FICTION-ONLINE An Internet Literary Magazine Volume 6, Number 6 November-December, 1999 EDITOR'S NOTE: FICTION-ONLINE is a literary magazine publishing electronically through e-mail and the Internet on a bimonthly basis. The contents include short stories, play scripts or excerpts, excerpts of novels or serialized novels, and poems. Some contributors to the magazine are members of the Northwest Fiction Group of Washington, DC, a group affiliated with Washington Independent Writers. However, the magazine is an independent entity and solicits and publishes material from the public. To subscribe or unsubscribe or for more information, please e- mail a brief request to ngwazi@clark.net To submit manuscripts for consideration, please e-mail to the same address, with the ms in ASCII format, if possible included as part of the message itself, rather than as an attachment. 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William Ramsay, Editor ================================================= CONTENTS Editor's Note Contributors "Fugitives," a poem Wendy Hammersmith "Etude," a short story Yitzhak Herrera "Sierra de Cristal," an excerpt (chapter 17) from the novel "Ay, Chucho!" William Ramsay "Suites," part 1 of the play, "Shell Game" Otho Eskin =================================================== CONTRIBUTORS OTHO ESKIN, former diplomat and consultant on international affairs, has published short stories and has had numerous plays read and produced in Washington, notably "Act of God." His play "Duet" has been produced at the Elizabethan Theater at the Folder Library in Washington. He is currently at work on a mystery novel set in high circles in Washington. WENDY HAMMERSMITH, originally from the Isle of Wight, now lives on Martha's Vineyard. In addition to writing poetry, she teaches high-school French and German. YITZHAK HERRERA, formerly a lieutenant in the Israeli Army, now is a writer and export-import consultant in New York. WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World energy problems. He is also a writer and playwright and his play, "Through the Wormhole," was read this fall as part of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre's Foreplay Series. ================================================================= FUGITIVES By Wendy Hamnmersmith (After L. Rellstab) Damned Fleeing from the scumbag city Hating mother, despising father Deserting the friends who deserted him Forgetting the whole son-of-a-bitch country Damned He is damned. Lonely Shedding hot tears Longing for him to return Hating herself for her weakness Watching the cars pass below the apartment window Caressing no one except herself Lonely She is lonely. Indifferent Sending clouds with no beauty and no rain Lighting with a haloed moon the travel poster on the apartment wall Blowing harsh wind on the coatless exile Rolling waves into shore for squealing little boys Growing veins to feed neoplasms Indifferent It is indifferent. =================================================== ETUDE by Yitzhak Herrera Alfred hadn't been looking forward to this at all. The doctor had told them there would be an awkward recovery period of the best part of a week. All kinds of dressings to change and Sarah wouldn't be able to show herself in public for ten days or so. Worst of all, success was not guaranteed. He fidgeted, in the overly overstuffed chair in the waiting room and wished he hadn't given up smoking three months ago. Why give up smoking when you're sixty-four years old? A woman in her seventies sat just opposite him on a long blue couch. Her face was lined with spidery networks of wrinkles. That's exactly what Sarah had been fearing as she faced the big six-oh coming up in November. You had to sympathize. He felt his own face. When he brushed it with his fingertips, it felt smooth, but he knew that in the mirror he would see the lines, narrowly running down his cheeks, his chin -- and one from his nose partially hidden one under his white mustache. Men had to settle for getting old. Well. After they had called him into the recovery room, he took her long, graceful fingers in his hand and asked her how she was. "Pretty awful, right now." "I'm sorry," he said, looking down at the lively blue eyes peeking out of her gauze- and tape-covered face. "Maybe I should be sorry, not to have gone to Dr. Hanford in San Francisco instead so that I could have recovered in her halfway house there -- that would have spared you all this." "I didn't ask to be spared." Alfred warmed to the thought of his caring for Sarah, his wife. Twenty-three years. She pressed his hand. "Never mind, it's in a good cause. I'll be more like the girl you married." Alfred wondered about the "boy" of forty-one she had married, in what was a second try for them both. "Don't look so forlorn. After all, men can get them too." "So I've heard." The idea was bizarre. The recovery process was a mess, but it was a mess Alfred could handle. He was used to fielding artists' problems in his role as Vice- President of a Music Production Company. His clients would require anything from the firm, help with a flat tire, getting into a detox ward, Alfred found that taking care of his wife was like mothering an especially important client. Just over a week later, it seemed as if it had all been worth it. Sarah's face had emerged from the bandages, the wrinkles greatly reduced, the skin around the eyes smoothed out, the cheeks pinker from the laser treatment. Most of all, Alfred had been impressed by seeing his wife staring in the mirror, smiling a soft cat smile, her shoulders raised, lifting her chin to examine her neck -- proud, proud. "Is it still a face you want to love, Al?" she said. Alfred could only smile. "More than ever, darling." That night, after watching an eighteenth-century sea saga on public television, they went to bed and made love. Alfred felt his body quivering with stage fright. Sarah, her new face frowning, lips gasping, was able to achieve her orgasm, but Alfred, panting, his heart throbbing, felt his penis weaken and die. Sarah kissed him and told him he was tired, everything was all right. As she went to sleep on her back, her elegant hawk-nosed profile glowing in the moonlight, he gazed curiously at the strange smooth face. Then the next morning, as he watched her reading the paper over breakfast, and she smiled with her brand new smile he thought how delightful! That night he brought her home a bouquet of ageratums and carnations. It was as almost like starting a new love affair. This proud new woman with the faraway look in her eye was the woman he loved. The woman who loved him. Last night didn't matter there would be other nights. The trouble started with Chopin. Chopin's real name was Frederic Coutant, but everybody called him by the name of the composer. He was Sarah's boss, the VP in charge of trade books at Mopress, one of the big conglomerate media firms. Chopin was fifty, had long curly hair, was single after several reportedly disastrous marriages, and had the reputation of being what Alfred and his grammar-school friends back in Queens used to call a C-man -- C for cunt. Chopin and Sarah had always been on friendly terms, but Alfred had gotten the idea from Sarah that Chopin was only interested in women a decade or more younger than he. It was a Tuesday, a month or so after the operation, that Alfred put in his daily telephone call to Sarah at about one thirty in the afternoon. Usually his wife ate a sandwich at her desk or caught a fast meal in the company cafeteria, so he expected to find her in. But all he got was her voice mail, and he left a message telling her she needn't call back. Probably she had gone out to lunch with someone -- it didn't matter. In fact when he saw her that night, Alfred forgot to ask her about where she had been. Then Thursday he made another call, this time at two fifteen. No Sarah. He tried again at 2:45 -- no luck. It was funny -- she could have been at a meeting, but most meetings at Mopress were in the morning, not the afternoon. Then he got involved with trying to straighten out the schedule of Slimy Fruit, one of his firm's high-profile rock stars, and didn't get time to call back again. That night he made Sarah her usual Manhattan, with a Scotch for himself. She smiled at him and asked him what kind of day he'd had. "Oh, so-so, sometimes I get tired of musicians." 'I think it's that you're not very musical yourself, so you lack sympathy." "How was your day?" "Fine." Did you have lunch with someone? I called and only got your voice mail." Sarah said she had gotten his message. Yes, she had had lunch with Chopin. "What's new with him?" She shrugged. The two of them had chitchatted about people -- and Chopin had brought up the subject to the new slot opening up in audiobooks. "Oh." Sarah had long been angling for a Vice-Presidency, and she had told him that the audiobooks division job would be a plum for her. Alfred admired her for being ambitious. She should be, with her intelligence and Ph. D. in comparative literature from Yale. He looked out from their apartment window on the lights in the tall-towered office building across East 63rd Street. Lights of people still working. Soon he'd retire then what? "I was thinking about retirement." Sarah looked up, frowning. "Oh, you're too young for that." Alfred shrugged. He didn't have to retire next year, it was true. "Well, it has to happen sometime." "Yes, but New York is more fun -- as long as you're still working." Alfred pictured the rocky coves a t La Jolla, the cold shower from the breaking waves. "Maybe it would be fun to live some place else." Sarah smiled. "Oh, Alfred, let's enjoy New York while we're young -- that is, relatively young." "I suppose." But he thought suddenly she's much younger than I. How must it feel to look younger -- a lot younger -- than you really are? The next Monday, he got her voice mail. Feeling like a jerk, he called back Mopress and asked for Mr. Frederic Coutant. Voice mail again. That night, trying to go to sleep, he told himself to get a grip on himself. The next few days, he didn't call. Twice, Sarah called him instead. But the following Friday, he made the call and got her voice mail once again. This time he switched to her assistant and found out that Sarah would be at a meeting out of the building all afternoon. That night she said that she had gone that afternoon with Chopin to a one of the other presses, to see how their audiobooks departments were organized. "Oh, that sounds promising, I guess." "I'm certainly encouraged," she said, looking out over the city lights. "Um, Alfred?" "Yes?" "Chopin invited us to a party tomorrow night. It's for one of our authors. Should be fun, lots of younger people." It turned out that the author was Christabel McGee, who wrote books about pigs that spoke and engaged in PG-rated romances. At the party, Alfred found himself stuck in a corner behind a wing chair talking to the author, who was in her late forties, had a blonde crewcut striped with pink, and a hefty bosom that she had bared almost down to the nipples. "Don't you think Chopin is a charmer?" Her wide mouth looked hungry. "He's lovely," said Alfred. Sarah was in a group around Chopin, over by the picture window. Chopin had one arm around her shoulders as he gestured animatedly. Alfred extricated himself from the tip of the wing chair. "I need another drink." "Ooh. Get me one too." Maybe what he did next was a result of the hangover he had the next day. Perhaps the retained image of Christabel McGee, virtual nipples and all, also had something to do with it. Anyway, he found on wakening the next morning that he had decided. By the end of the next afternoon, he had arranged the whole thing. "You're going to San Francisco?" The light was just failing over the tower opposite. Sarah looked pained. "Yes. An emergency piece of babysitting for Rooty Toot Floot." "Those childish morons -- I'll bet they can't even read music. How long will you be gone?" "Maybe a week, ten days." "That long?" Alfred refilled her drink. "Sorry. I'll be moving around, so I can't give you a number, but I'll call in." The operation was more of an ordeal than he had expected. He hated hospitals anyway. As he left the recovery room, he found himself expecting Sarah to be there. But there was only Dr. Hanford, svelte in her greens, reassuring him that the procedure seemed to have been a success. The nurses at the halfway house were anal types they changed his dressings as if he were King Tut getting ready for burial. Outside, fog wisped and billowed over the base of Nob Hill. Life seemed very long. He rationed himself to one call a day to Sarah. "Is everything all right?" Sarah's voice was shrill, troubled. "Absolutely." "Well, that's good." "Having fun?' "The usual." Chopin, he thought. Chopin. Some days he had to leave a message on the voice mail. Chopin. He looked at his face in the dim light of the lavatory on the 727. The erasure of the wrinkles was great but the smoothing of the skin around the eyes was even better. As he made his way back to his seat, he felt a shiver at the sight of the head of the blonde Sylvia who had the seat next to him. He smiled at her as he sat down. "Can I buy you another drink?" She grinned back. "Sure, why not?" After the drinks came, she thanked him and then turned back to her copy of Vogue. After a long moment, he turned to her. "Let's have lunch sometime." She looked up from her magazine. "Absolutely." "I suppose financial consultants keep pretty busy." "Come on! Not that busy. Especially if they get a chance to hear the real scoop on Rooty Toot Floot." The apartment was dark when he got home. There was note from Sarah: "Home late love, love, love. F." "F"! When had she started with one letter? Did Chopin sign his notes "C? or "Ch"! Eff her! He made himself a drink. He looked at his watch. Only 7:03. Then he took out his little red notebook and looked up the number. Sylvia was delighted to hear from him. He took her to the Club Francais for dinner. Back at her apartment, it was plain sailing. Sylvia woke him up at 7:45 AM with a dry, soft kiss. They had breakfast together. When it was time for her to leave for work, he had decided it was best to spend the morning at the health club and maybe the afternoon at a museum then he'd go home in the late afternoon and would tell Sarah that he had stayed an extra day in San Francisco. "My God, what happened to you?" she said that night, looking at his face, startled, alarmed. "How do you like it -- the new me?" She took a deep breath. "Alfred, why would you do that without talking it over with me? "I thought it should be a surprise." "Well, I'm surprised all right." She sat down heavily on the sofa. "I need a drink." Alfred went to the bar and made her one. "You don't like it." She hesitated. "No, it looks good. Weren't you supposed to be back last night?" "Delayed." "You could have left a message." He told her he had tried, but there was something wrong with the machine. He described the San Francisco procedure and the halfway house. "I can't get used to it." "I got used to yours fine." "I know." She sighed and hoped that dinner home was all right. They went to bed early. Alfred moved close to her, but she pulled away. "I'm awfully tired." So am I, he thought, tired of the whole thing. The next day was a long one. He had to endure the bold or furtive stares of people who didn't know him well enough to ask him about the facelift. And to his friends, he had to explain that he was "Just trying to keep up with my wife." After lunch, he picked up the phone to call Sarah's office -- then he put it down again. That night life in the apartment seemed back to normal except in bed. They made love again, this time he came but it was different. He found himself thinking about Sylvia who or what Sarah was thinking about, he could only guess -- and he didn't want to. The ritual of daily calls started, as if by themselves Sometimes she was in -- sometimes not. The following Wednesday, he didn't call he spent the afternoon having lunch at Sylvia's apartment -- and bed afterwards. Sarah made vice-president. Chopin was throwing her a party. As they dressed, she looked at him. "That tie is awfully square why don't you buy yourself one of those Ferragamo's, like Chopin wears?" "Fuck Chopin and his ties." He heard the ugly rasp in his voice. "You don't have to blow my head off. I thought you liked Chopin." "What gave you that idea?" "Oh, please, Alfred, don't spoil my evening." Tears formed in her eyes. He hugged her carefully. "Please, Al." "Of course," he said. But when he saw her standing at the party, grinning foolishly at Chopin, who had his arms around two blondes but was staring lasciviously at Sarah, he felt something inside breaking. He went over to Sarah and told her he was going home. "Are you sick, darling? The party's just started." "Sorry about that. But you're right, I am feeling awful." She kissed him. "Go right to bed -- take care of yourself." He called up Sylvia from his cell phone. She wasn't in he tried her on her "cell." "Well, I am having dinner at I Preggi right now. Can I call you later at home?" They met in the bar of the Westmont-Crillon down the street from his apartment. "It's all the facelift business, it's ruined everything." Sylvia shook her head, swishing her long dark blonde hair. "Well, I didn't know you before, Alfy, so I can't say." "It's spooky, it really is." "Poor guy, you need someone to hold your hand." He spent the night at her place again. He wasn't feeling very potent, but Sylvia seemed to know ways to fix that. He left for work directly from her place in the morning, experiencing the different kind of rush hour commute from the West Side. Sarah called after lunch. "Are you all right? I was frantic when you didn't come home." "I was fine. How's Chopin?" "Chopin." A long pause. He could hear her breathing. "I think we'd better talk tonight." He agreed and then slammed down the phone. They faced each other over the dinner table. The fish hand stirfry had been cleared away and she was drinking tea. Alfred was spooning the froth up from his cappuccino. "Alfred. I'd like to be able to convince you that there's nothing between me and Chopin." "I used to be able to read your face, Sarah. But not now." "It's the same face fewer wrinkles, smoother skin, no bags under the eyes but otherwise it's the same." He sipped at his coffee. "Is the heart the same?" "The truth is, I can't absolutely convince you because, well, there has been a little something." "A little, you say." "Just a little -- nothing, really." She bit her lip. "But if you insist -- intimate." "I see." "Al, I came out of the bandages feeling that I'd gained ten years, and suddenly I looked into your face and saw that the ten years were a lie. And I didn't want to face up to the lie. I wanted to keep on feeling really younger." "And so Chopin." "And so Chopin or somebody, it didn't matter. And then when you sprang your own operation on me, it felt like a double lie, and that I had committed a crime against you besides. I've been overwhelmed by guilt." "I'm all right -- you don't have to pity me." "I can't read your face either. But I know you didn't come home at all last night." "I guess we both have some decisions to make about the ten missing or found years." She picked up her teacup but didn't drink. "It's not just about the facelifts, is it?" "I don't think so. It's not about the ten found years. It must be about those others -- the twenty-three." "Were those years lost, Alfred?" He knocked over his cappuccino cup. The dregs of the pale brown liquid made a small pool on the table. Sarah looked at the pool but didn't move. Neither did Alfred. "It never occurred to me to ask before." "But now you have to, I suppose." Alfred smiled. "It sounds like we both have to." He stood up. "Are you going out tonight?" she said. "Yes." "I won't wait up." "No." "As a matter of fact, you'd better not come home not for a while, anyway." Alfred wiped up the pool of coffee with his napkin. He turned and threw the wadded napkin toward the couch, hard. It only made it halfway and flopped limply onto the oriental. He pulled on his coat and walked to the door, head down, not seeing at anything, imagining but not looking at Sarah's new face. He opened the door and walked out. The heavy metal door slammed automatically shut behind him. The clang of the door seemed to vibrate through his skull. It was gloomy in the sparsely lit hallway as he stepped slowly toward the other end. A few doors down, a window gazed out into the light-speckled darkness of the night. He saw a pale smooth face faintly mirrored in the window. He averted his eyes and strode on down toward the elevator. =================================================== SIERRA DE CRISTAL by William Ramsay (Note: the is chapter 17 of the novel "Ay, Chucho!") I finished shaving. I picked up the cloudy pan of tepid water and threw it into a little gully that ran down to the edge of the cliff that dropped several hundred feet down into a forest of pine. It was three days since I had left Havana, the rattles in Pierre's old Ford pursuing us along the Malecon, under the tunnel and past El Morro. At Alamar, the gigantic housing project east of the city, we left Jerry off somewhere inside the maze of five- story concrete buildings. Then we headed south along the expressway to Santa Clara and onto the N1 to Ciego de Avila. A fitful morning sleep there, napping, elbows and knees pressing into hard blocks of wood in a shed behind a general store with two grimy gas pumps -- one broken -- in front. I peeked out through the cardboard that covered the broken window -- window glass is another scarce item in my native land -- and envied the calm of the three men who sat in shirtsleeves, playing dominoes at a restaurant across the way. Then off again in the afternoon, and by that evening through Holguin and taking a turn off the highway onto a narrow, potholed blacktop southwest toward the mountains looming ahead in the moonlight. We stopped at a "friend"'s bohio along the Mayari-Moa road and drank orange soda and waited. Pierre had to wake me up when the jeep arrived to take us up the dirt roads and trails into the camp near the crest of the Sierra de Cristal -- the Crystal Range. As I looked to the north, beyond the pines of the foothills, the bay of Nipe shone like a fleck of mica in the midst of a green and beige sea of sugar fields and the great brown pustule of the open-pit nickel mines near Moa. Just out of sight over a small ridge to the west lay Angel Castro's ranch, near Biran, where Fidel had spent his childhood. It was hard to believe that Pierre and his "Anarcho-Syndicalist Front" fighters had been able to hole up in the midst of Socialist Cuba, even among the bare precipices, brush-choked canyons, and dense forests of the Sierra. But of course in first weeks after December 2, 1956, only Fidel Castro believed that fifteen men would be able to survive in those same sierras, hunted down by Batista's troops and constantly betrayed by local spies. I said as much to Pierre as he came out of the cabin, his tall bulgy frame bent, carrying Kropotkin as if the animal too were made of crystal. "Yes, Chucho, and there were anti-Castro rebels right here in the '60's, as well as ours with 'Comandante Augusto' in the Sierra Escambray. He was a man. Your friend Pillo was with us then." Pierre sighed. "And some of our comrades were active just west of here not so long ago -- 'Granma' just doesn't take the trouble to write them up." The air at 1000 meters was cool, and I pulled an old sweater around my shoulders. "So now there's another rebellion going -- yours." Pierre shook his head, a blond strand of hair waggled free. "No, no. No rebellion. We aren't interested right now in fighting Castro -- we are merely establishing an alternative to him -- setting up an anarchist presence." "By robbing banks." Pierre smiled. Kropotkin lurched in his arms, jumped down, and stretched like a tired businessman on a massage table. "An anarchist tradition, the idea plagiarized later by that pseudo-communist opportunist Stalin. The communists pretend that they invented the phrase 'expropriating the expropriators' -- but it was great men like Nechaev, Bakunin, and even, I suspect, the highly respectable Kropotkin himself who had the real vision of beginning the redistribution of wealth by peaceful anarchist means." "Peaceful?" "We haven't killed one person in the last two months." "And before that?" Pierre shrugged. "There are incidents -- accidents. Felipe -- Chucho -- I hear your ignorant bourgeois background speaking. You should make use of your time here now to learn a few things about political realities." "We'll probably all get shot before I get a chance to learn much about anything." The sun was now touching the pines on the ridge opposite. "Negative, thinking, Comrade. Now that I've heard your whole story..." "Oh?" I said. "Your friend Paco Santos confided in Valeska. Valeska has been my eyes and ears in Havana, I'm going to miss her, now that she's deserted us for the pleasures of San Salvador." He squatted down and patted Kropotkin. He shook his head. "El Salvador -- I miss the amenities in the capitalist world, Felipito, old boy, but my heart belongs in Cuba." "Where the bank accounts are." His face became grave and he told me that if I thought that finding caches of gold or dollars in Cuba was an easy task nowadays, I was out of my mind. He operated in Cuba because it was home. "And," he said, staring out toward the now hazy blue of the distant bay, "the economic situation has degenerated so much lately here that it isn't hard to grease a few palms -- we have inside help on all our bank and credit union jobs. There's nothing as crooked as a greedy socialist ideologue, I find." He lowered his head, brushing his chin on Kropotkin's back, then raised his head: "Besides, I have a very nice conduit to the Cayman Islands here." He smiled. "You know, I don't trust Cuban banks." Within a few days, I started to feel a little more secure about our sojourn in the Sierra de Cristal, with its long quiet days and sharp still nights, only the occasional airliner or a military jet rumbling far above us. We had to move once, however, because of approaching Army patrols. Our new camp was set up in tents, down in a ravine on the northern side of the range. Pierre remained calm. I remember telling myself mornings, when I awoke to the bird songs and the scent of the smoke from the small open fire, that at the very least I was alive. I tried to put out of my mind the thought that I was almost as much of a prisoner here as my parents were in Havana -- stuck in a wilderness in the middle of an island with the Cuban G-2 and the C.I.A. and the Association all looking for me. One night, I was finishing up, with outdoorsman gusto, a meal of beans, together with rice splashed with a dollop of strong-smelling goat stew. Pierre walked up and stood over me. I looked up. He thunked me with one of his giant knees, motioning for me to come along. We went down to a large rock at the edge of the campsite, where in the daytime when it was clear you could see a blue slice of the Atlantic to the east. Tonight, only one light was visible in the misty, moonless dark, a bright twinkle up toward Moa. "I've been thinking about your problem," he said. I asked him which of my many problems he was talking about. "The main problem, of course. Getting your mother and father out." "Yes?" "I've got an idea." I waved to him to go on. He smiled as if I were a bank teller and he were holding a Kalashnikov on me. "Everybody has a soft spot for something, you know." "Yes, yes." "Even Fidel Castro." "Yes, yes." "He's only human, you know." I felt like strangling Pierre -- for a man of action, he was a hell of a windbag sometimes. I told him to get to the point. "What's your hurry?" He waved at the faint shadows of the pines and the lines of rocky outcrops. "Felipe, Chucho, this is heaven compared to La Cabana -- or the paredon." "I'm in ecstasy," I said. Pierre snorted and started in talking about natural man and the joys of a simple existence, good old William Morris again and his ideas about the simple life, artsy-craftsy bullshit. He cuffed me playfully on the head -- I pulled away and pushed my hair back into place. "You're still nervous, Chucho, anxious, a child of the city. Look! All this beauty of Creation lies here at your feet." The moon was just rising, a misty glow over Punta Guarico. "Is that what you anarchists believe in, 'Creation'?" "The human spirit, Felipe, that's what we have faith in, the human spirit." "And money." He made a face. "Money is power, power to be shared. Like your father's money." "My father's money." In the darkness of the night, moonlight was beginning to dawn. He waved his hand in the direction of Nipe, as if consigning all problems to the world below the heights of the Sierra Cristal. "We can talk about that later. First let's discuss the abduction." "You can't 'abduct' my father, we've tried that. You may remember, it didn't work out too well." Not your father, I meant that Fidel..." "Fidel? You are crazy. The man with a hundred homes and a thousand bodyguards. They say even his bodyguards have bodyguards." I gritted my teeth, this man wasn't just wild, he was insane. "Not Fidel himself." "Not Fidel?" "Not Fidel. Do you see that road that runs from Mayari south down the river valley, and that cluster of huts just before the road disappears into the hills?" "I see the road." It was just a black streak against the moonlit grayness of the fields. I thought I could make out some shapes that might have been huts. "That's Bajo Cedro. Do you know who lives there?" "Fidel's mother?" Pierre looked startled. I didn't know why I'd said that. "No, not her, idiot, she's been dead for years. But maybe almost as good. His old nanny." "His nanny!" "Yes, the old nanny, the ama for the Castro family lives down there in Bajo Cedro. All alone, no guards, seventy-eight years old. Delia. Black, supposed to keep herself busy with santeria. Fidel has chickens, hams, blouses, necklaces sent to her. She won't leave her bohio, so he doesn't see her very often -- but they say old Delia is the only person in the world Fidel Castro has ever really loved." "I don't know," I said. "Who's 'they'?" "One of my men, from Mayari. He's seen the official car from Havana pull up to her hut." "Does he know her?" "He hears things." "I don't know," I said. I had learned, I thought, not to trust Pierre's enthusiasms. I didn't like kidnapping -- and especially an old woman, maybe a frail or even sick old woman. But Pierre talked me around: they would treat the old lady carefully, nothing to worry about. He and his men could easily carry it off. Like Fidel's rebel group in the Sierra Maestra in the '50's, Pierre's "army" consisted of only a handful, nine men. But we wouldn't need even that many for the job. The kidnapping was the only hope we had, he told me, and there was little risk. Even if for some reason something did go wrong, all we were doing was a "little kidnapping" of an old lady out in the country. And nothing could go wrong. She would be unresisting, probably even cooperative if we acted as gently as possible. The government would likely never find her hidden away with our little band in the wilds of the Sierra Cristal. They hadn't found Pierre's men yet, after three months of Pierre's "expropriating the expropriators" all over Cuba. And the old lady would surely be ransomed: my father and mother were an embarrassment to Fidel anyway by now, he'd surely be ready to use them to save the old woman who had nursed him as a boy. But I still didn't like the idea of abducting a little old lady. A little old lady with powerful friends. Later, I lay in my tent, the kerosene lamp turned low, trying to read myself to sleep with John Le Carre's latest. I could see the glow of the Coleman lantern through the canvas of Pierre's tent, and the sound of typing. My tentmate, another Felipe, lay sleeping, half-waking and snorting or clearing his throat from time to time. I finally put down the book and went outside. The moon was well into the third quarter, shining on the Cauto River that wound down on this side of Bajo Cedro. I heard the crunch of a heavy zipper, and Pierre emerged, his giant hand holding a manila folder. "Ah, Felipe. Come sit over here." He went inside and fetched the Coleman, and put it next to the mats by the campfire site. As we sat down, he handed me a paper. It read: Dear Comandante, We have Delia safe, she will not be harmed if you agree to our terms. The anarchist struggle does not countenance needlessly attacking the innocent. Our fight is with the forces of totalitarianism, whether from the left or the right. As our great theorist Kropotkin said more than one hundred years ago... There was more in that vein, then the text went on to say that there must be a prompt exchange for Pillo and the Revueltoses, conditions to be arranged, safe conducts out of Cuba, and an "expense allowance" of $100,000 in convertible currency. "'Expenses'?" I said. Pierre smiled, a faint darkening of his cheek in the dim light might or might not have been a blush. "Well, of course." But I talked him down on that one -- one hundred thousand was too small to help us much, it made us look like petty crooks, and asking for a lot of money might imperil the whole scheme. I suggested twenty-five as a realistic amount for our escape requirements -- we settled on fifty. "'Petty crooks'," he said. "Well. Not so petty, partner." He handed me another paper and a blue card. "Sign at the x's," he said. I peered at them, turning them toward the lantern. The heading read: Bank of Cheshire and Grand Cayman. The paper was an application to open an account, and the blue card was a signature card. Pierre had already signed, and from what he had typed into the blanks, it was evident that the account was to be in both our names. "For receiving the proceeds," he said. "I like offshore accounts. Discreet." "What proceeds?" "Surely we're going to be partners in this, Chucho, I mean, when your father opens the box in New York, you won't want not to share it with me -- that is, with my movement?" "Oh." I hadn't been thinking about money, but I could see that Pierre would want to be rewarded for his efforts. Pierre had picked up a half-burned stick and was looking at it closely. "I don't know," I said. "What don't you know? You certainly know that you need our help. Don't be greedy, Felipe." He was right about the help. "O.K.," I said, "I suppose we can work something out." He handed me another paper. "It's already worked out. The money is to go into this account, and just so that we can be easy about our financial relationship, there's this." It was a note for $250,000, payable to Pierre from me -- payable on demand. That's all I needed, I thought, another debt. Although why worry about that, a thousand meters up in the mountains in the middle of Cuba? "Naturally, the note's only payable in practice when we get the money." He dug around with the stick in the warm ashes of the fire. "I'm sure you'll find the amount reasonable." "It's a lot." "What you'll have left is a lot more than what you've got now." I had to admit to myself that he had a point. And I couldn't very well do anything without him and his men and vehicles. I signed the note. Signing this bizarrely pedestrian document by Coleman lantern on a mat smelling of water-logged campfire ashes, in the midst of a gang of terrorists, with me myself on the run from the authorities, seemed -- perversely -- to lend an official seal to our plans, as if my signature were ensuring that the whole crazy scheme was really going to come true. (To be continued) ================================================================== SUITES by Otho Eskin (This is the first part of the comedy "Shell Game") CHARACTERS HIRSCHEL A 70-year old bellhop. HENRY YURT A professional thief and con man who likes to dress as a woman. As a man, Henry is thoroughly masculine. As a woman (Heidi)YURT is feminine and attractive and obsessed with clothes, shopping and make-up. HORATIO TREADWELL. A swinish US Senator. CORLISS SHAW. Treadwell's submissive and abused special assistant. Corliss is a closet gay. ZENOBIA BIRDSONG A beautiful, very sweet, blond, somewhat dim, chorus girl - in her early twenties. Her appearance and her wardrobe strangely resembles Heidi's. BOOM-BOOM McKOOL Head of a large crime syndicate. CYBIL Senator Treadwell's wife. PLACE Two adjoining suites at Shangri La-West, a very exclusive, very expensive resort. TIME ACT I - The present ACT II - One nanosecond after the end of Act I ACT I AT RISE: The living rooms of two adjoining, identical (mirror image) suites (The Honeymoon Suite and the Empress Suite) at Shangri La - West. Stage left and right are front doors leading to the outside corridor. Upstage are French doors leading to a balcony. This balcony is constructed so that one can enter each suite from it. There is a common wall with a door between the two suites. There are two additional doors in each suite: one leading to a bedroom, the other to a bathroom. YURT (as HEIDI, dressed as a woman with blond wig,) enters the Empress Suite followed by HIRSCHEL. YURT carries a large cosmetics case. HIRSCHEL is dressed in a traditional bellhop uniform. HIRSCHEL This could get me fired. YURT It's just a bellhop job, Herschel. (YURT moves around the room, nervously checking behind doors.) HIRSCHEL I may be just a bellhop to you but it's an important career move for me. YURT I thought you wanted to become a Methodist bishop. HIRSCHEL That was last year. I've grown. YURT Herschel, it's time you settled down. HIRSCHEL I'm going through a mid-life crisis. (YURT pulls the curtains on the front windows carefully aside and peeks out.) YURT You're seventy years old. You can't be going through a mid-life crisis. HIRSCHEL The word I hear is there are people after you.. YURT I just need a place to stay for a little while. This place is perfect. They'll never think to look for me here at Shangri La. A resort filled with aging Republicans and recovering alcoholic TV hosts. Please. Pretty please. HIRSCHEL You can't stay here. I've already promised the rooms to someone else. (YURT glances nervously around the suite.) YURT I thought you said this suite was empty. HIRSCHEL There's a friend... YURT Who is this ...this person? HIRSCHEL She's a young girl... Zenobia Birdsong. I've known her since she was little. She's an orphan, with no family, no one to look after her. She's here to audition for a gig in the Moon Pool Room. Until last week she was in the chorus at the Ding-a-Ling Club in Las Vegas. YURT Just give me a couple of hours to make some phone calls. I've got friends all over the country who are eager eager to help me. People who owe me big time. There's no problem. (YURT goes into the bedroom.) YURT (Rapturously - Off Stage) Oooooh! Just my size. Neeto! HIRSCHEL Don't touch those things! They belong to Zenobia. I told her she could keep her things here 'till she finds out whether she gets the job. YURT Taffeta! I love taffeta. HIRSCHEL Put those back! (YURT returns to the living room) HIRSCHEL You're in trouble again. I know it. YURT (Innocently) Trouble? Trouble? My goodness, what could you possibly mean trouble? HIRSCHEL I can't help remembering Tahoe. YURT I was young and foolish, Hirsch. HIRSCHEL And then there was Atlantic City... YURT I don't want to talk about that. Please. Just a few hours. I'll be gone tomorrow morning. I promise I'll be good. HIRSCHEL That's what you said in Miami... YURT This time it's true. I've finally scored. HIRSCHEL That's what you always say. YURT I can pull it off, I know it. From now on I'm on easy street. I can buy all the shoes I want. . HIRSCHEL OK. Just a few hours. But this is the last time. YURT You're a darling! I just love you to pieces. HIRSCHEL Don't you dare kiss me! I've told you a hundred times don't ever kiss me! (YURT tries the door leading to the Honeymoon Suite and finds it locked.) YURT What's in there? HIRSCHEL That's the Honeymoon Suite. Been reserved by some bigwig. Arriving any minute now. (HIRSCHEL goes to the front door.) I've got a really bad feeling about this. I know I'm going to regret it. I just know it. YURT Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! (YURT blows HIRSCHEL and kiss. HIRSCHEL exits. YURT puts the cosmetics case on the floor, kicks off her shoes and removes her wig, revealing YURT is a man. YURT takes a pistol from a purse and begins a search of the suite, looking into closets, checking behind furniture. While this is going on, the door to the Honeymoon Suite opens and HIRSCHEL, staggering under the weight of several pieces of heavy luggage enters, followed by CORLISS SHAW, also carrying luggage, and SENATOR HORATIO TREADWELL. TREADWELL examines the suite critically.) TREADWELL This the best you have? HIRSCHEL (Gasping for breath) The Honeymoon Suite is the finest in the resort. I'm sure you'll be very pleased. (In the Empress Suite, YURT steps into the bathroom. Immediately the front door of the Empress Suite opens and ZENOBIA BIRDSONG enters. She has blond hair cut in the same manner as YURT's wig; she wears glasses and carries a cosmetics case identical to YURT's. ZENOBIA puts the case on the floor and goes into the bedroom. YURT emerges from the bathroom and steps onto the balcony. In the Honeymoon Suite, HIRSCHEL staggers with his load of luggage into the bedroom.) CORLISS Senator, I appeal to you once again, don't do this thing... TREADWELL Don't you ever presume to tell me what to do. Is that clear? If you were as smart as me you wouldn't be in your job. CORLISS Yes, sir. (HIRSCHEL returns.) CORLISS (Pointing to the door to the adjacent suite) What's that? HIRSCHEL That's the door to the Empress Suite. TREADWELL Who's there now? HIRSCHEL There's... there's no one registered at the moment, Mr. Shaw. (ZENOBIA rushes out of the bedroom, having put on a white, sequined sweater.) TREADWELL (Pointing to Corliss) That's Shaw over there. (To CORLISS) Check the windows. CORLISS Yes, sir. (ZENOBIA takes off her glasses, puts them in her purse, then snatches up the wrong cosmetics case and leaves the Empress Suite. The instant ZENOBIA walks out, YURT returns from the balcony and goes to the phone. At the same time CORLISS goes to the windows of the Honeymoon Suite and looks out.) CORLISS It's OK. We're nine stories high. No one can see in. TREADWELL (To HIRSCHEL) You have movie channels? (YURT dials the phone.) HIRSCHEL Of course, sir. Thirteen channels. We also have stereo. CD's. Fax... YURT (As HEIDI) I would like to speak to Beaverman... TREADWELL You have adult films? YURT What do you mean, "who is this"? It's Heidi. HIRSCHEL Yes, Mr... eh ..eh. TREADWELL Never mind my name. YURT Please! I really must speak to him.... TREADWELL How many adult channels? YURT It's something of an emergency. Do be a sweetie and tell him I'm on the phone. HIRSCHEL Six, sir. I'm told there's a fine collection... YURT (Hurt) What do you mean he doesn't want to talk to me? ... TREADWELL There's a girl here at Shangri La West. Just arrived. That right, Shaw? CORLISS Correct, sir. Probably yesterday. (YURT slams the phone down. Thinks. Dials again.) TREADWELL Her name's Zenobia. Zenobia Something. CORLISS Birdsong. TREADWELL She's a very old, very personal friend. You know her? YURT (Speaking as HENRY- in a male voice) Boots!! It's me... Henry Yurt. How the hell are you, ol' buddy? HIRSCHEL Well, sir. Maybe I do. TREADWELL Where is she? YURT No, I'm not in town... HIRSCHEL Last time I saw her she was in the Moon Pool Room waiting for the auditions to begin. YURT What do you mean, "thank God"? TREADWELL Tell her she should be ready for a real good time. Her friend Horatio... CORLISS (Anxious) Sir! TREADWELL (To HIRSCHEL) Never mind. Shaw will take care of the details. YURT I can't believe you said that....You shittin' me, Boots? You shittin' me?... Remember all those great times we used to have?... All right so there was one time. But it was fuckin' great! Tijuana? ...The booze. The girls. ... How could I have known she was a cop?...Boots? ...Boots? ... Hello! ...Hello! TREADWELL (To HIRSCHEL) Now beat it! (YURT hangs up. Re-dials. CORLISS goes with HIRSCHEL to the front door. HE peels off several bills from a roll of bills and gives HIRSCHEL a tip) HIRSCHEL (To CORLISS) Isn't that.. ? Isn't that the famous Senator Treadwell? CORLISS I'd be very much obliged if you'd keep his presence at Shangri La-West confidential. HIRSCHEL I saw his profile on Current Affair just last week... CORLISS If anybody asks, just say I've taken the suite. Don't mention there is anybody else here. YURT (Into the phone - in a female voice, as HEIDI) Frankie, darling! ... CORLISS I want you to do me a favor. HIRSCHEL Sir? YURT Of course it's me you silly old thing. .... CORLISS (Pointing to the common door.) I need the key to that door. YURT (Very agitated - dropping the female voice) What is it?... What have you been hearing?... HIRSCHEL I can't do that... YURT (Resuming his female voice.) What do you mean, "Is there someone else on the line"?.... Of course not. CORLISS There are times when the Senator must be able to come and go by a back door. You know how it is in politics. HIRSCHEL I could get in trouble CORLISS You said there's nobody there. What harm would it do? (CORLISS peels off a few more bills and presses them into HERSCHEL's hand. HIRSCHEL removes a key from a ring and gives it to CORLISS. CORLISS shows HIRSCHEL out of the suite, closing the door behind him.) YURT Contract? What kind of contract? TREADWELL Corliss, get down to that bar. Find the girl. Bring her here. YURT Grupnik? He said that about me? A snowball's chance where...? CORLISS Sir, if I may be permitted... YURT Both the Newark and Philly organizations? TREADWELL You think they have a waterbed? CORLISS This whole thing is a really bad idea, sir. The press is looking for you all over the place. TREADWELL Screw the press! And screw you. When I want your opinion I'll ask for it. CORLISS I must remind you, the ethics hearings are coming up on the 15th of the month. YURT Do be an angel, just forget I called. In case anybody asks, you never heard of me. ... I don't see why you have to say it would be a pleasure. (YURT hangs up. YURT rummages in the purse for an address book; flips through the pages.) TREADWELL Don't sweat the hearings, Shaw. My boys aren't going to turn on me after all these years. (YURT dials) CORLISS There are twenty-two angry women on the witness list. It won't be a pretty sight. YURT (Male voice) Merrik... It's Henry Yurt here. ...Long time, no see..... Talk to me, Buddy. TREADWELL Who's going to pay attention to a bunch of hysterical women? YURT What do you mean "who is this"?.... Say it ain't so, Merrik! .... TREADWELL Know what's wrong with you, Shaw? YURT Unfortunately? What's this "unfortunately" shit? Remember I put together that can't-fail deal with the North Korean transistors for you... TREADWELL Know what's wrong with you? You worry too much. CORLISS That's what you pay me for, Senator to worry for you. TREADWELL Just do your job. CORLISS There may come a time when I can't save you. Last time you remember, the girl scout troop in Pasadena it was a very close thing. Why do you chase after women like this? After all, you have your wife, Mrs. Treadwell.... TREADWELL Pah leese.! CORLISS Why do you do it, Senator? You risk everything scandal, disgrace, your marriage, your political career for what? For a two minute roll in the hay? YURT So it didn't work out. We live in a fuckin' imperfect world. TREADWELL I've got to have that girl what's her name? Zenobia. CORLISS I thought when you saw her in Las Vegas last weekend she called you a loathsome, scum-sucking toad. TREADWELL She was playing hard to get. You know how women are. YURT Are you fuckin' kidding me? You fuckin' kidding me? We were business partners almost. We were almost like fuckin' brothers in arms. Know what I mean? TREADWELL But then, again, I guess you wouldn't know how women are. I mean... people like you. YURT ... You don't want me to call again? ... (Female voice) Ever? But...! Hello? Hello? CORLISS I beg your pardon! TREADWELL You know, fairies.. Queers. People like you. Don't understand women. Not like real men. CORLISS Sir, I must tell you I don't like the word fairy, queer... (YURT dials a number) TREADWELL I'll be sure to let you know when I give a fuck what you don't like. Know what's wrong with those women? They're not getting enough nookie. If they got screwed regularly they wouldn't be going around whining just because somebody wants to have a good time. YURT (Male voice) Big Al? Henry Yurt here.... Wait! Don't hang up! CORLISS And there's the matter of Mrs. Treadwell... TREADWELL No problemo. I told Cybil I'm attending a trade conference. YURT I got this great deal and I'm coming to you first. 'Cause you and I go way back and I wanted to give you first crack at... CORLISS She says if she catches you with another woman again she'll shoot you dead on sight. TREADWELL I'll have her doctor increase her Prozac dosage.. YURT I can't fuckin' believe you said that, Al. Can't fuckin' believe my ears. After all we've meant to one another. We spent four months in the same cell at San Quentin... That makes us like family. CORLISS Sir, this time she means it. She's hired a detective agency. TREADWELL You take care of it, Shaw. Just like you've always done. Now get down to the bar and find Miss Birdsong. Bring her here. Don't take no for an answer. YURT What's the fuckin' world coming to I ask you when two old friends can't even hold a decent conver...hello?... Al? Al?... CORLISS I think you'd better have the key to the door to the next suite. Just in case. TREADWELL I know the drill. (CORLISS gives TREADWELL the key to the common door, then leaves the Honeymoon Suite. In the Empress Suite there is the sound of voices at the door. YURT grabs the wig and shoes, makes a dash for the cosmetics case but the door opens and he hides behind the curtains of the French doors leading to the balcony leaving the case on the floor. Just as he disappears through the curtains, HIRSCHEL, carrying luggage, enters the Empress Suite followed by BOOM-BOOM McKOOL.) (End of Part One) =================================================== =================================================== 24