Havana

Chapter 54

He found the card and a nickel, got the operator, gave the number, heard it ring, and waited for it to be answered. It wasn't and the nickel came back.

Earl looked around. He wasn't sure where he was. He'd raced through woods, followed a filthy stream until it led to some broken-down houses, cut over to something of a main drag. He moved quickly, keeping his eyes down, and nobody seemed to notice him. He spied a bus, ran after it, and gave the driver a buck. Then he waited for change. The driver would remember someone who hadn't picked up his change.

He rode till the end of the line, through the fall of night, to what seemed like the outskirts of the city. In the dark, he felt a little better, and he wondered what the hell to do. Go to the airport on his own? That seemed like a good way to end up dead. Call the embassy? But whatever Frankie Carbine's motives were, the intelligence that had made it happen had to come from the embassy. They were trying to get rid of him, not help him. Should he just try and get a boat out on his own? The U.S. was only ninety miles away by sea, a night's trip. Some fisherman could get him there. But what would he pay with? And whoever they were, wouldn't they be watching the docks?

He walked about, secretly aimless, but seeming possessed of sense and destination. He knew that aimlessness would be recognizable and memorable, whereas a sense of destination would not. He walked, walked, walked.

This was a swell mess, all right. Gangsters trying to kill him in a foreign country where he didn't know the language or the rules, or where to go, or who to turn to. He just wanted to get home and put this island behind him, one more island he'd survived. He wanted no triumph, no vengeance, no―

Then he remembered the woman. Yes, he had her card, yes it had her number. He went into a hotel, found a phone booth and thanked god for AT&T, which had wired Cuba from one end to the other, pretty as you please.

He got the operator, gave the number, waited for the ring and-

"Hello."

"Thank god you're there. Do you recognize my voice?"

"Of course. I'd heard they kicked you out."

"They did but then someone else tried to kill me. So I'm on the run. And you are the only person in this town I trust."

"God, you have a talent for trouble. I never met a man with a talent for trouble like yours."

"I won't argue with you there, Mrs. Augustine."

"Jean. I told you, Sergeant Swagger, Jean. Where are you?"

"I have no idea."

"Well, that's kind of silly, isn't it? How can I help if I don't know where you are?"

It was true, and here it was: trust or die. Or, possibly, trust and die.

"I seem to be across from a church. It's Catholic, and the sign says Santa Maria―"

"Do you have any idea how many churches of Santa Maria there are in Havana?"

"Well, this one is Santa Maria de la Marbella."

"Of the beautiful sea. You are not far off the Malecon at its most eastern end. Go there. Go to a place-let's see, it would be called the Bodeguita San Juan. I don't think it's far. I'll be there inside an hour."

"What will you be driving?"

"A Pontiac convert-no, no, I'll take Juanita's car. It's a prewar thing, a Dodge I think."

"I'll look for you in an hour."

He watched her from across the street, in the shadows. She pulled up directly out front, and waited, then finally pulled away after ten minutes. Nobody followed. She swung around again, slowed but didn't stop, then pulled away. Again, there seemed to be no cars in pursuit and, looking up and down the street, he made out no lurkers or observers. And she of course gave it another try, slowing then stopping.

He dashed across the street, opened the rear door behind the driver side, scooted in and sank to the floor.

"I hope that's you," she said.

"It is me. Just pull out, no need to hurry, and go about two blocks and pull over. Then check and see if anybody behind you pulls over, too."

"Wow," she said, "this is just like a mystery."

"It ain't nowhere as much fun."

She did as he directed, and then, that last security precaution passed, pulled out.

"I thought I'd missed you."

"No, I was watching you. Sorry for the delay, but I wanted to make sure."

"This is very exciting."

He didn't say anything.

"You can stay at my place. My girl won't tell anybody. It's safe there. Out in Miramar. All I have to do is hit the out-of-town highway and―"

"No, please don't. I'd like you to take me downtown. To a place called Zanja Street."

"Zanja Street? Near Chinatown. That's where the prostitutes are."

"I know. There's one there I helped some weeks back. Esmeralda. I believe that she'll hide me."

"Earl, there's plenty of room at my place. You'll be safe there."

"No, I won't. And neither will you. You think you know about gangsters because of the movies. You think they dress funny and talk funny and wear carnations and funny hats. I've seen some of them movies, too. But let me tell you, they're trash. That's all. Trash. They will bust in and kill me and if you're there they'll kill you and that's that."

"What about the embassy? That would at least make some sense."

"I don't trust that fellow Roger."

"Well, Roger's gone. Unceremoniously. He was dumped mysteriously in the night. The younger man, Walter, he's in charge now. Maybe he's not as bad as Roger."

Earl didn't say a thing until he came up with, "Well, there's too many people paying attention in an embassy. The woman on Zanja Street is my best bet."

The car stopped and started in traffic. Jean turned on the radio, and soft mambo music poured tinnily from the box. She rolled the windows down and the smell of sea came in, and the smell of flowers and the smell of rum.

"You're not planning some cowboy thing, are you?"

"No, I am not planning nothing except to get the hell off this place. It was a mistake ever coming. I have been shot at in too many hard places to die in a gutter in a city I don't know, for reasons I don't understand."

"Do you have money? I have some money for you and I can get you more."

"Thanks, I'm fine. You've done enough."

"Earl, I know people."

"I'd just get them in trouble."

"Okay, we're almost there."

Earl sat up. He saw the bars and bodegas of Zanja Street. He saw arches and cafes and girls lounging and smoking, showing too much flesh. The cobblestones and neon signs and banks of lottery numbers. He saw pimps and grifters and knife fighters. He saw sailors and midwestern dentists and palm trees and fruit stands and cigar rollers.

"I should be fine here."

"I will say, you are a piece of work, mister. I never met a piece of work like you."

"I ain't all that much fun, once you get to know me."

"Please, let me help. I know I can help."

Earl had thought this out pretty carefully. Now he gave it to her.

"You say you know people. There's a fellow in this town, some kind of European, maybe Russian, I don't know. But he's the sort people will have noticed. Wiry, salt-and-pepper hair like steel wool, full of electricity. He's always laughing. Funny guy. Funny in his comments, funny in his beliefs. I think he's a Red, but he knows what he's doing like nobody's business. I think he'd help me."

"Does this genius have a name? A place? I will find him if you give them to me."

"When I met him, he called himself Vurmoldt. He said he sold vacuum cleaners from Omaha, Nebraska. Atom powered, or some such foolishness. But later he laughed at what a phony lie that was, and what a lame thing it was to come up with. I never got the real name. But believe me, people will know him. And if you ask for Mr. Vurmoldt the vacuum salesman, he will hear and know you came from me. When you meet him, ask him if he's gotten a new handkerchief yet. He will know what that means. Ask around. Ask people who do business with the Russians. Or who watch the Russians."

"I know a couple of Brits who are in that trade, I think."

"They will have noticed him. You must get word to him."

"Suppose he betrays you for some communist purpose? I don't like communists."

"I don't like them neither. But I think this one is okay. It's a risk, but it makes some sort of sense."

"What should I tell him?"

"Tell him I'm with Esmerelda. That's enough. He'll find me."

"Not that it matters to you, but will I ever see you again?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, thanks for the truth."

"Look, I didn't plan this world, I just live in it. If I didn't have responsibilities and I saw you in that bar and you smiled at me like that, I'd have fought the Pacific all over again for you. But that can't happen. You know it, I know it. Knowing you has been the best thing about this trip by far. I wish there was more. But there ain't. That's the truth."

"You always tell the truth," she said. "What a terrible, terrible gift."

He leaned close and kissed her and smelled her, and didn't want to leave her, but if he didn't now, he never would. And so he did, stepping out into the shadows of Zanja Street.