Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,24
the sinister-looking henchmen surrounding Batista in the booth. “The man next to him in the soldier’s uniform looks mean,” Gabriela said. “Who is he?”
“Oh, that’s Guillermo Sanchez. He’s a major in the secret police, and he is mean. He murdered a lot of people for Batista, and he even stuck one man’s head on a long pole and mounted it in front of his house.”
Gabriela shivered when she heard this, and the next night, another tremor ran through her when she spotted Guillermo Sanchez sitting by himself at a table near the stage. During the show, she caught him staring at her, and she quickly looked away.
“Seems like you have a fan,” the other showgirls teased Gabriela when Sanchez started coming to the club all the time. It was clear that Gabriela was the one who had captured his fancy because he seldom took his eyes off her during the show. But Sanchez never approached her for a private dance. He kept his distance, Gabriela assumed, because Miguel had told him that she didn’t do private dances and being unattainable made her all the more attractive to him.
When she hadn’t seen Sanchez at La Europa for a couple of weeks, Gabriela thought that he had grown tired of watching her perform. Then, in the early morning hours of March 10, 1952, the golpe happened—the military coup d’état that Diego had suspected Batista of plotting with his henchmen.
A few nights after President Prío had fled Cuba, Guillermo Sanchez was back at La Europa, celebrating the coup with some other army officers as they downed one drink after another. Their loud laughter and raucous shouts caught Gabriela’s attention while she was sitting at the bar after the show. She looked in their direction and was alarmed to see Sanchez staring back at her like a hungry cougar waiting to pounce. He raised his hand, pointed to her, and signaled to Miguel, who was standing at the bar.
Before she knew what was happening, Miguel had yanked Gabriela off her stool and was leading her to a room upstairs.
“Miguel, let me go!” she cried as she tried to wriggle out from his iron grasp, but he held on to her firmly.
“Shhh, don’t make any trouble,” he told her. “Just do what the major wants, and everything will be fine. Otherwise, heads will roll.”
Gabriela remembered what Diego had told her about the head of a Sanchez victim on a pole, and her heart froze with terror.
“She’s all yours,” Miguel said to the major when he saw Sanchez lumbering toward them, obviously drunk. He handed Sanchez a key, then turned on his heel and left.
Sanchez opened the door and roughly pushed Gabriela inside. Then he locked the door, pocketed the key, and turned toward her. When he began ripping off her clothes, Gabriela felt a scream rising in her throat. She clutched at the half of a silver locket that she always wore on a chain around her neck and silently prayed to her mother in heaven to help her.
Carmela must have heard her prayer because, at that moment, Sanchez stumbled on the worn carpet and fell backward against a table. While he pawed at the air, trying to regain his balance, Gabriela picked up a lamp and brought it down on Sanchez’s head with all her might.
“You little puta,” he mumbled as he sank to the floor and passed out.
Gabriela didn’t care that he had called her a prostitute. All she wanted was to get the key out of his pocket without rousing him. She kneeled down beside Sanchez’s prone body and, shuddering at the sight of the gun strapped around his waist, slipped the key out of his pocket as delicately as if she was threading a needle. He stirred, and Gabriela leaped to her feet when she saw Sanchez’s hand reach blindly for his gun.
Without looking back, Gabriela bolted for the door and was out in the hallway—and ran smack into Diego. Oh, no, she thought, he’s come to make me go back in that room and let that horrible, drunken murderer and rapist have his way with me.
But Diego took her arm and said, “Come with me, Gabriela. I know a way to get out of here without anyone seeing us.”
Flooded with relief, Gabriela clung to him as he flew down a back stairway to the street. Once outside and at a safe distance from La Europa, Gabriela put her arms around Diego and hugged him, wetting his cheek with her tears.