Havana Best Friends (21 page)

“You have my word.”

“Okay. We’ll be waiting for your call at the hotel. We’ll stay in our room, have our meals there, won’t move until we hear from
you. If by noon tomorrow you haven’t called, we’ll come and visit you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Marina was the first to take a warm shower. It was one of the things she did when nervous, anxious, unable to relax. Wearing a plastic shower cap, she closed her eyes under the showerhead and for a couple of minutes became totally oblivious of her surroundings. She soaped herself sensuously, every single inch of her body, as if she were planning on meeting the most uninhibited of lovers. Then just as voluptuously she rinsed and dried herself, brushed her teeth, applied deodorant, and slipped into a nightgown. She came out, pulled back the bedspread, and collapsed onto the bed.

Sean left his own bed, grabbed a pair of fresh boxer shorts from a dresser drawer, and went into the bathroom. He was equally thorough, but quicker, in the shower. Seven minutes later he plopped onto his bed.

“Sean?”

He turned his head.

“We’ve got to talk.” She conscientiously mouthed the words with raised eyebrows.

Sean shook his head and returned his gaze to the ceiling.

Marina decided she had to share her misgivings. She got up and forced herself into his bed, then pressed her lips against his left ear. “I don’t like it,” she whispered.

Sean twisted his head and stared at her. “So what?” he mouthed, then stared at the bank of white clouds that could be seen through the balcony’s sliding glass door. Her thighs pressed against his own, her breasts touching his left arm.

“What do you mean ‘so what’? She could double-cross us.” Her breath produced a tickling sensation on his ear and neck.

He turned and pressed his lips to her ear. “There’s nothing we can do. Not in this fucking country where a local can’t rent a room at a hotel. Who could have thought of that? I found nothing on the Internet about it. You tell me, who the fuck could have foreseen that?”

Yeah, it was true. She had asked the desk clerk before going up, casually, smiling in disbelief, as if it were an outrageous lie somebody had told them. But the man confirmed the prohibition. In Sean’s tense body Marina detected anger and powerlessness; he had a clean smell; his hair was damp. It was so satisfying to witness the fucking iceman melting with fury.

They conferred in whispers for a few minutes and resolved that the only thing they could do was wait for Elena’s call.

“It’s nobody’s fault. But suppose she squeals on us?” Marina asked.

Should the police come for them, Sean said, they would deny everything; Elena Miranda was crazy. They knew nothing about hidden gems. Playing the part of the vulnerable woman seeking protection, she clung closer to Sean, slid her left thigh over his, rested her cheek on his chest, glided her fingers over his right arm. Sex was an invisible mist seeping into the room.

Sean turned his head a little, searching for her ear to allay her fears. He would have to change position, didn’t feel like it. The back of his left hand rested on her crotch. He saw it coming and his penis awoke. She was difficult and irascible, not his type at all, but it would help him relax, for God’s sake! It seemed as if she shared his thoughts.

Marina lifted her head a little. “I’m scared, Sean. You’re worried,” she whispered before nibbling his earlobe. “Having sex would do us a lot of good.”

Sean slowly turned; their lips joined. He was delicate, unhurried, almost detached. His observation two months earlier at the Nacional,
You never know
, came to her mind. The tip of his tongue briefly slid over her gums, retreated, then glided over the edge of her lips as his free hand began caressing her back.
Why am I doing this?
Marina asked herself. The back of his left hand slid over the cloth covering her pubic hair. Her fingernails began moving along his spine, down to the waistband of his boxer shorts, under it to the crack of his buttocks, then returning to his neck to continue the caress.
To fuck an iceman, is why. I never have
.

With his free hand, Sean slid the nightgown up to her waist and fondled the back of her thigh and buttocks. Having completed the exploratory stage, they devoured each other with their lips, like well-mannered adversaries who admit the necessity of a fight prior to according a truce over a cold drink. Suddenly, Marina knelt on the mattress, pulled the gown off, and threw it on her bed.
Sagging tits; cellulite; tiny varicose veins
, was Sean’s evaluation, but he stared in feigned admiration before taking his boxer shorts off.
Nothing new under the sun
, Marina confirmed as she bit her lower lip to simulate unbridled passion. She began kissing his chest, progressed down a straight line of hair that bisected his abdomen, further to his pelvis, where her tongue started playing with the base of his penis.

She stopped for a second to retrieve one of his hairs from her teeth. Sean took advantage of the pause to make her kneel on his face, thighs spread apart, and began exploring with his tongue.
He knew what he was doing, she admitted to herself. Progressing from the least to the most sensitive areas of her pussy, kissing, licking, trying to find out by himself whether she felt more pleasure to the left, right, or at the centre of her clitoris. The dispassionate perfection of loveless sex. She liked that, but it made her miss the clumsiness of uncontrolled desire. Knowing she was in expert hands, Marina doubled over, rested her forearms on the mattress, and proceeded with relaxed fellatio.

Haste was not a factor. Several minutes later Sean spoke. “Concentrate on yourself. Just lie down, spread your legs, and forget I’m here.” Curiosity made her follow his directions. Laying prone, he began alternating kisses all around her folds with licks on the upper part of her vulva. After a while, the tip of his tongue focused on the left side of her clitoris. His right hand caressed her nipples. She remembered that Carlos had found her exact spot the first time they made love, and smiled. No wonder they were such good buddies. Two of the chosen few. She closed her eyes to enjoy it better. She felt like a worshipped goddess and was getting close, very close, when he lifted his head and smiled from above a wet chin.

“Don’t stop.”

“You in a hurry?”

“Don’t stop, please, honey. Don’t stop.”

Paying no heed, he lay beside her, slipped his arm under her neck, and started rubbing her clitoris lightly with his forefinger. Soon, Marina turned her head away.

“You stop now I’m gonna kill you, you sonofabitch.”

His hand froze.

“No, no!”

“Ask politely.”

“Don’t stop, Sean. Please.”

The hand thawed.

“Pero, ché, sos un torturador vos. Por favor!”

He relaxed the pressure a bit, slowed down a little, to prolong her orgasm. She ranted in Spanish for nearly a minute. Just when pleasure was beginning to turn into anguish, Sean withdrew his hand. Marina kept her eyes closed, catching her breath. Great, but Sean was second fiddle to Carlos: she missed the blind man’s tenderness and romanticism, his words of love.

“Oh, Sean, it was so nice.”

“Glad you liked it.”

“You have a condom?”

“No.”

She took him in her mouth, but, feeling vengeful, she made him come with her hand. As soon as he got his breath back, Sean took a second shower. She was already in her bed when he re-entered the room.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Marina said with a smile.

He knelt on the floor, by her bed, and murmured in her ear, “Right now I would give a thousand dollars for
her
thoughts.”

Fucking iceman
.

E
lena Miranda realized that while she was as confused as this, she would be unable to make an intelligent decision.
Okay, okay, calm down. Take a bath
, she muttered to herself. She hurried to her room, picked clean clothing from a dresser, and went into the bathroom. She lifted the bucket of water from beside the sink and put it into the bathtub, took a disposable razor from the medicine chest, undressed, grabbed the empty tomato-paste can, stepped into the bathtub, filled the can from the bucket, and poured water down her face. She repeated this several times, until her whole body was dripping, then reached for the soap and turned it in her hands to work up a lather.

Soaping herself she began to meditate. The stuff from which movies are made. But it was perfectly possible. According to neighbourhood lore the apartment building belonged to an embezzler of government funds. And, yes, the surname Consuegra rang a
bell. This was the apartment the man had reserved for himself and his family; the furniture was his, as well.

In the early 1990s her brother had fretted over it. Following the collapse of Communism in Europe, the local media alleged that many wealthy Cuban-Americans were boasting that as soon as the Castro regime crumbled, they would reclaim their confiscated properties. Would they be evicted? But since the government managed to hang on, their misgiving faded away and the issue was never raised again.

Shaving her underarms, she recognized that there was a grain of truth in the couple’s story. Ten million, split three ways. But Sean was right: she couldn’t sell her share of the stones in Cuba. No private individual on the island had that kind of money. She would have to submit the diamonds to some state-owned consortium and answer questions: “Are these stones yours? Do you have a certificate of ownership? Then, how come they’re in your possession?” She would end up with nothing.

But the alternative was frightening. Was she willing to start a new life abroad? Canada was a First World country, huge, sparsely populated, full of opportunities. Pretty cold, though. And suppose something went wrong at the airport? Suppose an Immigration inspector detected something unusual in the passport? Asked her something in English or French? Elena shuddered, then finished shaving her legs, and began rinsing herself.

Take it easy, first things first
. Step number one was to search for the diamonds. Maybe the old man had made it up, a bad case of Alzheimer’s or some other mental disorder. If Sean and Marina found nothing, the fantasy would go up in smoke. Would she lose anything by letting them search? No. And if the diamonds were
there, she could hide her share until things changed, or until she found a trustworthy buyer, perhaps one of the many European businessmen now investing in the island. She didn’t have to make a decision on leaving or staying right now.

Towelling herself, she wondered where a man would hide a fortune in precious stones in her apartment. She had never seen a diamond in her life, but from magazines and movies she knew that a tiny brilliant-cut could be worth fifty, sixty, a hundred thousand dollars, so several million dollars’ worth might weigh less than half a pound. A very small package indeed. Her mother had cleaned this place thousands of times before moving back to her hometown, then she herself had performed the chore for the last thirteen years; they both knew its every nook and cranny. Following Pablo’s funeral she had scrubbed his bedroom clean. Yet, she had no idea where they could be. Embedded into a wall or a door frame, under the floor, surely somewhere no one would look by chance. Elena got out of the bathtub and put on panties, cut-offs, an orange sweatshirt.

In the kitchen, she stared at the half-peeled sweet potato she had planned for lunch before putting it back in the refrigerator. She recovered the coffee cups from the living room, then washed them and laid them on the draining board. Perhaps the diamonds were in the kitchen, under the sink or hidden behind the cupboards. It would have to be a place accessible yet out of sight. Suppose … How stupid of her to fantasize, she reflected. What would she tell Marina and Sean if she found them?
I’m sorry, I don’t want to get involved in this, I don’t want any part of it
. And what about the poor bastard with a bad heart and half-fried lungs? She didn’t want that on her conscience. But was that true? She couldn’t know for sure. Maybe the guy hadn’t had a cigarette in
his life. Maybe the man didn’t even exist; was just part of the scam. She was filling a glass of water when the buzzer rang.

Back already? She would courteously but firmly send them away. She dried her hands, strode purposefully to the front door, opened it.
Oh no
, Elena thought. She didn’t quite succeed at hiding her dismay.

“I heard the news today,” said a man in his fifties. He had a pale, angular, deeply lined face with large, coal-black eyes and thin eyebrows. A little under six feet tall, he wore a blue long-sleeved shirt with cuffs folded to the elbows, grey slacks, and black boots.

“Hi, Domingo. Come on in.”

The man crossed the threshold and kissed Elena on the cheek. She smiled fleetingly and pointed to a club chair. “Take a seat.”

“Thanks.”

Elena sat on the edge of the sofa, hands on her lap, obviously forcing herself to be polite, signalling that time was of the essence. Domingo seemed a little embarrassed. “It’s a strange feeling,” he said. “I wish it hadn’t happened and at the same time I’m glad you no longer have to … put up with him.”