In the background, a dozen men and women in colorful outfits danced to the beat. Charlene shared her gaze between the elderly singer and the slideshow of the singer’s life at the back of the stage. She had no idea what she was looking for, but whatever it was, she was desperate not to miss it.
The woman left the stage and was promptly replaced with a man of equivalent age. He too was impressive, both in his vocal range and his dance routine. His song was in Spanish, and Charlene couldn’t understand a single word. As she watched him strut his stuff up and down the stage, she wondered if the man ever knew her father. At the same time, she wondered how on earth she would ask him. She had no picture of Peter, and their language barrier was going to make any such communication impossible.
Song after song, dancer after dancer, the show went on. Each one was spectacular in its own right, and as the night wore on, the singers became progressively older. The crowd went wild when a man with a walking cane appeared on the stage; the screen behind him listed his age as eighty-two. She wondered if she’d be as spritely at that age. If she lived to be that old. Given her latest life-threatening experiences, she might not.
Charlene hadn’t been willing to leave the spectacle for fear of missing something, but she couldn’t ignore her bursting bladder a moment more.
When there was a gap in the music, she excused herself from the table, grabbed her cane, and wove between the tables to the back of the room. She exited through a side door into the bar area and followed signs to the bathroom.
After washing her hands, she turned to dry them, and a gasp tumbled from her lips. Right in front of her was a photo of Peter. Tears stung her eyes as she snatched the frame from the wall. Her heart launched to her throat. “Oh my God.”
“Are you alright, dear?” A woman waiting in line blinked at her.
“Yes. Yes. This is my father. I’ve been . . .” Blood coursed through her veins. Her fingers trembled; her legs threatened to buckle. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and before she knew what she was doing, Charlene tucked the frame under her arm and went in search of an English-speaking waitress.
Several people were milling about, many waiting in line for one of the six pretty waitresses to serve them. The staff, all in white cowgirl outfits with matching hats, were dotted behind the long bar. Charlene didn’t wait for her turn. She stormed to the front, placed the photo frame on top of the bar, and leaned toward the young waitress who was busy pouring a beer. “Hello, do you speak English?”
“Sí, a little.”
“Can you tell me who this is?”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Did you take that off the wall?”
“I’ll put it back. Please, can you tell me who this is?”
“He must be one of our singers. But I—” She turned to the woman beside her and spoke to her in Spanish. When she shook her head, the barmaid turned to another waitress who was much older. They spoke briefly before the woman came over.
She pointed her chipped fingernail at the photo. “He Pueblo García, but he not here anymore.”
“Pueblo García? Are you sure?”
“Yes, he was big star. But one day he gone.”
Charlene’s heart slammed into her chest as she leaned forward, desperate to hear the woman over the restless crowd. “Did you know him?”
She wobbled her head. “Yes, some. He was nice man.”
Charlene’s mind blazed over a dozen questions, trying to prioritize the right ones to ask. “What happened to him?”
The waitress made a face that was loaded with confusion. “Hmm, it was big story. Lots of guesses. He had girlfriend; she was dancer here, and she vanish too.”
“Oh my God.” Her heart slammed against her ribs. “Do you know her name?”
She shook her head frowning. “Hmm, I no remember, but her brother . . . he big businessman in Cuba.”
“He is? What’s his name?”
“Diego Álvarez.”
Charlene’s mind raced. Her heart skipped a beat. Finally, she had a direct clue. “Please, can you take me to him? Now.”
The woman glanced around the bar, frowning, and shook her head. “I working.”
“I’ll pay you. Please. Please, help me, this is urgent.” Charlene reached into her bag, ready to pluck out an entire roll of cash if she needed to.
“I can take you after—”
“I can’t wait till then. Please. I’ll pay you three hundred.”
Her eyes bulged, then she leaned in. “Three hundred!”
“Yes. Three hundred. If we go now.”
The woman spun to another waitress at her side and spoke to her in Spanish. She turned back to Charlene. “Wait here.” She dashed along the bar, behind all the bartenders, and disappeared through a door.
Charlene’s eyes fell to the photo. The man in the picture was definitely the man who’d claimed to be her father. He was much younger, but there was no mistaking it was him. Charlene glanced toward the doorway where the woman had exited, and with trembling fingers and a silent prayer that no one saw her, she flipped the frame over, unhooked the clips, and removed the photo. She folded the photo, slipped it into her bag, and then put the frame on a bar stool.
Her heart was still thumping when the woman returned with a handbag over her shoulder and a look of urgency on her face.
“Quick, we must go before my boss come.”
“Okay. Yes. Thank you so much. What’s your name?”
“Kamila.”
“Thank you, Kamila. You don’t know how much this means to me.”
Kamila led Charlene toward the front of the stage, where the bar was; then they skirted to the left, down a staff-only access corridor. At the end of the corridor, they went down a steep set of steps. Halfway down, she stopped to look up at Charlene. “You have my money.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Charlene propped her cane against the wall to reach into her bag. It was impossible to see in the dim light, and in the end, she had to remove a whole roll of cash to separate out the right notes for Kamila. Kamila sucked the air in through her teeth as she eyed the notes, and Charlene wanted to slap herself for her stupidity. This was not like her. Safety had always been paramount for her, and her haste to get answers was making her do foolish things. Risky, dangerous things that’d get her into trouble. The moment she had time to herself, she’d sort the cash properly. She handed over three hundred-dollar notes, and Kamila accepted with a huge smile before shoving the cash into her bra.
Kamila continued down the stairs, and at the bottom, they stepped out into the night air. Charlene recognized two of the singers leaning against the walls, a man and a woman; both looked to be in their seventies, and both were smoking thick Cuban cigars. Kamila spoke briefly to them before they strode up the narrow lane.
The buildings lining the lane were a potpourri of peeling and faded paint and crumbling façades. Wrought-iron balconies served as clothing hangers, and sheets were draped from one side to the next. Ahead of them, where the lane met another road, Charlene could see a throng of people all seemingly enjoying Cuba’s party atmosphere. Music was everywhere, and all of it was coming from live musicians. Radios, it seemed, hadn’t reached Havana yet.
Kamila turned to Charlene. “We take taxi.”
“Oh, okay.”
She led Charlene to a side street where four old cars were angle-parked at the curb. The taxi signs on their roofs were the only indication that they were cabs. Each one was different in color, make, and model. The only thing they had in common, besides the sign, was their age—all the vehicles had to be at least fifty years old.
Kamila approached the first cab, a faded, ruby-red Chrysler, with polished chrome trim and vinyl seats. She leaned into the driver’s window, and they shared a conversation Charlene couldn’t follow.
After a pause, she pulled back to glance at Charlene. “You pay, sí.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. How much?”
The driver and Kamila fired off a rapid exchange before she turned bac
k to Charlene. “He says one hundred, but I said it too much, so we agree on ninety. Good, sí?”
Charlene knew it was too much. But at this point she’d pay triple that if it meant finding answers. She made a show of thanking Kamila before she plucked the right change from her bag. Once that was settled, Kamila opened the back door and climbed in. Charlene slipped in beside her.
The driver kicked the car into gear with a gritty crunch, and they backed out. Charlene had thought the party atmosphere was impressive earlier, but it was even more so now. The dancing and singing in the streets were now accompanied with pretty paper lanterns and old-fashioned street lamps.
A very large Georgian-style building lined one side of the street. This one was in pristine condition and seemed to mark the center of town. “Where are we going?” Charlene asked.
“He take you to Airshee factory.”
“Airshee?” Charlene frowned.
“Yes, you know.” Kamila brought her fingers to her mouth like she was eating. “Airshee, chocolate.”
Charlene’s frowned deepened. “I thought you were taking me to Diego Álvarez.”
“Yes, sí, he at Airshee factory.”
“Oh, okay, good. How far?”
She rolled her eyes and gave a big wave with her hand. “Oh, it long way.” The great emphasis she put on the word long had Charlene’s brain swimming with the consequences. If it was too far, she wouldn’t be back in time to meet Aleyna. Her solution to that would be asking the taxi driver to take her to Aleyna’s home. But then a truly terrifying thought hit her. She had no idea where Aleyna lived.
What she was doing was going against everything she’d ever learned about safety. Yet she wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. She had to get answers. The paralyzing hurt of not knowing everything about her past was more important than anything. She couldn’t move forward until she’d solved it. And if that meant taking risks, then she was going to do it.
One thing she’d learned in her nomadic lifestyle was that the vast majority of people were honest. It was a rare and unfortunate thing to meet someone who was deliberately out to deceive or inflict harm. Charlene was relying on those odds now. If that failed, she had her martial arts training and Peter’s cane.
With her grip tightening on her make-do weapon, she turned to Kamila. “Can you tell me about Peter, please? I mean Pueblo? What do you remember about him?”
“Oh, he nice man. Always smiling. Happy. He good singer, you know.”
“Yes, I know. You said he vanished, and there were rumors about what happened. Can you tell me, please?”
She nibbled on her fingernail. “They say many things. He kill her and then go hiding. They both dead. They even say he went to America.”
Charlene’s mind flicked back to the uniform he’d been wearing and the gun strapped to his shoulder. “Do you know if he had another job? Like in the army?”
“Army?” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“What else? Tell me about his girlfriend.”
“I didn’t know her. She was dancer at social club. She very quiet. Just do her job, then go home, you know.” She flicked her hand and turned her attention outside.
Charlene eased back on the seat and glanced out the window. Her brain told her she should try to memorize where she was going, but as the mansions and shanties flicked by, she couldn’t focus on anything but the possibility that she was about to meet the brother of Peter’s ex-girlfriend. What was she going to say? Would he even remember Peter—or Pueblo, as Kamila had called him? It was over twenty years ago. And if he did remember Pueblo, would he blame him for the disappearance of his sister? The questions tumbled through her mind like rocks in a gold mine. Except the chunks weren’t precious nuggets; they were lumps of coal . . . dark and sinister.
Although it was the middle of the night, it was still very humid, and the only air-conditioning was the open window. They cruised along a section of road that had hotels on one side, except they were deserted and looked more like a scene from an apocalypse movie. On the other side was a long esplanade that skirted the ocean, and hundreds of people were enjoying the broad expanse. Some were eating ice cream. Some were fishing, some playing cards; many were dancing and making music. None were on cell phones. It was vastly different from any city she’d visited in America.
“What’s this place?” Charlene pointed out her side of the window.
“It’s the Malecón. It beautiful, sí?”
“Yes, it’s beautiful.”
“Lovers meet there. It where I met my husband.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful.”
“Yeah, it long time ago now.”
The giant sea wall continued for about four miles, then the driver turned inland from the ocean. The houses lining the streets were a mixture of opulence and poverty, but the farther they went, the less opulence there was. As the miles rumbled beneath the bone-rattling car, sweat dribbled down Charlene’s back. She had no way to judge time. The clock on the dashboard hadn’t moved since she’d stepped into the car, and neither Kamila nor the driver wore a watch. It seemed that time wasn’t a driving force in Cuba, unlike in her home country.
Her home country. That was an interesting thought. Was it possible that Cuba was actually her home country? The thought came out of nowhere. If it was, then where did that leave her? Was she an undocumented immigrant? As much as she didn’t have a home to go back to, America was the country she wanted to return to.
That thought had her thinking about Marshall. If she missed his deadline, she had no idea what she’d do. And, in turn, she had no idea what Marshall would do. They had no way to contact each other.
The car slowed and pulled into the curb, dragging Charlene from her tumbling thoughts. “Oh, are we there?”
“No.” Kamila chuckled. “This my home. Eduardo take you to Airshee.”
“What? I thought you were coming.”
Again, she chuckled. “No. Too far. But no worry. Eduardo know where you go. He look after you.”
Charlene’s heart set to explode as Kamila opened her door.
“Wait! Please.”
When Kamila slammed her door shut, fear ripped through Charlene like icy tentacles. Kamila ignored Charlene’s pleas by stepping around to the driver’s door and when she spoke to him, the only words Charlene recognized were Airshee and gracias. But before Charlene could do anything, the driver took off again.
She was trapped.
With her fingers clutching the cane, she contemplated jumping from the moving car. But the images that came with that idea forced her to rethink. The driver seemed harmless. Besides, he was just doing the job he’d been asked to do.
As the darkened streets whizzed by, she played out what would happen if she did jump from the taxi. If she survived the tumble. She had no idea where she was. No idea where she was going. She couldn’t speak the language, and she had no way to contact anyone. On top of all that, she had nobody to contact anyway.
The image that she’d had yesterday of her unidentified body washing up on the beach morphed to her being bound and gagged and locked in the trunk of the taxi. She slapped that vision from her mind and forced herself to focus on what she did know. If Kamila had been right, then Peter was actually Pueblo García. And if that was true, she was on her way to meet someone who knew him.
That was the best opportunity she’d had in weeks.
Despite the horrifying images feeding her thoughts, she had to go through with it.
She pushed forward on her chair. “Hello, do you speak English?”
He smiled a crooked smile over his shoulder but shook his head. “Lo siento, señora. No hablo inglés.”
That’d be a no. But the move hadn’t been a total loss. She saw enough of the driver to be certain she’d be able to overcome him should he attempt anything. With his pudgy belly and double chin, he’d have no hope of catching her, and if he did, within three seconds his testicles would be wishing he hadn’t.
With that knowle
dge comforting her a little, she eased back on the seat, and as she watched the scenery whiz by, she tried to picture how the meeting with Diego would play out. She pulled the photo from her bag. This would be her first tactic. With a bit of luck, the big businessman would speak English.
The journey seemed to go on forever, and soon there was nothing but paddocks of nothing. Her mind flashed to one of her interviews with Detective Chapel. She’d described traveling through fields of nothing on the night that’d changed her life forever. She sat up and scanned the landscape, looking for something, anything that would trigger a memory to prove she’d been along this road before. They seemed to be following a pair of long, straight tracks. Train tracks. Only these tracks were covered in weeds, and she hadn’t seen one train station. These train tracks hadn’t been used in some time.
The minutes ticked by, as did the miles, and it seemed to be an eternity before the driver changed gear. Her heart skipped a beat when he pulled to a stop in front of an enormous brick fence. He pointed out his window. “Airshee factory.”
Charlene glanced ahead and stared unblinking at the sign dangling from a rusted archway over the entrance. “Hershey? Hershey chocolates?”
“Sí, sí.”
Charlene sat in stunned silence for a couple of heartbeats before she comprehended that the driver was waiting for her to get out. It was only now that she realized she should have asked Kamila to instruct the driver to wait for her. She reached into her bag and held another hundred-dollar note toward him. “Can you wait for me?”
He took the cash from her. “Sí, sí gracias.” His enormous grin showed off two missing teeth.
“Good. Okay then. Wait for me here. I come back here.”
He nodded. She nodded.
Then, clutching her cane and bag, she opened the door and climbed out. Her back groaned as she stood upright, and her neck cracked as she rolled it from side to side. The taxi’s headlights showed the condition of the building. A couple of steps closer revealed that the building wasn’t just in need of a fresh can of a paint—it was derelict. The windows were either smashed or missing glass altogether. Some of the upper levels had collapsed upon themselves.
Zero Escape Page 16