Hoover, of course, does not want Inga Arvad arrested. Her simultaneous affair with Wenner-Gren and the young Kennedy has given the director a carte blanche to open surveillance on half of the director’s enemies in Washington.
The FBI telephone intercepts at the end of January and beginning of February run to many pages:
KENNEDY: I want to see you in Washington next week… if I can get away.
ARVAD: I’ll fly to Charleston, darling. If that is more convenient for you.
KENNEDY: Will you? Of course it’s better if you come here, but there is no sense in you doing all the traveling, so I’ll come up there next time.
ARVAD: I will be happy to meet you halfway, Jack, darling. I will meet you anywhere you want, whenever you want. You can do anything you want, darling. If you want to go somewhere else, you’re welcome.
KENNEDY: No, no, I’m coming to Washington. If I can get away at one o’clock, I can get that plane, otherwise, if I have to work I’ll get away at six o’clock Saturday.
ARVAD: Good God. Do you have to work Saturday?
KENNEDY: Yes.
ARVAD: When are you sailing?
[A scrawled note on the transcript here: “Seeking classified information?”]
KENNEDY: I don’t know.
ARVAD: Is that going to be soon?
KENNEDY: No.
ARVAD: I think it is.
KENNEDY: No.
ARVAD: Are you sure?
KENNEDY: I told you, I’ll tell you.
And so on, for page after page. The special agent in charge searches these conversations for clues as to whether critical information has been exchanged between the Naval Intelligence officer and the German spy. He is especially interested in this cryptic exchange some days later:
KENNEDY: Did you say MacDonald was better dressed than I was? Did you say I should go to his tailor?
ARVAD: That’s a lie! I don’t care what you wear, darling. I love you as you are. Darling, you look best without anything.
Around the first of February, during a late-night phone call. Ensign Kennedy first teases Arvad about “a big orgy” he had heard she had held in New York, but ends up worrying about Dr. Fejos’s opinion of him.
KENNEDY: What else did your husband say?
ARVAD: Why, he said I could do what I wanted. He said he was sad to see me doing things like this. I’ll tell you about it and I swear that he is not bothering us and that you needn’t be afraid of him. He’s not going to sue you though he is aware what he could do by suing you.
KENNEDY: He would be a big guy if he doesn’t sue me.
ARVAD: He’s a gentleman. I don’t care what happens, he wouldn’t do things like that. He’s perfectly alright.
KENNEDY: I didn’t intend to make you mad.
ARVAD: I’m not mad. Do you want me to come this weekend very much?
KENNEDY: I would like for you to.
ARVAD: I’ll think it over and let you know. So long, my love.
KENNEDY: So long.
Evidently Arvad did not think it over for long. From February 6 to February 9, she and Ensign Kennedy rarely left their room at the Fort Sumter Hotel in Charleston. An excerpt from the FBI Savannah field office report:
“5:45 P.M., Friday, Feb. 6, 1942—Subject Ensign Kennedy arrives Sumter Hotel in 1940 black Buick convertible coupe. 1941 Florida license 6D951. Kennedy goes to Subject Arvad’s room and remains there, except for forty-one minute break for supper, until late Saturday morning.”
Except for a few other brief breaks—one for mass on Sunday morning—Kennedy and Arvad remained in bed until Monday morning, February 9. Specially bugged rooms had been set aside for the couple at the Fort Sumter Hotel. Electronic surveillance reports refer to “sounds of strenuous sexual intercourse.” In late February, the wily Inga tries to throw off Hoover’s G-men by having Kennedy book a room for her at the Francis Marion Hotel, but the Savannah Branch FBI agents take an adjacent room while six agents of Naval Security listen against the wall of the opposite adjoining room.
“A great deal of the conversation which passed between the subject and Kennedy in the hotel room was obtained,” reads the February 23 report from Special Agent Ruggles. “It was learned that the subject was quite worried about the possibilities of pregnancy as a result of her two previous trips to Charleston, and she spoke of the possibility of getting her marriage annulled. It was noted that Kennedy had very little comment to make on the subject.”
It appeared that Ensign Kennedy was having second thoughts about marriage to this twenty-eight-year-old woman.
At this point, the record became as complicated as such things usually become. Inga was obviously aware of the dozens of FBI and ONI listening devices and was taking clever precautions to outwit them. In early March, Director Hoover made a personal call to Ambassador Kennedy, explained that the surveillance had now spread to the ambassador himself and that an arrest of his ensign son by Naval Security was a distinct possibility.
Joe Kennedy appears to have almost had an embolism. A phone intercept that same day between Joseph Kennedy’s Hyannis Port home and Assistant Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal showed Kennedy beseeching his old Wall Street colleague to transfer his son’s ass overseas.
“He’s liable to get killed in the South Pacific, Joe,” reads the Forrestal intercept.
“Better killed than remaining in that Arvad bitch’s clutches,” reads the Joseph Kennedy transcript.
Forrestal then called Director Hoover. The director recommended the transfer “for security reasons.” Evidently Joe Kennedy’s younger son was expendable in the ambassador’s eyes. Word was that he was grooming his oldest son for the presidency someday.
JFK shipped out days later.
THE DOSSIER ENDED with the note from naval intelligence that Fejos’s/Wenner-Gren’s/the Viking Fund’s ship the Southern Cross had sailed from New York Harbor on April 8, 1942. The navy had spotted it refueling in Bahama on April 17. Since then, the mystery yacht’s whereabouts and mission had remained unknown.
I closed the dossier and handed it back to Delgado.
“Put the page back,” he said.
“Fuck you,” I said.
Delgado shrugged and curled his lips in that mocking smile. “It’s your funeral, Lucas. I have to report that you took classified and confidential material without permission.”
“You do that,” I said, and headed for the door. I was twenty minutes behind schedule.
“Lucas?”
I stopped at the door.
“Did you hear about the murder last night?”
“What murder?”
“Some poor fuck named Kohler. A radio operator from the Southern Cross. The same boat you’re so interested in. The same boat whose plans you just stole. Some coincidence, huh?”
I waited. Delgado sprawled in his chair and stared insolently at me. His cheeks and chest were damp with sweat.
“Who murdered him?” I said at last.
Delgado shrugged. “Word is that the Havana police are looking for a whore named Maria. They think she did it.” He smiled again. “You wouldn’t know where to find a whore named Maria, would you, Lucas?”
I stared at him. I had not openly lied to Delgado yet. After a second, I said, “Why should I know where she is?”
He shrugged again.
I turned to go and then looked back at him. “You said that a man from the Cuban National Police was following me the other day.”
Delgado’s strange lips curled up again. “And you didn’t happen to notice. Even though he’s a big fucker.”
“What’s his name?” I said.
Delgado rubbed his nose. It was very hot in the safe house. “Maldonado,” he said. “The locals know him as Crazy Horse. And he is, too.”
“Is what?”
“Crazy.”
I nodded and went out, jogging the two blocks to where I had left Hemingway’s Lincoln. There was a pack of bare-chested boys around the car, obviously considering what to steal
in which order, but for the moment, it looked intact.
“Fuck off,” I said.
The boys scattered and then regrouped to flash me two fingers in obscene salute. I wiped the sweat from my eyes, started the big car, and drove like hell for the Finca Vigía.
12
I STOOD ON THE FIREBOAT, which bobbed at anchor just inside the entrance to Havana Harbor. I was dressed in a fireman’s heavy jacket and helmet, making small talk in Spanish with the eight other idiots there and waiting for the fireworks show to commence. Occasionally I would raise my binoculars and look out at the Southern Cross where it was anchored beneath the guns of the Battery of the Twelve Apostles. The yacht’s superstructure glowed with lights. I could hear a piano playing across the expanse of dark water. A woman laughed. I could see that the lookouts were at their places on the bow, stern, and starboard side. The motorboat patrolled in circles, interdicting any small craft entering or emerging from the entrance to the Bahía de La Habana and staying between them and the anchored yacht until the boats had passed out of range. Then the motorboat would rush back to its patrol arc like an especially well-trained guard dog circling its master.
This was the dumbest goddamn mission I had ever volunteered for.
When I had returned to the finca guest house after my meeting with Delgado, no one had noticed that I was late. Hemingway and everyone else still there—Guest, Ibarlucia, Sinsky the Sailor, Roberto Herrera, Don Andres, several of the wharf rats—looked as if someone had died.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
Hemingway rested his strong forearms on the long table for a minute. Then he lifted them to rub his eyes. “Plan’s off, Lucas,” he said.
“Can’t get all the ingredients together?”
“We have all the goddamn ingredients,” said the writer. “Except for the exact location of Kohler’s berth. Norberto talked to one of the Southern Cross crew members about the dead man, and the sailor said that Kohler had bunked in the berth right next to his, the one just aft of the galley storage area.”
“So? That seems specific enough.”
Hemingway looked at me as if pitying my stupidity. “We haven’t been able to find out where the galley storage area is. Norberto, Juan, and some of the other wharf boys were sure that they could get on the boat today to check the layout, but the yacht’s not letting anyone aboard. Not even the police. The captain went downtown to discuss the murder with the Havana cops.”
“That’s good,” I said. “It means Maldonado’s people haven’t grabbed the book ahead of us.”
Hemingway shook his head. “You’d never have time to search the yacht in the few minutes this plan would give you. And without knowing exactly which berth was Kohler’s, it’s a waste of time. You said yourself that the book would most probably be in his berth rather than in the radio shack. And we don’t even know for sure where the radio shack is.”
I nodded, took the copy of the ship’s plans from my coat, and laid it on the table. Hemingway stared at it, stared at me, and then stared at the plan some more. The other men gathered around. I thought that I noticed Winston Guest appraising me with a look of respect mixed with suspicion.
“Do I dare ask where the hell you got this?” said Hemingway.
“I stole it,” I said truthfully.
“From where, Señor Lucas?” asked Roberto Herrera. “These are copies of the original shipbuilder’s plans.”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.” My finger stabbed down on a small square marked on the lower deck. “Galley storage area. It’s two ladders down from the radio shack but directly beneath it. Makes sense that Kohler would berth there. Probably has a cot in the shack as well. Did anyone find out if there was a second radio operator?”
“There was not,” said Father Don Andrés Untzaín. “They are flying in a replacement tomorrow.”
“Then I guess we have to do this tonight after all,” I said.
Hemingway nodded, rubbing his palm across the ship plan as if trying to reassure himself that it was real. “One other thing, Lucas,” he said. “The Southern Cross won’t be going anywhere for a while. Both Norberto and Sinsky talked to members of the crew this afternoon. There’s a bearing out on one of the two main shafts—it chewed up part of the shaft and gearing before they got into harbor. They’re shipping parts from the States.”
“Dry dock?” I said.
Hemingway shook his head. “Uh-uh. They’re going to try do the repairs at the Casablanca shipyards.”
I had to smile. The American ambassador had just made provisions for Hemingway to send the Pilar to the Casablanca shipyards to be fitted out as a Q-boat.
“Yeah,” said the writer, and showed his teeth in a broad smile. “Maybe the two boats will be dockmates.” He gestured Guest, Ibarlucia, and the others—including me—to move closer to the table. “Sinsky, you get the word to the boys that tonight’s show is still on. Wolfie, you go get the ordnance we’ll need. Patchi, you and Lucas and I had better go over the plans again.”
MARIA WASN’T IN VIGíA–GRADE A when I walked over to it. I had begun to think of the cottage as la casa perdita—“the little lost house.”
Hemingway’s people—the houseboy, René; the chauffeur, Juan; and possibly one of the maids—had done a good job cleaning up the shack. The floorboards were freshly swept, the fireplace was clean and workable, the broken windowpane had been covered over with cardboard, two cots were set out with blankets and pillows in the smaller room—as if the whore and I would be sleeping together in there—and a table and chairs had been set up near the fireplace.
“Maria?” I said softly. No answer. Perhaps she had run away after all. Perhaps she had gone home to her village to face the wrath of her father and lustful brother rather than be killed by Crazy Horse. I did not give much of a damn either way.
There was the sound of water running outside. I stepped out into the little courtyard between the house and the empty dairy barn and found Maria Marquez at a pump, filling galvanized basins with water. She jumped when my shadow fell over her.
“I called out,” I said.
She shook her head so that her dark hair moved gracefully. “I did not hear you,” she said in Spanish. “The pump made too much noise.”
“There’s a pump in the house,” I said.
“It does not work, Señor Lucas. I wanted to wash the dishes they loaned me.”
“I suspect that the dishes are clean,” I said. “And you can still call me José.”
She shrugged. “Cómo le gusta mi cuarto, José Lucas?”
“No está mal,” I said. “It’s cleaner than it was.”
“Me gusta,” said the girl. “Me gusta mucho. Es como én casa.”
I looked at the little shack, the broken window, the outside pump, and the grassless courtyard. The air still smelled of manure. I imagined that it did seem like home to her. “Bueno,” I said.
Maria took a step closer and stared up at me. Her eyes were bright and sharp, her mouth tight. “You do not like me, José Lucas. Por qué no?”
I said nothing.
She took a half step back. “Señor Papa likes me. He gave me a book.”
“Which book?” I said.
She carried her buckets of water into the shack, set them on the counter, and lifted a checkered dish towel. Under the towel were Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls—the same title as the one he had signed for Ingrid Bergman—and the long-barreled .22 pistol which he had tried to give me that first night.
“He says that there is a character in this book with my name,” said the young woman.
I picked up the pistol, opened it, saw that it was loaded, shook the bullets out into my hand and set them in my pocket, and laid the empty pistol back on the counter. “And what did he say to do with this?”
The girl shrugged again. “He said that if Caballo Loco were to come here that I should run. If I could not run, I should use this to defend myself. Now I cannot do this because you have all the bullets.” Sh
e looked as if she was going to cry.
“These bullets would only make Caballo Loco angry,” I said. “You’re more likely to hurt yourself or someone else than shoot Lieutenant Maldonado. I’ll keep the bullets.”
“Señor Papa will not be happy that you—”
“I’ll talk to Señor Papa,” I said. “You read your book and leave the pistol alone.”
The whore pouted like a child. “I cannot read, Señor Lucas.”
“Then use the pages for tinder when you start the fire tonight,” I said. “Tengo que ir. Tengo mucho que hacer.” And I did. Much to do before the evening’s fun in Havana Harbor.
THE FUN WAS SUPPOSED to start at fifteen minutes after midnight, but it was twelve-twenty-two before the five boats in Hemingway’s flotilla came roaring and plowing out of the harbor entrance, firing off skyrockets as they came.
I counted two speedboats and three fast fishing boats—the Pilar was not among them, of course, since none of the craft were local boats. Through the binoculars I could see that the boats’ names had been painted over or concealed by a seemingly carelessly flung roll of canvas and that all of the men aboard wore hats pulled low and were roaring drunk. Seemed to be roaring drunk. The men shouted and hooted across the water at each other as the careering small craft wove drunkenly out toward the lighted yacht.
I swung the glasses back on the Southern Cross and saw the lookouts pointing and shouting. An officer came out of the bridge and studied the flotilla. One of the lookouts pointed to the fifty-caliber mount, but the officer shook his head and went back onto the bridge. A moment later, the bald man we had seen with the swimming woman came on deck with the officer. The bald man was wearing a dinner jacket and was smoking another cigarette, this one in a long, black cigarette holder.
I looked back at the flotilla. The orbiting patrol boat was attempting to block their approach now, but the five boats had spread out and there was nothing the sentry boat could do but swing back and forth like someone trying to herd marbles uphill. I could see the two men in the cockpit of the sentry speedboat; they were holding Thompson submachine guns in plain sight and looking plaintively at the yacht for instructions. The first officer, standing next to the bald man on the Southern Cross, shook his head and waved his arms in a negative signal. The submachine guns disappeared. The patrol boat growled back to the immediate vicinity of the yacht.