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Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Acknowledgments
For our mothers,
Eva Reeves Barnes
1928–1981
Patricia Stephens Due
1939–2012
in loving memory
“The very least I can do is afford you the opportunity of surviving the evening.”
—North by Northwest
“It’s so horribly sad. How is it I feel like laughing?”
—North by Northwest
Suggested MP3 Soundtrack
“Represent” (Orishas)
“El Cantante” (Héctor Lavoe)
“Night Life” (Aretha Franklin)
“In the Air Tonight” (Phil Collins)
“Conga” (Gloria Estefan)
“Somos Latinos” (Adalberto Alvarez y Su Son)
“Quimbara” (Celia Cruz & Willie Pacheco)
“Give It Up” (The Goodmen)
“Freak” (LFO)
“Culo” (Pitbull, featuring Lil Jon)
“SOS” (Rihanna)
Gasolina (DJ Buddha Remix) (Daddy Yankee, featuring Lil Jon, Noriega, and Pitbull)
“Gun Music” (Talib Kweli)
“Tha Crossroads” (Bone Thugs-n-Harmony)
“Can’t Let Go” (Anthony Hamilton)
“Shhh” (The Artist Formerly Known as Prince)
“Fame” (David Bowie)
“Dirty Laundry” (Don Henley)
“The Collector” (Nine Inch Nails)
“Welcome to the Terrordome” (Public Enemy)
“Tightrope” (Janelle Monáe featuring Big Boi)
“If This World Were Mine” (Luther Vandross, featuring Cheryl Lynn)
“A Lo Cubano” (Orishas)
ALL ACTORS DREAM of a meeting that will change our lives forever, but I didn’t dare hope that Gustavo Escobar would be mine. Even my agent had no idea why Escobar had called me. Escobar was an Oscar-nominated director on a hot streak, and I was lucky to have a job playing a corrupt lawyer on one of the last surviving soap operas.
After twenty years in the industry, I no longer believed in the Big Bang. My microscopic part in a respected film set during the Harlem Renaissance, Lenox Avenue, hadn’t done much for my career. And the last two Hollywood heavy hitters who had contacted me—both women—craved skills that had nothing to do with my acting. Let’s just say I was wary of calls from powerful strangers.
So when Escobar hadn’t shown up by nine o’clock for our eight thirty dinner meeting, I was sorry I had agreed to meet him without more questions. Once again, the joke was on me.
But it was hard to nurse a bad mood inside La Habana.
La Habana was L.A.’s new ethnic restaurant du jour, modeled after a 1930s Cuban supper club. That night, a full orchestra played a rousing rumba against colorful walls splashed with artificially aged murals of palm trees and revelers in old-fashioned Cuban dress. Black-and-white footage of bandleaders Beny Moré and Arsenio Rodríguez flickered on overhead screens. At least I would have an excuse to call my former girlfriend, April; I was glad for any novelties to bring us together.
I was pulling out my phone to give my agent the bad news when a hand rested on my shoulder. “Lo siento,” a man said. “Sorry, I’m on Cuban Time. Gus Escobar.”
I started to stand, but his firm hand on my shoulder told me not to bother. Instead, Escobar sat across from me with a wide smile, sweeping off his white fedora.
I was surprised to note from his short-trimmed graying hair that Escobar was probably in his fifties, long past the norm for an overnight success in Hollywood. He had a slightly rounded midsection, but he carried himself fluidly, like a man who was fit and comfortable in his own skin. His round, thick-framed black eyeglasses were prominent, more fashion than function. His skin had only a whisper of a suntan, so I wouldn’t have guessed his Latino heritage if I hadn’t known. His accent was as much Brooklyn as Havana.
“I lived in New York too long,” he said. “I never get used to the traffic.”
“No problem,” I said with my trademark grin. “Just glad to meet you, Mr. Escobar.”
“No, no, please, it’s Gus. You have to try the Bucanero beer. They keep extras on ice for me. Oye, Ramon!” He signaled for the waiter with two fingers.
Like a lot of Hollywood types, Escobar was broadcasting himself at full wattage, creating a character, but I liked him. Rather than focusing on himself, he pulled his chair closer and gave me his attention, as if I had summoned him. “You’re kind to make time for me on short notice,” he said. “I’m such an admirer. I saw Lenox Avenue, and you stole the scene. But Sofia Maitlin and I are distant cousins, did you know? She’s told me so many good things. She said you’ve never gotten full credit, but you’re a hero.”
Here it comes, I thought, my grin turning to concrete. A year before, I’d helped an A-list actress save her adopted South African daughter from a kidnapping ring. I’d forgotten that Maitlin shared Escobar’s Cuban lineage on her mother’s side. I was sure Escobar was about to offer me a job as a bodyguard, and I wasn’t interested.
But I was wrong. Escobar reached into his aged leather satchel and pulled out a script, which he nudged my way on the table. The title showed through the plastic sleeve: Freaknik.
“For your eyes only,” Escobar said. “I have a beautiful part for you. We start shooting in Miami this fall.” Then he waited for my response as if his livelihood depended on my answer.
The floor seemed to shift beneath my feet. I was glad the beer had arrived, because I needed a swig of moisture against my dry throat. I didn’t want to look as shocked as I felt.
“Good, no?” Escobar said, meaning the beer.
I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t tasted anything. My mind was still stuck on Escobar saying he had a part for me.
Three months before, Escobar had been featured on the cover of Entertainment Weekly during the Oscar campaign for his last film, Nuestro Tío Fidel, his arty biopic of Fidel Castro. He had lost the Best Director Oscar to Martin Scorsese, but barely. Len Shemin, my agent, had told me that his entire cl
ient list would kill to be in Gustavo Escobar’s next film.
“Why me?” Len would have kicked me under the table if he’d been there, but I asked.
“Lenox Avenue,” he said. “The fire in you. I want that fire for Freaknik.”
I wanted to hear more, but a respected young actor passing our table—I won’t say who—did a Scooby-Doo double take when he saw Escobar. He barely hid the who the hell are you glance he shot my way before he stretched out his hand to the director. He gushed at Escobar like a college coed meeting the team quarterback. Escobar was polite and patient while the actor angled for a meeting, but Escobar’s eyes frequently apologized to me for the intrusion.
“Thank you so much, but I . . .” Escobar began, hinting for privacy.
“Man, I’ve wanted to tell you,” the actor went on. “I’m blown away by your human portrait of Fidel. Our government talks shit about him, but you weren’t afraid to show the good he’s done. You didn’t take the easy road.”
Escobar shrugged. “Truth is in the eye of the beholder, but gracias.”
The actor excused himself reluctantly, his last gaze toward me full of burning envy. I gave him a mock salute before he walked away. Adios, asshole.
I’d watched Nuestro Tío Fidel to prepare for the meeting, but Fidel hadn’t seemed sympathetic to me in the film, which chronicled his transformation from a young revolutionary to a frail, paranoid dictator. Reviewers had compared Fidel’s depiction to Michael Corleone’s journey in The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. From what I’d heard, the Cuban exile community in Miami had practically proclaimed Escobar a patron saint.
“Fidel’s good side?” I said. “Was that what you were trying to show?”
“No man is only one thing.” Escobar winked, and I was sure he wasn’t talking about Fidel anymore. “The good and the bad are always at war.”
My father often told me how his pastor could stare at any congregant and see his story. That was how I felt sitting across from Escboar that night in La Habana, watching the glow of insight in his eyes. If he’d talked to Sofia Maitlin about me, he had doubtless spoken to others. He knew details about my history that I’d tried to bury in a deep hole. He seemed to know I was broken, afraid to dream, that I’d almost talked myself out of meeting him.
He might even know I had killed a man. Had Maitlin guessed and told him?
I wanted to say more. To confide. To confess. To explain.
Escobar nodded, as if I had spoken aloud. He sighed, and tears suddenly shone in his eyes, erased when he blinked. “Let me tell you something,” he began. “I lost everything and everyone as a boy. People ask why I would follow Fidel with a horror movie. I ask, why not? Loss is one of the true universal experiences. Our walking dead follow us. They know us as their own.”
For the next two hours, while patrons came and went and the orchestra packed up its music, Escobar talked to me about his project. Freaknik was a zombie movie only on the surface, he said. “This film, at its heart, is about love and redemption in the face of unspeakable evil,” Escobar said, tapping the script. “The ultimate trial. Like me, Tennyson, you’ve known trials. That’s why my vision won’t be complete without you.”
April and my father often said everything happens for a reason, but I never believed it until that moment. My worst experiences had led me to a table with a stranger who was willing to help me build a future in Hollywood. It wasn’t just the best night of my career; it was one of the best of my life.
If only I had known what real horror would be waiting in Miami.
All of us are the walking dead.
SALSA IS THE sound of Miami, and Miami changed everything. The Magic City’s betrayal follows me with music.
Salsa was blaring the night of Marcela’s birthday, when I was showing off the fruits of the dance skills that had once been a part of my trade. Dancing comes easily to me, so I was delighting Marcela’s sisters and girlfriends by twirling them two at a time—one in front, one in back—spinning and weaving through the intricate beat like a black Fred Astaire. Anybody watching me would have thought I’d been raised in the heart of Havana or San Juan. Baile!
I hate to brag, but this brother can dance his ass off in any language.
That night, my life’s pieces were still in place. When I have trouble sleeping, I hold that snapshot in my head, every detail close enough to touch. My patio was packed with Marcela Ruiz’s relatives, aunts and cousins and half-siblings of all ages and sizes, dancing with equal fervor. Up and down the street, the night was lit by candy-store colors.
I didn’t know anyone at the party. I didn’t even have a date. Didn’t matter.
Marcela was my father’s girlfriend, although girlfriend is a funny word for a woman in her fifties whose boyfriend is pushing eighty. Marcela coaxed my father back from the dead. She had become his “special friend” when he had his stroke and ended up in a nursing home years before. Marcela was an RN, and she’d taken a liking to Dad before he could speak or move, appreciating what was left. At the time, I saw nothing but a husk. Marcela gave me my father back, and Dad and I were doing better the second time around. LAPD Captain (Ret.) Richard Allen Hardwick was a cool-ass guy.
With each passing month, a part of me braced for the next time Dad would go to a hospital. I’d believed he was as good as gone at the nursing home, and I’d never been so wrong. When the time came, it would be the worst day of my life. I could tell already.
Dad couldn’t dance the way he used to—he could barely walk—but he was dressed for the dance floor in white linen slacks and matching guayabara. He bobbed his head to the salsa beat, walking with the polished wooden Ethiopian cane my ex had given him as a gift. Dad worked his cane like a fashion statement. Somehow Dad had found peace with his limitations. When I doubted miracles, I remembered Dad rising from his body’s ashes.
Dad hovered over his party like a movie director. “Hey!” he barked at a middle-aged man near the serving cart. “Get that damn pig away from the dance floor.”
A wide-hipped woman turned, shooting him a nasty look over her shoulder. While her hips rocked with exuberant worship to Rubén Blades, she’d nearly sent the serving cart and its whole roasted cerdo flying to the floor. The pig was a traditional Cuban meal Dad had ordered for Marcela, and the skewer was rammed through the porcine mouth, emerging on the other end. Made me want to swear off pork. Dad had ordered enough food to feed a village.
“Mister, do you speak inglés?” Dad said, raising his voice. “Move it, por favor.”
After two years of speech therapy, people could understand almost everything Dad said. Marcela’s cousin Fernando, a neurosurgeon from West Palm Beach I’d introduced to Dad an hour before, didn’t appreciate being mistaken for the help. He stared at Dad with a combination of pity and loathing.
I gently led Dad away from Marcela’s cousin. “Sorry, man,” I whispered to Fernando. “You know how it is.”
“No,” Fernando said, and sipped from his mojito. “I don’t know how it is. In fact, I’d very much like to understand, but . . .” He shrugged, leaving the thought hanging.
Like everyone in Marcela’s family, he wondered why she was wasting her last hunting years with an old man on a cop’s pension. Dad was old enough to be her father. If I hadn’t been so confused about it myself, Fernando’s attitude might have pissed me off. Dad was seventy-six, and he didn’t even have charm on his side.
“El corazón quiere lo que quiere,” I said, repeating the phrase Marcela had spoken when I’d finally gotten up the nerve to ask her. The heart wants what it wants.
Fernando huffed a curse in Spanish and moved away, tired of conversation. I couldn’t blame him. That single phrase had justified endless reckless behavior and heartaches. A copout. Maybe Marcela had daddy issues. Maybe she had a fetish for wrinkles. Maybe she only felt safe when she was in control. Or maybe . . .
Or hell, maybe she was in love with him. I tried to count Dad’s good qualities from Marcela’s point of view: He sta
yed home, never running the streets. He didn’t talk much, so he was a good listener. And he threw a hell of a birthday party, apparently—even if the best he’d done for me was bringing cupcakes to day care.
Dad had created a Cubana’s wonderland for Marcela, with white Christmas lights strung across my South Beach hotel’s patio and balcony like stars hanging above the beachfront. Her favorite restaurant had catered a feast, with roast pig, black beans and rice, fried plantains, and fried yucca. A five-member salsa band was working the crowd of fifty into a sweat. Dad had even sprung for a butterfly-shaped ice sculpture, although the painstaking creation wasn’t faring well in the warm, humid fall night.
Marcela had been slimming down for the trip to Miami for weeks. She’d squeezed into a short silver glitter dress that was snug in all the right places and showed off the calves she’d won in her new morning jogging regimen. Marcela Ruiz had seemed plain when I met her, but under my father’s care, she had blossomed. Dad stared at her as if she were perfection in female form.
But what happens in five years? Or one or two? Six months? I didn’t like those thoughts, but it was hard to avoid them when Dad’s prescription bottles could fill a Hefty bag. Nothing in his body worked without jumper cables. Marcela understood that better than anyone.
“How much did all this cost, anyway?” I asked Dad. Until he’d met Marcela, he’d been the most frugal man I’d ever known. Even my fifth-grade cupcakes had been on sale, two days past fresh.
“None of your business,” Dad said. He looked nervous, fumbling in the pocket of his slacks as if he’d misplaced something. A medicine bottle? He took nitroglycerine tablets for his painful angina, which mimicked heart-attack symptoms. Perspiration beaded his forehead.
“You all right?”
His least favorite question. “I’m no damn child,” Dad said. He nearly tripped over his feet as he pivoted away from the catering table, but I didn’t move to steady him.
I wandered to the balcony with my bottle of Red Stripe and stared out at Ocean Drive’s collection of art deco hotels lit up in candy-shop neon. I’d spent too much money renting the two-bedroom suite for my shoot, even at the “friend” price from a woman I knew who’d made a fortune when South Beach flipped from Retirement City to Vacation Haven in the nineties, But what the hell? My family was celebrating my casting in a horror film as if they thought I was headed for the A list. Chela, the teenager I’d rescued from my former madam, had graduated from high school and would be going to college . . . eventually. We were on our first family vacation—maybe our last. I wanted it to count. I had money sitting in my bank account after winning a sexual harassment settlement against producing powerhouse Lynda Jewell. Long story, and it was far behind me.
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