“I promise that you won’t have to worry about us for the rest of the trip.”
“All right. Thank you.” He hesitated, then said, “Antonio has asked me and Alison about both of you.”
“Really?”
“Is there . . . any problem I should know about?”
“That’s very kind of you to ask.”
“Well . . . ?”
Well, this might be an opportunity to cover our tracks and also cover our asses. “This is Cuba, Tad. And Sara Ortega is anti-Castro, and Antonio is a chivato. Do you know what that is?”
“I do.”
“So next time he asks about us, tell him to go fuck himself.”
“I . . .”
I leaned toward him. “If Sara and I should fail to appear one morning, do us a favor and call the embassy.”
Tad seemed speechless. And a bit pale. Finally, he said, “Maybe you should leave the country.”
“We’re thinking about it.”
“All right . . . can I help?”
Tad was really okay. And I knew he’d call the embassy when Sara and I didn’t show up tomorrow morning. And the embassy would call the Ministry of the Interior, who would deny having us in their custody—which might be true, but maybe not. In any case, I think I covered most of the bases, and gave Tad two plausible reasons for our disappearance—prisoners of love or prisoners of the state.
“Maybe you should visit the embassy today,” he suggested.
That wasn’t possible if Antonio was telling the truth about Sara and me being on a watch list, and in any case the embassy was only a Hail Mary option. Camagüey was the next stop. I said, “Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”
“Well . . . this is Cuba . . .”
“Right. Do me a favor and don’t mention this to anyone. You and I and Sara can talk tomorrow.”
“All right.”
“I hope my and Sara’s problems don’t get the group kicked out of the country.”
He seemed distraught.
“I’m going to get some gummy rice. Would you like some?”
He looked at me. “No . . .” He stood. “I’m sorry about all this.”
“Not your fault. And by the way, Lope is also a chivato and he understands English.”
Tad looked a bit paler. He nodded and went back to his table and sat with Alison. I really didn’t understand why he hadn’t nailed her yet. Maybe he lacked self-confidence.
Sara came into the breakfast room, looking refreshed and pretty in tight white jeans, a blue Polo shirt, and a baseball cap—the same outfit she’d worn when she stepped onto my boat a million years ago. I recalled thinking how great it would be if we had sex.
She sat. “I’m starving.”
“Let’s get some gummy rice.”
“Some . . . what?”
“Tad asked how we were feeling.”
“Oh.”
I filled her in about my conversation with Tad. I concluded, “Tad is aware that because of your bad attitude toward the regime, you and I may be in the crosshairs of the police.”
“I’m not sure you should have told him that.”
“When we don’t show up for roll call tomorrow morning, he’ll contact the embassy and tell them what I just told him.”
“I like the original plan of leaving him a note saying we went to the beach and we’ll be back in time for the return flight.”
“That’s Plan A. Plan B covers the possibility that we might become guests of the Ministry of the Interior.”
She stayed silent awhile, then said, “You’re either very smart, or . . . you’re outsmarting yourself.”
“I know the answer to that.”
“You need to consult me before you change the plan.”
“Tactics and strategy need to change in quick response to battlefield realities. That’s why you hired me.”
She nodded.
“Did you leave an envelope for Antonio?”
“I did. My last dollars.”
“I know where there’s more.”
She stood. “Are you getting breakfast?”
“Just bring me some gummy rice. And get some for yourself.”
Sara went to the buffet.
I sipped my coffee. In the civilian world, we say that life is about choices. In the military, we use the word “decisions,” which seem to have more weight, and more consequences, than choices. In the case of choices, the right ones will eventually make you healthy, wealthy, and happy. With decisions, the wrong ones have a way of being instantly unforgiving.
Well, if I was going to die here, it wouldn’t be because I got blindsided by some asshole with a rocket-propelled grenade; it would be because I made a few bad decisions, the first being to let Sara Ortega make bad choices.
And yet . . . Sara had that one thing that was indispensable for success in life and in battle—self-confidence. And also a belief that God and justice were on her side. So how could I go wrong following her to the end of the rainbow, where sixty million dollars sat in a cave waiting for us? Teamwork makes the dream work.
CHAPTER 38
Sara and I sat in the middle of the bus. José was our driver again, and Antonio hopped aboard with a new spring in his step and six years’ pay in his pocket, with visions of more in his head. Not to mention his date with the insolent and beautiful Sara Ortega. He’d show the Miami Beach Bitch who was boss.
“Today,” said Antonio, “we go to the Forbidden Zone.” He explained, “Vedado means ‘Forbidden Zone,’ and in the old days Vedado was a hunting preserve outside the city walls of Havana, reserved exclusively for the upper classes.”
Who gives a shit?
Antonio prattled on as the bus made its way along the Malecón into the Vedado district. Now and then he would try to make eye contact with me, maybe to assure himself that we had a deal. Or maybe to let me know that when he was fucking Sara, he was also fucking me. He barely looked at Sara. Asshole.
Tad sat quietly and seemed to be still distraught. He glanced at Antonio a few times, seeing him in a different light. Tad had discovered Cuba for himself—and it wasn’t all about the rhumba.
Sara took my hand. “We’re halfway home.”
So was Amelia Earhart.
We drove past the Monument to the Victims of The Maine, and Antonio said, “After the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, the people of Havana ripped the American eagle from the monument, and there is now a plaque there that reads: ‘To the victims of The Maine, who were sacrificed by imperialist greed in its eagerness to seize the island of Cuba.’?”
Must be something lost in the translation.
We passed by the Plaza of Dignity, which included the Anti-Imperialist Forum, and this inspired Antonio to go into an anti-imperialist spiel.
Antonio, as I always suspected, was a Commie for convenience, an opportunistic chivato, an enthusiastic scammer, and a full-time amoral pig. I would have no problem putting a bullet in his head.
We drove past the American Embassy and I noticed the Cuban police who were posted outside the gates. Quite possibly they had my and Sara’s names on a list, and our photos from the airport. We weren’t exactly on the lam yet, or on the most wanted list, but if we believed Antonio, we weren’t getting into our embassy—or out of this country—without his help.