Cuba Straits (11 page)

Ford turned northeast.

Fifteen minutes,
he told himself.
Then I’m gone.

Twenty minutes later, he spotted a wooden pallet. Nothing strange about that. He’d already seen a couple, probably dumped by passing ships. This pallet, however, was industrial-sized and covered with what looked like plastic bottles, hundreds of them, draped under shrimp net.

Check thermal imaging: a shapeless heat signature that, probably, was plastic warmed by the sun.

Trash. For a millennium, mariners had used the ocean as a dumping ground, but now, unlike the mariners, their garbage was impervious to the centuries.

Ford veered away and shifted to neutral to prepare for the sixty miles of open water that lay ahead. The boat’s T-top and the electronics tower folded forward to reduce radar signature. Another stealthy touch was the neoprene spray hood coated with radar-absorbent paint. He pulled it taut, secured the cover with carabineers, then re-coiled the safety line he’d readied just in case he had to go into the water again.

Dumbass,
he reminded himself. At sea, when alone, never lose contact with your vessel. A cardinal rule.

Port side on his boat, a door opened into a storage area beneath the helm. It was a large space, enough room for a chemical toilet, a handheld shower, and an electrically cooled Igloo. He ducked inside to grab a Diet Coke and a bag of peanuts. Or would a sandwich be better? He was deciding when he heard a radio transmission: a girl’s voice that warned
“¡Silencio! Va a atraer a los tiburones.”

Ford translated without giving it much thought: Be quiet! You are attracting sharks.

Odd, though. Why was a child transmitting on a channel used exclusively by the Coast Guard?

Then, again in Spanish, he heard, “I’m tired of paddling with my hands, you brat, and you are not my boss.”

Not the same voice . . . And it wasn’t coming from the radio.

The console door was small. Ford banged his head going out. He idled closer to the pallet.

It took some cajoling. Soon, the pile of bottles stirred, netting parted, and two frightened girls appeared, both in flowered dresses, the oldest no more than thirteen.

No . . . only one was frightened. The younger was pissed. “You can’t arrest me,” she hollered in Spanish, “because I’ll swim.”

Ford didn’t speak down to children, believed it was demeaning to both. “That’s foolish. It’s better to get on my boat while we wait for the Coast Guard. Are you thirsty?”

“So
they
can arrest us,” the girl countered. “Fascists in uniforms. It’s a lie, and I won’t be tricked by a gringo fascist. I’m warning you, stay away.”

“No one’s going to arrest you. I have water and sandwiches; peanuts, if you want. Key West is thirty miles. Can you swim thirty miles? Even if you can, you’ll need to eat something for energy.”

“To hell with Key West, I want to go home. I’ll swim home if you try to make me go to Gringolandia.”

The older girl was less agitated. He spoke to her. “How long have you been adrift? You need water and medical attention. Please explain this to . . . Is she your sister?”

A nod, the older girl saying, “She’s mad because she didn’t want to come to America. Then this happened. She gets mad a lot.”

“How many people were on your raft?”

The sisters bickered for a moment, the older one finally saying, “Three—five, counting us—but a large ship hit us and that was the last we saw of the others.”

Ford assumed their parents were dead, so Cuba and Tomlinson would have to wait. He spoke more gently. “I’m a fisherman, not the Coast Guard. No uniform, no gun, see?” He extended his hands for inspection and smiled. “You’re safe with me, I promise. No one will force you to do anything. I promise that, too. You’ll be more comfortable on my boat while we talk. Have a look, then decide.” He started the engines.

That’s all it took. The youngest girl launched herself into the water while her sister yelled warnings about sharks.

Ford did it again—went over the side without a safety line.

•   •   •

T
HEIR NAMES
were Maribel and Sabina Esteban, ages thirteen and ten, no relation to the Alex Molera family, but they had been paying customers aboard the same raft. In recent years, more and more parents had sent their children alone in the hopes of a better life in
Norteamérica
.

He gave them bananas and peanut butter on bread, which they ate, but they refused Gatorade and even a can of cold condensed milk, which Ford thought might be good for children. The pallet that had saved their lives was loaded with bottles that had been filled for the long trip, so they weren’t dehydrated, nor were they sunburned. A few careful questions confirmed they needed no crème for rashes, no medicine for sickness, and their disinterest when he demonstrated the toilet calmed his concerns about diarrhea.

Even so, he had only two options: contact the Coast Guard or take them to Key West. That would require some convincing, especially ten-year-old Sabina, who was a fireball, smart and perceptive, and suspicious of Ford’s every move.

When he put the boat in neutral and broke out the fishing rods, he noticed her eye the GPS. “I know which way is north,” she warned.

Her sister Maribel replied, “Of course. You know everything. That’s the way she is.”

“I know you can’t fish without bait. This man has no bait, only plastic things with hooks. The liar claims to be a fisherman. You’re an idiot, Maribel, to believe him.”

Ford said, “I’m going to troll a couple of lines while we talk. If we’re not fishing, the Coast Guard will wonder what I’m doing out here. You’re wrong about them, they’re very nice people, but this will give us some time.”

“Where are they? Are there cameras?” The girl in her flowered dress was on her toes, scanning the misty horizon.

“They have radar screens, too,” he said. “Later, I’ll show you how it works, but after we discuss what’s best for you two.”

“No.”

“What do you mean? If you’ve already figured out the GPS, learning to use radar won’t be a problem for a smart girl like you.”

“He promised us,” Sabina said to her sister. “He promised to take us home to Cuba. I knew he was lying. I told you, but you didn’t believe me. You never do, you brat.”

Repressing a smile, Ford said, “What I promised was that you and your sister would be safe and you are. I didn’t say I would—”

“Yes, you did! You promised not to force us to do anything I don’t want to do. If the Guardia comes, they will send us to Guantánamo Bay, or put us in buses with strangers in Miami. Isn’t that true?”

Ford’s smile faded. “Well . . .”

“
See?
It is true.”

To Maribel, Ford said, “If your sister didn’t want to come to America, why did your parents send her? And what about you, Maribel? What do you want?”

The teenager, frightened again, looked away.

“She can’t tell you,” Sabina chided. “Mama made her promise not to talk about it. But I didn’t promise. Mama didn’t know I was listening, so—”

“Shut up, just shut,” the older girl said and began to cry.

Ford wondered if he should pat her on the back or something but only said, “Once we’re moving, I’d like to talk about a few things, Maribel. But only when you’re ready.”

He rigged a privacy curtain forward and placed cushions under the spray hood so the girls had a space of their own. Beneath the console, he heard the toilet flush, then the sump of the shower as he idled toward the Coast Guard vessels, ten miles away, his fishing lines out. It had been a while since he’d tried hailing Tomlinson. He had the mic in his hand when ten-year-old Sabina appeared and approached in a sneaky, tiptoe sort of way.

“We’ll wait for your sister,” Ford said.

“Not if you want to know why Mama sent us away,” the girl shot back. She looked at the GPS. “Why are you driving west? Cuba is south. Are you lost?”

Ford patted the seat next to him. “Hop up, I could use a good navigator.”

“Only if you keep your promise to take us home.”

“Sabina, if your mother and father were here, what would they—?”

“No father,” she interrupted, “so keep him out of this. I never wanted to meet him anyway.”

Ford tried a different approach. “Okay . . . what would your mother want you to do? She paid money to get you to America and you’re so close. Only thirty miles. I can’t go against your mother’s wishes without a good reason.”

A dramatic sigh of impatience before the girl climbed into the seat next to him, neatened the dress over her knees, then waited until she had Ford’s full attention. “Mama didn’t want us to leave. We had to leave. Mama was scared we would be killed because of what Maribel saw.”

“Oh?” Ford didn’t give it too much.

“Something very bad. At night, sometimes, Maribel still has dreams. That’s why Mama made her promise not to speak about it to anyone.”

On the console was a box of cheese crackers. He offered them to the girl. Watched her arm, no thicker than a sapling, disappear into the box, then reappear with a handful. “This sounds serious,” he said. “It happened recently?”

“No, I was only nine then. After that, Mama was too afraid to sleep—but she and Maribel are always afraid of something. Then a man said he would drive us to Florida in a big boat, but he lied. It was a very small boat with a motor, and that night, our first night, he made us get on the raft with Mr. Molera. I didn’t like Mr. Molera, but his wife was worse. She spanked me, called me a spoiled little nag, and made us sleep on the front of the raft.”

The girl popped a cracker into her mouth and chewed while Ford said, “I wouldn’t worry about them now. I’m more concerned about your mother. If she was afraid, why didn’t she come with you?”

“The man who lied about his big boat charged so much money, Mama had to borrow the rest and said she would come later. She didn’t
want
us to go, understand?”

Ford, although he believed himself to be open-minded, seldom changed his mind, but this situation was beginning to realign itself. A mother, unaware she was being conned, had spent her last cent and stayed behind rather than risk harm to her daughters.

“That’s why you must take us home—like you promised. If the bad man comes looking for Maribel, what will Mama do in the house all alone?”

Ford asked, “The man who lied about his boat?”

No, this was a different man, which the child explained, a Santería priest who pulled three girls into a cane field and stabbed one to death, then did something worse, although the ten-year-old in the flowered dress didn’t think that was possible.

“But Maribel knows,” Sabina said, “because that’s what she saw before she ran from the cane field and hid.”

B
efore dawn, meteorites showered seaward over clouds from the south, but the clouds weren’t clouds, Tomlinson realized. It was Cuba.

Maybe Figgy was right, he thought. Maybe I’m not dead.

It wasn’t the first time God had taken His cuts and missed.

He’d been dozing on the foredeck, a space reserved for the dinghy, but the dinghy was gone. Same with a lot of other gear swept overboard when that freight train wake hit them, a wave the sailboat had surfed in the wildest ride ever until the bow buried and they’d pitchpoled.

Figueroa had been swept over, too.

After that, events were fuzzy and very, very wet. There remained, however, the memory of the little shortstop saying,
Brother, you are unconscious. It would be wise, I think, to wear a helmet if we make this trip again.
Later, another lucid vision: Figgy, a wrench in his hand, saying,
That
puta
Vernum Quick is the cause of all this. Him and his magic. I will beat that
Santero
when we meet in hell
.

Around midnight, Tomlinson’s brain had rebooted sufficiently to take stock. The boat’s cabin resembled a trailer park after a tornado, but a few true valuables had survived: his vinyl records, a little brass Buddha, three baggies of heirloom grass, his baseball bag, and a minor miracle: the leather briefcase, the initials
F.A.C.
barely damp.

A sign, Tomlinson decided. In a day ripe with omens and harbingers, the message was clear: continue south, but
carefully
. No more of this blind hipster bullshit, blundering into the unknown. After that, all planning was prefaced by a simple rule: stop being creative, and try to think like Doc Ford.

It was five-fifteen a.m. For more than an hour,
No Más
had been allowed free rein to drift and settle low in the water while a mild Bahamas breeze did its work. Tomlinson stood and stretched. Cuba, yes. A few twinkling lights up there in the hills, a whiff of woodsmoke beneath a cavern of stars. More convincing was the knot on his head.

Better luck next time, big fella. Guess I’ll hop back on Your crazy carousel.

He climbed aft over the broken mast and a tangle of cables, tangs, and turnbuckles that he’d done his best to secure.
No Más
’s little diesel, still warm after twelve hours of constant work, started at the touch of a button. Almost no fuel in the tank, however, thus the wisdom of drifting.

After a glance astern—no dinghy there either—Tomlinson throttled toward land, and then a distant navigation tower that, hopefully, marked the entrance to a fishing village, but certainly wasn’t Havana.

When the gunboats stop me, he thought, I’ll know for sure.

•   •   •

T
HE
C
UBAN MILITARY
was ever on alert for vessels that strayed within the twelve-mile limit, yet
No Más
, waddling like an injured duck, went unchallenged as Tomlinson rounded a point and motored into one of the prettiest little harbors he’d ever seen. No yachts or crotch rockets here, just a few fishing dories beached amid garbage, and a guard tower built in the time of the Conquistadors. Bougainvillea, hibiscus, and roofs of red tile. Dogs yapped; people stared, then looked away.

Weird, Tomlinson thought. Almost like they’re expecting me. Or maybe they’re always afraid.

On the other hand, maybe it was because he was naked except for a red bandana tied around his head. He was surprised when he realized that.

Damn
—a couple of cops watching, too, and someone else inside a car parked with one door open. A woman in uniform, it looked like.

Well . . . shit-oh-dear.

He swung down into the cabin and reappeared wearing jeans and a tank top that were sodden and stunk of diesel fuel. Ahead was a cement pier, but most of it had collapsed. The only other place to tie up was built over the water, an ornate structure with French doors that might have once been a restaurant or, with luck, might still be a restaurant.

Was that coffee he smelled?

Yes, it was. Twenty minutes later, he sat at the bar of La Terraza with an espresso, a cold Cristal beer, and a papaya he’d bought from a vendor in the street. No food available from the kitchen at seven-thirty a.m., but the manager seemed eager to have the tall gringo stick around.

Interesting.

Tomlinson’s suspicions were confirmed when the two cops he’d seen arrived with a woman from the customs department; the woman in a uniform of blue, the cops in gray.

“We’ve heard reports of this incident you described,” the woman said after listening to his story. “Did you see the name of the vessel, any identifying marks? Or, perhaps, it all happened too fast.”

What Tomlinson had seen were military goons laughing down at them from the cruise ship’s fantail, but the way the woman glanced at the cops put him on alert. She had intentionally provided him with an out. Why? Or was this a subtle warning?

Possibly. Figueroa had identified the goons by their Russian uniforms—something the Cuban government wouldn’t want confirmed by an eyewitness.

“It’s hard for me to think straight,” he replied, “so I’m glad you speak English.” He lifted the bandana to show the knot on his head, then straightened it and smiled at her necklace of white and blue beads. “I’m just getting into Santería. Those colors, they honor Yemayá, correct? Goddess of the sea and sensuality. Wasn’t she Changó the war god’s first lover?”

A slight nod from the woman as she tugged at her collar. “Please answer the question.”

“It’s all a blur,” he replied, because that’s what she wanted to hear.

No Más
’s documents, along with his passport, were in a waterproof bag, which she opened and went through one by one while the cops stood at the door and glowered. The woman asked several more questions: Did he have money? How much? Could he arrange for more money if allowed to stay while his boat was repaired?

A small van arrived. A team of four clomped down the steps to the quay. “They’re going to search everything,” the woman said. “Experts, the best at what they do. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

Another warning.

That goddamn Russian grizzly narced us out, Tomlinson thought. Figgy was right about him.

He said, “Yes. They’ll find two baggies of very good ganja. And something else—it’s hard to talk about. I didn’t mention there was someone traveling with me.”

The relief on the woman’s face was visible. She gentled him along, saying, “Better me than a judge in Havana. Where is this person?”

“Swept overboard. Yesterday by that ship or freighter or whatever it was. I was knocked unconscious, so maybe I dreamed that he survived, that he somehow got back to the boat and helped me. I want to believe that, but when I woke up—this was before sunrise—I knew he was gone.”

“Drowned,” the woman said. “That’s the last you saw of this person? When the wave knocked you both into the water.”

Tomlinson sniffed and looked through the amber bottle in his hand. “On my boat, you won’t find his papers. He told me he didn’t even have a birth certificate. Last night, that really got to me for some reason. Like he’d never been born, so I searched through all that mess wondering if I’d imagined the whole damn thing. But I didn’t. Kind of a strange little guy but a hell of a shortstop. His name was Figueroa Casanova.”

The woman, who was stocky but had a good face and warm eyes, recognized the name but tried to pretend otherwise. “Are you sure he didn’t wait until you were close to shore, then jumped?”

Tomlinson had to smile at that. “He couldn’t swim. Even if he could, all your people will find is his shoe, a baseball shoe. You know, spikes? That was enough for me.”

“To you, this shoe proves he existed? Or that he’s dead?”

“A size eight,” Tomlinson replied, “take your pick. You saw me on the boat naked, so it sure as hell doesn’t belong to me.”

•   •   •

H
E HAD LANDED
in the village of Cojimar, a name that was familiar, but he didn’t remember why until a man with curly hair and a beard entered and sat at the bar. Ordered a demitasse, black, lit a cigarette, and struck up a conversation about photos on the wall. There were many: portraits of leathered fishermen, close-ups of their hands, a cast net beaded with sunlight, and fish, blue marlin and sharks, all black-and-white gothics from the 1950s.

“The great photographer Raúl Corrales made these images,” the man said. “He lived here, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.”

Tomlinson, browsing as if in a museum, listened for a while. “These are timeless. None of this photoshopped, digital crap. Yeah . . . a true artist. Did you know him?”

“Very well, before he died. I’m Raúl Corrales Junior.”

Tomlinson grinned and shook the man’s hand. “Buy you a beer?”

It was almost noon.

“Another coffee,” Raúl said. This time, he spooned in raw sugar, the granules big and brown like salt. “There are images you haven’t seen in the next room. One in particular that Americans like—a giant shark we still call
El Monstruo
.”

The Monster of Cojimar, Tomlinson realized.

In 1945, four local fishermen, drifting outside the harbor, caught the largest great white shark in history, which took hours to land, and several more hours to tow home. The entire village turned out, an event captured in black-and-white and framed on the wall: men, women, children sitting atop a shark that was twenty-one feet long and weighed seven thousand pounds.

“The Monster had been stealing blue marlin and swordfish from their lines, so our fishermen had to do something or go broke,” Corrales explained.

They returned to the bar and talked about photography, then Florida. Every Cuban has a relative within driving distance of Miami. Raúl’s daughter lived in Orlando. Tomlinson said, “I’ll call her when I get back . . . if I get back,” and began to relax by ordering another beer.

He had been fidgety, a little nervous, before Raúl showed up, but now didn’t feel so alone. The customs cops, who were finally gone, had found only the two bags of grass, but not the third bag, which was hidden, and not the briefcase, which had gone over the side with Figuerito, its faithful guardian. Tomlinson had been through too many customs shakedowns to admit how much cash he was carrying, but that’s not what worried him. Would the woman, whose name was Berta, return with official permission to stay until
No Más
was seaworthy? He was screwed if she didn’t because the cops had confiscated his passport.

There were other concerns. He had to find a safe place to moor his sailboat. Were there hauling tracks in this little bay? More pressing was his need for a map and private transportation.

The shortstop and Castro’s love letters were central to this issue.

Raúl had inherited his father’s perceptive eye. “I’m curious about the ring you’re wearing. I’ve seen that symbol before.”

From his pinky finger, right hand, Tomlinson removed a small gold ring and said carefully, “I bought it in the East—the pyramid is so old, you can barely see it.”

“José Martí, our national hero, belonged to the same fraternity,” Corrales said and handed the ring back.

It was not the reply Tomlinson had hoped to hear.

“There’s another thing I’m curious about. Do you mind? We don’t get many visitors here.”

“Fire away, man. The customs agent, her name’s Berta something, she’s supposed to be back in an hour or so, hopefully with my visa. Until then, I’m all dressed up with time on my hands.”

The man smiled but was already ahead of him. “No visa. I thought so. Other damaged boats have tried this harbor—not many, but a few—and you’re the first they didn’t take to Havana for questioning. It’s none of my business, but are you famous? A former athlete, perhaps?”

“Well . . . I wrote a book a while back. There’s still the occasional groupie, thank god, but, no, I’ve been wondering myself why the cops left me at a bar. Figured the local economy needed”—Tomlinson paused to think—“I look like an athlete to you?” He swiveled his chair around. “Raúl, I appreciate the compliment, but let’s put our cards on the table here. If you were sent to spy on me, far out. We all have to eat. So ask what you need to know, then we can get back to discussing these amazing photos.”

Corrales chuckled over his coffee while his eyes confirmed they were alone. “So plainspoken, gringos from the States. A spy? Hardly that. I asked because I heard they found baseball equipment on your boat.”

Word traveled fast in this village; probably true of the whole island. The Coconut Telegraph, Buffett called it. Tomlinson spoke as if sharing a confidence. “It has to be tough to keep a low profile in a place like this, huh? I thought my equipment went overboard when this goddamn cruise ship swamped me in the Gulf Stream.”

Corrales had heard about that, too, but stuck with baseball. “Do you play? Every afternoon, at the top of the hill, the village has a game. Men, and a few boys who are good enough.”

A surge of serotonin brightened the room. “Play, hell yes. I pitch a little and can steal a base; a slap hitter, unless the ball’s in my wheelhouse. Think they’d let me? Wait . . . you’re saying they need gloves and bats more than players?” He touched his forehead. “I’m a little slow today. Okay, no problem. When I leave, everything I’ve got stays with your village team.”