Cuba Libre (2008) (21 page)

Chapter
Fifteen.

UARDIAS HAD BEEN WATCHING the doctor's home in Cerro, the doctor a Creole, on the side of the insurrection. They came in while the doctor was examining Yaro Ruiz's gunshot wound. They shot the doctor and took Yaro, bleeding, by this time unconscious, and Rudi Calvo to the old prison, Recogidas, where they questioned Rudi.

"Who was with you at Ataros this morning?"

"I wasn't there."

They broke his right leg beneath the knee with a baseball bat.

"Who was with you at Atars this morning?"

"I wasn't there."

They broke his left leg the same way.

Rudi listened to them talking. One of them saying, "Yaro Ruiz is of no use to us, he's close to death." And another one said, "Leave him."

The next part was very painful, riding in the military ambulance and trying not to scream, loaded and unloaded and dragged between two Guardias into a building that smelled like a hospital, then seeing enough of it to know it was, it was San Ambrosio. Rudi was brought to a room and heaved onto a cot. A doctor came in, he looked at Rudi and asked if he had suffered an accident. One of the Guardia said yes, he fell down. The Guardia told the doctor not to be concerned with this one, he would be cared for.

A man was brought into the room and dropped on another cot. After a little while the Guardias left. Rudi heard the man groaning, turned his head and saw it was Lieutenant Molina from the Morro, his face and clothes covered with blood. Rudi asked what they did to him. Lieutenant Molina said they came in his cell to question him about the cowboy and the marine: Who was it helped them escape, the ones who visited them in the Morro? What was their plan? Where did they go? Questions he could not answer since he didn't know, so they beat him with chains. He said when he spoke it was very hard to breathe. He said, "They bring me here to mend my broken bones so they can send me to Africa. I'm sure of it."

Rudi said, "I don't think I'm going anywhere."

The Guardias who brought them here returned with Lionel Tavaler. He approached Rudi Calvo drawing his saber and touched Rudi's right leg with the point. Rudi gasped.

"Oh, does that hurt? It must be gangrene has already set in." He poked the left leg with the saber and when Rudi cried out, Tavalera said, "Oh, in that leg too. I think both your legs will have to be amputated."

As he was touching Rudi's legs and saying this, two doctors in white coats came in the room, the one who was here before and another doctor, this one with an air of authority as he said to Tavalera, "Excuse me, are you a doctor? What are you talking about, amputate the legs? Anyone can see the legs are fractured and need to be set."

Tavalera turned to the doctors with his saber, not in a threatening way; still, it was in his hand. He said, "We won't bother you, sir. The surgeon of my corps is on his way. These men will be in his care."

The doctor with the air of authority said, "There is no need for amputation. When your surgeon arrives, have him see me."

Tavalera said, "Of course," nodding. As soon as the doctors were out of the room he turned again to Rudi, Rudi looking up at him from the hospital cot.

"Eight of my men were murdered, two of them cut down with the machete. I would point out the one taken from you in Cerro has fresh blood on it, the blood of at least one of my men. I know you were at Ataros. Now tell me who was with you."

Rudi closed his eyes.

Tavalera pressed the point of his saber against Rudi's leg and Rudi gasped, trying hard not to cry out.

"Right there is where they would cut. Who was with you? Tell me and your legs will be set and placed in casts. Refuse, your legs will be chopped off with your own machete, the weapon of peasants, without anesthetic, without a stick to bite on, without hope for the rest of your life. Does that tempt you to speak?"

Rudi saw himself on a street in Old Havana, a legless beggar sitting against the wall of a building. Now he saw his son with him, people walking by, his little son offering a cup. He was thinking, No, his son wouldn't be there.... As Tavalera was saying, "We could be wrong about you.

Perhaps the idea of rebellion runs in your family and it was your son who was at Ataros."

Rudi felt himself trying to push up on his hands, his elbows, the shock of this man's words lifting him, the man a sorcerer who could see into his mind, the man raising the saber to rest the point against Rudi's breastbone and he sank back on the cot.

"What do you call the boy," Tavalera said, "Tonio? What if little Tonio falls down and breaks his legs and they have to be amputated? Where is he, still with your sister?"

Rudi felt his strength drain, all of it; he was unable to move. He stared up at this Guardia with the sword and the mustache covering his mouth, his expression, a man made of stone with marble eyes.

Tavalera raised the saber and touched the point to the tip of Rudi's nose in almost a playful gesture.

"Rudi? Who was with you at Ataros this morning?"

Novis Crowe didn't know where he was till he heard that tinny band music playing and realized, hell, he was back in Havana, not too far from the park that ran past the hotel. The greasers had brought him in a wagon lying under a pile of sacks that smelled of coffee, his head in a sack and his hands tied behind him with twine---hours under there till the greasers stopped and hauled him off the wagon. He said to them, "Where'n the hell am I?" They didn't tell him nothing, not a word, and left him there, the wagon moving off. Pretty soon he heard voices, he believed people talking about him. Novis said, "Will somebody cut me loose?" and they stopped talking. But then the band started up, not too far away, and it gave him an idea where he was. He started toward the sound, walking on cobblestones, then must've got off course, for he banged into a chair, heard it scrape on the pavement and could see light now through the gunnysack. Somebody with nerve--it turned out to be a waiter--pulled the sack from his head and Novis was looking at an outdoor cafe full of empty tables. He said to the waiter, "Well, now you had a good look, how about cutting me loose?" Jesus Christ, but greasers were slow to move.

Something was different. It was the same soldier band playing, but there were hardly any people here listening, the rows of chairs empty. The people he did see all looked to be in a hurry, wherever they were going, people coming out of the hotel with their grips and getting into coaches. In the Inglaterra lobby it looked like the same confusion, people bumping into each other, Novis not sure if they were checking in or out, grips and steamer trunks lined up by the entrance.

Upstairs he had to bang on the door a half dozen times before Mr. Boudreaux opened it, his boss in shirtsleeves holding a pair of binoculars. The first thing he said, right away, was, "Where's Amelia?"

"They got her, the mambis."

"Where?"

"I don't know where. They held me a couple of days and turned me loose."

"You were with her?"

"You mean after?"

"For Christ sake, tell me what happened."

"They waylaid us--from then on I had a sack over my head except when I et." Mr. Boudreaux turned away from him and crossed the room to a window where the drapes were pulled back and the shutters open. Novis said after him, "What in the hell's going on?"

Mr. Boudreaux stood at the window now looking off through the binoculars as Novis approached him.

"Sir, what's going on?"

"The U.S. fleet's out there," Boudreaux said, "blockading the harbor. You see the crowds, people on the streets? They're scared to death, don't know which way to run. All day they were taking guns off the Alfonso XII--her boiler's out of order-and mounting them ashore, on El Morro. God Almighty, the fleet could've sent the marines in today and taken Havana. The city's in total confusion. People are running like rats from the hotel, afraid it'll be shelled. I said to the manager, "The Inglaterra? Our fleet wouldn't dare. Too many of ricers have gotten drunk here." " He said this without taking the binoculars from his eyes. It was not until he said, "Tell me what happened to Amelia. Where was Victor?" that Novis remembered, Jesus Christ, they'd given him a letter to deliver.

He got it out and said, "Mr. Boudreaux?" and had to wait. You always had to ask a question more than one time to get an answer. "Mr. Boudreaux, they gave me a letter for you."

That got him around from the window in a hurry and got Novis an evil look, hell in the man's eyes, as Mr. Boudreaux took the letter from him and tore it open. The first thing he said was, ""What?""

It wasn't a question. Novis said, "Is Miss Brown all right?"

He had to wait then while Boudreaux read the letter and maybe read it again, he took so long.

"Sir, is it about Miss Brown?"

Boudreaux finished and stared straight into Novis's eyes from only a few feet away.

"They're holding her hostage."

"They are?"

"I have to pay forty thousand dollars, American currency, to get her back."

Novis said, "Forty thousand," and almost said, hell, send to Newerleans for another woman'd be cheaper. And was glad he didn't, seeing the way Mr. Boudreaux was looking at him.

"She was in your care, boy."

"Sir, I got hit from behind with a sack of coffee." "I told you to watch out for her." That evil look still in his eyes.

"Sir, they never gimme a chance. Was a whole bunch of 'em."

"Wearing uniforms?"

"Not as I recall."

Now he was reading the letter again. "Sir, you gonna pay it?" Still reading.

"They say how you're suppose to pay 'em?"

He must have been at that part in the letter, for he read aloud, " "They said you are to put the money in a pillowcase wrapped in a hammock with rope around it securely tied. On a tag attached to it write: To Amelia Brown, for Cuba Libre. On April 27, five days from this date, put it on the morning train to Matanzas in the care of Novis Crowe.""

"Me?" Boudreaux was staring again, giving him the evil eye. He said, "Yes, but why you?"

"I reckon," Novis said, " "Cause you trust me. Could that be it?"

Mr. Boudreaux never said.

It was later on the bellboy knocked on the door and handed Novis a calling card for Mr. Boudreaux. It had a lot of printing on the front with Mayor and a Spanish name, big. TAVALERA. And with a note on the back that looked like it said this fella was waiting downstairs in the bar.

Earlier this day, Andres Palenzuela received a telephone call from a Guardia officer informing him that one of his men, Yaro Ruiz, had been shot and died of the wound. Another one, Rudi Calvo, was in San Ambrosio being treated for an injury. The Guardia officer would not give details; the chief of municipal police would have to come to the hospital.

The telephone call was made after Lionel Tavalera had had time to think about the murder of his men by two policemen and that the next step would be to speak to their chief. Lieutenant Molina had been removed.

Palenzuela entered the hospital room to find Rudi on the cot with both of his legs in plaster casts. Major Tavalera was seated next to him in a straight chair. Palenzuela appeared genuinely astonished.

"My God, what happened?"

Tavalera said to Rudi, "Tell him what you told me. All of it."

Palenzuelr stood with his back against the wall listening to Rudi's confession, looking from Rudi's face drained of color to the clean tubes of plaster encasing his legs. Rudi spoke for several minutes, Tavalera now and again prompting him. When Rudi finished and the room was quiet, Tavalera said, "You didn't say why the woman of Boudreaux was with you at Atarbs."

Rudi said he believed she wanted to be celebrated as a heroine of the revolution.

"Go on."

And pose as a hostage to receive money from Boudreaux. He didn't know how much; the amount had not yet been decided.

This time when Rudi finished Tavalera looked at Palenzuela standing against the wall--though not the kind of wall he should be standing against--and said, "You don't tell Boudreaux any of this. You leave that to me. You understand? You don't speak to him; you're too busy inspecting buildings, or whatever you do." Tavalera rose from the chair. "I leave you alone, if you wish to say something to Rudi."

He watched the chief of municipal police straighten, bringing himself to attention before shaking his head.

"To a traitor? I have nothing to say."

In the coach on the way to the hotel and now in the bar with a glass of sherry, Tavalera had time to plan, a step at a time, how much of Rudi Calvo's confession he would tell. Not all of it, no. Not a word about the business of the hostage being a hoax. There would be satisfaction in telling it, that his woman had walked out and was now planning to rob him; but much more to be gained in the long run if he didn't tell it.

It would be far better to see the American so aroused with pity for poor Amelia that he pays the ransom to get her back. How much? It would have to be a fortune. Why ask a millionaire for anything less?

Tavalera was confident the amount would be enoughh once the money was confiscated and disappeared, the tricky part--to buy land, a home, several homes if he wished. One here, one on the peninsula of Varadero There seemed always to be ways to supplement a lean military income. In the penal colonies of Africa they would write to the families of convicts, tell them a donation would buy needed food and clothes for their unfortunate loved ones. Pesetas arrived and the miserable inmates continued to starve and die of disease. Why not? It was their due.