William Kennedy - Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes

She was not then part of the Directorio, just a passionate friend of rebels, one in particular; and being such a friend means you help your friend unconditionally. It also means that such forceful allegiance has transformed you into a conditional cop killer, Renata, which suggests that you have lost your reason. But she shrugged that away, ascribing it to love and her passion for justice.

At the DeWitt Clinton Renata, Max, and Gloria sat with Matt and his father, Martin, he looks so old, and George and his new lady friend, gordita pero shapely, and quite stylish. George does look unusually happy, the poor man is starving for affection, living with us. The ballroom was nearly full, hundreds and hundreds of fans smiling to Cody’s beat, some still eating, nobody dancing yet, and Cody beaming and playing and singing the tune he wrote, “Home in the Clouds.” Yes, he’s thin, but he looks fine, still handsome. Quinn was not here, but he will be, Matt said. He’s over at the paper, writing his bombshells for tomorrow. And he gave them a brief summary of his and Quinn’s odyssey through the assassination plot, the Four Spot fight, the riot, and Quinn arranging for Tremont to surrender himself and the AR-15.

“Roy Mason’s also in custody,” Matt said. “They may be charging him with inciting a riot and telling a group of black kids in front of the Four Spot they should have guns and he could get them for them. But those are both fake charges, they just wanted to bust him. His bail could be twenty-five or fifty thousand, which he doesn’t have.”

“Where is he?” Gloria asked.

“The Second Precinct lockup at headquarters. They may convene Police Court there tonight. They’re holding forty people. If Roy doesn’t make bail they’ll put him in the county jail.”

“Can I see him?” Gloria asked.

“I doubt it,” Matt said.

“We should raise his bail money,” Gloria said. “Can we put up anything, Aunt Ren? You only need ten percent of whatever the bail is. I’ve helped do that for a few people.”

“That could be five thousand dollars,” Renata said.

“I have some money, and there are people I can borrow from,” Gloria said. “I’ll go see how much it is. Headquarters is just down the block. I know some of the detectives.”

“I don’t want you out alone,” Renata said.

“I’m all right.”

“Of course you are.”

“I am.”

“You shouldn’t be on the street by yourself, especially tonight.”

“I can’t stand that they put him in jail again.”

“Let’s find out what the bail is.”

“I can do that,” Matt said, and he got up from the table.

“I’ll go with you,” Gloria said.

As they left Renata said softly to Max, “I think she’s seriously smitten with this young man. Would you consider putting up that money?”

“As a favor to you?”

“Yes.”

“One good turn deserves another, and that was a good turn with you.”

“Yes, it was. But I may not see you for a long time, and you keep rescuing me. You are a generous man.”

“My generosity has only just begun. I’ll put up his bail.”

“Thank you, dear Max.”

“Are you also smitten with this kid?”

“No, but I used to like his father.”

“I remember,” Max said.

When her guardian policeman pushed her out of the car she almost fell, and she knew then they really would hurt her. You are a coward, Renata, but you must not let them know. The one with the Thompson poked it into her back to hurry her along toward the grassy bank of El Laguito in the Country Club barrio. This is where they found Pelayo Cuervo Navarro after the Palace attack he had nothing to do with. But he was Batista’s longtime enemy and they put three bullets in his back, five in his chest and dumped him here at the edge of the lake.

A second car pulled up behind them and a man in white stepped out and came toward her as she stumbled toward the lake: Pedro Robles Montoya, infamous, Batista’s chief of naval intelligence, grown-up puffy boy bulging out of his white guayabera, white slacks, white shoes. Her guard pushed her to her knees, then into a sprawl, and dragged her to the lake. He ripped buttons off her blouse when he handled her and her skirt came up to her lap. She lay exposed, her face inches from the water. The guard grabbed her long black hair in his fist and twisted it once, then pushed her head into the water and held it under — forty, sixty seconds, then up.

“Who organized the attack on the president?” Robles asked.

She did not talk, spitting water, faking breathlessness. She was a serious swimmer, could hold her breath five minutes under water.

“I know nothing,” she finally said. “I am a museum guide, I am a student, I know nothing of the Palace attack.”

“You are in the Directorio.”

“No.”

“Who planned it?”

“I know none of those people.”

“Your lover, Diego San Román, died in the attack.”

“I hardly knew the man. I saw him in the museum, we talked of art. That’s all there was, talk of art.”

Robles nodded and the guard pushed her head under water, pulled her out, pushed her under again, out again, under yet again, confusing her breathing. He held her under more than a minute, turning her so she faced the sky. She came up truly gasping, they will drown me. Don’t be a coward, you are a swimmer, you know how to drown.

“We found guns under your bed, a Luger, a.38 automatic, political literature for the Directorio, the Communists, the Socialists, the Twenty-sixth of July. Which do you belong to?”

“That was research, a paper I was writing when the president closed the university.”

“The guns were research?”

“They were my cousin’s guns. He lived with us and he gave them to me when he was dying. They’ve been in my family since the Machado era.”

“Where are the survivors of the attack hiding?”

“I know none of them. I know nothing.”

“We go to the Buro,” Robles said.

The Buro was headquarters for the intelligence unit of the Cuban police force, a castlelike structure at Twenty-third Street and the Almendares River Bridge. Robles and the two guards drove her past the Buro’s dock on the river where a small motor launch was tethered.

“You are a pretty child,” Robles said, “and beauty sometimes protects its possessor. But not today. And you are a privileged child, but privilege has no meaning here, not today. No one of money or power or influence can deliver you out of my hands. You tell me what I want to know or you will feel pain. We will penetrate you, humiliate you, we will spoil your glories.” He pointed to the motor launch. “And if you do not talk we will take you out in that boat and cut you, and when you are bleeding properly we will deliver you to the sharks.”

They led her up many stairs into the castle, to a windowless room with rough concrete walls, a desk and a few chairs. The two guards hovered behind Robles.

“Who is in charge of the Directorio?”

“I know nothing of that,” she said.

“You are a liar.”

He punched her stomach and backhanded her face. She did not fall. Renata the martyr has the power to die for the revolution or live by talking to the fat fascist. It only takes a few names, you can name the dead.

“We know everything about your family, your work, your love affairs, your closeness to the rebels.”

“I am not a political person,” she said, and she moaned and covered her breasts with her arms. He shoved her against the concrete wall, damaging her back and her arm. She felt she was bleeding. He sat her on a chair and the guards held her arms and her head so she could not move. He took a leather tool pouch from a desk drawer and unfolded it. He lifted out a small, pointed iron rod with a wooden handle and he touched its tip to her left ear.