Killing Castro - Lawrence Block [23]
Manuel very deliberately placed the mouth of the pistol against the soldier’s forehead and spattered his brains over the trunk of the car.
They piled the six bodies into the Jeep. There was a container of spare gasoline in the trunk. Fenton unscrewed the cap, poured the gasoline over the bodies and over the Jeep. He stepped back, took out a cigarette, scratched a match. He took two long drags on the cigarette and pitched the butt underhand into the Jeep. It was safer that way, easier than tossing a match. The gasoline went up with a roar and the Jeep was transformed into a sheet of flame.
They left in a hurry. They collected weapons, ammunition. Garth shouldered Taco like a sack of dirty laundry and the rest of them followed him into the woods. Fenton brought up the rear, his heart still pounding, the excitement still a living force.
Another victory. Six men dead this time, six corpses baking in a burning Jeep. It was bloody, it was the supreme insult to a corpse, but he knew that it had been necessary.
Fenton walked and death walked with him. Death always walked with him now, a thin pain in the chest that was always close at hand. And it was strange to have death as a companion. Before, when he lived with no fear of death, no sure foreknowledge of doom, it had been enough simply to live, to exist, to go on.
Now it was different. Now he enjoyed killing, killing, killing. It was the only way to prove that he was still alive.
It was a Thursday night and Garrison was eating in the best restaurant in Havana. The restaurant was Le Vendome, on Calle Calzado, and the food was French. Garrison had baked clams, chateaubriand and a small bottle of Bordeaux Rouge. He passed up dessert and had cognac with his coffee.
When he had finished he paid his check, left a tip and walked out of the restaurant. He looked neat and summery in his cord suit. His tie was neatly knotted, his shoes polished. He walked with a sure, easy stride. Outside, he let the doorman summon a cab for him, pressed a coin into the man’s palm, settled into his seat and told the driver to drop him at the Nacional. That was his hotel, the city’s oldest and one of its best, completely air-conditioned, well serviced, with bars and a pool and a night club and a gambling casino. Tourists were still allowed to gamble in Castro’s Cuba, but Cuban nationals were prohibited from doing so. This amused Garrison.
He got out at the Nacional, tipped the driver, strode into the lobby and took an elevator to his room. Inside it, with the door locked and bolted, he made a quick check of the room. It had been searched again, he noted, amused. And once again they had failed to find either gun. The rifle was still in his mattress—he had slashed the mattress cover, wedged the gun into the ticking and sewed the mattress up again. The Beretta was still inside the television set where he had placed it. It didn’t even interfere with the operation of the TV. Not that he cared, he never bothered turning it on. All you ever got were Fidel’s speeches, and it wasn’t hard to get tired of them. He said the same thing all the time and took six hours each time to say it.
Garrison undressed, went into the bathroom and adjusted the shower spray. He showered quickly, shaved, trimmed his mustache. Then he stretched out on his bed and closed his eyes.
This was the easy way. He wondered where the others were, Fenton and Turner and Garth and Hines. Probably crouching in a dirty little room somewhere with a batch of grubby Cubans mumbling at them. And this was so much simpler. Just the direct method, quick and easy.
He’d had to get to Cuba illegally, in Di Angelo’s boat. That much was easy enough. And then there was that shrewd old Cuban on La Avenida Blanca, the one a New Orleans contact had put him wise to. You didn’t need a passport or a visa to stay in Cuba. All you needed was an identification paper and they gave you that as you got off the boat. And