Free Naked in Havana by Colin Falconer Page A

somewhere in the house. There was a storm coming. I got dressed quickly.
    The lights flickered.
    Luis was waiting downstairs with an umbrella and held it over my head as we ran splashing through the puddles to the Bel Air. Papi was already waiting for me. He smiled at me and kissed my forehead. I was still his little girl and that’s what I wanted to be, at least when I was with him.
    Rafa watched us hangdog from the portico as we drove away. He gave one long forlorn howl before Maria ushered him back inside. Dogs know things that people don’t, that’s what I’ve always thought.
     

     
    There was a good crowd in the Left Bank, though not as many as there would be later in the night. Reyes was there, damn him, with some snake-hipped mulatto. As if I should care. They were dancing the mamba. I tried not to look but I couldn’t help myself. The woman slid against him when they danced, like a lizard up a wall.
    Afterwards he sat down at a table with some of Batista’s men.
    “Look at him,” I said to Papi. “Who does he think he is?”
    Papi dismissed him with a shrug. “There will always be men like Señor Reyes. He stands for nothing, so he is never going to be a problem for anyone. Our problem is all those men he is with, in their white uniforms. You see that one there, with the moustache? He’s the chief of police. Every time he tortures and murders someone he gets another strip of gold braid. A national hero.”
    “What is Reyes doing with him?”
    “Reyes is friends with everyone.”
    “I heard he was running guns for the rebels.”
    “Men like that, who knows what he does? Don’t entertain any thoughts about him, Magdalena.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “He’s a handsome man. They say he’s had every woman in Havana under the age of sixty. Stay away from him.”
    “I can’t understand what women see in him.”
    He gave her a knowing smile and led her to their usual table near the front of the stage.
    As they sat down a waiter immediately appeared with a bottle of sweet Santiago rum. Papi slipped a pill under his tongue and washed it down with the rum. I wondered what Doctor Mendes would say about that.
    There was a commotion by the door as a large group arrived. I recognised Salvatore straight away, and I was relieved to see that Angel wasn’t with him, nor was his father. Most of Salvatore’s guests looked like Americans. One of them had a blistering smile and was impossibly handsome.
    Papi stood up. “Excuse me a moment, cariña. I have to do my thing.”
    “With Salvatore?”
    “You see the man with him? He’s an American senator. They say he may be nominated in the next Presidential elections. I should mingle a little. It could be good for business.”
    He gave her a tight smile and a squeeze of the hand and went over to welcome them.
     
     
     
     

Chapter 17

     
     
    “We keep running into each other.”
    I turned around. It was Reyes, elegant as always, his boxer’s face and white tuxedo lending him a certain charm, I supposed. He gave me a mocking smile as if the whole world and all the women in it were there just for his own amusement.
    “Well at least this time you have clothes on.”
    “Are you disappointed?”
    The vanity of the man! “Just relieved. Where’s your girlfriend? “
    “She went to flirt with an American senator.”
    I looked over at Salvatore’s table. The snake-hipped puta was pawing the handsome yankee shamelessly.
    “Who are those people?”
    “With Salvatore? The one everyone is looking at is a senator from Massachusetts. His name’s Kennedy. The guy next to him is an actor called Lawford, and then there’s Salvatore and the one who looks like a car salesman, his name’s Ruby. He’s a gun runner. The rest are big shots from Miami. I can’t imagine what they’re discussing at that table. If I did I’d spend the next year in front of a congressional hearing.”
    “So it’s true. Salvatore’s a mobster?”
    He held up his hands in mock