_Chapter fifteen_

Hall had time to buy a paper at the Havana airport before the Panair bus started out for the city. In the half-light of evening, he could read only the headlines, and the front page carried nothing about Tabio's condition. It meant only one thing, that Don Anibal was still alive. His death would have rated a banner headline in every paper published south of the United States borders.

He folded the paper under his sealed attache case, sat wearily back in his seat as the half-empty bus rolled through the flat table lands between the airport and Havana. It was a run of fifteen miles from Rancho Boyeros to the Prado, a stretch long enough to give Hall another opportunity to review in his mind the nature of the tasks that lay ahead of him.

Physically, there were few details which could trap him. Duarte had been very thorough, even to the point of bringing Mexican labels for Jerry to sew into every item of apparel on Hall's body and in his Mexican leather grip. The credentials in his worn Mexican wallet had carried him through the control stations of four governments, including the station in San Juan (although the night in Puerto Rico had been a jittery twelve hours of sulking in his room like a caged animal). He wore a hat and a pair of soft ankle boots which belonged to Duarte, and a pair of broad-framed tortoise-sh.e.l.l reading gla.s.ses he had borrowed from Dr. Gonzales. The attache case, protected by the Mexican seal, contained the pictures of Androtten, a letter from Duarte to a man named Figueroa in the Mexican Emba.s.sy, and the automatic Segador had given him the day after he was drugged.

It was too late to report to the Mexican Emba.s.sy and deliver the letter to Figueroa. But the Casa de la Cultura would be open (there were lectures and meetings of some sort going on every night at the Spanish Republican society), the boys on the staff of _Ahora_ would be at their desks at the paper, and Colonel Lobo could always be reached within a few hours. The idea was to contact all three tonight; if the doc.u.mentary bomb which would blow up Ansaldo was anywhere in Havana, it would be either at the Casa, the paper, or in the files of the Secret Police.

His heart quickened as the bus reached the narrow streets of Havana, honked its way to the Maceo, and then turned lazily down the Prado. He loved this city as he loved only two others, New York and Madrid. In the course of nearly four decades, Hall had spent a mere four months in Havana, but these were months in which he rarely got more than four hours' sleep a night. He had worked hard in this city, but for a hundred-odd nights he had also known the fantastic pleasures of merely walking the streets of the Cuban capital, talking to friends, stopping off to rest and have a tropical beer or a tall gla.s.s of mamey pulp, getting drunk only on the green softness of the Havana moon and the cool pleasures of the Gulf breeze. Here he had found old friends from Spain, and made new and life-long friendships with a host of Cubans. He knew, when he last left Havana, that the city had become one of his spiritual homes, that always he would think of it as a place to which he could return when he wanted the peace which comes to a man from being where he belongs.

As they approached the Panair office, Hall became apprehensive. He was afraid that he might be recognized by one of the clerks. He dug into his wallet for an American two-dollar bill and handed it to the driver.

"Take me directly to the Jefferson Hotel, _chico_," he said. "It is only two streets out of your way."

"I won't get shot if I do, _amigo_."

He chose the Jefferson because it was a small, ancient and very unfashionable hotel, without a bar, and completely overlooked by the American colony. It was also very inexpensive, just the kind of a place a new courier, anxious to make a good record, would choose. It was on the Prado, it was clean, and the bills were modest enough to reflect to the credit of the government traveler who submitted them. Not the least of its charms for Hall was that the Jefferson was the one place where he stood not the slightest chance of being known by either the guests or the employees.

He signed the register with a modest flourish, insisted upon and obtained a reduced rate due to his standing as a courier, and then, spotting the large safe in the office behind the counter, he asked for the manager. "I am," he said, flourishing his ident.i.ty papers, "a courier of the Mexican Government. Since I have arrived too late to present myself to my Emba.s.sy tonight, could I ask for the privilege of depositing my case in your safe for the night?"

The manager said he would be honored to oblige. He had, he said, traveled widely in Mexico, and admired the Mexican people, the Mexican Government, and most of all Senor Ortiz Tinoco's Department of Foreign Relations, and did the visitor expect to make frequent stops in Havana?

The visitor a.s.sured the manager that he did.

The case was handed to the night clerk, who opened the safe, deposited it, and closed the heavy iron door. "It will be as safe," the manager said, "as the gold in the teeth of a Gallego."

"That," said Hall, "is security enough for me."

He got into the rickety elevator and went to his room. It was a large room overlooking the Prado. He opened the shutters, looked out at the star-drenched skies. He was home again. Outside, juke boxes in three different open cafes on one street were playing three records with maximum volume. A baby in the next room was lying alone and cooing at the ceiling. Near by, a light roused a rooster on some rooftop to let out a loud call.

Hall heard the sounds of the city as they blended into the tone pattern peculiarly Havana's own. He took a quick shower, changed into some fresh clothes, and went downstairs to the Prado. He stopped first at a cigar stand a few doors from the hotel, bought a handful of choice cigars, and lit a long and very dark Partagas, being careful to remember that only gringos removed the cigar band before lighting up.

He walked casually down the Prado, toward the Malecon, pausing in the course of the four blocks between the Casa de la Cultura and the Jefferson to study the stills in the lobby of a movie house showing an American film, to sip a leisurely pot of coffee, and to buy a box of wax matches and a lottery ticket from a street vendor. From the street, he could see that the windows of the Casa were well lighted. He walked another block, crossed the street, and then, very casually, he studied the signs on the street entrance to the organization's headquarters.

_Tonight: Lecture on History of Music by Professor A. Vasquez. Dance and ball for young people._ And why shouldn't a bachelor courier on the loose in Havana attend a dance for the young _refugiados_? He went through the motions of a visiting blade debating with himself the propriety of attending such a ball.

Squaring his shoulders, the Mexican courier put the cigar in his mouth and started to climb the stairs to the headquarters of the Casa. He climbed slowly, afraid of receiving too enthusiastic a greeting when he reached the first-floor landing.

There was a light in the small meeting room at the end of the corridor.

Hall stood near the door for a few minutes, listening for a familiar voice through the opened transom. Then, carefully, he knocked, and turned the handle of the door. It was open.

He stepped into a meeting of a small committee. Eight men were sitting around a long table. They were talking about the problems of getting help to the Spaniards in the French concentration camps in North Africa.

All discussion stopped the moment the confreres saw Hall.

"I am looking," he said, "for Santiago Iglesias."

A tawny-haired Spaniard at the table looked up. "_Viejo!_" he shouted, springing from his chair and rushing over to confront Hall.

The right hand which rose to take the cigar from Hall's mouth also lingered long enough to hold an admonishing finger to his lips. "h.e.l.lo, Rafael," he said. "I didn't know you were in Cuba."

Rafael was grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Neither did Franco," he laughed. "Last week I found out for the first time that the fascists had jailed you and that you got out after the war. I thought you were dead, M..."

The look in Hall's eyes stopped him from p.r.o.nouncing the rest of the American's name.

"Let's go outside," Hall said, softly. "I do not have much time."

They stepped into the corridor. "Where can we talk?" Hall asked. "Is anyone using Santiago's office?"

"No. We can sit there."

They found the office unoccupied. "Don't turn the light on," Hall said.

"The window faces the street."

Rafael locked the door, pulled two seats close to the big desk in the corner. "We can sit here and talk quietly," he said.

"It's wonderful to see you, Rafael. I'd heard you were captured in a hospital during the Ebro retreat."

"_Mierda!_ That's what the fascists boasted. No. I came out of the retreat in good order. I started with thirty men, but, instead of taking to the roads like the Lincolns, I started to cross the mountains. I went up with thirty men, and I came down on the other side with a battalion.

Most of them got through alive after that."

"Good boy! Where have you been since then?"

"In h.e.l.l!" Rafael spat, angrily. "Rotting in a French concentration camp, mostly. I organized an escape. We killed six guards, and more than twenty prisoners got away. I got to Casablanca through the underground, and they put me on a Chilean ship. Two weeks ago we reached Havana. I'm to eat and rest for a month. Then I go back to Spain for more fighting.

With the guerrillas. When did you get here?"

"An hour ago. Listen, I want to talk to you. But it is important that we find Santiago. Is he in town?"

"Yes. He is supposed to be at our meeting. He'll be here."

"Can you go back and leave word for him to join you in here the minute he comes? It's very important."

Rafael jumped from his chair, struck an absurd caricature of military posture, and made a limp French salute, his hand resting languidly against his ear. "_Mais oui, mon general_," he said. "_Mais oui, oui, oui._" He marched stiffly out of the room, posing at the door to make an obscene gesture meant for the men of Vichy.

He glided noiselessly back to the dark office in a few minutes, waved Hall's proffered cigar away. "I can't smoke any more. We had nothing to smoke the last year in Spain, and Monsieur Daladier and Company never sent us any tobacco. Now I just can't stand it. I walk around Havana and everyone offers me cigars, but I've lost my taste for it."

"It will come back, Rafael."

"Why are you in Havana, Mateo?"

"It is a long story, _chico_. I'd rather tell you in front of Santiago.

It's about Anibal Tabio. I left San Hermano two nights ago. Things are serious, there. Falange."

"Is Tabio really so ill?"

"He is dying, _chico_. He may be dead by now. I think he was killed by the Falange. I came here for the proof. Santiago knows. We've exchanged letters."

"_Hola!_" Santiago Iglesias was at the door. "Then you got my letters?"

He was ten years older than Rafael, tall and powerfully built. He crossed the room in long, athlete's strides, his head thrown back as if to announce to the world that the white hairs which outnumbered the black of his head were merely an accident of the war.