North of Havana

10

Geis came by our room at seven to take us to dinner.

To join us, really, since I'd insisted on paying Tomlinson's loan and using the interest to pay the tab. I decided a night on the town wouldn't hurt. As Dewey had said, "Why sit around on our butts waiting?" Besides, I had the names that Armando Azcona and Juan Rivera had provided-Juan's secretary had offered a couple of other bits of information-and I wanted to look around Havana, see if I could decipher where and how to get in touch with the anti-Castro underground. Something to do, like an old hobby.

I opened the door to find Geis dressed in white dinner jacket and tropic worsted slacks, red hair brushed, mustache trimmed, shoes with a plastic shine. Smoking a cigar, too. One of the big ones wrapped hard with black leaves.

"Cohiba," he told me, moving it back and forth under his nose. "Couple of weeks ago, Fidel gave me one of his Trinidads to try. Next to that, this's the best cigar in the world."

Jesus, put a dinner jacket on the guy and he became a name-dropper. Having meetings with Fidel?

An hour earlier, I'd made it a point to strike up conver- sations with some of the hotel staff and managed to slip in questions about Lenny Geis. Yes, they said, he was a businessman from Canada. Yes, he'd spent every other month at Havana Libre for more than a year. Certainly-he was a nice man! And very important, judging from the government officials who sometimes came to dine with him.

Now, from across the room, Dewey took one look at Geis, hooted, and said, "Shit, Lenny, you didn't tell me we were going formal!" and hurried back to the bedroom to change. She came out a few minutes later wearing a gauzy, form-fitting black dress with silver buttons down the front that I'd not only never seen before but couldn't imagine her wearing. She saw the question forming in my eyes and answered in advance. Leaned to my ear to whisper: "Madrid, you big dufuss. Think I order all my clothes from Cabela's, like you? And I've got on those little jade underwear I told you about."

Finding Bets in bed with the French tennis star had been good for the Spanish fashion industry.

We walked seaward, then east along the Malecon. The evening had weight to it, warm and saturated with Gulf Stream air. A tropic night with stars above the silhouettes of stone garrisons and palms, while salsa music-it always sounded like an accordion player on a galloping horse- drifted through the streets.

Havana seemed healthier, more alive after dark… probably because decay is best revealed by sunlight.

The promenade was busy: bicycles, strollers, black-market hucksters, a few cars. Mostly Detroit's big-finned classics coming out of the shadows and showing themselves in the streetlights. Fifty-seven Chevys and Studebakers, a '49 Ford cruising beetle-like with its lavender taillights. They were something for Geis to talk about. Issue one of his nonstop monologues that seemed designed to purge loneliness rather than demonstrate what an expert he was on Cuba. At least the cars got him off the subject of prostitutes, who were hounding him, he said, making his life more difficult than it needed to be-he was so committed to the fiancee waiting for him in Montreal that he resented the temptation. "A lot of them, you can't help but notice are just plain gorgeous," he had said, "particularly some of the young mulattos. But I've got a good solid routine; I'm working. You won't catch me paying ten bucks to bring one up to my room!"

Now, walking beneath ficus trees, studying the traffic, he said, "These cars would be worth a mint back in the states. A forty-two Packard, you kidding? That old Buick? What'a you think that'd be worth? But they're just transportation to the habaneros. The only machines in the whole damn country that still work… use baling wire and Jeep tires to keep them running. Their gas ration is like ten gallons a month so they trade chickens, fish-you name it; their sisters-for a little extra gas so they can cruise the Malecon at night."

Dewey, who'd missed her run and wasn't in the best of moods, said, "I've got a new Corvette back home. Candy apple red." Not particularly interested. She was walking between Geis and me. Geis, with his short legs, was having a tough time keeping up.

Maybe to slow her, he said, "But your 'vette's not worth half what these cars are worth. Believe it. Couple years ago, the Cuban government was so tight for money they offered new Russian Ladas to the owners in trade. You know, polish up the classics and sell them for tens of thousands on the international collectors' market. But the habaneros didn't want that Russian garbage, so they started hiding their cars. The one Castro's people really want is a fifty-five Chrysler convertible." He looked at Dewey, then at me. Did we know why? I waited it out until he said, "Because it was Ernest Hemingway's car. White Chrysler two-door, red-leather upholstery. He lived just south of Havana, drove it to Cojimar every day to fish. Remember The Old Man and the Sea? Hemingway would drive around with the top down, figuring out the story in his head. But Castro's people never found the thing, so it's probably long gone. What'a you think a car like that'd be worth?" He was serious now, talking to me man to man. I waited until he said, "I figure the bidding would start at a couple hundred thousand, go up pretty quick to a million-five, maybe an even two. Remember what someone paid for Elvis's car a while back? Get some rich Japanese involved, yeah, I could see it happening."

When I said, "That's a lot to pay for a Chrysler," Geis's slow chuckle told Dewey that I didn't know anything about it. But when Dewey said, "Shit, with Hemingway alive and still in it, that's too much to pay," he let it go.

That showed me Dewey was having an impact on him, too.

He liked doing that. Liked pointing out bits and pieces of Havana, then calculating what they would be worth in Canada or the U.S. "Back in the world," he would say. Eating pork with lime and drinking mint mojitos at La Bode-guita-a cramped little restaurant where graffiti covered the walls-he said, "Frame some of the signatures, box up all the little signs and mementos, they'd bring thousands at an auction in New York. It's history," he said. "This little restaurant is so famous. Jane Fonda's name's on that far wall. She came to visit Fidel after sitting on that ack-ack gun in Hanoi, pretending to shoot down American planes. Hell, she'd of done it if she'd had the chance."

This Canadian talking like some pissed-off vet, showing me he empathized. Why else?

I had already studied the walls, not looking for famous names but searching for a bit of graffito that Rivera's secretary had told me about. Didn't find it.

Geis behaved the same way while he and Dewey drank daiquiris at Floridita. "That painting of Morro Castle behind the bar? That bronze bust of Ernest? Man, the stools. All priceless."

Geis toured us around Old Havana. Stone streets just wide enough for an oxcart, stone buildings with verandas hanging over the sidewalks. "Like New Orleans," he said, "only not that fake, touristy bullshit. People live in these places. Sometimes two families to an apartment." Every block, pointed out a statue or a museum… Lenin, Marx, Guevara… the Rosenbergs, too-"They're heroes here, the American traitors who sold A-bomb plans to the Soviets." He whispered it, as though it were a dangerous thing to say. When Dewey told him, "The whole place's like one big museum," he said, "Yeah, the museum of a failed system. I keep telling my fiancee that Havana gets to me. Like living in a city that's dead but has survivors walking around. But believe me, one day there'll be a ton of money to be made here."

Now we were in the oldest part of Havana, the Plaza de la Catedral, a cobblestone courtyard fronted by ornate block buildings. The opening to each building was set deep behind stone pillars so the courtyard seemed enclosed by a catacomb of caves. I'd been standing in the background listening to Geis talk about it, working hard at charming Dewey, fiancee or no fiancee. I drifted off by myself when he started talking about the priests, the bishops-"I have a strong interest in the church," he explained-and the conquistadors who once frequented the place. Then I stopped at the entrance of what appeared to be an open cathedral. I stood peering in as if looking at Gothic windows, the coral rock floors, and the Nativity scene near the gold-and-onyx altar-first sign of Christmas I'd seen in Havana. But what had really caught my attention was a number and a letter that had recently, very recently, been scraped into a stone archway: 8A.

Juan Rivera's secretary had told me that 8A was what I should look for. It was the newest of the ever-changing code words that Havana's anti-Castro people used to communicate. Find that symbol and I might be able to connect with someone named Molinas or Valdes, the contact Armando Azcona had given me.

I didn't have to ask why dissidents went by single names and kept changing their codes.

I gave it a few seconds before turning toward the garden at the center of the courtyard. There were a few people sitting on stone benches in the darkness. I thought about strolling over and making a polite tourist inquiry: "Did my tour guides Mr. Molinas or Mr. Valdes pass by here?" but decided it would be a stupid thing to do unless I really needed help. Besides, Geis was coming toward me now… taking Dewey's arm as if they were on a Sunday walk.

"Got to say, you've got taste, Doc. Wanna know what you're looking at?" I thought he meant the graffito but, no, he was talking about the open room of the cathedral. He leaned up against one of the limestone pillars, pointed, and said, "This is one of my favorite places in Havana, the Cathedral of the Conception. It was built more than four hundred years ago"-he looked at Dewey to see if she was impressed-"to be like the Vatican of the New World. See that little niche in the wall? This place was so holy, Columbus himself used to be buried right there. Well, not buried but… interred. Like in a vault?"

I was trying to read the marble slab beside the niche. Difficult because it was in archaic Spanish… something about remains that were to be preserved for a thousand years in remembrance of a nation. I wondered which nation, Cuba or Spain?

Geis was still talking to Dewey. "Columbus, his bones I mean-the actual explorer, I'm talking about-he lay right there for more than a hundred years until he disappeared like in nineteen-hundred. Him and his little solid lead box."

Dewey said, "You're telling us somebody came in and stole Christopher Columbus?"

"Not really, but some of the religious Cubans-there're more religious people here than you'd think-they'd like to believe Columbus never left. Not because of what he did. Jesus, the Indios hate him for what he did. It's because of the medals he supposedly wore around his neck. You've seen the paintings I'm talking about?"

Dewey turned to me and said, "In a place that doesn't get ESPN, I guess you have to get interested in history or go nuts, huh?" Geis chuckled, showing that he really liked her style. "I know what you're saying, yeah, it seems kind'a dry, right…? Anyway, what probably happened was, the Spaniards shipped his remains back to Spain. Columbus I'm saying. Him and the medals-one given to him by Queen Isabella and blessed by the pope, the other some kind of sacred medallion the Spaniards took from this rebel Indian before they burned him at the stake. The beer you were drinking, Hatuey?" With his good Spanish, Geis pronounced it correctly: AH-tu-way. He said, "It's named after him, Yara Hatuey. That's why it has a picture of an Indian on the label. Hatuey supposedly gave the conquistadors fits before they finally caught him, and Columbus was given the medallion. Like to show they had control of the island and prove that Hatuey was dead. Before they burned him, know what this Indian asked when they offered to baptize him? He asked if there were any conquistador Christians in heaven. When they told him yes, plenty, he said he'd rather go to hell, so go ahead and light the fire."

I was looking at the 8A carved into the arch as Dewey said, "So what would Columbus and his medals be worth back in the states?" joking, but giving it a soft touch. Maybe Geis would get it, maybe he wouldn't.

I realized Geis was looking from me to the arch, then back to me. It had finally dawned on him what had really drawn me to the cathedral; I could tell by his sudden nervousness. I listened to him tell Dewey, "It's like all this waterfront property. A fortune. Whatever the international money guys will pay for it," before he touched my shoulder and said, "We better be moving along, ay?"

Geis waited until Dewey had crossed the lobby, headed for our room before he said, "I notice you've got an interest in street art, shit like that. A guy like you-kind of bookish, like a college professor-that's kind'a unusual, huh?"

No longer in the presence of a lady, Lenny Geis had an earthier vocabulary.

We were sitting in the patio bar of the Havana Libre. I could have chosen to watch Dewey walking to the elevator-swing of hips, bounce of soft hair; full of herself, confident in the person she perceived herself to be and secure in her view of the world.

I could have watched her, but didn't. Later… later, I would deeply regret that small indifference…

Instead, I looked through the palms into the street where young girls in tight dresses stood staring back at us. Their restlessness, standing out there wanting something to happen, put me in mind of behavior that was familiar. Stray dogs?

I took off my glasses and used a napkin to clean them, as I said, "We've got an audience, Lenny."

He didn't have to look. "The jineteras? They're always out there. The manager won't let them in unless they're with a guest. Hey…" Now he did take a peek. "… you see a tall mulatto in a white dress? She's usually there; always wears the same white dress, but clean. I mean, spotless. No-o-o-pe… must be two dozen or so and… but she's not around…" He sat back in his chair. "She'll show up. Always does. Believe me, once you see her you'll remember. No older than nineteen with legs that go clear up to her tits. My God, and her face. I've never said a word to her. I've got no reason, right? But sometimes I think she comes to the Havana Libre just to see me. The way she looks at me, you know? Stares right into my eyes. God damn! A girl like that, back in the states, what'd she be worth? She'd be grabbed by some rich doctor. A rock star maybe? Anything she wanted. The kind of woman you see at the best dinner parties. What a buddy of mine calls a Gold Card woman-kind of like Dewey… no offense."

I smiled-none taken.

Geis said, "The mulatto shows up, you'll understand. That's the thing. In Havana? She's just another ten-buck whore." He paused for a moment, his mind on the girl, before he added, "Not that I care. Because it's like I told you: I stick to my routine. Watch my health, never have more than a couple of drinks a night. For me, Havana's strictly business. That's what I told my fiancee-an investment of time that's going to pay off big."

I was still smiling at him. Not that I found him funny, but many times I'd seen Westernized men and women struggle against what they perceived to be that dark side of the Third World. I had done my share of struggling as well. I said, "They can really put the hook in you, Lenny."

"Hook? You know why God gave women pubic hair?

To hide the hook. But don't get the wrong idea, Doc. I'm not interested. You know what it's like… bored and alone in a place like this. I'd never do anything about it. But no-" He finished his daiquiri and motioned for the waiter to bring another round. His fourth tonight. "-what I was asking you about was the graffiti." Changing the subject, putting the ball back in my court.

When I didn't answer right away, he said, "I noticed you studying it at the restaurant, then at… other places around town."

Geis knew what the symbol over the cathedral door meant. I was certain of it. I said, "You seemed pretty interested yourself. A number and a letter over a church door. Why would somebody put that there?"

I could see that he wanted to finesse it… then I watched him change his mind. Finally, he said, "You came down to help your friend, right? That's the only reason?"

"The one and only reason."

"I've got to ask for your word of honor on that. Seriously. I'm seen with the wrong person in this town, they'd put me on the next plane out."

I was tempted to say "Scout's honor." Instead, I said, "Pay off Tomlinson's bill and get him back on his boat. That's why I came."

He cleared his throat and scooched his chair closer to the table so he didn't have to speak so loud. "Okay, then let me give you some advice. Things go on in this country you don't want to know about or even hear about. The way to deal with it is see no evil, hear no evil. Do that-which is exactly what I do-you won't have any problem."

"It's that bad? Eight A?" I said it in Spanish: Ocho A.

It got me a long look of appraisal before Geis said, "Let's drop the bullshit, Doc. You mind? The way you were looking at it, I could tell it meant something. You're from Florida. A smart guy and educated. Maybe you've got friends in the Cuban community. Maybe they told you one or two things." He held up his palm to silence me. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I'm just saying the smart thing to do is ignore shit like that. A place like this, you're being watched even if you don't think you're being watched." He swirled the ice in his glass, began talking in a normal tone of voice. "It's good advice and I hope you take it. No offense, but you don't know how things work down here."

I waited until the waiter had placed his drink on the table and left us before I said, "Just looking at something carved over a church entrance could get me in trouble?"

He nodded. "In this country, people have had their dicks bobbed for less than that." I watched him wait for me to reply-a guy who liked to talk, but not sure he should. Finally, he asked, "You really don't know what it means?"

"No, but I'm getting curious. And what you said about the way Cuba works. Politics? I'd like to hear about it." I gave it an articulate touch: the professorial type eager to learn.

Geis took a look over both shoulders; lowered his head to look through the palms at the prostitutes. He said, "You want to take a walk?"

"Ocho A is street language," Geis said, "for a guy who was executed, a Cuban general named Ochoa."

Arnaldo Ochoa-he'd played second base in the exhibition game with Castro; a man I had met briefly and liked immediately. I'd guessed what the symbol meant, but wanted to hear Geis tell it.

"People are so afraid to speak, everything down here is in code or sign language. Someone's pissed at Fidel? Even talking to a family member, they scratch their chin-you know, meaning a beard?-to signal who they're talking about. It's because they're afraid to say his name. For his brother Raul, they touch their mouth because he's gay. Hangs out with the beanie-weanie packers a few blocks from here, down Twenty-third at the Casa de las Infusiones. No one comes right out and says anything that can get them into trouble, so they invent these signs and signals. Ocho A. That stands for Ochoa, the dead general."

I said, "Because they're afraid to write it out."

Geis said, "Yeah, but it's a lot more complicated than that."

We had walked south on Twenty-third past the University of Havana campus, then beneath seventeenth-century stone warehouses with wash hanging from the windows, old men and women sitting in doorways.

Lots of restless, wakeful people in Havana. It was a few minutes after ten P.M.

Several of the prostitutes had tagged along after us but finally gave up. Looking back at them had given me an opportunity to see if we were being followed. It seemed as if we were on our own. Streets were nearly empty. Even so, Geis kept his voice low.

"Ochoa was Cuba's most popular military leader. He fought with Fidel against Batista, then led troops in Venezuela, Angola, Ethiopia, you name it. Even the Russians considered him a military genius. Placed their own troops under him, and he was probably Fidel's best friend. But Ochoa really screwed up."

"Something he did, you mean."

"Arnaldo Ochoa? No way. He was an absolute straight shooter. Didn't take bribes, followed orders, lived like the rest of these people live; crummy little house in a neighborhood. No, what he did was became too popular with his troops and with the Cuban people. The whole country knew his name. Which is why a few years ago-eighty-nine, maybe?-Raul marched him out in front of a firing squad and had him shot. No more Ochoa, no more threat to Fidel. You know what his last words were? 'I'm no traitor.' That's the kind of man he was."

I said, "So that's how Cuba works."

"Abso-fucking-lutely right and don't you forget it. When it comes to Fidel, don't believe a thing you read about him in America. Canadian press? Same bullshit. The American media, man, they've always loved the guy. You see that thing with Barbara Walters? Dan Rather? Closest thing to blow jobs Fidel ever got with his pants zipped." Geis leaned forward, getting into it. "Back in the Batista days, nobody in Cuba even knew who the fucking guy was until the New York Times runs a series about him being a national hero. Some left-wing reporter interviews this pathological liar-Fidel, I'm talking about-and comes out with stories that make Fidel seem like Sir Lancelot. Reports everything Fidel says as the gospel truth.

"Batista, the idiot, tried to have his people destroy all the copies of the story as they came off the boat, which made every Cuban on the island want to read the fucking thing. Said Castro'd killed a lot of Batista's troops, all bullshit. The only skirmish Fidel was in, he ran off and left his men. But this thing, this story said he was like a God living up there in the mountains, idolized by thousands. So what happens? Everybody who reads it, millions of Cubans, they start to idolize this guy they know absolutely nothing about. It was in the New York Times, so it had to be true, right? The men instantly admired him, every woman on the island wanted to screw him, have his illegitimate child- and, buddy, there are plenty of those floating around. The other revolutionaries, hey! it didn't matter that they thought Fidel was a weirdo, a joke. Called him El Loco, and they meant it. They laughed at him. But Castro had the people on his side. Tliat's all that mattered."

Geis said, "So when Ochoa, Fidel's most dedicated friend, got too popular, they used AK-47s on him. But see"-Geis touched my arm to emphasize his point- "Ochoa wasn't pure Castilian like Fidel's other top guys. He had some Indio in him. Fidel called him El Negro, like it was a pet name, but I think the man has a thing about race…" Geis hesitated. "You with me so far?"

I said, "I'm learning a lot, Lenny."

Listening to him, putting it all together-Geis's background, this right-wing Canadian knowing the whole Castro story-it was true.

Geis liked compliments. They seemed to make him stand a little taller. I listened to him say, "So… let's say there are certain people in this country who aren't pure Castilian and who think Cuba needs a change of leadership. Like there's this Afro-Cuban group, the Abakua, an all-male secret society-a guy told me they drink blood from human skulls. Not just blacks either; lots of whites have joined up. They are a very violent people, heavy into crime and San-terfa, so Castro deals with them a couple of ways. One, he pays them public respect. Population wise, they're the majority, see? The Santeros, I'm talking about, not the Abakua. But two, he liquidates any Abakua who gets out of line. His Gestapo shows up in the night, and the troublemaker disappears.

"To the Abakuas-and I'm not saying it's just them- but to those kind of people, Arnaldo Ochoa is a hero. Which is why they use his name in code. Other than that, we are talking about a group so far underground you never hear a thing about them. Just Ocho A, like a reminder they're there."

I said, "So that's why it made you nervous, my looking at it."

"Fuckingaye right. Let's face facts: I don't know you from Adam, you don't know me, but in a place like this, us gringos have to hang together. That's why I'm telling you. If I hadn't met up with Tomlinson… Hiked the guy. He says you're friends, so that's why I'm trusting you. Tomlinson, there's no doubt he's exactly what he seems to be. But you… for all I know, you could be one of those holdover Soviet spooks that Fidel keeps on his private staff. His Rojo Seis-that's what they supposedly call themselves. Only six of them, right? Red Six. Sends these Russians out to do his personal dirty work, the intricate stuff, espionage or setting up foreigners. Speak their language, then arrest them or shoot them in the back of the head. Just telling you, I'm taking a risk."

Castro's elite special operations team of Russian mercenaries, Red Six, had been active in 1980 at the time of the refugee boat lift. Still listening to Geis, I had a fast memory flash of our long-ago escape from the harbor in an IBS-Inflatable Boat, Small. All that Gulf wind and black water. Remembered Armando Azcona leaning against me, bleeding, but conscious enough to say to me, "You think now they'll change the name to Rojo Cuatro?" Meaning Red Four.

To Geis, I said, "You're serious about this."

"Aren't you listening to what I'm saying? Of course I'm serious."

"About the Russians, I mean."

"That they'd set me up?" Geis shrugged, palms turned upward. "Havana was built on Indian corpses and Spanish rumors. That's an expression here. I don't know if they'd set me up. Shit, I don't really know if Fidel has Russians on his intelligence staff anymore. It's just one of those things you hear. These spooky guys, experts in just about everything, and Fidel sends them out like falcons. It's a rumor. Like Raul wears dresses, Fidel's got inoperable throat cancer. You know the kind of thing I'm talking about? Fidel and Santeria, there's another one. That he actually believes in that shit-he's the one that got Noriega painting himself with chicken blood, making sacrifices.

"What else the Cubans got besides rumors? You don't get any news here. The media's a promotional branch of the government. Nobody knows anything. You got about a thousand different little government agencies all out for themselves. Raul runs the military and he hates the Interior Ministry and the Interior Ministry hates Castro's people, and Castro's people don't give a shit 'cause everybody's corrupt and that's okay as long as Fidel keeps his job.

"The whole fucking country," Geis said, "is like a hockey brawl. No one winning, just some people losing a little faster than others. It's the way the laws are. Everything's illegal, so everyone has to be a criminal to survive. It's the way Fidel wants it. Keep everyone ignorant and guilty, he's in complete control."

"It's a technique," I said.

"Fuckingaye," he said. "The Big Lie, just like Hitler."

"You know him through meetings. Castro."

"Well… I've been to one. Just because I don't like the guy doesn't mean I can't do business with him."

Maybe my silence told Geis I thought he was exaggerating because, after a short pause, he added, "Well… actually, the meeting was with him and about ten of his advisors. That's where he gave me the cigars

… one of his advisors, really, 'cause when Fidel's in the room nobody talks but him. That Trinidad, it's a fine smoke."

The way he said it, I decided he might be lying about the whole thing. "Sounds like you're doing pretty well, Lenny."

"Yeah," he said, "but it's just part of my job." Grinned at me-enough of that subject. Said, "Only, I'm off duty now."

We were at the corner of Twenty-third and G. Off to our left, an alleyway cut between buildings. Across the street was a seedy looking bar, the Casa de las Infusiones. Flickering oil lamps and smoke, dark shapes moving inside. A place that would have ceiling fans and curtains of strung beads. I remembered Geis saying it was the bar where Raul Castro sometimes hung out. I was deciding whether I should ask Geis how he knew so much-why would anyone risk telling him what he'd told me?-when I heard a soft mewing sound, then what seemed to be a child's muffled scream.

I looked toward the alley to see a boy standing there. He looked about ten, but probably older. Baggy pants, no shirt. He had an index finger pressed to his lips-be quiet-and was motioning to me frantically. Geis was looking by the time I turned and started toward the boy. I felt his hand on my shoulder and heard him say, "Are you nuts? Stay out of it."

There was another scream, this one louder. Definitely a child back there in some kind of trouble. I took off running toward the boy, hearing Geis call after me, "Hey… HEY! It's not our business!" Heard him yell, "I'll leave you… I mean it, man!"