The Cuban Affair

by Nelson DeMille

  It was still daylight but the Malecón was already hopping on this steamy Saturday evening and the seawall looked like the world’s longest pickup bar.

  I told the driver to pull over, gave him ten CUCs, and began walking, past beggars, poets and drunks, and a group of Americans who looked like the cyclone had just blown them in from Kansas.

  I turned onto a side street, and continued to the long drive that led to the front of the hotel. I checked my watch: 6:15 P.M.

  I entered the Nacional for the third time in as many days and stopped at the front desk to see if Jack—or Sara—had left a message, but they hadn’t. I walked into the high-ceilinged Hall of Fame bar, which was filled with a haze of cigar smoke. I scanned the crowded room but I didn’t see Jack.

  I asked the maître d’ for a table, and for ten CUCs he remembered a cancellation and escorted me to a small table under a photo of Mickey Mantle.

  I optimistically ordered two Bucaneros from a waitress and asked for the cigar lady, who arrived with her tray, and I bought two Monte Cristos, which I left on the table.

  My beers came and I drank alone. It was now 6:30.

  So where was Jack? Maybe drunk in a waterfront bar, or getting laid, lost in space, arrested, or still in Key West. And if that was the case, I was going home without three million dollars.

  Out of habit, I checked my phone for a text or voice mail. Still no service, so I went to the bar to see if Jack had left a message with the bartender, but there was nothing for me.

  Sara must be worried by now, so before she called here I asked the bartender to dial the Parque Central from the bar phone and he handed it to me.

  As the phone was ringing, a hand grabbed my forearm. “You are under arrest.”

  I turned and looked at Jack, who was smiling. “Did you piss your pants?”

  “You’re fired.”

  “Again?”

  The call connected and I said to the operator, “Message for Sara Ortega in Room 535. We’re having a drink. See you at nine.” I asked her to repeat the message and hung up.

  Jack asked, “You banging her yet?”

  “She sends her regards.”

  I led Jack to the far end of the lounge and we sat.

  Jack was wearing a decent pair of khakis and a white Polo shirt that I recognized as the one I kept on The Maine for formal occasions. He also had a fanny pack around his waist, something I’d never seen him wear before. “What’s in there?”

  “Condoms.” He raised his beer bottle and we clinked. “Good to see you.”

  “Same here.”

  There were a few tables of well-dressed men around us speaking Spanish, and no one seemed interested in our conversation. I asked Jack, “How did you get here?”

  “Fifty-seven Chevy convertible. My old man had a fifty-eight Chevy—”

  “Were you paying attention to being followed?”

  “Followed?” He thought about that and said, “I gave the guy an American ten to let me drive.” He smiled. “I was all excited, but the guy’d put a fucking Toyota four-cylinder in the car and it was like two hamsters on a treadmill—”

  “Jack, were you followed?”

  “No.” He added, “I don’t think so.”

  Well, neither did I. Or if he was followed it was because the police already knew there was a connection between Jack Colby, Daniel MacCormick, and the newly renamed Fishy Business, and if they knew that, they’d want to know more. So we may as well have another beer. “Why are you late?”

  Jack was looking around the Hall of Fame bar. “This is some high-class place.”

  “It’s older than you.”

  “Yeah? Hey, there’s a picture of Sinatra. And Churchill . . . Marlon Brando, John Wayne . . . There’s Mickey Mantle—”

  “They’re all dead, Jack, like you’re going to be if you don’t tell me why you’re late.”

  Jack looked at me. “I had a few beers with our three fishermen. Couldn’t tell them I had to meet you, and couldn’t think of an excuse to ditch them. I tried to call you but there’s no service.” He observed, “This place is fucked up.” He asked, “How’s it going here?”

  “So far, okay.” I asked, “What time did the fleet get in?”

  “About noon.”

  “Any problems?”

  “Nope. I navigated right into the harbor. Piece of cake.”

  “I assume you just followed the boat in front of you.”

  “Yeah. But it was tricky.”

  “How is Felipe?”

  “He seems okay.” Jack thought of something and said, “He knows Sara.”

  “Right.”

  “You fuck her?”

  “She has a boyfriend.”

  “So what? You got to use the old ‘We could be dead tomorrow’ line.”

  “How are the three fishermen?”

  “Regular guys. Can’t even tell they’re Cuban.”

  “I hope you complimented them on that.”

  He got that I was mocking him and laughed. Clearly he’d already had a few, but even when Jack’s half in the bag he can be coherent if I’m up his butt. “How did it go after you docked?”

  “Okay. A couple of Commie assholes went from boat to boat to check passports and stuff, and collect a fifty-dollar arrival fee—twenty-five for Fidel, twenty-five for them. Felipe gave them a couple bags of food and a bag of stuff from Walgreens—toothpaste, vitamins, and stuff—and they stamped our visas and went di-di mau.”

  Jack sometimes uses Vietnamese expressions, especially when he’s had a few. I said, “I hope some of the crew stayed behind to secure the boats.”

  “You think we’re stupid?” I didn’t answer so he continued, “Felipe stayed onboard, and each of the boats left somebody onboard. Otherwise, there’d be nothing left when we got back.”

  Or there’d be ten fishing boats headed to Key West with five hundred Cubans onboard. “Was there any security on the pier?”

  “Yeah. About ten military types with AKs. Haven’t been that close to one of those since I took one off a dead gook.”

  “Did you tell them that?”

  Jack laughed, then continued, “These bastards shook us down for twenty bucks from each boat—to help us keep an eye on the boats.”

  “You got off easy.”

  “If they didn’t have guns, I’d’ve kicked them in the nuts and told them to do their fucking jobs.”

  “Right.” But negotiations tend to favor the guy with the submachine gun, as Jack and I learned long ago when we held the guns. I asked him, “When you left the terminal, did you get a brass band?”

  “No. But there was a film crew and, like, maybe a few hundred people in this plaza.”

  “Friendly?”

  “Most of them. They were yelling, ‘Welcome, Americanos,’ and stuff. But there was another group yelling, ‘Yankee, go home,’ and ‘Cuba sí, Yankee no.’ Shit like that. So we got stuck there in front of the terminal.” He took a swig of beer. “Fuck them.”

  I could picture this on Cuban TV with some creative film editing. The anti-American demonstration would look like half of Havana. The friendly group—who had somehow gotten word of the fleet’s arrival—wouldn’t be seen on Tele Rebelde. I asked, “Any police? Military?”

  “A few cop cars. But the cops just sat there, then a loudspeaker blasted something in Spanish and everybody left.”

  End of spontaneous demonstration.

  Jack said, “Tell your lady friend this wasn’t the big welcome she talked about.”

  Nor the welcome that Antonio had talked about. And that made me wonder how Antonio knew so much about the arrival of the American fleet if it hadn’t been reported on the news. Maybe the same way that the anti-American group knew about it—from the police.

  In any case, the news blackout and the staged anti-American protest was a peek into the regime’s mind-set about the Thaw. No big deal, unless the tournament was going to be cancelled. I asked, “Any word about your sail to Cayo Guillermo?”

&nbs
p; “We leave at first light.”

  “Okay. Before you sail, I want you to get to a pay phone, or borrow a cell phone from a local, and call the Parque Central Hotel.” I gave him my cashier’s receipt that had the hotel phone number on it. “You’ll leave a message for Mr. MacCormick in Room 615. If you’re sailing for Cayo, your message is, ‘My flight is on time.’ If the tournament has been cancelled, your message is, ‘My flight has been cancelled.’ And your name is . . .” I looked at the cigars. “Cristo.” I asked him, “How copy?”

  He smiled at the Army radio lingo. “Solid copy.” He asked, “Why do you think the tournament—?”

  “I don’t think anything. But I have no way of knowing if the Commie assholes are going to find an excuse to cancel the tournament.”

  “If they do, you might as well go home.”

  Easier said than done. On the subject of the Commie assholes finding an excuse to cancel the tournament, I asked, “Did the crews or the fishermen have any trouble on shore with the police or the locals?”

  “Not that I know of. We all started out together—maybe fifty of us, and three women fishermen, two not bad-looking—and we hit the bars. We all had these Pescando Por la Paz baseball caps, but I gave mine to a Cuban broad. Everybody in the bars and on the streets was friendly, and we bought lots of drinks for everyone.”

  “And a few for yourselves.”

  He smiled. “We spread goodwill. Then some of us split up.” He showed me a piece of paper and said, “This is our visitors’ pass or something. We all have to be back on the boats by midnight.”

  “Make sure you are.”

  “No problem.” Jack was checking out the cigar lady in the fishnet stockings and asked, “Where does a sailor get laid around here?”

  Recalling Sara’s lecture on that subject, I informed him, “Being with a prostitute will get you four years in the slammer.”

  “That sucks. But how much do they charge?”

  “Jack, you’re on an important mission. Keep your dick in your pants.” I should talk. Jack looked unhappy, so I said, “I’m sure you can charm the pants off a señorita after a few drinks and dinner.”

  He smiled. “I need a wingman.”

  “I have a date.”

  “Yeah? Your girlfriend has you on a short leash?”

  I ordered two more beers. Jack had his Zippo and we fired up the Monte Cristos.

  I asked him, “Did the customs guys search the boat?”

  “No. They didn’t even go below. They were happy with their gifts and welcomed us to Cuba.”

  “Did you declare the guns?”

  “They were stowed in the locker and I forgot them.”

  “Okay . . . Did you remember the extra ammo and the Kevlar vests?”

  “Cost me a fortune.” He asked, “Did you find out how we’re getting the money onboard?”

  “No, but I’ll find out when Sara and I get to Cayo Guillermo.”

  “And how am I supposed to find out?”

  “Did you ask Felipe if he knows anything?”

  “Yeah. I asked. And he said, no comprende.”

  And he could be telling the truth. But not the whole truth. I said to Jack, “I’m sure someone will get word to you—or to Felipe—while you’re in Cayo.”

  “How much money is this?”

  “Let’s just say we’ll have some heavy lifting to do.”

  “What do I do if you don’t show up by the time the fleet sails for home?”

  “You and The Maine sail home with the fleet.”

  He looked at me. “I can’t do that.”

  “That’s an order.”

  He watched the smoke rising from his cigar.

  “Jack, don’t worry about what you can’t control. You just go and have a nice tournament.” I added, “As for getting me, Sara, and the money onboard, as you saw at the pier, everyone in this country is on the take.”

  He reminded me, “You and me spent some time in fucked-up countries like this. You ever been double-crossed by the locals?”

  “At least once a week.”

  “Me too. So—”

  “So if we get double-crossed, we do what we did then. Shoot our way out.”

  “You got a gun?”

  “No. You do. Four of them.”

  “You need a gun before you get to Cayo Guillermo.” He looked at me.

  Well, I knew where this was going, and I knew that Jack didn’t have condoms in his fanny pack. “How did you get it past customs?”

  “Easier than I thought.” He explained, “The two Cuban guys who came aboard gave us customs forms that we filled out and signed. Nothing to declare. They took the forms and their loot and left.”

  I informed Jack, “Having a gun in Cuba is not your constitutional right—it’s your death sentence.”

  “Well, sonny, in my country, gun control means using both hands.” He added, “Your Glock will increase the chances of you—and my money—getting to The Maine.”

  “And increase my chances of getting arrested if I get stopped and searched on my way out of this bar.”

  Jack quoted from one of his T-shirts. “Better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.”

  “Right. Okay . . . thanks.”

  “You don’t mean that now, but you might later.” Jack drank his beer and commented, “This shit isn’t half bad. We need this in the States. I can use my million to open a U.S. franchise when the embargo is lifted.”

  I reminded him, “Half a million for deployment and half a mil for combat pay if we get shot at.” I also reminded him, “They don’t have to hit you.”

  He looked at me through his cigar smoke. “I forgot to tell you—the Glock is costing you half a million.”

  “It’s actually my gun.”

  “I risked my life getting it to you.”

  “I didn’t ask for it.”

  “Tell you what, Captain, if you don’t want the gun, I’ll take it back to the boat.”

  “I’m surprised you’re not a millionaire already.”

  “Me too.”

  “But you are an asshole.”

  “Don’t piss me off. I got a gun. And you don’t.” He thought that was funny.

  We sat in silence awhile, enjoying our beers and cigars. A D.J. set up his electronics and played a Sinatra album. Jack was hungry and we got a bar menu and ordered Cuban sandwiches. Frank sang “That’s Life.”

  On that subject, I asked Jack, “What happened to the lady you married?”

  “She got sick.”

  “Children?”

  “No.”

  “Who are your next of kin?”

  “I got a sister in New Jersey.”

  “You have a will?”

  “Nope.”

  “If you don’t make it, how can I find your sister?”

  “If I don’t make it, neither will you.”

  “Let’s say I make it home, Jack, with the money. How do I get your money to your sister?”

  “If you get that lucky, you keep it.”

  “Okay. How do I find your sister to let her know you’re dead?”

  “You sound like an officer.”

  “I’m trying to sound like a friend.”

  He finished his beer, then looked off into space.

  I changed the subject and asked, “How’s the weather look this week?”

  “Next couple of days look okay for fishing. But there’s a tropical depression brewing out in the Atlantic.”

  It was the end of the hurricane season, but the Caribbean had been unusually hot for October. “Keep an eye on that.”

  “We all are.” He asked, “Why is Havana so much fucking hotter than Key West?”

  “Must be the women.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. Felipe said if you stick a candle in a Mexican woman it comes out melted. Stick a candle in a Cuban woman and it comes out lit.”

  Glad to hear they were bonding. I asked, “Any mechanical issues with the boat?”

  “Nope.”r />
  “When are your three fishermen flying to Mexico?”

  “They go to Havana Airport right after the last day of fishing. They miss the awards dinner and all that shit.”

  “When does the fleet sail for home?”

  “About nine the next morning.” He looked at me. “I can develop a mechanical problem and wait for you past nine.”

  I had no idea what time or even what day Sara and I would get to Cayo Guillermo, or what the security situation was at the marina, or who’d been bribed, or who might need to be taken out, or who, if anyone, was in Cayo to assist us. As a tactical matter it wasn’t important for me to know any of this right now, but from a psychological point of view it’s always good to visualize the path home.

  “Mac?”

  “You sail with the fleet. But thanks.”

  “Hey, this has nothing to do with you or your girlfriend. This has to do with my money.”

  “So if I show up in Cayo without the money—”

  “I leave you on the dock.” He did a finger wave and smiled. “Adios, amigo.”

  “You’re a tough guy, Jack.”

  “Don’t take it personally. And by the way, asshole, you promised the boat to me if you got killed, and then you sold it to fucking Carlos.”

  “If you make it back, he’ll be happy to sign it over to you in exchange for you keeping your mouth shut. And if we both get killed, there’s nothing to worry about.”

  Jack had no response to that and knocked the ash off his cigar.

  Sinatra was singing “New York, New York,” which was where I’d like to be right now.

  Well, the time had come to move from future problems to present problems. “Listen to me.” I looked around to be sure no one else was listening. “It’s possible that the police are interested in me and Sara.”

  He looked at me.

  “If the police question you, here or in Cayo Guillermo, you can say you’ve heard of me in Key West, but you don’t know anything about me being in Cuba, and you don’t know anything about me selling my boat. You never heard of Sara Ortega and you’re just a hired hand. And if they tell you they’ve got me or Sara in jail and we told them otherwise, you stick to your story, ’cause that’s all you got.”

  He nodded.

  “If you get questioned in Havana, demand a call to the embassy. If you’re in Cayo Guillermo and something smells fishier than the fish, you can tell Felipe what I just told you—if he hasn’t already told you the same thing—and you and Felipe go out fishing with your customers and keep going.”