Missionary Stew

Chapter 35

At just before dawn, the fat chief warder of the federal prison, Major Torres, strolled down the stone corridor toward the sleeping guard. In his right hand was a toothpick, which he was using to divest a molar of a bit of bacon. In the crook of his left arm was a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun.

When he reached the guard, Major Torres nudged him with the shotgun. The guard awoke and looked up sleepily. He started to rise, but Major Torres used the shotgun to pat him back down. The major put the toothpick away for later, reached into another pocket, and brought out a $100 bill. He handed it to the guard.

“You will sleep, my friend,” he said. “You will sleep for the next hour with your eyes squeezed shut. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” the guard said. “I understand. Perfectly.” To show that he did, he put his head back down on the small wooden desk, cradled it in his arms, and closed his eyes so tightly that he frowned.

Major Torres moved down the corridor until he came to Citron’s cell. Through the bars, he could see Citron sitting on the edge of the stone bed. Citron looked up at him.

“Well, spy,” Torres said. “It is time.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“The guard said six. It is not six yet.”

“The guard was wrong,” Torres said as he unlocked and opened the cell door. “He’s a simple fellow and often wrong. Otherwise he would not be a guard. Come. Hold out your hands.”

Citron rose, moved slowly to the open cell door, and held out his hands. Torres, the shotgun pressed against his side by an arm, clicked a pair of handcuffs around Citron’s wrists.

“Just you and I?” Citron said.

Torres smiled. “What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. More people, I suppose.”

“A doctor. A priest. Guards. A firing squad. A slow walk down a badly lit corridor. Like in the cinema, true?”

“Something like that,” Citron admitted.

“Sorry,” Torres said. “Just you and I. And Carmelita here, of course.” Torres patted the shotgun.

“A sawed-off,” Citron said.

“Painless, I assure you. Let’s go.”

They went down the stone corridor, Citron in the lead. They passed the guard, whose head was still down on the desk, his eyes squeezed shut. When they were ten feet past the guard, he opened his eyes and sat up. He looked at the disappearing backs of Torres and Citron. Then he looked at his left hand, which was clutched into a fist. He opened it slowly. The $100 bill was still there. The guard crossed himself slowly.

It was just growing light when Citron and Major Torres came out of the building that held the cells and entered the exercise yard, which was not much larger than two basketball courts. The yard was surrounded on three sides by the prison buildings, and on the fourth by a stone wall that was at least twenty feet high.

Citron looked back over his shoulder at Major Torres. “Where to?” he said.

“The wall,” Torres said and indicated the spot he wanted with a gesture of the shotgun.

They walked slowly across the exercise yard until they reached the wall.

“I will take the watch now,” Torres said.

“What watch?”

“The gold watch that goes with the gold band that you gave the guard for food and drink. I can take it now or later.”

Citron reached into his shirt pocket with his manacled hands, removed the watch, and handed it to Torres, who smiled. “A gold Rolex.”

“A gift from my mother.”

“Poor woman. She has my sympathy.”

“She would only reject it.”

“Turn, please, and kneel, facing the wall.”

Citron turned and knelt. He closed his eyes. He could hear the hammers of the shotgun being cocked, one at a time. And then he heard a familiar voice. “Hey, Morgan,” the voice said.

Citron looked up. It had to be a dream, of course. For he knew that only in a dream would a sad-faced forty-two-year-old man in an immaculate three-piece blue pinstripe suit, white button-down shirt, and neatly knotted tie be straddling a prison wall with a coil of green plastic garden hose in his hands.

“Catch the fucking hose,” Draper Haere said and tossed one end of it down.

Citron rose slowly. He turned and looked at Major Torres, who had twisted away to light an after-breakfast cigar. Citron turned back and grasped the garden hose with his manacled hands. Slowly, laboriously, with much puffing and cursing, Haere pulled Citron up to the top of the wall. Once astride it, Citron looked down at Major Torres, who was now leisurely strolling back toward the door that led into the exercise yard. As he strolled, Torres waggled the shotgun without looking around. It was his good-bye wave.

Citron looked at Haere. “You sure you’re not a dream?”

“No dream,” Haere said. “A nightmare maybe. Let’s go.” He indicated the aluminum ladder whose top was propped against the wall and whose legs rested on the roof of a tan Dodge van.

Citron was first down the ladder. Haere followed him and tossed the ladder down between the wall and the van, where it landed with a clatter. Both men jumped from the van to the ground and hurried around to the van’s right-hand door. Velveeta Keats was behind the wheel. The engine was running.

“Hi, Morgan,” she said.

“Well,” Citron said. “Velveeta.”

“Get in,” Haere told Citron and opened the door. Velveeta Keats’s Polaroid camera fell to the ground. Haere picked it up. Citron climbed into the van. Haere slammed the door shut.

“See you, Morgan,” Haere said as the van moved away.

Velveeta Keats drove no better than she ever did, but Citron said only, “Haere’s not coming?”

“No,” she said. “He’s got something else to do.”

“Where’re we going?”

“The nearest border,” she said and glanced at him with a happy smile. “Surprised to see me?”

“Yes,” Citron said. “Very.” And to his surprise he found he really was.

Draper Haere walked back to the main gate of the prison. It was nearly a two-block walk. When he arrived at the gate, a guard asked him what he wanted.

“Major Torres,” Haere said, adding, “I am Draper Haere.”

The guard made two telephone calls. Shortly after the second one was completed, another guard appeared and motioned for Haere to follow him. They went through three doors and down two corridors and finally into Major Torres’s office.

“Please,” Torres said in English, indicating a chair.

Haere declined with a shake of his head, reached into his inside breast pocket, brought out a fat envelope, and handed it to Torres.The Major removed the packets of $50 bills from the envelope and counted them swiftly but carefully onto his desk.

“All there,” he said after he finished the counting. “The Haitians said it would be.” He scooped the money up, put it back in the envelope, and brought out a ring of keys. “I hear the fighting has reached the television station,” he said as he selected a small key, unlocked a drawer, and put the money away.

“Who do you think will win?” Haere said.

“The rebels.”

“Where does that leave you?”

Major Torres rose, smiling. “I’m sure the rebels will provide me with many, many customers, provided, of course, they don’t shoot everyone. Well, I think it all went smoothly enough, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Haere said. “It did.”

“And the two Haitians?”

“They decided to return to Miami.”

“Charming fellows,” the major said. “Can I offer you a ride back to your hotel?”

“No thanks,” Haere said. “I’ll walk.”

The major patted his huge stomach. “I should do that, walk more.” He took out his newly acquired gold Rolex and looked at the time. “You must let your walk take you by the Presidential Palace.”

“Why?”

“Do you like historic occasions?”

“Very much.”

“Then let your walk take you by the palace.”

A crowd of some five to six thousand persons had already formed outside the Presidential Palace by the time Haere reached it. It was a strangely silent crowd whose members spoke to each other, if at all, in whispers. Civilians armed with M-16s and wearing green scarves around their necks had cleared a space in front of the palace gates. The space was in the shape of a squashed horseshoe.

As one of life’s great gawkers, Haere worked his way to the front of the crowd with practiced ease. Something bumped against his thigh. He looked down and with surprise found that he was still carrying Velveeta Keats’s Polaroid.

“You will have something to take a picture of in a minute,” the man next to him murmured.

“What?” Haere said.

“Wait and see.”

The gates swung open and the crowd sighed. The three older civilians, wearing their green neck scarves, came through the gates first. They were followed by Colonel-General Carrasco-Cortes in full dress uniform, his hands bound behind him. Next came the two men who sometimes called themselves John D. Yarn and Richard Tighe. They walked side by side. Their hands were also bound behind them. After Tighe and Yarn came the four young officers: the two majors, the young captain, and the very young lieutenant.

The army officers took over and led the general and the two Americans to the wall. The three prisoners were turned around so that they faced the crowd. The older of the two majors looked back at the oldest civilian, as if for confirmation. The civilian frowned and shook his head. He went over to the three prisoners and moved them down the wall to the exact spot where the late President had been executed. The crowd murmured its appreciation.

There were no speeches. The civilians and the four young officers lined up in a row in front of the general and the two Americans. No more than twenty feet separated the prisoners from their captors. The eyes of the two Americans swept frantically over the crowd, seeking rescue. Yarn’s eyes found Draper Haere.

“For God’s sake, Haere!” It came out of Yarn’s throat half-scream, half-yell.

Haere stared back at him. The four officers and the three civilians raised their weapons.

“Goddamn it, Haere, please!” This time it was indeed a scream.

Haere raised the Polaroid camera, aimed it, and pushed the red button just after the civilians and the officers fired. The camera whirred. The film rolled out. Yarn fell first, and then Tighe. The general, with three bullets in him, continued to stand. He cried, “Long live—” but was unable to complete his last command. He fell back against the wall instead, slid down it into an awkward sitting position, and sat there until he died a few seconds later.

Draper Haere took the film from the camera. He turned and walked away through the still-silent crowd. The film slowly developed. It turned out to be an excellent picture.