North of Havana

19

Geis told me, "Fidel has a thing about Taino-Jesus, the guy's real name is Ramon Estevez; such a dipshit I guess he asked the Santeria gods to find him another name. You know, give him something jazzy. Make himself feel important."

At Cayo Parafso, a crescent island, palm and bleached shacks at the base of mountains, we'd hidden the Avon in a thicket of mangroves, then walked to the village. Geis had wanted to commandeer the largest boat on the island, a rotting lobster boat, probably forty-some feet with a cabin. But because I wanted to approach Cayo de Soto quietly, I'd settled on a raw-wood fishing smack with hand-hewn dagger boards and rudder. It had a single mast with a spinnaker pole, plus a little one-cylinder diesel engine if the wind failed us.

An additional advantage was that patrol boats would be less inclined to stop such a craft-a couple of locals out fishing for food. Not in any hurry.

Yet I was in a hurry. Whenever I thought of Dewey, it was like a sickness inside me. I wanted to be there; get her the hell away from a world she didn't know or had ever suspected. It was less true of Tomlinson. He, or his injury- maybe his illness-had gotten us into this mess. But, though I was less sympathetic, I was still worried about the guy. Sappy greeting cards aside, friendship is defined, not measured, by one's willingness to go to the aid of another. It is an obligation that blends conscience and accountability. Very, very few are worthy of the word. Tomlinson is. Lately, he'd been behaving like a selfish, drug-addled dilettante, which I, his friend, would happily tell him… the moment we got away and were safe.

If he and Dewey were on Cayo de Soto.

That was another constant worry.

I kept telling myself, they'll be there. They had to be there. I knew Tomlinson all too well; knew how his mind worked.

She'll be there…

But to find them, I had to stay smart; couldn't rush it. The fishing smack's lack of speed was a serious drawback, but the trade-off seemed necessary if 1 was to make it to the island at all.

The old man who owned the boat had asked for a hundred dollars, U.S. I'd given him two hundred and told him, in a couple of days, maybe he and his grandchildren should go looking in the mangroves. Maybe he'd find a replacement.

"If this son-of-a-bitch sinks,^J ' Geis had said dourly, as he stepped down off the dock, "we'll both drown." Meanings the sailboat.

The old man had given me a few days' supply of water and a couple of chunks of salted shark. I had been stowing it aboard. "If it sinks," I'd told Geis, "I want to die knowing what the hell's going on. That's why you're going to spend the next ten miles or so talking. If you won't talk, get out. Steal the lobster boat. I'll take this and go alone."

Geis had looked at me-me, his fall guy if Castro required an explanation. Why had he disobeyed orders? Because he'd been on the trail of the American spy, that's why. The one who'd murdered the four guardsmen and injured others; the one who was tracking Taino, maybe even wanted to take another shot at the Maximum Leader himself.

Geis had thought about it a moment before he said, "Thing is, I've gotten kind of fond of you. Like I said back at the Havana Libre, when you showed up, it was like being in jail and getting a visitor. You know the feeling?"

"That was a guy named Lenny Geis talking. Not you."

"You got a problem with the name? I'll choose another, any name you want. But me, I've gotten kind of fond of that, too."

Lenny.

He had been smiling when he added, "No offense, but I think it's a hell of a lot better than the name you used. That time you came to Havana to play baseball? I followed that Iran-Contra business; watched that Marine on television those Senators tried to nail. The same last name you used, man! I thought, Can't those people think of anything original?"

Now Cayo Parafso was nearly two hours behind us and Geis was talking about Taino and Castro. He'd told me, "Because of what we might be walking into, I guess we're still on a strictly need-to-know basis. Which means you need to know." He sat there speaking softly in the darkness, the tip of his cigar glowing bright orange whenever he paused.

It was a little after nine P.M. With the wind behind us, we were fishtailing along wing-and-wing, jib and headsail on opposite sides, making pretty good bottom speed. Maybe five knots-fast in that old boat. Above us, stars illustrated the basin of deep space, rotating above the mast as if the universe were being drained slowly, slowly into some celestial whirlpool.

Ahead, I could see a white rind of beach and a charcoal elevation that was the eastern point of Cayo de Soto. I'd been steering toward it for the last maddening hour, and only now did it seem slightly closer.

I sat with the wooden tiller under my arm and listened to Geis say, "Like I told you, Fidel has a thing about Ramon… Taino… whatever the hell you want to call him. What it is-and Fidel never told me this, I checked around and found it out for myself. Taino is Fidel's illegitimate kid. One of the many."

I remembered how the names Ruz, Mayari, Sierra Maes-tra had stuck in my memory; the names Tomlinson had supposedly divined. They had something to do with Castro. Maybe a family name among them. Fidel Ruz Castro? And where he was born. I wasn't sure; it didn't matter-but it suggested that Tomlinson knew more about Taino than he had volunteered. I said, "Castro doesn't seem like the kind of man who keeps track of illegitimate children."

"Hell, no. He's probably got forty, fifty-hell, a couple hundred. Who knows? But the thing about Taino is, he's got power. Fidel likes that. He respects it. His only legitimate son is a lazy dope. Fidel tried to hide him away by appointing him head of the Cuban Atomic Energy Commission. That's like being appointed head of Ireland's space program. But Taino's just like Fidel. He's ruthless. Got to the top by lying, killing-shit, that's nothing-the kind of guy who looks at people but sees ants. What Fidel thinks about Taino is, hey, a chip off the old block."

I remembered that Tomlinson had said they were duplicate spirits, Taino and his father. Remembered that he'd said that Taino's powers were stronger-whatever that meant. I said, "Castro didn't tell you this."

"No. I already told you he didn't. It's just me putting the pieces together. But Fidel, he likes to talk. Up until about two weeks ago, he talked to me all the time. I've seen the man alone, face-to-face, maybe twice in the twelve years I've been here. But what he'd do was call me. Started maybe two years ago. And always late at night, because the guy can't sleep, and he'd just ramble. Name a subject, he'd ramble. At first, I thought, why the hell's he calling me? Then I realized-I'm a Russian. The only Russian left in the country. A Russian could never hold a position of power in Cuba. No way; the Cubanos, they wouldn't stand for it. See? No matter how much I knew, how much I had against him, I wasn't a threat. Another thing, I've got a secure phone line and I've got top security clearance. So he could say any damn thing that popped into his mind and he didn't have to worry about it. When you think about it, if a guy like Fidel's got a lot of shit he wants to get off his chest, I'm the perfect choice."

Lately, Geis told me, Castro had a lot to get off his chest. I sat steering, feeling the boat lift and surf on the dark waves, hearing wind in the rigging, my eyes fixed on the beach ahead, as Geis told me about it. The picture of Fidel Castro that emerged was that of a man who was paranoid, egomaniacal, and who had lost touch with reality. The failed economy, the food shortages, the gas shortages, the failed tobacco crop, the political isolation-why were people blaming him? During the last secret ballot, several members of his own politburo had actually voted against him. First time in history his election wasn't unanimous- and he was going to find out who the traitors were and destroy them. Had Geis heard the whispers? People were saying that he was losing control of Cuba. But it wasn't true! Here is what he would do to prove to them that it wasn't true.

"I don't suppose you ever read much by Stalin?" Geis asked me. "We had to read it. One line stuck with me was this thing Stalin said: 'Only religion can keep the masses satisfied to live in hunger and ignorance.' Know who told me the same thing about a year ago? Fidel-but said it like he'd made it up himself. That's when he started talking about Santeria and Taino. Taino's idea was they could unify the country if Fidel started taking the national religion a little more seriously. Couple of months pass and I realize that Fidel has slipped over the edge; he's believing this shit. Talking about which god is in charge of what; how the tobacco crop failed because the idiotic priests hadn't made the right sacrifices, hadn't read the omens correctly. That's one thing about Fidel-no matter what the subject, everybody's an idiot but him."

Taino the anti-Castro revolutionary?

Geis made a fluttering sound of disgust. "Taino likes to pretend he's working for Fidel. He's an informant. Ochoa, the name, it was Taino's idea-this big white guy pretending he's mostly Arawak. Who's going to suspect the head man? It's like a big sting operation: let the traitors find us instead of us having to go looking for them. As long as they're not a threat, let the names keep piling up and arrest them all at once."

"Then you were lying to me. You don't believe Taino is conspiring to kill Castro."

"Hell, yes, I believe it. Adolfo Santoya, too. Trouble is, I couldn't get Fidel to believe it. Tells me, 'Taino is a great Babalao, a brilliant man like me-are you questioning the personal judgment of the Maximum Leader?' " Geis was lighting another cigar. "Why else would I be here, riding in this shitty sailboat with you? It's because Fidel got so mad arguing about it. Told his own security people that I was crazy. Okay, I'm crazy. What do they care? Except for one crazy Russian, everybody in the goddamn country wants the man dead. He tells them to ignore a plot to assassinate him, they couldn't be happier. Then what's Fidel do? He turns around and fires me."

What I wanted to do was start the little diesel engine to navigate the last half mile to shore-had to be some sandbars and coral around; tough at night under sail-but I didn't want to risk the noise.

"Damn right you don't," Geis said. "That stuff about Tomlinson being attracted to some kind of identical island… Jesus, has everyone gone stupid? But if they are here, they'll have those voodoo people I told you about posted around. Like bodyguards. The Abakua. To get into their secret society-what it really is is a gang-they get pissed on, drink blood. All this weird, secret stuff. Bite the heads off rats, eat babies? Whatever they're told to do. But don't sell them short. They hear us, they'll kill us. In a country where guns are illegal, they've gotten real handy with machetes."

I said, "You never said anything about that. Why bodyguards? They go looking for the Santoya fortune, why would they want extra people around?" I stared at Geis.

He was sitting forward of the mast, looking at the island-silhouetted forest and beach rising, then sinking beyond the bow. For some reason, he hadn't told me what I had already guessed. I thought about it before I said, "What they're really after is Columbus's casket. They want those medallions." Fidel, whose power had been consolidated by a white dove, was looking for another harbinger to reestablish his authority.

I wondered: Why doesn't Geis want to tell me?

Geis was nodding, not looking at me. "Taino, you're damn right that's what he's after. Fidel, too. The people in this country really do believe in magic. They run their fucking lives by signs, omens, all that shit. Put Yara Hatuey's medallion around Fidel's neck-a symbol like that?-the people would accept him as president and head priest. Tell them, after all these years, the gods chose him to find it. How are the other priests going to argue? Taino's angle, what he knows is, whoever wears it has obviously been chosen to be in control."

"Your deep interest in the church; I can see a reason now. What makes them so sure the casket wasn't taken to Spain? You're the one who said it was a legend. Maybe-"

"That was just a way of… believe me, they know it wasn't taken to Spain. Remember when we were at the Plaza de la Catedral? The part I left out was, back in nineteen hundred, it was the most powerful family in Cuba that made sure Columbus's bones never left the island. The San-toya family. People looked for the damn thing for sixty years, but the only ones who knew where it was were a few of the Santoya men.

"Then Rita's grandfather got into such a fight with Angel, he found it and moved the thing just before Fidel came to power. Angel's people went through just about every mausoleum in the country-I guess it was originally hidden someplace like that-but no luck. Taino, people like him, have been waiting a long time for one of Eduardo Santoya's grandkids to come back and lead them to it."

I said, "So why didn't Rita lead them to it? She sits around watching Tomlinson eat peyote, point at a map.

That makes no sense. Why the charade? I think her grandmother really did screw up the directions. Rita has no idea where it is. She sees the scar on Tomlinson's temple- everybody falls in love with Tomlinson. She listens to a lot of convincing talk about mysticism and magic, or maybe she finds out she really does like the idea of playing revolutionary. She decides why not find out? Can he do it?"

Geis said, "Rita? No, what I think is… I'll tell you, I took one look at her and think, Jesus, she's Angel Santoya all over again. Those eyes of hers, like gun barrels. With her, I think it's strictly the money… which is why I expect her to be gone by the time we catch up with them. The only reason Rita would stick around is because she was still looking for it herself. Looking for something; doing it on her own privately. Or because she wanted to buy herself some time. That's what I've thought right along. She wanted a few extra days, so she had to play along. Up until yesterday, Adolfo was still officially in charge of shipping. Whatever he told his people to do, they'd do. Maybe she was waiting for a freighter to take her out. Maybe they were both waiting."

I thought: Panama.

I had tacked to starboard and was now running just off the beach. Everyplace I thought there might be reef or a bar, there was a reef or a bar-could hear the rollers breaking in the shoal areas as I dodged them. Cayo de Soto's similarities to Sanibel were only that. Similarities. Yet they were consistent enough that I began to acquire confidence in my knowledge of sea bottom and topography. Arriving here by boat-if he had arrived at all-Tomlinson would have experienced the same eerie sense of mirror image, only it would be stronger in him. He would accept every likeness as a directive; a kind of homing signal from God. His spiritual home had always been and would always be Dinkin's Bay-the shallow-water lake located in the eastern mangrove littoral of Sanibel Island.

Cayo de Soto's duplicate bay would be the first place he'd go. He'd expect to find what he wanted to find right there. I knew the man. Had heard all his theories on parallelism and the symmetry of life. He'd once asked me, "Have you ever looked down and noticed that urine spirals precisely like a DNA helix?" And had once told me, "Shadow universes exist-that's a scientific truth. So is repetition of design. So isn't it illogical not to believe that every planet, every dimension, every thing has a shadow duplicate?"

No, I didn't think that it was logical, but I did believe it was that kind of reasoning that would lead Tomlinson and his group to the bay. Which is why I wanted to sail inland. Wanted to confirm that there were boats there. Hoped to pull into the bay and see the familiar night outline of No Mas sitting at anchor.

But I couldn't. I had to stay on the seaward side of the island. Had to run down the beach an approximate distance, anchor, then hike across the island to the bay. All because Geis had said Taino might have brought guards to patrol the place-the Abakua. Said if they saw us, they would kill us. Which he still hadn't explained.

I had asked, "Is it because you expect Castro to be there?" I'd been anticipating that. Would a paranoiac trust someone so like himself to deliver a thing of great value?

Geis's reply was not an answer: "The Abakua? Fidel's their main competition in the crime business. They hate the man; would love to take him apart one piece at a time. If they're there, it's not to protect Fidel."

Now, closing on the beach, I told Geis, "Dig through that mess in the bow and see if you can find a couple of anchors."

Geis had been watching the shoreline; watching me work our way through the shoals. On his feet now and moving, he said, "Ford-I'm impressed, I've got to tell you. The way you handle these waters, it's as if you'd been here before."

Cayo de Soto was a black thing elevated; a dinosaur shape afloat. No lights showing: beach… dark trees… wind. It might have been Sanibel at the time of the Spanish conquest. It might have been a thousand years before. Cut the electrical umbilical and the eyes are quick to readjust to primal light.

I said, "In a way, I have."