Potboiler

Pfefferkorn, a wide-brimmed straw hat on his head, moved among the stalls, squeezing tomatoes. No longer did he feel petty for demanding a discount of a few pesos. Bargaining was not merely tolerated but appreciated, a dance that helped to freshen an otherwise tiresome courtship. He handed the six ripest to the vendor, who placed them on the scale and announced a total weight of eleven kilograms. Es ridículo, Pfefferkorn replied. Never in the history of agriculture had tomatoes weighed so much, he said. He would complain to the alcalde, he would inform the padre, he would get his axe (he owned no axe), he would pay a certain amount (he swung the bills, axe-like) and not a centavo more. The vendor replied that he would be reduced to poverty, that he was already giving Pfefferkorn a discount, and who did he think he was, gringo, talking to him like this? After several more thrusts and parries, they agreed upon the same price they had the day before and shook hands.

Christmas was on the horizon, the streets awash with the remains of the previous evening’s mercado. Pfefferkorn took his bags of food and walked to the post office, which was also the sewer department, pest control, and Western Union. The lone clerk swapped out the sign on the wall depending on who came through the door and for what purpose. As soon as he saw Pfefferkorn, he replaced ALCANTARILLADOS with CORREOS and began digging through a jumble of parcels, jostling the gimpy desk and setting its little plastic nativity scene aquiver, so that the animals and magi appeared to line-dance.

“It came yesterday. . . . Don’t you get headaches? . . . Sign here. . . . Thank you.”

Pfefferkorn tended to forget what he had ordered by the time it arrived, which made tearing into the brown paper more exciting—a surprise to himself, from himself. To prolong his pleasure, he strolled down the avenida. He sat in the zócalo, passing the time of day with the elderly men feeding the birds. A woman in a serape striped like a TV test pattern sold him fritters drenched in jaggery syrup, a seasonal specialty. He ate one and felt as though he had been kicked by a mule. He shifted the package under his other arm and headed toward the rectory.

113.

Some thirty-eight months prior, the had put ashore in Havana. While the rest of the crew stormed the city to carouse, Jaromir got Pfefferkorn into a taxi and rode with him to the nearest hospital. They checked him in under a false name. He was shown to the medical-tourism ward. He was given X-rays. His leg was rebroken and reset. Jaromir stayed at his side for four more days. Before he left, Pfefferkorn offered to pay him, but he waved it off, growling. He was fine, he said. He was taking back tobacco and sugar, several hundred pounds of which were undeclared and would be sold on the Tunisian black market. Pfefferkorn should keep his money.

The hospital discharged him with crutches, a bottle of painkillers, and instructions to reappear in five weeks. He holed up in a cheap hotel and watched baseball. He watched Venezuelan sitcoms. He watched a dubbed episode of The Poem, It Is Bad! For practice, he spoke back to the screen. He hadn’t used Spanish since high school, when he and Bill had been conversation partners.

After the cast came off he spent another month rebuilding his strength. He took long, slow walks. He resumed his regimen of push-ups and sit-ups. He sat in the Plaza de la Catedral, eating croquetas and listening to the street musicians. He felt the nightly thump of the cannon at the Castilla de San Carlos de la Cabaña. He did a lot of thinking.

He took a taxi to a secluded beach about thirty minutes east of the city. He paid the driver to wait for him. He walked along the sand, his pockets swinging. The tide was far out. He knelt and dug a hole with his hands. He took out the dubnium polymer soap and dropped it into the hole. He took out the designer eau de cologne solvent and aimed the nozzle at the soap and spritzed it three times. The soap began to bubble and dissolve. The solvent was far less effective on the soap than it had been on the wooden crate. He spritzed again and watched the polymer fizz. He kept on spritzing until there was nothing left in the hole except a tuft of foam. At no point did he see anything resembling a flash drive. Which meant that he had been the real bait in the deal with Zhulk. Which meant that Paul had lied, at least about that, and that Carlotta was right. He could never go home.

He had the taxi driver take him to the Malecón. He walked along the esplanade, shielding his eyes and gazing northward toward Key West. It was too far away for him to actually see it, but he pretended he could.

114.

He moved on.