The Havana Game

by John Lutz

  “Senator North sits on the Intelligence Committee, which has called Laker to testify. It would be the height of impropriety for me to plead on Laker’s behalf.”

  The staffer hesitated, fingered his glasses back into place. “You wouldn’t bullshit me, Ms. North? I mean, you mention Laker and my ass is grass.”

  “Not a word, I promise.”

  “Just wait here, he’ll be right in.” The staffer rose, buttoned his coat, and set off to avert another crisis.

  Only a few minutes later, Uncle Chuck appeared. He looked like a senator, with abundant silver hair, a forehead corduroyed with the cares of office, and a broad, bright smile. In his shirtsleeves, he showed a slight paunch, but it would be concealed when he put on his suit coat.

  “My favorite niece! Come give me a hug. How long has it been?”

  “The New Year’s Day family get-together, at Aunt Paige’s in Georgetown.”

  “As recently as that? Seems a lot longer. How are things at the NSA?”

  “I just got fired. Or to be exact, quit before I could be fired.”

  That extinguished his smile. His head drooped and his shoulders slumped. He eased her into a chair and patted her shoulder before settling in the seat across the table. “Well, that’s just terrible. Why don’t you tell me all about it, and then I’ll get on the phone and—”

  “Thanks, Uncle, but no. I’m here about something much more important than my job.” She told him about Ken Brydon, leaving out only Stan Rahmberg’s ongoing search. She wasn’t going to mention Rahmberg to anyone. Her uncle listened in grave silence. The silence continued after she was finished.

  Chuck North was not alone among senators in being slow to commit himself. Ava decided to put it to him.

  “What I’m asking is that you’ll arrange an appointment for me with my boss,” she said.

  “I’m sure you don’t need me to get an appointment with the director of NSA.”

  “I mean the Secretary of Defense.”

  “Oh. Well, when you’re going over people’s heads, why not go all the way? And my asking for this appointment for you carries the implication that if he doesn’t do as you request, he’ll have to explain himself to the Intelligence Committee?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Sound tactics. Your Grand-dad Ephraim would’ve been proud of you. But here’s the thing, Ava. SecDef would know it’s an empty threat. In my committee—hell, in this Congress, there is absolutely no chance of getting an investigation off the ground if its ultimate target would be Rodrigo Morales.”

  “How can that be? I know he’s a media celebrity. I’m sure he makes campaign contributions to all the right people, but—”

  “Both true. But not the reasons why he’s untouchable. It’s this Cuba deal. Practically everybody wants to see it go through.” Her silence made him frown. “You don’t know about it? Then let me provide a little background.”

  Uncle Chuck was always generous with background, when he wasn’t going to give you anything else. He put his elbows on the table and leaned toward her. “Fidel is gone. Raúl is gone. There’s a new government in Havana. We’re not sure what to make of them yet, but none of them are named Castro, and that gives us an opportunity.”

  “To improve relations?”

  “Yes. Hell, Ava, this is a tropical paradise, just off our shores. And who’s making money off it? The Europeans. The Canadians. My friends are saying they want to get in there and start building hotels.”

  Ava nodded. When Uncle Chuck said “friends” in that tone, he meant campaign contributors.

  “And Cuba would be more than just another stop for the cruise ships. Biggest island in the Caribbean, with ample natural resources and a rich culture. Ambitious, hard-working people. They’re more like us than other Latin Americans. Hell, from the Spanish-American War to the Revolution, Cuba was practically part of the United States. They built their Capitol on purpose to look like ours.” He waved in the direction of the Capitol building. “We want things to get back to normal.”

  “Seems you’ve been wanting that for a long time. But the Cuban Americans have been stopping you.”

  “Yes. The exiles have done well, in Florida and other states. They’ve got money and political influence way out of proportion to their small numbers. And most of ’em are still as mad today as when Castro kicked ’em out. They say, the embargo stays. Keep up the pressure on the new government about political prisoners and human rights. Not till they’re purified of the slightest taint of Communism will we deal with them.”

  “Isn’t Rodrigo Morales a Cuban exile?”

  “The Moraleses are an old Spanish colonial family. Castro stripped them of everything before he kicked them out. Rodrigo’s grandfather was personally denounced by Che Guevara as a leading exploiter of the proletariat. His great-uncle died in the Bay of Pigs. You can’t beat credentials like that.”

  “And he’s made a deal with the Cuban government?”

  “Right. For a new resort hotel. Yemayá, he calls it, after one of those rickshaw fellas they have down there—”

  “You mean orishas? Santeria gods?” Ava reflected that her uncle wouldn’t have won four elections in Oklahoma if he didn’t have the knack of making people forget they were talking to a Yale graduate.

  “That’s right, honey. You should have heard the outcry from the Cuban Americans when word leaked. Their radio stations and newspapers called him gu-sano. Escoria.”

  “Worm. Scum.”

  “Yes. What made it worse was the man he was dealing with. The Minister of the Interior, Ivan Gonçalves.”

  “Ivan? Odd name for a Cuban.”

  “He was born in the days when the Soviet Union saw Cuba as its junior partner in world socialist revolution. Subsidized the Cubans generously. Young Ivan was educated at Moscow University. Groomed for power by Fidel himself. Now he’s one of the last of the old-time Commies. A dead-ender.”

  “And he was willing to deal with Morales?”

  “Since the Soviets fell, the Cubans haven’t been able to find anybody else to give them handouts. They had that crazy man Chávez in Venezuela for a while, but he died. Now the Cuban economy is in desperate shape. They blame it on our embargo. We say socialism didn’t work anywhere else, why do you expect it to work in Cuba? Whichever, the Cuban people have empty bellies. And this Morales resort will be the biggest development since the fifties.”

  “But Uncle Chuck—you said Gonçalves is a die-hard Communist. And Morales is a total capitalist. How could they agree on a deal?”

  “There’s a lot of speculation,” the senator said. “But that’s all it is. Morales plays his cards close to the vest. Here’s what I can tell you. In Cuba, construction has begun. In Miami, Morales is managing to keep the Cuban exile community mollified. And in Washington, my colleagues and their campaign contributors are thinking finally we’ve found the man who can open Cuba up. Nobody wants to make trouble for him.”

  Ava pushed back her chair and stood. “Thanks for your time, uncle.”

  He rose with her. “I know politics is frustrating, Ava. I just wasted your time talking to you about Cuba. You’re worried about a security breach in Fort Meade and a murder in Baltimore. Things that have nothing to do with Cuba.”

  I’m not so sure about that, Ava thought. But she said nothing, just kissed her uncle’s cheek and went out. She was also thinking of another relative who might be useful to contact. One very different from Uncle Chuck.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was one of those March days when New York seemed a lot more than two hundred miles north of Washington. On her way to Union Station to board the Metroliner, Ava had walked through a warm, gentle drizzle. She could almost sense the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin straining to burst into bloom. Here in Brooklyn, she was staggering through spatters of windblown sleet.

  At last her destination came in view: a tall, narrow nineteenth-century townhouse with an elegantly corniced bay window and mansard roof. It had
been built as one in a row, but the others had all fallen as the neighborhood declined, and with vacant lots on either side, it looked as forlorn as the last tooth in an old man’s jaw.

  It was said in the North family that cousin Tilda bought houses because she felt sorry for them. It was said with some resentment, because the neighborhoods around these houses tended to improve at a rapid clip, allowing Tilda to sell for several times more than she had bought. She’d been moving steadily eastward across Brooklyn for the last quarter-century, a well-compensated refugee from the gentrification she’d helped kick off. She didn’t like to live among high-end chain stores and stuffy neighbors.

  Maybe she’d already moved on from this house, Ava thought as she approached, for there was a Muslim woman in a black chador sweeping the tall stoop.

  “Excuse me,” Ava said. “I’m looking for Tilda North?”

  The figure in the long, shapeless garment turned, and she was looking into the bright blue eyes of her cousin, who had inherited them from her namesake, their grandmother, the famed Washington hostess Matilda Brigham North.

  “Ava!”

  “Tilda!”

  They hugged. Ava said, “I didn’t know you had converted.”

  “Oh, this. I found it hanging from the newel post on the stairway, and I had to put on something. I was in my scanties, and the stoop had to be dealt with right away.”

  Ava looked around. She hadn’t seen so many empty bottles and glass fragments since her last trip to the recycling center.

  “There was a party last night,” Tilda explained. “It got a bit out of hand. Why do men have to smash bottles, do you know? I mean, I know they were drunk on their asses, but still—”

  “Don’t you have staff to clean up for you?”

  “They fled en masse at 3 A.M. Party got too wild for them. Ava, can you wait a moment? I want to put on something more secular. And I suppose Reza will be wanting her chador back at some point.”

  “Reza? A friend?”

  “We got to talking on the subway, and I invited her to the party. I thought it would broaden her horizons.”

  It had probably done so, if the chador had ended up hanging on a newel post. “Can I come in with you?”

  “Better not. Guests are sleeping here and there, and it’d be cruel to wake them. They’re going to have such terrible headaches. Not to mention, some of them will be very surprised to see who’s next to them.”

  As her cousin slipped quietly through the door, Ava put up the hood of her parka against the sleet and set to work with the broom and dustpan.

  It wouldn’t be fair to say that the family regarded Tilda as their black sheep. Norths weren’t stuffy people. But many of them held public office, and it made their lives difficult when the family name was dragged through the headlines of tabloid newspapers or disreputable websites.

  And no North had been dragged as frequently as Tilda.

  She’d been kicked out of so many boarding schools that eventually none could be found to take her. She finished her education at Frederick Douglass High in Virginia. When in office, Norths strongly supported public education, but none of them actually went to public schools. In a way that was hard to explain, it made matters even more embarrassing for them that she was such a success at Douglass High, becoming head cheerleader and homecoming queen.

  At graduation, she was three months pregnant, and promptly married her boyfriend, a stock car racing driver named Dwayne Truehart. The Norths gave a collective shudder, and consoled themselves that at least it would now be the name Truehart she’d be dragging through the headlines. But Tilda had kept the family name, and done additional homage to it by naming her son Dakota. Two years later, she named his sister Carolina.

  By that time, Dwayne had departed. Since Tilda did not marry again, the family felt sorry for her children. But they’d turned out rather well. Dakota North had just dropped out of Stanford to head a hi-tech start-up, and Carolina North was a fast-rising player on the pro tennis circuit.

  Tilda had started her working career as a wedding planner. She lived for parties anyway and was very good at it. Mounting a ceremony in Beverly Hills had led to a job producing reality-TV shows. One had become a runaway hit, causing many a North to reach for the remote or leave the room if everybody else insisted on watching.

  In one way, Tilda was a typical North. By the age of forty, she’d made so much money that it was time to move on. But instead of dedicating herself to public service in the usual North way, she dedicated herself to having a good time.

  The door opened and Tilda reappeared in sweater and jeans, gently shutting it behind her. Approaching fifty, she remained youthful looking, a slender figure with a head of artfully dyed blond hair and the family features of straight nose and stubborn chin. She was wearing a gold Patek Philippe watch on her right wrist and a plastic medical alert bracelet on her left. She had a rare blood type. Tilda wasn’t much on precautions as a general thing, but she’d been wearing a bracelet every time Ava had seen her. She had them in every color of the rainbow. This one was forest green to match her sweater.

  “Oh, thanks,” she said. “The stoop looks much better. How are you?”

  “Not so good. I suppose you’ve heard the family gossip?”

  “I never listen to gossip unless it’s about me. What happened?”

  “I quit the NSA before they could fire me.”

  “Congratulations, Ava. Jobs are so overrated. All they do is keep you from making real money. What do you plan to do now?”

  “Well, I thought I’d just kick back and enjoy my trust fund for a while.”

  Tilda raised her eyebrows. She said, “I expect you’ve hardly touched it so far. How can I help?”

  “I remembered you generally head down to Miami Beach this time of year.”

  “Oh, yes. The family always says I’m way too old to go on spring break, don’t they?”

  “I want to go with you.”

  “To do what?”

  “Parasail by day, party by night.”

  “Hmm. Ava?”

  “Yes?”

  “Before we go any further, I have to tell you that I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”

  Ava was brought up short. Her plan called for carrying out an elaborate and daring deception. This was an unpromising start. “How come you don’t believe me, coz?”

  “Because I know you, coz. Your idea of a vacation is building houses for Habitat for Humanity in Detroit or conducting bison counts in Montana. You couldn’t be frivolous if you tried—though you’d try very hard. Start again. Why do you want to go to Miami?”

  “I’m hoping you can maneuver me into the social orbit of Rodrigo Morales.”

  “You want to get up close and personal with Ruy? I assure you, he’s better seen from a distance. Better still on television.”

  “All the same, I’d like to meet him.”

  “Why?”

  Ava hesitated. “How good are you at keeping secrets, coz?”

  “Terrible. Don’t tell me.”

  “Then let’s just say I’m curious about Morales’s business activities. I want to observe and ask questions.”

  Tilda folded her arms tightly and hunched her shoulders. She gazed into the drifting sleet, looking uncharacteristically somber. Finally she said, “No.”

  “You won’t help me?”

  “I won’t introduce you to Ruy Morales.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s a dangerous man.”

  Ava laughed. “You mean, he’s broken so many hearts? I know about the three marriages and the countless scandals. I’m not planning to have an affair with him.”

  “I don’t mean that at all.” Tilda turned her head and looked into Ava’s eyes. “I mean, people have disappeared, when they’ve tried to do the kind of thing you’re trying to do. Can’t the NSA send someone else?”

  “Coz, I really am out of the NSA.”

  “Oh! I thought that was part of your cover or whatever it’s cal
led. So this is your own idea. They shitcan you, and you’re going to risk your life for them. You are such a North.”

  “Morales needs to be checked out, and nobody else seems willing to do it. When I tell you what he’s done—what I think he’s done—”

  Tilda put up a hand. “No. As you say, it’s better I don’t know, if I’m going to help you. And I do mean if. I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Why do you say he’s dangerous?”

  “He has an oversize ego and an uncontrollable temper. He’s not particularly smart, contrary to his reputation as a brilliant dealmaker. But he has other people to do the thinking for him.”

  “Carlucci?”

  “Ah. You’ve heard about Carlucci.”

  “I’ve seen him. A haircut like Shakespeare, and a face somewhere between Richard III and Iago.”

  “Better watch that sort of thing, if you’re going to meet Ruy. He hates well-read women.”

  “Does that mean you’ll introduce me to him?”

  Tilda twirled her med-alert bracelet while she thought about it. At last she said, “If I don’t, you’ll go blundering around Miami Beach on your own, and we can’t have that.”

  “Thanks, coz.”

  “But there’s a lot more to it than an introduction. If you expect Ruy Morales to give you more than one glance, you’re going to need a lot of work.”

  “You mean, what they call a makeover? I’ve never had one.”

  “That’s obvious. Honestly, coz, I’ve never known a beautiful woman who did less to earn it than you. We’re going to my spa for a few days.”

  They stood. Tilda looked her up and down. “And I can promise you, you won’t be wearing that civil service dark blue pantsuit again.”

  Ava smiled. “It was out. I wore it yesterday to visit Uncle Chuck in the Senate Office Building.”

  “You asked Chuck for help? And of course he did nothing for you.”

  “How did you know?”

  “That’s what he’s been doing for the country for the last twenty years.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The sign stuck in the ground in front of Laker’s bench said, in French, “Please don’t walk on the grass. It’s winter and the lawn is resting.”