Goodbye cuba, p.28
Goodbye Cuba, page 28
Charlie reached inside to retrieve his flattop hat which had fallen off his head during the crash landing. He dropped it on the ground, then reached back into the cockpit to pull out the two medicine bags and the machete that had wedged itself under the seat. “It’s a miracle this thing didn’t fly around during that landing,” he said, touching his thumb to the edge of the blade. He dropped it next to his hat.
Then, as he realized how extraordinarily lucky they had been, he wrapped his arms around Isabel and Angelita and lifted them off the ground.
“We did it,” he shouted and set them down. “We made it. Isabel, you were magnificent! You were beautiful! You got the plane into the air before that guy in the jeep could shoot us down. You flew right through the middle of the U.S. Navy without being spotted. And you got us down to the ground.”
Once more, he wrapped his arms around the two of them and lifted them off the ground. “No more drawer cells. No baseball bats. No sniper rifles. By the time this day is over, you and Angelita are going to be legal immigrants on the path to citizenship.” He set them back on the ground and gave them each a big smile.
“What now?” she asked.
“We get as far away from this airplane as we can before it’s spotted. And we hitchhike to Homestead.”
“Hitchhike?”
“I’ll show you when we get to the highway. We’re going to my friend Eduardo’s cantina for breakfast and a shower. We’ll borrow his car so we can stow these bags in my safe-deposit box in the city.”
“Borrow the way you borrowed that car outside the house of saints?”
He grinned. “No. I couldn’t do that to an old friend. This will be a traditional borrowing. Afterward, we’ll buy some fresh clothes, and I’ll call my CIA controller to pick us up. When they finish debriefing us, we’ll be as free as the birds.”
He set the flattop hat on his head and stooped to pick up the medicine bags. Then he led them inland toward the highway.
43
November 1965
Greenwich Village, New York City, New York
Major Escalante had stuffed Isabel into a cage. Charlie rushed to her aid, but he could barely move because his feet were stuck in quicksand. He himself was sinking as he tried to hold Angelita above the muck. He gasped for breath until he finally woke up with a start, drenched in sweat.
This nightmare hadn’t bothered him for months, but now it was back. As consciousness returned and he could move, he sat up, shook his head to loosen the cobwebs, and looked down at Isabel. She, too, suffered from similar dreams. But tonight, she slept soundly. The clock on the nightstand read 5:30 a.m. Too late to go back to sleep, but too early to get up. He got up anyway.
It had been three years. It was now 1965, the last workday before Thanksgiving. He walked to the window and stuffed a tee shirt against the crack to keep out the cold November air. Taking Isabel and Angelita to the Greenwich Village apartment had seemed so romantic when he first thought of it. In truth, the unit was drafty in the winter and sweltering in summer. Its paper-thin walls made them a party to the neighbors’ noises. And presumably their neighbors were a party to noises that he and Isabel made. Having been raised in crowded Havana, none of this bothered her like it bothered him. Outside the window, a siren wailed as an ambulance made its way to St. Vincent’s Hospital, half a mile away.
Charlie put coffee into the percolator basket. When Isabel woke, she would want café con leche, but he was satisfied with a percolated cup. He took it back to bed, slipped under the covers, pushed his hip against her, and sipped the brew as he pondered what they had been through.
Settling matters with the CIA took longer than he had anticipated. James Marley, assistant to CIA Director John McCone, had been assigned to pick up the pieces of Walter Bishop’s program. Marley balked at setting Charlie up in the Wall Street job Bishop had promised.
“You were out on a rogue operation,” he told Charlie. “CIA Director McCone did not know about it. Consequently, the agency had no obligation to honor Bishop’s deal. And now,” added Marley, “the poor man cannot explain his actions, because he was murdered.”
“Don’t blame me,” Charlie retorted. “The night he was killed, I was stranded in Cuba, trying to find a way out after you screwed up the extraction plan.”
Charlie smirked to himself, knowing Marley held a weak hand of cards. He could not send a disgruntled Charlie back to his old army unit. It was inevitable that some night he would go drinking with his army buddies and brag about his exploits in Havana. He also couldn’t let Charlie walk around Langley where he would pitch himself as the anti-hero who would have liquidated Castro if only the planning directorate had not flinched at the last minute. And it was too late to liquidate Charlie. He was involved with two different women, each of whom would scream bloody murder if he were to disappear. So if Parnell were killed, the two women would have to be done away with as well, and that was out of the question. One of them was an aide to the president’s top advisor.
“Let me see if I understand this,” Charlie had said in his final debriefing interview with Marley. “I don’t have to return to my army unit, because you’re going to keep me assigned to you until I get released from active duty. That will be two years from now. In the meantime, you’re going to hold me in some kind of reserve capacity where you can tap me if you want. But you don’t want me to show up for work, and I’ll continue to receive my paycheck.”
“Correct,” said Marley. “In addition, we’ve found a small hedge fund in New York that’s willing to try you out as a co-manager for their portfolio.”
“And what do you want in return?”
“Your absolute silence.” He stopped talking for an entire minute and stared at Charlie. “We want you to destroy every document you gave to your girlfriend and anybody else. If those materials ever show up, we will cut off your balls.” He scowled.
Charlie grinned. “Finally, we’re on the same page. The last thing I want is anybody knowing what you guys got me into.”
To celebrate his good fortune at getting out from under the agency’s thumb, he took Isabel and Angelita to dinner just before they left Washington for New York. Isabel bought new outfits that would be appropriate for the historic Hay-Adams restaurant that Charlie chose. Seated by a window overlooking the Washington Monument, he smiled as he watched her beaming proudly at her daughter, Angelita, dressed up in white stockings and a red flannel dress. They were perfect for the Christmas season.
“And the best thing, Isabel,” said Charlie, leaning across the table, “this gives us a great way to deal with those jewels we stuffed into those safe-deposit boxes down in Homestead.”
“How so?”
“The free-wheeling nature of this hedge fund job gives me the perfect excuse to fly to Zurich now and then to scout out European investments. Each time we go, we’ll take a package of jewels with us. We’ll work out a deal with Meyer Lansky to give you a share of the jewels, and when we get to Zurich, we’ll each have a secret Swiss bank account—one for your jewels and one for mine. For all practical purposes, the jewels will never have entered the U.S., so we won’t get charged with smuggling or get taxed on them.”
“This makes me nervous, Charlie. I’m in a very vulnerable position. If the government finds out about those jewels, it will throw a monkey wrench into my hopes for citizenship. If they deport me to Cuba, I’ll be killed.”
“They can’t deport you, and they won’t find out about the jewels as long as we don’t try to sell them in the U.S. Once we get them to Switzerland it’ll be as though they never existed.”
“I need security, Charlie. I need stability. I need to know that my daughter is safe.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“If you married me, I would be better off on all those counts.”
It took a fair amount of talking, however, to persuade her that he needed to gain closure with Vanessa. She clearly didn’t want him reconnecting with a former lover, especially one as beautiful as the woman in the photo Charlie showed her. Isabel had already been betrayed by one fiancé who wandered, and she didn’t want it to happen a second time.
“I’m not going to betray you,” he protested.
She rolled her eyes. “Men are putty in the hands of a beautiful woman.”
“Nonsense. I’m not putty in your hands.”
She gave a wry smile and put her hand on the back of his neck. “Thank you for calling me beautiful. It’s nice when the statue doesn’t realize it’s being molded.”
But Charlie had been too close to Vanessa for him to simply disappear without touching base. He didn’t relish telling her he had found another woman. Consequently, he was relieved to discover that she was just as eager to end the affair as he was.
“Charlie, you told me you were just going on an information-gathering junket. In fact, you agreed to kill someone. I can’t live with that,” Vanessa told him.
“But in the end, I decided not to do it.”
She rolled her eyes. When she told him about being manhandled by Bishop, Charlie’s shoulders sagged and his mouth dropped open. “I am so sorry, Vanessa.” He apologized profusely for exposing her to Bishop’s assault. “I don’t know what to say. I never thought anything like that would happen. I am so sorry.”
She set her hand on top of his as they sat across from each other at her kitchen table. “There isn’t anything you can say, Charlie. I know you didn’t intend it.” She gave him a wan smile. “You’re just trapped by your personality. We all are. But in your case, you’re an operator. You think you can charm everyone. You thought you could finesse Bishop the way you finesse everything. In my case, I think I can ramrod anyone who does me bad.”
Ramrod anyone who does her bad? Was she telling him that she was the one who had kicked in Bishop’s face? She was strong enough and trained well enough to do it if she caught him by surprise. If she was the one who did in Bishop, why was she so upset that Charlie had agreed to do in Castro? However, he thought, it was better not to ask about that. Whatever she did or didn’t do, she was the one who had to live with it. Just as he had to live with the knowledge that, at one point, he had intended to kill Castro. At heart, Charlie and Vanessa both recognized that they had grown too far apart and accumulated too much baggage to renew their old relationship.
If settling with Vanessa had been easier than anticipated, settling with Meyer Lansky was more difficult. Charlie contacted him as soon as they finished their CIA debriefing, and they agreed to meet at Wolfie’s Delicatessen in Miami Beach’s South Beach.
Meyer objected to cutting Isabel in on a share of the jewels. “I already upped your share from twenty percent to thirty, kid. And that’s it. If you want to reward this young lady from your own share, that’s your business.” He lit a Tareyton cigarette.
“God, Meyer,” said Charlie, waving the smoke away from his face. “Do you have to smoke that thing in here?”
“Yes,” said Meyer, blowing a puff of smoke off to the side. He motioned for Charlie to walk alone with him to the edge of the water, where the roar of the waves would cover their voices.
Charlie wasn’t sure how far he could push Meyer on the issue of giving Isabel a share of the jewels. Considering Meyer’s background, maybe Charlie should count himself lucky that he was getting a share himself. But his face flushed with anger when he recalled that he and Isabel had risked their lives to get these jewels in the first place. Meyer owed her a share of them as much as he owed a share to Charlie.
They reached the edge of the beach where the soft sand turned hard from the tides rolling in and out. Meyer turned to look up at him. “You mean you gave up that beautiful blond bombshell for this skinny little Cuban?”
“That skinny little Cuban, as you call her, saved my life. And if it hadn’t been for her, your jewels would still be sitting next to Dolf Luque’s grave in Havana. She deserves something.”
Meyer finally relented. “I’m going to do you a big favor, kid. Someday, maybe you can return it. We’re going to give her five percent, half from you and half from me. Now tell me how we’re going to make the exchange.”
They asked for a private room at the Homestead State Bank. Meyer brought in a small scale they used to total up the weight of all the jewels. Satisfied that they added up to the thirty-seven pounds he had originally stashed away, they divided them up according the three-way split they’d negotiated. Giving a rare grin, Meyer extended his hand to Charlie and Isabel. “Thanks, kid. I never really thought I’d get these back. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
He cocked his thumb and forefinger as though they were a pistol and touched his finger to Charlie’s chest. “But don’t forget that I gave a share to Isabel, and you owe me a favor.”
Charlie’s coffee had grown cold as he pondered these things. They had a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. As each month passed, the danger diminished that Meyer Lansky would show up to call in the favor that Charlie owed him. Or that CIA operatives would come back and demand his services again. Or that the army would terminate his inactive reserve status and call him into active duty in Vietnam. Or that things would fall apart with Isabel. When she stirred, he got up to brew her café con leche. She was going to the doctor that day to find out if she was pregnant. He put his coffee cup in the sink and went into the shower.
Being the last day before Thanksgiving, the markets were subdued, and Charlie left work early. It was barely two o’clock when he emerged from the subway into the crisp air at Washington Square Park. The Empire State Building towered in the distance, with its spire shining gold and silver in the bright sun. He felt a warm glow as he walked to their apartment. Isabel was remarkably easy to live with. She added a feminine touch to their living space, a touch he’d never had before. And he liked the Cuban mementos she placed about the rooms and the Mariposa flower on the windowsill. Even her nylons hanging to dry over the shower rod were less of an annoyance than a sign of their shared intimacy. That morning he had been late for the office because he had gone back to bed for an extra fifteen minutes just to watch her go through the ritual of putting on her clothes.
He adopted Angelita so that she would have a father like the other kids. Totally unexpected was how much he enjoyed playing games with her. He took her on the subway to ice skate at Rockefeller Center and to enjoy other highlights of the city. They spoke both English and Spanish at home, and Charlie marveled at how seamlessly she switched between them. Maybe she thought every six-year-old in the world was bilingual. Or maybe she just thought it was all one language.
As he mounted the stairs to their apartment, Charlie carried a dozen roses. Just in case the pregnancy test was positive. And even more so if it was negative.
Under his arm was tucked the day’s newspaper with a headline of more troops being sent to Vietnam. He pushed open the door to their apartment and thrust his right hand forward, so that the first thing she’d see would be the fistful of roses.
The End
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About the Author
JJ Harrigan writes historical thrillers that stem from his experiences as a soldier stationed in Germany during the Cold War, a U. S. Foreign Service Officer in Latin America, and a Professor of Political Science. He graduated from Loyola University of Chicago and earned a Ph.D. at Georgetown University. Currently, he scribbles his tales of intrigue on the banks of the St. Croix River in Minnesota, where he lives happily with his wife Sandy.
www.jjharriganbooks.com
JJ Harrigan, Goodbye Cuba
