Havana Best Friends (4 page)

Nearly half an hour later, as she drove along Fifth Avenue heading east, Marina stole a glance at Sean in the passenger seat. Not a word had been said since they left Elena at her apartment. Sean appeared to be deep in thought, nibbling at his lower lip, indifferent to the vehicles ahead, the deserted sidewalks, the moonlight and tail lights playing across the artful plantings on the wide central walkway. She returned her eyes to the road, then took a deep breath before entering a tunnel under a river.

At Malecón and the base of Línea Avenue, she took O Street and two blocks along turned into the entrance of the Hotel Nacional. They left the rental in the parking lot, and, holding her hand, Sean steered her around a tiled Moorish fountain. A longhaired guitarist gently strummed his instrument for a group sitting on limestone benches in the courtyard. They walked across the lawn to the edge of a small cliff. Despite empty wooden benches to their right, they remained standing.

Two mammoth canons, remnants of what had been a Spanish gun emplacement until 1898, still aimed at where their last target – the USS
Montgomery –
had sailed a century earlier. Marina took in the serene vastness of the Florida Straits, the tiny lights from fishermen’s small boats on the water, the star-sprinkled sky. “The original soap dishes are still there. And the toilet-paper holder,” she said.

“Tell me something I don’t know. If they weren’t there, you wouldn’t have looked so elated when you came out of the bathroom, would you?”

“I guess not.”

They were both silent for a few moments.

“She said the building was completed in 1957.”

Sean stared at her, apparently satisfied. “You know, you’re a much better actress than I thought. You were pretty slick this evening.”

“Thanks.”

Another, shorter pause.

“Sean?”

“Yes.”

“The job’s done. It’s been done right, far as I can tell. We’ve
found out all we need to know. I’ve given it my best shot, as have you. So maybe I can ask you a question, okay?”

Sean locked gazes with Marina. She didn’t like his suppressed smile, the twinkle in his eyes. “Okay.”

“You said, ‘Don’t take anything for granted, don’t talk about our business in the rental and the hotel room; there may be hidden cameras and bugging devices.’ Well, I very much doubt these people want to, or can, get on tape every couple that comes here to spend a week, but since you were calling the shots I followed instructions. What really pisses me off is this driving around like frigging tourists, buying souvenirs, playing out this ludicrous honeymoon act, pawing each other in public. Why? Who’s going to suspect us? Why the fuck should anyone suspect us? We’ve been here for a week and haven’t even driven through a red light, for Christ’s sake! In this bankrupt banana republic the tourist is king.”

His gaze lost in the dark sea, Sean nodded. “So, you think I’ve been overcautious?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Okay, you’re entitled to your opinion. I won’t argue with you. The important thing is you did as you were told. Let’s move on. Tell me what you think of these guys.”

Marina clenched her jaw, annoyed that her concerns had been dismissed so lightly, but her tone remained controlled. “The freak’s a complete bastard. Never loses an opportunity to embarrass and belittle his own sister. It’s appalling how he looks down on her!”

Sean paused, then said, abstractedly scanning the blue-black horizon, “But she’s used to it.”

Marina glanced at the monument to the victims of the battleship
Maine
. To its left, right in front of the U.S. Interests Section, stood the square where the rallies for the return of Elián González took place. “Elena seems pretty decent, don’t you think? A reasonable person, not difficult at all,” she said.

“I agree,” Sean said. Then, as an afterthought: “Pablo thinks he’s the smartest, smoothest con artist on earth. That’s probably why Elena hates his guts. And why we should expect trouble from him.”

“Such intense hostility,” Marina said. “There’s a lot of bad blood between those two.”

“And he’s on coke.”

Marina turned to stare at Sean. “How can you tell?”

“I can tell.”

She faced the sea again. “What did you make of Elena sniggering when her brother said he made sixteen dollars a month?”

“That he’s making a lot more than that.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured too.”

“But he didn’t want us to know. And she’s so well mannered she didn’t squeal on a sonofabitch who humiliates her for the fun of it.”

They fell silent. Marina looked across the wide avenue at the metre-high seawall extending miles into the distance. On it, keeping respectful distances from each other, fishermen held lines. The lighthouse beam swept across the water with the same boring exactitude of all beacons.

“He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who would take his cut quietly and count his blessings,” she said, more to herself than to her companion.

Sean released the promise of a smile. “Lady, the word
sleazy
was coined for guys like him.” And pointing with his chin toward the ocean, he added, “He would drown his own mother right there to grab it all.”

“What about Elena? Would she agree to split it?”

“I don’t know. That woman is …,” he paused, searching for the right word.

“Unpredictable?” she prompted.

“No. Not at all. But
I
can’t predict how she would react to our proposition. We don’t know her views on a million things. She’s … difficult to pigeonhole. Special-needs teacher. What kind of a fucking profession is that? Makes me suspect she’s one of those principled, nose-in-the-air spinsters. Know what I mean? Living with her brother, no husband, no kids.”

“Maybe she married and divorced.”

“Why didn’t you ask her?”

“Didn’t want to give the impression I was prying.”

“Maybe you did right.”

Marina lowered her eyes and studied the straps of her sandals. “He said they’ve lived there all their lives. How old would you say she is?”

“Late thirties?” Sean surmised.

“Yeah, something like that, certainly not older than forty. And the freak?”

“I’d say thirty-five, thirty-six. He was fascinated by your thighs this morning.”

“I noticed. Horny little rat can’t keep his hands off women. You saw how he eyed the black waitress? She probably pukes after having sex with him.”

“You never know. Maybe he’s seven feet tall in bed.”

She raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t the kind of comment she’d expect from a man. So true, though: You never know. She remembered a shy, unassuming, scrawny, and slightly cross-eyed guy who had led her to the heights of pleasure. Only one of the few hunks she had bedded had taken her there, and he was blind. She wondered whether behind Sean’s remark lurked a phenomenal lover or a bit of a philosopher.

“Doesn’t look it to me,” she said. “What will we do with him?”

“Do with him?”

“You said we should expect trouble from him.”

“Sure. But is there something we can do?”

Marina considered it. “Forget it.”

“Fine.”

Sean seemed to be lost in thought for a moment. Then he raised his eyes to the hotel’s top floors. “I’ll rest my arm on your shoulders now, you circle my waist. Let’s go and have a nightcap.”

They sauntered back to the terrace and plopped down on a sofa. Sean ordered a Black Label on the rocks; Marina remained faithful to the local taste by ordering a mojito. Forty or fifty people relaxed on couches and armchairs, laughed at jokes, seemed to be enjoying themselves. Once their drinks arrived and they had taken a sip, a tall, overweight man sitting alone to their left pulled himself up and marched to the restroom.

“Excuse me, honey, I’ve got to take a leak,” Sean said.

Marina wanted to say “Me too” but decided to wait until he returned.

Sean unzipped in front of the urinal next to the one in which the tall, overweight man was relieving himself. He made sure the attendant standing by the door was out of earshot. “The short,
bald guy lives there. He speaks a little English and is a money-grabbing bastard on coke,” he said.

Without so much as a nod, the tall, overweight man shook his penis, buttoned up, and washed his hands. The attendant handed him paper towels. Before leaving the restroom the man dropped a quarter into the dish for tips. Feeling expansive, Sean left a dollar.

The following morning, at a quarter to nine, just as Marina and Sean boarded a DC-10 bound for Toronto, the tall, overweight man left the church of Santa Rita de Casia through the side entrance that faces 26th. He crossed the street and, holding his hands behind his back, head tilted backwards, stared at the ficus trees in the Parque de la Quinta. He appeared to be in his forties and had the powerful forearms and wrists of a dock worker. His brown eyes were lively, his thick moustache coffee-coloured, his lips full. After a few minutes circling the trees in awestruck contemplation, he slid behind the wheel of a black Hyundai and sped away.

The gardener and the sweeper who tended the park became intrigued when the man repeated the same routine two days in a row. Their curiosity, however, was not stirred by his arriving before eight and going into the church the minute it opened its doors. Several Cuban Catholics did the same and, occasionally, curious visitors explored the interior of the small, modern church. Some diplomats and executives of foreign companies – accompanied by their wives and children – also attended Mass on Sundays. What was strange about the tall, overweight man was his fixation with the ficus. The park attendants were accustomed
to seeing tourists stop by, but few returned, and those that did usually came back to show the mammoth trees to some other traveller. They wondered whether this guy was a botanist or an ecology freak.

They would have been even more puzzled had they seen him in the church. He invariably sat in the same pew, one from where he could keep an eye on 26th, paid no attention to the service, didn’t kneel or pretend to pray. His behaviour had drawn the attention of an overly anti-communist layman who reported to the parish priest that a State Security official was using his church to stake someone out.

On Tuesday, as he rounded the trunk of the ficus nearest to the bust of General Prado, the tall, overweight man spotted a short bald guy in a white
guayabera
leaving the apartment building that faced the park and darting down Third A toward 26th. His eyes still on the tree, the tall man strolled to the sidewalk and waited until his prey was within a couple of yards.

“You speak English?” he asked with a pleasant smile.

“Sure,” Pablo said, trying to look intelligent and knowledgeable. He had always envied huge men, and this bull-necked guy was at least six-foot-five.

“Thank heaven. You know the name of these trees?” the man asked, with a sweep of the hand that included all the ficus in the park.

“Ficus.”

“Can you spell it for me?”

Pablo said “F” and paused. One of his frequent confusions in English was to pronounce the “i” as an “e” and vice versa. He produced a small notebook and a ballpoint from a pocket of his
guayabera
, wrote down the name, then tore out the page.

“Well, thanks,” the tall, overweight man said as he took it. “Most amazing trees I’ve seen in this country.”

“Is that so?” Pablo was taking in the stranger, his mental wheels turning fast. The big bastard wore a navy-blue polo shirt, khaki shorts, white cotton socks, and sneakers.

“I hadn’t been able to learn their name. Not many people here speak English.”

“Yeah.”

“And what’s the name of this park?”

“Parque de la Quinta.”

“What does it mean?”

“Well …” Pablo scratched his bald head, as if picking his brain for the right translation.
“Quinta
in Spanish is … like a country house, know what I’m saying? Like a villa.”

“So, it’s the Park of the Country House.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, thanks for the information,” the big man said. “Wait a minute,” he added, fishing for his wallet and producing a twenty-dollar bill. “Here you are. Thanks.”

Pablo pounced on the bill thinking it was a fiver. When he saw the Jackson portrait, he was dumbfounded. Twenty bucks for the name of a tree and a park? What would this huge asshole fork out for being taken around town?