Fifty Grand

3 HABANA VIEJA

Tears. Tears at the rise of the moon. Tears under a starless sky. Tears down my pale cheeks while Death busses tables in the restaurant.

I sip the mojito, stare at the busboy, and shake my head.

That’s a guilty man if ever I saw one. Hector’s right. The baby’s dead.

I dab my face with a cocktail napkin and shake the glass. The ice melts a little.

It is, as my mother would say, a close night. Every night for her is close. Way back her family is supposed to be from Galicia, which means, she says, that she is a martyr to the heat.

“What are you doing over there?” Hector asks in my earpiece. His voice is mock serious, sonorous, gruff. He talks like someone from the provinces who has tried hard to lose the accent, which, of course, he has. “Come on, Mercado, we don’t have all night,” he adds. You can hear the twang of Santiago in some of his vowels, but the way he enunciates is more Castilian Spanish than anything else. I know he watches a lot of illegal U.S. and European DVDs; maybe he’s picked that up from them.

I raise the Chinese cell phone, which I’ve switched to walkie-talkie mode.

“Take it easy, Hector, I’m having a drink,” I tell him.

“Did you make the arrest?”

“What does it look like?”

“I don’t know.”

“Father my babies, Hector. They’ll be ugly sons of bitches, but with that big brain of yours I’m sure they’ll go far,” I say into the mouthpiece.

He doesn’t respond.

A kid comes to the rail. Normally you don’t see beggars in the Vieja because the CDR goons will chase them away with baseball bats. Whores aplenty but not beggars, because pimps have dollars to kick back. The CDR is something between a police auxiliary and a neighborhood watch. Real cops hate them because they’re even more corrupt than they are. Than we are, I should say.

The panhandler is a skinny little boy with long black hair. Picked a good spot. Stone’s throw from the plaza, which is packed with Canadians and Europeans. Behind me the cathedral is lit up by spotlights and the relentless music from the street musicians is entertaining those tourists who don’t realize that they’re having their pockets picked.

“You’re too old to have babies. A woman of your advanced years,” Hector says in my earpiece. I’m twenty-seven, Hector, I almost yell with indignation, but that’s what he wants.

“In a minute and ten seconds that’s the best line you can come up with? You should tell Díaz to write you some fresh material, he’s got the filthiest mouth in the station,” I say instead.

“Can you see us?” Díaz asks.

Certainly can. A bright green Yugo near the Ambos Mundos with the windows wound up and the two of them looking as suspicious as hell. If they weren’t cops they were Interior Ministry secret police or something. All the pimps and dealers had cleared out of here twenty minutes ago.

“Yeah, I see you.”

“Watch this.”

I see him wave at me from the front seat of the car, a wave that quickly becomes a sexual pantomime I can’t really follow. Some kind of insult, I’m sure. Díaz was originally from Pinar del Río, and they’re an odd crew over there.

“I feel lucky to have met you, Lieutenant Díaz,” I tell him.

“Oh yeah, why’s that?” he asks, taking the bait.

“To know that such an idiot can rise so high in the cops gives hope for all of us junior detectives.”

“You’re not rising anywhere, Mercado, you’re lucky you’re not handing out parking tickets or sweating with the other girls down in the typing pool,” Hector says quickly.

“The typing pool? That dates you, man. I think the department got rid of the typing pool ten years ago,” I tell him, but actually I take his point. I’m not likely to go anywhere in the PNR. He knows it, I know it, even the kingpins who pay off the rising stars know it. No envelopes filled with dollars left on my doorstep-not because I’m not susceptible to corruption but simply because no one thinks I’m important enough to corrupt.

“At least the typing pool girls knew their place,” Hector mutters.

“Yeah, anywhere but under you,” I tell him.

There’s an annoyed grunt in my earpiece that is Hector trying to conceal his laughter.

The kid’s looking at me with big dark eyes. Not saying anything. It’s a fantastic angle, makes you think that he can’t speak. Mute, cancer, could be anything. I give him a few pesos and tell him to beat it. He takes the money but he only drifts back a couple of meters toward Palma. He looks at me with infinite sadness. Yeah, he’s good. I check that my watch is still on my wrist.

Hector’s mood is better when he comes back on a minute later.

“What’s keeping you? Come on, we have other things to do,” he says.

“Ok. Ok. I was waiting for an opening but if you want I’ll just call him over.”

“Yes, do that. Do it now.”

“You’re looking for an admission?”

“Anything. Anything at all. We’ll have to try this new directive for a while before the even newer directive comes in.”

The new directive, straight from the president’s office, was an end (or more likely a suspension) of coerced confessions. Now we were supposed to gather evidence and arrest people in the modern manner. With an American election coming up in less than a year, the powers that be wanted us to look like we were a country in transition, ready for a new chance. And that’s why they had me out here tonight, because that was one of the things I’d been pushing since I’d made detective.

“Ok. See what I can do,” I say.

I scan the place and spot him waiting on a gabacho table near the fountain. Two Québecois executives who’d probably tip 15 percent. The restaurant is a staple of the Vieja, with spillover from Hemingway groupies at the Ambos. All the trendy people and the youngsters are farther up O’Reilly, but this is an older crowd who appreciate a good cocktail and slightly out-of-date cuisine. Almost all tourists.

“Ok, Hector, I’m going to go for it. I’ll leave this on. If it looks like things are going bad I expect you and Sancho Panza to come charging in,” I say, and before they can give me further instructions or Díaz asks if that was a crack about his weight I remove the earpiece and push the phone away from me.

It’s transmitting and they’re recording, so if he says anything incriminating we should have it on tape. Our boy’s pretty close to me now anyway, fussing over two foreign ladies and pushing the priciest wine on the menu. When he’s done I catch his eye.

He shimmers across and stands next to me.

“Yes, madam?” he says in English.

I’m dressed like a foreigner. A white blouse, a tartan skirt, half pumps, a faux pearl necklace. I’ve even put on lipstick and eye shadow and my short hair is styled with bangs. I’m supposed to look like a Canadian businesswoman, but as soon as he speaks I realize I’m not going to play that game: teasing information out of him, flirting with him, pretending to be drunk… Now it all seems so tacky and pointless.

“Yes, madam?” he says again.

Young. Twenty-four, it said on his employment application, but I think he’s a few years younger than that. Thin, handsome, probably using this gig to make connections for the bigger and better.

“Can I get you another mojito, bella señorita?” he asks and flashes a charming smile.

“You’re the head waiter?” I ask him.

“Well, for tonight.”

“I’m only asking because I saw you bussing tables earlier.”

He smiles. “When it’s like this we all have to pitch in.”

“Take a seat,” I say.

He smiles again. “I’m afraid that’s not permitted and even if it were, on a night like this, with the place packed to the rafters, it would simply-”

I take out my PNR police ID and place it discreetly on the table. He looks at it, looks at me, and sits. No “What is this?” or “Are you for real?” or a glib joke about the health inspectors finally coming for the cook. No, he just sits, heavily, like his legs have given way. If my thoughts were miked up I’d be saying to Hector, “Man, take a look at his face.” His whole expression had changed as instantaneously as if he’d just been shoulder tapped in improv class. Poker’s not his game, that’s for sure.

“Please, Detective, uhm, Mercado, uhm, can you tell me what this is about? Will this take long? I’m very busy. I have a job to do,” he whispers.

“I’ve come to ask you about the murder of María Angela Domingo,” I tell him.

“Never heard of her.”

“No?”

“No.”

“That was the name they gave her in the morgue. Domingo, because it was a Sunday when the body was found.”

He frowns. His foot begins to tap. There’s even sweat beading on his upper lip. Christ, what’s the matter with you? You wanna get life in prison, Felipe? Calm down. At least make it look like I’m working you a little.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, finally.

“Don’t you?”

“No. I don’t. And I don’t appreciate this. Who put you up to this? I suppose you’re looking to get a few drinks or something. Well, have your drink and leave. We have good relations with the police.” He gets to his feet. “Now, if you don’t mind-”

“Sit where you are.”

He doesn’t move.

“I said sit!”

He almost jumps and then he doesn’t so much sit as collapse. Better be getting this on video, Díaz, we could use some of this stuff with the judge advocate.

“It will only be a matter of time before we match the baby’s DNA to the DNA of your girlfriend and, of course, you,” I tell him.

His mind is racing. He takes a drink of water.

“Do you know the law?” I ask him.

He shakes his head.

“Whoever makes an admission of guilt first can become state’s witness against the other,” I say.

He looks dubious.

“I mean, we don’t know how she died. Not yet. We don’t know the details. Maybe the death was an accident? You’re both young. You don’t know what you’re doing. How could you know how to care for a baby? Come on, Felipe. Come on. We don’t want to take two young lives and ruin them. We don’t want you to go to jail for twenty or thirty years. That’ll cost the country a fortune. We don’t want that. All we’re interested in is finding out the truth. The truth. That’s all we care about.”

I take a sip of the weak mojito and keep my eye on him.

He’s on the hook, yes, but he’s still some way from the fish fryer.

Time for another gamble.

“We arrested Marta earlier today. We had to take her in first. She didn’t seem surprised. They took her to a different precinct, so I don’t have all the details yet, but I’ll get them eventually. I wonder what she’s saying about you right now?”

His eyes flash and I see that this is the tipping point. If he’s going to blab it’s going to be now.

But I’m wrong, he doesn’t say a word.

Instead he makes a fist and brings it down on the table. My phone bounces and lands on the sidewalk. The beggar kid runs from the shadows, snatches it, and instead of running off into the night, gives it back to me. Yeah. He’s good. That’s how you do it, Felipe. That’s called the soft sell. I slip the kid a dollar bill and check the phone’s still broadcasting. It is.

“What is she saying about you? I mean, who did it? It must have been you. A mother couldn’t do that to her own child.”

“Don’t you believe it,” he says in a whisper so low the phone mike won’t have picked it up.

“What was that? Tell me. Let me help you. What did she make you do?”

He closes his eyes, brings his fists to his temples.

“You’ve got the body?” he asks.

“Yes, of course. Little María Angela.”

“Will they let me see her?”

“Yes, you’ve every right to see her, you’re her father.”

He nods and takes a breath and it all comes tumbling out: “I am. I am her father. Although she pretended it was someone else’s. What happened to that guy? Eh? Don’t believe anything she says. Don’t believe a thing. She’s the one. Her. I didn’t do anything. She’s was the… She killed her. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing. When I came over the baby was already dead. All I did was get rid of the body. I didn’t ask her to do it. You gotta believe me. I didn’t ask her. Why would I? We would have managed. I’ve got a good job here. We would have been ok.”

He opens his eyes and stares at me.

“She killed the baby?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“She drowned it… her, in the bath. That’s why I thought to put the body in La Ceiba. You gotta believe me, I had nothing to do with this. You believe me, don’t you?” he says, his voice breaking. On the verge of crazy.

A couple more pushes. “Was it your idea? She wouldn’t have done it. You must have told her to do it.”

Eyes like catcher’s mitts.

The waterworks.

“No. No. Haven’t you been listening. I told her noth-I didn’t tell her anything. It was her. It was all her. It’s madness.”

“But why did you keep the birth a secret?” I ask gently.

“She wanted me to,” he says between sobs. “She begged me to keep it quiet. And I did. God forgive me.”

“You delivered the baby alive. And then, at some point, you left the apartment. And then what happened? Later on she called you to let you know she had killed the baby?”

“Yes. That’s what happened. I wasn’t there. I had to go to work. She called me. I came home and the baby was dead.”

I nod sympathetically.

“You believe me, don’t you?” he asks and grabs my left hand.

“Yes, I believe you. La Ceiba,” I say, enunciating the words clearly. If I know Hector, he’ll have divers down there with underwater flashlights before I’ve finished this mojito.

I release my hand from Felipe’s strong fingers. I push my chair a little way back from the table. He wilts, puts his head down on the stained mahogany top, and starts crying like a good one. It’s pathetic. What does he want me to do? Pat his back? Give him a hug?

“She killed the baby and you hid the body?” I ask to confirm the testimony.

I push the phone close to him.

“Yes, yes, yes!” he mutters.

That’s good enough for me. I swivel in my seat and signal the guys on the corner. I hold up two fingers and almost immediately two uniforms come out of a car I hadn’t noticed before.

The beggar kid disappears.

Felipe looks up as the cops clamber over the barrier around the patio tables. His eyes are desperate, darting left and right. He grabs the back of a heavy metal chair.

Shit.

Quick flash of a possible future: table overturned, chair on my head, dislocated eye socket, smashed teeth, blood in my mouth, fumbling for the gun in my purse, second swing of the chair, roll to the side, revolver in my hand, trigger, two bullets in his gut.

Sort of thing you never get over.

“Don’t even think about it,” I tell him severely.

He lets go of the chair.

“Please,” he says and tries to grab my hand but I slide away and he clutches air.

Finally one of the uniforms puts a hand on his shoulder. He flinches.

“You know where I was when she called me?” he asks me.

“Where?”

“The cathedral.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Yes. Yes. It’s the truth. I was there,” he says, pointing up the street.

“Praying for forgiveness?”

“No, no. No. No. You’ve got it all wrong. The baby was still alive when I left. She did it. She killed it. Drowned it.”

The uniforms look at me as if to ask “Is this one a runner?” I shrug my shoulders. Their problem now.

“Come on,” one of them says and cuffs himself to Felipe. With surprising efficiency an old Mexican julia appears from the plaza-brakes screeching, lights flashing, but, because it’s the Vieja, siren off.

“You believe me, don’t you?” Felipe asks, his eyes wide, tears dripping off his face like a leaky tap.

“I believe you,” I reassure him.

He walks meekly to the julia and gets in the back.

The doors close and just like that he’s gone, whisked off into the night as if he’s part of a magician’s trick. I look around the restaurant but the place is so busy no one except the Québecois has noticed any of this. The two widows at the next table are still studying the menu and everyone else is getting quietly hammered on daiquiris.

Only the gamin seems to care. I feel his glare from the semidarkness. His unasked question needs no answer but I give it to him anyway. Gratis. “He killed his girlfriend’s baby. A little girl. Ok?”

The boy looks skeptical. My cell phone vibrates. I stick in the earpiece.

“Hell of a job, hell of job,” Hector says.

“Thank you.”

“Where did you come up with that stuff? ‘María Angela.’ Fantastic. That’s exactly what they would call her, will call her when they find the body. You took a risk, though, no?”

“What risk?”

“You didn’t know it was a girl. What if it had been a baby boy?”

“They wouldn’t have killed it if it had been a baby boy. They would have sold it.”

Hector sighs. “Yes, you’re probably right.”

“I’ve given you enough to go on, right?”

“More than enough. Wow. The things that come from nothing. All we had was a tip from the old lady that she was pregnant and wasn’t pregnant anymore. We didn’t have proof of anything.”

“Well, now you got two losers whose lives are ruined.”

“Always the downside, Mercado. Don’t look at it like that. You did good. You really did good. You broke it open. In about two fucking minutes.”

“Like to take the credit, Hector, but it really wasn’t me. He wanted to talk. He was itching for it. I believe him about the cathedral, by the way, but he probably went there afterward. To ask forgiveness from Our Lady.”

Hector doesn’t want to think about that. “No. You really scored for us. Come on. Put down that glass and let me buy you a real drink. We’ll go to that place on Higüera. Let’s go celebrate.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m meeting my brother.”

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you want to meet here?”

“I knew I was going to be here.”

“What if Felipe had gone crazy and strangled you or something?” Díaz chips in.

“He wasn’t strangling anybody. He was glad. Relieved.”

“Well. We’re all pleased. You should come…” Hector says, then his voice drops a register. “You should come, Mercado, we’re, uh, we’re meeting our friends from the embassy, uhm, I’d like to introduce you.”

“You should definitely come,” Díaz seconds.

Our friends from the embassy.

Which embassy? The Venezuelan? The Chinese? The Vietnamese? They all have what works in a plutocracy. Money. And Hector wants to introduce me to some of the players. Never done that before. It’s what all ambitious cops want. The way in. The party, the drinks, the jokes, the dollars, an end to the sweatbox on O’Reilly, bigger cases, DGI contacts, maybe even a car.

Our friends from the embassy.

“Sorry, Hector, rain check, I can’t do it tonight.”

“Tell her, Díaz,” Hector says.

“She doesn’t want to go,” Díaz replies.

“Can’t do it, I’m meeting my brother, he’s flying in from America.”

A long pause before Hector decides it’s not worth it. “Ok, well, if you change your mind you’ll know where we’ll be.”

“I will, thanks, guys. And Díaz, please don’t let him tell any jokes-you two on a bender with embassy people has ‘international incident’ written all over it.”

I hear them chuckle and they flash the lights on the Yugo and wave as they drive past. No obscene gestures this time.

I finish the mojito and look about for a waiter. I suppose I should tell the manager that I’ve just arrested their-

A pair of hands covers my eyes.

Too clean and presumptuous to be the boy beggar.

“Ricky.”

He laughs and kisses me on the cheek. He puts a chic black bicycle messenger bag on the table and sits in Felipe’s seat.

“I thought they’d never go. Fucking cops,” he says.

“Hey-”

“Present company excepted. Jesus, we’re the youngest people here. Why did you want to meet in this cemetery?” he asks.

“I like it here.”

He shakes his head, takes off his raincoat, and as an antitheft device wraps the strap of his messenger bag under his chair.

“How was your flight?” I ask.

“It was fine. I came direct.”

“Really? Didn’t know you could come direct.”

“Yeah, you can. Two flights a week from Miami to Havana. Shit, I really could do with a… Have you seen a… Jesus. Pretty slow service in here, no?”

“I just arrested the head waiter.”

“You’re joking.”

“No.”

“Did he grab your ass or something?”

“No.”

“What did-oh, wait, here’s one finally…”

A harassed-looking kid shows up, seemingly dragooned from the kitchen.

Ricky orders half a dozen things off the tapas menu and a martini. He looks good. He’s fit and handsome, with a mop of black hair that hangs over his left eyebrow in a fey, Englishy sort of way. He’s almost too handsome, with none of Dad’s flat, jovial peasant charm or Mother’s fleshy good looks. He’s angular and trim. His teeth are American white and his smile broad. The only thing we share are the dark green eyes from Mom’s side of the family.

The eyes twinkle in the moonlight as he sips the martini.

“Yech,” he says. “Local gin.”

When we were younger, people used to say we resembled each other, but not anymore. He’s grown prettier and I’ve grown duller. Although perhaps tonight because he’s just gotten off a flight and I’ve put on eye makeup and my best clothes we are like siblings once again.

“The mojitos are ok,” I tell him.

“A mojito?” he says as if I’ve just suggested human flesh.

It makes me laugh and he laughs. Because of his good looks and the fact that he works for the Cuba Times and the YCP magazine, everyone assumes that he’s gay. For years he wheeled a few girls around and tried to beard them but when he saw that it wasn’t going to hurt his career he quietly let the girls go. He’s not “out” like some of the famous Havana queens, but I’ve met his sometime boyfriend, a captain in the MININT-the Ministry of the Interior-and almost everyone knows. One time a low-level chivato (a paid informer) tried to blackmail him about his cosmopolitan tendencies, but the chivato ended up losing his job and being moved to Manzanillo.

He swallows the last of his martini, orders a Cuba Libre, and eats most of the food before he even thinks about having a conversation. Ricky’s one of those men who can eat anything without it ever showing. If he weren’t my brother I’d probably hate him. No, if he weren’t my brother we would never have met in the first place. His circles are kilometers above mine.

“I’m surprised they can still pull it together,” he says, munching on something that yesterday was swimming happily in the Florida Strait. “I would never have eaten here in a million years but it’s not bad.”

I let him nibble at two more side dishes before I press him.

“So what did you find out?” I ask with a trace of impatience.

“In a minute. Let’s do you first. You arrested a waiter?”

Typical Ricky, always looking for a story.

“Yeah. One of the head waiters.”

“The head waiter? What did he do?”

“He was a murderer.”

“You don’t say. Who did he kill?” he asks, affecting casualness.

“Killed a lot of people. Real nutcase. Poisoned them.”

Ricky looks at his empty plate of tapas.

“Poisoned them? Are you serious?”

“Yeah, a dozen victims at least.”

Ricky pales, but then I wink at him and he laughs.

“You’re wasted in the goon squad,” he says.

“I like the goon squad.”

“That’s why you’re so weird, big sister.”

“So. Tell me. What did you find out?”

He reaches into the messenger bag and hands me a folder full of typed sheets, drawings, and photographs.

“You wrote a report? Where did you get the time?”

“It was easier to write it out on the computer. I can type at a hundred words a minute, you know.”

I look through his notes. They’re clear and well organized and give me everything I need to get started.

“What’s your conclusion?” I ask.

“Hey, do you like my bag? I got this in Manhattan, it’s the latest thing,” he says, trying to be frivolous.

“You’re not going to distract me. What did you find out, Ricky?”

He shakes his head. “My conclusion, dear sister, is that your suspicions are probably correct,” he says with deliberate caution.

“I’m right?”

“I think so.”

We both consider this for a moment.

“You went to the garage?”

“Yes, I went to the garage.”

“What did you learn there?” I ask.

“It’s all in the notes.”

“What did you learn, Ricky?”

“There were two accidents that day. That means two suspects: one of them’s an old lady, one’s a Hollywood type.”

“A Hollywood type? What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Didn’t I tell you? Fairview is full of Hollywood types. Tom Cruise moved there, and around his sun lesser planets revolve. It’s where the elite go to ski now that Aspen and Vail are full of the hoi polloi. I met some of them. I got invited to a party.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. I met a charming young man with whom I had a meeting of minds.”

“I hope you were careful.”

“I’m always careful, darling.”

“How did you get all this stuff through airport security?” I ask.

Cuba was one of the few countries in the world that put you through a metal detector and scanner and searched you after you got off the plane. It was so that they could seize any contraband such as banned books, newspapers, magazines. The agents must have read Ricky’s typewritten notes and asked him questions about it.

Ricky sighs as if this is a stupid question. “They’re not very bright. I did a cover page about the conference, made it really boring. I knew they’d only glance at the first few lines, which were full of praise for the brothers.”

“Smart,” I say and examine the photographs. A motel, a mountain, a lonely mountain road. A Range Rover with a dent on the left front.

“This is amazing. This is more than I’d hoped for. You did really well, Ricky,” I tell him with genuine affection.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he says and lights a postmeal cigarette. American one.

“Tell me about the Range Rover in the photograph.”

“Oh, that’s a man called Esteban, a bear, straight, second-gen Mex, he did not bring his car into the garage for repair but he seems to have damaged it at around the same time. Apparently he hit a deer. It’s only a small dent, but I knew you’d be intrigued.”

“Why isn’t he one of your suspects?”

“I don’t know if anyone would have the cojones to kill a man and drive around with his blood and DNA on his car for half a year.”

“Hmmm, you might be right about that. Who’s this Jack Tyrone character?” I ask, skimming his conclusions.

“He’s the movie star I was talking about.”

“Never heard of him.”

“No, he’s an up-and-comer. I met him at the party, talked to him, also straight as they come, alas.”

“Ricky! You’ve got him down as a suspect!”

“Secondary suspect. I suppose someone might be covering for him but his alibi seems watertight. He was in L.A. at the time of the accident. He was ok, but, like I say, straight as the fucking gate. At least he didn’t try to get me to attend a Scientologist meeting like my charming new friend did the next morning.”

“What’s a Scientologist meeting?” I ask innocently.

“Oh, my God, sister. Don’t you read the Yuma magazines?”

Yuma was street slang for anything Yankee, and of course you could get the magazines but why anyone would pay hard currency for a copy of People or Vogue was beyond me.

“I need my money for things like food and electricity,” I say.

“Oh, boo hoo, the poor, starving public servant.”

“Shut up.”

He shakes his head as if I’m hopelessly uncool.

“Oh, speaking of Scientologists. One other thing I put in there at the end. The same night as the accident, one of them apparently crashed a golf cart on Pearl Street. I don’t think it’s anything to do with us but you might want to check it.”

I put the notes back in the folder and grin at him. “Well, I’m impressed, you’ve done really well here, Ricky.”

“I risked a lot.”

“I know.”

“I was proud of the photographs. Thought they might help.”

“Did you talk to Karen?”

He conceals his distaste in a comic pretense of distaste. “No. That little chore I will leave to you. If you go.”

“When I go.”

“Oh, the one thing I couldn’t get was the sheriff’s report. They told me I could file a Freedom of Information request-if I were a U.S. citizen.”

I look at him. “They said it like that?”

“Yeah, they said it like that.”

Ricky waves at a friend walking past the Ambos.

“Well, I guess I’m going too, then,” I say.

Ricky leans back in his chair. “Not necessarily, sweetie. We have an interests section at the Mexican consulate in Denver. Maybe we could do something through them,” he suggests.

“No, Ricky, my mind’s made up. I don’t want a snow job. I want to do it myself.”

“And of course you’re the only one who can do it, right?”

I note the sarcasm in his voice but I don’t want to make an issue out of it.

“I’ve decided, Ricky.”

He says nothing, blows a smoke ring, and waves hello to yet another friend.

I tap the folder. “Seriously, thank you for this.”

“You’re very welcome,” he replies and flutters his eyelashes.

A long silence.

This is always what it’s been like between us. What’s not said is just as important as the dialogue.

“So when are you thinking about popping off?” he asks, in English, his brows knitting.

“Soon. Next week. I’ve put in for a leave of absence.”

“Next week? I’ve got an article coming out in El País. Big break for me. I’m having a party.”

“And I would have been invited?”

“Of course. But you wouldn’t have come.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you feel out of place around my coke-snorting, bisexual, decadent contra-revolutionary pals.”

“Yeah, I wonder why. What’s the piece?”

“Feature article in the magazine on the new Cuba. All sorts of rumors coming down from the MININT.”

“El País. Dad would have been proud.”

“You think?” he asks dubiously.

“Of course, Ricky.”

He nods but doesn’t answer.

His face assumes a dark expression and he reaches his fingers across the table.

“Hands,” he says.

I put my hand in his.

He clears his throat.

“Oh no, Ricky, you’re not going to give me a lecture, are you?”

He ignores this crack and says what he’s going to say: “Listen, sweetie, I know you’re two years older than me but in some ways I’ve always felt that you were my little sister and I should be looking out for you,” he intones very seriously.

“Don’t do this, Ricky,” I say and wriggle my hand free from his grip.

He shrugs, reaches into his jacket pocket for another cigarillo, lights it, takes a puff. “Ok, sis, I’ll cut it short, but I’m going to say it and you’re going to listen. That way if anything happens to you, my conscience will be clear. I’m doing it for me, not you. What do you think?”

“Ok,” I mutter.

“All right, I’ll give you a précis of the big speech I was going to hit you with. Basically it’s this: There’s no point at all risking your life and your career for Dad. Dad didn’t give a fuck about us. Not one letter, not one dollar in all those years. Dad was a selfish bastard and although I’m sorry he’s dead, that’s about all I feel. We don’t owe him a thing. And furthermore, he probably was drunk that night, and although I’m upset that he went the way he went, it’s nothing to do with us.”

Ricky smiles grimly and takes a long draw on the cigarillo.

I can see his point of view, but it’s not mine.

“Who else is going to do anything about it?” I ask him.

“That’s not the issue.”

“What is the issue, Ricky?”

“The point is that this isn’t how grown-ups do things,” he says.

“How do grown-ups do things?” I say with a trace of anger. Sometimes his condescension is hard to take.

“Not like this. This is the way people behave in comic books or TV shows. It’s preposterous. It’s a throwback. It’s theatrical.”

“I’m theatrical?”

“Yes. You’re pretending. You’re acting. Look at you. You’re someone with a promising career, a cheap apartment, a new promotion. And you want to throw all that away? For what?”

“I’m not throwing anything away. I’m taking a week’s vacation, I’ve planned it all out in adv-”

“Planned what out? How dumb do you think they are in the DGI? If you don’t defect when you get there, if you really do come back, you’re going to be spending the next ten years in some plantation prison.”

“I told you. I’m not defecting. I’ll be back, I’ve got a plan all worked out.”

“Fuck the plan. The DGI, the DGSE, the Interior Ministry are always one step ahead. It took me all day to lose my tail in New York.”

“But you lost him.”

“Yeah, I did, I’ve done it before. You never have.”

“I’m a cop, I know when I’m being followed.”

“Ojalá,” Ricky mumbles, looks at the stars, and shakes his head.

Another long silence. Jiniteros and jiniteras start filtering back into the street. The boy beggar resumes his perch. The piano player at the Ambos breaks into the “Moonlight Sonata.”

“What does Hector think about all this?” Ricky asks.

“I wouldn’t tell him. I don’t trust him. Why do you mention Hector?” I ask.

“You’re screwing him, aren’t you?” he says.

“Mother of God, what makes you think that?”

“Well, because he promoted you to detective and because you always talk about him.”

“I’m not screwing him. I got promoted because I’m good at my job, Ricky.”

Ricky orders another rum and Coke. He looks at his watch. Obviously I’m only the first of several appointments in his busy evening. I smile gently. “Look, Ricky, I know you’ve risked a lot, slipping out of Manhattan, going to Colorado, but I can take care of myself too.”

He nods slowly and sinks back into the chair. His shoulders slump as if all the life has been sucked out of him, as if I’ve just told him I’ve got terminal cancer. He starts to say something and stops. “You’ve never been out of Cuba,” he says.

“No, but I can speak English as well as you and I’m a damn fine cop.”

Before he can respond the beggar boy pulls at his arm. Really pushing his luck, this one.

“It’s your turn,” I tell Ricky.

Ricky reaches into his pocket and gives the kid a few pesos. The kid takes it to one of the jiniteras, who might be his mother.

Ricky looks at me, beams me that get-out-of-jail smile. “Ah, fuck it, it’s your decision, if you want to go, you go.”

“Thanks for the permission. Now let’s end this. You know I’ve made up my mind. And once it’s made, it’s made.”

“I like your outfit,” he says.

“Shut up. I didn’t want to look like a cop.”

“You don’t.”

The street has completely filled now. Whores back under the streetlamps, pimps playing craps against alley walls. A CDR man I know shooting dice with the pimps. Ricky finishes the cigarillo. “I suppose it should be me. The only son,” he says.

I hide the surprise on my face. “You’ve done enough,” I tell him.

“It should be the son. It’s my responsibility. I owe it to Mom, to you.”

I shuffle my chair next to him and put my arm around him. I kiss him on the cheek.

“No.”

He blinks, turns his head away. “It should be me,” he continues. “I thought about it when I was up there, but then-well, then I knew I wasn’t going to do anything.”

“You did what I asked you to do.”

He nods. “It wouldn’t be justice. It would be murder.”

“Maybe nobody has to die.”

A tour group of elderly Canadians comes up from the harbor and files solemnly into the Ambos Mundos. They walk through, buying neither a drink nor anything else. The piano player starts riffing on a song by Céline Dion, either to bring them back or perhaps as ironic commentary.

Ricky politely disengages my arm. “So how are you going to wangle the visa?” he asks.

“I’m telling Hector I’m interviewing for a master’s degree at UNAM in Mexico City. I am too.”

“Jesus Christ, when did you start planning that?”

“Three days after the funeral.”

Ricky laughs and takes my hand. “Oh, you’re good, Mercado, like I say, too good for the cops. You need an outlet. When was the last time you wrote a poem?”

“Are you kidding? When I was thirteen.”

He smiles. “You had talent. Your place is full of poetry books. You should start up again.”

“You need to be in love with somebody to write poems,” I tell him.

“That’s not true. Dad thought you were good.”

He is getting on my nerves again. “You wanna hear a poem?”

“Sure.”

“‘The singing bird is dead as dust, he won’t revive, alas, / so you can take that golden quill and shove it up your ass’-Heinrich Heine.”

Ricky laughs, shakes his head, looks at his watch, yawns. “Well, I suppose I better…” he says.

He stands and leaves a twenty-dollar bill on the table. I give it back to him.

“The police are paying for this one,” I tell him.

“Hey, you want to come with me? Yeah, you should come,” he says.

“Where to?” I ask suspiciously, imagining some sweaty basement Sodom and Gomorrah filled with rail-thin boys and army colonels with fat mustaches.

“To see Mom. I smuggled in American chocolate from Miami. Come on, she’ll be thrilled.”

“To see Mom?” I say, aghast.

“It won’t be that bad,” he says.

But of course it is.

Water leaking in her apartment. Buckets over the voodoo gods. The smell of incense and a backed-up toilet.

Ricky tells her all about Manhattan.

An isle of joy, he says. She doesn’t really understand. She brews herbal tea and casts the tarot. Makes predictions. Not a surprise when she mentions death. She always predicts death. We always ignore it. Laugh about it.

Death.

Oh God.

My eyes open.

Out into the hard blue night I gaze. Through the mountain and the desert. Through the tears. Tears for me. Tears into the black seat. My denim shirt thick with tears. I picked this shirt because it looked sexless, like a drab uniform for a drab nonentity. For an invisible. The person who cleared your table or cleaned your toilet or mowed your lawn.

I hadn’t wanted to be noticed. But two miles into the United States I’m noticed. I’m nearly raped. And now I’ve killed two men. Unmade them as if they never were.

And there’s nothing I can do but wipe my tears.

My face pressed against glass. Yellow lines. Scrub. Incandescent creatures following the van. What do they want?

More blood.

The deaf lady talking to me.

She can see I’m crying.

“We’re nearly there,” she’s saying.

Francisco gives me a handkerchief, asks me something.

“No, I’m fine.”

Headlights lick asphalt.

Moths call my name.

Close my eyes. Mom’s apartment, Ricky’s chocolate, me looking for the container holding Dad’s ashes. It isn’t there. No doubt Mother sold it to the witches on the floor below.

This is stupid.

This is crazy.

Hector was right. Ricky was right. They were all right.

Lights in the distance. Gas station. Another gas station.

“Ok, friends,” Pedro says. “We’re just about there.”

A strip mall. 7-Eleven. Liquor store. Smoke shop.

Bits of tire. Fenders. License plates.

A gender reassignment clinic.

What is this place?

“America.”

America.

“I don’t feel good.”

The car pulls into a parking lot.

“I don’t feel good, Francisco.”

“Call me Paco, everyone does.”

“Paco, I don’t feel…”

“Let me help you out. We’re here.”

“Where’s here?”

“Come on. I’ll help you to the motel room. It’s been a long day.”

His hand on my arm. The trucks. A chill in the air. Snow clouds to the north.

“It’s ok, you’re safe now.”

Safe. Burn this shirt when I get the chance. Burn all these clothes.

“I need to shower.”

“Yes, a shower.”

Voices. Paco to Pedro. “She’s in shock. Delayed reaction. Give her some brandy.”

“I’ve got some 4H, do you think she would take some of that? Mellow her right out.”

“Worse thing you can do. Get some hot chocolate.”

Chocolate.

Snow clouds.

An outdoor swimming pool.

“Does anyone have a bathing suit that I can borrow?”

“Well, I don’t know, I can check.”

“Check.”

A bathing suit.

“We got it in the lost and found,” Paco says, grinning.

Flip-flops. The edge of the pool. “Gotta warn you. The guy says it’s not heated.”

“It’s ok.”

I step in. The cold clears my head. The chlorine scalds my cuts. I stay in till midnight. Quarter moon. Stars between the clouds.

A towel.

Food.

Whispers.

“Get some rest. Long day tomorrow.”

“Rest. Yes.”

The women in one room. The men in another.

A picture of Jesus. Mosquito corpses on the walls. A calvary for mosquitoes. The fabled mosquito graveyard.

The bed sags. I lay the mattress on the floor.

Sleep comes like a guillotine. And I’m down. No bad dreams. No dreams of any kind.

It’s ok, Ricky. It’s ok, Mom.

It’s ok.

I’m in America and I’ve begun my task and the night is quiet and the world at peace.

The peace of Carthage.

The peace of baby María Angela.

The peace of a frozen grave.