“Take him under the arms,” said Harry. “I’ll take the legs.” Roberto laid the Thompson gun down on the wide stern and leaning down lifted the body by the shoulders.
“You know the heaviest thing in the world is a dead man,” he said. “You ever lift a dead man before, Cappy?”
“No,” said Harry. “You ever lift a big dead woman?”
Roberto pulled the body up onto the stern. “You’re a tough fellow,” he said. “What do you say we have a drink?”
“Go ahead,” said Harry.
“Listen, I’m sorry I killed him,” Roberto said. “When I kill you I feel worse.”
“Cut out talking that way,” Harry said. “What do you want to talk that way for?”
“Come on,” said Roberto. “Over he goes.”
As they leaned over and slid the body up and over the stern, Harry kicked the machine-gun over the edge. It splashed at the same time Albert did, but while Albert turned over twice in the white, churned, bubbling back-suction of the propellor wash before sinking, the gun went straight down.
“That’s better, eh?” Roberto said. “Make it shipshape.” Then as he saw the gun was gone, “Where is it? What did you do with it?”
“With what?”
“The ametralladora!” going into Spanish in excitement.
“The what?”
“You know what.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“You knocked it off the stern. Now I’ll kill you, now.”
“Take it easy,” said Harry. “What the hell you going to kill me about?”
“Give me a gun,” Roberto said to one of the seasick Cubans in Spanish. “Give me a gun quick!”
Harry stood there, never having felt so tall, never having felt so wide, feeling the sweat trickle from under his armpits, feeling it go down his flanks.
“You kill too much,” he heard the seasick Cuban say in Spanish. “You kill the mate. Now you want to kill the captain. Who’s going to get us across?”
“Leave him alone,” said the other. “Kill him when we get over.”
“He knocked the machine-gun overboard,” Roberto said.
“We got the money. What you want a machine-gun for now? There’s plenty of machine guns in Cuba.”
“I tell you, you make a mistake if you don’t kill him now, I tell you. Give me a gun.”
“Oh, shut up. You’re drunk. Every time you’re drunk you want to kill somebody.”
“Have a drink,” said Harry looking out across the gray swell of the gulf stream where the round red sun was just touching the water. “Watch that. When she goes all the way under it’ll turn bright green.”
“The hell with that,” said the big-faced Cuban. “You think you got away with something.”
“I’ll get you another gun,” said Harry. “They only cost forty-five dollars in Cuba. Take it easy. You’re all right now. There ain’t any Coast Guard plane going to come now.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Roberto said, looking him over. “You did that on purpose. That’s why you got me to lift on that.”
“You don’t want to kill me,” Harry said. “Who’s going to take you across?”
“I ought to kill you now.”
“Take it easy,” said Harry. “I’m going to look at the engines.”
He opened the hatch, got down in, screwed down the grease cups on the two stuffing boxes, felt of the motors, and with his hand touched the butt of the Thompson gun. Not yet, he thought. No, better not yet. Christ, that was lucky. What the hell difference does it make to Albert when he’s dead? Saves his old woman to bury him. That big-faced bastard. That big-faced murdering bastard. Christ, I’d like to take him now. But I better wait.
He stood up, climbed out and shut the hatch.
“How you doing?” he said to Roberto. He put his hand on the fat shoulder. The big-faced Cuban looked at him and did not say anything.
“Did you see it turn green?” Harry asked.
“The hell with you,” Roberto said. He was drunk but he was suspicious and, like an animal, he knew how wrong something had gone.
“Let me take her a while,” Harry said to the boy at the wheel. “What’s your name?”
“You can call me Emilio,” said the boy.
“Go below and you’ll find something to eat,” Harry said. “There’s bread and cornbeef. Make coffee if you want.”
“I don’t want any.”
“I’ll make some later,” Harry said. He sat at the wheel, the binnacle light on now, holding her on the point easily in the light following sea, looking out at the night coming on the water. He had no running lights on.
It would be a pretty night to cross, he thought, a pretty night. Soon as the last of that afterglow is gone I’ve got to work her east. If I don’t, we’ll sight the glare of Havana in another hour. In two, anyway. Soon as he sees the glare it may occur to that son of a bitch to kill me. That was lucky getting rid of that gun. Damn, that was lucky. Wonder what that Marie’s having for supper. I guess she’s plenty worried. I guess she’s too worried to eat. Wonder how much money those bastards have got. Funny they don’t count it. If that ain’t a hell of a way to raise money for a revolution. Cubans are a hell of a people.
That’s a mean boy, that Roberto. I’ll get him tonight. I get him no matter how the rest of it comes out. That won’t help that poor damned Albert though. It made me feel bad to dump him like that. I don’t know what made me think of it.
He lit a cigarette and smoked in the dark.
I’m doing all right, he thought. I’m doing better than I expected. The kid is a kind of nice kid. I wish I could get those other two on the same side. I wish there was some way to bunch them. Well, I’ll have to do the best I can. Easier I can make them take it beforehand the better. Smoother everything goes the better.
“Do you want a sandwich?” the boy asked.
“Thanks,” said Harry. “You give one to your partner?”
“He’s drinking. He won’t eat,” the boy said.
“What about the others?”
“Seasick,” the boy said.
“It’s a nice night to cross,” Harry said. He noticed the boy did not watch the compass so he kept letting her go off to the east.
“I’d enjoy it,” the boy said. “If it wasn’t for your mate.”
“He was a good fellow,” said Harry. “Did any one get hurt at the bank?”
“The lawyer. What was his name, Simmons.”
“Get killed?”
“I think so.”
So, thought Harry. Mr. Bee-lips. What the hell did he expect? How could he have thought he wouldn’t get it? That comes from playing at being tough. That comes from being too smart too often. Mr. Bee-lips. Good-bye, Mr. Bee-lips.
“How he come to get killed?”
“I guess you can imagine,” the boy said. “That’s very different from your mate. I feel badly about that. You know he doesn’t mean to do wrong. It’s just what that phase of the revolution has done to him.”
“I guess he’s probably a good fellow,” Harry said, and thought, Listen to what my mouth says. God damn it, my mouth will say anything. But I got to try to make a friend of this boy in case——
“What kind of revolution do you make now?” he asked.
“We are the only true revolutionary party,” the boy said. “We want to do away with all the old politicians, with all the American imperialism that strangles us, with the tyranny of the army. We want to start clean and give every man a chance. We want to end the slavery of the guajiros, you know, the peasants, and divide the big sugar estates among the people that work them. But we are not Communists.”
Harry looked up from the compass card at him.
“How you coming on?” he asked.
“We just raise money now for the fight,” the boy said. “To do that we have to use means that later we would never use. Also we have to use people we would not employ later. But the end is worth the means. They had to do the same thing in Russia. Stalin was a sort of brigand for many years before the revolution.”
He’s a radical, Harry thought. That’s what he is, a radical.
“I guess you’ve got a good program,” he said, “if you’re out to help the working man. I was out on strike plenty times in the old days when we had the cigar factories in Key West. I’d have been glad to do whatever I could if I’d known what kind of outfit you were.”
“Lots of people would help us,” the boy said. “But because of the state the movement is in at present we can’t trust people. I regret the necessity for the present phase very much. I hate terrorism. I also feel very badly about the methods for raising the necessary money. But there is no choice. You do not know how bad things are in Cuba.”
“I guess they’re plenty bad,” Harry said.
“You can’t know how bad they are. There is an absolutely murderous tyranny that extends over every little village in the country. Three people cannot be together on the street. Cuba has no foreign enemies and doesn’t need any army, but she has an army of twenty-five thousand now, and the army, from the corporals up, suck the blood from the nation. Every one, even the private soldiers, are out to make their fortunes.
Now they have a military reserve with every kind of crook, bully and informer of the old days of Machado in it, and they take anything the army does not bother with. We have to get rid of the army before anything can start. Before we were ruled by clubs. Now
