Jane handed John half the stack of bills, pretending not to feel the stony, incredulous stares of the Cubans who were there to receive $10, $20, $50 in hard currency. Like a well-rehearsed vaudeville act, John and Jane tucked the remains of their worldly wealth into their inner jacket pockets, adjusted their sunglasses, and reached for their pullmans.
8 My Old School
Outside the Western Union, a flurry of Cubans complicated the sidewalk. A dump truck spewed diesel fumes and soot. Tiny round coco taxis in tropical fruit colors sputtered past in search of early sightseers. John waved them off. A block onward the people and the traffic thinned, the crumbling beauty of old Havana came to an abrupt halt, and the five-mile expanse of waterfront known as the Malecon opened out before them beneath a cloudy, troubled sky.
The buildings lining this section of the Malecon were in dire straits and for the most part empty. Despite the million dollar views, UNESCO heritage site restoration funds had dried up in the global economic downturn. Last year’s hurricane had left the tenements and storefronts looking like the densely scaffolded and disintegrating ruins of a lost civilization. For now, their singular saving grace was that they kept the relentless winds and corrosive salt-spray from too perniciously visiting the rest of the city. But the panorama they presented was disquieting. Or so it seemed to Jane and John, who took their conversation across the broad boulevard to the curving seawall that provided an expansive vista of the city in all its glory and decay. The wall was low enough to sit on. The tide was out. The waves kept their distance. Far down the esplanade, a few dispirited dogs were walking their dispirited people. Almost directly below the spot John and Jane chose to park themselves, Ernest Hemingway’s old man was setting out in a small dinghy for another play date with an ill-tempered sea. Seagulls dipped and dove above an ancient dumpster. A sense of collapse and doomed endings briefly overwhelmed speech.
“Who do you suppose came up with that color scheme?” Jane said at last, indicating a grouping of facades picked out in gaudy yellows, greens, and pinks.
“Pope soap,” John said. “John Paul was here - ten years ago? Yeah. They spruced the place up.” Jane swiveled to look at him. “Now it can be told. You’re married to an altar boy. ‘Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.’” He made the sign of the cross in her general direction. “My family made wine for the nuns.”
“That would explain the goody-two-shoes streak,” Jane said.
“And my appreciation of strong drink.” John shook his head slightly at a young prostitute who was dawdling in front of them, and got down to brass tacks. “I think it’s better if we start by talking to Vinnie.”
Jane watched the prostitute switch directions and sway off in pursuit of a slow-moving bicycle. She crossed her legs and examined the cracking pavement under her feet a moment before transferring her attention back to John. “So - call Vinnie and come with me to Davos,” she opened the bargaining flirtatiously.
John countered by taking her hand and holding it open against his own so that their wedding rings touched. “So call Uncle Charlie and come with me to Brooklyn.”
“Not the same. Charlie and I – don’t have that kind of relationship. That’s funny?” she tried to snatch her hand back.
“That’s kind of like saying you and Santa Claus don’t have that kind of a relationship. Charlie is a legend and an institution. I’ve never even seen the guy. For all I know Charlie is a myth.”
“You don’t retire a myth. Charlie’s wife died last spring – “
“He was married?”
“Car crash.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah,” Jane said, affirming that she was thinking what he was thinking. In some lines of work there are no accidents. “He retired in December.”
“And we know this because…”
She shrugged. “I keep up. Bloomberg. The Times. Despite everything, they threw him a big White House shindig. What do you do when you’re online anyway?”
“Poker? Blackjack? Danger Room?” he gave her hand a playful tug. She wasn’t feeling playful.
“He lives in Davos. And it’s January. They all go to Davos in January, so it won’t be hard to blend in.”
“They who?”
“Oh you know - all of them. The bigwigs. Everybody who’s anybody. It’s that annual circle jerk for the rich and shameless. The what-is-it.” She snapped her fingers repeatedly, searching for the exact term. “World Economic Forum?” When he didn’t answer immediately, she put her chin up. “Breaking team so soon? That didn’t take long.”
Still holding her hand, John turned and squinted out to sea in the direction of the marina and the boat. “Hold on. Same team. Same mission. Different trajectories - to get this resolved. Maybe.” The ocean breeze stiffened, pushing a lock of Jane’s long hair across her face. John caressingly tucked it behind her ear. “Do you even know - ?”
Jane slid down off the seawall and faced John. “I know Vinnie can’t get us our jobs back. I know Vinnie is a nobody. There is no way he can crack a joke and restore the miracle of the paycheck. Much less wipe us off the kill list.”
In his friend’s defense, but also because directly accosting a big gun, one of the biggest, seemed a bit rash, John said pointedly, “It’s the somebodies who are out to get us.”
Jane drew a deep breath and stepped backward, her mind made up. “Where I’m going you can’t follow – “
The pain and concern showed in John’s face, but he knew his lines and he spoke them without hesitation: “What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of.” He had to raise his voice on the last few words. She was already walking away, trailing her black pullman. “You’re going to trust me with the boat?”
She stopped short. “I’d say ‘keep the home fires burning,’ but you might take that the wrong way.”
John gave it one last shot. “You’re on a wild goose chase. Do they even have an airport in this country?”
“Big on birds?” Jane flung back, jokingly, waving with her full hand and then giving him the finger. “Read between the lines.”
John grinned. “Didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers,” he called.
Jane laughed mockingly, her reply just barely drifting back to him, “Tweet me!”
9 Sloop John B
“You mean to say she trusted you with the boat?”
“I know, right?” John flashed a wan smile. “It’s her baby. But if it’s got an engine, I can drive it. The hardest part was getting out of the harbor.’’ As he spoke, everything pitched slightly, including John himself. But the squall had mostly blown itself out; the great grey elephant swells had diminished to choppy whitecaps and the worst was past. Outside the portholes a metallic disk of sun rolled westward through an endless succession of second-rate clouds. It was just four o’clock. The espresso pot could be heard percolating on the tiny stove in the galley.
“Well, you’ve managed to catch me at my tea, which is rather bad form,” Gerald complained. And there he sat, with his china teacup, a pair of silver tongs poised to select a wafer thin slice of lemon. “I’m a union shop, you know. Time and a half outside of normal hours.”
“A working class hero is something to be. No rest for the unemployed, though. I’m trying to show a little initiative here. Surprise the little woman.”
“Excellent notion, old chap, you are to be commended. I’ve done grousing. Where is our lovely lass, by the by? Have you had her surgically removed? I think it was Wilde who said ‘The most dangerous food a man can eat is wedding cake.’” Gerald mused, reaching for a McVities Rich Tea biscuit.
“True enough, if Jane baked it. But to cut to the chase, at one point we had discussed applying for a small business loan - ” John began.
“Maintaining radio silence, I’m with you. Hush-hush on the Jane front. Mum’s the word. As for your small business start-up - hmmm. Even if the taps of capitalism were f
lowing – which they are not – it would be a little sticky, coming from here. That whole offshore tax haven thing. But definitely do-able, give or take a double-reverse merger or two. You’re a veteran? That helps. Care to identify the line of business? I should mention that anything to do with import/export almost always gets the go-ahead.”
“Security services?” John hazarded.
“More like insecurity services, if I understand you. But I believe it is a growth industry, given current trends. I would just mention, taking the long view you know, that winner-take-all vastly increases the stakes and probabilities for all the losers? If one happened to be a betting man.”
“Unless the game is rigged.”
“I can see you have given this some little thought. Alrighty then – will do.” He took a sip of tea. “Ah. That adds heart to a man. Before I go, did you want me to contact Sotheby’s about the Cezanne?”
John thought a minute. “No. No, not just yet. But if anything happens to me -”
“Say no more. We’ve agreed to keep Jane out of the kitchen, which is half the battle. Ta, then,” Gerald reached a hand forward to Skype out.
“Ta,” John echoed. The espresso pot gurgled a warning. In the galley, he automatically got down two cups. Sighed. Put one back.
10 Stay Visible
The lobby of the Hotel Schatzalp was surprisingly cheery for a former TB sanatorium and