Fifty Grand

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

Raul 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.”

Raul 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. Raul 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 Raul 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.”

Raul 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?” Raul asks again.

“I don’t know.”

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

“You came in through the front of the house?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know that Ava Gardner swam naked in that pool?”

“No.”

“Do you know who Ava Gardner was?”

I shrug my shoulders. “I think I’ve heard the name.”

“Young people. What do you think of me sleeping in Hemingway’s home? In his very bed?” Raul asks.

“I don’t think anything.”

“You don’t consider it profane?”

“No. It’s just a house.”

Raul grins. “Yes, I suppose so. It is just a house like any other. My brother never sleeps in the same house two nights running. He is afraid that the CIA is still trying to kill him. For a while it was the KGB too. But now only the CIA.”

His brother. Jefe the unkillable, the immortal. I mask my nervousness and fix an expression of polite interest.

“Do you know why I sleep here, in this house?” Raul asks.

“No.”

“We are the past, the present, and the future of the Revolution. We must be safe. In Iraq U.S. pilots were not allowed to hit cultural, historical, or religious buildings. Perhaps I am paranoid, but I feel safe here and I like it.”

“It’s a nice place,” I agree.

Raul sighs. “I met Comrade Hemingway twice. Once at a fishing competition in Havana and once at Floridita. Have you been in Floridita, Comrade Mercado?”

“Only to arrest someone. It’s too expensive to drink there.”

“You should treat yourself sometime.”

“Sure.”

“Yes, I like it here. Surrounded by books and artifacts. Genuine history.”

“It’s, uh, special. I suppose I should have visited before now.”

“You should have. When were you born, Comrade Mercado?”

“May twenty-sixth, 1980.”

“When did your father, the traitor, defect to the United States?”

“1993.”

“When you were thirteen. Hmm. Thirteen. Before your quince.”

I grimace. Two years before my quince. My fifteenth birthday-the most important day in any Cuban girl’s life. “I was his only daughter but he never saw it. My uncle Arturo said Dad would send money for the party. But he didn’t. He didn’t even send money,” I blurt out.

Raul nods. As a father of daughters and granddaughters he knows just how important the quince is.

“Have coffee, Officer Mercado.”

“I had some, already. A whole pot.”

“In Mexico City?”

“No, here.”

“Real coffee.”

“Yes.”

“Good, good. Now I think you’ll admit that despite your father’s defection we have been very generous to your family,” Raul says.

“Generous?” Ricky, my mother, and I got the same rations as everyone else. We all lived in the same crumbling apartments. Mom’s place didn’t even have hot water.

Raul nods. “Generous. Despite your father being a traitor, we let your brother, Ricardo, travel there to dispose of his remains.”

Gooseflesh on my back. Leave Ricky out of this.

“Ricky’s a Party member, a former president of the National Students Union, an executive member of the National Union of Journalists,” I say quickly.

“Yes, yes,” Raul agrees dismissively.

“Ricky has been out of the country many times. He’s traveled to Russia, to America, to Mexico. He has always returned. He’s proved himself many times to-”

Raul puts his hand up like a white-gloved transit cop. “Enough,” he says.

“What have you done with Ricky? Have you arrested him? Where is he?”

Raul seems amused that I have the effrontery to question him.

“I have no idea where your brother is. More than likely in the bed of some newspaper editor or a Chinese diplomat or one of our generals.”

Mierde. He even knows about Ricky’s counterrevolutionary tendencies. Of course he does. They know everything. One person in every twenty-five is a chivato like Sergeant Menendez.

He waits a beat. “And your mother, did she know of your mission to America?”

Hesitantly: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t go to America. I went to Mexico City. I’m applying to the university to study criminology.”

Raul snaps his fingers. One of the DGI goons leans his head in through the window. “The file,” Raul says.

The DGI man goes away and comes back quickly with a small green folder. Raul snatches it out of his hand. “You flew to Mexico City last Tuesday. The day you arrived you had a tour of the university and were interviewed by a Professor Martin Carranza in the Department of Criminology. On Tuesday evening you checked repeatedly for