Yocke took out his wallet and removed his press card. He handed it to the woman and smiled broadly. “Jack Yocke, Washington Post.”
The man snatched the card and looked at it incredulously. “You, reporter?”
“Yes. I—”
“Out! Take your card.” The man threw it at him. “Beat it! Scram! Right now, hombre.”
Yocke pocketed the card. He slowly arranged the strap of the computer case over his shoulder and hefted the vinyl bag. “Could I get your name for my story? I don’t know much Spanish, but I know bote and viaje por mar and a couple more words. I know that Santa Clara is a city in Cuba. And I can add two and two.”
“Tienes las orejas grandes y la mala lengua.”
“Yep. Big ears and a bad mouth. That’s me.”
They stared at him openmouthed. The phone started ringing again. They let it ring.
“What you want?” Back to English.
“Same as you. To go to Cuba.”
“Why?”
“I’m a reporter. They’re having a revolution.” Jack Yocke grinned.
The phone was still ringing. The man and woman looked at each other.
“No,” she said.
“Sí.” The man stood partially aside. “Come in.”
“Why don’t you answer your phone?”
“Reporters.” He spit out the word. “They have treated us as cracked pots — that is the words, no? — for years, ignored us, and now they drive us loco. ‘A story, now give us a story! Tell us of Cuba and Fidel.’ Now you want to spill on us some of the ink you use for your football and your stories of foolish rich men and silly women with the big tits, eh? Truly, señor, yours is a miserable profession.”
There were two other men in the room. Cubans. In their thirties, lean and wiry, they were sitting in straight-backed chairs and they didn’t rise. They did, however, scrutinize Yocke’s face with the coldest stares he could remember.
The cadaverous man who had admitted him closed the door carefully and said, “But first let’s establish just what your real profession is, señor.”
Yocke turned to face him. “What do you think my profession might be, if I’m not a reporter?”
The man went behind the desk and opened a drawer. He extracted a large revolver and pointed it straight at Yocke. “Oh, let me think. What a puzzle! Can you help me?”
The revolver looked like as big as a cannon. The black hole in the muzzle looked large enough to drive a car through. Jack Yocke grinned nervously. No one else smiled.
“Perhaps you are of Fidel. Perhaps you are CIA. Those possibilities leap immediately to my mind. Sit!”
Yocke sat.
“Now. Put that thing over your shoulder on the floor there beside you. Place your hands on the table in front of you, señor, and remain still as the most dead man you ever saw, or Holy Mother! I will make you very very dead very very quickly.”
The two spectators came over and, carefully staying out of the possible line of fire, emptied Yocke’s pockets, turning them inside out. The contents they put on the desk.
“Stand in the corner, señor, facing the wall.”
Jack Yocke obeyed.
He heard the door open, then fifteen seconds later close again. He heard the sounds of zippers being opened. His computer case. Maybe his suitbag.
“You could call my editor at the Post and ask him what I look like.”
“I know I look like a fool, señor. For that I blame my father. But a fool I am not. If you are a Fidelista or a CIA, you have a wonderful cover. I expect no less. Por favor, señor, do not twitch like that! The noise of this pistol is distressing in such a small room.”
After several minutes the cadaverous man, who was the only one who had spoken, told Yocke, “Turn around.”
The reporter did so. The contents of his wallet were spread all over the desk. One of the Cubans was punching the buttons of the computer, slowly, randomly, absorbed, while he watched the screen. The third man was pawing through Yocke’s clothes and underwear, which were piled on the floor.
With his gun just under his right hand, the man at the desk was ripping open cigarette packs. He crumbled the cigarettes into piles of tobacco and paper and randomly ripped apart filters with his fingernails. It took two more minutes. Satisfied at last, he raked the mess into a trash can beside the desk. Most of it went into the trash, anyway: the rest went onto the wooden floor.
Now the man wiped his hands together to get rid of the tobacco crumbs, then picked up the revolver. He pointed it at the reporter’s belly button.
“Ahora bien, we will come to Jesus, as you say. The truth.”
“My name is Jack Yocke. I’m a reporter for the Washington Post. I left Washington this morning to go to Cuba. I figured that none of the other correspondents trying to get there would think of going over to Cuba with the exiles. So I flew into Miami Airport and looked in the telephone book. I looked under ‘Cuba’ and found an address for Cuba Libre. I hailed a taxi. Here I am. That’s the truth.”
The man stared. The other two finished their explorations and joined in the scrutiny.
“We don’t have time for your games. We have things to do.”
“Take me with you to Cuba, please. I’m asking you as nice and polite as I know how.”
“What makes you think we are going to Cuba?”
“Please, mister, don’t jerk my chain! Some of the Cubans must be going! If you guys aren’t, who is? I need to get to Cuba one way or the other. What the hell you want me to do — hire an airplane and parachute out of it? Goddammit, my paper wants stories from Cuba and sent me to get them. I won’t write a story about you or mention your names without your approval. Is that what you’re worried about? You can be a confidential source. I’m just asking for your help. But with or without you, I’m going to Cuba.”
The three men glanced at each other. Nothing was said.
After several seconds, the man behind the desk put the pistol back in the drawer and gestured. “Your things.” He shook his head. “Only in America …”
His name was Hector Santana. He didn’t introduce the other two, but Yocke later learned their names: Jesús Ruiz and Tomás García. The three conferred briefly in whispers in the far corner, then Santana faced him again.
“You must understand the danger. There is much danger. We will go by boat. We will have to avoid your Coast Guard, which will be alert for boats going to Cuba, and we will have to avoid the Cuban Navy, which will be even more alert. If we are caught by the Americans, we will be in serious trouble. If we are caught by the Cubans, we will be dead.”
“I understand. I want to go.”
“You say it so easily, so lightly. A ride in a pedal-boat on a park lake! You would risk your life for your employer’s sake, to write a story for a newspaper?”
“Well, it does sound sort of stupid, when you put it like that. But yes, I—”
“You are a fool.”
“You’ll be just as dead as I.”
“Ahh, but we are fighting for our country. For Cuba. You, you risk your life for money, for glory. And those things they are as nothing. They are as smoke. You are a very great fool.”
“You’ve told me the risks. You’ve given me your opinion. I still want to go if you’ll take me.”