“Just one thing, Rodrigo. Say the old man dies and your man never comes with the bankbooks?”
“Don’t worry about that. There are ways I trust the old man completely and that’s one of them. He’ll cheat in a lot of ways but not that one.”
“Maybe he won’t cheat you.”
“If you feel that way I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If when the old man dies and you don’t get your share I’ll split mine with you. And I’ll make you a present of all the arms in the cave.”
“That is a promise hermano?”
“A promise. You can dedicate the rest of your life to seeing that the money doesn’t go to waste.”
Julio nodded pensively. “Or the arms.”
Cielo frowned at him, but he did not want to know any more about his brother’s schemes. Then he said, “Where the hell is Emil?”
“He left this morning for San Juan, so he says.”
“I suppose I should count my blessings.”
“I don’t know, Cielo. I don’t trust him when I can’t see him. Suppose he’s hatching something?”
“Hatching what? Do you think he means to hijack this place? Let him — more power to him.”
“Hermano, don’t be facetious. He’s dangerous. He sits off by himself too much — he’s planning something.”
“What? Has he been talking to the others much?”
“He’s taken two or three of them aside. One at a time.”
“Which ones?”
“Ramirez. Ordovara. Kruger, too, I think, but I saw Kruger give him his back. Maybe others, too, that I haven’t seen.”
“He’s plotting a palace coup,” Cielo mused, and smiled when he looked around. “Some palace.”
“I’m worried about some of them, brother. Emil is the old man’s blood.”
“They’re loyal, that much we don’t have to worry about. Loyal to one another, and loyal to us.”
“Or loyal to the Draga name?”
“No, they’d string him along for the amusement but they wouldn’t turn on you and me.”
“Then why hasn’t one of them come forward and told us what he’s up to?”
Cielo brooded on that. Cielo said, “I think we’d better have a little talk with Ramirez and Ordovara.”
Chapter 10
Toting her overnight case, Howard hurried along ahead of her into National Airport’s noisy terminal. By the time she caught up he’d claimed a spot in the ticket-counter queue. She said, “If I’m not back by Thursday, drag the Caribbean.”
“I don’t see the point of this. There’s nothing you can do down there.”
“I can’t sit on my hands.” The line inched forward. She glared at the clock, worried about the time; traffic on the bridge had coagulated around a stalled car and she was late. “Will you do something for me? Will you keep feeding the fire under your friend O’Hillary?”
“Sure... sure.”
“Not that it’ll do much good. It’s a grotesque farce. They’re all engaged in this monstrous masquerade.”
“You’re getting alarmingly paranoid about this, Carole.”
“I am? Then why is it, do you suppose, that I could hire one solitary middle-aged man with a limp and no pull at all, and he was able to accomplish in six days what all the forces of the most powerful government on earth failed to do in fifteen?”
“Your man Crobey may think he knows the name one of them used fifteen years ago but that’s a far cry from catching them. He’s no closer to them than anybody else is. Why persist in this absurd anti-Washington neurosis? You know they’re doing everything they can.”
The queue crept forward a notch. Howard put the case down to free his hands for a cigarette. Carole said, “Don’t you know those things will stunt your growth?” Agitation made her bounce up and down on the balls of her feet; she kept looking resentfully at the clock above the oblivious ticket clerk. A metallic disembodied voice ran around overhead, half comprehensible — “Mr. Equation Funeral, Mr. Equation Funeral, please report to the American Airlines information desk.”
“You’re flagellating yourself,” Howard told her in an intense hiss. “Stop building dungeons in the air. No one’s conspiring to cover up Robert’s murder.”
“Howard, I’ve never known quite such a round-heeled pushover as you are. Working in the guts of it all this time I’d have thought you’d have learned better. I hold these truths to be self-evident: That irrespective of realities, the deformed indoctrinations of nationalistic stupidities will take precedence every time over basic human morality; that the secret war against Castro is not over just because the President of the United States goes on television and says it’s over; and that us niggers are being discriminated against because these terrorists happen to be the right political color — therefore they will be protected whatever their crimes.”
“Carole, your mouth runneth over.” Howard had gone very pale; he glanced around to see if anyone had overheard.
She slapped her bag down on the counter and demanded her ticket. When that rigamarole was completed — “Aisle or window?... Smoking or nonsmoking?” — she snatched up the boarding pass, hiked her bag over her shoulder and turned to Howard to make a grab for the overnight case. Howard kept it, determined to race along with her to the plane. Striding across the terminal he got some of his color back. “I get awfully tired of banging up against that brittle impregnable wall of your wise-ass cracks,” he drew a shuddering long breath to continue, “and I wish that just once in a while you’d give the rest of the world credit for possessing at least a tenth of the lofty moral values that you claim to possess.”
There was another queue at the security funnel. The metal detector kept beeping and several men were emptying out their pockets of coins, keys, cigarette cases, ballpoints. The loudspeaker announced the final boarding call for Carole’s flight to San Juan.
She began to push forward, cutting into the line, fuming.
Howard grabbed her sleeve. “Calm down. They won’t take off without you — they wouldn’t dare.” The afterthought amused him; she saw it in his eyes and knew abruptly that he was patronizing her. She couldn’t stand it.
She said, “You can still be a master of the gentlemanly shiv when you want to be,” and icily put her shoulder to him.
The queue began to move again. Carole placed handbag and overnight case on the moving belt. “Try to keep me posted, will you?”
“Yes, I’ll try.” He wasn’t quite being evasive; he was just staying low-key in order to counterbalance her. She knew he wasn’t her enemy. Looking back from beyond the checkpoint she caught the gentle worry in his face. He still had a hopeless remnant of feeling for her.
Howard waved; and she ran to catch her plane.
Incidents could be remembered but it was hard to recall a passion that was dead. She had loved, or been infatuated with, or had fond affection for, or perhaps merely sought refuge in Howard; but what she remembered most vividly from their marriage was the moment in Alexandria when they had looked at each other and realized they were stuck with each other. It was too depressing; not a word had passed between them but after that they had gone about embittering each other’s lives until there was no possibility of re-warming the soufflé of pastel dreams with which they had fed their initial illusions. The question of blame didn’t come into it: Vindictiveness had consumed them both. Now it was burnt out and she was grateful for that because she was able to view him as human.