"Earl," said Ray, behind him, "I hope you know what you're doing, getting mixed up with these birds."
"I hope I do too," said Earl.
Earl took a shower, changed into his suit and a fresh shirt, and went with the two officers to the Officer's Club, where as "Mr. Jones" he felt himself the secret celebrity of a dull room full of dull naval officers and their dull wives. He saw the odd marine officer here and there, including an old-breed fellow here and there, and felt a longing to go over and say, "Hey, I'm Earl Swagger, USMC, wonder if you'd mind if I joined you." He knew they'd say, "Hell no, Mr. Swagger, set yourself down and we'll listen to your sea stories and we'll tell you some of our own." But that didn't happen, couldn't happen, wouldn't happen.
He had good steak and salad and passed on the drinks, though the two officers each belted back a couple of martinis apiece, and, loosened up, began to yap idiotically about "it," by which he took it they meant the Agency. They didn't say, but their curiosity was overwhelming. "What's it like," they wanted to know. "How secret is it? How tough to get in?"
He knew the answers to none of their questions and really didn't give a damn about either of them, the kind of dandy, fancy, educated boys who somehow didn't end up in the lines but always wangled intelligence or communications or staff. No, that wasn't true. There were a few who―
But a seaman, clutching his cap, came in and whispered something in Lieutenant Dan's ear, which sobered the young fellow up instantly.
"We heard from Roger," he said. "Finish up. You aren't getting another night on the navy. They want you in town but fast."
"Okay," Earl said. "Havana?"
"No, Santiago. It's only an hour away. We'll get you there by staff car. They say something's about to happen in Santiago."
"What would that be?" Earl wondered.
"Maybe there's a war about to break out," Lieutenant Dan said.
"Hell," said the younger officer, "it's more like an orgy. Hey, Mr. Jones, take me along."
"Jerry, what the hell are you babbling about?"
The answer, from Jerry, was one lascivious word: "Carnival."
Chapter 37
Speshnev worked the streets, but it was difficult to get people to pay attention. It was carnival week in Santiago and those not yet drunk thought only of becoming drunk, and at night with the music, the beat of the drums, the running of the blood, who could tell? What adventures lurked, what possibilities beckoned?
He began at the Plaza de Armas, the plush green square that was the center of Santiago's red roofs and riotous streets that careened out of control toward the harbor. He started in the lobby of Hotel Casa Grande but wandered in wider and wider circles, avoiding the billy goats pulling children in the square-he doubted either goats or children knew much-then moseyed through the great Cathedral of Santa Ifigenia, where the devoted lit candles and the priests muttered like conspirators but dried up when a stranger approached. It was the one place where the air was not filled with love and pleasure and cigar smoke; only the muttering priests were there, and those hungry to confess so that their consciences would be free to accumulate yet more sin over the weekend of paganism, thus to be purged again with time in the booth.
He drifted by the oldest house in Cuba-a conqueror built it in 1516 and now, in 1953, conquerors were here still-and eventually wandered over to the heart of the city, Calle Herrera, locus of bars and tourists, the latter who had tired of Havana's commercial vulgarities and come in search of a more refined style of debauchery in the night. Perhaps they wouldn't have to pay as much for their pleasure; it might even be free. There was so much excitement that it reminded him of Catalonia in 1936, where the war was fought for real and people's passion-for revolution, bread and freedom, not sex-was so intense the desire reached out to embrace death itself. There were no tourists in Barcelona in 1936 and too many in Santiago in 1953.
He kept moving. He strode by police stations and military installations, he got his hair cut at one barber's and his chin shaved at two others, and his shoes shined three times. He bought seven bolita tickets and four cigars. At every stop he paid attention, asking an outsider's bland questions, hoping for interesting answers. He located the biggest newspaper, and followed a fellow with a notebook to the bar where all the reporters hung out-reporters, especially the stupid American ones, had been a source of much information in Spain-and jostled among them, again listening, drinking for camouflage. He had too many beers, most of which he poured down pissholes in the men's.
What?
Well, nothing. It's carnival time, my friend. Relax, enjoy, perhaps a pretty woman will take notice of you.
Not that. The other thing.
Oh, that. Just rumors. Nonsense, stupidity. Nothing definite. Nothing sure.
There was nothing about a leader, about a plan or a conspiracy, about strikes or demonstrations or speeches or mass movements. No name was magic, no name was spoken. But still…
Someone had heard that someone had been collecting Cuban army uniforms from ex-soldiers, or from bums on the street, offering them rum for the old green shirts. Someone else said he had heard that someone had seen someone buying as much.22 ammunition and as many shotgun shells as possible in a variety of sporting goods stores. Someone else said that certain men had not been seen in a few weeks, men of good standing, shopkeepers, carpenters, factory workers, not students or ex-soldiers. Where were these men? Where had they gone? What did it mean?
No one could say. Alas, Speshnev did not have sources in the police Political Section or, other than the overheard buzz of gossip in the restaurant, in the press. He had no support here in this far city, no networks, no informants, no enthusiastic believers to be manipulated. He had nothing except his wits and his legs and his impatience at the carnival madness.
He walked, he walked, he walked, finally trying to figure out if there were targets of opportunity for the ambitious young man whose ill-discipline, whose temper, he feared was behind all this. The police station was too big, as was the army base, which was garrisoned at some monstrosity called the Moncada Barracks north of Marti Square, fronting on Calle Carlos Aponte. With its crenellated walls it loomed above its own parade ground, almost a castle. A thousand men were quartered there. What would the point be, other than suicide? Only a fool would try such a thing. That left the post offices (unlikely), the radio stations, the municipal government. But those were direct targets, that would strike hard at the president, make him lose face but not really any power. A subtler man might try to discredit him before his sponsors or clients, possibly by aiming at some symbolic target, like an American building, say the mansions owned by executives of the United Fruit Company. Yet that would bring marines by the boatload, hellbent and righteous with fury. It would turn Cuba into the forty-ninth state even faster than it now seemed to be heading. Would this young man do such an insane thing? Even Speshnev couldn't believe he'd be that stupid.
Another thought: the docks. Here the big American ships-the sugar vessels, the fruit carriers-put in to load up on Cuba's wealth, which was fated to become American wealth. If you sank a ship full of sugar, it would have a certain mythic resonance, no? It would echo back to the battleship Maine blown up in Havana harbor so many years ago, but with a comic twist. Better still if the bomb killed no one, but just forced the ship to settle into the cold water. And if he also did the same on a Bacardi rum tanker? It could be accomplished quite easily by surprise. All that sugar, all that rum, turning Santiago de Cuba's harbor into the biggest mojito the world had ever seen! What a magnificent gesture.