Colonel Rutherford's Colt by Lucius Shepard Page A

left the house.
    While stopping in Santiago, on his way back from Guantanamo several days later, the colonel, having satisfactorily settled a thorny problem of miscommunication between the commandant of the base and a loose association of local fisherman, treated himself to a night at the house belonging to Sra. Amalia Savon, an establishment known more famously amongst the locals as Tia Maria’s. The colonel almost never frequented such places, but on those occasions when he did he justified the indulgence by telling himself that the tutelage of a wise professional would serve to inform his own instruction of Susan. On this particular evening, after spending several pleasant hours with a young lady by the name of Serafina, he repaired to the downstairs bar where, in the company of several Cuban gentlemen, he helped himself to a large post-coital brandy and a good cigar. As he sat in a comfortable chair of red velvet in a quiet corner, nursing his brandy and less thinking than savoring the quality of his satisfaction, he was approached by a distinguished elderly man with a full head of white hair, wearing a cream-colored suit and walking with a malacca cane; he had in tow a much younger fellow, a reedy, sallow sort wearing fawn slacks and a yellow guayabera .
    â€œYour pardon, Colonel Rutherford,” said the elderly man with a bow. “I am Doctor Eduardo Lens y Rivera. You may recall that we met last April in Havana at the American Embassy. We had a brief discussion regarding the regulatory body that oversees imports into your great country.”
    â€œOf course! Doctor Lens!” The colonel’s pleasure was genuine. Lens had struck him as a reasonable politician, an anomaly among his grasping, shortsighted colleagues.
    â€œMay I present my wife’s cousin?” Doctor Lens indicated the younger man. “Odiberto Saenz y Figueroa.”
    â€œMucho gusto,” said Odiberto, and shook the colonel’s hand.
    Once they had taken chairs adjoining his, the colonel said, “I apologize for not recognizing you straightaway, Doctor. I was . . .”
    â€œPlease!” Doctor Lens held up a hand to restrain the colonel’s excuses. “There is no need to explain. Following an evening at Tia Maria’s, a man tends to re-order his perspectives.”
    After further pleasantries, compliments all around to the women of Cuba, those of America, as well as various other Caribbean nations, Doctor Lens slid forward in his chair and rested both hands on the macaw-shaped gold head of his cane. “Colonel,” he said, “there is something I wish to discuss with you, but I hesitate because it is a matter of considerable personal delicacy.”
    â€œPersonal?” The colonel set his brandy down. “Personal in what way?”
    â€œIn the deepest and most fundamental way. It relates to your family.”
    â€œI’m afraid I have no real family,” the colonel said. “My sister and parents have passed on. There is only my wife and . . .”
    â€œExactly,” said Doctor Lens; then, after a pause: “Truly, colonel, I do not wish to offend. I bring this matter to your attention only because I would wish it brought to mine were our positions reversed.”
    â€œLet me get this straight. You have information concerning my wife?”
    â€œInformation is, perhaps, too strict a word. What I have is a story told by one young man to another. Young men are prone to boasting. All I can do is offer you the opportunity to hear the story and make your own judgment as to its authenticity. Should you not care to hear it, then I will beg your pardon and take my leave.”
    Shaken, the colonel curled his fingers round the brandy glass, but felt he did not have the strength to lift it. The idea that Susan had been unfaithful, and he could think of no other circumstance that would cause Doctor Lens to come forward in so oblique a fashion . . . It