Our Man in Havana

Chapter 5

‘Come in, Captain Segura.’

Captain Segura gleamed. His leather gleamed, his buttons gleamed, and there was fresh pomade upon his hair. He was like a well cared-for weapon. He said, ‘I was so pleased when Milly brought the message.’

‘We have a lot to talk over. Shall we have a game first? Tonight I am going to beat you.’

‘I doubt it, Mr Wormold. I do not yet have to show you filial respect.’ Wormold unfolded the draughts board. Then he arranged on the board twenty-four miniature bottles of whisky: twelve Bourbon confronted twelve Scotch.

‘What is this, Mr Wormold?’

‘An idea of Dr Hasselbacher’s. I thought we might have one game to his memory. When you take a piece you drink it.’

‘A shrewd idea, Mr Wormold. As I am the better player I drink more.’

‘And then I catch up with you -in the drinks also.’

‘I think I would prefer to play with ordinary pieces.’

‘Are you afraid of being beaten, Segura? Perhaps you have a weak head.’ ‘My head is as strong as another man’s, but sometimes with drink I lose my temper. I do not wish to lose my temper with my future father.’ ‘Milly won’t marry you, Segura.’

‘That is what we have to discuss.’

‘You play with the Bourbon. Bourbon is stronger than Scotch. I shall be handicapped.’

‘That is not necessary. I will play with the Scotch.’

Segura turned the board and sat down.

‘Why not take off your belt, Segura? You’ll be more comfortable.’ Segura laid his belt and holster on the ground beside him ‘I will fight you unarmed,’ he said jovially.

‘Do you keep your gun loaded?’

‘Of course. The kind of enemies I possess do not give me a chance to load.’

‘Have you found the murderer of Hasselbacher?’

‘No. He does not belong to the criminal class.’

‘Carter?’

‘After what you said, naturally I checked. He was with Dr Braun at the time. And we cannot doubt the word of the President of the European Traders’ Association, can we?’

‘So Dr Braun is on your list?’

‘Naturally. And now to play.’

There is an imaginary line in draughts, as every player knows, that crosses the board diagonally from corner to corner. It is the line of defence. Whoever gains control of that line takes the initiative; when the line is crossed the attack has begun. With an insolent ease Segura established himself with a Defiance opening, then moved a bottle across through the centre of the board. He didn’t hesitate between moves; he hardly looked at the board. It was Wormold who paused and thought.

‘Where is Milly?’ Segura asked.

‘Out.’

‘And your charming secretary?’

‘With Milly.’

‘You are already in difficulties,’ Captain Segura said. He struck at the base of Wormold’s defence and captured a bottle of Old Taylor. ‘The first drink,’ he said and drained it. Wormold recklessly began a pincer movement in reply and almost at once lost a bottle of Old Forester this time. A few beads of sweat came out on Segura’s forehead and he cleared his throat after drinking. He said, ‘You play recklessly, Mr Wormold.’ He indicated the board. ‘You should have taken that piece.’

‘You can huff me,’ Wormold said.

For the first time Segura hesitated. He said, ‘No. I prefer you to take my piece.’ It was an unfamiliar whisky called Cairngorm and it found a raw spot on Wormold’s tongue.

They played for a while with exaggerated care, neither taking a piece.

‘Is Carter still at the Seville-Biltmore?’ Wormold asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you keep him under observation?’

‘No. What is the use?’

Wormold was clinging to the edge of the board with what was left of his foiled pincer movement, but he had lost his base. He made a false move which enabled Segura to thrust a protected piece into square 22 and there was no way left of saving his piece on 25 and preventing Segura from reaching the back row and gaining a king.

‘Careless,’ Segura said.

‘I can make it an exchange.’

‘But I have the king.’

Segura drank a Four Roses and Wormold at the other end of the board took a dimpled Haig. Segura said, ‘It is a hot evening.’ He crowned his king with a scrap of paper. Wormold said, ‘If I capture him I have to drink two bottles. I have spares in the cupboard.’

‘You have thought everything out,’ Segura said. Was it with sourness? He played now with great caution. It became difficult to tempt him to a capture and Wormold began to realize the fundamental weakness of his plan, that it is possible for a good player to defeat an opponent without capturing his pieces. He took one more of Segura’s and was trapped. He was left without a move.

Segura wiped the sweat from his forehead.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘you cannot win.’

‘You must give me my revenge.’

‘This Bourbon is strong .85 proof.’

‘We will switch the whiskies.’

This time Wormold was black, with the Scotch. He had replaced the three Scotch he had drunk and the three Bourbon. He started with the Old Fourteenth opening, which is apt to lead to a long-drawn-out game, for he knew now that his only hope was to make Segura lose his caution and play for pieces. Again he tried to be huffed, but Segura would not accept the move. It was as though Segura had recognized that his real opponent was not Wormold but his own head. He even threw away a piece with no tactical advantage and forced Wormold to take it -a Hiram Walker. Wormold realized that his own head was in danger; the mixture of Scotch and Bourbon was a deadly one. He said, ‘Give me a cigarette.’ Segura leant forward to light it and Wormold was aware of the effort he had to make to keep the lighter steady. It wouldn’t snap and he cursed with unnecessary violence. Two more drinks and I have him, Wormold thought. But it was as difficult to lose a piece to an unwilling antagonist as to capture one. Against his own will the battle was swaying to his side. He drank one Harper’s and made a king. He said with false joviality, ‘The game’s mine, Segura. Do you want to pack up?’

Segura scowled at the board. It was obvious that he was torn in two, between the desire to win and the desire to keep his head, but his head was clouded by anger as well as whisky. He said, ‘This is a pig’s way of playing checkers.’ Now that his opponent had a king, he could no longer play for a bloodless victory, for the king had freedom of movement. This time when he sacrificed a Kentucky Tavern it was a genuine sacrifice and he swore at the pieces. ‘The damned shapes,’ he said, ‘they are all different. Cut-glass, whoever heard of a checker-piece of cut-glass?’ Wormold felt his own brain fogged with the Bourbon, but the moment for victory and defeat had come. Segura said, ‘You moved my piece.’

‘No, that’s Red Label. Mine.’

‘How in God’s name can I tell the difference between Scotch and Bourbon?

They are all bottles, aren’t they?’

‘You are angry because you are losing.’

‘I never lose.’

Then Wormold made his careful slip and exposed his king. For a moment he thought that Segura had not noticed and then he thought that deliberately to avoid drinking Segura was going to let his chance go by. But the temptation to take the king was great and what lay beyond the move was a shattering victory. His own piece would be made a king and a massacre would follow. Yet he hesitated. The heat of the whisky and the close night melted his face like a wax doll’s; he had difficulty in focusing. He said, ‘Why did you do that?’ ‘What?’

‘You lose your king and the game.’

‘Damn. I didn’t notice. I must be drunk.’

‘You drunk?’

‘A little.’

‘I’m drunk too. You know I’m drunk. You are trying to make me drunk.

Why?’

‘Don’t be a fool, Segura. Why should I want to make you drunk? Let’s stop the game, call it a draw.’

‘God damn a draw. I know why you want to make me drunk. You want to show me that list I mean you want me to show you.’

‘What list?’

‘I have you all in the net. Where is Milly?’

‘I told you, out.’

‘Tonight I go to the Chief of Police. We draw the net tight.’

‘With Carter in it?’

‘Who is Carter?’ He wagged his finger at Wormold. ‘You are in it -but I know you are no agent. You are a fraud.’

‘Why not sleep a bit, Segura? A drawn game.’

‘No drawn game. Look. I take your king.’ He opened the little bottle of Red Label and drank it down.

‘Two bottles for a king,’ Wormold said and handed him a Dunosdale Cream. Segura sat heavily in his chair, his chin rocking. He said, ‘Admit you are beaten. I do not play for pieces.’

‘I admit nothing. I have the better head and look, I huff you. You could have gone on.’ A Canadian rye had got mixed with the Bourbons, a Lord Calvert, and Wormold drank it down. He thought, it must be the last. If he doesn’t pass out now, I’m finished. I won’t be sober enough to pull a trigger. Did he say it was loaded?

‘Matters nothing,’ Segura said in a whisper. ‘You are finished anyway.’ He moved his hand slowly over the board as though he were carrying an egg in a spoon. ‘See?’ He captured one piece, two pieces, three. ‘Drink this, Segura.’ A George IV, a Queen Anne, the game was ending in a flourish of royalty, a Highland Queen.

‘You can go on, Segura. Or shall I huff you again? Drink down.’ Vat 69.

‘Another. Drink it, Segura.’ Grant’s Standfast. Old Argyll. ‘Drink them, Segura. I surrender now.’ But it was Segura who had surrendered. Wormold undid the captain’s collar to give him air and eased his head on the back of the seat, but his own legs were uncertain as he walked towards the door. He had Segura’s gun in his pocket.

At the Seville-Biltmore he went to the house phone and called up Carter. He had to admit that Carter’s nerves were steady far steadier than his own. Carter’s mission in Cuba had not been properly fulfilled and yet he stayed on, as a marksman or perhaps as a decoy duck. Wormold said, ‘Good evening, Carter.’ ‘Why, good evening, Wormold.’ The voice had just the right chill of injured pride.

‘I want to apologize to you, Carter. That silly business of the whisky.

I was tight I suppose. I’m a bit tight now. Not used to apologizing.’

‘It’s quite all right, Wormold. Go to bed.’

‘Sneered at your stammer. Chap shouldn’t do that.’ He found himself talking like Hawthorne. Falsity was an occupational disease. ‘I didn’t know what the H-hell you meant.’

‘I shoon -soon found out what was wrong. Nothing to do with you. That damned headwaiter poisoned his own dog. It was very old, of course, but to give it poisoned scraps that’s not the way to put a dog to sleep.’ ‘Is that what h-happened? Thank you for letting me know, but it’s late.

I’m just going to bed, Wormold.’

‘Man’s best friend.’

‘What’s that? I can’t h-hear you.’

‘Caesar, the King’s friend, and there was the rough-haired one who went down at Jutland. Last seen on the bridge beside his master.’ ‘You are drunk, Wormold.’ It was so much easier, Wormold found, to imitate drunkenness after -how many Scotch and Bourbon? You can trust a drunk man -in vi no veritas. You can also more easily dispose of a drunk man. Carter would be a fool not to take the chance. Wormold said, ‘I feel in the mood for going round the spots.’

“What spots?’

‘The spots you wanted to see in Havana.’

‘It’s getting late.’

‘It’s the right time.’ Carter’s hesitation came at him down the wire. He said, ‘Bring a gun.’ He felt a strange reluctance to kill an unarmed killer if Carter should ever chance to be unarmed.

‘A gun? Why?’

‘In some of these places they try to roll you.’

‘Can’t you bring one?’

‘I don’t happen to own one.’

‘Nor do I,’ and he believed he caught in the receiver the metallic sound of a chamber being checked. Diamond cut diamond, he thought, and smiled. But a smile is dangerous to the act of hate as much as to the act of love. He had to remind himself of how Hasselbacher had looked, staring up from the floor under the bar. They had not given the old man one chance, and he was giving Carter plenty. He began to regret the drinks he had taken.

‘I’ll meet you in the bar,’ Carter said.

‘Don’t be long.’

‘I have to get dressed.’

Wormold was glad now of the darkness of the bar. Carter, he supposed, was telephoning to his friends and perhaps making a rendezvous, but in the bar at any rate they couldn’t pick him out before he saw them. There was one entrance from the street and one from the hotel, and at the back a kind of balcony which would give support if he needed it to his gun. Anyone who entered was blinded for a while by the darkness, as he himself was. When he entered he couldn’t for a moment see whether the bar held one or two customers, for the pair were tightly locked on a sofa by the street door.

He asked for a Scotch, but he left it untasted, sitting on the balcony, watching both doors. Presently a man entered; he couldn’t see the face; it was the hand patting the pipe-pocket which identified Carter. ‘Carter.’

Carter came to him.

‘Let’s be off,’ Wormold said.

‘Take your drink first and I’ll h-have one to keep you company.’ ‘I’ve had too much, Carter. I need some air. We’ll get a drink in some house.’

Carter sat down. ‘Tell me where you plan to take me.’ ‘Any one of a dozen whore-houses. They are all the same, Carter. About a dozen girls to choose from. They’ll do an exhibition for you. Come on, we’ll go. They get crowded after midnight.’

Carter said anxiously, ‘I’d like a drink first. I can’t go to a show like that stone sober.’

‘You aren’t expecting anyone, are you, Carter?’

‘No, why?’

‘I thought the way you watched the door…’

‘I don’t know a soul in this town. I told you.’

‘Except Dr Braun.’

‘Oh yes, of course, Dr Braun. But he’s not the kind of companion to take to a h-house, is he?’

‘After you, Carter.’

Reluctantly Carter moved. It was obvious that he was searching for an excuse to stay. He said, ‘I just want to leave a message with the porter. I’m expecting a telephone call.’

‘From Dr Braun?’

‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘It seems rude going out like this before h-he rings. Can’t you wait five minutes, Wormold?’

‘Say you’ll be back by one unless you decide to make a night of it.’

‘It would be better to wait.’

‘Then I’ll go without you. Damn you, Carter, I thought you wanted to see the town.’ He walked rapidly away. His car was parked across the street. He never looked back, but he heard steps following him. Carter no more wanted to lose him than he wanted to lose Carter.

‘What a temper you’ve got, Wormold.’

‘I’m sorry. Drink takes me that way.’

‘I h-hope you are sober enough to drive straight.’

‘It would be better, Carter, if you drove.’

He thought, That will keep his hands from his pockets.

‘First right, first left, Carter.’

They came out into the Atlantic drive: a lean white ship was leaving harbour, some tourist cruiser bound for Kingston or for Port au Prince. They could see the couples leaning over the rail, romantic in the moonlight, and a band was playing a fading favourite ‘I could have danced all night’. ‘It makes me homesick,’ Carter said.

‘For Nottwich?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s no sea at Nottwich.’

‘The pleasure-boats on the river looked as big as that when I was young.’

A murderer had no right to be homesick; a murderer should be a machine,

and I too have to become a machine, Wormold thought, feeling in his pocket the handkerchief he would have to use to clean the fingerprints when the time came. But how to choose the time? What side-street or what doorway? and if the other shot first…?

‘Are your friends Russian, Carter? German? American?’

‘What friends?’ He added simply, ‘I have no friends.’

‘No friends?’

‘No.’

‘To the left again, Carter, then right.’

They moved at a walking pace now in a narrow street, lined with clubs; orchestras spoke from below ground like the ghost of Hamlet’s father or that music under the paving stones in Alexandria when the god Hercules left Antony. Two men in Cuban nightclub uniform bawled competitively to them across the road. Wormold said, ‘Let’s stop. I need a drink badly before we go on.’ ‘Are these whore-houses?’

‘No. We’ll go to a house later.’ He thought, If only Carter when he left the wheel had grabbed his gun, it would have been so easy to fire. Carter said, ‘Do you know this spot?’

‘No. But I know the tune.’ It was strange that they we’re playing that

‘my madness offends’.

There were coloured photographs of naked girls outside and in nightclub Esperanto one neon-lighted word, Strippteese. Steps painted in stripes like cheap pyjamas led them down towards a cellar foggy with Havana’s. It seemed as suitable place as any other for an execution. But he wanted a drink first. ‘You lead the way, Carter.’ Carter was hesitating. He opened his mouth and struggled with an aspirate; Wormold had never before heard him struggle for quite so long. ‘I h-h-h-hope…’

‘What do you hope?’

‘Nothing.’

They sat and watched the stripping and both drank brandy and soda. A girl went from table to table ridding herself of clothes. She began with her gloves. A spectator took them with resignation like the contents of an In tray. Then she presented her back to Carter and told him to unhook her black lace corsets. Carter fumbled in vain at the catches, blushing all the time while the girl laughed and wriggled against his fingers. He said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t find…’ Round the floor the gloomy men sat at their little tables watching Carter. No one smiled.

‘You haven’t had much practice, Carter, in Nottwich. Let me.’

‘Leave me alone, can’t you?’

At last he got the corset undone and the girl rumpled his thin streaky hair and passed on. He smoothed it down again with a pocket comb. ‘I don’t like this place,’ he said.

‘You are shy with women, Carter.’ But how could one shoot a man at whom it was so easy to laugh?

‘I don’t like horseplay,’ Carter said.

They climbed the stairs. Carter’s pocket was heavy on his hip. Of course it might be his pipe he carried. He sat at the wheel again and grumbled. ‘You can see that sort of show anywhere. Just tarts undressing.’ ‘You didn’t help her much.’

‘I was looking for a zip.’

‘I needed a drink badly.’

‘Rotten brandy too. I wouldn’t wonder if it was doped.’ ‘Your whisky was more than doped, Carter.’ He was trying to heat his anger up and not to remember his ineffective victim struggling with the corset and blushing at his failure.

‘What’s that you said?’

‘Stop here.’

‘Why?’

‘You wanted to be taken to a house. Here is a house.’

‘But there’s no one about.’

‘They are all closed and shuttered like this. Get out and ring the bell.’

‘What did you mean about the whisky?’

‘Never mind that now. Get out and ring.’

It was as suitable a place as a cellar (blank walls too had been

frequently used for this purpose): a grey facade and a street where no one came

except for one unlovely purpose. Carter slowly shifted his legs from under the

wheel and Wormold watched his hands closely, the ineffective hands. It’s a fair

duel, he told himself, he’s more accustomed to killing than I am, the chances

are equal enough; I am not even quite sure my gun is loaded. He has more chance than Hasselbacher ever had.

With his hand on the door Carter paused again. He said, ‘Perhaps it would be more sensible some other night. You know, I h-h-h-h…’ ‘You are frightened, Carter.’

‘I’ve never been to a h-h-h-house before. To tell you the truth, Wormold, I don’t h-have much need of women.’

‘It sounds a lonely sort of life.’

‘I can do without them,’ he said defiantly.

‘There are more important things for a man than running after..

‘Why did you want to come to a house then?’

Again he startled Wormold with the plain truth. ‘I try to want them, but when it comes to the point…’ He hovered on the edge of confession and then plunged. ‘It doesn’t work, Wormold. I can’t do what they want.’ ‘Get out of the car.’

I have to do it, Wormold thought, before he confesses any more to me. With every second the man was becoming human, a creature like oneself whom one might pity or console, not kill. Who knew what excuses were buried below any violent act? He drew Segura’s gun.

‘What?’

‘Get out.’

Carter stood against the whore-house door with a look of sullen complaint rather than fear. His fear was of women, not of violence. He said, ‘You are making a mistake. It was Braun who gave me the whisky. I’m not important.’

‘I don’t care about the whisky. But you killed Hasselbacher, didn’t you?’

Again he surprised Wormold with the truth. There was a kind of honesty in the man. ‘I was under orders, Wormold. I h-h-h-h -‘ He had manoeuvred himself so that his elbow reached the bell, and now he leant back and in the depths of the house the bell rang and rang its summons to work. ‘There’s no enmity, Wormold. You got too dangerous, that was all. We are only private soldiers, you and I.’

‘Me dangerous? What fools you people must be. I have no agents, Carter.’ ‘Oh yes, you h-have. Those constructions in the mountains. We have copies of your drawings.’

‘The parts of a vacuum cleaner.’ He wondered who had supplied them:

Lopez? or Hawthorne’s own courier, or a man in the Consulate? Carter’s hand went to his pocket and Wormold fired. Carter gave a sharp yelp. He said, ‘You nearly shot me,’ and pulled out a hand clasped round a shattered pipe. He said, ‘My Dunhill. You’ve smashed my Dunhill.’ ‘Beginner’s luck,’ Wormold said. He had braced himself for a death, but it was impossible to shoot again. The door behind Carter began to open. There was an impression of plastic music. ‘They’ll look after you in there. You may need a woman now, Carter.’

‘You -you clown.’

How right Carter was. He put the gun down beside him and slipped into the driving seat. Suddenly he felt happy. He might have killed a man. He had proved conclusively to himself that he wasn’t one of the judges; he had no vocation for violence. Then Carter fired.