He slipped back out to the car.
'It's okay. The boys are watching the movies and the movies aren't like nothing playing in Washington, D.C. Mr. Congressman, you sure you want to go into this place? It don't smell very clean.'
'Why, Earl, I must go where duty takes me.' And with that he rose into the orange electrical glow, and with Lane hustled into 205 Zanja.
Earl smoked an orange cigarette and blew orange smoke while the boys had their fun. They were in there for almost an hour while he lounged on the fender of the Cadillac, and eventually, they came out.
'Ain't never seen a thing like that. Where do you suppose they find the gals? Earl, you are a po-liceman. You would know such things. Where would they find the gals?'
'Them gals looked pretty broke-down to me,' Earl said. 'Old whores, can't walk the streets no more, don't know nothing else, that's what I'm betting.'
'Whoo-ee,' said the boss, 'that was a thing to do, and now I am all up and ready for the next step. Shall we see what other adventures we might get into?'
Earl knew: he was looking for a woman. He said nothing to express his discomfort, but kept looking back, his eyes flicking quickly to the rear as he examined what lay back there.
'We being followed, Earl?' Lane wanted to know.
Earl wanted to say yes, for he felt something. A presence, an attention, something somehow concentrating on them. But it was only that feeling and that alone; nothing emerged to his vision to confirm the suspicion.
'I don't think so,' said Earl. 'But if we are, he's a damn better man than I am.'
'Didn't think there were no better men than you, Earl.'
'There's plenty. But no, I don't think there's anyone back there. Maybe it's just my old imagination heating up.'
'Earl, have a drink, relax. A little drink wouldn't harm you a bit.'
Actually, Earl knew it would. He be back on the bottle full-time.
'No thank you, sir,' he said to Lane.
Earl checked the rearview mirror again just in case. No, nothing. Here, in this human tide of hustlers and grifters, whores and low-rent crime dogs, it was the bottom of the Havana pool. It reminded Earl a little of Hot Springs in 1946, that sense of a town gone mad for pleasures; but the Spanish twist to it also called up Panama City and its whores' paradise from 1938 when he'd done a tour down there, and every weekend the boys would head off for cheap beer and cheap women. Earl was no saint; he'd had a big share of each on the principle that if war came he'd not survive it and so he should take what he could buy now. He had no regrets, but now, married, with several wars under his belt, he somehow couldn't connect with it. He didn't need it.
'Now there,' said the boss, 'goes a right fine piece of pootie.'
She was a right fine piece of pootie, too.
'She sure is,' said Lane. 'Yes, sir, that she is.'
'Si, senor,' said Pepe, who immediately got what was going on.
'Is she a nigra, do you suppose, Lane?' asked the boss.
'Well, sir, she does have a caramelly skin and that behind of hers shakes just like a negro gal's. I'll bet she rattles around in bed like a negro gal, too. Don't you, Earl?'
Earl had examined the flowing clothes of the senorita only briefly, pausing not at the quivering abundance of the flesh of shoulders and rather awesome breasts, nor at the undulations of high, proud buttocks, nor at the firm, luscious legs held just so tensely atop a pair of spindly black heels, for he had ascertained that so dressed, she probably didn't conceal a machete or a hand grenade, and had passed on to other concerns.
'Yes, sir,' said Earl, in his dullest cop voice.
'Let's see where she goes,' said the boss, still consumed by the presence of the undulating brown woman. 'Just, you know, for the damned heck of it.'
'Yes, boss.'
The car oozed down the narrow street, over ancient cobblestones laid by slaves in the previous century or two. Lights danced or sparkled, illuminating the brown flesh.
The woman, all ajiggle on staked heels and thongs that cut into her ankles, at last found her destination, and saucily halted. She turned to confront the men in the close-by Cadillac, and threw a lascivious wink right at the boss. Then she opened a door bathed in red light, and slipped inside.
'Boss, I think she likes you.'
'I think she do, too. Don't you, Earl?'
Earl thought: she's a whore. She's paid to like you. That's what whores do. That's why they're whores.
'She looks available,' was all Earl could think to say.
'Pepe, you pull over here. You follow her up, Pepe, and see what's what. You give me a good report.'
Pepe started to get out.
'Now hold on, sir,' said Earl. 'Mr. Congressman, this is not a good idea. This here is a very tough part of town, that I know. That gal is a whore, sure as rain and heat. You don't know who's up there, some pimp fellow with a knife, some robbers, it's all the kind of thing a man in your position cannot be involved in, let me tell you that. Nothing here for you but bad trouble, sir.'
'Now, Earl,' began Boss Harry, but it was Lane Brodgins who took over.
'Damn, Swagger, it ain't up to you to judge and call shots. This here is a United States congressman and he will go and do as he pleases and your job isn't to second-guess him but to make goddamn clear and sure he is safe. That is your only job, goddammit.'
'Earl, you go with Pepe and you see what's what. We'll wait here. Pepe, come here a second.'
The tough little Cuban leaned close, and Harry whispered something in his ear. Pepe nodded sagely.
Earl didn't say a thing. Didn't seem like there was much to say. His hand fled to the big Colt Super.38 resting in the holster hung under his left shoulder, to remind himself, yep, it was there. Then he went along with Pepe, under the glow of the red bulb, and watched as Pepe knocked. In time, a small square hatch in the door opened at eye level, and someone examined them from within, up and down. Then the hatch snapped shut, the door opened, and in they went.
Chapter 9
Speshnev never followed directly. He had learned that lesson the hard way, in Barcelona, in 1937, when two members of the Anarcho-Syndicalists had observed him, counter-ambushed, and sent him crawling through the alleys with a Luger bullet in his belly.
So he ran his operation carefully using classic technique, drawing on a hundred years of tsarist and Cheka- NKVD collective espionage experience. He still did the small things well. He never went out of town. It was impossible to follow on the dusty Cuban roads. But in Havana, it was different. He trailed by taxicab, but never directly. Sometimes he paralleled, other times, if streets were busy, he crosscut and switched back. He had a bagful of hats and changed them every hour, from the white straw boater so popular in the streets to the more elegant felt fedora, to a shapeless straw rural head cover, to, finally, a red bandanna, knotted tightly about his head. He never wanted to stay in the same profile. He had two ties and a bolo, which came on or off as circumstances warranted; his jacket too was on or off, buttoned or unbuttoned, collar up, collar down. Then, at random hours determined by predesignated unpredictables-like the appearance of a pigeon with gray wings, or of a rare woman seller of bolita tickets (as the unofficial lottery was called)-he'd abandon the cab he was in, or he'd make a guess as to destination based on good professional instincts, and zip ahead, not to follow them but to foreshadow them.
It was expensive, of course; too expensive for the annoying Pashin, who would not cover the taxi expenses, would not hire a car and driver, yet would not alter the nature of his assignment either. Make do, Speshnev. You are supposed to be so good, simply make do.
So early in the mornings, when the congressman and his more interesting companions had tired out, he went to a smallish casino, lost a little money playing blackjack, and then, when the decks were charged with face cards, made a swift big hit, pocketed the excess and left. He never hit the same place twice, he never wore the same hat twice, he never won too much to get himself beaten or robbed. He just knew the numbers and held them in his
