Jack and Susan in 1953 (24 page)

“I don't like gambling,” said Susan. “Let's waste our little stock of pesos on a nightclub instead.”

The Internacional had a nightclub as well as a casino, but Jack and Susan decided that they'd spent enough time in the hotel. After Susan had bathed and dressed, she helped Jack slit the sleeve of his best jacket in order to accommodate his cast, and they sauntered out into the warm evening, walking the two blocks to the Hotel Nacional. The difference between the Nacional and the Internacional was not readily apparent, since both looked like Miami Beach hotels, and both were filled with American tourists who had come to drink and gawk and gamble.

Jack and Susan entered the nightclub, called the Varadero Room, between shows, and were seated at a minuscule table near the back from which they were able to see very little. They were served large, fruit-infested and expensive drinks, and were generally assaulted with a multitude of accented English that ranged from Midwest twang to New England quaver to Southern drawl.

The floor show, when it exploded out from behind a deep velvet curtain at the front of the room, was energetic, noisy, and brash. The women were all very tall, with enormous busts and hips, and they seemed to be wearing miles of crepe paper in colors that Susan had seen before only on cheap postcards. They pranced and chattered and sang songs that seemed—even to Susan's accustomed ears—to be composed principally of nonsense syllables strung together in an obscure but precise arrangement.

But after what they'd been through, the noise and the light and the prancing women and the shouting, guffawing, hysterical Americans seemed innocent and bright. Jack and Susan sipped at the vile drinks, and held hands beneath the table. For a little while they did not think about murdered relatives and stolen fortunes and dictatorships that persisted for decades.

They drank too much, but sometimes too much to drink is just what the doctor ordered. They sat through two shows, which were exactly alike, down to the last chattering nonsense syllable, and then rose uncertainly to make their way back to the Internacional. Susan even prepared a little smile for the couple that was waiting to take their place at the relinquished table.

Prepared a smile, but didn't use it, because the couple waiting to take their place was Rodolfo García-Cifuentes and his newlywed wife, Elizabeth St. John Mather García-Cifuentes.

T
HERE WAS AN understandable, to say the least, awkwardness in the encounter. And why was it, Jack wondered, that whenever something like this happened, he'd always had a little too much to drink?

The sheer momentum of having gotten to their feet after having sat so long at the table carried Jack and Susan past Rodolfo and Libby. But before they'd gotten very far, Jack and Susan glanced at each other, eyes wide, and swung back around in a single motion.

What had gone through their minds was this: James Bright's telegram to Susan in New York two weeks before had suggested that Rodolfo's family had somehow been behind the attempts to murder him. James Bright was now dead, his murder seemingly unmotivated, his killers unknown—and here was Rodolfo.

It wouldn't do to press the Cuban down into a chair, shine the forty-watt bulb from the tiny pink table lamp in his face, and say, “Spill it, Rodolfo.” Jack and Susan would have to play a part, and hope that Rodolfo—if he knew anything—would somehow, in some manner, betray himself.

But what part? Jack and Susan both suddenly felt quite sober.

“What a
surprise
!” Susan gushed, not realizing how good an imitation she was making of Libby herself.

Jack smiled a smile that he hoped would pass for genuine in the dim light and held out a hand to Rodolfo. The Cuban took it with only a moment's hesitation.

“We
have
to find more chairs,” said Susan, even before Libby could respond to her first greeting. “We have to hear
everything
,” she added, deciding that the best thing she could do was take the offensive. Better to advance across unfamiliar ground than be forced to retreat across it. “Do you know what happened?” she said, placing her hand on Libby's arm. “Do you know what happened? Jack actually went into the church and saw you and Rodolfo getting married! You were wearing a veil, and he thought it was
me
, and he went right out and got drunk, but everything worked out fine—didn't it, darling?—and we got married…when, Jack? When was it you and I got married?”

“A week ago today,” said Jack, finding an empty chair nearby and bringing it to the table with his one good arm. Rodolfo was getting another. In another moment the two couples were seated at the cramped table, peering into one another's faces over the dwarf pink lamp.

“Libby,” exclaimed Susan, “I have never heard you so silent! And you have so much to tell us! Jack and I
still
have not been able to figure out just how you two got together, and decided so suddenly to get married.”

“Yes,” said Jack, taking his cue from Susan and looking directly into the eyes of his former fiancée, “I had the distinct impression that I was engaged to you, and Susan thought that she was engaged to Rodolfo.”

“What are you two doing here?” said Libby in quiet bewilderment. “You're married? To each other?”

“Oh, yes,” said Susan. “Married on shipboard. Wonderfully romantic. And now of course we're desperately happy. We fight constantly—we always did, you know—but we wouldn't fight with anyone else.”

“Congratulations,” said Rodolfo in a voice that showed little strain. “I am very happy for you.”

“Oh, Rodolfo,” said Susan, “you're the one who deserves congratulations. Marrying Libby. I'm so happy for both of you.”

“We're on our honeymoon too,” said Rodolfo.

Libby said nothing, but she didn't contradict her husband.

“How are the casinos?” said Susan. “Do they make you
very
happy, Libby?”

Libby nodded uncertainly.

“I remember,” said Jack, “that you came to see me one day, Rodolfo.”

“Yes…”

“And we made a little bet as to who would make it to the altar first. I guess you won. I'm sorry, by the way, that I couldn't stay for the reception. You were very kind to come by the building that morning and invite me, Libby.”

Jack and Susan smiled happy, honeymoon smiles at each other across the table, as if whole universes of circumstance had whirred and wheeled to produce just this particular little quartet of marital happiness. But Jack and Susan's eyes also spoke to each other, saying,
Something is wrong here…

Libby and Rodolfo were not looking at each other with honeymoon smiles. Libby was silent, and that was about like the Sphinx turning into a chatterbox. Rodolfo was quiet from an apparent desire to give nothing away.

Give nothing of
what
away?

“The show is tremendous,” Jack said. “It should start again in a few minutes. There's this song that goes ‘hum-de-la-de-hum-de-la-de'…”

“You forgot the words,” said Susan. “It goes ‘Ah-de-do-do-do-do-do-oh-ha-ma'…”

“I saw in the paper that your uncle was murdered,” said Rodolfo suddenly. “I am very sorry.”

Susan blinked and glanced at Libby. Libby's mouth was open.

“Yes,” said Jack soberly. “We were actually talking to him when it happened. A small boy ran up and slashed his throat with a knife.”

“Oh, Susan!” said Libby, looking at her with real compassion. Susan was suddenly ashamed of herself. Maybe there was more to Libby than Susan had ever given her credit for. But there was no help for it, and Susan knew she had to play out the role she had assumed. James Bright had expressed more than vague uneasiness to Susan about the motives and methods of the García-Cifuentes clan. It was now important that Jack and Susan appear—at least to Rodolfo—to be thoughtless and carefree.

“Yes,” said Susan quickly, “it was terrible. But we were told—by the police, by everyone—that such things happen.”

“A child did it?” said Libby.

“No doubt he was…what is the word?” suggested Rodolfo.

“Simple?” Jack suggested.

Rodolfo nodded. “Deranged.”

“Yes,” said Susan, “probably that was it. Just another mentally defective nine-year-old roaming the streets with a knife, slashing random throats on the piers of the harbor.”

A few moments of silence passed awkwardly. A waiter appeared, and when Jack and Susan did not take this opportunity to say good-night, but asked for another round of what they'd had before, Rodolfo bit his lip.

Which means that he's not comfortable with us here
, Jack thought.

Which means he'd like very much for us to go away,
Susan decided.

For the next quarter-hour there was a little desultory talk of Havana and its nighttime splendors, and no more mention of interrupted weddings, jilted fiancés, or harborside murders.

The master of ceremonies waddled out and announced—in Spanish and English—that the third show of the evening would begin in just a few minutes. Jack and Susan exchanged glances—this sort of communication was getting easier for them—and they both rose to take their leave. It would be too noisy to continue any conversation. With a little nod of her head, Susan left it up to Jack to plan for another meeting between the two couples.

But there was no need, for Rodolfo said quickly, “Please. It has been such an unexpected pleasure to run into you both again. This is my city, as New York was yours. You both were very kind to me there, so please allow me to be kind to you here. In the morning, Libby and I will be attending the Gran Premio—the auto races. Please allow me to send two tickets over to your hotel. We would be so happy to see you both again.”

He glanced at his wife—almost for the first time, it seemed to Susan.

“Oh, yes,” said Libby absently, then adding with fervor, “Yes, Susan, please do come.”

“What I want to know,” said Jack, “is will you still love me when my arm has healed?”

He lay with his good arm encircling his wife's shoulder. His left arm in its cast was resting on the seat of a small chair that had been drawn up to the side of the bed.

“We won't know, till it does heal, will we? I imagine I will. Will you still love me if we don't ever find any of this mysterious fortune?”

“Possibly. Though, given the choice, I'd rather be married to an heiress of incalculable wealth than to a drudge who totally supports her injured husband.”

“Just remember,” said Susan, “if we go back to New York, I don't have a job either.”

“I don't even know how we're going to pay for this room.”

“I'm an heiress in name only,” Susan sighed.

“Then what we're going to have to do,” said Jack, “is track down the boy who killed your uncle, find the will, have it probated, cash an enormous check, and then pay the hotel bill.”

“Yes,” said Susan, “these things are actually quite simple once you attack them logically.”

It was a difficult situation. They had little to go on.

There was one thing, however, that they hadn't talked about for awhile: the business of Rodolfo and Libby's marriage. It was clear to both Jack and Susan that Libby was the sort to run out and marry someone on the spur of the moment, but why had Rodolfo abandoned Susan? Susan, after all, had agreed, in so many words, to marry him. Rodolfo's defection was much more of a mystery than Libby's.

But what totally confused Jack and Susan, as they sweltered through the hot Cuban night, was whether the two questions were related—Libby and Rodolfo's marriage, and the murder of James Bright. It hardly seemed likely…