His passport was in the top left drawer of his dresser, under the hankies. He didn’t bother packing any hankies.
With the encased laptop computer that he had signed for from the Post dangling from a strap over his shoulder and the fake-leather bag banging against his leg, he hailed a cab — hey, he was on the expense account — and rode with nervous anticipation back to the Post. He kept the cab waiting while he trotted into the building and rode up to the travel office.
Trying very hard to conceal his nervousness, he stood in line until he had his tickets and money. They were really going to let him go!
He didn’t feel safe until he was on his way to the airport. Then he sat back and grinned broadly. This was his chance! All the writing he had ever done had been mere preparation for this story. And he felt confident. He was ready.
After he had checked his bag at the ticket counter and gotten his seat assignment, Jack Yocke wandered into a newsstand and bought a carton of Marlboros. He took the cigarette packs out of the carton and stuffed them around the computer inside its case. Fortunately there was room. Then he went to the bar and watched the latest news on the Cable News Network.
While Yocke was sipping coffee from a paper cup, one of the CNN White House correspondents assured the audience that President Bush was closely monitoring the situation in Cuba.
That statement had been given out by the White House press flacks upon the order of William C. Dorfman.
Actually the President was at that very moment discussing with Dorfman and the chairman of the national Republican party a matter more weighty than a revolution in Cuba. The American people had recently elected a larger Democratic House and Senate majority, and two of the loyal Republican congressmen who would be unemployed in January wanted government jobs.
Dorfman suggested ambassadorships: he named several possible small nations in sub-Sahara Africa. The national chairman thought the two Republican legislators might prefer to be assistant secretaries of something or other. “Who the hell wants to go to equatorial Africa?”
The men in the Oval Office had their feet up and were in no hurry. Dorfman had canceled most of the President’s regular schedule today so he would have plenty of time to closely monitor the Cuban thing.
At noon the President went down to the White House situation room for a briefing. He was back at twelve-fifteen and when lunch was brought in turned on the television to see what the media were saying. Various loyal army units in the provinces had capitulated to mobs that had besieged their barracks shouting for food. Fidel Castro had appeared on Havana television — the show ran thirty seconds of poor-quality tape — and blamed the “riots” by “counterrevolutionaries” on Yankee imperialists. He announced that the traitors who had seized Radio Havana that morning had been captured and shot.
“There’s no organized opposition,” Bush informed his guests. “The lid just blew off.”
CNN then ran a story about several dozen major corporations buying up huge tracts in West Virginia to open landfills for the entire eastern seaboard’s garbage. The President watched while he ate a BLT on whole wheat with a double shot of mayo. The governor of West Virginia, a Democrat, was outraged, but the yokels in the legislature refused to forbid landfills or even regulate them. Apparently a lot of West Virginians thought their children and grandchildren wouldn’t mind living on top of New York City’s garbage and drinking the effluvia in their water so long as they got jobs driving the bulldozers.
“Makes you wonder about democracy, doesn’t it?” the national chairman muttered. “If the Russians and Cubans only knew.”
Bush finished off the last bite of the BLT and jabbed the remote control, turning off the television. He asked the national chairman what the Democrats thought about foreign aid to the Soviets.
They were deep into that subject when an aide motioned Dorfman from the room and showed him Mergenthaler’s column.
Dorfman ate three Rolaids as he read. When he finished he snapped, “Get Cohen on the phone,” and went to his office to take the call.
“I’m calling about Mergenthaler’s column, Gid.”
“What about it?” Cohen was equally brusque.
“Somebody over in your empire told him you guys can’t convict Aldana.”
“That’s somebody’s opinion. I don’t know whose. It isn’t mine.”
“You gonna call a press conference and deny it?”
“Deny what?”
Dorfman held the phone away from his ear and looked at it distastefully. If the man was as stupid as he sounded, he wasn’t qualified to prosecute a traffic ticket.
“Are you or are you not going to convict Chano Aldana?”
“I’m not a psychic.”
“You want me to tell the President that?”
“If the President wants to talk to me about the case against Aldana, I’ll be delighted to brief him. We have evidence. Mountains of it. We’re still sifting through it page by page. We think Aldana’s guilty and we’ll try to prove it.”
“The President will want you to say that in a press release.”
“Have you talked to him about it?”
“Not yet, but—”
“If the President wants a press release, we’ll do one. I don’t advise it. If we start issuing press releases to deny leaks we’re going to be as busy as the sorcerer’s apprentice. Call me back when you find out the President’s decision.” The attorney general hung up.
The President did want a press release. Dorfman had his youngest, most junior aide call the attorney general and deliver the message.
When Jack Yocke had collected his bag from the luggage carousel at Miami airport, he found a pay phone with a Miami telephone directory still attached. He looked up an address, then hailed a cab in front of the terminal.
2422 South Davis was smack in the middle of the Cuban section of town. The business signs were in Spanish. Latin rhythms floated from passing cars. Yocke paid the cab driver and stood on the sidewalk for a moment watching the passing swarms of humanity.
The storefronts looked Mexican. Maybe that’s what Cuba looks like, sort of Matamoros East without the tourists, whores, and sex shows.
The black lettering on the glass of the door between a dress store and what he took to be a laundry had been painted freehand by someone in a hurry. CUBA LIBRE, it said, like the rum drink. “Free Cuba.”
Jack Yocke opened the door and went inside. He walked along a hall, then began climbing a flight of stairs. The worn steps creaked as they took his weight. At the top of the stairs was another door, one with no glass. He tried the knob. It turned.
The small office was empty. Two closed doors against the back wall presumably led to offices that overlooked the back alley. He could hear people, men and women, arguing in Spanish behind one of the doors. Yocke took a seat and arranged his bag and computer on the chair beside him.
He crossed his legs and tried to figure out what the conversation was about. No soap. These people didn’t speak Spanish like Mrs. Grafton. They should have taken her course.
The phone rang. And rang. And rang, while the argument continued unabated.
It stopped, finally. Shortly thereafter a woman opened the door and started. “Who are you?”
“Name’s Jack Yocke. You the receptionist?”
“How long have you been sitting here?” She had a definite accent and her skin was a warm brown.
“Just a couple of minutes.” About fifteen, actually. “Your door was unlocked and … I hope you don’t mind.”
“We’re closed.”
A man came from the inside of the office and stood in the doorway looking at Yocke. “I don’t know him,” he told the woman. His accent was less pronounced than the woman’s, but noticeable. He was a slight man without a trace of excess flesh. His skin stretched tightly across his face; his eyes were deeply set.