Adrian McKinty - Fifty Grand

“Apparently it has worked out,” Sheriff Briggs said.

“Yeah. So far. Risky work, though. The real stuff is coming in tomorrow and then every month, once a month. I’m bringing in ice and pot. Good stuff. With your approval, of course. I was going to tell you all about it,” Esteban said quickly.

“Sure you were,” Briggs said.

Esteban appeared unfazed. “I can show you the paperwork. I’m being straight with you. I’m laying out thirty thousand capital for an expected hundred-thousand take. That’s seventy net. I can give you twenty on this and every batch.”

Sheriff Briggs nodded and hit his nightstick into his hand. “Thirty-five,” Briggs said.

“Thirty-five? I’m taking all the risk,” Esteban protested.

“Thirty-five and I want it by the end of the week.”

“That’s impossible! That’s a month’s supply, it’ll take me weeks to deal it. I’m not unloading to some middleman, I’m selling it carefully to a very select group of people.”

Sheriff Briggs looked at Deputy Klein. Klein grinned and hit Esteban hard in the gut with his nightstick.

Esteban staggered backward, caught himself on the hood of the Range Rover, bent over, and threw up part of a croissant and coffee.

“I guess you didn’t hear me. Thirty-five by the end of the week,” Briggs said softly.

Esteban grunted.

Sheriff Briggs nodded at his deputy. “See, I told you this was nothing to worry about. I was sure we’d be able to come to an arrangement, even if it is a bad time,” he said.

Sheriff Briggs got back into his Escalade.

“What about the four-twenty?” the deputy asked.

“Oh, take the pot, I’m sure our old buddy Steve won’t mind,” Sheriff Briggs said, his dark eyes wide with pleasure.

The two cops got into the prowler, revved the engine for ten aggressive seconds, and drove off along Pearl.

No one had seen the incident, except possibly the Starbucks workers, and they knew better than to say anything about it.

“How often does this happen?” I whispered to Angela.

She put her finger to her lips. “You don’t have to worry about any of this. We’ll talk later,” she whispered.

Esteban said nothing when he got back into the car. He dabbed his face with a silk handkerchief, got his breath back, and started the engine. He didn’t look seriously hurt but I saw that he touched the wheel only with his left hand. In Cuba, where no vehicles had power steering or automatic gear-boxes, he couldn’t have driven at all, but here he managed.

He eased the Range Rover along Pearl and up the Old Boulder Road.

The Old Boulder Road. Ricky’s black-and-whites. The phone call the day after my birthday.

“I’ll leave you at the summit and you can work your way downhill,” Esteban muttered.

We drove past huge houses that got bigger as we got closer to the top of the mountain. When we were almost at the peak Esteban pulled the Range Rover into a turnout marked VIEWPOINT on a small green sign. He turned to us and gave Angela a key chain with various house keys on it. Each was attached to a piece of card with a number on it.

“Angela, you’ll be with María today, show her the ropes. Show her where the cleaning supplies are in each house and don’t forget the alarm boxes.” Esteban turned his gaze on me. “You know what an alarm system is?”

I shook my head.

“Each house has an alarm, which we disable when we enter and enable again when we leave. It’s very simple. Understand?”

“Yes,” I said. I’d never been in a house with a burglar alarm before but I got the concept. It would require a consistent electricity supply and a prompt police response, two things Havana lacked.

“Angela, make sure you show her which clients need the full treatment and which ones only get a surface clean. There’s no point in wasting time on clients who won’t appreciate what we’ve done,” Esteban said.

“Of course,” Angela muttered.

“Ok, both of you out of the car, I want to show María something.”

Esteban was a big man, and in my experience big men take longer to recover from an injury. He was still breathing hard and rubbing his arm as he led us away from the car toward a gap in the trees.

He forced a smile. “Ok, María, here we are. This is where you’ll be working in the mornings. You can see the whole mountain from here. Below us is the Watson residence. Big movie producer. He has his own staff but I’ve been in there. Dealt him coke. Delivered it personally. That house on top of the hill with all the lights and the fence-Tom Cruise.”

“ The Tom Cruise?” I asked.

“ The Tom Cruise. Lives here about half the year when he’s not filming. I think his sister lives there year-round.”

“I get to clean Tom Cruise’s house?”

“No, no. He has his own staff. As I was saying, we only get the lesser lights. Not the Watsons and the Cruises of this world. But you might see some famous people. It’s important not to react in any way. They hate that. You’ve got to pretend that you’re not there at all. That you’re invisible. Never make eye contact with any of the clients and never talk to them unless spoken to first. Understand?”

“Sí, Don Esteban.”

“Good.”

Esteban took another few seconds to get his breath back. “I suppose you’re wondering about what happened this morning with the sheriff?”

“Yes,” I said quietly. Angela said nothing.

“The thing is, I’m an American citizen,” he muttered with a smoldering sense of outrage.

I nodded.

“An American citizen, and if that bastard tries to come into my house I’ll shoot him with my rifle. Shoot him. And they can’t do a thing. Cop or not. War hero or not. Without a warrant, the law’s on my side.”

Esteban sat down on a flat, red boulder. He dabbed his forehead.

“Do you want us to go?” Angela asked.

“No. No. Let María get her bearings. Look around you, María.”

I observed the mountains and the forests. Layer after layer of them stretching west for fifty kilometers.

I tried to feel something.

After all, this was it. The place where my father died.

I tried to force an emotion: anger, regret, sadness-nothing came.

“What do you think, María?” Esteban asked.

“Pretty country,” I said.

“All this was Mexico once. A hundred and fifty years ago. Mexico. Our home. Stolen by the Yankees and they don’t even know it. They don’t even know their history. We invited them to our land and then when we told them they couldn’t have slaves they turned on us. Like a changeling in the house of your mother. Like an ungrateful dog.”

His face was pink. He was sweating. For a moment I wondered if he was having a heart attack. Tears welled up in his eyes. “Mexico. All the way to the Pacific. That cabrón . That fucking son of a whore,” he muttered.

He started to cry.

“Come on, let’s go,” Angela whispered.

We left him.

I said goodbye but he didn’t seem to hear.

We walked past Watson’s huge mansion and entered the first house on the route. Angela put the key in the lock and showed me how to disable the alarm system.

This house only needed a quick dust and vacuum.

As did the next.

I was expecting palatial residences but they weren’t grotesque. About the same size as those of high-ranking Party officials in Vedado but not in such disrepair and most with epic views over the mountains.

The job seemed simple. The first three homes were empty and not a problem to clean. A dead mouse in a sink was the only bit of excitement. The next was occupied by an actress who was in her basement running on a treadmill the whole time we were there. We put away her clothes, ran her dishwasher, cleaned her living space, rearranged the diet shakes and cigarette cartons in her gigantic refrigerator.