Bud White’s odd new life seemed to be taking Ed’s over. Case loads were strangely quiet so it wasn’t impossible or even impractical for the Captain to take an early afternoon. He drove home and walked into the front door at four, smiling as casually as he could. Marlene’s brows rose but Letti’s face brightened.

“Captain Exley! I am surprised to see you,” the lovely Cuban woman’s musical voice chimed.

“Yes,” Marlene eyed her husband suspiciously. “We were expecting you and Bud later.”

Letti stood and looked out the window. “Where is Bud?”

Fuck. Ed hated this. “Uh … Bud’s back on active duty.”

“He is?” Marlene glared but Ed’s return glare warned her sufficiently. She sighed and forced a smile. “How nice.”

“Yeah. Hey Letti, sorry honey, but I sent him to New York … to extradite a prisoner. Seemed like the lightest duty I could give him … but he’ll be gone a few days. Sorry.” Seeing tears well in her eyes he reached out and patted her shoulder. “Sorry.”

Little Betsy, completely focused on her father, was scaling Ed’s leg and he idly lifted her; the perfect distraction. He headed toward the kitchen, little daughter in arms and his wife at his heels.

“Just what is going on?” Marlene hissed. “We both know he shouldn’t be working again yet!”

“He’s not,” Ed whispered, watching the doorway carefully. He leaned in a kissed his wife’s cheek. “I’ll tell you later. In the meantime, maybe Letti should stay here a few days?”

“Of course she will!” Marlene was like an angry whirlwind, pulling food and pots and pans.

“Mommy’s mad at you,” sang little Betsy and Ed nodded agreement.

w

Exley was kind enough to cover most of the tough stuff; shuffling Bud off to the airport, telling the appropriate fibs to the new wife, and keeping Bud’s secret too. White had his concerns. What if Carlos didn’t survive? The last thing he wanted was to distress Letti more than necessary. He’d been quiet about her father’s arrest, damn hush-hush over how and when Carlos and Carmelita were attempting to escape Cuba. Before boarding a plane he took several deep breaths and walked to the nearest phone booth. Life was tough, but this was something he needed to do no matter how complex things seemed.

He dialed a number he’d hidden in his wallet. Waited. The phone rang several times before a maid answered and Bud went into full cop mode.

“LAPD Detective Lieutenant Bud White for Mr. Frank Price.”

“Is this important?” The belligerent woman spat.

“Yeah, damn important, lady. He there or what?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Price are celebrating their anniversary and entertaining several guests, Detective. You will need to call another time.”

“Lady, if you want the death of their son on your head, you go right ahead and hang up.”

She squealed and soon enough, Mr. Frank Price answered. “Detective? What do you know of Charles’ whereabouts?”

“Nothin’ Mr. Price. I was in Havana with Charlie until my wife and I left … just before the city fell.”

“And you left him there?”

“Listen mister, nothing short of a face to face interview with that revolutionary bastard was gonna get your son to even think about leaving Cuba. Last I heard, he had one scheduled. But … I got a lead … Mr. Price, he might be hurt … or worse. I just wanted you to know, it’s time to get your political connections in line and start pulling strings if you ever wanna see Charlie again.”

“Who are you, Mr. White?”

“I’m a Los Angeles cop who … shall we say … was damn impressed with your son. I’ve got a lot on my plate, Mr. Price, but I think you should clear yours and get something arranged to locate and get Charlie home.” Bud carefully avoided adding ‘dead or alive’. The man was going to have enough to deal with.

“Thank you, Detective.”

“Oh, and hey,” Bud added, realizing he had to get moving or he’d miss his plane. “Charlie, he was writing a story for the New York Times. Maybe start there, they might have heard from him since my contact did. Just an idea. Gotta go.”

w

Letti rolled to her back and sighed. The room was dark and close; sweat gathered on her skin and brought a strange chill. She snuggled beneath the sheets only to find the heat unbearable. Standing to open the window, she looked around. Her eyes had long ago adjusted to the darkness; sleep was not something she had found easily for the past three days.

Twice she spoke with Bud, and both times it was brief and efficient, just enough to assure her that he was fine and would be home soon. But exactly when, he would not confirm. Never had she felt so alone in the world, never so vulnerable. The Exleys were generous and kind … and extraordinarily evasive, making her even more frightened. Her mind picked through a variety of possibilities; that Bud had changed his mind and left her; that his back injury was far worse than he ever said, and he was undergoing more surgery without telling her; that the extradition case the Captain had sent him on was more dangerous than anyone would admit. Confusion and fear battled inside her chest and she stood, pushed her head outside the opened window, begging air from and airless summer Los Angeles night.

The guest room was pleasant, as were her hosts. The child, Betsy was an amusing diversion that never lasted long enough for Letti to catch herself relaxing. The heat was uncomfortable and her flesh begged for the relief of a tropical downpour she would not see. She sat on the floor below the window and gasped back a sob. Bud had spent much time in that bed, recovering under the Exleys’ care. She had hoped for his scent from the mattress and sheets but it was not there. She had imagined being the one to care for him but the mere idea of him, hurt and in pain, tore at her heart. She had to get away from the room, from the house, from the Exleys.

Silent as a whisper, she slid her feet into slippers and wrapped a satin robe over her sweat soaked nightgown. Her fingers shook as she turned the front door lock slowly. It clanked in the dense quiet and she held her breath. No one responded, Ed’s snores were even and muffled from the back of the bungalow. Letti had never tried to run away before in her life, and there she was, doing it for the second time. But she would return to the Exleys before dawn … she would never return to Havana.

She walked the silent street then stood at her own front door. The key clicked and clanked and the opening yawned before her. Her house … her home with Bud, yet it was sad and empty. The new paint had been applied to the walls, the new carpet installed, but it was a shell of a life she had hoped for. She moved around the house like a ghost, opening window after window and reveling in the slight breeze that gently cooled the spaces. In the bedroom, she lay on the floor where she and Bud had made love. She curled to the side and gave herself to tears.

“Where are you my love? Come home to me, please.”

w

A full week had passed and night after night, Letti left the safety of Ed Exley’s house to find the solitude of her own. It wasn’t the secret she thought it was, for Ed was standing at the bedroom window, robe tight around himself and ready to run if anything happened to her during her nocturnal jaunts. He could see her enter the empty house, and see her leave it as the sun kissed the horizon.

Bud called daily, reporting to Ed but not talking to his young wife. What was there to say? Touch and go was the name of the game at the beginning, then it just got too hard to imagine explaining things from three thousand miles away. He ached for her, even cried for her at night, knowing he wasn’t doing the right thing, keeping quiet … but how else cold he handle this? Bud White really had no idea how to be a married man and he prayed it didn’t turn him back into a bachelor.

On the seventh day, he tapped on Ed’s door long after midnight. He knew about Letti’s nightly disappearances, but was hoping that night she’d stayed put. She hadn’t. Ed’s eyes demanded he be gentle with her and no words were exchanged as Bud bounded from the porch and charge at a full run down the street.

She lay silent and sleeping, a curled ball in the center of the newly carpeted bedroom floor. Images rolled and flitted through his mind; standing beside Letti on the hillside overlooking her family’s tobacco fields; holding her erect as her young brother’s casket lowered into Havana’s soil; the crash of the surf in the port; the warmth of her hand … the sweet heat of being deep inside her body. Saying “I do”.

Her face was so beautiful and he fought a painful groan. Fuck, she deserved better than him, deserved a man who knew how to treat a treasure like her. Bud had done everything he could and his heart was clear, his conscious was solid. What he needed now was to be replenished, refilled … and there was only one way to get that.

He wanted to simply lift her and carry her to the stuffy apartment, but that didn’t seem right. He didn’t like the idea of fucking his wife on the carpet but at least this time, it was new. He actually liked the muted tan color of it. Bud sighed and it suddenly occurred to him that he had been officially married a month. He had some catching up to do.

He knelt silently beside her, not wanting to frighten her but unable to wait another moment. Slowly he slid from his clothes and carefully snuggled close, spooning at her back, his knees curled into the back of hers and his hand moving a tender circle on her lovely, satin covered hip.

“Letti, sweetheart,” he whispered and she stirred. “Wake up, baby. I’m home. Letti, wake up.”

Her head jerked and she pulled away, terror in her eyes as she swung to see who was touching her. Faster than he thought an idea could register, her tear filled eyes smiled with the rest of her body as it wrapped around him. Again, no words. There were none.

Removing the robe and nightgown proved impossible, their arms were twisted and tight and he settled for hiking the satin up, pressing inside with one desperate thrust then seeking the nourishment of a breast. But Bud wanted everything and he wanted it immediately. His hips pumped but his mouth watered. He jerked out of her path and plunged his tongue into it, tasting what he had come to think of was a flavor out of his dreams. It was real. She trembled, shuddered then yielded to an explosive climax. More, more, he wanted more. His fingers dove as his lips clamped over the rock hard button and he sucked a relentless rhythm. Again she shot for the stars but until he heard her beg for mercy, he didn’t stop. He was a starving man who thought he’d lost everything and would never eat again.

Rising over her, he again pressed an entry, this time thoughtful, slow but intense. Her tightness was taunting, teasing, the path still rippling with aftershocks. Love, marriage … it was all complicated. An occasional, casual woman would have tossed him out on his ear, probably called the cops for his behavior, just waking her up like that; his intention, taking what he hoped was his to have. A different wife might have stopped the flow of it all, insisted on negotiation or even retaliation before allowing him to love her. Was it Letti … or their circumstances that made this marriage unique? None of it mattered, at that moment, his body ran everything.

When it was done, when they were both washed over with exhaustion and ached from the encounter, he curled her close and covered her with his jacket. Her head rested on his shoulder and he reveled in the comfort of his injured back pressing against the solid floor. Silently they watched a pale dawn brighten the window and Letti sighed. She didn’t ask, so he did what he had to do. He told her everything, told her as gently as he could, then held his breath. Everything was now in Leticia White’s hands.

w

Charlie Price held back his growing terror, pounded it down like the fists that had pummeled him. Castro’s men were brutal by nature and even the young American could see that these guys were playing war for keeps. Long gone was his sympathy that the top dogs in Fidel’s pack were rebelling against unfairness and a lifetime of poverty. The officers cared nothing of political philosophy or the rights of men, communism or democracy. They were animals drawn to the scent of a fight, resourceful enough to place themselves in Castro’s line of vision and prepared to ride the man’s coattails to the top of Cuba’s new found power.

They took pride and pleasure in their job, and they did it well … as evidenced by the strategically broken bones, filthy clothing and blood soaked hair Charlie had come to accept as the norm.

Three weeks they’d had him. He wasn’t an idiot; he had long ago given up the fantasy of getting his interview, telling the truth about Cuba. He only had half a story without a face to face with the monster. Hell, chances were, he’d see the gates of heaven before he’d ever see the face of Fidel Castro. In slow bites he swallowed a few realities. He’d never see America again; never see his family again … never breathe as a free man again. But on the bright side … it probably won’t matter because he could endure as long as they could, and he was sure he was beginning to bore the hell out of his captures. It wasn’t going to last too much longer.

Fuck. Charlie was a kid, what did they really think he knew? What leverage did they think holding him gave them? The revolution was supported and financed by more avenues than even Charlie could imagine. Whatever they thought they could get from him or for his release was minimal. Day twenty-three as counted on his fingers … and time to try something else.

“Hey! Mi Compadre!” Charlie shouted. Yeah, they forgot to feed him again. It was becoming a new pattern, now he got his bread once a day but he got to smell the delicious food his captors ate three times a day. Pricks. “Hey! I got something to tell you! Hey!”

Fear didn’t come into play. Hell, what there left to be afraid of? He’d been beaten, starved, shot and broken. What else could they do to him?

“What do you want?” shouted a hairy soldier, his fingers still holding a greasy piece of chicken that looked like heaven to Charlie. The kid swallowed hard and pulled his eyes from the meat.

“Hey, I got something to tell your boss. Get someone important down here or I might die of starvation before I can pass on this really, really important information.”

The imbecile blinked, ran dirty fingers down his beard then tossed the chicken into the wine cellar gate and left.

Charlie Price actually counted to ten before lifting the bone and sucking the ounce or two of meat from it. It took little nourishment to brighten the lights in his brain, he hadn’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours and he realized that his choice of timing might just be counter productive. What did he have to tell the officer? Oddly, something he hadn’t even thought to say before. He let his mind rehearse the speech.

Buddy, you want your message out, I’m the one to do it. I have a New York Times publisher waiting for your story and I’m the man who can write it exactly the way you want it stated. Exactly … to the letter. Trust me, mister; it’s the only thing I got to help your cause. Either take it … of finish me off.

Yeah, that was exactly what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. And for the first time since arriving in Cuba, Charlie was actually scared. No matter. The officer came to the gate and Charlie repeated his rehearsed statement.

EPILOG
Christmas Eve, 1959

Bud’s first wedding anniversary. He’d made it, managed to stay married a year and what a year. Active duty came soon enough and he went through the entire mess of arguing and negotiating with Letti, convincing her that he was as safe as any cop could be. It was frustrating and it was flattering. When had anyone cared like that about him? It made an impact and Bud became a more careful cop, took risks only when he had no other choice and often stopped to think before he swung a fist.

And there was more, lots more. One of the best things was lying in his arms. Well, earlier than that was Letti herself, but in the mid-morning quiet of a much needed day off, Bud was sitting on his sofa holding his two month old son … Charles White, name for a brave young man to which he and Letti owed so much.

Bud would never know if it was Castro’s men or the New York Times that really killed Charlie Price. He felt it in his gut the minute he first read the story. The thrill of seeing Charlie’s byline … the curiosity of how the kid escaped … then the realization that he hadn’t. The story was obviously chopped up and the writing style was a mesh of several hands. Doing a little snooping, Bud learned that the story, mysteriously received by the editor in the mail, read like a communist propaganda flyer. The New York Times wanted the story but not like that; so he wrote out what didn’t fit into his politics … and inevitably placed young Charlie in front of a firing squad. Bud was enraged.

“You fuckin’ idiot! The story was a cry for help! That kid was trying to let you know he was still alive!”

“I wasn’t printing that story as it was!” snarled the editor over the telephone.

Bud’s fists tightened, his heart raced and his blood heated dangerously. Lucky for Mr. Newspaper Editor, he was thousands of miles away. “You weren’t supposed to print the fuckin’ story; you were supposed to notify someone, dammit!” Two days later, Charlie’s body was dumped on a Florida beach and America got just a little more afraid of the Cuban threat. Bud made one last call to Mr. Frank Price and offered condolences.

The infant snuggled and Bud’s big hand cupped over wispy soft curls. Fuck he loved the smell of the baby, the way it slept like that in his arms. Delicious scents drifted from the kitchen along with the happy voices of women. He closed his eyes and listened. Letti, her sing-song accent; Marlene, reprimanding little Betsy and attempting to keep her from Bud and the baby … and the gentle laughter of Carmelita Fuentes.

Ed Exley was at the station and Carlos was putting lights on the Christmas tree across the living room.

Bud sighed and slouched deeper. He watched the man work carefully, making sure there were no repeated colors too close together and that the bulbs were evenly spaced. Carlos was a detail man … and the hero of a small, conquered nation. Under the penname of Carl Franklin, (a safe author’s name according to Carlos’ publisher), he wrote the fictionalized novel entitled “An Island Falls”. It climbed the best sellers list quickly and Hollywood was nosing around it. The book brought comfort, a bit of wealth … and eased the blow of everything the Fuentes family had lost. Carlos and Carmelita purchased a house between the White’s and the Exleys’ and Bud had to grin at the neighbors and their there goes the neighborhood expressions. What the fuck, things had to change and all Americans, even those living in sunny Los Angeles had to learn it.

Life was about more than the good guys and the bad guys. It was about more than Hollywood movies or fields of tobacco. Life was about the survival, about the struggle … about the sadness and the joys.

Betsy had escaped the women and thrown herself onto the sofa with a little bounce. Bud grinned and watched her lean her head against his arm and tenderly touch the baby with a small fingertip.