Elmore Leonard - Cat Chaser

There were young wives of ballplayers sunning themselves at the hotel pool-where the Marines had set up their water purification tanks-the young wives talking about housing and travel while their husbands, down here to play winter ball, took batting practice and went off for a round of golf.

There were no open fields near the hotel now. The gardens were gone, where the first group of Marines had dug in. The Kentucky Fried Chicken place on the corner of Avenida Washington and Socorro Sanchez was gone. The mahogany trees on the street south of the U.S. embassy were still there; the trees looked the same.

They had gone up this street beneath the arch of trees, wide-eyed in the dark, all the way to Nicolas Penson in a war where the street signs were intact and they found their way with a Texaco road map. In the morning they saw people in the streets, crowds of people lining Washington along the oceanfront, like they were watching a parade. They were-waving at the tanks and amtracs. Even with the FUERA YANQUIS signs painted on houses most of the people seemed glad to see them.

The next day, filing back to the embassy, a Marine walking point was shot dead by a sniper; Item Company, at Checkpoint Charlie north of the embassy, drew heavy fire and soon there were snipers working the whole neighborhood, what was supposed to be the International Safety Zone, using bazookas as well as small arms, even old water-cooled 30s that pounded out a heavy sound and at first were thought to be .50-caliber. The Marines moved crosstown, east, establishing a Line of Communication with the Eighty-second Airborne troopers coming into the city across the Duarte Bridge. The LOC held the rebels cornered in the old section of the city and kept the loyalists from getting at them. But it didn’t stop the snipers.

A battalion officer told them, “You got your Friendlies and you got your Unfriendlies.” He told them most of the snipers were hoodlums, street gangs who’d armed themselves when the rebels passed out guns the first day. These people were called tigres but were not trained or organized, not your regular-army rebels. The tigres were out for thrills, playing guns with real ones. “So don’t fire unless you’re fired on.” That was a standing order.

Wait a minute. You mean there’re rules ? Somebody said, “We’re here , man.” Two Marine battalions and four Airborne. “Why don’t we go downtown and fucking get it done?”

The question was never answered. By the end of the first month of occupation nineteen U.S. military had been killed in action, one hundred eleven wounded.

Moran said to his driver today, in the early evening sixteen years later, “I have a friend who was here with the Eighty-second, the paratroopers. He believes we could have gone into the rebel area, the old section, and ended the whole thing in about fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, I believe it, too,” the driver said.

“You were here?”

“Yes, I always be here.”

“What side were you on?”

“This side.” The driver, who was an old black man with Indian cheekbones that looked as though they had been polished, tapped his steering wheel. “Three taxicabs ago, the same Number Twenty-four. Chevrolet, but not new like this one.” They were in a ’76 Chevrolet Impala, Moran in front with the driver, the windows open, Moran now and again smelling wood smoke and the smell would take him back to that time.

“You were glad to see the Marines?”

“Yes, of course. To have peace. I drove pressmens from the United States. Yes, we come to a corner, a street there, we have to go fast or those rebel fellas shoot at you. One time the bullets come in this side where you are, they hit here”-he slapped the dashboard-”and go out this way past me, out the window.” The driver’s name was Bienvenido. He was born in 1904 and used to Marines from the United States. He said to Moran, “You want to see where Trujillo was killed, yes?”

“Tomorrow,” Moran said.

“And the old quarter, Independence Park.”

“Tomorrow,” Moran said. He was silent a moment and then said, “Do you know a woman by the name of Luci Palma?”

The driver thought about it and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Luci Palma…”

They followed the drive into the grounds of the Hotel Embajador, past the front lawn where the American civilians had waited with their luggage to be evacuated. Moran said, “Will you do something for me?”

“Yes, of course.”

Moran took a piece of notepaper from his shirt pocket and unfolded it. “I want this message put in the newspaper. In Listin Diario or El Caribe , I don’t care, whichever one you like better. All right? Tell them to put it in a box. You know what I mean? With lines around it. So it’ll stand out. Okay?”

“Yes, okay.”

“In English.”

“Yes, in English.”

“Just the way it’s written here. Okay? See if you can read it.” He handed Bienvenido the piece of notepaper with the hand-printed message on it that said:

CAT CHASER

is looking for the girl who once ran over rooftops and tried to kill him.

Call the Hotel Embajador.

Room 537.

Moran waited for the driver to ask him a question. Bienvenido stared at the notepaper, nodding his lips moving.

“You understand it?”

“You want a girl to call you?”

“The girl I met when I was here, before.”

“Yes.”

“She’ll recognize ‘Cat Chaser.’ If she sees it.”

“Yes.”

“That was the code name for my platoon. When I was here. I was Cat Chaser Four, but she’ll know who it is. I mean if she’s still here.” It didn’t seem enough of an explanation and he said, “This girl shot at me, she tried to kill me. I don’t mean it was anything personal, it was during the war. Then, I was taken prisoner by the rebels and I got a chance to meet her… You understand what I’m saying?”

Bienvenido was nodding again. “Yes, I understand. You want this girl. But if you don’t find this girl, you want another girl?”

Mary de Boya watched Moran enter the lobby. She watched him pick up his key at the desk and cross to the elevators. She was aware of an instant stir of excitement and in her mind, concentrating hard, she said, Look this way . She said, Moran, come on. Quick. Look this way!

The elevator door closed behind him; he was gone.

Maybe she was expecting too much. It was dark in the hotel cocktail lounge. Even if he’d looked over he might not have been able to see her. Or their telepathy was rusty.

A few years ago Mary de Boya could stare across the lounge at Leucadendra and make Moran feel her eyes and look at her. Moran could do the same. In the dining room or the club grill she would feel it. Raise her eyes to meet his and something would pass between them. Not a signal, an awareness. They could smile at each other without smiling. Raise eyebrows, almost imperceptibly, and make mutual judgments. Aloud they could make comments removed from reality that would whiz past her husband, his wife, and they would know things about each other that had nothing to do with their backgrounds, both from the same city. That was a coincidence, nothing more. Though it was handy if needed, when Andres drilled her with his secret-police look and wanted to know what they’d been talking about. “Detroit.” When in fact they’d been talking about nothing in particular, nothing intimate, nothing sane, for that matter, “Detroit” was the safe answer. “We just found out both of our dads worked at Ford Rouge, but George lived on the northwest side and I lived downriver, in Southgate.” The look between them had remained harmless. Still, each knew it was there if they wanted to make something of it.