“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Why not ask me, and let me decide how I feel?”
He had given her the most enjoyable evening she had yet spent in Havana, and had distinguished himself further by not making a single premature pass. Therefore she had no excuse for refusing to let him drive her around sightseeing in her own car the next day — which prolonged itself painlessly into another dinner together, and thus into another project for the following morning. And so on.
Almost from the first evening she began to notice odd things about him — the way he would stop and look carefully up and down the street every time they came out of a building, a trick of glancing back over his shoulder at unexpected moments, his phobia about taking any table in a restaurant where he could not sit facing the entrance and with his back to a wall, the continual restless wandering of his eyes. By the third day she had no hesitation about asking him why.
“And so he told you,” said the Saint.
“I suppose it was easier for him, since I was a foreigner, so at least he could be pretty sure I wasn’t already on the other side. And we’d become very good friends very quickly. You know, that can happen.”
Simon nodded.
“What is he afraid of?”
“You forget, it’s really a dictatorship here. And Ramón is one of the people who are trying to get rid of the Strong Man and bring democracy back. You know what would happen to him if the Secret Police caught him.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t been following Cuban politics too closely,” Simon confessed. “However, what’s the programme for getting rid of the Strong Man? A fine rowdy revolution, or a nice neat assassination?”
“Neither,” she said with some spirit. “Ramón and his friends aren’t gangsters. You can’t build a lasting good government on any kind of violence. And it isn’t necessary, either. The majority wants freedom, as they do in any dictatorship. They’re just held down by one small group that’s well organized and has all the key positions. So the Underground is organizing too, and they’ll just arrest that group all at once, the same as a surgeon would remove a growth, without chopping the patient up with an axe.”
“It sounds frightfully humane and tidy,” Simon remarked. “South American revolutions were a lot more fun when I was a boy. So time marches on... Well, when is this change-over set for?”
“Very soon now. It might be almost any day.”
“If it’s all so efficiently organized and ready to roll so soon, I’m still wondering why you so desperately need me.”
She stood up again, as if the springs of repressed excitement would not let her relax.
“They’re afraid that there may be a traitor in the Underground.”
“Aha.”
“And if there is, he might know that Ramón is the only man who has a complete list of all the members. You see what that means? If Ramón was arrested by the Secret Police, everything would be lost. He’s sure that they’d never get a single name out of him under any torture” — she shuddered — “but if they got the list, all his courage wouldn’t make any difference.”
“I’m beginning to appreciate this lad Ramón,” said the Saint. “The list, I gather, isn’t in his head.”
“Of course not. It couldn’t possibly be. There are thousands of names and addresses on it. Naturally there has to be one key list like that, but can you imagine the responsibility of trying to keep it safe?”
Simon regarded her steadily.
“Looking at you,” he observed thoughtfully, “I gather that it makes you pretty jittery.”
She stared at him, her eyes widening and her mouth falling open.
“I didn’t say—”
“No, you didn’t say it, darling. But my brain is beginning to work. Obviously, Ramón has asked you to take care of this list.”
She brought her lips together again with a shrug of resolution.
“All right, that’s it. I’m leaving tonight, and I’m to take it back to the States with me. I can put it in a safe deposit box in Miami until Ramón needs it, and the Secret Police can’t do anything about that.”
“But you’re scared about getting it there — is that it? You’ve been seen around with Ramón too much. If he’s already being watched — which you don’t know — then you may be suspected yourself.”
“Ramon thinks the odds are on my side. As an American who’s never been here before, they ought to believe I’m... well, just a passing romance. But I can’t help thinking and thinking about the other possibility. Suppose they don’t?”
“You’ve got something to worry about.”
“So that’s why — when I saw you for the third time running last night — and by that time I knew who you were — it seemed like an omen. I had to ask you for help.” In her intensity she was completely sexless, either because she scorned such wiles or because nothing in her background was consonant with the use of them; yet for that very reason her appeal was stronger than any siren could have achieved. “Please, will you?”
“Yes,” said the Saint calmly.
She slumped against the wall, twisting her hands together.
“I feel so stupid and small,” she said. “And I was so excited at first. Coming here, and meeting a man who turned out to be a real hero like Ramón and winning his confidence. And then having the chance to do something really important for the first time in my life — something truly dangerous and romantic, like most people only read about. But when it came right to the point, I found I didn’t have what it takes. It wasn’t only being scared of how I’d react to being arrested, or — or the things they might do to me. It was thinking of the thousands of other people whose lives I’d be responsible for. And I found out I was in a blue frozen funk, all through my insides... You must despise me.”
“Anything but. I’m glad you had the sense to know when you were out of your depth, and the guts to admit it.” The Saint’s brows lowered over a passing thought. “Ramón spotted me last night, too — I saw you speak to each other about it. What did he say?”
“He didn’t like it. I told him it must be a coincidence, and you couldn’t possibly be against him, but he was worried. I tried to tell him what everyone knows about you, but I don’t know how much I convinced him. That’s why I still haven’t told him I spoke to you.”
Simon lighted a cigarette.
“All right. Where is this list now?”
“It’s in one of my suitcases. He left it with me last night.”
She hesitated a moment, and then went and opened a suitcase which stood on a trestle in a corner. She turned over a few folded pieces of clothing and brought out an alligator briefcase.
She came over to the Saint with it, and he took it.
“What’s the opposite of a nightmare?” she said. “It’s the word I need for the way it feels to know I don’t have to think twice about trusting you.”
“The words you’re thinking of may be ‘pipe-dream,’ ” he said sardonically.
The briefcase was brand new, so that the leather bulged stiffly over the bulk that it contained. It was equipped with a lock which Simon recognized as being much more resistant to amateur picking than the average run of such hardware, although of course it had no defence against a sharp knife in the hands of anyone who was not bothered about preserving its virginal appearance.
“I’d suggest you go on packing, and let Ramón think this is still in the bottom of that suitcase — then there won’t be any argument,” said the Saint, and got to his feet. “By the way, when are you seeing him again?”
“He’s coming here at one o’clock, for a farewell lunch — or I suppose you’d say, an hasta la vista. He has to bring my car back, anyhow — I let him take it home last night after he brought me back, because his own car is in the shop having an overhaul.”