If all went as planned, Jesus figured he'd never again have to worry about his future; he would be the Reggie Jackson of South Florida terrorism, a free-agent superstar-assassin. The First Weekend in July, Omega Seven, Alpha 66—they'd all be knocking down his door. Then maybe he would form his own gang, recruiting only the best from the others and leaving the faggots and doddering old men to their Eighth Street parades.
Even before the helicopter accident, Jesus Bernal had unilaterally decided to select a new victim. To impress the comandante,the target would have to be a person of prominence and formidable authority. And most important, the chosen prey must represent an abhorrence to The Cause—either compromise, complicity, or total apathy.
Bernal's brightest hope was Sergeant Al Garcia.
The chubby turncoat had invited trouble during the press conference by noting there was no evidence of Jesus being aboard the ill-fated Huey. In his emotionally bruised and paranoid state, Bernal perceived this remark as a slur, something meant to portray him as a sniveling coward who cringed in the background while his brethren risked their lives. In fact, Garcia had mentioned Jesus Bernal only to annoy the guys in the orange blazers; he never thought it would precipitate this kind of visit.
"Take the back stairs," Bernal commanded.
The police station was all but empty on a Sunday night and they saw no one on the stairwell. The two men emerged from a doorway on the northwest side and crossed the jail parking lot, concealed by a tall hedge. Bernal walked stiffly, the shotgun pointed down and held close to his right leg; from a distance he looked like a man with a slight limp.
Garcia's unmarked police car was parked on Fourteenth Street. "You drive," Bernal said. "And stay off the freeways."
They headed south, crossed the Miami River drawbridge, and stopped at the busy traffic light at Northwest Seventh Street.
"Which way?" Garcia asked.
Jesus Bernal hesitated. "Just a second." Across his lap lay the shotgun, its barrel gaping from the crook of his arm. The gun was an over-and-under model, cut back to fourteen inches. Al Garcia didn't need the training manual to figure out what a sawed-off could do. It was pointed at his kidneys.
"Turn right," Bernal said hoarsely. Garcia could make out the faint cross-hatch imprint of the tennis racket on his abductor's face. He also noticed that Bernal's nose was badly broken, though his teeth were straight and gleaming.
They spoke Spanish to each other.
"Where we going?" Garcia asked.
"Why, you worried?" Bernal said tautly. "You think a badge and a gun makes you a hero! Makes you a genuine American! I beg your pardon, Mr. Policia.You are no hero, you're a coward. You turned your back on your true country."
"What do you mean?" Garcia asked, biting back anger.
"Do you not have family in Cuba?"
"An uncle," the detective replied. "And a sister."
Bernal poked the shotgun into Garcia's neck. The barrel was cold and sharp. "You abandoned your own sister! You are a shit-eating worm and I should kill you right now."
"She chose to stay behind, my sister did."
"No creo—"
"It's true," Garcia said. "She married a man in the army."
"Such shit! And your uncle—what lie have you invented for him?"
"He is a doctor in Camaguey, with a family. Four children. This is not a lie."
"Such shit!"
"Put the gun down before somebody sees it," Garcia warned.
Reluctantly Jesus Bernal lowered the sawed-off. He held it across his knees, below the dashboard.
"You think it was easy for me?" Garcia said. "You think it was easy to leave, to start over? I came here with nothing."
Jesus Bernal was unmoved. "Why are you not fighting for your family's liberation?" he demanded.
Rather than say something he might eternally regret, Garcia said nothing. Psychology was not his strong suit; he was a firm believer of the fist-in-the-face school of criminal therapy. Jesus Bernal was a mangy bundle of nerves.
He smelled like he hadn't bathed for a month and his black hair was a dull curly mat. His high-topped sneakers tapped the floorboard, while his free hand knotted and reknotted the tail of his threadbare undershirt. He fidgeted like a little kid whose bladder was about to burst.
"What do you think about this, Mr. Policia?Me catching you, instead of the other way around!" Jesus flashed his new dentures. "Cut over to the Trail and we'll head for the Turnpike."
"But you said no freeways."
"Shut up and do as I say." Bernal reached over and ripped the microphone from Garcia's police radio. He threw it out the window. "You get lonely, you talk to me."
Garcia shrugged. "Nice night for a drive."
"Hope you got plenty of gas," Bernal said. "Garcia, I want to ask you something, okay? How does a scum like you sleep at night? What kind of lullabies does a buitresing? When you close your eyes, do you see your sister and your uncle in Cuba, eh? Do you feel their torture and suffering, while you get fat on American ice cream and go to jai-alai with your Anglo pals? I have often wondered about traitors like you, Garcia.
"When I was very young, my job was to visit the businessmen and collect contributions for La Causa.I had four blocks on Calle Ocho,three more on Flagler Street downtown. A man named Miguel—he owned a small laundry—once gave three thousand dollars. And old Roberto, he ran bolitafrom a cafe. Zorro rojo,the red fox, we called him; Roberto could well afford to be a generous patriot. Not all these businessmen were happy to see me at their door, but they understood the importance of my request. They hated Fidel, with their hearts they hated him, and so they managed to find the money. This is how we survived, while traitors like you ignored us."
"Chickenshit shakedowns," Garcia muttered.
"Shut up!"
Garcia picked up the Turnpike at the Tamiami Trail and drove south. Traffic thinned out and, on both sides of the highway, chintzy eggshell apartments and tacky tract-house developments gave way to pastures, farmland, and patches of dense glades. Garcia now had no doubt that Bernal planned to kill him. He guessed, cynically, that it would probably be a simple execution; kneeling on the gravel of some dirt road, mosquitoes buzzing in his ears, the shotgun blast devoured by the empty night. The fucking turkey buzzards would find him first. The buitres.
Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to piss the little runt off. Maybe he'd get excited, maybe a little careless.
"So what about your pals?"
"Idiots!" Bernal said.
"Oh, I'm not so sure," Garcia said. "Some of that stuff was ingenious."
"That was mine," Bernal said. "The best stuff was mine. The kennel club bombing—I thought it up myself."
"A pile of dead dogs. What the hell did thatprove?"
"Quiet, cono.It proved that no place was safe, that's what it proved. No place was safe for tourists and traitors and carpetbaggers. Any idiot could see the point."
Garcia shook his head. Carpetbaggers—definitely a Skip Wiley word.
"Dead greyhounds," Garcia said mockingly. "I'm sure Castro couldn't sleep for days."
"Just drive, goddammit."
"I never understood your stake in the group," Garcia went on. "I think, what the hell does a hard-core like Jesus care about tourists and condos? I think, maybe he just wants his name in the papers. Maybe he's got nowhere else to go."
Bernal made a fist and pounded the dash. "See, this is why you're such a dumb cop! Figure it out, Garcia. What really happened to the movement? Everyone in Miami got fat and happy, like you. Half a million Cubans—they could stampede Havana anytime they wanted, but they won't because most of them are just like you. Greedy and prosperous. Prosperity is killing anti-communism, Garcia. If our people here were starving or freezing or dying, don't you think they'd want to go back to Cuba? Don't you think they'd sign up for the next invasion? Of course they would, by the thousands. But not now. Oh, they are careful to wave flags and pledge money and say Death to the bearded one!But they don't mean it. You see, they've got their IRAs and their Chevrolets and their season tickets to the Dolphins, and they don't give a shit about Cuba anymore. They'll never leave Florida as long as life is better here, so the only thing for us to do is make life worse. That's exactly what the Nights of December had in mind. It was a good plan, before the great Senor Fuego cracked up, a good plan based on sound dialectic. If it came to pass that all the snowbirds fled north—chasing their precious money—then Florida's economy would disintegrate and finally our people would be forced into action. And Cuba is the only place for us to go."