Cuba Libre (2008) (35 page)

Neely couldn't help but smile.

Boudreaux accepted it with a weary expression. "I thought you'd like that, a happy ending for the poor Cuban. Meanwhile, I have no idea what's happened to the cowboy. Amelia doesn't seem to know either. She resides in her own room here at the Inglaterra, under what Tavalera calls 'house arrest." That applies to me, also. I can't leave the premises until he decides how much of a reward he wants. He claims he could even have us, as he puts it, 'jailed with every courtesy." I mentioned that Spain still rules here, under the temporary articles of surrender, but with no advice from Madrid. So, I bide my time."

"Knowing," Neely said, "you'll be back in business before too long."

"If not sooner," Boudreaux said.

"But did Amelia actually admit she planned the whole thing, to run off with the money?"

"She did, while looking me straight in the eye." "Contrite about it?"

"If she were, she wouldn't be Amelia, would she?" Boudreaux smiling just a little. "And I doubt if either of us would hold her in such high esteem."

"You respect her effort?"

"She saw the opportunity and took it."

"But, Rollie, she tried to swindle you out of forty thousand dollars."

"Bless her heart," Boudreaux said, "she's quite an astonishing girl."

Neely had to agree. He said, "I've been wanting to do a feature story about Amelia since the day I met her."

"If you ever do," Boudreaux said, "leave this business out of it, or I'll bring suit against you and your newspaper, whatever it is. And you know I'll win."

Three days ago in the dining room having coffee, Amelia looked up to see Rudi Calvo approaching through the tables, Rudi with a stout cane in each hand, hobbling, throwing one leg out with an effort and then the other. Amelia hadn't seen him since Atars. She rose to put her arms around him and heard him say, close to her, "I told Tavalera." So ashamed, but had to tell who was at the fortress with him and what they were doing there, or they would have cut off his son's legs. Amelia kept him in her arms--people watching, it didn't mattermtelling Rudi no one could blame him, don't think about it, she would have done the same, consoling, mothering, getting him to joiner at the table. As soon as they were seated he said to her, "The cowboy is near Jovellanos. He's going to be coming here soon. Two more days."

Amelia wanted to pull Rudi over and kiss him, but sat there as he explained how the cowboy was seen, how Tyler was hard to miss even trying to appear Cuban. "He was seen and spoken to by some of our people," Rudi said, "and the news about him came to me because they knew of Ataros." The cowboy, Rudi said, had been looking for the old man, Fuentes, but no one has seen him, not a soul, like he was disappeared. So they kept Tyler hidden until the war ended and now he was coming; but it would be two more days because there was no train he could take. "When I learn you were here, I knew I should tell you. Also that I confessed to the Guardia."

"He has me in prison now, so to speak," Amelia said. "I'm not allowed to leave the hotel without his permission." "You mean Lionel Tavalera?"

Amelia, that morning in the dining room, nodded and said, "I just hope he's not here when Ben comes."

This morning she was in the lobby and held the door for Rudi as he came in with his canes.

"He's in Regla. He said tell you to sit tight."

"Why didn't he come with you?"

"I took the ferry. He has his horse he rode all this way and won't leave her there. Listen, I'm going outside. It was almost an hour ago I walk from the dock, so he's going to be here soon. Come around by way of Atars."

Rudi left. Amelia sat in a wicker chair in her white tea dress and made herself wait, glancing at the clock in the lobby, a half hour before she got up and went outside to stand beneath the portico, the outside tables empty except for one, where Rudi sat, away from the entrance. Rudi pointed and she turned to look in the other direction, east along the street past the Tacon Theatre, next to the hotel. There was a horseman way down the street. She looked at Rudi again and saw him nod and turned to watch the horseman.

He was coming. Walking the dun after that long, long ride. Now she heard horses' hooves on the pavement close to her, a coach pulling up to the entrance, and then her name, "Amelia?" and turned to see Tavalera getting out, the Guardia major in a gray business suit this morning. Smiling at her as he took off his hat.

"Come in, dear, and have a coffee with me." "Rollie's waiting for you in the bar." "Then have a glass of wine with us."

"I can't think of a reason I'd want to drink with you," Amelia said, and turned away.

It was Tyler, for sure. She watched him take off his hat, a Cuban straw, and throw it up in the air as he came to the Tacon, the theater. She wanted to run to him and heard Tavalera again:

"Well, if you get thirsty."

He passed behind her entering the hotel.

And she ran to Tyler, holding up her skirts as Tyler was stepping down from the dun, went into his arms and got her mouth on his hard, smelling him, feeling his beard and not wanting to let go, but dying to look at him, too, his face so close and there it was, grinning at her. He said, "Well, you sure look sweet and wholesome. I can fix that in no time. You have a room or you hang out in the street?"

She got her arms under his arms and held on tight feeling hard shapes, his-guns, one against her arm and one pressed between them against her bosom.

"You must have your strength back." Amelia held on to him. "Don't you talk anymore?"

She said, "God," looking up at him again.

"U" Tyler said. They began kissing again.

"I may eat you p.

This time as they paused to breathe he said, "How about old Rollie, is he around?"

"He's in the bar."

"I'll get that done and then you and I can go play." Amelia hesitated. "Lionel's with him."

Tyler didn't say anything. Amelia watched a kid pick up Tyler's hat from the street and run off with it. "Lionel brought you here?" "On the train."

"He behave himself?"

"He bored me to death, that's all, talking."

"Well, I don't have any business with him, unless he messes with my gentle nature."

"You promise?"

He smiled again, running a hand through his hair. "I wondered, did you think I might've taken the money?"

"Of course not."

"Come on, tell me the truth."

"Maybe just for a second. But I knew it was Victor." "You care?"

She said, "He took forty thousand dollars," making a face like she was in pain.

There were kids watching them. Tyler gave his reins to one of them to hold and came back to her saying, "I know where we can get some more. Come on."

Neely had got up from the table as Tavalera entered and came over, the Guardia officer in mufti this morning, paying no attention to him. Neely felt the need to say something.

"So your war's over, Major."

Tavalera gave Neely a moment, looking at him to say, "This one. I plan to stay to see how the Cubans fight you Americans," and sat down with Rollie.

Neely went to the bar to pay for the drinks they'd had, waited for the barman who appeared finally with a bucket of ice, settled the bill, and when he turned saw Amelia entering the bar with Tyler.

It was Tyler, though for a moment Neely wasn't sure. He walked back toward the table as Tavalera saw them and rose. Boudreaux remained seated. Now Tyler was looking this way, his set expression relaxing in a smile. He said, "Neely?" sounding glad to see him. They shook hands, exchanging a few words, Neely saying he was dying to hear his story-maybe later sometime? He wanted to hang around without being in the way, a fly on the wall, hear what Tyler and Tavalera would say to each other.

Neely moved off a few steps as though to leave. He saw the way Boudreaux was looking at Amelia and Tyler, the two of them as one--that was the feeling.

He saw Tavalera offer his hand to Tyler, saying, "We fought honorably and now it's over."

Tyler did not take the major's hand, though looked straight at him as he said, "I have no respect for you as a man. You say another word about honor, you son of a bitch, I'll shoot you, even if I have to go back to the Morro. You understand how I feel?"

Neely watched Tavalera consider this with hard eyes, maybe recalling what happened to that hussar officer, Teo Barban, standing in almost the exact spot. All Tavalera did was shrug, though not without a certain amount of grace. Neely watched Tyler then turn to the table and say to Boudreaux: "I have no respect for you either, Mr. Tinhorn. We'll leave when I have your check for forty-five hundred and forty-five dollars."

Neely caught the we in "we'll leave," and he'd bet Boudreaux did too. He would describe the wealthy grower as sitting erect, facing Tyler with a bland expression, about to--what?--turn him down with wit? Logic? Confuse Tyler with demurring rationalizations? No, he reached into his suit coat, brought out his checkbook and then a fountain pen. His gaze moved to Amelia with what Neely would describe as a look of melancholy transforming the man's bland expression, a sadness in his eyes. A glance at Amelia saw her own eyes as cold as the barman's ice.

Boudreaux became his old self again, filling in the check without hesitation. Extending it to Tyler, he said, "You withhold respect," and seemed to shrug. "I wonder, though, if I could buy just enough of it for you to stay on and run my horse farm?"

It was Amelia who answered, raising her voice to give him a resounding, "No!"

Neely heard it as quite final and, it would appear, so did Boudreaux, who raised his glass--Neely thought for a moment to offer them luck. But no, he took quite a big drink of whiskey and put the glass down again.

It would seem to be over.

Until Neely noticed a somewhat familiar face. Yes, it was the municipal police investigator, Rudi Calvo, hobbling in with the support of a hickory cane in each hand. He moved past Amelia and Tyler and now they saw him. Tyler said, "Rudi?" and Amelia reached out to him, but too late. He didn't pause or even look at them, he walked up behind Tavalera, who was about to join Boudreaux at the table.

As Neely saw what happened:

There was Tavalera with his hand on the back of the chair to pull it out.

Rudi Calvo lifting the cane in his right hand to hook it on his left forearm. His hand then went inside his coat, Rudi saying, "Major?"

Tavalera turned.

Rudi's hand come out holding a pistol.

The room silent. Not a sound.

Tavalera seemed about to speak, raising his hand as Rudi raised the pistol and shot the Guardia squarely between the eyes.

The report filled the room and no doubt the ground floor of the hotel.

Tavalera fell dead.

Rudi tossed the pistol on the table, picked up his cane from his arm and hobbled out.

Jimelia walked with him through the lobby and held the door open, Tyler a few steps behind, people watching them. Outside, Amelia held on to Rudi's arm, asking him what he would do now, where as he going, if he had a place to hide, telling him to please tale care of himself.

"I have a good friend, so don't worry about me."

It was all he said. Rudi walked from the portico to the edge of the street and raised one of his canes in the air.

There were coaches in line waiting. But the one that came was drawn by a matched pair of palominos. Rudi handed his canes to someone inside and pulled himself aboard. The door closed and the coach drove off.

Tyler raised his arm and placed it around Amelia's shoulder.

He said to her, "Man, this Cuba."

She turned her head. "Yeah?"

"It's gonna take some getting used to."