Lawrence Block: Killing Castro

After all, in the elections of 1952, Fidel Castro intended to run for congress.

But there were no elections in 1952. That was the year Batista, hungry once more for power, returned from Daytona Beach to Cuba. On March tenth he entered Camp Columbia. His vast fortune had been depleted in a divorce settlement and he intended to rebuild it, squeezing the money from the island of Cuba. He seized control of the army and sent the legitimate government running for their lives.

Batista’s coup was conducted swiftly and efficiently. In no time at all he had complete control of the government. Foreign nations extended diplomatic recognition to him and the Cuban people themselves did not dare to raise their voices against him. But one young lawyer in Havana had different ideas. He saw only that a corrupt dictator once again had his grip on Cuba. He knew that this was wrong, and he tried to do something about it.

Castro submitted a brief to the Cuban courts contesting the Batista government. The brief was thrown out. He wrote a letter to Batista, calling for honest elections and representative government. The letter, of course, was ignored.

Batista remained in power.

And then Fidel Castro realized something. He saw that the Batista dictatorship was not the sort to be ousted through parliamentary means. He saw that the reforms he envisioned, the redistribution of land and the social progress, would not come about gradually. Batista’s Cuba was a toy for the rich, run for the benefit of corrupt Cuban politicians.

Batista could not be reformed. He could only be overthrown. He could not be changed but had to be thrown out bodily. The only politics which would work in Cuba were the politics of the knife and the Sten gun, the politics of guerrilla warfare in the hills and underground intrigue in the cities.

The following year, on the 26th of July in 1953, he began.

When Garrison walked out on Hiraldo, he went to a bar a block away. The air was warm and close. He walked quickly, eyes front. He knew there was a man behind him but he did not turn around.

The bar was dark and dirty, filled with Cubans. Garrison stood near the rear and nursed a glass of draft beer. He saw his tail come in, a hollow-eyed Cuban wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Now he had a problem. The tail could be one of Hiraldo’s men checking up on the would-be assassins. But he could just as easily be somebody else’s man. Fidel’s, for example.

Garrison thought it over. He finished his beer, left the bar, caught a taxi. His tail followed him out of the bar and stepped into an old Mercury idling at the curb. The Merc pulled out and stayed behind the taxi.

“In case you didn’t know,” the cabbie said, “you got a tail.”

“I know,” Garrison said.

“Want to lose him?”

“No,” Garrison said. “Pretend you don’t know he’s there. Find me a cheap, quiet hotel. A dump.”

The cabbie found one, an ancient building with a neon sign that said Hotel and nothing more. Garrison climbed four crumbling wooden steps, walked into a lobby that smelled of disinfectant and stale beer. A clerk wearing a green eye shade took Garrison’s three dollars in advance and gave him a key to a room on the third floor. There was no elevator. Garrison climbed the stairs and let himself into his room, locking the door behind him.

There was an unmade bed, a dresser with cigarette burns around the edges, a cane-bottomed wooden chair. Garrison turned on the light and sat on the edge of the bed. After ten minutes had passed he turned out the light. It was their move, he thought. Let them make it. He figured they’d give him time to get to sleep, then sneak in to do their dirty work. He’d fool them—if his ruse worked—and hand them their heads.

He waited for half an hour—it seemed like an eternity—ears alert for the slightest sound.

They were sloppy. He heard their footsteps on the staircase, heard unintelligible whispering in the hallway. He tiptoed to the door as he heard the scratching of a knife blade prying the door open. Then silence.

The door moved inward. Garrison had his gun in his hand, the sleek Beretta he carried in a special pocket sewn into his jacket. He held the gun by the barrel now. This had to be silent. Even in a cheap fleabag hotel you didn’t take chances with gunfire.

There were two of them, two Cubans standing in his room, letting their eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. One—the fellow who had been driving the Mercury—had a large revolver in his hand. The other held a knife.

The gun first. Garrison was close, close enough to reach out and touch them, close enough to smell their sweat. His body relaxed, shifted into gear, unwound in fluid motion. The Beretta went up and then down. There was a dull thud, a shifting, a grunt. The man with the gun fell, face forward, into the room.

Garrison pushed the door shut and crouched, ready to spring.

Now it was cute. Now they were alone in total darkness, he and the one with the knife, a switchblade stiletto with a four-inch blade.

Garrison had the advantage; he could see better, his eyes were used to the dim light. But the Cuban was smart, refusing to make a move until he could make out Garrison’s silhouette. Tense moments idled by before the man lunged like a cobra, the knife coming up in a liquid underhand motion. Garrison dodged, grabbed for the Cuban’s arm, missed.

The knife snaked in again. Garrison backed off, bumped into the bed and cursed. The Cuban was ready for another try and Garrison ducked just in time, the knife moving wide over a shoulder. The Cuban was breathing hoarsely, moving in for the kill—he hoped. Garrison got away from the bed, found the cane-bottomed chair, hefted it and threw it. It took the knife artist in the chest and sent him reeling backwards, but he came up quickly, the knife still in his hand.

Time pressed Garrison. The other Cuban, the one on the floor, was coming to. Garrison heard him trying to struggle to his feet and he knew it was now or never. He wished he still had his Beretta, but that was gone, probably under the bed.

The Cuban charged but Garrison was ready. He sidestepped, moved in hard, catching the Cuban with a hand on his wrist and another hand on his upper arm. His own knee came up quickly. With the knee under the Cuban’s elbow it was very simple. He broke the man’s arm as easily as he would have snapped a twig. The stiletto clattered to the floor. The Cuban moaned like a girl, went to his knees, and Garrison knocked him out with a kick to the temple.

Another kick sent the other Cuban off to sleep again.

He switched on the light and went through their pockets. The knife wielder carried a few bills and a handful of change, nothing more. Garrison took the money. The man with the gun had a wallet containing a Cuban driver’s license, a passport, more money. The passport had a recent date.

Castristas, Garrison thought. Fidel’s bullyboys. And they had come to kill him. So Castro’s men suspected something was cooking. Well, that made it harder. They might know something was cooking but they didn’t know what. Garrison shrugged his shoulders—twenty grand was a lot of money, the kind of dough you don’t get unless there’s danger in the deal.

And this pair wouldn’t make trouble. Garrison grinned, found the stiletto. The man who held the gun, the driver, was stirring again. Garrison cut his throat easily, then slit the throat of the other Cuban. He wiped his prints from the knife, the door, the various articles of furniture in the room he might have touched. He found his Beretta, returned it to the pocket where it belonged and left the room, closing the door behind him.