“Shhhh!” The Cuban clutched his Santería beads and stood motionless like a dog flagging a snake. Then gestured with his chin. “Outside the wall by the tree. See? I hope it’s not him.”
“Him who?”
“A Santero from my village, but an asshole. ’Cause of him, I got sent to the crazy prison for murder.”
“Gad, Figgy. You killed someone?”
“Or could be that Russian who called you a pussy.”
Sobering, to hear such words. “That’s even more upsetting. No one’s supposed to know I’m here.”
“Santería, my brother.” Figgy whispered the words as if they explained everything.
To Tomlinson, they did. Santería, voodoo, were mystic religions, and even a Santero, which was a novice priest, would have powers far beyond the norm. A Russian, not so much, but formidable—the guy had resembled the fruit of a Cossack screwing a grizzly. Tomlinson took stock. He squinted again, seeing rows of stones and flags and miniature stone mansions that were . . . mausoleums?
A cemetery . . . Christ, how had they stumbled this far off course?
Figgy nudged him. “No . . . he’s behind us.”
A turn of the tiller. Streetlights on Southard spilled pools of yellow onto asphalt, each pool smaller, block after block. Banyan trees shadowed sidewalks and the occasional utility gizmo, such as a fire hydrant or a post office drop box. After many seconds, Tomlinson relaxed and pointed. “Is that what scared you? It’s just a mailbox, for christ’s sake. How tall is this guy?”
“Even bigger than me, but that’s not him. He must’a moved, the son of a dog.” Figgy shuffled closer to the drop box, shoes clicking like a shod horse.
“Tell me something. Did Cerci give you a pill to eat?”
“Maybe. And some dollar bills that got the wrong pictures on them.”
Deutschmarks, Tomlinson translated. “Not the German. I’m talking about the Cerci with small chichis. Or she could have roofied your beer. Frankly, I don’t think that my little Wolverine is the squared-away feminist she pretends to be.”
Figgy did it again: froze. His head swiveled shoreward to an antebellum house dark beneath trees, a few stars, but no moon showing. “Madre de Dios,” he murmured.
“Now what?”
“He’s coming, brother—run.”
The Cuban’s spikes sparked toward the cemetery, briefcase swinging, while Tomlinson hollered, “Dude . . . you can’t outrun mescaline.”
Too late. Unless . . . unless the little shortstop’s fears were reality-based. If so, darker forces might be at work here.
Beelzebub—still on my trail, huh? Good! Tomlinson, a pacifist by choice but a spiritual warrior by nature, had been anticipating such a visit. He hollered toward the shadows, “Pleased to meet you—now kiss my ass.”
A fence of wrought iron separated the house from the street, metal cool to the touch. The gate wasn’t locked when he tried it. Beside the porch, bushes parted with the tinkling of wind chimes. Two creatures appeared in the form of human shapes, one bear-sized, the other smaller. Teeth flashed a Rottweiler grin, followed by a cough of Russian.
Tomlinson stood his ground. Waited, expecting the worst, but the specters retreated. Soon vanished, as if circling behind the house.
More wind chimes on this dense, still night.
Tomlinson yelled after them, “Now who’s the pussy?”
Upstairs in the rental cottage, Gen. Rivera said to Ford, “He came to assassinate me with a Beretta? I, too, like Berettas. At least that shows some respect.”
Ford put the gelatin listening devices in the freezer and closed the door. “You need to pack up and get out of here, that’s what it shows. Where’s your suitcase?”
“You don’t understand. I was on the phone with . . . well, a person I trust. He warned me about something they might try to do to me. Radiation poisoning—a horrible thing. Your hair falls out, and you shit yourself to death.” At the window, Rivera opened the blinds to see where the Suburban had been parked. “You should have brought that puta to me. I know ways to make men talk.”
Hector had talked, but Ford hadn’t volunteered all that he’d learned. “Poison? Why?”
A shrug. “A microscopic grain of something, an isotope—already the name is gone. They jab you with a needle or slip it into food. From their rocket program. It’s the way that . . . the way they do things now.”
Jesus Christ. Rocket program—it had to be the Chinese or the Russians. No, it was the Russians. The overcomplicated, Cold War style left little doubt. Ford asked, “Are you sure?”
“Two of my contacts in Cuba are dead. I just found out. Another is in intensive care. A woman . . . quite beautiful”—Rivera sounded sad and a little wistful—“who has, over the period of a week, lost her beautiful hair. A bullet—I’d much prefer a soldier’s death. Shitting is no way for a man to die.”
An hour after sunset, they dropped the Mustang at Hertz. On the way to the airport, Ford turned the radio off and said, “General, I need to know what’s going on.”
The former dictator replied, “I can’t fly out until I’ve found Figuerito. How many times must I say this? That stadium sign we passed, why not stop and have a look?” They had already passed the Twins stadium, but the Red Sox complex was ahead, the lights of the practice fields aglow.
Ford seldom lost his temper but came close. “Goddamn it, Juan, I just saved your life. Enough with the bullshit. Why are they after you?”
Rivera stiffened but let it go. “The world has turned savage, old friend. I knew I was being followed, but I thought it was because of my new sports agency business.”
“Smuggling baseball players, you mean.”
“Phrase it how you like. What I’m telling you is, now I’m not so sure. I was cultivating a variety of businesses in Havana. At first, I thought the Mexican cartels, or the Cubans. That I might have stepped on the wrong toes. This American dream of yours can bite a man in the ass, which your propaganda fails to—”
Ford interrupted, “It has nothing to do with baseball. Russians don’t give a damn about Cuban ballplayers.” He had yet to allude to the contents of the briefcase but did now. “For the last decade, outsiders have been stealing collectibles from Cuba. Paintings, historic items. Suddenly, Russia and Cuba are allies again. You know what I’m asking you—the stuff you’ve been selling on the Internet.”
Rivera rode in silence until he realized the turn to Southwest Regional was before the Red Sox complex. He slapped the dash. “I have to find Figuerito! Must I write my orders on paper?”
“I didn’t enlist in your army, Juan. Tell me why the goddamn Russians are involved.”
“I didn’t say they were.”
Stubborn bastard. Ford drove and used the silence to put together a workable premise. Letters written by Fidel Castro between 1953 and 1963—a tumultuous period. Batista ousted, 1959. The botched Bay of Pigs invasion, 1961. Next came the Cuban Missile Crisis; the Berlin Wall was erected. The CIA attempted to foil the execution of three hundred anti-Castro operatives, and they had botched the first of several attempts to take out Fidel. Then 1963: JFK assassinated, November 22nd. Oswald killed; Jack Ruby dies. The whole time, a lot of backdoor nastiness between clandestine agencies worldwide. Riots and protests fired by the accelerant of KGB money. East Berlin, Saigon, Nicaragua, El Salvador—same thing but financed by American dollars.