Jack and Susan in 1953 (31 page)

“Libby,” Jack said, “go find as many blankets and bedspreads as you can carry.”

Libby and Susan dashed down the hall into some of the rooms that weren't burning; in a few moments they returned, arms laden with comforters, pillows, and other bedding. They dropped them onto the marble floor beneath.

“Who's first?” Jack asked.

“Libby,” said Susan.

“Absolutely not.”

“It has to be you,” said Susan. “So do it.”

Libby got down on her hands and knees, and inched backward over the edge. Jack held one of her wrists, Susan the other. She was so achingly slow about it that Susan gave her a little shove, and the margarine heiress shot out into the empty space and Jack and Susan were nearly pulled over with her. She dangled for a moment, then Jack and Susan's grips began to slip.

Libby fell to complete safety atop the pile of quilts and blankets.

Jack and Susan looked at one another.

“You next,” said Susan.

“Hardly gallant,” protested Jack.

“I don't have a bad arm,” Susan pointed out.

She was right. Jack sat on the edge, legs dangling down. He tossed down the butcher knife, their only weapon, and Libby retrieved it.

“There's no way to do this properly,” said Susan, for Jack's balance was all off because of his broken arm.

“I know,” said Jack. “So just push.”

Susan did, and Jack fell, flailing and crying out, and landed square onto the pile that Libby had rearranged beneath him. He was jolted a bit, but he did no further damage to his arm.

As soon as Jack had rolled out of the way, Susan sat on the edge and pushed herself off.

At the bottom she twisted her ankle, and Libby helped her up. It was impossible to stand, much less to walk, without considerable pain.

The dining room on one side of them was on fire, as was the living room on the other side. Here on the first floor the smoke was much thicker, and all three of them were coughing.

The smoldering curtains on either side of the front door suddenly burst into orange flame.

“What about Rodolfo?” said Libby, choking as she inadvertently breathed in the thick smoke. “You said he was waiting out there with a gun.”

“I'm sure he's gone,” said Susan. With that she pulled open the front door.

A wonderfully refreshing breeze immediately fanned away the worst of the smoke around them, and allowed them to see that Rodolfo stood there, revolver in hand, right outside the door.

Because the setting sun was in her eyes, Susan couldn't see the smile on his face, but she knew it was there.

“One. Two. Three,” he said. “I do not like shooting people.”

“Then don't,” cried Libby. “I'm your
wife
!”

She took a step forward, and he raised the small weapon at arm's length—aiming it directly at the center of Libby's head.

Libby stopped, then burst into tears. As if being shot between the eyes by her husband just before she was about to escape from a burning building were just one terrible thing too many to happen to a young woman who was
supposed
to be enjoying herself on a romantic tropical honeymoon.

At this critical instant Rodolfo flinched—flinched because directly behind him, a sopping wet Woolf barked loudly. Woolf barked not because Jack and Susan were about to die and he was upset; he barked because he had just discovered the pleasures of saltwater surf, and wanted to share his happiness.

Rodolfo, nonetheless, flinched.

And Jack and Susan took advantage of that momentary falter. Together they rushed forward, both of them hitting Libby in the back. Libby lurched forward out of the burning house and fell against her husband, and knocked him to the paving of the front porch of The Pillars.

The pistol discharged and the bullet shattered one of the panes of glass in the dining room window.

Jack had fallen atop Libby who was still atop Rodolfo. Susan jumped to her feet, and as hard as she could, stomped Rodolfo's hand that still held the revolver. It clattered to the paving, and Susan gave it a strong kick, sending it several yards away into the yard. Armando, seeing his opportunity, appeared suddenly around the corner of the house, and charged after the gun.

Woolf, however, got there first, and snatched it right out from under Armando's grasping hand. He ran back to Susan with it, hoping she would continue the game of throw-and-fetch.

“Over here, Armando,” Susan said with a thin smile as she pointed the revolver at him.

The boy obeyed, not realizing that Susan could never have brought herself to shoot a child. Not even one that she had seen murder her own uncle.

T
HEY DROVE BACK to Havana in the Cadillac, a tied-up Armando in the back seat between Libby and Woolf. Jack sat in the front seat and slept as Susan drove.

Rodolfo was in the trunk, and Libby grinned with irrepressible satisfaction every time she felt him kicking against the partition at her back.

Back in Havana, the difficulties with the police were eventually settled, though Jack ended up spending two nights in jail, Woolf was very nearly put to sleep in the Havana pound, and an assistant manager of the Internacional threatened to throw Jack and Susan out of their room because Jack had abandoned his Ford in a cane field in a remote corner of Pinar del Río province.

Richard Bollow had not died on the racetrack, but he was in the hospital. He had been, in fact, James Bright's lawyer, but he was also a member—more or less—of the García-Cifuentes clan by marriage: he was the stepfather of a brother-in-law of Rodolfo.

It was Bollow, renouncing his allegiance to the family in exchange for clemency and a promise of protection and a large amount of cash from Libby, who provided the details of the story: the García-Cifuentes clan had started out years before as sharecroppers on an estate not far from James Bright's, and had gained a substantial amount of money through the surreptitious cultivation of illegal substances—marijuana and coca, to be specific. With this money, they'd also rented land from James Bright, who for this sort of thing was the ideal landlord, since he didn't personally oversee the use of his property. The patches of marijuana and coca they grew interspersed in fields of sugarcane were profitable. With the profits, the son Rodolfo had been sent away to Catholic school. Proving himself there, he had gone on to college, though not—as Jack had discovered—to Harvard.

Though they were by all accounts a handsome lot, the members of the García-Cifuentes clan were not known for their polished manners. Thus, Rodolfo was often useful in the negotiation of certain exchanges, the implementation of certain devious plans, and the establishment of connections between the family and members of the Batista government, who not only demanded bribes but appreciated a handsome and well-mannered courier to deliver them.

Through a confederate in the provincial registry the García-Cifuentes clan had discovered the contents of James Bright's will and that Susan Bright was his legatee. The original plan had been for Rodolfo, already in the United States, to meet Susan, woo her, and wed her. The uncle would then be killed, and the García-Cifuenteses would come into the possession of the land they so much coveted, and from which they had already made so much money.

It was at this time—shortly after Rodolfo appeared in New York—that James Bright had discovered the fields of marijuana and coca on his land. He also found out that his beach was being used as a dropping-off point for arms shipments to the antigovernment rebels operating in the mountains of Pinar del Río. The García-Cifuenteses were evenhanded when it came to dealing with the dictatorship and the rebel cause.

James Bright had burned down the fields and set watches on his beach. It was not because he supported the Batista regime any more than he did the rebels—he simply thought that no sane man got involved in politics.

Out of simple vengeance, and out of an even simpler desire just to have the meddlesome old man out of the way, the García-Cifuenteses delegated certain members of the family to assassinate James Bright. Three attempts failed; the fourth succeeded. It had been nine-year-old Armando's first blood; the child, the García-Cifuenteses considered, was promising.

Back in New York, Rodolfo would have gone through with his plan to marry Susan, but he suspected her distrust of him, and he'd learned from home that James Bright had accused the García-Cifuenteses of the attempts on his life. With Susan no longer a possibility for him, he turned his attention to Libby—and persuaded her in joining him at the altar. In Cuba, he learned of the death of James Bright with satisfaction. It would now be possible, with Libby's money, simply to buy the land from Susan when she inherited it. But when Jack and Susan showed up—married—and began making troublesome inquiries, he altered his plan. It had been Rodolfo's revised intention to have Jack and Susan convicted of the murder and then to have the will suppressed. Because Susan was James Bright's only living relative, the property would have reverted to the Cuban government. Rodolfo's family had already made preliminary bribes to ensure that the property would be sold to them at a price far less than the actual market value.

In short, Rodolfo had had a surfeit of plans and contingency plans. He would have won if he'd married Susan, and he certainly won in marrying Libby. If he'd succeeded in burning Susan and Libby up in The Pillars, he would have ended up not only with that property but with Libby's fortune as well.

“As plots go, it was a bit
ex tempore
, wasn't it?” Jack said with a gesture of his cast—a brand-new one, all in one piece and lacking a resident arachnid.

“A bit,” said Susan. “I'm quite embarrassed that I didn't see through him immediately.”

“I did,” put in Libby. This was in the first-class section of the Douglas DC-6 that was taking them back to New York; Libby had paid for the tickets, as well as for all of Jack and Susan's other Cuban expenses. “I saw through him the second I laid eyes on him. Don't you remember, Jack? In that terrible restaurant in the Village.”

“Libby,” Jack pointed out, “you married him.”

“Yes,” agreed Susan, “at least I didn't marry Rodolfo.”

“I was confused,” said Libby. “Jack, after all, had just tried to commit suicide and Rodolfo
was
very good-looking in a Rudolf Valentino sort of way, and I liked his voice. Besides, I had never gotten married before and I thought it would be a sort of interesting thing to do. And it was certainly a very nice way of getting away for the summer. I loathe summers in New York. I do wish one thing, though.”

“What?” said Susan.

“I wish one of us had killed him. Oh, I guess I don't mean that. I mean I wish that little gun had gone off accidentally and shot him through the head. I'd make a much better widow than a divorcée, I think.”

Jack and Susan exchanged glances.

“Widows have to wear black,” said Susan. “Divorcées can wear any color they like.”

“Oh!” said Libby, reconciled, and no longer particularly regretting Rodolfo's remaining alive. “And Jack,” she added, “I'm going to make sure you get your job back.”

Jack smiled, and said, “Thank you, Libby,” though he was by no means sure that he wanted it.

He did take his job back, however, and even managed to wrest Maddy away from Mr. Hamilton. Susan inherited her uncle's wealth, which was substantial: two million dollars. This was exclusive of what was left of The Pillars and the land surrounding it.

A few weeks after the probating of the will, Susan received an offer of nearly a million dollars for that property from a large American corporation that had been looking for land on Cuba's Caribbean coast on which to build a gambling resort. Jack and Susan speculated that Rodolfo had known about this company as well, and that had been one more reason he was so anxious to get his hands on The Pillars. It also explained why he was so willing to burn down the plantation house; he knew that it would be razed anyway.

A few months later Jack made inquiries on behalf of Libby regarding her soon-to-be ex-husband. Rodolfo had been indicted, tried, and convicted on numerous charges, including attempted murder and arson. He was sentenced to a term of eighteen years in jail, but he soon escaped with the aid and connivance of his brother Armando, and joined a growing band of guerrilla rebels in the hills of western Cuba.

Jack and Susan moved to an apartment on Park Avenue that was a bit too near Libby, whose story of a frightening marriage to an unscrupulous Latin American appeared, with many photographs of Libby past and present, in the tabloids and several weekly magazines. When they'd recovered a little from their Cuban exploit, Jack and Susan decided they deserved a real honeymoon, and with the money to do anything they wanted, the choice among so many possibilities was daunting. Eventually they decided on Paris. Paris was lovely, but it was dull compared to their adventure in the tropics and they came back sooner than they'd planned.