American Tabloid - James Ellroy [66]
Paez looked like a skinny Xavier Cugat. Banister said, “I can see him now. He’s up front, and he’s cut and bruised.”
Stanton winced. “Castro hates United Fruit. Our propaganda section picked up a polemic he wrote on it nine months ago. It was an early indication that he might go Commie.”
Whitecaps pushed the barge in close. The men were kicking and clawing to be first off.
Kemper flicked the safety off his piece. “Where are we detaining them?”
Banister pointed north. “The Agency owns a motel in Boynton Beach. They concocted a cover story about fumigation and evicted all the tenants. We’ll pack these beaners in six to a room and see who we can use.”
The refugees yelled and waved little flags on sticks. Teo Paez was crouched to sprint.
The Customs boss yelled, “On ready!”
The barge tapped the dock. Paez jumped off. Kemper and Stanton grabbed him and bear-hugged him.
They picked him up and ran with him. Banister ran interference—“CIA custody! He’s ours!”
The riflemen fired warning shots. The refugees ducked and covered. Customs men grappled the barge in and cinched it to the pilings.
Kemper hustled Paez through the crowd. Stanton ran ahead and unlocked a debriefing hut.
Somebody yelled, “There’s a body on the boat!”
They got their man inside. Banister locked the door. Paez hit the floor and smothered it with kisses.
Cigars fell out of his pockets. Banister picked one up and sniffed the wrapper.
Stanton caught his breath. “Welcome to America, Mr. Paez. We’ve heard very good things about you, and we’re very glad you’re here.”
Kemper cracked a window. The dead man passed by on a gurney—blade-punctured from head to toe. Customs agents lined up the exiles—maybe fifty men total.
Banister set up his tape recorder on a table. Stanton said, “You had a death on the boat?”
Paez slumped into a chair. “No. It was a political execution. We surmised that the man had been deported to serve as an anti-American spy. Under interrogation he revealed that this was true. We acted accordingly.”
Kemper sat down. “You speak excellent English, Teo.”
“I speak the slow and exaggeratedly formal English of the laboriously self-taught. Native speakers tell me that I sometimes lapse into hilarious malapropisms and mutilations of their language.”
Stanton pulled a chair up. “Would you mind talking with us now? We’ve got a nice apartment ready for you, and Mr. Boyd will drive you there in a little while.”
Paez bowed. “I am at your disposable.”
“Excellent. I’m John Stanton, by the way. And these are my colleagues, Kemper Boyd and Guy Banister.”
Paez shook hands all around. Banister pocketed the rest of the cigars and turned on the tape machine.
“Can we get you anything before we start?”
“No. I would like my first American meal to be a sandwich at Wolfie’s Delicatessen in Miami Beach.”
Kemper smiled. Banister laughed outright. Stanton said, “Teo, is Fidel Castro a Communist?”
Paez nodded. “Yes. Indubitably so. He is a Communist in both thought and practice, and my old network of student informants have told me that airplanes carrying Russian diplomats have flown in to Havana late at night on several occasions recently. My friend Wilfredo Olmos Delsol, who was on the boat with me, has the flight numbers memorized.”
Banister lit a cigarette. “Che Guevara’s been Red since way back.”
“Yes. And Fidel’s brother Raúl is a Communisto pig himself. Moreover, he is a hypocriticize. My friend Tomás Obregón says that Raúl is selling confiscated heroin to rich drug addicts and hypocriticizingly spewing Communist rhetoric at the same time.”
Kemper checked his custody list. “Tomás Obregón was on the boat with you.”
“Yes.”
“How would he have information on the Cuban heroin trade?”
“Because, Mr. Boyd, he was involved in the heroin trade himself. You see, my fellow boat passengers are mostly criminal scum. Fidel wanted to be rid of them and foisted them on America in hopes that they would practice their trades on your shores. What he failed to realize was that Communism