Marcus is lucky to be alive. If she'd used the Colt instead of that little Beretta he'd be as dead as Captain Balart.'
'Is he going to be all right?'
'He'll live.'
'What will happen to her?'
'We'll have to hand her over to the police in Havana.'
'I imagine that's what she was worried about in the first place. Why she shot the petty officer. She must have panicked. You know what they'll do to her, don't you?'
'That's not my concern.'
'Maybe it should be. Maybe that's the problem you've got in Cuba. Maybe if you Americans paid a little more attention to the kind of people who are running this country-'
'Maybe you ought to be a little more concerned about what happens to you.'
This was the other officer who spoke now. I hadn't been told his name. All I knew about him was that dandruff fell off the back of his head whenever he scratched it. All in all he had rather a lot of dandruff. Even his eyelashes had tiny flakes of skin in them.
'Just suppose I'm not,' I said. 'Not any more.'
'Come again?' The man with the dandruff stopped scratching his head and inspected his fingernails before beaming a frown in my direction.
'We've been over this all night,' I said. 'You keep asking me the same questions and I keep giving you the same answers. I've told you my story. But you say you don't believe it. And that's fair enough. I can see the holes in it. You're bored with it. I'm bored with it. We're all bored with it, only I'm not about to cash my story in for another. What would be the point? If it sounded any better than the original I'd have used it in the first place. So, the fact now remains that I can't see any point in telling you another. And since I don't care to do that, then you'd be forgiven for thinking that I don't really care whether or not you believe me, because it seems to me there's nothing I can do that'll convince you. One way or another you've already made up your minds. That's the way it is with cops. Believe me, I know, I used to be a cop myself. And since I no longer care whether or not you believe me then it would be entirely lair for you to conclude that I don't seem to give a damn what happens to me. Well, maybe I do and maybe I don't, but that's for me to know and you to decide for yourselves, gentlemen.'
The cop with the dandruff scratched some more, which made the room look like a snow scene in a little glass ball. He said, 'You talk a lot, mister, for someone who doesn't say very much.'
'True, but it helps to keep the brass knuckles off my face.'
'I doubt that,' said Captain Mackay. 'I doubt that very much.'
'I know. I'm not so pretty any more. Only that ought to make it easier for you to believe me. You've seen that girl. She was every sailor's hard-on. I was grateful. What's the expression you have in English? You don't look a gift horse in the mouth? And if it comes to that, then neither should you, Captain. You've got nothing on me and plenty on her. You know she shot the petty officer. It's obvious. And it only starts to get complicated when you try to tie me in to some kind of rebel conspiracy. Me? I was looking forward to a nice vacation with lots of sex. I had plenty of money with me because I was planning to buy myself a bigger boat, and there's no law against that. Like I already told you I have a good job. At the National Hotel. I have a nice apartment on the Malecon, in Havana. I drive a newish Chevy. Now why would I give all that up for Karl Marx and Fidel Castro? You tell me that Melba, or Maria or whatever her name is – that she's a communist. I didn't know that. Maybe I should have asked her, only I prefer talking dirty when I'm in bed, not politics. She wants to go around shooting cops and American sailors, then I say she should go to jail.'
'Not very gallant of you,' said Captain Mackay.
'Gallant? What does it mean – gallant?'
'Chivalrous.' The captain shrugged. 'Gentlemanly.'
'Ah, cortes. Caballeroso. Yes, I see.' I shrugged back at him. 'And how would that sound, I wonder? She was only trying to protect me? Give her a break, Captain, she's just a kid? The girl had a tough childhood? All right. If it makes any difference, you know, I really think the girl was scared. Like I already said, you know what will happen when you hand her over to the local law. If she's lucky they'll let her keep her clothes on when they parade her around the police cells. And maybe they'll beat her with an ox-dick whip only every other day. But I doubt it.'
'You don't sound too upset about it,' said the cop with dandruff.
'I'll certainly pray for her. Maybe I'll even pay for a lawyer. Experience informs me that paying is more useful than praying. The Lord and I don't get on the way we used to.'
The captain sneered.
'I don't like you, Hausner. The next time I speak to the Lord I'm just liable to congratulate him on his good taste. You've got a job at the National Hotel? Fuck you. I never liked that damned hotel either. You've got a nice apartment on Malecon? I hope a hurricane comes and wipes it out, you Argentine cock- sucker. You don't care what happens to you? Neither do I, pal. To me you're just another South American greaseball with a smart mouth. You can't think of a better story? Then you're dumber than you look. You used to be a cop yourself? I don't want to know, you piece of shit. All I want to hear from you is an explanation for how it is that you were helping a murderer escape from this miserable fucking island you call home. Did someone ask you a favour? If they did I want a name. Someone introduced you? I want a fucking name. You picked her off the sidewalk? Give me the name of the damned street, you asshole. It's talk or lock, pal. Talk or lock. We went fishing tonight and we caught you, Hausner. And I get to toss you in my ice locker unless you tell me everything I want to know. Talk or lock and I throw away the fucking key until I'm satisfied there's no information left in your lying body that you haven't puked onto the goddamn floor. The truth? I don't give a shit. You want to walk out of here? Give me some plain straightforward facts.'
I nodded. 'Here's one for you. Penguins live almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere. Is that plain enough?'
I pushed the chair back on two legs, which was my first mistake, and smiled, which was my second. The captain was surprisingly quick on his feet. One moment he was staring at me like I was a snake in a bassinet, the next he was yelling as if he'd hammered his own thumb, and before I could wipe the smile from my face, he'd done it for me, kicking the chair away and then grabbing the lapels of my jacket and lifting my head off the floor only so that he could punch it back down again.
The other two each caught one of his arms and tried to pull him off, but that left his legs free to stamp on my face like someone trying to put out a fire. Not that this hurt. He had a right as big as a medicine ball and I wasn't feeling anything very much since it had connected with my chin. Humming like an electric eel, I lay there waiting for him to stop so that I could show him who was really in charge of the interrogation. By the time they got a ring in his pointy nose and hauled him off I was just about ready for my next wisecrack. I might have made it too but for the blood that was pouring out of my nose.
When I was absolutely sure no one was about to knock me down again I got off the floor and told myself that when they hit me again it would be because I had truly earned a beating and that it would have been worth it.
'Being a cop,' I said, 'is a lot like looking for something interesting to read in the newspaper. By the time you've found it you can bet there's a lot that's rubbed off on your fingers. Before the war, the last war, I was a cop in Germany. An honest cop, too, although I guess that won't mean much to apes like you. Plainclothes. A detective. But when we invaded Poland and Russia they put us in grey uniforms. Not green, not black, not brown, grey. Field grey they called it. The thing about grey is you can roll around in the dirt all day long and still look smart enough to return a general's salute. That's one reason we wore it. Another reason we wore grey was maybe so that we could do what we did and still think we had standards – so that we could manage to look ourselves in the eye when we got up in the morning. That was the theory. I know, stupid, wasn't it? But no Nazi was ever so stupid as to ask us to wear a white uniform. You know why? Because a white uniform is hard to keep clean, isn't it? I mean, I admire your courage wearing white. Because, let's face it, gentlemen, white shows everything. Especially blood. And the way you conduct yourselves? That's a big disadvantage.'
Instinctively, each man looked down at the blank canvas that was his immaculate white uniform as if checking his zipper; and that was when I collected a nose full of blood in my fingers and let them have it, like Jackson Pollock. You could say I wanted to express my feelings rather than just illustrate them; and that my crude
