Hostage in Havana

she chided. “So did you check in under your real name?”

“You think I’m crazy? I used my Canuck passport. Why are you always asking so many questions?”

“Because I’m trained to.”

“Okay, that’s healthy enough. So are you finished asking me questions so that I can ask my ‘wife’ one?”

“Sure,” Alex said. “Go for it.”

“There’s only one bed in this room. Will I have the pleasure of my wife’s company in it?”

She laughed. “We can share the bed, but we’re not having sex,” she said. “Is that where you were going with that?”

“I thought I’d try to steer it in that direction.”

“I thought you would too. You actually steered it off the road.”

He laughed. “Well, you can’t blame a man for trying. Anyway, I’m going to go down the hall to take a shower. Unless you want to go first. The water is warm, not hot. There are towels and soap in the bath area. It’s rustic but it works. It has a certain primitive charm. You might like it. So? Who first, me or you?”

“I’ll go,” she said.

“Want me to show you where?”

“If I can find my way from the beach outside Matanzas to Havana I can find my way down the hall to the shower,” Alex answered.

“I’m sure you can,” he said.

From her bag, she took a pair of thin shorts and a cotton T-shirt to change into for sleeping, plus her toiletries. The shower room had a 1950s feel to it, one pipe coming out of the wall, above a tile floor with a drain. She undressed and blasted her body and hair with the tepid water. There was a plastic container of a Mexican shower soap hanging on a metal hook. She unhooked it, washed thoroughly, and felt refreshed.

She dressed in the shorts and the T-shirt. She toweled her hair and combed it out. It was still wet when she returned to the room. Paul had left the door half-open to maintain a breeze.

While he was in the shower, she could hear the water running. She eyed his belongings, one bag and some clothes, where he had left them across a chair and dresser. She went to the door and glanced down the hall. She walked quietly down the hall to make sure he was in the shower. He was.

She returned to the room. She listened for any approaching footsteps, heard none, and couldn’t resist. She prowled through his things, looking at everything from his passport, his backup pieces of identification, his clothes, his Browning automatic, and the bullets with it. The weapon, upon close examination, gave an indication of having been fired recently, and it still smelled faintly of gunpowder. Of course, he had fired several shots on the morning they arrived. But were they fired from his own gun or from one that he had picked up on the boat? Memory failed her. She couldn’t recall.

She looked at his passport again. A fine piece of work. And so were the supporting documents: an Ontario driver’s license and an American Express card. They were just fine, she thought to herself, except they were completely fake: same as her own.

Her hand did a quick pat down of the rest of his suitcase. She came across an envelope, legal size, standard 4 ? by 9 ?. She squeezed it. Cash. She opened it. Franklin and Grant. Large denomination American currency. Fifties and hundreds. A quick calculation told her that he must have had twenty grand in cash. Well, there was another reason to pack a pistol.

She heard him turn the water off. She put everything away again, eased back, and settled into her chair, shaking out her hair, enjoying the feel of the sea breeze on her arms and legs.

Paul returned. He closed the door but not all the way.

“Time for some sleep,” he said. “Which half of the bed do you want?”

“Whichever half you’re not on.”

“Good answer,” he said.

“Take the left; I’ll take the right.”

“Deal,” he said. He climbed in. There were light blankets and a sheet.

She came to the bed and sidled into it on the opposite side. The room’s final light was on her side. She extinguished it. The sheets were cool and soft, the bed more comfortable than it had any right to be. She exhaled a long breath and tried to think of sleep as they lay side by side. Then he moved his arm. His hand found hers and held it.

“Well?” he asked after half a minute. “Yes or no?”

“Yes or no what?” she asked.

“The big question for tonight,” he said, turning toward her in the dim light. “The issue I’ve been wondering about since we walked into this room and closed the door.”

She turned toward him. “I already answered you,” she said. “I’m not going to let you make love to me.”

“No, I already shelved that idea,” he said. “It was the other thing I was wondering about, the one you didn’t answer.”

“And what would that be?” she asked.

“Are you going to the cemetery tomorrow? You still haven’t answered.”

She watched the thin curtains flutter against the breeze and looked at the shadows that the moonlight threw into the room. The room was deeply quiet, except for the rumble of the surf on the beach.

Tomorrow. The cemetery.

The notion raced through her head that, in spite of everything, this location was comfortable and the people around her were good – even Paul, in his rough and strangely ironic way, even though he alternately irritated her and amused her. Then, of course, there was the danger and the fascination with everything that was going on, an equation that added a shot of adrenaline to everything. She almost disliked herself by getting so turned on by the excitement, the risks, and the challenges.

She turned back toward him. She spoke to his silhouette against the feeble light from the hallway. “I’ll go,” she said. “I don’t like what we’re going to do. But I’ll go.”

“Excellent,” he said.

He rolled over, away from her. She rolled over away from him.

A few minutes later, she was at the edge of sleep when her cell phone came sharply alive. It jolted her. She sprang from the bed and went to her clothes. She stood in the reflected moonlight from outside, snapped the phone open, and answered. “Hello?”

Paul lifted himself up on one elbow and watched. For a moment it bothered her that she was so well on view to him, shorts and T-shirt in a moonlit bedroom. Then it stopped bothering her, and her mind bounced back to business.

“Hello,” an emotionless voice said. “You know who I am, yes?”

“I know who you are,” she said quietly. “Then who are you?” he asked. “Tell me who.” “I’m Anna.” “Anna who?”

“Anna Marie Tavares,” she said. “You know why I’m calling?” “I know,” Alex said.

There was a painfully long silence. Then, “Hotel Plaza Habana. Tomorrow, 3:00 p.m.,” the voice said. “Remember … 3:00 p.m.,” he repeated. “The lobby. Can you do that?” “I can do that,” Alex answered.

Then the line clicked dead. Alex folded the phone away, heaved a sigh of exhaustion, and turned back toward the bed. Paul was still sitting up, smiling slightly. With courtesy, he lifted the sheet and blanket on her side to welcome her back into bed, as a husband might.

“Violette,” she said. “He’s ready to play ball.”

FIFTY-SIX

The next morning Paul took the Toyota Jeep again. He and Alex drove back to Havana. By early afternoon, Paul had parked in the garage of a man whom he said was a family friend. Then they found their way to the Hotel Plaza Habana, on foot. It was about a fifteen minute walk. Alex tried to memorize the route but wasn’t able.

The Plaza Habana was one of the oldest hotels in the city, built in 1909. Unlike much of the rest of Havana, it was charming and beautifully restored. It stood proudly on Calle Agramonte in Old Havana, where Agramonte