Stanton stood up. He looked bright-eyed verging on feverish.
“I don’t have the final say, but you sold me. Your pitch wasn’t as flowery as your boy’s Inaugural address, but it was a good deal more politically astute.”
AND PROFIT-MOTIVATED–
Kemper said, “Thanks. It’s an honor to be compared to John F Kennedy.”
o o o
Fulo drove. Néstor talked. Kemper watched.
They cruised Cadre turf in random figure-eights. Slum shacks and housing projects zipped by.
Néstor said, “Send me back to Cuba. I will shoot Fidel from a rooftop. I will become the Simon Bolivar of my country.”
Fulo’s Chevy was packed with dope. Powder puffed out of plastic bags and dusted the seats.
Néstor said, “Send me back to Cuba as a boxer. I will beat Fidel to death with bolo punches like Kid Gavilan.”
Rheumy eyes popped their way–local junkies knew the car. Winos pressed up for handouts–Fulo was a well-known soft touch.
Fulo called it the New Marshall Plan. Fulo said his handouts inspired subservience.
Kemper watched.
Néstor stopped at drop sites and sold pre-packaged bindles. Fulo backstopped all transactions with a shotgun.
Kemper watched.
Fulo spotted a non-Cadre transaction outside Lucky Time Liquors. Néstor sprayed the transactors with 12-gauge-propelled rock salt.
The transactors dispersed every which way. Rock salt tore through your clothes and made your skin sting like a mother humper.
Kemper watched.
Néstor said, “Send me back to Cuba as a skin diver. I will shoot Fidel with an underwater spear gun.”
Street-corner rummies sucked down T-Bird. Glue fiends sniffed rags. Half the front lawns featured dilapidated jalopies.
Kemper watched. Cab calls squawked up the squawk box. Fulo drove from Darktown to Poquito Habana.
Faces went from black to brown. Incidental colors shifted and went more pastel.
Pastel-fronted churches. Pastel-fronted dance clubs and bodegas. Men in bright pastel guayabera shirts.
Fulo drove. Néstor talked. Kemper watched.
They passed parking-lot crap games. They passed soapbox orations. They passed two kids pummeling a pro-Beard pamphleteer.
Kemper watched.
Fulo glided down Flagler and traded cash for prostitute street talk.
One girl said Castro was queer. One girl said Castro had a 12” chorizo. All the girls wanted to know one thing: When’s this big invasion gonna happen?
A girl said she picked up a rumor down at Blessington. Ain’t that big invasion next week?
One girl said Guantánamo was gonna get A-bombed. One girl said, You’re wrong–it’s Playa Girón. One girl said flying saucers would soon descend on Havana.
Fulo drove. Néstor polled strolling Cubans up and down Flagler.
They’d all head invasion rumors. They all shared them with gusto.
Kemper shut his eyes and listened. Nouns jumped out of run-on Spanish.
Havana, Playa Girón, Baracoa, Oriente, Playa Giron, Guantánamo, Guantánamo.
Kemper caught the upshot:
People were talking.
On-leave trainees were talking. Agency-front-group men were talking. The talk was innuendo, bullshit, wish fulfillment and truth by default–speculate on enough invasion sites and you’ll hit the right one out of sheer luck.
The talk constituted a minor security leak.
Fulo didn’t seem worried. Néstor shrugged the talk off. Kemper categorized it as “containable.”
They cruised the side streets off Flagler.
Fulo monitored cab calls. Néstor talked up ways to torture Fidel Castro. Kemper looked out his window and savored the view.
Cuban girls blew them kisses. Car radios churned out mambo music. Street loafers gobbled melons soaked in beer.
Fulo clicked off a call. “That was Wilfredo. He said Don Juan knows something about a dope drop, and maybe we should go see him.”
o o o
Don Juan Pimentel had a TB cough. His front room was littered with customized Barbie and Ken dolls.
They stood just inside the door. Don Juan smelled like mentholated chest rub.
Fulo said, “You can talk in front of Mr. Boyd. He is a wonderful friend of our Cause.”
Néstor picked up a nude Barbie. The doll wore a Jackie Kennedy wig and Brillo-pad crotch hair.
Don Juan coughed. “It is twenty-five dollars for the story, and fifty dollars for the story and the address.”
Néstor dropped the doll and crossed himself. Fulo handed Don Juan two twenties and a ten.
He tucked the cash in his shirt pocket. “The address is 4980 Balustrol. Four men from the Cuban Intelligence Directorate live there. They are terribly afraid that your invasion will succeed and that their supply from the island will be, how you say, removed. They have at the house a very large supply of single shots packaged to sell in order to make quick money to, how you say, bankroll their resistance to your resistance. They have over a pound of heroin ready to be sold in these small amounts where there is to be the, how you say, most profit.”