Fifty Grand

The name rings a bell, but I can’t quite place it. I pour coffee in the espresso cup and add a cube of white sugar. Before it’s fully dissolved I take a sip. Cuba does two things well, cigars and coffee. Local beans, local sugar, local water. And strong. The hit is instantaneous and even in this state of incipient panic I can’t help but smile.

My head feels clear for the first time in days. I lean back in the white plastic chair and breathe out.

Ok, Mercado, why don’t you try to figure out what’s going on?

We’re in some kind of garden. A beautiful one. Hibiscus, oleander, Indian laburnum, blossoming hydrangea. The scent heady and overpowering. Under the trees there are half a dozen species of orchid and a small scudding sea of Cuba’s national flower, the brilliant white mariposa. There are a score of security guards but that’s it, which means this is not Jefe’s house. The Beard’s gotten even more crazy as he’s gotten older and doesn’t go anywhere without half a battalion of soldiers surrounding him. One of the other ministers, perhaps, or an ambassador from the-

Inside the house a clock dings the hour six times.

I hear someone stir.

My legs start trembling. I’m wearing tight black American jeans and low-heeled black pumps, not exactly designed for making a break for it through the garden and over the wall.

I pour myself another cup of coffee.

The young man in the blue uniform returns. He has very long eyelashes and a nice smile.

“He wishes to see you. Please come,” he says.

Who?

He leads me around the front, past a pool, and in through a set of double doors.

The house is a museum. Old-fashioned furniture, a range in the kitchen. No modern appliances. When I see the hunting trophies all over the walls I remember what Finca Vigía is. We’re in Casa Hemingway. Preserved the way Hemingway left it in 1960. I haven’t been here before but I’ve read about it. The large open-plan hacienda, the immaculate pool, the expansive garden, the shutters open to the dawn and the early morning mist and distant sea. But for the trained assassins waiting outside, a truly charming spot.

Along the walls ibex and antelope heads and more dead animals on the floor. White-painted bookcases overflowing with volumes. Desks covered with magazines: The Field, The Spectator, a New Yorker from November 1958. Bullfight posters. Paintings by Miró and Paul Klee. An armoire with a cheetah skin draped languidly across it. A Picasso of a bull’s head. And the pièce de résistance, there, sitting on the edge of a twin bed, as freaky and unreal as the Picasso, in his pajamas and a black silk dressing gown, Raúl Castro.

What’s left of his hair has been dyed. Tanned leathery skin hangs loose on his face and under his neck. There are bags around his yellow eyes, but unlike Fidel he has his own teeth and even this early he looks a lot younger than his brother.

When he sees me he puts a finger to his lips and points at the bed. A girl with him, sleeping still. It’s not a scandal. For although Vilma Espín only recently passed away, Raúl had been separated from the mother of his children for two decades.

He points to the kitchen. The house is all on one floor with rooms bleeding into one another. Only the kitchen has a big thick door that closes.

“This way,” Raúl whispers.

Two DGI men slip outside as we enter.

Raúl gently closes the door, leans on a pine table, and opens the shutters.

“What time is it?” he asks.

“Six-fifteen,” a voice from outside mutters.

Raúl yawns and looks through the window. “Coffee,” he says.

He sits down at the table and motions for me to sit too.

“This can’t take long, we’ll have to have the house open for tourists by ten.”

“I don’t know what this is.”

Raúl smiles and rubs his jaw. In every other Cuban that gesture is a discreet reference to the Beard, but for him it’s just an assessment of his stubble.

A coffeepot is passed through the shutters, along with two cups and a bowl of sugar. Raúl pours himself an espresso and adds no sugar. That explains the teeth.

“This, this, Comrade Mercado, is an interrogation.”

Fear. Great pulsing sine waves of the stuff. Worse than the ice lake. Worse than the hangman himself. All those DGI and ministry men outside but Raúl is going to do this himself.

“Would you like a cup?” he asks.

I shake my head.

He takes a sip. “Not bad. Are you sure you don’t want one?”

“No.”

“Do you know who I am?” he asks.

“Of course.”

“I am the deus ex machina of your little adventure, Mercado. I am the person who will finally get things done right.”

“I don’t under-”

“Who killed your father, Comrade Mercado?”

I try not to appear taken aback. “I don’t know, I have no idea. It was a hit-and-run in La Yuma.”

Raúl shoots me a puzzled frown. He obviously isn’t up on his subversive slang.

“La Yuma. The United States, in a place called Fairview, Colorado,” I clarify.

“Who killed him?” Raúl asks again.

“I don’t know.”

Raúl sighs and looks out at the garden. The smell of hibiscus drifts through the window.