Escape to Havana

by Nick Wilkshire

  “Are you sure this is the place?” Gray said as they stood catching their breath.

  “Yeah. Drew mentioned this. We have to buzz up.”

  Charlie pressed the buzzer by the gate and waited. After a few seconds of silence, he pressed it again. He was about to call out when he heard a door opening somewhere above, followed by the appearance of a young man on the other side of the gate. Charlie asked for a table in the best Spanish he could manage, but the man shook his head, then rattled off what sounded like a denial. Undeterred, Charlie mentioned the proprietor’s name, as instructed by Landon. The man paused, then disappeared.

  “What’d he say?” Gray asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure.” Charlie was thinking of having to go back down all those stairs when he was surprised by a buzzing sound at the gate in front of him. He pulled it open and after a few more stairs, they were in what looked like someone’s apartment. The young man reappeared and waved them to the right, down a hallway with impossibly low ceilings and little rooms off to each side. The first room held a single table, occupied by a young couple enjoying an intimate meal. The next seemed to be someone’s bedroom, while the third was another, larger dining room with a half-dozen people sitting around a table laughing.

  “Is this a restaurant or someone’s apartment?” Gray whispered from behind him.

  “I don’t know, just watch your head,” he replied as they came to another hallway with an even lower ceiling. The sides of the corridor were lined with lush plants, and the farther they went, the lower the ceiling seemed to get.

  “Is that the sky up there?” Gray said, as Charlie parted the leaves of a plant so they could get by. Moving it to the side, he saw that she was right. They were looking up at the stars. They passed another little eating area to one side, where a foursome were sipping wine and smoking cigars, and a few seconds later they arrived at a little clearing with a table for two, surrounded by plants and open to the night sky but for a vine-covered pagoda overhead.

  Their guide disappeared as they sat at the table and took in the unusual surroundings. It wasn’t long before a woman appeared and introduced herself as the owner, switching to broken English when they told her where they were from. As the waiter returned to take their drinks order, the owner retreated and wished them an enjoyable evening, promising to check in on them from time to time.

  “What a great place,” Gray said as Charlie smiled back. Despite having seen other patrons on the way in, there was a strange intimacy in the quiet little clearing under the stars, surrounded by plants and soft music. It felt as though they had the place to themselves. Their reflections on the unusual setting led to a broader discussion of Havana’s charms, and how different it was from Ottawa.

  “So, do you miss it at all?” Gray asked.

  “Ottawa? Not really.” The truth was, Charlie didn’t really know how he felt about the city that he had called home for the past twenty years. He generally didn’t think about it much, no doubt due to its connection with Sharon and the flood of negative emotions she evoked. But with everything that had been going on lately, he had other things on his mind.

  “Will you go back after your posting here is over?”

  Another good question, for which Charlie had no answer. His plan had been to disappear to somewhere he wouldn’t have to work too hard. Havana was undoubtedly a world away from Ottawa, but the cushy diplomatic lifestyle that he had imagined hadn’t quite panned out. Not yet, anyway. Charlie had found himself working quite a bit harder than he had anticipated, though he also found himself enjoying the work. As he considered Gray’s question, he couldn’t think of a good reason not to pursue another posting rather than returning to Ottawa. There certainly wasn’t anything, or anyone, waiting for him there that compelled him to return.

  “I really don’t know,” he said, as the waiter arrived with a couple of mojitos and an assortment of little trays containing appetizers. “Lately I’ve been more focused on the present.” He raised his glass before adding, “I guess I’m hoping the future will work itself out.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” Gray said, touching her glass off his and taking a sip of the cool rum concoction. She pointed at one of the dishes. “What do we have here?”

  “Those are fried plantains.” Charlie was confident he recognized the Cuban staple. “As for the rest, we’re going to have to wing it.”

  Gray smiled at him across the table, the glow of candlelight catching the twinkle in her eyes. “Yes we are.”

  Charlie was rummaging through the back of his fridge, looking for a couple of cold Cristals he knew were back there somewhere, when he heard the splash. Spotting a glint of green, he pushed aside a yogurt container and pulled out the two bottles. Stopping by the laundry room to grab a pair of trunks that were hanging on a hook, he headed out to the pool deck just in time to see Gray swimming toward him. In the floodlit water of the pool, it was clear that she hadn’t bothered with a bathing suit.

  “Come on in, it’s glorious.”

  “I’m coming,” he said, tossing the trunks aside and setting down the beers. As she paddled off toward the middle of the pool, he stripped off his clothes and dove in, surfacing a few feet from her. He quickly closed the gap and she slipped into his arms, their torsos crushed against each other as their legs moved to stay afloat. They remained locked in an embrace as they gradually made their way back to the shallow end.

  “Why don’t you give me the upstairs tour,” she said as she took him by the hand and led him toward the house.

  Chapter 26

  They lay in the dim light provided by the moon outside the open window, Gray’s head resting on Charlie’s chest, rising and lowering in time with his breathing. After a while, she stirred and ran her hand across his stomach. “That was wonderful.”

  “Fantastic,” Charlie agreed, realizing that the break in silence hadn’t brought the magic of the moment to an end after all. He watched as she lifted her head and looked up at him, her cascading hair obscuring half of her face and the soft moonlight settling on the curve of her hip.

  “I hope you don’t think I do this on every trip,” she said suddenly, cocking her head gently to one side.

  Charlie laughed. “I should say the same. I had no idea a visit from HQ could be so, um … enjoyable.”

  “And if you tell Redden, I’ll kill you.” She slapped him playfully on the stomach. “He already hates me. All I need is for him to go back to Ottawa and start spreading exaggerated stories about me. How I seduced the MCO.”

  “Well …” he said, grinning.

  “Very funny.”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t kiss and tell.”

  “Good,” she said, pulling herself up onto one elbow and leaning over to kiss him. As they embraced, Charlie flinched at a sudden clinking sound coming from outside the open window.

  “What was that?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said as Gray slid off him. He went over to the window and stepped out onto the little balcony overlooking the backyard.

  “Do you see anything?” she asked from the bed.

  “No, it’s probably just the guard. They’ve actually been making the rounds lately.”

  “And here’s me jumping into the pool in my birthday suit.” She joined him at the window, sliding her arms around his waist and pressing herself up against him as she peered around him at the pool below. “I guess it must be a bit unsettling, having someone break into your house.”

  “It’s no big deal,” he lied, reaching around to caress her hips. “Besides, they’ve doubled the guards. And they’ve told them to actually keep a lookout, instead of watching TV. So, there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “It’s such a beautiful night … so warm.”

  “We can go for another dip, if you like.”

  “You did interrupt my earlier swim,” she said, biting him lightly on the neck.<
br />
  Charlie went to the bathroom and came out with a couple of towels. He gave one to Gray and tucked one around his waist. “In case the guard walks by.”

  They made their way down to the pool and paddled around the warm water for a while before settling in the shallow end. With only the underwater lights on, the stars seemed especially bright overhead as they stared up at them, submerged to their shoulders and leaning back against the pool steps. They chatted quietly about the funky rooftop restaurant and the new embassy deal. Eventually, Gray got around to the break-in.

  “And they didn’t take anything, huh?” she asked, looking up at the stars.

  “No.”

  “But they trashed the place?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Strange,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact. “Almost as if they were looking for something.” He said nothing as their eyes met for a moment, but Charlie felt compelled to tell her, though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe he was just tired of carrying the burden of the secret alone. But he couldn’t.

  “What?” She searched his face for a reaction. Charlie glanced around, making sure they were alone before sliding closer to her. He was on the verge of saying something, then stopped.

  “You can tell me, Charlie.”

  He wanted to, badly. Maybe it was the intimacy of the moment, but whatever the reason, it seemed the right time for truth.

  “I found drugs,” he whispered, “under the bedroom floor.”

  He saw her surprise and immediately regretted telling her. “You told Connors, right?” she said, after a brief pause, and in a voice that was barely audible.

  Charlie looked back up to the stars.

  “That’s pretty serious business, Charlie, especially here. I don’t have to tell you what could happen if …”

  He was shaking his head. “I can’t tell him now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t have it anymore. I sort of … lost it.”

  “You lost it?”

  “It fell in the pool.”

  “This pool?”

  Charlie explained the tarantula, his resulting tumble into the pool, and Teddy knocking the illicit package into the deep end.

  “Do you know what it was?” she whispered.

  “Coke, I think. I’m not exactly an expert.”

  “How much?”

  “A kilo or two?” He sketched the approximate size of the package in the air with his finger.

  “My God,” was all she said, and in the silence that followed, Charlie was wishing he had kept his mouth shut. What was he doing involving her? “So no one knows anything about it?”

  “I think the Cuban cops know something.”

  “What? Why do you say that?”

  “Things they said. The way they were looking at me. I don’t know.”

  “You’ve got to tell someone, Charlie. Connors, or the ambassador,” she said, putting her arm on his. “Especially if you think the local police might have an inkling; otherwise it’ll be your word against theirs.”

  “It already is.”

  “It’s a lot more convincing if the admission comes from you before you’re behind bars, trust me,” she said in a hushed whisper. “But I’d be more worried about the owner of the stuff. A package of that size, of that sort of commodity, doesn’t just disappear without putting a major crimp in someone’s bottom line.”

  Charlie’s stomach tensed, hearing his own worst fear voiced. “But what am I supposed to do? Even if I knew who it was, I can’t just call them up and say ‘oops, I dropped your stuff in the pool. Sorry about that.’”

  “You said you found it under the floorboards?”

  Charlie nodded.

  “Well, who had this place before you?”

  “That’s the first thing I asked after I moved in. It was my counterpart at the Venezuelan embassy. His posting came to an end and he went back to Caracas. I assume the stuff wasn’t his, or he would have taken it with him.”

  Gray looked at him for a moment, but said nothing.

  “What?”

  “You said it was the first thing you thought of after you moved in. Did something else happen before you found the dope?”

  “No … well, not really.” Charlie could see she wasn’t going to let him off that easily. “I did have a couple of strange visits, but …”

  “What kind of visits?”

  “A couple of working girls — at least, I think they were.”

  “Did they mention drugs?”

  “No, they just wanted to know where Javier was, and they told me they wanted to party.”

  “Javier was the previous occupant? The Venezuelan MCO?”

  “Javier Garcia, yes. Look, I’m sorry to unload all this on you. I don’t know why I did. It’s not your problem.”

  She shook her head. “I’m glad you did. I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”

  “Well, don’t be. I have no real reason to think anyone knows anything about it, and I haven’t done anything wrong, anyway.”

  “I guess you haven’t,” she said, breaking into a grin.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I was just thinking, this probably wasn’t what you had in mind when you moved to Havana.”

  “You mean swimming naked with you?” he said with a laugh. “I’d have come here a lot sooner.”

  “I wonder what Stewart would think,” she said, a mischiev­ous look on her face.

  As he watched her swim off, what Stewart or anyone else thought was the last thing on Charlie’s mind. He had spent too much of his life worrying about what other people thought. Maybe Havana had changed him already.

  Chapter 27

  “So, what do you think?” Sam Sanchez turned toward Charlie and Redden. Gray was seated on Sanchez’s other side at Société Immobilière’s boardroom table, and their hosts had just left the room to arrange lunch at a nearby restaurant.

  “I thought they sounded pretty good.”

  “They’re good at telling us what we want to hear, that’s for sure,” Gray remarked.

  “Yeah, I’m not sure their timelines are realistic, though, especially from what I’ve heard of projects in Cuba,” Redden added.

  “As long as we structure the agreement properly,” Sanchez said. “We should be able to keep them to a reasonable schedule.”

  Charlie stole a glance at Gray. He found it odd to be sitting in the formal setting, separated by Sanchez, when just a few hours earlier he and Gray had awoken entangled together in Charlie’s bed. They had agreed that discretion was the preferred option, but Charlie couldn’t help wishing he didn’t have to conceal his affection for her.

  “What time’s the meeting with the Cubans?” Redden was looking at his watch.

  “Four,” Charlie replied. “We’re probably going to have to go straight from the restaurant. I should email the driver to let him know.”

  “I don’t expect it will be a long meeting, with Ruiz out of town,” Sanchez said. “If you don’t have any plans this evening, I’d like to take you to La Guarida. It’s one of the best restaurants in Havana.”

  Charlie noted a hint of a smile on Gray’s face.

  “I’m going to have to pass,” Redden said. “My friends from Varadero are here and I made plans. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  “Next time,” Sanchez replied with a smile. “Jillian? Charlie?”

  “Sure, sounds great,” Charlie said, as Gray nodded her agreement. As Sanchez described the location of the restaurant, Charlie leaned back to stretch his arms and neck, glancing out through the boardroom doors to the hallway in the process. He saw two men chatting at the end of the hall, and when the nearest one turned toward him, Charlie snapped his head back and found himself looking straight at Sanchez.

  “You okay, Charlie?”

 
“Hmm?” He tried to appear calm as his eyes returned to their normal size, but his heart was racing. “Just strained my neck, I think,” he added, making a show of turning his head from side to side.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Sanchez looked past Charlie, out into the hallway. His face clouded with a frown and he seemed about to say something when SI president Daniel Leblanc returned to the boardroom.

  “What is it?” Gray whispered.

  “Nothing,” Sanchez replied under his breath as Leblanc announced that their transportation to the restaurant was ready downstairs. As he stood up, Charlie felt the familiar buzz of his BlackBerry and slid it out of its holder to check the incoming message. He sighed as he scanned the email.

  Gray stood next to him, packing up her satchel. “Everything okay?”

  “That’s the second consular case this morning. Must have been a rough weekend. I’m going to have to give the lunch a miss.” Gray hung back as Redden and Sanchez left the room chatting about something.

  “Do you feel weird?” she whispered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You and I sitting here in a meeting, with Sam and Bruce completely oblivious.”

  He smiled. “I know what you mean.”

  “Can you make it to dinner?”

  “You bet.”

  “And a moonlight swim after?” she added, leaning in and brushing up against him.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he whispered, following her out of the boardroom.

  Charlie drove through the ill-lit streets of Havana, straining his eyes for the signs at every intersection. He knew he was close, but he had only driven by the restaurant once, and he couldn’t remember its exact location. He noticed a pair of cabs across from a building with a sign that, by Havana standards, was pretty ornate. An enormous, smiling man was standing at the entrance, and when he greeted a couple who had just gotten out of one of the cabs, Charlie knew he had found La Guarida.