Cat Chaser

6

THE AFTERNOON OF the fourth day. The Chevrolet Impala moved in low gear through streets that were like alleys, past stone structures with wooden entranceways, tenements that dated only a hundred years-new housing in a town where the son of Christopher Columbus had lived in style. Mary stared at scarred walls. They could be in San Juan or Caracas. The heat pressed motionless in the narrow streets. She searched for something to hold her interest as Moran spoke to Bienvenido in English and pidgin present-tense Spanish. The oldest buildings of all, she realized, the ones that dated to the early sixteenth century, were the newest in appearance, clean, reconstructed among recent decay, with all the charm of Disney World.

When they left the car to walk, Moran would nod to people along the street and in doorways staring at them, staring longer at the blond-haired woman than at the bearded man.

Mary said, “You’re sure we’re all right.”

Moran’s gaze came down from the upper floors of a building to the narrow shops on the street level. “They look at you and it’s instant love. Blondes have some kind of magic.” His gaze lifted again. “Up by that corner window-those are bullet holes. My fire team came along this street… We shouldn’t have been anywhere near this area.”

“What’s a fire team?” She pictured firemen.

“A third of a squad. Two riflemen, an automatic rifleman and the fire-team leader. Thirteen men in a squad, forty-eight in a platoon. The platoon was Cat Chaser. After we lost our sergeant I was Cat Chaser Four-if anybody wanted to call up and say hi.”

“Mister!”

Moran turned to see the dark face close to him, teeth missing and brown-stained eyes smiling, the man holding up lottery tickets. Moran waved him away, moving past.

“You the Marine, uh?” the man said, stopping Moran again in his tracks. “I hear it on the radio, the marine looking for his girl. You the Marine, yes?”

“I was a Marine,” Moran said.

They were standing now, people gathering around. Mary saw the eager expression on the man’s face as he said, “This is the Marine!” Excited. “You looking for the girl Luci Palma. You find her?”

Mary watched Moran shake his head, with the same eager expression as the man’s. “You know her?”

“No, I don’t think so.” The man turned to the other people and began speaking in Spanish.

Moran took Mary’s arm. They continued up the old street past lingering people, piles of trash, children following them now, the children and the lottery-ticket man’s voice raised, telling everyone something in Spanish, with feeling, like he was telling a story.

“What’s he saying?”

“I ran an ad in the paper, looking for somebody,” Moran said. “Evidently one of the radio stations got hold of it.”

“Looking for somebody,” Mary said.

“Someone I met after I was taken prisoner. One of the snipers.”

“A girl?”

“She was about sixteen. Luci Palma.”

“That’s why you came here? To see her?”

“No, this is why I came. What we’re doing now. But I was curious.”

“I’ll bet you are.”

“She was a skinny little kid.”

“She won’t be now, though,” Mary said, “will she?” Have you seen her since then?”

“This is the first time I’ve been back,” Moran said. Coming to a corner he was looking at the upper stories again. Mary watched him turn to look off in the direction of the river. “There the grain elevators I told you about. See? Ten stories high. The Eighty-second sat up their with their cannons. Up on top.”

Mary stared at the cement cylinders standing about a mile away, on the opposite bank of the Ozama River. She felt Moran’s hand on her arm and they continued across the intersection. Behind them, Bienvenido’s Impala came to a stop. Moran was pointing now. “That’s the building. The one on the corner. Where I chased the sniper.”

“The girl?”

“No, it was a guy in a green striped shirt. Green and white.” Moran turned, looking at the side streets again, thoughtful. “They’d hide a gun in an upstairs room, take a shot at you, come out, walk up the street to an apartment where they had another gun stashed and let you have a few more rounds. You see how narrow the streets are, you have to look almost straight up. You feel exposed, looking up, trying to spot the window, the guy’s already someplace else, drawing a bead on you…” He turned slowly back to the building on the corner and stared, squinting in the sunlight. “I stuck my head out of that third-floor window, right there…”

It was the girl, Luci, who had brought him here, this far, and got him in a lot of trouble, though she was not the one he had chased. A sixteen-year-old girl playing with him, now and then taking shots at him. That was the trouble with the whole deal: After a while it was like a game and he would get excited and lose his concentration. He got chewed out for it more than once by the platoon sergeant who told him he was going to get fucking killed and go home in a bag.

A lot of it was boring and a lot of it was fun. More exciting than anything he had ever experienced before. Hugging a doorway under fire, then stepping out, seeing them running across the street down at an intersection and squeezing off rounds at them. Hearing the voices then laughing and calling you hijo de puta, son of a whore, that was the favorite; learning what it meant and yelling it back at them, though “motherfucker” remained the all-time any-situation favorite. (Ham and lima beans: ham and motherfuckers.) “Hey, motherfucker! Come on out of there! Where’s your balls!” Kids playing. Working a street and finding a cantina open, Christ, and stopping for a beer in the middle of a firefight. Or stopping to let the trucks go through with sacks of rice and powdered milk, the U.S. military feeding the people they were fighting. Did that make sense? None of it did. That’s why you might as well accept this deal as being pretty weird and have some fun. Though it wouldn’t be fun now.

Mary walked back to the taxi. Bienvenido got out. He opened the door for her and she said, “I’ll wait. Thanks.” She watched Moran, on the other side of the intersection, then said to Bienvenido, “Do you remember General Andres de Boya?”

Bienvenido said, “Oh my. Oh my, yes. General de Boya, ouuuh, he was a devil, that man.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he kill people with his Cascos Blancos. Everyone the enemies of them. They kill more people than the malaria fever.”

Mary said, “Oh…”

“That fella was a devil. Yes, we very glad he’s gone from here.”

Mary got in the car. She sat in back, staring through the windshield at Moran across the street.

Once Luci picked up their radio frequency she kept cutting in on them. They didn’t know what she was using and they didn’t talk to her at first. They’d switch frequencies and there she’d be like Tokyo Rose, giving them the business. “What you doing here, Marines? You come to kill us? Why? We haven’t done nothing to you. You afraid of Communists? We not Communists, but you turning us into Communists you stay here.” Political at first, till she got to know the Cat Chasers that patrolled along Independencia as far as La Carreras in a jeep with a 50 mounted on it. He spoke to her a couple times, asking her name and if she’d have a beer with him. She said sure, come over to Conde Street, she’d meet him. Conde, where rebel headquarters was located.

They were almost ambushed and got in a firefight at the corner of Carreras and Padre Billini; the Cat Chasers gave chase, in and out of the buildings, and that was when he finally saw her the first time, running across a rooftop with her carbine.

He saw her from a window across the street, the window a story higher than the roof she was on. He put his M-14 on her and began to track and saw her look back, laughing, yelling at somebody, waving then, Come on! Then she was looking this way, surprised, and he saw her face clearly. There was a burst from a submachine gun. He saw a guy on the same roof now, a guy wearing a baseball cap, a pouch of magazines slung over his shoulder, the guy aiming at him. Moran hung in and squeezed off and the guy spun, grabbing at his side above the left hip, and went down behind the cornice of the building. The girl disappeared. They went up to the roof but all they found was some blood and a few 9-mm casings. The next day, over the radio, the girl’s voice said, “You so slow, you Cat Chasers. You tired from chasing putas.” She didn’t mention the guy who got hit.

The second time was after the 106 fired from the silos across the river almost put him under, tore his leg up with shrapnel and he had an awful time getting down from the third floor with the stairway blown to hell. He should have stayed up there. He climbed through the rubble, slipped out the back thinking he was pretty cool and walked right into them. A gang of guys in sportshirts carrying old M-1s and Mausers. He’d always remember how they grinned at him. The fuckers, they weren’t even soldiers.

They blindfolded and quick-marched him to a house he’d never have found again even if he could have seen where they were going; gave him a bucket of water and a dirty towel to do something about his bleeding and locked him in a room. Every once in a while the door would open and some more of them would look in to see the prize, laughing and making, no doubt, insulting remarks in Spanish. He told them to get fucked but they just laughed some more. When the girl came and stood in the doorway he knew who it was right away. Maybe it was the carbine she had slung over her shoulder, though he told himself later it was her eyes, the way she looked at him like they had met before.

She was skinny, without any breasts to speak of, but had beautiful eyes and chestnut brown hair.

He said, “Well, Luci, how you doing?” Taking a chance and hitting it on the head. She smiled. She looked like she’d be a lot of fun just to be with. She wore a T-shirt and jeans that were patched and faded. She left the carbine outside, came in and closed the door.

She said, “You’re the Cat Chaser.” Her whole face smiling.

“I’m one of ’em.”

“You catching much lately?”

“Well, I didn’t do too good today, I’ll tell you.”

She liked that; she smiled and went out and came back with a bottle of El Presidente and a dressing. She fooled around with his leg while he drank the beer, the leg not hurting yet, though it looked a mess. He asked about the guy he’d shot and she mentioned the guy’s name, which he forgot, and said the guy was not hurt bad but had quit the war. She asked him where he lived; he said Detroit and she told him she had stayed in Miami, Florida for two months, visiting. She told him she loved Miami, Florida and wanted to go back there sometime. She asked him if he liked the Beatles or did he prefer the Rolling Stones? Everyone, she said, was in love with the Beatles. They discussed the Supremes, Freddie and the Dreamers, Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs, the Righteous Brothers, Herman’s Hermits… She did not care much for the Beach Boys or Roger Miller. He said he didn’t either. Her favorite of all was Petula Clark. She sang a little of “Downtown” in English, snapping her fingers; she knew more of the words than he did.

When they took him out and put him in the panel truck she was there. He told her to take care of herself. She gave him a look that was sad and sort of longing and told him to take care of himself, too. She said, “I won’t shoot at you no more.” Some war.

They told him see, we’re not bad guys; we’re good to you. It’s your government, your President Johnson we don’t like. They handed him over to a Marine patrol on the west end of Independence Park. The Marines looked at him like he was some kind of weird freak and drove him to the field hospital at Haina.

It was the end of Moran’s war.

Mary was patient because she enjoyed watching him and could feel the enthusiasm he tried to keep inside him. Like a young boy. Excited but self-conscious at the same time. It gave her a feeling about him that was tender and made her want to touch his face. But maybe she simply liked to touch him; she would watch him asleep, breathing softly, and the same feeling would come over her.

When he returned to the taxi and got in next to her, she said, “That’s where you were wounded?”

He nodded slowly, several times, then cocked his head, looking out the windshield. “It seems bigger. You go back to a place where you lived or spent some time and it always seems smaller. But Santo Domingo seems bigger.”

“It probably is,” Mary said. “It’s grown. A million people live here.”

“I don’t mean that way,” Moran said. “I guess I mean it isn’t as easy to understand as I thought it would be. Things aren’t black or white, are they?” He shrugged and said, “Maybe it’s me. I see it differently now.”

With feeling, Mary thought. How many people did she know who spoke or looked at anything with genuine feeling? Without being cynical, on stage, trying to entertain. Without puffing up or putting down. She wanted to know what he felt and, if possible, share the feeling.

“What happened then?”

He hesitated for a long moment. “I was taken to a field hospital. Five days later I was evacuated. Home.”

They returned to the hotel along the broad expanse of Avenida Washington with its tall palms, its view of the Caribbean on one side and the facade Santo Domingo presented to the world on the other: sun beating on walled colonial buildings and straw markets, the old giving way to solitary glass structures rising in the background. Mary said, “This is one section that’s never blacked out.” She told of a Dominican couple she’d met at the country club who paid twelve hundred dollars a month for electricity. Moran said it would be something to tell his neighbors in Pompano; they were into electric bills and loved to compare them.

He asked Bienvenido about the radio broadcast. Was it true, what the lottery-ticket man had said?

Bienvenido said, “Yes, all day it’s on the radio about you. You don’t hear it?” He began switching dials on the car radio, getting static and rock music until he found a voice speaking dramatically in Spanish. “There,” Bienvenido said. “Listen.”

“What’s he saying?” Moran hunched over the front seat rest, laying his chin on his arm.

Bienvenido was leaning toward the car radio. “He say… the American Marine who fell in love with the girl name Luci has returned.”

“What? Come on-”

“For many years since the way Captain Morón has been thinking of her, missing her…”

“Captain?”

“… with his heart breaking, until now he has returned to find her.”

“Jesus,” Moran said. “They’re making it up. I hardly even knew her.” He turned to glance at Mary who sat composed. “They’re making all that up.”

“He say… if anyone knows where to find Luci Palma, tell her that the Marine, Captain Morón, is here who loves her very much and wants to take her to the United States to live. He is at the Hotel Embajador.”

“I don’t believe it,” Moran said. “How do they know all that? I mean my name. I didn’t give anybody my name.”

“Captain Moron?” Mary said.

“Morón,” Moran said. He poked Bienvenido’s shoulder. “How do they know about me? What’d you tell the newspaper?”

“What you told me, only. I think the radio station call the newspaper and maybe the hotel,” Bienvenido said, “talk to some people there. I don’t know.”

“But it isn’t true. None of it.” He turned to look at Mary again. “Do you believe it?”

Mary gave him a nice smile. She said, “I can’t wait to meet Luci.”

There were a dozen or more Luci Palmas scattered about the hotel lobby, some with relatives, mothers and perhaps fathers; several more were in the cocktail lounge talking to winter ballplayers, doing all right, forgetting why they had come here. There was no announcement. It was like a celebrity, a movie star, arriving. A bellman nodded, holding open the door, and all the Luci Palmas converged on the bearded man with the stylish lady, who was maybe his aide, his secretary. They called out to him, “Captain! Here I am!” They said, “Oh, it is so good to see you again!” They said, “My Marine, you have return!”

Moran said, “Wait a minute!…”

The bellman said, “Can I assist you, Capitano?”

Mary slipped through the girls crowding in, walked over to the front desk. She watched from here, standing with a travel group of Chinese from Taiwan who nudged each other, staring. Mary said, “It’s George Moran, the American film star,” and some of them raised their cameras and began taking pictures.

She watched Moran in a much different role now, but the same Moran, surrounded by girls with silky dark hair and woolly Afros, girls in dresses and girls in tight jeans, girls with imploring eyes trying to make themselves heard in both Spanish and English-Moran in the middle, hands raised close to his body, trying not to touch them. He was working his way out of the pack now toward the front desk, his eyes with a helpless look finding Mary. She smiled at him.

Reaching her he said, “What do I do?” And looked at the desk clerk who stood composed, almost indifferent.

“Will you tell them I’m not the one?”

The desk clerk raised his eyebrows. “You are Captain Morón.”

“I’m not a captain. I never was.”

“I don’t believe they care you aren’t an officer. You are Mr. Jorge Morón, are you not?”

“They’re not old enough,” Moran said.

The desk clerk seemed surprised. “You like them to be older?”

“They’re not old enough to be Luci Palma. It was sixteen years ago. There isn’t one of them over thirty.”

“Take a good look,” Mary said. “There isn’t one of them over twenty-five.”

Moran said to the girls, “Wait, stand still. Be tranquilo, okay? I’ll ask each of you one question, una pregunta, all right?”

“I’ll be in the bar,” Mary said.

“Wait. Help me, will you?”

“You’re doing fine, George. Ask your pregunta.”

Walking away, working through the girls pressing in, Mary heard him say, “All right, I’m gonna ask you how old you are. Comprende? Quantos años tiene? … You first. Hi, how’re you doing?”

She was aware of the tender feeling again: a comfortable feeling, even as she realized there was much more to Moran than a natural, easygoing manner. At times he seemed almost naive; yet he continued to surprise her.

She chose a table on the far side of the lounge, away from the entrance and the ballplayers at the bar, and ordered a scotch. The chair felt good; it was low, with soft cushions and casters; she crept it closer to another chair at the table and put her feet up, stretching her legs, brushing at the wrinkles in her beige slacks. When the waitress brought her drink she looked up to thank her. The waitress moved off and a man was standing at the table.

“If you’ll permit me…”

“To do what?” Mary said.

“Speak with you, please.” His manner was pleasant, unhurried. “You’re the friend, I believe, of the Marine.”

Mary nodded. “We’re buddies.”

The man’s dark eyes relaxed in warm creases. He looked to be in his early thirties with a trimmed mustache and hair styled by a hotel barber, swept straight back from a high forehead: the look of light-skinned Dominican aristocracy, Mary judged. He wore a tailored white cotton shirt that hung free of his trousers like a light jacket, open enough to show some of his chest hair.

He said, “I like to have a woman who is a buddy. I didn’t know it was possible.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I suppose the way we are, men and women, uh? The difference between us.”

“How do you know the Marine and I aren’t married?”

“I find out those things.” He smiled.

More than pleasant, his manner was instantly familiar, confident, the Latin lover come-on. Mary sipped her drink; she’d been there several times.

“Excuse me. My name is Rafael Amado.” He paused, giving Mary a chance to introduce herself, but she passed. “I think your friend should know that none of those girls could be Luci Palma.”

“He knows,” Mary said. “He’s just having a little fun.”

“Yes, that’s good… My name is Rafael, but by most people I’m known as Rafi.”

“That’s cute,” Mary said.

The Dominican smiled. “You like it? Good. I wonder if I may join you.” He brought over a chair without waiting for permission and eased into it, careful of the press in his black trousers. “Thank you. May I buy you a drink?”

Mary raised her glass. “I’m fine.”

He looked up, snapped his fingers and said something in Spanish that was abrupt, without the pleasant manner, though it returned instantly as he said to Mary, “If I may have one with you.”

She wished Moran would hurry up. She wanted to see the look on his face, coming in and finding her taken care of. It might tell her something. Then immediately doubted it. Moran wouldn’t make assumptions, waste time being jealous. If he were to hesitate, appear to be just a little awkward, that would be good enough.

Rafi said, “When I heard on the radio about the return of the Marine I thought, Could it be? Then in Listin Diario I see the message, Cat Chaser is looking for the girl… and I thought, It is, it’s the same one.”

“The message,” Mary said, “I haven’t seen it yet.”

“In the newspaper personal column,” Rafi told her. “Cat Chaser is looking for the girl who ran over the roofs of buildings and tried to kill him. Call this hotel. It’s very clever the way it’s said.”

“The girl named Luci tried to kill him?” Mary straightened in her chair, bringing her legs down.

“Well, she try different tricks, you know, to lure him.”

Mary wanted to be sure. She said, “To lure him?”

“To bring the Marines where they shouldn’t be. Trick them. But that was a long time ago. It was the war.”

“You said you were sure then he was the one. What one?”

The waitress appeared with Rafi’s drink. He took it from her without a word, then leaned toward Mary, his expression grave.

“I was with Luci Palma. In the group of partisans with her. I was on the roof with her.” He continued to stare at Mary before easing back in the chair. “He didn’t tell you? The Marine?”

“What? I’m not sure.”

Rafi placed his hands on his chest, fingers spread, an amber stone with a dull gleam on his little finger.

“On the roof,” Rafi said, his expression still grave, “I’m the one he shot and almost killed.”