Havana

'I have sent him a man.'

'One man would make such a difference?'

'One man, yes. This man.'

'And who is this man.'

'Frankie Carbine.'

'Frankie Horsekiller? Frankie of Times Square? Frankie of the two policemen? That Frankie?'

'That Frankie, exactly.'

'Oh, my god!'

The amen chorus rumbled nervously, then the wise man spoke again.

'He is crazy. He has no judgment. He likes too much to shoot. All his problems he solves with a gun. He wants to be big but he hasn't the vision. He just has his gun and his craziness. But sometimes you need craziness. You need that thing where there is no fear. Some of the old-timers had it. We had to move on, but there are throwbacks, and Frankie Carbine is such a man. We may have need of the crazed down there. Cuba is the lynchpin of all our things; we may have to defend it with crazy. Sometimes, crazy is necessary.'

All amened in honor of crazy.

Chapter 13

'It's obvious,' said Roger. 'You were set up.'

But Earl couldn't concentrate on what Roger was saying. He kept looking into the front seat at Frenchy Short and images returned of the young man in Hot Springs in 1946, his talent, his ambition, his anger, his hurry, his inability to fit in.

There'd always been something funny about it. They'd had to dump Frenchy because he was difficult to control and a politician couldn't stand having him around. And a week after, somehow the unit had been ambushed and so many other young men killed. All for nothing, as it turned out. It was as sorry a thing as Earl had ever been involved with.

And Frenchy? What of Frenchy? What had he known, who had he talked to, what was he capable of? To look at him, you'd never think he was capable of a thing. He looked, if anything, younger today than that first day in Hot Springs. Like Roger, he was blond and had a square, almost pretty face. He was dressed just like Roger too, in khakis, a white shirt, some kind of striped tie and a blue blazer with an insignia on the pocket. It was like the duty uniform with these guys. You'd look at him and you'd think, gee, this kid, he's probably a big man on some leafy campus somewhere. His eyes were guileless; he hardly shaved; he had freckles.

'Really, Earl,' Roger was saying, 'it seems so sleepy and tropical down here, but there's a war going on. It's the same war that's going on everywhere. The Reds sneak in and call it 'liberation' and get the brown people all heated up thinking they can have Cadillacs and freezers and televisions if only they overthrow the governments and take over, under communist supervision. That's the new war, Earl. Korea is an anomaly, because it's direct and involves actual combat. But we've studied the phenomenon and we know the wars of the future will be guerilla things, low-key dramas of assassination, subversion, sabotage and propaganda. Getting a congressman's dick in a wringer is exactly their kind of operation.'

Maybe Roger meant it as a joke, but still, Earl had not laughed.

'They have to make us look ridiculous and weak. So along comes an idiot like Harry Etheridge and with his appetites and lack of judgment, he's an incident waiting to happen. And it happens.'

They were driving an embassy car back from the Centro Havana jail after a stop at the emergency room, where Earl's wounds were tended, he was given shots and painkillers, and his knife cut was stitched. He was back in his suit even if it was a little bloodied; the Colt Super.38 had been restored to the Lawrence holster held by leather halter under his left shoulder.

It was early. The old city was coming awake. Gray dawn splashed across the white streets and a cool wind ruffled the trees. They seemed to have found the Malecon, that great Havana roadway that girded the waterfront, and a gray sheet of as yet unlit Caribbean spread off to one side, while a row of bricky-bracky pink and pale-blue colonnaded buildings dominated the other. Frenchy, who was driving, had rolled down the windows. All the smells of Havana-the sea, the fish, the fruit, the meat, the poultry, the tobacco, all of it rawly ripped from where it had been the day before-rode in on breezes, propelled by the smell of very hot, strong, sweet coffee.

'But, Earl,' continued this talky Roger, 'Earl, you stopped them, you stopped them cold. Walter said you were the sort of man for this kind of work and he was right.'

'Who's Walter?' said Earl, then realized Roger was talking about the boy in the front seat. 'Frenchy,' he said, leaning forward, 'what the hell is going on here?'

'Earl, we needed a good man. The best. I knew you. Whoever's been in Arkansas knows Earl Swagger. So I made a suggestion. That's all.'

'It was a good suggestion,' said Roger. 'Walter, or should I say Frenchy, made a good suggestion. You handled the knuckleball they threw us, so Congressman Harry isn't on the cover of Life magazine beating up a whore in a blow job dispute and making the United States look like two cents worth of garbage.'

'So is that why I'm here? I wondered.'

'Earl, this is nothing formal. Just think about things. You have several futures ahead of you. You can stay in Arkansas and be a state cop and probably, given your skill and integrity, end up in command. But again, some wiseguy politician or newspaper joe may cut you off at the knees if it earns him three extra votes or some kind of prize.'

Earl said nothing.

'Or…well, you just think about the or. The or could be something you never dreamed of. Someone has noticed your talent, your skill, and there's no reason you should waste it in Arkansas. Nobody ever made it in Arkansas. Look at Boss Harry and Fred C. Becker: they're the best Arkansas has managed. No need for you to be a big fish in a microscopic pond like Arkansas.'

'I like Arkansas.'

'Buy a summer house there.'

They turned up the Prado and navigated its leafy broadness, sliding by the mock-Paris cafes, the heavily ornamental central strip with its stone benches, palms and statues, passed the Sevilla-Biltmore where the gangsters lived, then turned left to the Plaza.

'Just think about it,' said Roger.

'What was your name again, son?' Earl said to Roger.

Roger let out a long sigh of exasperation. 'All right, show the Ivy League hotshot how little you think of him because he never fought on Iwo Jima. Let me tell you, though, I seem harmless and silly because I'm supposed to seem harmless and silly. It's called cover. It's what we do. For the record, my name is Roger St. John Evans. Roger Evans. I told you I was in codes? That was cover, too. I'm a senior case officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, head of Havana station, reporting directly to the Caribbean Desk in Langley, Virginia, directly to Plans, directly to the Director of Central Intelligence. That makes me important. I am important, take it from me. Walter-Frenchy-is my no. 2.'

'Well, I'm sure you're very important, sonny. Now I want you to take a hike, because I have to have a talk with young Walter here and what he says and how he explains some things between us has a lot to do with whether I'm staying or whether I'm on the next plane home.'

'Sure,' said Roger. He leaned forward to Walter and said, 'Don't blow it!'

Time ticked away as the two men sat in the car next to the pie-shaped, five-story building that was the Plaza. Across from them the Parque Central began to fill up; Havana was an exceptionally busy town and today would be no different. Cubans in straw hats and white suits came and went along the street and on to jobs in Old Havana, in the buildings along the Prado, here, there everywhere. Old ladies set up their tables and began the day's worth of rolling cigars for the touristas. It was a little early yet for pimps and touts, but they would be there, you could be sure.

Finally Frenchy said, 'Well, Earl, I'm up front, but you're in the driver's seat. They want you. It's something, let me tell you.'