Tropic of Darkness

by Tony Richards

  Mitchelson Technologies of Toronto, a subsidiary of Mitchelson Holdings International, was about to supply Cuba with modern industrial plants, not in return for dollars—which they didn’t have—but for sites on which to build more of the new beachfront hotels that were springing up along the coast. It would get Manuel a promotion, almost certainly. But more than that, he thought of how desperately they needed new machines.

  Except three days had passed and Jackson hadn’t phoned. Didn’t the man understand how much this meant to them?

  It wasn’t as though he hadn’t made the fellow welcome. Each evening—on expenses, naturally—he had taken the man out to the city’s plushest restaurants and finest clubs. The kinds of venues Manuel hadn’t been able to afford in years. The Floridita and the Bodeguita del Medio. That floating nightclub that sailed around the bay, El Galeon. And, best and most famous of all, the Karibe nightclub. Three times to the Karibe, in fact. Jackson had been drawn there like a bee to honey.

  And now, after so much hospitality, this. This utter ingratitude. A silent phone.

  Manuel listened to the murmur of activity from the offices around him and frowned sullenly. Was this what La Revolución had been reduced to? Waiting on some pudgy gringo’s whim? Perhaps he was a far worse judge of character than he’d supposed, and Jackson’s honest air had simply been a front.

  Damn it to hell!

  The phone pealed suddenly. Manuel almost jumped, it caught him so much by surprise.

  He found himself, to his delight, on an echoing overseas line.

  “Señor Cruz?” someone was asking at the other end.

  But it wasn’t Jackson.

  “Yes.” His heart was pounding. “This is he.”

  “Hi. My name’s Tom Burlington of Mitchelson Technologies. I’m taking over from the man who you first met.”

  “I see. And what’s happened to Francis?” Manuel asked.

  “Uh—I’m afraid to say that Mr. Jackson’s suffered a mishap. I’m sure you don’t want to be bothered with the details.”

  It astonished him just how cold North Americans could be at times. Was this because they had no wish to admit that a spanner had fallen in the works, a matter of corporate image?

  “Is he ill?” Manuel asked.

  “Señor Cruz, that’s a private matter. What’s important to you is that we’re still running with the deal. Everything that Frank provisionally agreed has been approved—there’s nothing to stop us going ahead. That’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it?”

  Manuel began to notice a slight edge of embarrassment in the fellow’s tone. And something else began to dawn on him, partly suspicion and partly memory.

  “How ill?” he found the nerve to ask.

  The extended pause on the far end of the line was the only answer that he needed.

  “Dead?” Manuel’s head had begun to reel a little. “Was it suicide?”

  “Ah . . . what makes you ask that, Señor Cruz?”

  “Because if it was—” Manuel replied, and then could not finish the sentence.

  It had happened before.

  * * *

  Maybe it was his height or his gait, the way he held himself. But despite the hat and the shades, Jack found himself a target the moment he stepped outside.

  Typically, it was the little kids who rushed up first, a gang of half a dozen of them. They circled him, their grimy hands outstretched.

  “Dinero, Señor?”

  Jack smiled, shook his head.

  “Chicle?” they implored him. “Chicle, chicle?”

  If they were not getting money, then they at least wanted chewing gum.

  “No tengo,” he told them.

  But they wouldn’t be put off. Jack patted his pockets flat to show them they were empty.

  The eldest kid pointed at the front of his shirt, his breast pocket. Looking down, Jack saw that he still had the ballpoint pen that a flight attendant had given him to fill in his immigration form. He plucked it out and flipped it through the air.

  The kid caught it. And an instant later, the whole gang of them was scuttling away down the sidewalk, each of them trying to grab it.

  They were obviously dirt poor and behaved like street kids anywhere in this part of the world, Jack considered as he watched them go. But they seemed reasonably healthy. That was something to be grateful for.

  But by this time, older and hungrier eyes had been drawn to his presence. Jack crossed the street, and started off across the square in the direction of the Old Town. At which point, a man approached him.

  “Hello, my friend.” He stretched out a hand. “Where are you from?”

  “China.”

  The fellow dropped away, looking puzzled.

  The next two were as easy to put off. But not the fourth. Dressed in a bright pink T-shirt and a Sea World baseball cap, he would not be persuaded to go away. His eyes kept darting to Jack’s pockets as he talked, doubtless trying to figure out which one held the wallet. Which was fine, because Jack never carried one, not since the attempted arrest near Baton Rouge. He had twenty bucks in each of his pants pockets, another twenty tucked inside his shoe, and this fool wasn’t going to get any of them without knocking him unconscious first.

  But the man persisted, following him away from the square and up a narrow lane, obviously marking time till there was no one else around. And then . . . it didn’t take much guessing.

  “I like the look of you, man,” the guy kept saying. “I think we could be good friends. I’m the best friend you could have in a city like this. I can get you anything you want. These damn Communists, they don’t know shit. Anything your heart desires, tell me and it’s yours.”

  Jack kept hoping against hope the man would get tired and give up. But there was no sign of that happening.

  “Why are you ignoring me, huh? Tell me what you’d really like. Weed? Coke? Girls? Really young ones? Come on, don’t be shy. I’m like a priest—you can tell me all your secrets.”

  He clapped an arm round Jack’s shoulder. And that was going too far by a good long mile.

  The man was in a wristlock the next instant, being propelled into the cover of a sunken doorway. And when he looked down, Jack’s knife was open, winking by his throat.

  The hustler went up on his tiptoes, trying to escape the blade. Jack pressed his face up close.

  “I don’t want you following me anymore,” he said between clenched teeth. “If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll cut you bad. You understand?”

  Sweating, the man nodded.

  “Good. Have a nice day.”

  Jack turned the guy around, propelled him out across the worn old cobbles with the flat sole of his shoe. And the fellow kept on going, scrambling down the lane, only glancing back once he had reached the bottom. Then he disappeared around a corner.

  Jack closed the knife and pocketed it, feeling satisfied. He knew how fast the jungle drums sounded among guys like that. Word would be all over the square by the time he returned. He’d not be bothered anymore.

  Except he felt a slight twinge at the edges of his consciousness. A softly spoken question seemed to nag at him. He had grown good, down the years, at dealing with people in that way. He’d learned it since he’d crossed the border. But was that the only thing he had become, a solitary creature with a densely toughened outer shell? Persistence and survival . . . was that all his life amounted to these days?

  He wasn’t sure about it. The feelings put him off his balance, leaving him uncertain. But he wondered if—by this stage of his life—there really ought to be a whole lot more than that. He felt like—ever since the age of nineteen—he’d been somehow missing out.

  But there was nothing he could seem to do about it, so he put the lingering thoughts aside. He adjusted his hat, and then continued into the Old Town, still slightly tormented by the feeling
there was someone watching him.

  * * *

  La Habana Vieja. Old Havana, with the emphasis on “Old.” Exactly as Jack had imagined it would be. The big colonial buildings with their massive, arched entranceways, their lush courtyards filled with statuary and fountains. The narrow townhouses, some of them with frescos on their walls. The balconies overhanging every street. Churches, more cobbled alleys, the old fortifications, and the verdant squares.

  He had never been to Venice, Italy, but had heard it described in terms of “faded grandeur.” However faded Venice might look, Havana had to beat it into a cocked hat. The little paint left on the walls was cracked and peeling. And the surfaces revealed were pitted, crumbling, heavily weathered.

  He couldn’t tell quite what was keeping some of the homes standing. Perhaps they rationed gravity here, like they rationed everything else. The whole place looked like, if you blew on it too hard, it would turn to dust and simply swirl away.

  A few of the cafes had been restored but, those apart, he’d never seen a city so dilapidated in his life.

  Yet nearly every balcony had someone standing on it. And the street that he was walking down was jammed to overflowing. It was like tens of thousands of people had decided that these surroundings were the ideal enhancement to their lifestyle, since it didn’t seem to bother them the least bit.

  They’d simply gotten used to it, he reckoned. Most of them had grown up with it. It was just the way things were.

  A sudden blast of music from around a corner drew him on. He stepped into the expanse of the Plaza de la Catedral, and saw immediately that it was one of those places where you just wanted to stop and rest awhile. The cathedral itself was so very badly weathered that it looked like it was made of pumice.

  But when you gazed around the place—the cool arches and pillars and the flowering vines—it was all pretty beautiful.

  A four-piece band was playing out on the terrace of a nearby cafe. That was what he’d heard.

  He found an empty table in the corner, ordered a rum Collins and then leaned back, watched and listened. It was merely a garden-variety four-piece combo, playing for tips the way that he’d once done. But they were marvelous.

  It was the main reason that he had come here in the first place. To play with musicians like these. This island produced some of the best in the world.

  The passage of time became fairly meaningless, the more he stayed there. When he finally glanced at his watch, it was five-thirty. He was due to meet Pierre back at the hotel in half an hour’s time. He downed the last of his drink and then set off back the way he’d come.

  The main streets, if anything, were even busier than before, offices and shops emptying out, their workers heading home. The sun retreated behind the uneven rooftops. Everything started to take on a smoky, semi-opaque quality.

  His first night in Havana was on its way. And he was already looking forward to it.

  He heard a high-pitched, brittle laugh from somewhere, when he was halfway back along the narrow, sloping alley. A woman’s laugh, so happy and delighted that it intrigued him.

  And he swiveled round to find its source.

  But couldn’t. There was no one even near him.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Across the bay from Old Havana lies Habana del Este, less cluttered and far greener than the part of town that Jack had strolled through, large rocks and old battlements along its shore. And had Jack made his way there while it was still light, he would have probably assumed that the mansion to the left of the big fortress was abandoned.

  Three stories high and twice as broad, it was in such an advanced state of decay that it made the cathedral he’d seen look pristine by comparison. It was protected by a rusted iron fence. Its gardens had grown wild. The dried grasses had raised themselves almost to shoulder height, and it was hard to tell whether the spindly, unkempt trees were supporting the creepers on their branches or the other way around.

  Oddly, the path that ran from the front door to the main gate was clear enough to walk along.

  The windows were all boarded up. And one of them, on the top story, had the blackened marks of an old fire around it, although strangely it didn’t appear that the blaze had spread.

  The roof sagged massively where its supports had rotted.

  Its grounds ended at the waterside, a steep incline with an array of jagged rocks below.

  Jack would have seen all this. And one more thing.

  As the sun began to drop past the horizon, he might have noticed one of the boards in a ground floor window move.

  * * *

  Dolores Vasquo peered out through the gap, watching as the sun dropped behind the Old Town. She’d read once—in one of those countless leather-bound books in the house’s mildewed library—that sunsets were considered beautiful by people in the outside world. But the setting sun didn’t look that way to her eyes. The colors in the sky looked like the same shades as a week-old bruise, sickly pinks and ugly purples, tinges of ochre and turquoise round their edges.

  The only good thing about the sight, she believed, was that it was fading. And how she’d love to join it. Simply fade away, the way the light was doing. Dim out into nothingness.

  She’d felt this way throughout most of her waking hours, most of her life, ever since she’d had explained to her precisely who she was and what the future held in store.

  She let the board drop back into place, then squeezed her eyes shut, trying to cry. As usual, nothing came. Her tears seemed to have dried up many years ago. The misery was hidden, churning around inside her, trapped. And ten times worse for that.

  After a while, she picked up her candle in its cast-iron holder. And, moving with her usual creeping softness, she began to look around where she was—the dining room—making sure that everything was in its proper place.

  The sisters would be waking soon. And the gods help her if they found anything had been moved.

  * * *

  Jack was right. No one tried to bother him when he walked back across the Parque Central. The hustlers, still at their lampposts, remained where they were and kept their faces turned away from him. And even the street urchins kept their distance, watching him through troubled eyes.

  Jack went through the cool, echoing lobby of the Portughese to the bar, and spotted Pierre Melville immediately. Not too difficult a trick, admittedly. The word “big” was the best one to describe the hirsute Frenchman—even though he stood at only five-foot-nine—and it wasn’t merely his girth.

  More a matter of the bullish broadness of his shoulders and the density of muscle in his thickly matted limbs. The way he moved his hands, with power and direction. And the fire in his eyes.

  He was seated alone at a table in the center of the room. Had a thick black cigar stub screwed into one corner of his mouth, practically singeing his beard. A daiquiri was clutched in one enormous, sunburned fist, and Pierre was staring around unabashedly at the bar’s other occupants, for all the world like some overly nosy child.

  He caught the eye of a pretty young blond woman as Jack watched. Melville grinned at her, tipped his head to one side, and then winked.

  Her boyfriend, sitting right next to her, glowered at him angrily, but the Frenchman did nothing to avert his gaze.

  Where had they first met? Jack tried to remember. Pierre was one of those people who, if you moved around a lot, you kept on running into. But there were two things you were wholly certain of, within a few minutes of meeting him.

  Number one, he made his money any way he could, neither law and nor morality counting for an awful lot. And number two, he was interesting to be around.

  Although not always in a good way.

  “Sir? Hey, sir?”

  The blond woman’s boyfriend straightened on his barstool, his cheeks flushing angrily.

  “Would you kindl
y look elsewhere? Or perhaps you’d like me to ask you less politely?”

  Pierre made no move, save that one black eyebrow lifted.

  Jack started across, noticing as he drew closer that there were two more half-finished daiquiris on the table, one of them with lipstick on its rim. Pierre had brought along some company, apparently.

  He reached across, clasped his friend by the shoulder, and then smiled apologetically at the boy.

  “You must excuse my friend, he’s French. His English isn’t—”

  But before he’d time to say another word, Pierre Melville was on his feet, both great arms clamping around Jack, practically crushing his ribs. And Pierre was shouting.

  “Gilliard, you asshole! Great to see you, Jackie! Welcome to Havana, boy, home of La Revolución!”

  Jack endured it with good grace.

  “I’m pleased to see you, too. But . . . Pierre . . . can I breathe now?”

  The trouble with the younger guy was forgotten, at least. He staggered back a little as the man released him, then they sat down side by side.

  Jack inspected his companion.

  “You look unusually fit.”

  And it was no false flattery. The Frenchman looked as though he had spent half his time here working out and the other half in a solarium.

  “Clean air and healthy living, Jack, my boy!” came the reply. “And I’m serious. I’m living the life of an honest laborer these days. You should try it yourself, instead of hanging round those smoky clubs.”

  Jack tried to spot a hint of irony on the man’s face, but there was none.

  “Huh?”

  “I’ve become a volunteer! An Internationalista! I give my labor every day for nothing but the glory of the Revolution.”

  Jack wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not, Pierre looked so earnest.

  “Get out of here,” he came back. “You’re no Communist.”

  The Frenchman brought his head forward and lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “Perhaps not. But it’s the only way that I can stay in Cuba as long as I like. And believe me, Jackie, I do like.”