Something about the rhythm of that sound-the cadence of careful gunshots?-brought to my mind's eye the Ko-dalith vision of a person's head materializing through a rain forest gloom, the head becoming larger, more distinct, as I hunted quietly through the trees, moving nearer; my right hand raising, coming up into firing position when I was close enough… then of the head vanishing in a cloud of iridescent mist-
The damn dream again…
I had to get my mind on other things, so I forced my thoughts to consider Tomlinson and his situation.
Southward beyond the marina, beyond the high palms and rolling surf, lay Cuba. I wondered if Tomlinson was awake, standing out on the balcony of the Hotel Nacional, looking up at the same sky, the same stars, too worried to sleep.
I checked my watch again and reconsidered calling Jimmy Gardenas despite the hour. No… Even retired Key West fishing guides are the early-to-bed types.
I'd call Jimmy at his shop in the morning. Try to catch him first thing.
But I couldn't sleep. No way. So I stood there looking at the sky, thinking about what I would ask Jimmy.
There were elements of Tomlinson's story about Julia DeGlorio that troubled me. A twenty-something-year-old woman-good-looking, by Tomlinson's description-picks him up at a restaurant and talks him into taking her to Cay Sal. She, the daughter of Cuban exiles with a very, very unusual name.
Tomlinson has his charms; women love the man, there was no arguing that. Women of all sizes and ages and of varying sensibilities were drawn to him and trusted him- with good reason. Tomlinson exudes a kind of serene and nonjudgmental acceptance that women treasure. It is not an exaggeration to say that if Tomlinson said yes to all the women who wanted to mother him and coddle him and also share his bed, the man would never have to spend a night alone aboard his boat.
Still… this wasn't a normal Tomlinson. He had been drunk and drugged and ranting-again, by his own description. Also, this wasn't just any woman. She was Cuban-American; came, presumably, from the more strictly moraled society that the hyphenated prefix implies. Yet she convinced him-a stranger-to sail her to a bank of lonely uninhabited islands just off the Cuban coast?
It was an unlikely scenario. That's why it bothered me.
1 could hear Tomlinson saying, "I had the hangover from Planet Zoltare."
Yes, he had regressed; had returned to some of his old destructive ways. But the man was a sailor in the same way that others are commercial pilots or physicians. He took his craft very seriously. Would he really allow himself to drink heavily before attempting a night crossing of the Florida Straits?
It is a quality of mine that is not attractive. There was a time in my life when I was suspicious by profession. Now I am suspicious by nature. When data does not fit comfortably into a likely chain of events, I reassemble the data into a worst-case scenario. It is my way of establishing the parameters of possibility.
Here was one possibility: The woman used all the means at her disposal to lure Tomlinson close to Cuba. Once in Cay Sal, she withdrew those favors, then drugged him so she could sail his boat into Cuban waters.
Could she have a reason for doing so? There were numerous plausible reasons. Was it possible that she did it? Yes, it was possible. But was it likely?
No.
In all probability, Julia DeGlorio was just one more casualty of the Florida Keys; a woman who'd gone to Key West looking for adventure and found, in Tomlinson, a man who happened to have a boat and was willing to take her along as crew.
But I wanted to call Jimmy; talk about it. There were other people I wanted to contact, too, and not just to discuss Julia DeGlorio. The way I saw it, there were only two ways to get Tomlinson out of Cuba. I could contact my local congressmen, contact the media, and make a political issue out of it, or I could go there myself and try to buy him out.
No getting around it-the second option was the most practical option.
If Tomlinson's predicament was approached through public channels, the Cuban government would do what it had done before-claim their people had caught Tomlinson with drugs aboard, then ransom him to our own government while wringing him dry of political juice.
That would mean months in Cuba… and he wouldn't spend them in the Hotel Nacional, either. It would mean prison. Maybe at the State Security Villa Marista complex in Havana, but more likely the much larger, dirtier, and more dangerous Combinado del Este-the gray-walled fortress where they kept the death-row people; the dangerous dissidents who had made the mistake of voicing their disapproval of Castro.
The thought of that turned my stomach. Tomlinson locked away in some crypt-sized cell… as frail as he was, as sick and confused as he had become… he wouldn't last a month.
So I would have to go…
It was a stunning thing to acknowledge: Yeah, I'm going to do it; I'm going back to Cuba…
Just making the decision, though, stirred an old energy in me. It awakened all the night-raider cognitive patterns that I had packed and put away long ago. A kind of attack mentality that I found both galvanizing and disturbing because it stirred in me an unsettling doubt about the life I had so carefully built.
If I'm living the way I want, why is it I miss elements of the life I had?
I looked at the stars, looked deep into the dark water and allowed the question to dissipate. I had more important things to think about… many things to do and information that needed to be assembled before I left for Cuba in, what, three days? Maybe four.
It was possible that the exchange would be easy to make. I'd fly down, give the man in charge ten thousand cash, put Julia DeGlorio on a plane, then sail back with Tomlinson.
Nothing to it…
But it was also possible that things wouldn't go smoothly. What would I do if they took the money and refused to release No Mas? How should I react if some bureaucrat with a long memory connected me with my past work in Cuba?
The potential for trouble was very real. There were contingencies that 1 had to anticipate.
When setting out to attack a mountain, smart climbers do their homework first; set up the safety lines and establish all possible means of escape.
I had a lot to do in a very short time…
6
On the phone, Jimmy Gardenas, former flats guide and now owner of Key West's top fly tackle shop, said to me, "Julia DeGlorio? The night I saw Tomlinson, there was nobody by that name at our table."
It was Saturday, nearly five P.M. On the desk in front of me was a pad of paper on which I had written, in a vertical line, the words:
BANK
SKIFF
HOUSE
FLIGHT
HORSESHOE
JIMMY
ARMANDO
GEN. RIVERA (PILAR?)
All brief memory goads relating to things I wanted to get done before Monday.
Already, I had placed neat little checks beside every word except for the last three names.
Now I picked up a pencil and placed another checkmark as I said to Jimmy, "You sure? Tomlinson said he was at your table when he met her. I got the impression you were all-"
"Nope, I would'a remembered," Jimmy said. "No woman by that name. But Tomlinson was really drank. He could have imagined it. I think he was imagining a lot of things that night. I doubt if he remembers much of what went on."
"He sailed to Cay Sal with her, now they're in Cuba. He's not imagining that."