a three-and-a-half-inch barrel, the Airweight was the assassin's preferred choice of revolver. It fired just five shots, but each with sufficient stopping power that it hardly needed six. Tom thumbed off the safety and, peering out of the stairwell, looked out on to the ninth floor, but there was no one in sight. Suite 919 was almost immediately opposite the service elevator up to the roof terrace. Tom listened at the door and, hearing only the sound of a television set, knocked quietly.
Con permeso,' he said, as if he might have been room service.
A voice answered with military vigour. Entrar!'
Gun pointed, Tom slid into the room.
Telephone receiver still in hand, Zayas was watching baseball on television. It looked like a game from Cerro Stadium - the Sugar Kings versus a team Tom couldn't identify. Which no doubt explained why the Big Barbudo, a keen fan, had chosen the following night to speak to the people of Cuba. The suite was the size of a polo field with a worn leather sofa as big as a Pontiac and an enormous white jellyfish of a chandelier. The kind of suite that might once have accommodated Churchill, Brando or any of the other larger-than-life personalities who had once stayed at the Nacional.
Zayas looked surprised to see Tom and the gun in his hand. Almost as surprised as Tom was to see that Zayas was sitting in a wheelchair.
Put the phone down,' Tom ordered.
Zayas coolly did as he was told and wheeled himself round to face his assailant. That was you, I suppose,' he said. On the phone, just now.'
He looked heavier than Tom remembered. With his thin, mascara-line moustache, coffee-bean eyes, flattened nose, and Dunlopillo belly, he reminded Tom of Joe Louis after he retired from the ring, and lost all his money. Tom had seen the boxer once working as a shill at the blackjack tables in Vegas, a burnt-out shell of the Brown Bomber who had beaten Max Schmeling in less than one round.
Where'd you get the wheels?' asked Tom.
I took a bullet in the spine at San Domingo. With Cantillo. Before he caved in.'
Too bad for you he didn't cave in earlier.' Tom jerked the gun at the door. Get rolling.'
Are we going somewhere?' Zayas pushed himself across the checkerboard floor. He knew better than to argue with a man like Tom. The best he figured he could do now was to keep talking.
In the corridor outside the door to his suite he paused, waiting for instructions. Tom summoned the service elevator, and when it came pushed the wheelchair and its occupant inside with the heel of his shoe. They rode up to the roof terrace.
I thought we'd make sure we weren't disturbed,' he said, wheeling Zayas out into the warm night air. It was breezy out on the terrace and the air smelled strongly of the sea, but a six-foot-high ornamented parapet meant that there was not much of a view without standing on an overturned beer-crate.
It's a nice evening,' said Zayas. Are you planning to shoot me up here? Is that your plan?'
Could be,' grunted Tom.
That would be foolish,' said Zayas. For one thing I can give you the money I owe you, with interest.' He pulled nervously at the little brightly coloured bow-tie he was wearing. There's a safe at my house in Varadero. Why don't we go there now? It wouldn't take long.'
Tom pulled a face and shook his head. I don't think so,' he said, spinning the .38 in his hand with purposeful dexterity.
You wouldn't shoot a man in a wheelchair.' Zayas spoke with an almost confident disbelief.
Tom drew a deep breath and glanced up at the moon as if considering what Zayas had said, but merely thinking that he had eaten too much at dinner. Then he said, I guess you're right at that.'
Zayas smiled as if he had known it all along. It was enough of a smile to make Tom wish their conversation ended. No doubt Zayas had smiled just such a smile when he had ordered Tom's death, and the thought of that was enough to provoke in Tom an explosion of rum-fired rage. With a loud, feral curse he whipped the .38 hard across the Cuban's sweaty smiling bullfrog face, sending him sprawling on the terrace floor.
You're not in a fucking wheelchair now,' he snarled. How do you like that, you cock-sucker? Hey? How do you like that? Hey, coA+-o.' Tom stamped at Zayas's head. I'm talking to you.' He stamped again, as if he had been trying to crush a cockroach under his heel. Hey, cabron.'
Groaning loudly, the ex-military policeman tried to protect himself, in vain.
Estafador,' Tom hissed, and kicked him again, but with little apparent effect. The man's arms and shoulders were so well padded with fat, he couldn't seem to get near his head.
Zayas wriggled up against the parapet prompting Tom to put down his gun, pick up one of his victim's useless legs and drag him away from whatever protection the wall afforded him.
Hijo de puta.'
Finally, Tom picked up the wheelchair, raised it over his head as if he had been King Kong, and then brought it down hard on the neck and shoulders of Zayas. He did this twice more, until Zayas stopped moving. But he was still breathing. Tom took off his shirt, laid it neatly across the parapet, and turned Zayas on to his back. It took a minute or so to manoeuvre the unconscious man into a seated position and another minute to lift him, fireman- style, on to his bare back.
Double-cross me, would you?' muttered Tom as, standing on the upturned Bucanero crate, he managed to lift Zayas on to the top of the parapet.
Pausing for breath, he took in the ocean-side view, wondering why they didn't make the parapet a little lower. The Havana coastline curved back on itself like a crab-claw. Across the bay, the lighthouse in front of the El Morro fortress signalled its lonely vigil, as if in defiance of the vastly superior force of its enemy across the Gulf of Mexico. Once it had been the English who had wanted to control the island, and now it was the yanquis. Only history showed that Cubans were not so easily pushed around.
Tom smiled grimly and shoved Zayas off the parapet. The body fell ten floors, through a clump of tall palm trees at the back of the hotel, and then disappeared into the darkness. Tom spat after him and, having collected his gun and his shirt, rode the elevator down to the first floor.
Back in the lounge he paused in front of one of the show-cases that were full of imported items supposedly for sale - Radiac shirts, Brunex superfine mohair cloths, Floris soaps, Queen Ann whisky, and Mappin & Webb silverware - to check his appearance in the dusty glass. Straightening his hair he walked back into the dining room.
You took your time,' said Celia.
Tom glanced at his wristwatch. He'd been gone for less than fifteen minutes.
I had to make a quick telephone call,' he said, lighting up a Chesterfield.
In Cuba?' Celia laughed. That explains why you were so long. For a moment I thought you'd dumped me.'
Tom smiled and kissed her hand.
I'm not so easy to get rid of,' he said.
I don't doubt it,' said Celia, and dabbed at his cheek with her napkin. Blood.'
Tom glanced at the tiny spot of red on the napkin and then wiped his face with his own.
That's all,' she declared. It must have been a very heated call. And if anyone should ask? The police?'
They're not interested in this.'
But if they should be?'
Tom shrugged. I went to the men's room. I was gone for five minutes.'
What if they ask the waiter?'
Tom glanced around the near-empty restaurant.
What waiter?'
You're right. He's not been near this table since you left to do whatever it was that you did.' She helped herself to one of his Chesterfields. Just promise me you won't tell me what that was. I'm quite scared enough of you as it is.'
Why should you be scared of me?'
I don't know, but I am. Instinct, I suppose.'
Instinct?'
I'm descended from slaves. This house-girl knows to do whatever the master tells her or risk a good
