Randy White - North of Havana

Just a good day all around.

I had moved away from the tree, its odor. I said, "I'm going to check that cottage, the one with the light. If they're in there, could you postpone whatever it is you're going to do until I get them on the boat? We'll try to sail out."

I knew that Geis was calculating my worth to him. Me, his alibi-but did he need an alibi now with Adolfo dead, a rifle nearby?

Finally, he said, "What I'll try to do is get things happening when you're on the boat. A little diversion to give you some time. Call it professional courtesy." Looked at Santoya's corpse before he added, "But I don't think you're going to find them in the cottage. Or anywhere else."

He was wrong.

With Geis covering me, I crossed from the trees to the cottage and peeked into the gun port-sized window.

Tomlinson was there; he stood in the corner twisting a strand of long hair-an old nervous habit. Rita was there, too; she had her hands in her lap, sitting on the floor. And Dewey was sitting beside her… though, for a moment, I wanted to believe she was someone else. It was because of the way she looked; what they had done to Dewey's face…

Looking from side to side for the guards I knew were nearby, I removed the bar from the padlock hinge and shouldered the door open and closed it tight behind me. I stepped into the little room-probably a sleeping hut years ago-and it seemed that all I could see in the light of a single burning candle was Dewey. I saw her one good gray-blue eye open wide in terror, then in relief when she realized it was me; watched her comb a shaking hand through her blond hair, a familiar gesture that I found heartbreaking-let's pretty ourselves up a little-and then she was on her feet and in my arms, her bruised and swollen face on my shoulder, crying uncontrollably, her body trembling beneath my fingers. She was wearing the tattered remains of the black dress she'd worn two nights before.

"It's okay now, Dewey. We're going to be okay. I'm going to get you out." I tried to smile at her… a failed gesture of my own.

I stood there as she held me, her body spasming, then felt her recoil away unexpectedly: her left eye swollen closed from someone's fist, her lips and left ear the color of bloated grapes. It made it painful for her to speak. I listened helplessly as she sobbed, "How could you bring me to a place like this, Doc? You knew what it was like and you let me come anyway." Confused by it all; she genuinely wanted to understand. "And I heard them say you'd killed someone here years ago. You never told me that, but you still brought me. You lied to me; you knew and you lied."

I pulled her back to me, whispering, "You're right. I'm so sorry," because I did know and I had been stupid, had let her convince me, and now it was something that we would have to live with-if we did live-and that would forever change our relationship, and our lives. Innocence cannot be lost; it can only be taken. My bad judgment had taken far too much from her; had taken it all.

Tomlinson was approaching us, a scarecrow man with his baggy brown shirt and his hippie hair. I flashed him a warning glance-stay the hell away. There was no smile on his face now. Looking into his eyes was like looking into the windows of an abandoned house in a winter field. Yet there was a mildness about him and a disposition of serenity that I found infuriating. He looked at Rita before he said, "They did it to her because I finally had to tell them I couldn't find what I was supposed to find. I tried, man; I really tried, but there was nothing I could do because it was our… karma. What? Let Castro's twin spirit stay in power for another forty years? I chose the greater good, man. The greater good, believe me." Then added the next more softly: "The worst thing, Doc, it's your karma, too."

I wasn't going to listen to it. Said, "We don't have time for your bullshit Ping-Pong talk. All I want to know is who did this."

"It doesn't matter who did it. It happened, it's over."

If I hadn't been holding Dewey, I would have swung him up against the wall. "It does matter, goddamn it! Now tell me."

Tomlinson's painful expression said, yeah, to someone like myself it would matter. "It was Taino," he said finally. "And maybe Molinas, too."

Dewey's face was warm against my ear, and I heard her whisper: "Those bastards. It's because I wouldn't quit fighting. I never quit fighting." Some anger in her voice now; that was good.

I looked at Rita-still in jeans and black T-shirt. By tricking Tomlinson, she'd begun the whole rotten chain of events. I said to her, "You're still here? Is it because you didn't find what you were looking for? Or maybe you just missed your boat."

She eyed me steadily, no fear in her but there was some anger… or maybe just resolve. "I would have been long gone… but I stayed to help her. You know, someone to share the load when the men started getting drunk. Someone who doesn't fight." She was telling me something that was unexpected in light of all her lies; she told me something else when she took Dewey gently by the elbow and allowed me to free my arms. Her voice was different with Dewey. She said, "Are you okay?"

I felt ridiculously close to tears when Dewey answered, "Well… shit, I don't know. If the big bastard gets us out of here… and. it's not like I play golf with my face."

From outside, I heard a rustling sound, then an esophageal grunt. Geis was out there. Had he taken one of the guards? I glanced through the window-darkness; the drumming chants; nothing else. Geis had probably pulled the guard into the bushes and was robbing him.

I help my palm up to Tomlinson-quiet. Yanked him to me and whispered in his ear. I was telling him that the four of us were going to work our way through the trees, back to his sailboat, and we were going to sail out of the bay, then motor and sail a crow-flies course to international waters-twelve miles and we would be safe. I was also telling him that, from now on, he would do exactly what I told him to do, no questions tolerated… but I stopped abruptly when I heard an incongruously polite tap at the door. Listened… and heard it again. A person tapping-may I come in?

I pulled the. 45 from my belt and waved everyone to the blind corner of the room as I slowly cracked the door… and there stood Lenny Geis. He had his black hood off, red May-berry hair and mustache glistening with sweat, and he was looking at me with a perplexed but slightly amused expression… a this-is-our-private-little-joke-expression… and I backed away as he shoved the MP5 rifle into my hands. I watched him take three robot steps into the room, twist, lose the support of his legs… and then he fell backward onto the dirt floor, landing in a way that drove a wooden shaft completely through his chest and pierced the black shirt he wore.

His arms limp, his mouth open, he moved his eyes enough to see the serrated bone point on the end of the shaft-watched the surprise of that register-and then his eyes looked to me as he gasped, "An… arrow?" with an inflection that said, Can you believe this shit? then his eyes glazed over, two coals blinking out, and he lay still.

Dewey was asking, "Lenny? Is that Lenny?" as I returned to the door-saw two figures in white standing among the trees. I turned and said to Tomlinson, "When I start shooting, stay here and count to sixty. Then go directly to your boat. Start the engine and get the hell out of here. Don't stop, don't hesitate, don't wait for me."

I held my hand up when he tried to reply. "Don't argue! I'll meet you back in Dinkin's Bay."

Then I turned and fired a burst of warning shots over the heads of the two figures in white; watched them scramble back into the trees. As I sprinted out the door, I heard Tomlinson call after me, "Find the boy! You need the boy!"