Colin Harrison - The Havana Room

"If you wish."

"Yeah, we're hungry here." H.J. smiled at Lamont. "Got to keep up the strength. We got a big party tonight."

Ha lowered his head. "I work very fast, you see."

He stood up from the table where he'd been sitting and shuffled under the bar bridge. He disconnected the bubbler in the tank and rolled back through the bar. Then he laid his table piece on top of it and retrieved the rolled white cloth filled with knives. "Before I open this," he said, "I have to tell you, these very sharp knives. I need these to prepare fish. Please do not shoot Ha. These knives just for fish."

Denny nodded impatiently. "We know. That's fine."

He trapped the fish in the tank, then speared it through the nose.

"So, I take this-" Ha deftly slit open the wriggling fish. "We were going to have this fish served for tonight," he said, setting out his little bowls for the different organs.

"People pay a lot for this fish," Allison said, "you'd be surprised."

"H.J.," Gabriel said, watching Ha's progress. "I've worked for you three years, okay? I've been loyal and true. I only argue when I think I should. I think we should go. You should go. You got a problem Denny and I got to deal with. These people saw everything."

H.J. shook his head. "We got ten minutes, maybe, we got time. Traffic's already bad. I'm going to get my fish first." He pointed at Jay. "Then I'ma deal with you, muthafucka."

At once a silence hung over us. I noticed that Jay was the only one in the room who seemed unafraid. The strangeness and danger of the room had no effect on him. Then again, he did not know about Poppy, who lay trussed and bagged and stiffening on the other side of the bar.

Jay looked at me. "They made you tell them about Sally?"

I glanced at Allison. "I made a terrible mistake," I said. "I told Allison."

"On the other hand, I wouldn't have met her," Jay said. "Not yet, anyway."

"I guess not."

"Your daughter?" asked Allison, voice subdued.

Jay regarded her. I could see that he lived still in the brief minutes he'd had with Sally. "Yes," he answered. "My daughter."

She wanted to be angry with him, Allison, she wanted to hate him, but instead tears came as she looked at Jay, then at me, then away, trying to hold on to her pride. "Why didn't you tell me?" she said, facing Jay. "Why?"

"I didn't think you'd like it."

"It wouldn't have mattered," she cried. "Don't you understand, don't you see how much I-?" She looked away, unable to say it.

"You what-?" Jay began.

She struggled to respond, not used to making statements of satisfaction and happiness. "It was nice."

Nice. A word that counted, after all. She withdrew the napkin from her purse and handed it to Jay.

"What's this?" he asked, taking it.

"Poppy drew that for you," I said. "He told Allison to write the word."

Jay took the napkin. It was small in his hand, already a little rumpled, and he studied it a moment, lips pressed together, eyes wincing. Confusion- then total recognition. Total shocked recognition. He dropped his head as if he'd been clubbed.

"What?"

Jay studied the napkin, folded it, and slipped it into the breast pocket of his jacket. He turned to me. "Sally's gone, right? She's okay?"

"Yes," I said, "but-?"

"How we comin' with my food!" announced H.J.

"Very fast," Ha narrated suddenly, with greater energy, "a little rice and seaweed, for the very good sushi… I cut this… and roll on the finger…" Within the minute he had prepared eight identical pieces of sushi. I watched his knife movements through and around the bowls of organs, where the poison was, but I could not be sure what he'd done. Eight pieces was more than the standard number of portions. Then again, as I recalled, there was plenty enough poison in the fish's organs for eight pieces.

"Who will be having some of this, please?" Ha asked.

H.J. pointed at his men. "We'll split it."

"I don't like fish," muttered Lamont.

"So, some for each? Two each?" said Ha, carefully laying out the plates and putting two pieces of fish on each one.

"Yeah, whatever," said Gabriel, reaching for the first plate.

"No, no, please," said Ha. "I am not done! But you will be first." He edged the plate back to himself and appeared to crimp the ends of the sushi a bit, give them an extra roll, and like a portrait artist, he sight-checked his subject, calculating, I guessed, Gabriel's weight and age, all in a glance, as meanwhile his small knife dipped softly into one of the organ bowls, then darted back to the plate, wiping the two pieces of sushi quickly while his other hand garnished the plate with a flowered carrot- a kind of magic act of misdirection and flourish. "There!" Ha said. "Now."

Gabriel slid the plate down the bar in front of himself, but seemed disinterested.

Meanwhile Ha decorated two more two-piece servings of Shao-tzou. I watched the knife dip into the organ bowls each time while the other hand manipulated seaweed and rice. Again the misdirection and fanning, the flickering fingers. He set the four pieces of sushi on two small plates and Denny picked them up, handed one plate to H.J., then quickly shoved a piece of fish into his mouth. "Good," he announced with his mouth full.

"Who will have left over?" Ha asked the room. "Two more pieces. Allison?"

"No thank you, Ha."

"Mr. Jay?" asked Ha.

"Sure. But I also want a cigar."

"A cigar?"

H.J. pointed at the wall of cigars with his gold-plated automatic. "Get the muthafucka a cigar, he been no trouble. Let him smoke it while I smoke him, smoke the goddamn truth out of him. You ready for my questions, boy? I got lots of questions, like how come nobody fuckin' knows what happened to my uncle."

Denny walked down to the wall of cigars, drew out one, replaced it, drew out another, then returned to Jay, handing him the cigar. "Montecristo," he advised. "Very good."

"I mean," H.J. continued, his face a righteous scowl, "what kind of man was this Poppy dude? He got them worried eyes, like he got something he always thinking about! How come I think he just some kind of lying cracker? Can you tell me that? Can anybody tell me that?"

No one could. Meanwhile Ha finished Jay's piece. I watched his knife. It seemed to do what it had done before. He placed the plate in front of Jay. "One piece left over. This is just right," he said to me. His hands were a blur, pinching the strip of flesh and rolling it up in rice, dipping a knife into one bowl then the next. "For you."

I must have looked startled as he put the plate before me.

"Do not worry, Mr. Wyeth." Ha's old eyes disappeared into amused slits but his gaze stayed fixed on mine. "Just enjoy. Ha is giving you very good fish today. You know this, you see this fish before, you must show the others it is very good to eat."

I took the piece of sushi, looked at it. Ha shuffled out from the bar and toward H.J. and Gabriel, who had not eaten any fish. "Please, it is very good. Protein. Very strong." Then he turned back to me. "Is it good?"

I watched Jay set his cigar on the table next to his plate. I saw Allison watch me. I popped the piece of fish in my mouth. I chewed.

"Hmm," I told them, "that is terrific."

"Yes."

"Are you sure there's no more?" I said. "I could eat a boatload of this stuff."

Ha bowed his head in apology.

Denny ate his second piece, Gabriel tasted his first. We needed a pause, a lag of a minute. I listened, and thought I heard the first footsteps of the staff arriving upstairs.

Allison looked at her watch.

"What's that?" demanded H.J.

"The restaurant is opening," she said. "I've got waiters and waitresses arriving, sous-chefs, busboys, everybody."

"Can't you close it?"

"No," said Allison. "I'd have to call thirty people."