Killing Castro - Lawrence Block [54]
It was the night before the job.
But that was no reason to be tense. He had always been the icy one, the man who could eat a heavy meal, go out and commit murder for a fee, then go home and have another big meal and sleep soundly for ten straight hours. The perfect emotionless, steel-nerved killer. The pro, with a good professional attitude and solid, perpetual calmness.
And now he was tense. Tense, nervous, edgy. Somebody down the hall slammed a window shut and he nearly jumped off the edge of the bed. Tense, nervous, edgy. Three or four times he opened the dresser drawer and took out the bottle of light rum, but each time he put it away. Solitary drinking was bad any time, especially bad the night before a job. And he didn’t need a drink that badly.
When Estrella came at thirteen minutes after ten he drew her inside, closed and bolted the door, found two clean water tumblers in the bathroom and filled them each a third of the way with light rum. They touched glasses and drank the liquor. Her eyes questioned him but he only smiled back at her.
They drank the rum, drained their glasses, put them down. Garrison reached for the girl and she came into his arms quickly and eagerly, her mouth raised for his kiss, her hard breasts thrusting into his chest. He held her close, kissed her. Her tongue darted out, plunged into his mouth. Her arms were tight around him, holding him.
He undressed her, undressed himself. She stretched out on the bed and he lay beside her, fondling her breasts, kissing her, telling her now that he loved her. He was surprised by the way the words felt to him. They felt true; more, he had to say them.
Preliminaries were over quickly. The need was too great now; he couldn’t wait to have her, couldn’t kiss and stroke, couldn’t help throwing himself upon her and stabbing into her, needing the warmth of her embrace, needing the way her passion rose to meet his own.
It was fundamentally different this time. Far more intense, although that seemed impossible to Garrison. And this time, far more necessary, far more essential. He needed the girl in his arms, needed her with him, near him.
It was the need that assured him that he was playing things correctly. Need was something new. All along, from the early years in Birch Fork through the war years to the present, Ray Garrison had never needed anyone. He was always his own man, always a lone man in an alien world. Now …
He could not leave her in Cuba.
Afterward, while she lay stretched out on the bed in the warm afterglow of love, he walked to his dresser, took the wallet from one of the top drawers.
“What you doing, ’arper?”
He took out the two airplane tickets and passed them to her.
“To Miami?” she asked, her voice uncertain, tremulous.
“That’s right,” he said. “To Miami. We’re leaving tomorrow night. You have to be at the airport by seven. I’ll meet you there.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Mañana noche. At the airport, at seven o’clock. Can you remember that?”
“I remember,” she said. Her eyes were bright, happy. “I love you, ’arper.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You’ve got to go now, honey. Put your clothes on and go back to wherever the hell you live. And don’t come here tomorrow. Go straight to the airport. Be there on time. Hell, get there early so there’s no chance of a foul-up. I’ll meet you.”
“Okay. I love you, ’arper.”
“Then why the hell are you crying?”
“Because I am ’appy.”
He sat next to her, kissed the tears from her eyes.
He held her, patted her. Her eyes adored him.
“You better get going,” he said.
“Don’ you wan’ me to stay tonight?”
“Not tonight,” he said.
She pouted.
“We’ll have plenty of nights,” he told her. “We’ll go to America. We’ll have the rest of our lives, Estrella. I have to be alone tonight, and tomorrow. I’ll meet you at the airport.”
She was a woman who knew better than to argue. She kissed him, got dressed, kissed him again, took the tickets and left. By the time she was out the door he wanted to go after her, to tell her he had changed his mind and