White Shadow (48 page)

Dodge clawed with his hands trussed behind his back, fighting to find something—anything—in the open water. He tried to breathe; he tried to keep himself quiet in the head. The two men watched in the glow of the lantern and laughed, and Dodge fought more and frightened the rats up onto the piles of garbage and dead trees.

Gonzalez pulled out a gun and shot at Dodge. He laughed.

He shot again. Making the water pop close to his head.

It was all a game.

Dodge sucked in some air and went under.

He kept his eyes shut tight.

The world was quiet and muffled.

He felt himself drop under everything until his feet found a thick tree trunk, and he wriggled his hands in the cuffs and strained but did not fight. He strained more.

He breathed for a long time. He tread water, slowly and quietly.

And he waited.

THE SATURDAY shift was a safety net for the
Times
. We worked a rotation with only one reporter and one editor on at six thirty and off at noon, and for the most part, you’d make cop checks with the sheriff, the police, the jail, and with the fire department. Most of the time, you’d get a little item. Some of the time, lowlifes would cancel each other out at a barroom knife fight, or you’d get some offbeat story like the mayor getting his Cadillac stolen. Other times, you might have a morning fire and you could write the standard sob story about how the children wouldn’t have a place to sleep, and you’d make sure to add the detail about the charred toys in the wreckage. And if you didn’t see any, you’d damned sure better ask the firemen what they’d seen inside. Charred toys would put you out front on the paper.

On that day, Wilton Martin and I spent seven to ten a.m. playing hearts on Hampton Dunn’s desk, Martin wearing his boss’s hat and breaking into his imitation of Dunn. He’d bet and bluff and throw down his cards, and then he’d brag in a hammy Hampton Dunn voice about all the gangland killings he’d covered as a cub reporter, and how his editorials had led to a cleanup of this fine city.

We laughed a good bit, and at ten our court reporter, Paul MacAlester, who we called Mac, joined us in Dunn’s office to work on a piece for Monday but instead got into the game. We smoked cigarettes, and Martin poured some Early Times in coffee mugs and he and Mac drank and I went back to the old black telephone.

I made another round of calls.

There had been a small house fire out in the county. No one was hurt, but the house was gone. Two burglars had gotten popped by deputies when they saw them drive up in front of a house with a big ladder on the roof of their car. The men were wearing gloves and all black and one of them had just gotten out of Raiford the previous week.

And then I called the police department and talked to the desk sergeant, and he told me about the dead girl they’d just found out at Plant High School.

I asked if it looked suspicious, and he said the cops had just gotten out there.

I grabbed my hat and notebook and headed over the bridge, passing the old Tampa Bay Hotel, and down Memorial Highway and past the marble monument to the dead of the First World War. I turned south onto Dale Mabry Highway and drove for a couple miles until I made my way to Plant High and saw all the black-and-whites and black sedans and gawkers who’d just parked on the side of the road to see the show.

I found a parking space up by the school and walked past a group of cheerleaders who were leaning over the chain-link fence, trying to get a view. Moms and dads and kids stood outside the gate to the small football stadium, and I saw Red McEwen in his referee gear and black hat walking with Buddy Gore and Fred Bender. Pete Franks was there and so was Ozzie Beynon. Ozzie was dressed in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt and was yelling at a bunch of punks in white T-shirts and greasy hair to get away from the fence.

I could not see the girl.

I heard some man say that the spring practice game was called off, and I saw some boys already sitting on their helmets and taking off their shoulder pads by the stands. They laughed and talked in ringed circles while the aluminum stands sat empty. Everybody just hung over the chain-link fence and watched the cops on the 50-yard line.

I nodded to a patrol cop I knew and walked out onto the field.

It had rained the night before, and the field was muddy and the grass and mud sucked at my shoes. I kept walking and saw Oz and he told me to get the hell out of there, and then I saw Franks and he ushered me over.

Still, I couldn’t see the girl.

There must’ve been maybe fifteen or twenty cops ringing the middle of the field.

Franks wore a casual white shirt and navy pants. He had a notebook out and flipped back through some pages. “White female. Early thirties.”

I nodded. I made notes. “ID?”

He looked at me. He slipped his hat back on his head and took a breath. “You got anyone else to work this today, L.B?”

I kind of laughed. “It’s Saturday. This is already screwing up my game of hearts. Come on.”

He frowned and his face sort of twitched. He looked behind him, and I saw Bender and Gore walk toward me.

Fred Bender smiled and winked. His arms were bursting in his short-sleeve dress shirt, neck bulging. He lightly touched my arm and said: “Let’s talk for a minute.”

We found a lone oak tree not far from the front steps of the old brick high school. There were two young girls in skirts and saddle oxford shoes sitting on the steps and gossiping. Their hair back in ponytails. A fallout shelter sign had been posted over the door.

“How long have you been seeing Eleanor Charles at the
Tribune
?”

“I’m not seeing Eleanor Charles,” I said. I guess I knew at that point, because I remember my voice shaking. I held on to the notebook and tucked it into my back pocket. I stared hard at Fred Bender. He crossed his big arms over his chest and let out a long breath.

Buddy Gore took a step back and fanned his face with his hat.

I stared at Bender more and his face grew soft.

Rainwater from the old oak scattered off in the wind and hit my face. A cloud moved in front of the sun. I looked over at the chain-link fence bending with the weight of the gawkers and beyond saw the ring of cops part at the 50-yard line and the twisted body of a woman in a skirt lying on the muddy ground.

Her body was curled into a tight ball.

Bender nodded at me and gripped my shoulder.

HOURS EARLIER, Dodge waited behind the pile of trash.

He’d lost his .38.

He watched the men take a long piece of pipe and jab into the cesspool to find his body. Or maybe just to make sure he’d stay down for a while. They smoked cigarettes. They took a break for a few moments and finished off the dark rum.

It must’ve been midnight.

The sugarcane fields made popping sounds in the loose wind. The blades of cane clinked together and their leaves scattered. Far off, fields were being burned, and Dodge could smell it as he made his way through the trash and around the brown water.

“The bastard dropped like a piece of shit,” Navarro said in Spanish.

Gonzalez laughed.

They soon grew bored with looking for the body and walked in the glow of the oil lamp back to the house. Dodge’s clothes were soaked and smelled like human waste and rot.

The little shack lit up again with the oil lamp.

There was a third man he could see in the cracked window. But he was old and skinny like a hungry dog. The old man was shirtless, and his skin clung close to his ribs and bones. The men were making jokes and drinking and laughing.

The light extinguished in the old shack, and they walked toward the Pontiac.

They gave the man several pesos, and the man thanked them several times, and then there was more talking and the man shrugged.

At the far corner of the shack, Dodge saw a woodpile. In a stump, the old man had left a sharp machete and Dodge reached for the handle.

In the dark light, he walked on earth, away from the gravel. He moved into the cane field and crept through the narrow rows, careful to keep quiet and far from the road. He could hear the men talking as he walked. He pressed one foot into the soft earth and then the other. He realized he’d lost a shoe. He kept moving. He pushed the cane past his face.

His feet crunched under something.

The men quit talking.

Dodge held his breath for thirty seconds. He stayed in place for two or three minutes and then kept walking.

He moved closer to the little road and was glad clouds had covered the moon.

Navarro turned on the radio. The numbers for the Cuban National Lottery would be read tomorrow night.

Cubans loved 13, Dodge thought.

Dodge made his way out of the cane field and behind the Pontiac. The Silver Star. Bolero red. The detectives leaned against the hood and smoked and talked to the old man. They were satisfied and fat with the way things had turned out. Gonzalez ran a handkerchief over his hands.

He passed the handkerchief to Navarro, who wiped his hands and the dust from his black jacket. Gonzalez pulled a comb from his pocket and leaned toward the car’s side mirrors and began to groom his thick mustache.

He saw Dodge in the reflection.

But it was too late.

Dodge sliced the machete into Navarro’s back and the man’s legs gave out. Dodge stepped on him and pulled the blade from his spine the way you would an ax from a block of wood.

There was much blood. Navarro wasn’t dead, and he fought for Dodge’s leg as he screamed and twitched.

But Dodge was already away and running toward Gonzalez, who had time to reach for his gun and aim. As he outstretched his hand and thumbed back the hammer, Dodge sliced his right arm clean off. It cut straight and fast and without any trouble. The blade glowed in the moonlight as the clouds cleared.

Blood poured from his arm, and the man howled and dropped to the ground and writhed in the clean whiteness of the crushed-shell lot.

Dodge only had to raise the blade of the machete.

The old man scattered into the rows of sugarcane.

Dodge kicked Navarro over and felt around the man’s pockets for the keys to the car.

“Por favor,”
Navarro screamed. “Shoot me!”

Dodge looked down at him.

Gonzalez was almost still. He’d about bled out and flopped to his back, his eyes looking wide-open at the men, and mouthed in some air.

Dodge threw the machete into the cesspool and grabbed the men’s .38s.

His feet crunched on the crushed shells as he walked past the dead body of Gonzalez and saw that Navarro was crawling toward him on his knees.
“Por favor.”

“Who made the call?” Dodge asked. “I’ll get you to a doctor.”

He shook his head. He spit up some blood.

“Trafficante?”

Navarro looked confused. “Shoot me!” he yelled.

Dodge nodded. He took a deep breath and swallowed. The cane out in the field knocked together as more sweet smoke drifted past the long stone fence glowing in the moonlight.

He thumbed back the hammer and shot Navarro between the eyes.

He got in the Pontiac, gunned the engine, and drove west back to Havana.

He drove into the city, soon became lost, and then he found his way to the Barrio Chino. Chinatown.

He parked the car and started on foot.

He had twenty American dollars in his pocket.

Dodge ditched the wet jacket and bought a guayabera from a street vendor. He tossed his wet shirt and walked.

The Nacional Police sirens wailed from several streets over, they zoomed past him and continued down the street lined with Chinese restaurants, laundries, Eastern pharmacies, and porno movie houses. He was propositioned eight times by Chinese Cubans.