My other meetings with him have always taken place in comfortable rooms or suites in good hotels. Now, on a day like this one, he had picked one of the few places in New York (aside from my damned apartment) that was not air-conditioned. He sat in a leather chair, then got to his feet at my approach and crossed the areaway to shake hands. He had already sweated through his shiny gray suit, and he looked as uncomfortable as he had every right to be. “Ah, Tanner,” he said. “Excuse this heat and this mess.”

He sat down. His was the only chair in the room. He nodded vaguely at a bundle of hides and I sat on it. He picked up a bottle and a couple of glasses.

“Scotch?”

“With a lot of ice.”

“I’m afraid there’s no ice,” he said.

We drank our drinks and chatted. I asked him if he happened to know anything about the friends of mine who were lost in Africa, and he said that as far as he knew, they had been eaten. I had already come to that conclusion myself, but it would have been nice to know something more definite, one way or the other. One can resign oneself to a loss, even in such barbaric circumstances, but it’s dreary to have the whole business up in the air. Better the horrible fact than the horrible probability.

“ Cuba,” the Chief said suddenly. “Keep in touch with Cuba, Tanner?”

“Slightly.”

“Refugee groups, that sort of thing?”

“Yes.” Half of Florida belongs to one Cuban refugee group or another, and I know people in most of them. My favorite is the band that runs gunboats in the Caribbean sinking ships en route to Havana. Fidel doesn’t pay too much attention to them, but the U. S. Government makes their life rather difficult, and I think they can use all the support they can get. “Yes,” I said, “I know some men involved in those groups.”

“Thought you might. You were also involved in one of the front organizations, weren’t you? Play Fair with Fidel or something?”