Fidel on June 14, 1959. They fought well, they wiped out the invaders in just a few days, in the mountains of Costanza, on the beaches of Maimón and Estero Hondo. But the Marines…
“I won’t have many with me, I’m afraid. The rats running away will raise a dust storm. But you won’t have a choice, you’ll have to the with me. Wherever you go you’ll face jail, or assassination by the enemies you have all over the world.”
“I’ve made them defending the regime, Excellency.”
“Of all the men around me, the only one who couldn’t betray me, even if he wanted to, is you,” an amused Trujillo insisted. “I’m the only person you can get close to, the only one who doesn’t hate you or dream about killing you. We’re married till death do us part.”
He laughed again, in a good humor, examining the colonel the way an entomologist examines an insect difficult to classify. They said a lot of things about Abbes, especially about his cruelty. It was an advantage for somebody in his position. They said, for example, that his father, an American of German descent, found little Johnny, still in short pants, sticking pins into the eyes of chicks in the henhouse. That as a young man he sold medical students cadavers he had robbed from graves in Independencia Cemetery. That though he was married to Lupita, a hideous Mexican, hard as nails, who carried a pistol in her handbag, he was a faggot. Even that he had gone to bed with Kid Trujillo, the Generalissimo’s half brother.
“You’ve heard what they say about you,” he said, looking him in the eye and laughing. “Some of it must be true. Did you like poking out chickens’ eyes when you were a kid? Did you rob the graves at Independencia Cemetery and sell the corpses?”
The colonel barely smiled.
“The first probably isn’t true, I don’t remember doing it. The second is only half true. They weren’t cadavers, Excellency. Bones and skulls washed up to the surface by the rain. To earn a few pesos. Now they say that as head of the SIM, I’m returning the bones.”
“And what about you being a faggot?”
The colonel didn’t become upset this time either. His voice maintained a clinical indifference.
“I’ve never gone in for that, Excellency. I’ve never gone to bed with a man.”
“Okay, enough bullshit,” he cut him off, becoming serious. “Don’t touch the bishops, for now. We’ll see how things develop. If they can be punished, we’ll do it. For the moment, just keep an eye on them. Go on with the war of nerves. Don’t let them sleep or eat in peace. Maybe they’ll decide to leave on their own.”
Would the two bishops get their way and be as smug as that black bastard Betancourt? Again he felt his anger rise. That rat in Caracas had gotten the OAS to sanction the Dominican Republic and pressured the member countries to break off relations and apply economic pressures that were strangling the nation. Each day, each hour, they were damaging what had been a brilliant economy. And Betancourt was still alive, the standard-bearer of freedom, displaying his burned hands on television, proud of having survived a stupid attempt that never should have been left to those assholes in the Venezuelan military. Next time the SIM would run everything. In his technical, impersonal way, Abbes explained the new operation that would culminate in the powerful explosion, set off by remote control, of a device purchased for a king’s ransom in Czechoslovakia and stored now at the Dominican consulate in Haiti. It would be easy to take it from there to Caracas at the opportune moment.
Ever since 1958, when he decided to promote him to the position he now held, the Benefactor had met every day with the colonel, in this office, at Mahogany House, wherever he might be, and always at this time of day. Like the Generalissimo, Johnny Abbes never took a vacation. Trujillo first heard about him from General Espaillat. The former head of the Intelligence Service
“I won’t have many with me, I’m afraid. The rats running away will raise a dust storm. But you won’t have a choice, you’ll have to the with me. Wherever you go you’ll face jail, or assassination by the enemies you have all over the world.”
“I’ve made them defending the regime, Excellency.”
“Of all the men around me, the only one who couldn’t betray me, even if he wanted to, is you,” an amused Trujillo insisted. “I’m the only person you can get close to, the only one who doesn’t hate you or dream about killing you. We’re married till death do us part.”
He laughed again, in a good humor, examining the colonel the way an entomologist examines an insect difficult to classify. They said a lot of things about Abbes, especially about his cruelty. It was an advantage for somebody in his position. They said, for example, that his father, an American of German descent, found little Johnny, still in short pants, sticking pins into the eyes of chicks in the henhouse. That as a young man he sold medical students cadavers he had robbed from graves in Independencia Cemetery. That though he was married to Lupita, a hideous Mexican, hard as nails, who carried a pistol in her handbag, he was a faggot. Even that he had gone to bed with Kid Trujillo, the Generalissimo’s half brother.
“You’ve heard what they say about you,” he said, looking him in the eye and laughing. “Some of it must be true. Did you like poking out chickens’ eyes when you were a kid? Did you rob the graves at Independencia Cemetery and sell the corpses?”
The colonel barely smiled.
“The first probably isn’t true, I don’t remember doing it. The second is only half true. They weren’t cadavers, Excellency. Bones and skulls washed up to the surface by the rain. To earn a few pesos. Now they say that as head of the SIM, I’m returning the bones.”
“And what about you being a faggot?”
The colonel didn’t become upset this time either. His voice maintained a clinical indifference.
“I’ve never gone in for that, Excellency. I’ve never gone to bed with a man.”
“Okay, enough bullshit,” he cut him off, becoming serious. “Don’t touch the bishops, for now. We’ll see how things develop. If they can be punished, we’ll do it. For the moment, just keep an eye on them. Go on with the war of nerves. Don’t let them sleep or eat in peace. Maybe they’ll decide to leave on their own.”
Would the two bishops get their way and be as smug as that black bastard Betancourt? Again he felt his anger rise. That rat in Caracas had gotten the OAS to sanction the Dominican Republic and pressured the member countries to break off relations and apply economic pressures that were strangling the nation. Each day, each hour, they were damaging what had been a brilliant economy. And Betancourt was still alive, the standard-bearer of freedom, displaying his burned hands on television, proud of having survived a stupid attempt that never should have been left to those assholes in the Venezuelan military. Next time the SIM would run everything. In his technical, impersonal way, Abbes explained the new operation that would culminate in the powerful explosion, set off by remote control, of a device purchased for a king’s ransom in Czechoslovakia and stored now at the Dominican consulate in Haiti. It would be easy to take it from there to Caracas at the opportune moment.
Ever since 1958, when he decided to promote him to the position he now held, the Benefactor had met every day with the colonel, in this office, at Mahogany House, wherever he might be, and always at this time of day. Like the Generalissimo, Johnny Abbes never took a vacation. Trujillo first heard about him from General Espaillat. The former head of the Intelligence Service
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