“Of course.” She gave him a dismayed smile. “Forgive me for forgetting your well-publicized drinking habits.” She went in the bathroom for another glass, poured it half full of cognac and brought it to him with a glass of ice water.
She settled herself at the end of the sofa again and said uncomfortably, “I guess I can’t put it off any longer. I not only met Fidel but I fell for him. I don’t know how much Cuban stuff they’ve been printing in the Miami papers recently, but you may have read stories about an American actress who has been going around with him a lot. Her stage name is… was… Marianne Devlin.” Her voice hardened. “That was me, in case you haven’t guessed. There was a… an unpleasant bit of publicity in Hollywood a few years ago about a television actress named Mary Devon. It has nothing to do with this except as my reason for changing my name.”
She paused, looking at him defiantly, and Shayne shrugged and said, “Go on with the Cuban bit. I don’t recall reading about Marianne Devlin and Castro. In fact, my impression of the man is that he doesn’t have anything to do with women.”
“A gross misrepresentation,” she told him dryly. “You know how Cubans are about blondes? Well, I was at one of the luxury hotels in Havana in a floor show and he saw me and… liked me. All right,” she went on angrily, “I liked him, too. I was flattered that he wanted me for his mistress. He’s quite a guy. He’s still quite a guy,” she added, glaring at Shayne as though daring him to contradict her, “although he’s changed one hell of a lot since it’s come out in the open that he’s a communist.
“Look…” She spread out her hands unhappily. “I don’t think you’re interested in the intimate details of my life with Fidel. It was flattering and exciting in the beginning… all the intrigue and the back-stage goings-on. I was in on it. You had a feeling that he was a man of destiny. That he was sincerely interested in doing a wonderful job in Cuba… and God knows those poor peons who suffered under Batista deserved a new deal.
“But things got different. He’s a sour, embittered man. The communists have moved in and taken control. And he hates it because he was the movement in the beginning. He was the revolution. Of course he’s a megalomaniac,” she went on bitterly. “That’s why it’s so hard for him now. I’m not making excuses for him, but I did see a lot of it happen. I realized I had to get out, but I also realized they weren’t going to let me just walk out. I knew too much. I’d been too close to so many things. They didn’t trust me.
“Oh, not Fidel,” she went on swiftly. “He’s really quite naive about politics. But he’s not in charge any more.” She put down her drink abruptly and got up and began striding up and down the room like a caged animal.
“I’m not saying this well,” she burst out. “I don’t know whether he ever actually loved me. I’m not sure he’s capable of loving anyone but himself… and Cuba. At any rate, little Mary Devon saw the handwriting on the wall. I made plans to get out of there while the going was good. I found a pilot… an American… who agreed to fly me secretly to Mexico. For a price.”
She stopped in the middle of the floor with her hands on her hips and regarded Shayne belligerently. “It was a high price,” she told him in a subdued voice, “but well worth it. I got out of Cuba with some clothes, a few thousand dollars in American currency… and a small dispatch case. Right now I wish to God I’d had the good sense to leave the dispatch case behind, but I didn’t. I’m still an American. And I hate the communists and what they’ve done to Fidel. Do you know what is inside that dispatch case, Mr. Shayne?”
He said, “I haven’t the faintest idea… and why don’t you call me Mike at this point?”
“All right, Mike. It’s a complete and detailed plan for the take-over of Guantanamo. They’ve got key men infiltrated into our Navy personnel there. It’s all worked out, and I flew into Mexico with it.”
“Where is it?” he asked curiously, looking around the room as though he expected to see a dispatch case standing there.
“It’s hidden on the other side of the Border… where you and I are going to get it tomorrow and you’re going to take it to Washington and see that it gets into the hands of J. Edgar Hoover, or the top man of the CIA… whichever. I guess they’re not a part of the Communist Conspiracy,” she added tautly. “Although right now I’m not too sure about that. I’ve been through hell with that damned dispatch case.”
Her composure broke suddenly and she twisted her hands together in front of her and tears appeared on her cheeks. “Who can you trust today? I had a contact in Mexico City. He was murdered before I could reach him and there was a trap laid for me that I just escaped by the skin of my teeth. I miraculously escaped death twice more before I managed to reach the Border. I didn’t dare try to bring it across with me. I didn’t dare try to turn it over to anyone, because how do you know whom you can trust today? They’ve got their agents everywhere. That’s one of the things I learned in Cuba. What do you suppose went wrong with our carefully planned invasion a year ago? They knew all about it beforehand from trusted and high-up agents of the CIA. I’ve heard them boasting about how stupid and complacent Americans are.”
She stalked back to her end of the sofa and dropped down, lifted her glass of watered cognac and took a long drink. “All right, Mike. You didn’t come all the way to Los Angeles to listen to a lecture on the danger of communist infiltration here. But I’ve been hounded and deviled ever since I crossed the border from Mexico. My hotel room and bags have been searched twice. I can’t make a move on the streets without one of them right behind me. You may think I’m imagining all of it, and I don’t care what you think if you’ll just go down to Tijuana tomorrow and recover that dispatch case and see it gets into the right hands in Washington. That’s all I ask. Then let me go back to being Mary Devon and forget there ever was a woman named Marianne Devlin.”
He sucked the last drops of cognac from his glass, got up and went across to pour out some more. With his back to her, he observed mildly, “I think you’ll do all right as Mary Devon. You impress me as being quite a competent actress.” He turned back with an approving smile. “How much rehearsing did you do on that story before you tried it out on me?”
“Mike!” she cried in a stricken voice. “Don’t say that! You’ve got to believe me and help me. You’re the one person in the world I could think of whom I could call on.”
“I may be willing to help you,” he told her, reseating himself and pleasurably taking a sip of cognac, “after you tell me the truth. There may be a dispatch case hidden in Tijuana,” he agreed judicially. “Perhaps I’ll help you get hold of it… after you tell me what’s in it. But all this other stuff, Mary. For God’s sake!” He shook his head in disgust.
“If any of this wild story were true why the devil haven’t you gone to the police here in L.A.? Or the local office of the FBI? You didn’t have to send for a private detective from Miami to help you prevent a communist takeover of a Naval base in Cuba.”
“But I’ve told you,” she appealed to him tremulously. “How do you know whom you can trust these days? Even Mr. Hoover boasts publicly that about half his agents are members of the Communist Party. He thinks they are spying for him, of course, but how does he know which side they’re really on? I’ve just gotten to the point where I don’t trust anybody.”
“I know,” said Shayne with withering sarcasm. “Not even the local taxi drivers. A guy like Joe Pelter, for instance, who delivered your note to me today. You think he’s a commie and read your note and sent a cable to Moscow warning them that you planned to meet me at the Brown Derby. Nuts! What kind of a simpleton do you take me for?”