Read Cuba Straits for Free Online

haggard Humvees beyond the wire. The symbolism won him over, so he put the van in park. “Wait until your first iPhone, pal. Hell, or even a laptop if your ears are ringing now. The social media thing, Twitter and Facebook, they jackhammer into your skull. They’ll infest your privates and suck your soul dry. In terms of decibels? S and M—social media, I’m saying—the shit’s a relentless banshee scream that no silver bullet can silence.”
    Casanova had no idea what Tomlinson was talking about, so continued with his story. “General Rivera, he says to me, ‘Figuerito, I promise all the baseball you want,’ but then leaves me—although in a fine hotel, it is true. Two days, do I play baseball? Three days, same shit. I bounce the ball in the parking lot. I sit on my ass in that room with cold air. Then
bang-bang-bang
at the door—it’s a
bandito
with this thing over his head—like a sweater with eyes, you know? A damn pistol pointed, so I grabbed my shit and ran. Brother, I have been running ever since. Well”—Figueroa paused to accept a freshly rolled joint—“not yesterday, when I hit three home runs. I trotted the bases out of, you know, respect for the pitcher. But those big gringos last night, when I hit a fourth, they chased me anyway.” He reached for the lighter. “What’s the name of that town where their team lives?”
    Tomlinson was opening his cell. “Dallas, Texas,” he replied, then left another message on the phone in Ford’s lab. For half an hour and one fat joint they’d been talking, just driving and taking it slow to see what they had in common. There was Juan Rivera and baseball, now they were getting down to the nitty-gritty. This was the first Tomlinson had heard of an armed man breaking into Casanova’s motel. It sobered him. “Any idea who it was? From his voice, or maybe you saw his car.”
    The shortstop was admiring the van’s spaciousness. He shook his head. “A man sticks a
pistola
in my face, all I think about is, run. He wanted something, kept yelling at me, but how the hell do I know?” His eyes did another scan. “This thing’s roomy, man. Last night, I slept on a bench outside ’cause of what happened. A golf course, I think. It was a field with flags.”
    “What do you think the guy wanted?”
    “The
bandito
? Whatever he could get. That’s why I left my money and shoes in the room. Nice shoes, and almost twenty dollars American. But guess what? Didn’t matter. That man chased me, too.” He went into detail, saying he didn’t know where Rivera was staying, and that he was afraid to return to his fine hotel, the Motel 6 on Cleveland Avenue, so he had nowhere to stay. Then, peering through the windshield, asked, “Which way is Texas?”
    Tomlinson pointed west.
    “Let’s don’t take that road,” Figueroa said, frowning.
    “No way in hell, so don’t worry. But help me make sense of what’s going on here. The friend I told you about, Doc—his name’s really Marion Ford—he knows Rivera a lot better than me. He thinks Rivera’s tricky. And, from personal experience, I know he’s dangerous.”
    “Who?”
    “The general.”
    “No, the other one. His name is Doc?”
    “Marion Ford, he’s my neighbor on Sanibel.”
    “Oh. Of course. All generals are dangerous. Why you think I ride a boat to Florida from Cuba?” Figueroa let that sink in for a moment. “Yes . . . what you say is interesting. The general has a bad temper, this is true. And always on the phone whispering. Secretive, you know? I think he is running from something, or afraid.”
    “Rivera gave you a briefcase to hang on to, according to Doc. Is that true?”
    The shortstop patted the equipment bag at his feet, an oversized model carried by catchers, to indicate the briefcase was inside. “The general, he trusts me.”
    “Maybe that’s what the robber was after.”
    “The case? Could be, yeah. I don’t know ’cause I couldn’t understand what he was