Killing Castro - Lawrence Block [7]
“And Garth,” Turner said. “The one with muscles instead of brains. You think he’s a goddamn freedom fighter?”
“I think he’s a slob.”
“Yeah,” Turner said. “A slob. You tell him to hit and he hits. No brain, no ideals, nothing. A slob. How about Garrison?”
“He’s a bounty hunter.”
Turner was nodding emphatically, smoke from his cigarette trailing out between his thin lips. “You got it,” he said. “A bounty hunter. There’s a price on Castro and he wants to collect it. It’s a business with him. He’d kill anybody, anywhere, any time, for the right price. He’d kill you for twenty grand—or me. Or his mother.”
“And Fenton?”
“Skip him,” Turner said. “I didn’t figure him yet. Let’s go on. How about Hiraldo?”
“He’s a hired hand,” Hines said. “You noticed Hiraldo. You didn’t notice the old guy, did you?”
“I noticed him.”
Hines said: “You know who he is?” Turner shook his head. “His name is Juan Carboa,” Hines said. “He’s a businessman. He has a cute business. He finances revolutions.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“He’s been around for years,” Hines said, ready to talk now, surer of himself. “There was a man in Cuba named Machado. Carboa collected money, armed a sergeant named Batista. Batista threw out Machado.”
“You learn all this in school?”
“Just listen to me,” Hines said. “I’m proving something. About idealists.”
“Keep talking.”
“Then Carboa raised more money,” Hines said. “Later, years later, he financed somebody named Castro, a law student with a beard—Fidel Castro. And Castro threw out Batista. Now Juan Carboa is financing somebody who’s going to throw out Castro. Each time he does this, one hell of a lot of money winds up in Juan Carboa’s hands. He’s making a living out of revolutions.”
Turner made no comment.
“I know a lot,” Hines said. “About idealism.”
“So what’s your angle?”
Hines shrugged. Maybe you could talk too much, he thought. Maybe there was a point at which you should shut up. Maybe when you opened your wounds you were just asking somebody to pour salt in them.
“Come on,” Turner said. “Everybody’s got an angle. What’s yours?”
“I’m not an idealist,” Hines said.
“No?”
“No. I had a brother, Turner. An older brother, six years older than I am. He was an idealist, Turner.”
“Yeah?”
“Just shut up and listen. He was an idealist, a great guy. I loved the bastard. You got that? He taught me things, spent a lot of time with me. It was the older brother-younger brother bit and I loved him for it. So Castro went up against Batista and Joe—my brother—went to the hills to help out. He didn’t come in on the tail end. He was there almost from the beginning, before half the people in this country ever heard of Castro. He was there. He fought and he starved and he was there when they won. You got that?”
Turner looked at him.
“So this brother of mine was there, and they won when everybody expected them to lose. They were just a band of kids with beards fighting a professional army and, damn it, they won. And Castro was on top.”
Turner lit another cigarette. Hines stopped for a minute. This was the hard part, this was where it got tough to keep going. But he had to get it out, it was important now and he had to tell Turner. Somehow, it was important that Turner be told.
“This Castro,” he said, “he got on an anti-American kick. And there was Joe, an American, an idealist. He was on Castro’s side, but he was still an American.” He paused for breath and then went on. “Castro called it revolutionary justice. He said Joe Hines betrayed the revolution and had to get his. With revolutionary justice you don’t need a trial. All you need is a firing squad. They took my brother, put him in front of a firing squad and shot him deader than hell. So I’m going to Cuba, Turner, and I’m going to kill this son-of-a-bitch, Castro, and if that’s idealism you can shove it straight up your ass.”
Neither of them said anything for a while.