“I’ve been in this harbor before, you know, Ambrose,” Hawke said, his eyes going somewhere else, getting very hard for a moment. “A long time ago. I was just a boy, of course. Barely seven years old. I really can’t remember much else, though.”
“Is that why you chose these particular islands for the meeting?”
“I don’t know,” Hawke said. “It’s odd. It was this mission that brought me here. Obviously. Still, I do feel drawn to the place. I’ve been having these peculiar dreams about these islands that—” He paused and looked away, unwilling or unable to continue.
“At any rate,” he finally said, “I’ve brought along a map. Had it since childhood. A map of a treasure that might be buried somewhere in this neck of the Caribbean. But, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure it’s the map that’s making me feel—feel like I’m on the verge of something here, Ambrose.”
“Yes?”
“I have no idea what it is,” Hawke said, looking at his friend with helpless eyes. “I just know somehow the map may be a part of the thing.”
“Shrouded in mystery is the term, I believe,” Congreve said, looking closely at his friend.
“Hmm. Yes,” Alex replied, staring at some imaginary point on the horizon. “Shrouded.”
Then he shrugged off whatever feelings he was having and said, “Anyway, it’s as good a place to meet these dodgy bastards as any other, I suppose.”
Constable Congreve put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and squeezed. He had been expecting this moment. Dreading it, actually.
Like many people, Ambrose knew the awful story of the murder of Hawke’s parents. Not from Hawke, certainly, who, in all these years, had never acknowledged the murders to a soul. Hawke had, Ambrose was sure, completely erased the tragedy from his conscious mind. At the very least, the horrific memories were submerged so deeply in his subconscious, Ambrose wondered if they’d ever resurface.
But in a large leather satchel Ambrose carried everywhere were certain CID files. Files whose existence was known only to Constable Congreve. A cold case for decades, the Hawke murders remained an unsolved double homicide that, without Congreve’s determination and commitment, would be moldering away somewhere in the Yard. In the dimly lit cemetery where they kept all the dead files buried.
Of course he’d never dared to raise the subject with Hawke. For his friend’s sake, such gruesome memories were clearly better left unstirred. But the murders, Congreve knew, had occurred somewhere in these islands. Quite possibly in these very waters, in fact. He couldn’t help but wonder if something, a particular sight or a sound, might trigger Hawke’s memory.
Now, Hawke’s odd expression as he gazed out over the harbor set Ambrose to wondering. What if all Hawke’s deeply submerged memories started to surface sooner rather than later? Pop up, exploding to the surface like some ancient underwater buoys whose unseen tethers have finally rotted and suddenly snapped? And if that happened, where would it all lead?
For a moment, it looked as if Alex might say something more; but then his eyes flickered and blinked and it was all gone, flown from his face in an instant. Hawke smiled at his friend.
“I’ll tell you one thing true, Ambrose Congreve.”
“Yes?”
“Everything in this world happens in the blink of an eye. Never forget that. Everything.”
3
Gomez, bruised and bleeding, emerged from the gloom of the ancient and crumbling hospital with just two things on his mind. Sex. And murder. Not necessarily in that order, either.
At least the rain had stopped. The broad tiled steps of the Hospital Calixto García were steaming under the wicked sun. Christ. The light made him squint as he walked down the slippery wet steps to the palmy courtyard, which was full of old soldiers in wheelchairs who had just rolled outside the former military hospital for a little air. It wasn’t all that great out here, but it sure beat the hell out of inside.
He saw the neon glow of the tiny bar where he’d had breakfast across the Avenida de la Universidad. He could really use a couple of cold ones about now. Like, about twelve should do it.
“I’m not having a good day,” he said to some old broad who was staring at his bloody mouth as he went through the wrought-iron gates. “Okay with you?”
He walked out into the sweltering street beyond, cupping his hand to the side of his mouth. Hurt like hell.
Taxi? Not when you need one. Lots of Flying Pigeon Chinese bicycles, but very few cars. He’d heard gasoline rations were down to three liters a month. Most of the cars he saw had red tags. Government cars. Hard times in the old hometown, baby. After five minutes he started to walk in the direction of the Malecón that ringed the bay. At least he could get his bearings there. Figure out where the hell he was going.
After the stink of sick people, now he had the stink of the streets up his nose. It was like somebody whipped up a big batch of what, sugar cane juice, motor oil, and rotten mangos. Popped that pudding in the oven at five hundred. Yum, that does smell good.
Oh, and sprinkle with sweat. Lots of sweat. Had these people never heard of Ban Roll-on? And stir in some of the stinky perfume the little jineteras wore who followed him everywhere, that’d be good, too.
Hookers, they were everywhere, and cops, too, cracking down on the hookers. It was like cracking down on roaches. They were in the woodwork.
There were two kinds of cops, he’d found out the hard way. The “tourist cops” who were okay, merely a pain in the ass. But the other ones, the ones with the berets, the national police, they were definitely not okay. You even look at them funny they whack you with a baton or haul your ass to jail.
But even they couldn’t stop the jineteras. Talk about a kid in a candy store. He’d landed in hooker heaven. There were crowds of them outside his hotel, morning, noon, and night. There had been a bunch waiting when he came out of the little family-owned paladar where he’d had lunch the day before.
Christ. He couldn’t shake ’em. It was like, despite his guayabera and his chinos, he had “American Sailor” tattooed on his goddamn forehead. He wondered if this was how movie stars felt. Or Elvis. Not that he especially minded being chased by hookers everywhere he went. That was the only good part of this whole two-day pass. The bad part, the really bad part, had been the last two hours at his dying mother’s bedside listening to her scream.
She had cancer of the gut. Bad. Now, you would think that the quote unquote best hospital in Havana would have some kind of painkillers for her. Let her die with some kind of goddamn peace and dignity. He had certainly been wiring her doctor enough money under the table to take special care of her.
Pain management, they called it, every time he called the hospital to check on her. All they could do at this stage, one doctor had said to him. Pain management, señor.
Yeah, well, that doctor had zoomed right to the top of Gomez’s personal shit list. A true chartbuster.
What had he given her for the pain today? Or yesterday? Or the whole last month as far as he could tell? Nada. Zippo. Not even one teensy little baby aspirin. No, the United States government had taken care of that department with their stupid embargo on food and medicine. Still, they had to do something for her.
Finally, he’d pitched a complete shitfit with the doctors and nurses. They told him it wasn’t their fault. Blamed it all on America. He’d nearly beat that doctor’s brains out before they all pulled him off the guy. Some gorilla orderly had whacked his head on the floor and split his lip. The coppery taste of blood was still in his mouth and he bent over and spit his bloody saliva in the gutter.
Jesus H. Christ, was that a tooth going down the drain? He felt around inside his mouth with his tongue. Yes indeedy, one tooth missing. Okay, now he was getting major league pissed off.