A lifetime of dark deals
later, Harry Baker was where he’d rarely found himself: sitting at a table in a
dark corner of a cantina on the seedy side of Barcelona, downing one shot of
American whiskey after another. That was where he was in place and spirit when
he saw the shady Argentinean enter the room before their eyes met.
“Señor Baker,” El Galopo
(the Rogue) slid into a chair at the table, uninvited. “Have you heard
Alesandro has been ‘rehabilitated’? He signed a denunciation of the CNT, and
the Basque Nationalists, and he might be released this week.”
The creep reminded Harry
of a sleazier version of Peter Lorre in Casablanca, but he’d try to humor him.
El Galopo was sometimes a useful gofer or a good source of information, “Yeh,
Galopo, I heard… I haven’t been in a cave all this time.”
He thought it was almost
laughable that Franco’s cheap thugs thought they could get anyone to believe
Alesandro would have signed any such document… willingly or not. One of Harry’s
most reliable talents was an innate ability to sense who would break and who
would be better off dispatching… saving time and effort.
“But then maybe you
don’t know that Alesandro’s Chucha was arrested,” El Galopo’s eyes beamed with
sordid glee at the prospect of having something of interest to the legendary
Bird Dog, “Serendipity, eh? Or maybe someone made a swap, si?”
Harry shoved his
shot-glass across the table and filled it, “Drink? What else can you tell me
that I don’t already know?”
“No thank you, por
favor,” Galopo shoved the glass back to Harry, “Oh, nothing much, his Chucha,
Iniga, was embarazada… heavy you say, with child… no padre.”
“Pregnant, we say
knocked up…” Harry hid his surprise, “eh?”
“Oh yes,” he lied to
pique Harry’s interest, “Couldn’t be Alesandro’s bastardo, he’d been locked up
for the past five years. His loss is my gain though… I already have a lock on
someone who pays good cash to the nuns for the little bastardo.”
“And, of course, what is
your cut?” Harry sobered up. He didn’t want to give away his hand… that he knew
more and he had been most intimate with Iniga since Alesandro had been busted.
The price would go up considerably if the shit-head knew Harry was interested,
“Do you know where they're keeping her?”
“With the Nuns… la
Ventas, maybe? It is peculiar… si?” The glint in the trader of misfortune’s
eyes twinkled, “Some say, among the Anarchists, that it was the Bird Dog that
betrayed her. If you know of this, Bird Dog, maybe you have lost some cachet
with the Anarchists.”
Harry was astute enough
about how rumors of this sort made an extended stay in Barcelona a perilous
place to hang around, “Thanks, Jack, even from here in my cave I can see
that.”
There was no use
wallowing in doubt or self-pity for there were strings to pull, plans and
bribes. His paternal instincts overcame reason and couldn’t allow this
uncustomary remorse to let his child be adopted-out and lost to an upstanding,
good Catholic couple of moral and political rectitude. That is what would have
been done with Nicky had he been officially termed “huérfano”. Without an
important American father these things were a regular atrocity for the duration
of Franco’s damned near eternal reign… a policy that continued far past the
Generalissimo’s death in 1975… even into the mid-nineties. And, while he wasn’t
officially important, he’d enough unsavory connections, bribes, intrigues, and
extortions even, to be important enough to the right people.
Iniga had made first
contact with Harry. It was a cold November in Barcelona, the stronghold of
anarchists at that time. The Stalinist Communists of the PCE had left guerrilla
groups associated with the P.O.U.M. Anarchists to fend for themselves in the
struggle against contra militias and Guardia Civil, almost everywhere else in
Spain. He’d found himself caught between his affection for old allies and
overriding reflexes to personal profit. And profit had called for him to take
out the leadership of what was once the Maquis in Spain; i.e., the likes of
Caracamada, El Quito, and eventually, Alesandro, four years ago.
It was a month before
the meeting with El Galopo that Harry had been sitting at a corner table across
from the door, and pretending to read the newspaper with headlines featuring
the word, ‘bandeleros’. The state run
newspapers always ran something about this or that successful government action
against bands of common criminals. Everyone knew that ‘common criminal’ was the
euphemism within the jargon of Spanish journalism for ‘maquis’ for the benefit
of government censors in Spain. These were rarely written about unless there
was an arrest of a notorious maquisard and in those gloomy days the isolation
of anarchist enlaces was nearly complete. He didn’t need to read the paper
because he always had information, from the most reliable unreliable sources,
for the real news of the day that the papers dared not touch. Though he kept an
eye on the door, she’d caught him by surprise.
Her voice still stirred
him, “Perro de Caza, what brings you back to this cesspool?”
He flashed a grin. Only
a few knew his old code-name, Perro de Caza or Bird Dog.
“Iniga, sit down, por
favor, I have some business here.” His use of the word, business, carried some
weight with Iniga.
Her eyes scanned the
room… “Even here in Barcelona, one must watch one’s back, eh?” She pulled out a
rickety chair from across the table and sat down.
“Be careful too that you
don’t miss what is in front of you,” guilt about what he needed to do directed
this quip. They sat quietly, with eyes fixed on each other, not in longing… it was
checking…, checking as they had so many years ago in the Pyrenees.
“You are here on
business. Aren’t we well aware of what your business is today?” Iniga was never
one to hedge; “Bird Dog is on business for the Americanos, we no longer have
the same alliances, do we?”
“I have been away from
official business since the war ended,” he said. She was as aware as he was
that this was a prevarication. Iniga would let it pass however, as they had
more important business to take care of. He taunted, “You were never all that
good at diplomacy, were you, dear girl?”
“And you are still too
good at lying,” she took one of the cigarettes he offered, “So, you had nothing
to do with Alesandro’s capture?”
“You still blame me for
what happened four years ago but you won’t give me any credit for his impending
release, eh?” He could see by the way her eyes lit up that this was news, very
good news, to her.
“Are you sure? We had
these hopes built up before.” She was hard pressed to restrain herself from
throwing herself at Harry.
“It was Fournier in
France… he put the money up. I just passed it on to the right people.”
“Still, I’ll give you
all the credit, Bird Dog. Where is he now?”
“Slow down, Iniga, he
isn’t out yet,” He lit another cigarette. Instinct told him that Iniga wanted
to reward him personally, “He’s still in Carabanchel but any day now…” and he
could rot there so long as Harry could have Iniga to himself.
“Please, Harry… money
wouldn’t be enough, he was scheduled to be executed.” Her voice was a monotone
that hardly revealed the emotion deeply buried… moving with great force like an
underground river.
“We traded some Guardia
Civil captured from some po-dunk town near Valencia. They were held by one of
the enlaces you might be familiar with.” He reached across the table and placed
a hand palm up in an offering. Iniga was the price he had to pay to get
Alesandro cut loose but he was going to make the best of it as long as he
could. That night the salamander that would be dubbed Nicholas was planted in
Iniga’s womb.
Harry’s maneuvers were
not based on political beliefs; he had none. Nor were there but very few
personal alliances that bound him. He was strictly on business and going to
this dingy room to bed Iniga was extra-curricular to his business. His present
commission in Spain was to get Alesandro released and that was all, at first.
There was no hurry, as
Alesandro had languished in Carabanchel for four years… since 1953… he wasn’t
likely to die while Harry closed the deal. The fact that he had made up the bit
about the enlaces (undercover cells) near Valencia was of little weight on his
conscience either. This was all a part of the crafts he’d learned in the
British SOE and then the American OSS … way back when… A clear conscience was
an extravagance afforded only to those who had never been at a strategy table.
After a couple of months,
she would nudge him as he’d just began to fall asleep and ask… “So, what is
happening with Alesandro?” They would argue… he’d insist that he was powerless
over the when and where of it all. It was after such a night, New Year’s Eve
that they argued during their own private cotillones de no Chevyeja. The
cotillones is a Spanish ritual to commemorate the New Year when the clock
struck twelve, twelve grapes are shared, and a toast is offered for the New
Year. He had seen the signs of morning sickness and sensed that Iniga would
abort it if it was his child. She had been in his bed long enough to soften his
heart... just enough to win it. However, his was a Judas kiss that would haunt
him and the time had been arranged to make the trade that he’d been paid for
regardless.
He feigned passing out
about an hour before dawn, when Iniga arose from the bed as stealthily as she
could. It wasn’t safe for a woman to be on the streets unescorted, as much for
the obvious dangers of a machismo culture as for the patrols of the Guardia
Civil. But Iniga thought of herself as strong willed and able to take care of
herself against anything. As soon as she shut the door, Harry was up and tugged
on the window shade… up and then down.
Throughout Franco’s
oppression, women were the victims of an archaic machismo that filtered far
past the demise of the Generalissimo. Spain went medieval where the rest of the
Western world tested the warm waters of modernity that had begun before the
advent of the past two wars. In the Spain of Franco women weren’t allowed to
leave an abusive husband lest they be charged with ‘abandonment’. Submission to
the males in her family was written into the law. Brothers and fathers managed
her finances, and she would have to be escorted on the streets by a male family
member any time of the day and certainly after dark. It was the Spanish
Catholic version of Islamic Sharia Law. However, Iniga felt safe, as prying
eyes would be closed in slumber by the time she stepped out onto the street
before dawn.
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