Killing Castro - Lawrence Block [41]
He had thrown out a dictator. Now he had become a dictator himself. The Cuban people still backed him, still worshipped him. But the seeds of discontent had been sown.
NINE
Señora Luchar was talking. They were in the living room, she and Turner and Hines, and they were drinking the inevitable demitasse cups of strong black coffee. Hines couldn’t stand the coffee, or Señora Luchar, or Turner, or anyone else in the world, himself least of all. His fingers gripped the small white cup so tightly he was afraid it would break in his hand. He wished he was a smoker; a cigarette would be good right now, but it seemed a silly time to start.
“Today is the twentieth of July,” Señora Luchar was saying. “Tomorrow Castro makes his trip across the island. Thursday he speaks in Santiago, a speech to workers and peasants. Then he returns here, to Havana, in time for his speech commemorating the anniversary of the Twenty-sixth of July Movement. He’ll be speaking Sunday, in the main square. That’s not far from here. You know where it is?”
Hines nodded.
“So that’s the time,” the Luchar woman said. “There will be a huge crowd, too huge for the police to do much good. You’re using bombs, right? Bombs that you throw?”
“That’s right,” Hines told her.
“So you mingle with the crowd and throw the bombs. Then you get away and return here. We’ll get you back to the mainland.”
“It sounds shaky,” Turner broke in.
“Mr. Turner?”
“Yeah,” Turner went on. “Yeah, it sounds shaky. We’re right in the middle of it. It’s not tough tossing the bombs. It’s tough getting away.”
The woman looked at him.
“We’re taking a chance,” Turner said.
“Of course. And you are being paid how much to take this chance? Twenty thousand dollars? You would not be paid so much if there were no chance, Mr. Turner.”
She turned, left them. Turner shrugged and headed for the stairs to the basement. Hines got up, not particularly anxious to follow Turner. But where the hell else was he supposed to go?
Turner said: “What do you think of the setup?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll be sitting ducks. If we play it the way she calls it, we’ll be deader than hell before the bomb goes off. I don’t like it.”
“So?”
Turner hesitated, then stated boldly, “I want out, Jim.”
“You must be kidding.”
“No, I mean it.”
“You?” Hines was on his feet now, his eyes amazed. This was too much, he thought. Big old Turner, tough guy Turner, the desperate desperado. He wanted out.
“Me.”
“Why? Getting cold feet, for God’s sake? Going chicken?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I don’t get it.”
Turner shrugged. “There’s not a hell of a lot to get. I took this job to beat a stateside murder rap. I was going to run for Brazil. Well, why Brazil? I’m in Cuba. I can stay here.”
“Stay here?”
“Get work, find a place to live. I don’t know. I like it here, Jim. And I’m here already. Why commit another murder so I can start running all over again?”
“Jesus Christ. What would you do here, for God’s sake?”
“Anything. There’s a lot of new construction going up—and I’ve swung construction work before. I know how to handle heavy equipment and they’re short of that kind of labor.”
“So you’ll throw away twenty grand to work a steam shovel? That doesn’t sound like you, Turner.”
“Maybe not. Or maybe it does, I don’t know. And there’s a guy I got friendly with, a grifter type. He wants me to throw in with him. He works some semi-legitimate cons and he makes a living. And it sounds a hell of a lot better to me than tossing bombs around like an imitation anarchist. Castro’s not my enemy. He may be bad, but it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference to me. All I want is a nice quiet place to live, food to eat, liquor to drink and a woman when I need one. I can get all those no matter who’s in charge here.”
“So you’re quitting.”
“Maybe.”
Hines went over to his bunk, sat down. He was sweating. First the truth about Joe and now Turner doing a fadeout, gumming up the works by quitting cold on him. It was all falling apart at the seams