Night Work (11 page)

He took the cup from her and put it on the table.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting back into bed. I want to go over the dialectics with you, make sure I really understand them.”

“Ooooh, I love it when you talk dirty.” She slipped down in the bed, and he pulled the sheets up over their heads.

*   *   *

Ribera's studio was a large, airy, one-story stucco building at the back of the garden. It was fronted by big French doors that opened and wide skylights that pierced the ceiling. Cassidy lay on an old, plush, much-stained sofa, smoking a cigarette and watching Ribera work on a large canvas under one of the skylights. Ribera stood back from the easel and studied the painting, and then picked up a palette knife from the paint-smeared table next to him, slid it through a drift of red, and stroked a bold, broad line on the canvas. He stepped back to study the result, sighed contentedly, and threw the palette knife on the table. “I'm a genius.” He picked up his burning cigar from the ashtray and drew on it till it burned to his satisfaction. “So, the cop and the KGB agent together again. If there is a God, he has a wonderful sense of humor.”

“You knew she was here.”

“Yes. She came by when she first arrived.” Ribera waited for the questions he knew would come.

“Are you still working for the KGB?”

Ribera laughed and waved the accusation away. “I never worked for them. I helped them in New York by giving Dylan a place, but I did not work for them.” A distinction that was important to him.

“Is Castro a Commie?”

“Michael, Michael, Michael, you've been infected by the American need to reduce everything to black or white. Democracy or communism. America or Russia. For us it is not so clear, and sometimes the enemy of your enemy is your friend.”

“And America's your enemy?”

“America has used and exploited us for fifty years. It has propped up dictators and supported repressive regimes so that American companies could have a peaceful marketplace here. Your country doesn't give a shit for us. It cares only about the money you can make off us.”

“Do you think the Russians love you?”

“They don't have to love us, and we don't have to love them. You don't have to love everyone you go to bed with. Sometimes you just need the screwing.”

“Hope the Russians don't give you exactly that.”

*   *   *

New Year's Eve.

They drove downtown in Ribera's stately old Packard limousine with the chauffeur, Miguel, behind glass. The streets boiled with people. The cafés and bars overflowed to the sidewalk. A conga line, twenty men and women, hands on the hips of the one in front, led by drums and guitars and gourd rattles and a man wearing a papier-mâché head of a bull, came out of a side street and blocked traffic as they snaked across and followed the music into the open courtyard of a house hung with garlands of flowers. Through the tinted windows of the Packard, the scene had an underwater quality. Uniformed cops with submachine guns stood in groups at the intersections. Army trucks waited in the plazas, their backs filled with soldiers sitting with guns upright between their knees. SIM Jeeps cruised. For days there had been rumors of a final push by the rebels. It was a song that had been sung before, but it was not going to spoil the fun.

*   *   *

“No one will look for you on New Year's Eve, and if they do, they certainly won't look for you in the places I go,” Ribera said with an assurance that made protest seem craven. They ate at a restaurant in Old Havana with wooden tables, beneath framed sepia photographs of cane workers in ragged straw hats, portly men on horses overseeing them, sailing ships in Havana Harbor, a garden party with women in long dresses shaded by parasols, and men in suits and Panama hats and staring stiffly at the camera. The food was described by Ribera as the food of the people—
moros y cristianos, ropa vieja, camarones empanizados, picadillo, platanos
—accompanied by two bottles of 1929 Château Latour that Ribera carried in a wicker basket, definitely not a wine of the people. The owner, a thin, smiling woman with hair escaping from its bun like tendrils of gray vines, hugged him when they arrived. He had to stop to hug and kiss people at half the tables on the way to his own. The waiters and waitresses greeted him as a friend. Platters came hot from the kitchen. Water glasses were quickly refilled. A raised eyebrow would bring someone immediately, but no one intruded without being called.

The restaurant was full. Glad cries greeted new arrivals. Conversations were shouted from one table to another. Occasionally there was the sound of breaking glass. There was something desperate beneath the celebration. A dance on the rim of the volcano.

Two men came out of the kitchen and stood near the door until Ribera noticed them. They wore guayabera shirts and cotton pants. They were in their twenties, and they looked out over the room warily. They both were bearded, but their beards were trimmed. Camouflage for a trip to the city? Ribera excused himself and went to talk to them. He took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to one of them. The men nodded and went back into the kitchen and Ribera returned to the table and poured the last of the wine into their glasses but said nothing about the men and their mission.

When they left the restaurant an hour later, they heard gunfire. Maybe blocks away, maybe in the next street. Six or seven shots fired quickly, a pause, the ripping reply of a machine gun, then silence.

*   *   *

“Castro is the first real hope for the people in my life. Oh, many have promised, of course, but in the end it's the same old story. They talk about The People. They win the election, and suddenly the people are reduced to their friends, their cousins, others with money and power. It will come as a surprise to you, I'm sure, that power tends to corrupt. They get a little taste, and then they want more.” He smiled at Dylan and patted her hand. “Not Castro. Of this, I am sure.”

The Packard moved implacably through the streets. Other cars seemed to give way to its majesty.

“He is a democrat, a true democrat.”

“People say his brother Raúl and that Argentine, Che, are Communists.”

“Fuck people who say this. These are rumors spread by Batista and by people in the American business community who have been feeding off Cuba for a long time and don't want to stop. No, no. He is a democrat, a true democrat. You will see.”

Dylan looked away and said nothing.

The traffic slowed ahead of them. They crept along at a crawl. Barrels had been placed in the street to funnel cars through a slalom to a roadblock, a striped wooden barrier manned by uniformed police who peered into the cars as they stopped. A pickup truck had been pulled to one side under a streetlight, and two men in work clothes stood by while soldiers searched the back. The Packard advanced car by car.

Dylan shifted nervously in her seat. Cassidy put a hand on hers. He looked out the side windows picking out escape routes, checking for cover. Just in case.

“This is not for us,” Ribera said. “They are not looking for rebels in limousines. This is routine.” But his fingers drummed on the armrest.

The Packard rolled forward a few yards and stopped again. There were two cars in front of it. The one at the barrier was a high prewar Chevrolet with a bulbous trunk. One of the cops talked to the driver through his open window. He pulled away and walked to a gray sedan parked at the side of the road. A moment later Colonel Fuentes got out and walked to the Chevy.

Dylan's hand clenched under Cassidy's, and she drew breath in a hiss.

“He knows us,” Cassidy said. “He was Dylan's jailer at La Cabaña. He knows us both.”

“Mmmmm” was Ribera's only response.

The car behind was on the Packard's bumper. There was no way to go but forward.

Fuentes looked in at the driver of the Chevy. The man passed him papers. Fuentes read them, and then handed them to the cop at his elbow and said something. The cop spoke to the driver. After a moment, the Chevy backed up until it touched the bumper of the car behind it. It turned as it went forward, backed again, turned again, maneuvered out of line to a place by the curb. The car in front of the Packard moved forward to the barricade. The Packard followed.

Fuentes walked back to the gray sedan. He leaned against it and lit one of his thin cigars as he watched. The driver got out of the Chevy and opened the trunk, and two soldiers began to search it.

Dylan opened her purse. A small silver automatic lay next to her compact and lipstick. “If he comes to the car,” she said.

“Are you armed?” Ribera asked Cassidy.

“No.”

“It will not be necessary, but here,” Ribera opened a wood-paneled compartment under his armrest and passed Cassidy a Smith & Wesson automatic. “Do nothing unless…” There was no reason to finish the sentence. Cassidy jacked a shell into the chamber, made sure of the safety, and slipped the pistol under his thigh.

Soldiers pulled the barrier aside and the car in front of them drove ahead. They replaced the barrier and the Packard stopped just short of it. The chauffeur rolled down his window to talk to the corporal in charge. The man leaned in the driver's window enough so he could see into the back through the partition glass. What did he see? A middle-aged man displaying all the signs of wealth and privilege, and his two younger companions dressed for a party, people he had deferred to all his life. He pulled his head out of the car and gestured for the soldiers to move the barrier.

Fuentes flicked away his cigar and started toward the Packard. He raised a hand to hold the car where it was.

Dylan dipped her hand into her purse. Cassidy touched the gun under his leg. Ribera shook his head and rolled down the window. He leaned so he blocked the view into the backseat. Fuentes stopped a few feet from the car and touched his hat brim in salute. “Señor Ribera. I thought I recognized the car.”

“Colonel Fuentes, isn't it?”

“At your service.” Pleased to be recognized.

“Is there trouble? Should we be worried? My friends and I were going to go to The Tropicana to see the New Year in. Perhaps we should just go home. What do you recommend?”

“Do not spoil your evening. We have reports of hooligans in the city, but we are not concerned. Still, we have to take precautions.”

“Of course.”

“Would you mind if we had a look in your trunk?”

“In my trunk?” Just enough edge to his voice to show his displeasure.

“Please, Señor Ribera, it is no reflection on you. But your car has been parked. Perhaps the chauffeur stepped away for a moment. Perhaps the chauffeur has sympathies you are unaware of. It's just a precaution.”

“Of course.” To the chauffeur, “Miguel, please show the officers the trunk.”

“And perhaps,” Colonel Fuentes said. “I might have the honor of meeting your friends.”

The chauffeur opened the door to get out of the car.

Fuentes took another step toward the car smiling in anticipation of a graceful social moment.

Dylan said “Shit” under her breath and cocked the pistol in her bag. Cassidy held the gun along his thigh. Dylan would take Fuentes. There were six soldiers and cops near the barrier. What were the odds?

Anger and shouting from near the searched Chevy.

Three men had gotten out of the backseat of the car. They were milling uncertainly. One of them was a man Ribera had talked to at the restaurant. A soldier ordered them to get back in the car. The man yelled something Cassidy could not make out. Fuentes turned and looked toward the Chevy.

One of the men by the Chevy pulled a revolver from under his shirt, extended it at arm's length and shot the soldier nearest him. The other men ran. A soldier stepped up behind the gunman and shot him in the back and the man slammed up against the car and tried to turn. The soldier shot him again. Some of the other soldiers began to fire. Someone in the Chevy started the engine and the car jumped forward. Its windshield exploded. The car careened off a lamppost and slammed into a police Jeep. Soldiers fired into it as fast as they could.

“Miguel,” Ribera commanded. “Get in the car. Drive.”

The Packard pushed the barrier aside, but no one paid attention to them. Through the back window Cassidy saw one of the rebels stumble and go down. He struggled to get up. Colonel Fuentes stepped to him and shot him in the head. Then the car turned a corner.

“Did anyone get away?” Ribera asked.

“I saw one man go down the alley.”

Ribera rubbed his face with his hand and sighed. It was the first sign of distress Cassidy had seen from him.

“Well, so, we go on.”

*   *   *

If there was a revolution rising in Cuba, the news hadn't penetrated The Tropicana, or maybe the people there were just going to ignore it until it stuck a gun in their faces. Laughter, the tinkle of ice in glasses, music from the band playing outdoors where the stage shows took place, the rattle of dice and the roulette wheel ball's clicking, the clash of slot machines, and the squeals and shouts of the winners. Many of the men wore dinner jackets, the women wore furs and jewels, and they had the avid, eager look of people determined to have fun before the bubble burst and they found themselves back in Peoria.

Ribera left them in the lobby where living trees grew up past the parabolic concrete arches that formed the ceiling. “You'll excuse me. I have a tradition, a New Year's Eve poker game. We have been playing for twenty years, the same men. I have most of their money, but I want it all.” He laughed and clapped Cassidy on the shoulder. “Please sign my name to any bills.” He turned away into the casino, which was handily located next to the lobby so that people who wanted to contribute their money would not have to waste time looking for the tables.

Cassidy and Dylan went through rooms of arched glass to the outdoor terrace,
Bajo las Estrellas
, Under the Stars, and danced to the music the band swung out over the polished floor. She moved with a grace he admired, and he didn't step on her feet, because she knew when to get them out of the way and how to make it look like part of the dance. He could feel the long muscles of her back under the thin silk of her dress. Sometimes on a turn his thigh would press between hers for a moment of intimacy. He pulled her closer, and she leaned her head against him. Her hair smelled of the expensive shampoo in Ribera's bathroom, and she wore a perfume as light and mysterious as a half-heard whisper.