Voodoo Eyes (33 page)

‘Extranjero?’

‘Si. Americano. El no es mi novio.’

‘
Su chulo?’

‘Vete a singar!
’ said Benny.

Savon opened the door wide and beckoned them in with a scoop of the hand and a defeated grumble.

They followed him into a lobby that was as cold and clean as a new refrigerator. The walls were spotless white and completely bare, except for the ubiquitous Guevara picture, slightly bigger than any Max had seen elsewhere. The aircon was jacked all the way up. Icy, odourless air immediately enveloped them, chilling their sweat so quickly it gave them goosepimples and made them shudder.

Savon started talking. Max pretended to be interested in Guevara’s photo-portrait, those humourless features and cruel eyes, gazing off into bloody destiny. He listened in to what was being said behind him. The words were the usual mystery to him, but he could hear the emotions burdening them, the sorrowful anger that shaped them.

Savon was delivering a monologue that sounded prepared, worked on and rehearsed over and over in his mind, so much so that he could have been talking to himself. He was trying to keep his tone civil and reasonable, but beneath it a volcano’s worth of pent-up grievance was coming to the boil and his voice would occasionally rise to a snarl and snap, before he’d rein himself in. Benny was silent. Max imagined him hanging his head and taking the punishment – or at least pretending to.

But when he did finally start talking, a few beats after Savon had finished what he was saying, Benny sounded perfectly normal, neither chastened nor apologetic. Savon was initially quiet as he heard him out. And then, suddenly, he exploded into laughter, the first roisterous peals sounding more like yells.

Max turned around and saw Savon bent over double, clutching his belly, heaving out hilarity.

Benny looked at Max and winked.

Later that evening they ate dinner on the second floor, in another chilly bare room, where the furniture consisted of a single wooden table, four chairs and a large plasma TV on the wall.

Savon had prepared a pork and black bean stew, with white rice and a side of fried plantain. The food was delicious, but the vibe was bad. They ate in complete silence. Both Benny and Savon kept their eyes fixed on the hillocks of food in front of them, cutlery moving furiously from plate to mouth, as though racing each other to the finish. Max took his time.

The TV news showed a rerun of the report about the two murders in Havana. Benny’s only comment – apart from a sonorous belch that echoed around the room and provoked a short but murderous look from Savon – was to tell Max that it was identical to what they’d heard that morning.

After Benny had formally introduced them, Max discovered that Savon spoke perfect English, albeit with a mild Germanic clip to his accent. Max asked him to charge his phone, and he obliged, taking it away with him.

When it was done, Max had tried to call Rosa Cruz, but there was no signal. She hadn’t called him either.

Savon and Benny finished dinner almost simultaneously. Benny said he was going to bed and left. Savon then relaxed. He made small talk of sorts while Max polished off his food. Then he cleared the table and returned with a bottle of rum and two glasses.

‘Benny says you saved his life,’ Savon said, pulling up a chair.

‘He was in a jam.’

‘He’s always in a jam.’

Savon took what Max at first thought was a deck of playing cards from his breast pocket, but it was really a pack of Romeo y Julieta cigarettes – beige and maroon, with a centred cameo of the lovers at the balcony. He offered one to Max, who declined with a shake of the head.

‘None of you Americans smoke, do you? You lead such healthy, dull, uneventful lives.’

‘We have quicker ways of killing ourselves,’ said Max.

Savon uncorked the bottle and the sweet heady smell of vintage rum hit Max between the eyes. When Max passed on the booze too, Savon smiled pityingly. He poured himself two fingers of orangey-brown alcohol, liqueur-like in consistency. He took a sip and lit his cigarette.

‘I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done. But you’re in a lot of trouble – and you’re in my house,’ said Savon.

‘I didn’t kill Earl Gwenver, and the man who attacked Benny—’ began Max, but Savon cut him off.

‘It’s not my business or my concern.’

‘Benny said you could help.’

‘I can get you out of the country – for a price.’

‘How much?’

Savon looked out of the window, feigning thought, his eyes already decided. He had a view of the Iglesia y Convento de San Francisco, which appeared on the back of the twenty-five-cent coin. By day the church’s belltower was pale green and yellow, but now, at night, it was illuminated by spotlights and became a gaudy glowing cactus floating in the dark.

‘You will need to get to the east coast, to a place near Guantánamo. That’s a two-day drive – at least – depending on your car,’ said Savon. ‘You can’t use the car you came in. It’s been reported stolen by now. And as I’m sure you’ve seen, there are not many cars in Cuba. Plus yours has Havana plates. Once the search for you spreads out of the capital, you’ll get caught in no time. I can provide you with a car. Part of the package.’

‘How much?’ Max repeated.

‘Five thousand pesos – tourist pesos.’

‘Five
thousand
?’ Max had slightly over six in his pockets. ‘What does that buy? A one-way trip on a leaky boat?’

‘No.’ Savon shook his head with a smile. ‘That gets you on the Wetback Express, an American military supply ship bound straight to Miami.’

‘How the fuck are you gonna swing that?’

‘I “swing” it all the time.’ Savon blew a plume of smoke at a mosquito flying in his vicinity. The insect plunged to the table. ‘Do you know how most of the stuff I sell comes into the country – the laptops, phones, satellite dishes, the video and DVD players? Via your people. The occupying force.’

Max shrugged. He wasn’t surprised.

‘They’ve been doing it for years. Decades. And recently, with Fidel being sick, they’ve stepped up operations. They’re flooding Cuba with cheap computers and phones. The idea is, the price will come down, so more people can afford them. You’ve heard the term “black ops”, yes?’

‘Sure.’

‘They call this – what they do here – “brown ops”, because they’re spreading shit. Looking to destabilise the regime by stealth. An online counter-revolution, if you like. Get as many young people on cellphones and computers as possible. Give them access to a technology the state cannot possibly control, and – theoretically – they’ll organise protests that will bring down the government.’

‘So you play both sides?’

‘I play
my
side,’ said Savon, draining his glass. ‘The whole Cuban-American interface is handled by a group of Spanish-speaking soldiers based in Santiago de Cuba. I do business with them all the time. They call themselves the “Texas Playboys”. They’ve got these nicknames, after their hometowns. The ringleader calls himself “Señor Dallas”. There are also Señors Austin, Houston, Galveston, El Paso and Fort Worth. They have other scams going on, besides the CIA one. They sell food, drink, cigarettes, clothes – anything and everything American. And they also run the Wetback Express.’

‘You never been tempted?’

‘To leave Cuba? No.’ Savon lit another cigarette and smiled. ‘What would I do in Miami? Wait tables? The American Dream isn’t for anyone over forty.’

Max laughed. There was something honourable, even admirable about Savon. He may have had the heart of a mercenary and the threadbare soul of the intrinsically corrupt, but he was upfront about it. Max knew they could do business, that he wouldn’t get ripped off. Savon was a player, no more dishonest than the two warring systems he was exploiting.

‘This five thousand pesos, is it negotiable?’

‘The price is usually ten thousand,’ said Savon. ‘I’m giving you a discount because you’ll be carrying cargo.’

‘Like what?’

‘Benny. He goes with you.’

‘Benny?’

‘All the way to Miami.’

‘You’re fucken’ kidding, right?’

‘That’s the deal. You go to the pick-up point with Benny. If he’s not with you, you don’t get on board. Take it or leave it.’

Max didn’t need any baggage, especially not in the shape of Benny, whom he didn’t trust. But that wasn’t all.

‘What if I don’t want to leave Cuba right now?’ he said.

‘If I don’t hear from you in the next four days, the boat’s gone,’ said Savon. ‘Take my advice – whatever it is you’re doing here, forget it. Leave. Go home. You’re a marked man. At this moment, the police in Havana are checking all the hotels, looking for missing guests. If they don’t know your identity yet, sooner or later they will. Once they circulate it, you’ll have to find a cave to hide in because everyone in this country is a potential informant. It’s not that they want to be, but they’re scared not to be.’

Max looked out of the window. The lights on the church tower had been turned off and it was completely dark and quiet. Savon yawned and drained the last of his rum.

Max reached for the money in his side pocket. ‘Four days, right?’

‘Starting at midnight.’

Max counted out five thousand pesos in fifties, twenties and tens. Savon took the money and asked for Max’s phone. He programmed a number into it and instructed him to head for a small town on the south coast called Cajobabo. He was to call the day before he wanted to leave.

‘Why are you helping Benny?’ Max asked, when Savon had pocketed the cash.

‘I’m not helping him. I want him out of my life – well out, well away – but somewhere safe, somewhere he can start again. Although I have a feeling that wherever he goes, he’ll find trouble. Some people are just pre-programmed to fuck up.’

‘Love’s a weird thing, isn’t it?’

‘Who said anything about love?’ Savon smiled sadly.

39

In Trinidad people rose early for work, at the hotels on nearby Playa Ancon or the tobacco farms and factories at the edge of the mountains. Max and Benny drove past them at the crack of dawn, workers walking through the cobbled streets in formation, a double line of men and women of all ages, growing steadily in length as it ambled out of town. They were singing, post-revolutionary labourer songs originally intended to bolster spirits and reinforce beliefs, but in voices so low and a delivery so mournful, these spirited hymns to proletarian solidarity and patriotic duty were recast as dirges, laments for a bygone ideal. The marching workforce sounded like a defeated yet proud and noble army heading homeward.

Max was driving the bottle-green 1953 DeSoto Firedome that Savon had left outside his house, with keys in the ignition and a full tank of gas. Benny was in full drag, wearing a sunflower-print dress with white frill trim that on a woman his age would have looked prim and outmoded, but he carried off in a style all his own. He’d darkened his face with foundation and hidden his stitches under the fringe of a straight black wig, around which he’d tied a headscarf that matched the thick brown leather belt cinched about his skinny waist.

Max could usually spot even the most convincing transvestites by looking at their hands and wrists – always too wide and too thick – but Benny would have fooled him in broad daylight: his hairless hands were small and slender, with an almost complete absence of knuckle, and fine, reedy fingers topped off by fake pointed red nails, those of a woman of leisure. Benny looked better than good: he was almost perfect.

‘What’s the deal with you and Nacho?’ asked Max.

‘Is private.’ Benny had been downcast and silent since they’d left. ‘No’ talk to me about him, OK?’

‘Happily,’ said Max. He switched on the radio and surfed the channels, getting nothing but multiple varieties of Cuban music and no news. He turned it off.

The sky was black fading to blue, sunbeams slashing it pink and red, the horizon fringed with hot gold. Stars were glittering their last and the half-moon was fading to a wraith-like outline. The landscape ahead remained swaddled in a dense, silken early-morning mist, which teemed with rainbows and kaleidoscopic forms as it trapped the first soft rays of light. They passed rows of royal palms, whose pale grey trunks towered fifty feet above them, gangling and ridged, topped with green tips and drooping leaves, laden with birds singing down at them.

Max opened the window. The air was clear and cool and mint-tinged. He took a deep breath and held it in.

‘What a beautiful country,’ he whispered to himself. ‘What a pity.’

Caille Jacobinne was easy to find because it was impossible to miss – just as Savon had told him it would be when Max asked about it. Not only was it the sole building around for miles, it was the size of an aircraft hangar. The walls had been painted with the image of the Haitian flag: solid horizontal blocks of blue on red and a white square in the middle bearing the nation’s crest and motto,
‘L’Union Fait la Force’.

They made a left off the main road and followed a dirt path down across a grassy field. The path widened the closer they got to the centre, mushrooming into a wide, circular clearing of hard-baked orange earth that lapped around the property.

‘Where we go?’ asked Benny.

‘I’m a tourist, remember? I’m going to do some sight-seeing.’

Benny snorted derisively and folded his arms as Max got out.

In the forecourt were the remains of a children’s playground – a semi-dismantled climbing frame, swings, a slide missing its platform and half the steps of its ladder. Further on was an empty wood-and-wire chicken coop, the timber blackened, the wire rusted the colour of the soil. A grey mule was standing by a post. It turned its head to watch as Max approached, its ears perking up as he drew closer.

The front of the centre bore the name ‘Caille Jacobinne’, painted in large, black italics. Either side of the door was a giant mural of Toussaint L’Ouverture’s silhouette, on pale blue. Within the silhouette were smaller paintings of Che Guevara, José Martí and the Castro brothers, illustrating the ideological links between the two revolutions.