Angels in Heaven

I’ve
noticed. And they’re my new duds, if you want to get technical.”
    We sat there for a few minutes eyeing
the passersby—the endless stream of vendors, the energetic tourists, the long
and the short and the even shorter. Pretty Mayan girls with their white-shirted
escorts were starting to form a line at the Rex movie house just off to our
left, where something called Escape from Cuba was playing.
    “Maybe we ought to see that,” I said
to my friend. “It might give us some ideas.”
    “We’re cool,” said Benny. “Not to
worry.”
    “You may be cool,” I said, “but I am
impatient, amigo mío, I tell you that. I am ready for action. Action is
ready for me. It’s all been very pleasant, traveling around hither and yon,
taking in the sights, listening to grizzled sea dogs spin their tales, and
seeing you in a steam bath is something I will long remember, but enough is
enough. I am ready for action. I crave it. I must have it. I thirst for it, I
dream of it. I am also worried, Benjamin. I haven’t slept a wink since last
night except for a bit on the plane. I am deeply worried.”
    “About what particularly?” Benjamin
gingerly patted the top of the head of a limping mutt that was scrounging under
our table.
    “About everything particularly,” I
said. “As if we didn’t have enough to worry about before, now we got that damn
bird watcher to worry about too.”
    Benny thought it over for a moment.
Then he snapped his fingers.
    “I got it,” he said. “Have another
beer.”
    I acquiesced. Was it not Leonardo who
once remarked that the simplest solutions are often the most elegant?
     
     
     

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
    We drove to the office early, or
comparatively early, the following a.m. While
I’d told Benny that the few things we had to do before the entrance of Lt.
Esparza wouldn’t take long, they still involved a couple of hours of toil and
trouble.
    So after opening up, I unlocked my
suitcase, we distributed several more props about the premises, and I dumped
the suitcase out back. Then, while I dictated a couple of letters to Doris, Benny made a quick shopping run for some last-minute items. When he came back, while
Sara was typing up the letters, we devised our scenario for the forthcoming
drama, ran over it three or four times to fix the details in our busy little
brains, then ran over it with Sara when she was finished with the typing; after
that, I tore up and burned in an ashtray on the window ledge the scrap of paper
on which I’d made notes.
    At eleven-thirty, all was prepared
and we were as ready as we’d ever be. I was surprisingly calm, considering the
pressure on me, considering that I had the leading role, after all;, but my
supporting cast evinced plenty of first-night nerves, despite their gallant
attempts to hide them.
    At eleven forty-five I was sitting in
our rented Chevy about a half block down the street from the office building,
waiting for the curtain to go up, hoping it wouldn’t be a balloon instead.
    At five to twelve, whatever it was
going to turn out to be went up.
    One of Febrero Segundo’s immaculate
new Jeeps turned down out of 53rd onto our street and drew to a halt just
outside 499, i.e., us. I got out of the Chevy in a controlled hurry and timed
it so that I drew level with the Jeep just as the driver was opening the back
for Lt. Joaquín Esparza, who stepped out nimbly, recognized me, threw me a
smart salute, then shook my paw effusively.
    “ ¡Sr. Blackman! ¡Que gusto!” he said.
    “Absolutely,” I said. “Shall we entrar ?”
    I gestured toward the front door. He
snapped a curt order to the driver, who was standing at attention by the Jeep,
then led the way up the steps to the entrance. I drew his attention to the
brass plaque beside the door.
    “Nosotros,” I said modestly, which means “us.”
Luckily the sign didn’t mention what floor the real Cul. Ass. was on. We could
have gotten around it somehow, maybe by distracting the lieutenant in the
elevator so he couldn’t count the floors, but most elevators have floor
indicators inside them that light up, so we might have had to claim we were an
annex or whatever, but we didn’t have to, which was just as well, as it was
already complicated enough. A lot too complicated, was the message that
occasionally fought its way to my consciousness from that deep inner recess
where invidious truth lurks.
    It is perhaps apparent that the
reason I’d waited outside for the lieutenant was to