Ice crystals on the bottom steps. The smell of pine and laurel.
I walk to the Range Rover, throat dry, eyes filled with tears, knees shaking.
Not cut out for this. They saw that in Cuba, or they would have promoted me before now or invited me to join the DGI. They knew I wasn’t made for the rough stuff. Few women go high in the Party brass, but some do and are rewarded with those elusive travel visas to Vietnam or North Korea or China.
They don’t hand those out to lightweights.
I take out the car key, press the button, the car unlocks. Always seems like a miracle.
I shiver. Get in, put the key in the ignition, start the engine, turn on the heat.
“Now what?”
Get on with it, that’s what. But I sit there, warming my hands over the vents. Reluctant to move. The gun’s been bothering me. I wonder if Mr. Jones is still awake.
The gun.
Esteban’s cell phone.
On the second ring Mr. Jones picks up. “Hello?”
“Mr. Jones, I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, you probably remember me, I was the lady who broke into your house.”
“Yeah, what can I do ye for? In the market for another weapon? I’m up, I’ll be up for a couple of hours.”
The Range Rover purrs into life. Very quiet. I like that. Almost as quiet as Jack’s Bentley. I put the ski mask on, drive out onto Lime Kiln Road.
Mr. Jones’s lights are the only ones still burning.
A little tremor of doubt. Maybe he has hard feelings.
Park. Walk the drive. Ring the bell.
No answer.
This isn’t about the gun. Who gives a fuck about the gun? What the hell am I doing
It’s bullshit, is what it is.
The truth is I don’t want to see Youkilis. I don’t want to torture the truth out of him even if he does deserve it.
I ring the bell again. While I’m waiting I take the ski mask off.
Finally Mr. Jones opens the door. He’s wearing a coat, dark blue jeans, and work boots. He’s covered with mud.
“So that’s what you look like. Figured you was older. Come in, come in.”
I sit down in the living room. Funky smell. TV blaring. He turns it off.
“Drink?” he asks.
“Sure.”
He comes back with a mug a quarter filled with clear liquid. I drink it. It doesn’t burn like Havana moonshine.
“It’s good,” I say.
He smiles. “Excuse the dirt, I was out checking my traps,” he says.
I nod. “I’d like to show you something,” I say.
I produce the gun. He takes it, holds it up to the light.
“A thousand dollars,” he says. “It’s a fair price. I can get three times that, but you can’t.”
“I just want to know about it. It looks unusual.”
He nods. “You’ve a good eye. It
“Gunmetal” catches my attention.
“Excuse me, what? Gunmetal? I’ve heard that before. What is that?”
“Gunmetal is a type of bronze, an alloy of copper, tin, and zinc. Where I’m from-Macon County, Alabama-they still call it red brass.”
“It’s a metal? That’s what they make guns out of?”
He laughs. “Not anymore. Everybody uses steel. That’s how I spotted this little beauty right away. I don’t know if you know much about Cuba, but after the USSR collapsed they couldn’t get steel. Went back to gunmetal for their Stechkin knockoffs.”
I nod but I’m confused. My PNR pistol was a standard Chinese revolver. I’d never seen one of these before.
“So where did this gun come from, I mean, who has these?” I ask.
“I reckon they made about two thousand of ’em. I can check my book. As far as I know-and what I don’t know ain’t worth shit-they was for KGB, the Cuban KGB, whatever they is.”
“The DGSE, internal security, or the DGI, Raul Castro’s secret police.”
“Yeah, something like that. Where’d you get it?”
The room spinning, the walls closing in.
I get up. “I have to go. You can keep the gun. I don’t want it.”
He shakes his head. “This belongs to you,” he says.
Ok. I throw it in the backpack, forget about it.
A thank-you. A goodbye. Even a good luck.
I get out, breathe the cold air.
What does it mean?
Dad had a spook’s gun. Did they send someone to kill him? Had he survived the attack and taken the gun? Was he a spook himself?
No, they were after him. That’s why he was calling himself Suarez and living as a Mexican. Had he stolen the gun in Havana? Bought it? Killed someone? How long had he been planning his defection? What exactly happened that weekend we went to Santiago?
Too many questions. Information overload.
Fuck it. Just drive.
I get in the car. Hit the lights. Back to town. Malibu Mountain. The Old Boulder Road.
Cruise. Watson. Tambor. Tyrone. Lights off.
Youkilis. Lights on.
Park the car. Cut the beams. Wait… Wait… Wait.
Snow stops. Moon comes out.
A car drives past. Damn it. Can’t sit here all night.
“I’ll kill half an hour at the motel and then come back,” I say to myself.
Down the hill.
I pull into the motel parking lot and there, standing in front of me with his arms folded, is Paco.
T-shirt, boxer shorts, coat, cigarette, no shoes. Furious. A button winds down the driver’s-side window. “Francisco, you’ll catch your death, go back inside,” I say like a big sister.
He walks to the Range Rover. “I’m not cold. Where are you going?”
“That’s my business.”
He shakes his head. “No. It isn’t. It’s our business. We’re in this together.”
“Nicaraguan idiot. You’re out of your depth.”
“I think it’s you that’s out of your depth,” he says.
He reaches into the car and tries to grab the keys.
“Fuck off!” I tell him and push his hand away.
“Get out of the car!” he hisses.
“Who do you think you are?”
“I’m someone who doesn’t want to see you get killed. Get out of the car.”
“Why the hell should I?”
Paco thinks for a moment. “For one thing, you don’t know that Esteban’s changed his plans. He’s going to be back tomorrow morning by seven and he seems the type that’ll notice if his fucking car is missing. He’ll call the
