Dusky MacMorgan: Cuban Death-Lift Part 13

"Smells good," she said.

"And suddenly I'm not very hungry."

She slapped at me. "After . . . our last time, you swore you wouldn't have any energy for a week!"

"You know how we gringos love to lie."

She plopped herself down at the little booth. She wore dark-blue Dolphin running shorts and a baggy shirt, sleeves folded up to her elbows. "Well, at least feed me first. I might be skinny, but this Hispanic body of mine won't run on air. And, if you don't mind, I'll take a small gla.s.s of that dark beer you just opened for yourself."

It was a good day, a rare day filled with sun and jokes and love and tanning oil measured out by the handfuls on naked bodies; a day marred only by our anchorage in that dismal harbor with its acid smog and the atmosphere of desperation perpetuated by the loud amplified drone of the Cubans' calling various boats to Pier Three where they would be loaded with their human cargo.

One time I caught the sadness in Androsa's eyes as she listened to it.

"Were they calling us?"

She shook her head, startled out of whatever it was she was thinking about. "No, not yet. But you never know. I guess we should keep the radio on just in case."

I should never have done it; never let her turn on that static reminder of why we had come: VHF 16 with its endless Spanish dialogue of anger and desperation, interrupted by the Castro regime every four hours to list the boats that were about to be loaded. But it happens that way sometimes. All your instincts tell you no while your reason thinks it knows better.

I should have followed my instincts.

But I didn't. And there was no way of knowing that the radio call would mean the loss of the woman I was just learning to love. . . .

13.

The call came at about four p.m.

They must have repeated it a couple of times, because it took a while for even Androsa to hear it. But there it was: blasts of static, and then, "Atencin, atencin-embarcacin Sniper."

We were stretched out on the high privacy of the flybridge, both of us stripped to the waist, baking in the sun. She used my stomach as a cushion for her head. I used one of the heavy commercial-grade life jackets. We had spent most of the afternoon like that. I had brought up a small cooler filled with ice to keep the beer and a few cans of fruit juice cold. It was a good place to talk, to touch occasionally, and to read. I was rereading Peter Matthiessen's very fine book Snow Leopard, and I had entrusted Androsa with one of my favorite and very finest books: the 1912 first edition of H.M. Tomlinson's The Sea and the Jungle. It is a rare book and, like the Snow Leopard, the kind you want to share only with the rarest of people. I had offered her first Papa's The Old Man and the Sea, but she had declined immediately, saying that it always made her cry-not only the story but because he had captured Cuba the way she remembered it as a child. So, before placing it securely back in the big watertight ammo box which guarded my ship's library, I opened the front cover and read the loved inscription for the thousandth time: This is the best I have to offer, Old Timer. And it's yours.

It was a good way to spend the afternoon. Fine books. Cold beer. Warm sun. Time enough for Androsa to write a letter or two. And antic.i.p.ation of the evening's love. I had made up my mind to corner her that night; to work my way into her confidence and then tell her exactly what both our jobs were in Mariel Harbor.

And to try to convince her that our jobs were over.

Fact: Storm Nest, the trawler which had transported the three CIA agents to Cuba, had been found bullet-riddled in American waters. True, the agents were not aboard-but neither was General Halcn, the Cuban crossover. And common sense dictated that, if someone was going to steal the boat and try the crossing, he, as the director of security in Mariel, would certainly have the first opportunity.

But he wasn't on the boat. Why? According to Norm Fizer, things were getting hot for the Hawk.

Maybe things got too hot. Maybe Castro and his people put two and two together and decided that Halcn was a bad apple-and gave him a carbine trial. So, who was left to rescue?

Fact: One of the CIA agents, Ovillo Gomez, was now one very dead man, resting thirty feet beneath water and mud and my very own Sniper. If he and his two friends had really set out to b.u.mp off Castro, what in the h.e.l.l was he doing trying to swim to my boat? No, it seemed more likely that they had, indeed, been s.n.a.t.c.hed by Castro's people. But how had Gomez found out that Androsa Santarun was on my boat? Coincidence, maybe . . . yeah, coincidence.

Bulls.h.i.t, MacMorgan. You're supposed to be the big man who prides himself on his personal honesty. Now you're trying to conjure up some pretty d.a.m.n weak evidence to convince yourself that you should hustle that pretty woman back to Key West, out of harm's way. A day ago it didn't make any difference to you-you told yourself that if she wanted to bait the tiger trap, it was her decision. Now, after sharing her bed, you're suddenly h.e.l.l-bent on calling the whole thing off. You know this mission hasn't been resolved. Too many missing links. Too many abstract facts that don't add up. And if you do convince yourself, you can bet that one Stormin' Norman Fizer is going to tell you in pretty rough language just what a fool you've been once you do make it back to Key West. . . .

So I was locked in that personal struggle when the VHF beckoned.

Androsa lifted her head off my stomach. "Did you hear that?" And then: "They're calling us, Dusky."

She hurried down the ladder below. I heard the conversation, m.u.f.fled, fast, and very d.a.m.n short. When she was finished, she poked her head up over the flybridge deck.

"So what's up, lady?"

"Nothing important. I'm supposed to go into Havana and use the government phone so I can call my father and apprise him of the situation."

She was very calm and cool; but it was a businesslike cool. And I knew that she wasn't telling me the whole truth.

"You're sure he really wants to go to America? Maybe he's just clam-happy over here working for the dream of socialism?"

She smiled at me and winked. "Maybe. But I have to try. I'm going to change and flag down one of those government taxi boats that keep going by. Apparently there are a few tiendas up harbor at Pier Two where they sell beer and food and stuff, and a government bus leaves there every hour for some hotel-I think it was called the Triton-where there are phones and the immigration people have offices."

"So I'll just slip into my good shirt and pants and play escort-"

"No!" The firmness with which she said it surprised even her. "I mean, I'd feel terrible if you went off and left your boat unguarded and something happened to it."

"Are you still trying to give orders?"

She reached out and ran her short fingernails down my thigh. "For now. How about it, ya big lug? Stay here and mind the store while I go into the city for an hour or so. Believe me, I'll hurry right back."

She said it like some peroxide blonde in a 1930 detective film, and I had to laugh.

"You play a bad Harlow with that Spanish accent of yours."

She wiggled her finger, telling me to come to her. When I did, she kissed me lightly, then harder, and even the breaking away held promise. "Keep that for me until I get back, okay?"

"It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it."

She smiled, cupping my chin in her small hand. "You're something special, Dusky MacMorgan. Very special."

"And so are you, lady. So are you. . . ."

The moment her taxi boat disappeared behind the first shrimp trawler, I started looking for a taxi of my own. She had left in an old confiscated Woodson trihull painted bright red with a muscular Cuban at the wheel. He wore small black bikini trunks, and he gave me a dirty leer as I waved goodbye to Androsa.

That's right, fella. She's mine. And don't forget it.

By the time I'd flagged down a boat, she was halfway across the harbor, and I knew I'd have to hurry to catch her. When the skiff pulled up, I thought about locking Sniper-then decided that would probably be the worst thing to do. If the Cubans wanted to search her badly enough, they'd just bust in to do it. So, still zipping up my pants and trying to slide into my Topsiders, I swung down onto the waiting skiff.

There were two men aboard. One was obviously the government driver. He wore the standard baggy green pants, cut off at the cuffs instead of hemmed. He was about forty, haggard and unshaven, and a stub of cigarette b.u.t.t grew from the corner of his mouth. He looked bored and uncommunicative.

"Quanto dinero?" I asked him.

He held up a spread palm. Five bucks, American.

I shoved a ten at him. "Tu hablas ingles?"

He shook his head. I got the feeling that if he did speak English he wasn't about to let me know it. I slapped my hand on the gunwall of the skiff.

"d.a.m.n!"

I could reach into my memory and give him enough bad Spanish to make him understand I wanted to go to Pier Two, but what if the woman's skiff veered off, made an earlier stop? Shoving the driver aside and taking control of the boat might make me seem a bad risk in the eyes of Captain Lobo. And I couldn't afford to let him become any more suspicious of me.

"Do you need some help there, Yank?"

For the first time, I noticed the second man in the boat. He wasn't Cuban-no doubt about that. He was a little younger than I, in his early thirties, and he had copper-colored hair and a bright-red beard. The size of him and the musculature made me think of the Vikings: just under six feet tall, 190 pounds, maybe, with the shoulders of a wrestler. He had the gnomish face of a Scandinavian seaman, and an accent that seemed to be a mixture of heavy Irish and light British. His thighs were thick, heavily muscled beneath cutoff shorts, and he wore a black T-shirt inscribed: Bodden Town Dive Trips.

"If you speak Spanish, and you've got some spare time, I can use all the help you can offer," I said.

He grinned and stuck out his hand. "Westy is me name. Westy O'Davis. And I do speak Spanish-b.l.o.o.d.y bad Spanish, but Cubans speak the worst kind of Spanish, so they understand mine jest fine. So what kin' I do for ya, Yank?"

Roughly, I explained the situation to him after introducing myself. There were plenty of holes in my story, but he seemed to sense it wouldn't do to ask questions.

"So you want ta follow the lady, but you don't want ta catch her-that about right?"

"Pretty much."

He looked amused, his left hand tugging at the red beard. He thought for a moment, then nodded his a.s.sent. "So be it! No, don't thank me. It's yerself who are favoring me. After twenty-two days in this h.e.l.lhole of a harbor, it's a pleasure to have the company of an American. I'm a one who trusts his instincts, and me instincts say yer okay, Yank. So let me have a word with this mutton-headed driver and we'll be on our way. Right!"

It was more argument than conversation. Westy O'Davis kept his hands on his hips, bent slightly at the waist, nose aimed right at the nose of the government boat driver. Every time the driver tried to speak, the stocky Irishman shoved loud Spanish into his face, refusing to allow his demands to be challenged. Finally, the driver relented, worn down and taciturn.

"Done!" said O'Davis, swinging toward me, smiling. "Didn't tell 'em we wanted to follow a boat. Jes tol' 'em we wanted to travel 'round the harbor a bit-and that we would tell him where to go. These reds are suspicious people; didn't figure it would do to tell 'em we was shadowin' a lady."

"Perfect," I said. "I appreciate it. Now look, I'm not keeping you from some kind of business, am I? I know you're not riding around in a government taxi boat for your health-"

He held up his hand, the gesture implying the unimportance of his own plans. "Do you see that big black wind ship over there a piece?"

I did. And it wasn't the first time I had noticed her. She was a beauty: a gaff-rigged schooner, taller aft mast made of stout golden pine, the foremast flying the blue British ensign with the flag badge of the islands in the center.

"You're from the Caymans?"

He nodded. "And she's my pride and joy. The only time she and myself part normally is when I go tarpon guiding in the spring up to Boca Grande, Florida, in your own U.S.A. to make a few extra for her and me own pocket. But after three weeks aboard listenin' to that b.l.o.o.d.y loud Spanish, an' smellin' the foul smell of me own self, I'm about to go ravin' looney." He spread his arms. "So you see, Yank, I'm a takin' you under me wing outta graditude. One scarred-up old seaman to another in a harbor full of fools. How 'bout it?" He spit in his palm, offered his hand, and I took it.

"My pleasure," I said.

And I meant it. I had seen it before in foreign lands. Friendships among strangers are struck up with no better criterion than a lost look or the color of your hair. In a country of aliens and alien ideology, kindred spirits come together as if drawn by magnets. And surprisingly, the friendships usually continue long afterward. Joined in the common bond of circ.u.mstance, all the bulls.h.i.t social hurdles fall away and you are left with an honesty that demands either mutual loyalty or mutual hatred. And with this stocky Irishman, I knew it would be mutual loyalty. I also suspected that, no matter what, I would have met Westy O'Davis sooner or later. Because that's the way things happen in a place like Mariel Harbor.

I kept a close eye on the bright-red Woodson. And so did he.

"Yank, I believe yer lady friend is headed for the Love Boat."

"The Love what?"

He chuckled. "That b.u.g.g.e.r Castro has thought of jest about every way possible to make money in this h.e.l.lhole. It's that medium-tonnage ocean liner over there-the Comandante Pinares. Folks 'round here call it the Love Boat 'cause there's whiskey an' food-an' women too, if you've money enough." He tapped the driver on the shoulder and told him where we wanted to go. The driver acted as if it took every ounce of his strength to force the skiff onto plane, the little Russian outboard belching oil as we went. It was a good half mile to the liner, and as we pounded along Westy O'Davis tried to replace my growing anxiety with conversation. He told me how, as a kid of sixteen, he had shipped out of Dun Laoghaire on Ireland's east coast on a Honduran freighter. On the freighter he had learned two things: how to speak Spanish, and never to trust any vessel with a Liberian registry, Honduran or otherwise. Or, as he put it, "Them b.l.o.o.d.y Africans would register a bamboo raft as a thousand-ton oil tanker if you paid the bribe in cash!" He had jumped ship off Cayman Brac, swum to sh.o.r.e, then worked his way to Grand Cayman, where a friendly Englishman helped him get a work permit from Government House. In time, he got a job guiding scuba-diving trips in Bodden Town, and an American had talked him into going to America to run his big Chris-Craft as a tarpon boat in Boca Grande during the big spring run. With the money he had saved, he made a down payment on his black schooner. And this Cuban trip would pay it off.

"And no island woman snapped you up during all that time," I said, teasing him.

The look which came into his eyes was a stoicism underlined with the tragic. "Aye, one did. But she's gone now."

I didn't press for an explanation.

The Comandante Pinares was about three hundred feet of antiquated liner painted a shoddy white, bottom-fouled, anch.o.r.ed solidly fore and aft. Floating aluminum docks crushed up against the hulls, and the docks were surrounded by small boats, loading and unloading. Harsh Latin music was being piped around the crowded decks through tinny speakers, and soldiers and plainclothesmen stood conspicuously at the boarding ladders.

"What's th' matter, Yank? You look troubled."

"I can't understand why she came here. She told me she was going to a place called Pier Two. She was supposed to catch a bus there and talk to the immigration authorities in Havana."

He slapped me on the shoulder. "You never kin figure 'em out, mate-I've tried. But if it'll ease your mind any, there's immigration people here, too. Upper deck, where you see that line o' people. Maybe she jes' changed her mind."

The red-hulled Woodson was tethered up at the floating docks, the muscular taxi pilot still aboard, but Androsa was nowhere in sight. So now what? Board the liner and take the chance of letting Androsa know that I was following her? Why not? I had a right to be concerned. If she saw me, I'd play the roll of the overprotective lover. It couldn't hurt. No way.

Right.

"What's the plan, mate?" Westy looked at me expectantly.

"The plan, my new friend, is for you to go on about your business. It's just a hunch, but I think my lady friend might be in a little trouble. And I'd hate for you to get involved-"

"Horsefeathers!" He looked genuinely offended. "Was it not I meself who spit in me palm and offered you me own hand? Sure it was. Blast your trouble!" He grinned at me. "Besides, I can't very well abandon a mate with a fine name like MacMorgan, now, could I-Yank or not."

"Okay, okay-you can tag along on one condition."

He spread his arms in grand gesture. "You've only to name it."

"If it looks like there's going to be any rough stuff, you get your a.s.s out of there quick."

"Mush, mush-and do I look like a fool? A course I will, a course I will. I swear it on the grave of me own dead mother."

When our driver finally managed to nose up to the crowded docks, I jumped out and pulled O'Davis up behind me. He was surprisingly nimble for his size. Before we headed up the ladder to the main deck, he turned and wagged his finger at our Cuban driver, railing at him in a guttural Spanish.

"What were you lecturing him about?"

"No lecture, Yank. Convinced him to stay until we came back out."

"I hate to be a spoilsport, but these Castro Cubans aren't known for keeping their promises."

Westy O'Davis gave me a conspirator's wink. "This one will. I told him you were a very important man, mate. Had to lie a wee bit-told him you were a Russian adviser. Believed me, too-imagine that."

14.