The Quintessence of Quick (The Jack Mason Saga) (36 page)

In theory, we should’ve found her; in fact, we didn’t. 2000 miles or so of ocean later, we landed at Belém without a sniff. We saw plenty of ships, anywhere from 75 to 100 large vessels, but none was our Portuguese quarry. Then, more makeshift parking, even more makeshift accommodations for the crews, and out again the next day, repeating yesterday’s search patterns. But on the afternoon of this day, Naval Station San Juan broadcast a fix on the old girl, 12 degrees 18 minutes north latitude and 52 degrees 12 minutes west longitude, making about 19 knots, on an approximate course of 105 degrees true. This fix was confirmed by a freighter that passed her close aboard. Our closest aircraft, a P2V, reached the area shortly after sundown in bad weather, and circled the ship while the Plane Commander swapped bad Spanish for bad English with Senhor Galvao, until an English interpreter intervened for him.

Long story short, a few hours of wrangling, climaxed by an exchange between our skipper and Galvao, produced his agreement to head the ship toward
Recife,
Brazil, which is where our squadron aircraft landed. This time our host was a Brazilian Air Force Base, which made things a lot easier. Buses came for us, and we motored into downtown
Recife
to check into a couple of what you’d have to call “mid-level” hotels. And here’s the best part; we didn’t know how long we’d be in
Recife, and none of us had packed a damn thing in the way of clothes, shaving gear, etc., because we were launched under “soonest” orders. Since the best combined guesses of the State Department and our command, the Caribbean Sea Frontier, were that we’d be there for at least a week, arrangements were made with the
US
Consul for us all to go to the consulate and draw advance pay. The ground rules were that we could draw anything from two weeks to two months of our base pay. Most of the married types played it conservative and took two weeks. A very brief discussion among the single junior officers concluded that, since we weren’t likely to be in
Brazil
again anytime soon, we should draw the max, which put anywhere from $500 to $800 cash in our pockets. They told us that the exchange rate between the dollar and the Brazilian Cruzeiro was 1 to 350 or so, and that a ¾ liter bottle of Brahma Chopps beer was usually around 125 Cruzeiros, so you can imagine our instant optimism about the
Recife
sojourn!

Two crews were on alert every day, and the other two had liberty, which meant no back-to-back hangovers. It also meant that we were free to explore the area in taxis hired at a day rate (20-25,000 Cruzeiros). One of the great places our first driver showed us was a four-story bawdy house known as The House on Stilts. False modesty aside, Mamacita, the Madame de Mesdames, and I began to get on famously shortly after we got there on our, you should excuse the expression, maiden visit. She looked a lot like Katy Jurado after a season at the Colts’ training table, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. Real pros overcome their negatives, and I didn’t really mind the faint mustache. You’re more or less duty-bound to call me a liar, but I camped out in her bedroom for three nights, and she wouldn’t take my money, except for food and booze. On the morning after the last night, I slipped 50,000 Cruzeiros under her pillow.

Later that afternoon while waiting for the bus to the airfield, I was getting a shoe shine outside the hotel. Up she rode in a taxi, saw me sitting there, climbed up in my lap and laid a tonsil-tickler on me! Then she dismounted, jumped in the taxi and hauled ass, waving until she was out of sight. When I got down off the shine stand, the shine man said something in rapid Portuguese as he pointed at the back of the chair. Son, she’d put that 50 grand in an envelope and slipped it behind my back while we were making out. All this, of course, is taking place in the presence of 30 or 40 of my squadron-mates, who will no doubt not let me live this down for a while. At least I’ll be in the memory of two Brazilians for awhile: Mamacita and the shine man, who got a 50,000 Cruzeiro tip.

Cheers, Bubba. Eaten any good snakes lately?

LTJG (“Officers don’t get gonorrhea; they get non-specific urethritis.”) Jack

24 BAHIA DE COCHINOS

Linda pulled out of the Coconut Grove house’s driveway shortly after 9:30, exulting in the crimson Corvette’s exhaust note and ready wheelspin as she made her way through the few blocks between the house and NW 42nd Ave. Turning right on the Avenue, she gave the roadster its head in the light morning traffic, running it up to a hundred or so before easing it gradually down to a steady 75. God, she thought, I love this car; a year and a half later, I still can’t get enough of driving it. Pulling the gearshift lever down into fourth, she remembered the phone call from Capri Chevrolet that came a couple of months after Jack left. Pissed off at me, she thought, because I told him that I couldn’t go on seeing him if Pete and I were going to get the air taxi business going while he did his Navy hitch. “Miss Green? We have a 1960 fuel-injected Corvette roadster down here with your name on it, in Roman Red. I guess Mr. Mason told you about it; it’s paid for, licensed and ready to go, and it’d be my pleasure to deliver it.” 

When I called him to say thanks, to lighten the moment I said, “what are you doing giving me a going-away present, when you’re the one that’s going away?”

“That was no going-away present. That was my parting shot,” he said. Pretty classy response from an old, well, inactive, lover. And with that in mind, I really shouldn’t be doing this, but Bernie was downright scary about how important it was for me to meet him, so here I am.

Downshifting, Linda took the
NW 36th Street
exit off
NW 42nd Avenue, slowing to turn right on
NW 37th Avenue. Another right turn brought her into the Miami Fronton’s huge parking lot, which was substantially empty. The matinee jai alai matches were still several hours away. Bernard “Macho” Barker was already there, leaning against the left front fender of his government-green Ford sedan. She wondered why the CIA would be so obvious. Opening the door for her, he extended a hand as she spun ninety degrees to put her sandal-shod feet on the ground. The sun was already bringing the pavement up to stove-top temperature. Barker pulled her to him, kissing her passionately before stepping back to arm’s length, a smile that could be called tragic taking over his face. “Let’s get inside,” he said, indicating his car. “I left the air conditioning on.”

Shutting the driver’s door behind him, Barker turned to look at her, the smile still there. “Well. You’ve become a seasoned piloto de guerillas, but nobody’d notice just to look at you. My congratulations, Chiquita.”

“Aw, shucks, seen-yawer. Twern’t nuthin’.”

“BS. I know what you and Pete have been doing. I worry about you all the time. Him too, but in a different way.”

“You’re sweet to say that, Bernie. We had some good times in
Havana, didn’t we?”

“Yes, we did, even if Johnny Boots pulled the rug out from under us. I blame that celluloid mobster George Raft for that.”

“You think he wanted to make a play for me?”

Barker’s eyebrows went up as the corners of his mouth went down. “Sure I do.”

“Doesn’t make sense. As the casino’s front man, he probably knew that Johnny wanted me out of there because he thought I was having too much fun, what with Pete’s and my having casino employee visas on his say-so. But from his point of view, why have me declared persona non grata by the
Capri? As long as I was there, he could make his play anytime you weren’t around, and back it up with a wide choice of bedrooms. Frankly, I thought it might have been your bright idea.”

Barker’s eyebrows yo-yo’d again. “My idea? My idea? His voice slid up an octave. Why would I do that? Just as you said, we were having fun. Lots of fun.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, now for a few seconds the burlesque-kitten. “I thought maybe you’d gotten tired of me.”

“Goddamit! And after the chance I’m taking right now. Oooh, Chiquita...”

“I’m sorry, sweetie. I just got caught up in a
Havana
moment. What’s up?”

Regaining his business face, Barker said, “You guys stay out of Cuban airspace next week. Do whatever you have to do to stay out. The balloon’s going up down there, and it’s gonna be a mess. They’re sending a bunch of my countrymen into a death trap, and a big fat Grumman amphibian would get shot down for sure. So do it. For yourself, for Pete and, goddamit, OK, for me. Please promise me you’ll do it; you can tell him why, I don’t care. Just stay the hell out of there.”

“Well, it won’t be easy, not if they want us to go. The way they’ve been paying us...”

“I don’t give a shit what they’re paying you! You won’t live to spend it!”

Linda took his face in her hands. “OK, OK! We’ll stay out. It may take an engine change to do it. Hey, why does it have to be a death trap? Isn’t the
US
backing these guys?”

“No, not really. The President wouldn’t OK the landing site,
Trinidad, for the troops to hit the beach. It was perfect; firm sand, good beach gradient and almost in the foothills of the mountains. You know the Escambrays; Castro hid his own troops there before marching on
Havana. And the people of
Trinidad
are still pretty much anti-Castro, so they’d support a rebel invasion force headed for the mountains. But this candy-ass Kennedy has said no to
Trinidad. He told the planners to-  if you can believe this-  to ‘find a quieter beach.’ 

Can you believe it? So now they’re going in 80 miles to the west, at Playa de Giron, a rocky, swampy piece of shit that the locals call Bahía de Cochinos-  the
Bay of Pigs. And Castro knows they’re coming! Calle Ocho’s crawling with his fucking agents; meantime, we’re rounding up the would-be new government and keeping them sequestered until the shooting’s over, and there are probably Castro-ites in that bunch, too. So do us all a favor, Chiquita; stand down until we see how this mess shakes out.”  Reaching over to pat her knee, he did a quick furtive scan of the parking lot. “I gotta go.”

Good thing, too, she thought; that Latino kiss and all the danger-talk has got me so hot I’ll straddle you right now if I don’t get out of this car. Turning to look him squarely in the face, she said, “This was dangerous for you, Bernie, and I appreciate it more than I can tell you. So will Pete. And don’t worry; we’ll all still be around after this business winds down.”

Smiling tightly at her, Barker moved the transmission lever into drive. “From your mouth to God’s ear, Chiquita. They might end up sending in the Marines, and after that it’s a pretty short step to trading ICBMs with the Russkies.”

Waving at the rearview mirror as Barker pulled away, Linda, cursing the heat, walked around to the passenger door and opened it, then opened the driver’s door, put the key in the ignition and turned it. When the engine fired, she made sure that the air-conditioner was on full-blast, returned to the passenger door, closed it, and got in the car, rejoicing that it came with a hard top. Things could get pretty interesting now, she thought.

The flight from Kadena to
Bangkok
was no louder or shakier than the series of C-124 hops that had gotten the still-hung-over, newly-minted Special Forces “B” team from Bragg to
Okinawa. As DSSLs, Rick and Perry Dawson were assigned to the B-team to get operational experience, in order, someday, to transfer to an “A” team or Field Training Team (essentially half an A-team, or FTT). A Special Forces company, generally commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel, contains several A-teams, one B-team, and one C-team. The A-teams, each made up of two officers and ten Sergeants, execute operations; they’re the organization’s raison d’être.

The B-team runs the organization, handling billeting, communications, logistics, operational orders and personnel. The C-team exercises command-and-control over this rank-heavy organization of some 200 people. “A” team duty’s what they wanted, taking the
US’s Laotian “clients” into battle against Laotian non-clients, the Communist Pathet Lao, Captain Kong Le’s Neutralists, or the even more challenging North Vietnamese Army regulars. Some combination of the three routinely made cross-border forays into the country. For now, however, Rick and Perry were confined to their destination, Luang Prabang, supporting the FTTs instead of leading them.

The C-54 taking them to
Vientiane
gave them a little smoother ride, but the difference didn’t help much. After covering jump pay for their 175-day temporary duty (TDY) assignment with a day of three jumps into an unbelievably-rough Okinawan DZ, a follow-up evening of celebration was mandatory, and noise and vibration of any kind whatever, even a day later, wasn’t welcomed. Most of the team flaked out, either on the floor or the folding canvas-and-metal seats that ran the length of both sides of the aircraft. West Pointer Dawson slid to the floor beside the supine Rick’s head. “Captain Taylor says it’s about a four-hour truck ride to LP.”

Remaining on his back, Rick cocked his ear a degree or two in Perry’s direction. “What?”

“Luang Prabang, buster. Cultural and religious capital of Bogeyland, and our immediate home-away-from-home. Land of opportunity and, with any luck at all, the land of nice, affordable pussy. Too bad they couldn’t find a Lao instructor to teach us the rudiments of bargaining for same.”