” He looked back where the chickens were trying to sleep in their wire cages.
“Where the hell did that Mercedes go? It’s been twenty minutes . . . no, more like thirty. The commie bastard’s toying with us, that’s what I think.”

  Very confusing, the strange things this gringo hippie said, but the shortstop reminded himself that the hippie was also a left-handed pitcher. “It’s dangerous to speak with policemen, I think. But if you’re sure, you should take off your hat. Rastafarians are illegal in Havana. Well, three years ago, that was true, but”—he laid on the horn again before exiting the tunnel—“the world has changed a lot since I escaped to America.”

  “It’s a beanie, not a hat,” Tomlinson said. “More like a hair cozy—a stocking cap with style.” A moment later, he added, “Illegal? You’re shitting me. What do you mean illegal?”

  Figuerito replied, “I asked the chicken woman the same thing.” He shrugged. “You think I’m going to argue with a body like hers? Even at her age, a woman who danced at the Copa deserves respect as an expert.”

  “Olena?” Tomlinson asked. He had no idea what the little Cuban was getting at.

  “Of course. How many dancers we know from the Copacabana? I liked her legs. Did you happen to see her chichis?”

  Impossible, Tomlinson decided, to make sense of a shortstop on a freedom binge. So he let it go, saying, “Can’t argue, I guess. Olena wouldn’t do me wrong.”

  They drove up the hill onto the Malecón, four lanes that curved along the sea, crumbling buildings to their left—Old Havana—some adorned with scaffolding that for years had signaled the hope of restoration but was used only for hanging laundry. Traffic sparse, a few cabs and whining motor scooters; a restless farmer in an oxcart, who urged his horse Faster! Faster! in the slow lane.