Cuba Straits (8 page)

They were directions, a seaplane ingress that could be to only one place, Cuba, although the island wasn’t mentioned. Something else not mentioned was that the charter company, Tampa to Havana, would not accept firearms as baggage. Even if they did, the next flight wasn’t until Sunday. Neither option would get him to Cuba before Tomlinson arrived the next night or Friday morning, depending on the wind.

Ford attempted patience with his former boss. “I sent you something fifteen minutes ago. Maybe you didn’t get it.”

“Really? Guess not.”

Harrington was lying.

Ford said, “Didn’t we learn a technique called communiqué by omission? I’m reluctant to spell it out. Hal?”—he tried to soften this into a request—“Don’t make me.”

“Is that a threat?”

“You know better. Maybe if you check your emails again? In the note’s first line, there’s a mention of Mexico.”

After a couple of seconds, Harrington said, “I’ll be damned. A little confusing the way it’s worded, but it helps. You should have referenced this in the first place.”

“I’m a little rusty, I guess.” The dog, with his nose out the window, ears flapping in the wind, sneezed.

“Gesundheit,”
Harrington said.

“Thank you,” Ford replied. “I wouldn’t jump the ladder if I didn’t think this was serious.”

“Does that mean you’re interested in coming back?”

Ford resorted to a lie. “It’s that obvious? I never thought I’d get tired of sitting on my butt in air-conditioning, but, yeah, I sort of miss the old days.”

“You’ve always been a sentimental guy, Doc.” A hint of sarcasm there. “Well . . . I guess I could do some checking around. As a friend—not as a contracted deal, of course. Keep that in mind. What I’m still unclear about is—”

Ford pushed the phone away from his ear, thinking,
I might as well hang up right now
. That happened a few minutes later when he lost patience and said, “I don’t give a damn, Hal, if it’s protocol or not.”

Harrington was a trigger-puller, the real deal, but, through necessity, had developed the polish of a politician. “I know,” the man replied. “Any wonder your special phone doesn’t ring anymore?”

•   •   •

F
ORD HAD INTENDED
to buy extra dog food at the 7-Eleven. Instead, he headed for Jensen’s Twin Palm on Captiva, which was across Blind Pass Bridge. Impossible not to slow at Castaways and check the cottage windows. Maggie was there, the same cheap rental in the drive.

“I don’t know what’s got into me,” he said to the dog, thinking the words but sometimes speaking aloud. “This one-night stand bullshit, it’s symptomatic of something. Totally out of character.”

The dog wasn’t interested.

“If she’s awake, I’ve got a built-in excuse. Those papers stolen from Castro’s estate? Didn’t find a single damn article. She wasn’t lying. Why would she make that up? That tells me something about her possible occupation. Reason enough, I think, to sneak a look at her phone. Now I’m glad I did.” Ford noticed car lights behind him and pulled into the grocery parking lot, the store and Sunset Café closed, but the Flamingo still open if he was hungry.

Maybe later.

“On the other hand, if I ask, she might have to reveal something about herself. Next, we’d be trading numbers and I don’t want that. Know why?” With the truck running, he focused on Maggie’s cottage, hoping the screen door would open, also hoping it wouldn’t.

It didn’t.

On the road again, he finally admitted,
Because Maggie’s married, that’s why
. Pissed at himself because he’d known from the start. You can remove a ring, but not a tan line. Breaking a personal rule was taboo, but lying to himself was worse.

That wasn’t his only lie.

At Jensen’s Marina, by the docks, palm trees framed a vast darkness where navigation lights blinked, red, white, and green. Ford let the dog out, walked to the bait tanks, and stared. To the northeast, across six miles of water and muted by mangroves, a milky dot marked the fishing village of Sulphur Wells. A woman lived there. An unusually good woman; smart, independent, and solid. Captain Hannah Smith was also a first-rate fishing guide.

They had dated, but it was more that; now they were done.

Ford touched the phone in his pocket . . . hesitated, still staring, and sent a telepathic message:
I’ll call you when I get back
.

The fifty-gallon fuel bladder, stored beside the office, was empty, so it was easy enough to load. It took longer to unlock the fuel pump at Dinkin’s Bay, where Mack complained, “Working the graveyard shift now, are we? What’s up?” It was almost midnight.

Ford contrived a story about Ridley turtles and camping on Shark River, south of Naples.

Hours later, in darkness, with engines synched, he threaded the cutoff Lighthouse Beach and pointed his boat toward Key West.

K
ey West Cemetery is nineteen acres of shipwrights, cigarmakers, gunrunners, wreckers, sailors, and others who would have been happier drowned at sea. Not a cheery place at night, especially after an hour spent searching for a missing shortstop. No flashlight, only a lighter to flick, after tripping over several tombstones, one of which turned out to be the grave of an old friend.

Tomlinson felt a descending melancholy. He sat with his back against the stone and tested a happier theory.

“Hell, Shine . . . maybe I’m imagining this entire goat fest. Is that why you called this meeting?”

From beneath the stone Captain Kermit “Shine” Forbes responded,
Boy, get off your dead butt an’ go find that li’l Cuban
.

Tomlinson obeyed. He was striding toward Passover Lane when he noticed blue flashers to the south and sirens. Experience told him to flee north, but he maintained control and crept toward the lights anyway. When he was close enough, he stopped behind a tree and listened as two cops questioned a man who, even seated on the grass, was the size of a grizzly bear.

“We got anyone on the force who speaks Russian? Harry, try Spanish and see what you get.”

Harry wasn’t as loud. The bear-sized man, who was Russian, mumbled. Tomlinson crawled on hands and knees to the next tombstone so he could hear better.

“. . . That’s all I could understand. He says their attacker was a Cuban guy.”

“In this town?” Cop laughter. “He’ll have to do better than that. Jesus Christ, the guy’s huge, huh? Over three hundred pounds, I bet.”

More questions, more mumbling. Then Harry, sounding surprised, said, “Christ, he claims his buddy is dead. Somewhere around here, beaten to death. Or half dead. And says he—this guy—that he tripped over something and maybe hit his head. That’s why he got away.”

“The Cuban, you mean?”

“Yeah, the assailant—if it really happened.”

“Bullshit. Where’s the body? I don’t see blood on the guy’s clothes or anywhere else. I think he’s wasted.”

“We’ll have to see what he blows. Wait . . . Now he claims the guy, the assailant, had . . . what? Say it again . . . Yeah, he says the Cuban had knives on his shoes—‘razors,’ I think he means. That he used . . . a shoe.”

“Used a shoe as a murder weapon? Geezus, what next?”

“I’m just telling you, guy’s Spanish sucks.”

“He’s shitfaced. Meth, maybe. Wait and see, he’s a junkie.”

“I dunno . . . A guy his size, and more than a thousand euros in his wallet. Notice those white socks and the shirt. He’s just a tourist, I think. Call, have dispatch look up the Russian word for ‘spikes.’ As in track or baseball.”

Oh shit . . .

Tomlinson, on his knees, did an about-face and crawled toward the monument to sailors killed on the USS
Maine
, Havana Harbor, 1898.

When it was safe, he ran.

•   •   •

F
IGGY WAS INVISIBLE,
curled cat-like in the dinghy, until he sat up and asked, “What took you so long? Two hours was plenty for me.”

Tomlinson had to cover his mouth, it scared him so badly.

This was around four-thirty a.m., still dark, but the wind was freshening. By dawn, they were aboard
No
Más
, south of Sand Key Light, sails taut beneath seabirds that flocked landward. Upon a cobalt sea, shadows spooked fish to flight—comets of silver like dragonflies.

Tomlinson had to make a decision. Return to Sanibel Island or maintain course to Cuba? Tethered high above Cudjoe Key was Fat Albert, a radar balloon that narced innocent boats and planes for a radius of two hundred miles. Nosey pricks, those feds. A sailboat would draw less attention, of course, and the Cubans wouldn’t notice until they’d crossed the Straits, but, even so, harboring a murderer as a shipmate invited prying eyes.

This was a decision that couldn’t be discussed with the suspect in question, who also happened to be a dope-smoking illegal—two marks in Figgy’s favor, but not enough to convince Tomlinson. He would have called Ford for advice—the biologist was an old hand at this sort of ugly business—if his cell phone hadn’t drowned. There was always the marine operator via VHF, but the probability of eavesdroppers nixed that idea.

He steered south and, at noon, disengaged the autopilot and changed to a heading of 230 degrees to avoid Havana and negate the relentless flow of the Gulf Stream.
No Más
creaked and groaned, cleaving waves that shattered like crystal and threw spray to salt his first beer of the day.

Figgy, subdued, stuck to bottled water, but did remark, “I’m done with German witches. They give me a headache.”

An hour went by before Tomlinson finally asked what he’d been afraid to ask: “What happened to your baseball spikes?”

The Cuban wiggled his bare toes. “I still got one left, but you told me no spikes on the boat.”

“I appreciate that. What about the other shoe?”

He expected a lie but sat straighter when Figgy replied, “I used it to beat the
Santero
on the head, then it flew away and disappeared. Makes me sad to talk about. Why don’t we put on some music?”

Okay—the Latina enchantress Omara Portuondo singing “Dos Gardenias.” Tomlinson turned it up, saying, “You’re sad because the guy you beat is a novice priest, yes, I understand. Were you hurt during the fight?”

Just a scrape, which looked more like a puncture wound when the shortstop extended his arm.

“What about the
Santero
?”

“Sure hope I hurt him. All my life, I wanted nice baseball spikes. That son of a bitch, I think he caused my shoe to disappear because I was hitting him hard, brother. Now I’ve got no American dollars and only one shoe.”

Gad.
Time to regroup. How to handle this without turning it into an interrogation? One thing Tomlinson knew, Figueroa Casanova was true to his vow not to lie. Or wait . . . In a past conversation, hadn’t he allowed himself some wiggle room?
I promised never to lie
unless
 . . .

Unless what?

Tomlinson was averse to verbal traps because his own innocence had been tested too often. He toned it down by asking, “What happened to the Russian? In the cemetery, I heard him talking to cops. I couldn’t tell if he was hurt or not, but he claimed the guy you hit is dead. That you clubbed him to death with your shoe.”

“Killed the
Santero
?” Figgy had to think about that. He drifted inward, fingering his necklace, red beads and black spaced with tiny cowrie shells. Returned, saying, “Maybe he only appeared to be dead. Eleguá is famous as a trickster.”

“That’s the
Santero
’s
name?”

“No. Eleguá is my guardian saint. That the kind of shit he does, brings his followers to the crossroad of good and evil. Like, ‘Child,
you
decide.’ The
Santero
, he’s the asshole I mentioned—Vernum Quick. I don’t mind being chased, but, man, don’t you catch me. Yeah, I beat the shit out of Vernum bad.”

“Who you think played dead?”

“Vernum, he don’t play at nothing. Some years ago, he murdered three schoolgirls on their way to school. Used a machete out in a cane field, then blamed me. This was after their bones was found, but before he come to my
mu-maw
’s house. He wanted to know where certain items were hidden—only he said ‘buried.’ Which tells you how dumb even a
Santero
can be.”

“Your mother’s house?”

“My grandmother who raised me. My
abuela
. What she should of said was, ‘Vernum, what kind of fool buries three motorcycles under the ground?’ Expensive machines, you know?
Harleys
, with lots of chrome. At the time, of course, she didn’t know about them dead girls—or that the Guardia, the police, would come for me later. This was three years ago.”

Ms. Omara was singing “Noche Cubana” now, the sweetest of wistful love songs. Tomlinson adjusted the volume and reminded himself,
Don’t press, let the man talk
.

Lunchtime. They ate tomatoes pilfered from a garden on Simonton and canned black beans. For seasoning, a key lime. At one p.m., the wind dropped. Tomlinson used the diesel to put twenty miles behind them before he tired of fumes and noise. A little before three, the wind died, but that was okay. He dumped the dinghy over the side, locked the motor to the transom, and rerigged the towing harness for something to do. At four,
No Más
wallowed in waves while the halyard clinked. From the southeast, a bank of clouds drifted, seeking the warmer water of the Gulf Stream. They descended as fog—not thick, more like tendrils of steam, but dense enough to drip from the sheeting.

“Smoke,” Tomlinson smiled. “Don’t the clouds remind you of that?” He broke out a hash pipe, which he seldom used—he associated pipes with white-collar stoners, although a bong was okay. Figgy’s headache improved after a bowl of homegrown Crystal River. He became talkative.

“It surprised me, seeing that
Santero
. Especially with a Russian. In Cuba, most people hate Russians, hoped they’d never come back, but they did. I was locked up so can’t say exactly when this trend began. Not so long, though.” He pivoted to look into a misty horizon that had recently cupped the lights of Key West. “Except for them witches and the Russian, I like America. You promise we’ll come back?”

Tomlinson noted visibility and felt it safe to nod. “Vernum Quick, huh? That sounds Bahamian, not Cuban.”

“It’s the same. In way-back times, some men was named for their nature. See? Like how fast they move or their love for women. When the Guardia come, they were already convinced a Casanova took those girls.”

“Not just your name, though, right? It was because this dude Vernum lied. The man should be defrocked, if you didn’t kill . . . Well, if he’s still alive. What did you tell the Cuban cops?”

“The truth, brother. I always tell the truth. That’s why the Guardia took me straight to jail.”

Tomlinson had been nudging the conversation toward Gen. Rivera—how had the man learned about the machine guns and hidden Harleys?—but had to back up. “Even though you denied murdering the girls?”

“That’s not the way it happened. The lieutenant come to my
mu-maw
’s house and asked why I murdered three innocent people.”

“Your
mu
 . . . ? Oh, your grandmother.”

“Yeah. I told him those people weren’t innocent, and I only killed two people, not three—and no way their bodies were found—so why was he bothering us? You see, at the time, I knew nothing about the girls in the cane field.”

Tomlinson took a minute to collect himself by pretending a need for the sextant. To the north, cumulus clouds that had once marked the Dry Tortugas were now a curtain of gray. All sorts of things—airplanes, ships, the steady flow of refugees on rafts—often disappeared out here in the Straits. He closed the box of polished teak, saying, “I’m sure you had a damn good reason to do whatever you did.”

“That’s what I explained to the lieutenant.”

“Explained why you had to kill—”

“Yeah. Two men come snooping around at night—big fellas like the one back there”—Figgy motioned—“so I used a baseball bat, a bat I’d carved from a
madera
, which also makes me sad. I packed their bodies on a mule all night and threw that bat off the cliff, too. What choice did I have? If I promise to protect a certain place, man, I
protect
it. Same with the briefcase . . . but only because I didn’t know what it contains.” The Cuban glowered at the cabin. “General Rivera, next time I see him, I think I’ll beat his head with my other shoe.”

“You clubbed them with a baseball bat until they were . . .”

“Of course. Isn’t that what I just told you?”

Holy Christ. This new shipmate of his was a stone-cold killer. But sitting alone with a felon in the middle of the Gulf Stream was no place to quibble over morality or the outcome of what was, perhaps, one drunken night and a whim.

Tethered off the stern, the dinghy, with its shiny black motor, urged the need for a plan of escape. Instead, Tomlinson forced himself to think about the briefcase. Intuition told him there was a connection between Castro’s letters and Figgy. No other way to explain the shortstop’s reaction when he saw them. Maybe the letters had been written to a woman in Figgy’s village. Possibly even to a relative. Or even Figgy’s grandmother, but that was a stretch. No matter—Tomlinson felt confident the Cuban would get to it. He offered support by saying, “Typical cops. Even when you tell the truth, they’re pricks.”

“Exactly what I said—‘Man, I being totally straight, here’—and the lieutenant ask me why didn’t I confess earlier? Confess? What a stupid question. Brother, why would I confess to something I never lied about in the first place?”

That made so much sense, Tomlinson wanted to write it down.

The shortstop continued, “I explained to the lieutenant about my vow of honesty. Know what he did? Laughed at me. Laughed right in my face. Said, ‘Boy, you are lying or you are crazy.’ I told him, ‘
Cabrón
, I never lie.’ For that insult, I knocked him on his
puta
ass—used my left hand, of course, ’cause, you know, I throw with my right.”