Soto looked at me and smiled. “It was the high point of my life, a day to remember para siempre.”
After that it was all downhill, I thought. But where else is there to go after reaching the peak? Maybe now, after all these years, having sacrificed his body to a revolution and then a counterrevolution, this was his way of climbing the mountain again. Bring down the last revolutionary, and let him know it was you from so long ago. To the rest of us, Castro was titanic, one of the century’s legendary figures. A monster to some, a visionary to others, either way his impact would be stamped in the history books forever. But to Severo Soto, he was something else. Soto knew Fidel before the whiskers and the fatigues. Two sharp-witted youths quick of gait and strong of limb. Their future was forever, their potential infinite. But Fidel was a boyhood confederate turned archenemy. With Soto, I thought uncomfortably, it wasn’t political, it was personal.
After one more drink, we settled into our rooms. My window looked out over Old Havana, and I watched as ancient buses, crammed with workers, belched black smoke into the early evening air. Gas rationing had emptied the streets of cars, but thousands of bicycles streamed each way on the boulevard in front of the hotel. The room was spacious and neat, and the plumbing worked, though not without whining about it. Later, I joined Severo Soto and his daughter in the dining room downstairs.
Over a dinner of calabaza soup and paella with giant shrimp, Soto kept talking, and Lourdes resumed stroking my leg. The latter impaired my ability to fully appreciate the former.
“Your State Department, what geniuses they think they are. Estupido! They thought Fidel could be forced to change, so they gave orders. Do this, do that. Don’t fraternize with the Russians. Like a man who stupidly mistrusts his wife, the U.S. drove Cuba to another man.”
Later, after sweet rice pudding served in half a coconut shell, we had cafe Cubano. Soto was still talking. “And what has the embargo accomplished? Has it brought Fidel crying to Washington? No, it has made him more resolute, even as the country has sunk into poverty. The Cuban people watch the Americans sell wheat to the Russians, even before reforms, and give Favored Nation status to the Chinese who crush students with tanks. So why does Los Estados Unidos refuse to sell pickup trucks to a country ninety miles away, or buy its sugar? Does this make sense?”
“Papi, do you think Jake is interested in all of that?”
He seemed to consider the question. “No. Like most Americans, he surely is not interested in the arrogance of his own government. For over thirty years, the American leaders lectured Cuba: Don’t you dare follow the Soviets. Now, all of a sudden, they point to Moscow and say: Now, follow their example. Liberalize. Hold elections. Embrace capitalism. Do as the Russians do. Don’t you find that curious?”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “You’re against American interference. You’re against Castro. You were against Batista, so what are you for? What’s the answer to Cuba’s problems? What is its future?”
He drained the last of his cafe Cubano. “When we succeed here, Senor Lassiter, you will know the answer to those questions.”
Soto stood and bid us both good night. He pecked Lourdes on the cheek and slapped my shoulder, then headed for the elevator.
“What did your father mean by that?”
She shrugged, then took my right hand in both of hers. The look in her eyes said that political talk was out.
“Lourdes, tell me. What’s your father’s agenda?”
“Whatever the CIA tells him to do.”
“I don’t buy that. I doubt your father’s ever done what he’s been told.”
She smiled and tickled my palm with a red, sculpted fingernail. “Don’t listen to an old man prattle on about how he would have changed the world. Maybe he would have, but he spent the better part of his life locked up in Combinado del Este. I love my father and wouldn’t say this to his face, but now he’s an errand boy for Washington. He’s to accompany you as a representative of U.S. interests in any negotiations with Foley. But he has no authority. He will merely transmit messages back and forth between here and his superiors.”
With that, she leaned closer, put her hand behind my head, and pulled me to her. Her lips touched mine. I tasted the sweetness of the sugary dessert mixed with her warm breath.
“My room has a view of the Capitolo,” I said.
I was stretched out on my back on the lumpy bed, watching the breeze swirl the lacy curtains into the room. Lourdes was sleeping, her head on my chest, purring contentedly, when the phone rang. It had a jarring, metallic twang that startled me. Lourdes stirred as I reached for the receiver.
“Hello, Lassiter,” Robert Foley said. “ Bienvenidos a Cuba. ”
24
How much money does one man need?” Robert Foley asked.
“A million dollars, ten million, a hundred million?” He gestured to the waiter who silently refilled his champagne glass. “How much lobster can one man eat?”
Apparently, quite a bit. Foley was squeezing lime juice onto the tail section of his second grilled Caribbean lobster. Above us, the palm trees swayed gently in the nighttime breeze.
“How many women can one man screw?” he asked, between bites.
Now there was a purely theoretical question as far as I was concerned.
Foley turned to the young woman-maybe twenty, maybe not-whose chair was pushed up against his. Cocoa skin, shoulder-length black hair, she sipped at a daiquiri, keeping one hand draped on Foley’s shoulder, occasionally showing him an adoring smile. Either our conversation bored her, or she didn’t understand English. He hadn’t bothered to introduce us and scarcely seemed to notice her.
“This is the issue in my life, Lassiter. How do I want to spend the next twenty years?”
“How about breaking rocks at Leavenworth?” I suggested, helpfully.
He kept going as if I weren’t there. “I’ve been anonymous my entire life, and I like it that way. Army intelligence, then the Company. Do I really want my picture on the cover of Newsweek, the guy who pulled off the biggest heist in history?”
I hadn’t been subjected to this much Socratic questioning since night law school. “With that notoriety, you’d be stuck in your hacienda here for the rest of your life. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? What good is all the money in the world if you don’t really have your freedom?”
Foley whispered something to the young woman, handed her a wad of bills, and patted her arm. She rewarded him with a dazzling smile, stood up, and headed inside toward the powder room or wherever Foley told her to go. Overhead, a three-quarter moon glistened behind the swaying palm fronds.
“That’s part of it, sure,” he said. “I’d rather be in Switzerland or France, a dozen places. Lassiter, I’ve been all over the world, and believe me, this place isn’t in the top ten. You ever ride a Harley through the Alps in August?”
I allowed as how I hadn’t, having spent many summers doing three-a-days on a swampy practice field.
“Ever sail your own sloop through the Greek Isles?”
“No, but I’ve foot-steered a nine-foot sailboard in the shadow of the Virginia Key sewage plant.”
He looked around the outdoor nightclub. Colored lights spelled out “ Tropicana ” on a torch-lit upper stage. At the table next to us, half a dozen German diplomats were arguing boisterously about the baseball-spiel they had seen that afternoon at Jose Marti Park. The rich aroma of expensive Cuban cigars wafted our way in the evening breeze.
“This is pleasant enough for a few weeks,” Foley said. “A few months maybe, but forever?”
“You’d be the world’s richest prisoner,” I agreed, “a captive of your own success.”
The tables were beginning to fill. Above us, I could see the silhouette of dancers backlit behind a flimsy curtain. “And what if Castro falls?” I asked. “What if the next government is run by Severo Soto, which really means by Washington?”