“I swear I didn’t.”
“Ricky then?”
“I didn’t ask him to.”
“Own initiative, eh?”
“He says he didn’t do anything.”
He pushes past me, sits on my bed. “Can’t stay, told Anna I was getting some air. Have a drink,” he says and passes me the flask.
“No, thank you.”
“Fuck Ricky and fuck you, Mercado. If you don’t come back from the United States I’m finished. My family. Your family. All of us.”
“I’ll come back.”
He shakes his head like a wet dog. “I could still tell them, you know. I could still tell the DGI or the ministry that you’re going to La Yuma. I could tell them you’ve talked to me about defecting,” Hector snarls.
“You wouldn’t do that, Hector.”
“No?” he says.
“No,” I insist.
He balls his right fist angrily and thumps it on the bed. For a second I see him tossing the joint. Neighbors in the hall, phone calls, Hector pulling rank. But the fight’s been ground out of him. He sighs. “No, I won’t turn chivato, not now,” he says.
He takes another drink, gets heavily to his feet.
“Can’t stay,” he says.
In the doorway he grabs my wrist, tugs me close. “Forget about it, Mercado.”
I break free using first-week police aikido.
“Damn it,” he says and stares at me, mentally wounded.
“Listen to me, Hector, I’m not dumb, I’m going to go to you-know-where, but I promise I will be back,” I tell him. “Now, you should go home, Anna will be worried.”
He looks at the floor and doesn’t move.
“You’re a poet, Mercado,” he says.
“I don’t know how that rumor got started.”
“Ever read Pindar?”
“No.”
“Homer’s contemporary, except he really existed. He says, ‘The gods give us for every good thing two evil ones. Men who are children take this badly but the manly ones bear it, turning the brightness outward.’ ”
“I don’t see-”
“You can’t fix everything. You have to let things go. Don’t go to America. I’m begging you, Mercado, please don’t go.”
I don’t reply.
I don’t need to.
He nods, turns, and walks along the corridor. I hear him shuffle down the stairs, and from my window I check him for tails until O’Reilly becomes Misiones and he’s finally swallowed up by the boozy Havana night.
7 DESPIERTA AMERICA
Too late, Hector. Too late now, my friend, to heed your words. I’m here and I’ve killed human beings and that chance to turn your brightness outward is in the distant past.
I suppose I must have been awake, but it was only on the third or fourth iteration that I became vaguely aware of the voice.
“María… María…vamonos.”
What?
“María, vamonos.”
María? Who is María?
“María, vamonos.”
Oh, yeah, I’m María.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Six. I’m leaving for the day. How did you sleep?”
“Good. I slept good. The first full night’s sleep…”
I didn’t finish the sentence. The first full night’s sleep I’d had in one hundred and eighty days. Six months since the day after my birthday in Laguna. Six months since Ricky’s phone call. Six months since I’d begun this plan.
“Look at me,” Paco said.
I rubbed the blear out of my eyes. Paco was wearing jeans, work boots, a heavy black sweater, a bright yellow hard hat. He seemed excited.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Construction site, downtown, do you like the hat? I look like a real Yankee, don’t I? A real American,” he said, and then in a gravelly voice he added, “Do you feel lucky, punk? Do ya?”-an impersonation that completely escaped me.
“You look like a regular American,” I agreed.
His grin grew even wider before a look of concern darkened his visage. “You better get up too, Esteban’s already here to take the girls up the mountain. He’s in a mood and he’s dressed like a pimp.”
“Screw him,” I muttered and closed my eyes again. In Havana I didn’t get up until I could smell the coffee brewing in the ice cream parlor on O’Reilly.
“Shit, María, they’re calling me, I have to go,” Paco said.
“Go then,” I said, and then, remembering basic civility for someone who has slept literally under one’s own roof, I added, “Have a good day, Paco, look after yourself.”
“I’ll see you tonight.”
I nodded and drifted for a minute or two. I didn’t hear him leave the room, I didn’t hear the Toyota pickup full of Mexicans drive away, I did feel the poke of Esteban’s snakeskin boot nudge my ankle.
I sat up with a jolt. “Who the fuck-” I began furiously and then remembered where I was.
“I’m running a business here, you got two minutes to make yourself look presentable,” Esteban said.
“Sorry, I-” I began but Esteban cut me off.
“These are important people. You’re a smart girl, you can see that our whole operation is on a knife edge. We gotta project a feeling of competence and calm. The feds didn’t touch us. Everything’s running smoothly. Get me? So no fuckups. This is your first day, I’d hop to it if I were you. I don’t care how bad things get, I’ll fucking can you and everybody else if I want to. Put this uniform on and meet me outside in the parking lot in two minutes,” Esteban said.
He was wearing a charcoal gray suit. His hair was combed, his face washed, his beard trimmed. He had a large diamond ring on his little finger but apart from that he looked good. Few straight men can resist a compliment from a younger woman, so I gave him both barrels at point-blank. “I’m sorry for your troubles, Esteban, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. Can I just add I think you’re bearing up very well under all this pressure? You look very together today.”
Handsome like a bear, as we say in Cuba.
Esteban’s mouth twitched and his cheeks took on a rosy complection. He grunted.
“Yes… well, uhm, I have to meet some of our clients this morning, reassure them that the Mountain State Employment Agency does not hire illegals and has not been affected by the INS raids.”
“Well, you look great. I love the suit.”
“Tailored. In Denver,” he said, and then, remembering why he’d come, muttered, “Uhm, María, we all need to be downstairs in, say, five minutes?”
“Oh, no problem, I’ll see you down there.”
He stood there for a moment. Something was on his mind. He got to it. “I don’t normally give people the choice, but, well, do you want to work what we call Malibu Mountain or would you prefer to be downtown, where it’s a bit easier? You’ll probably end up doing both, but the mountain’s good because in about two weeks they’re going to start giving out Christmas tips. Could be lucrative.”
I had to work the mountain, there was no question about it.
“The mountain,” I said.
“I have an arrangement with the other girls. Remember, I get half of all the tips, no exceptions, ok?”
“Ok,” I said.
I’d be gone by Christmas. What the hell did I care?
Esteban seemed relieved. “Great. Thought I’d remind you. Didn’t want to have to strong-arm you later.”
“You think you could?” I asked with a smile, ironically flexing my skinny arms.
He grinned. “I like you, María. If this works out maybe you could even work for me in our office on Pearl Street.”
“Ok.”
“Good. I’ll see you down there.” He turned to leave and then paused in the doorway. “It won’t be much, you know, don’t get your hopes up,” he said.
I had lost the drift. “What won’t be much?”
“The Christmas tips. When we used to clean the Cruise estate, Margarita and Luisa got a thousand bucks each. But these fuckers we do now, they’re all the lesser lights.”