Elmore Leonard: Cuba Libre

"I've heard of it," Tyler said, looking around the room at all the correspondents.

"Last year," Neely said, "Crane wrote "The Open Boat' about a shipwreck; it's based on an experience that actually happened on one of his trips here to Cuba. "The Open Boat' offers some of the most vivid writing I've ever read. It isn't flowery, if you know what I mean; it's stark, you might say, without a single wasted word. I say that, not taking anything away from Harding Davis. The Journal pays him three thousand a month-not a year, a month. Harper's Monthly paid him six hundred for a single story and he's worth every penny. Read "The Death of Rodriguez' that ran last month, about the execution of a young rebel. The boy falls dead before the firing squad and Harding Davis wrote that at that moment the sun 'shot up suddenly from behind them in all the splendor of the tropics, a fierce red disc of heat, and filled the air with warmth and light… The whole world of Santa Clara seemed to stir and stretch itself and to wake to welcome the day just begun."

"That's writing," Charlie Burke said.

"Wait," Neely said. "The way Harding Davis ends it, he looks back as he walks away"-Neely looking off as he said it-"and in this tragic moment sees the young Cuban as if, quote, 'asleep in the wet grass, his motionless arms still bound tightly behind him, the scapular awry across his face, and the blood from his breast sinking into the soil he had tried to free."

"Gives you a chill," Charlie Burke said. "You say this was in Santa Clara?"

Neely's gaze came back to the table, his expression reverent, the neat little correspondent touching his bow tie and nodding as he said, "Santa Clara has long been a hotbed of insurgent activity, a soil that seems to nourish a love of freedom."

It amazed Tyler, people actually spoke like that. He saw Fuentes looking for them as he came in from the lobby and around the garden, coming over now and pausing as he reached the table, making sure he wasn't interrupting their conversation.

Charlie Burke looked up. "Boudreaux's ready for us?" "He's with business associates and his lady friend, but he say okay," Fuentes said and looked at Tyler. "Lionel Tavalera, the Guardia Civil officer? Is in the lobby."

Neely seemed surprised. "Spanish military don't often frequent this hotel."

"It's true," Fuentes said. They were getting up from the table as he said, "Who knows why he's here." And to Tyler, "But, listen, you don't have to speak to him. All right?"

The municipal police investigator, Rudi Calvo, had noticed him too: the Guardia Civil officer in civilian clothes, a dark suit this evening, seated in one of the wicker chairs smoking a cigarette. Lionel Tavalera, who wanted to know about the American and was here perhaps to get a look at him. Or he could be waiting for one of the American newspaperwomen, popular with officers because as a rule they drank spirits, some of them smoked and none required a chaperone. So Lionel Tavalera's presence didn't give Rudi the same uneasy. feeling he had experienced seeing that other one, Teo Barban, lingering in the streets of the Old City. There…

Tyler was coming out of the bar now with his associate and Fuentes, crossing the lobby to the dining room, Fuentes leading the parade, this Ben Tyler looking very smart in his new clothes, very fly, as the Americans would say. Tyler knew how to wear that hat.

By this time Rudi had forgotten about Lionel Tavalera and didn't see him get up from his chair.

Tyler did. t-Ie saw the Guardia officer coming toward them and raised his hand. "Lionel, how're you this evening?"

"A moment," Tavalera said. "I need to tell you something."

"Can't do it right now, got business to tend to."

Now Charlie Burke looked around as Tavalera was saying, "Listen to me. The man you insulted is outside, Teobaldo. He wants to speak to you."

Tyler gave him a shrug, not caring for the Guardia's tone of voice, and said to Charlie Burke, "I doubt he still wants the horse, but I'll see him later if he's around," and followed his partner to this private dining room in a corner of the lobby, the door closed. He had noticed the regular dining room over next to the bar, people in there were having supper this late. Fuentes, about to knock, paused and turned to them.

"The one who opens the door," Fuentes said, barely above a whisper, "is Novis, Mr. Boudreaux's bodyguard, Novis Crowe. He looks at you as if you must be guilty of something or you want to harm his boss." Fuentes said, "I'm telling you so you know who it is," turned now and rapped twice on the door.

It opened right away and now the bodyguard, Novis, stood looking them over the way Fuentes said he would as Fuentes asked if Mr. Boudreaux would see them now. Novis didn't answer, his gaze holding on Tyler now, Tyler seeing Novis as a working man in a town suit, reddish hair combed flat and parted in the middle; or he could be a strikebreaker, that type, with a pick handle and a mean disposition. He turned now and brought them into the private dining room one behind the other, leading a procession along the banquet table covered in white linen, cleared of dinner plates, to approach four men in evening dress with cigars grouped about one end: prosperous-looking gents in their middle years, beards showing gray, though the one Tyler took to be Roland Boudreaux, seated in the center with a map spread open in front of him, was clean shaven and somewhat younger looking, a wave in his full head of dark hair. All of them seemed intent on following a course Boudreaux was slowly tracing across the map with the tip of a table knife.

Fuentes peeked around Novis, waited, and then finally said, "Sir, when you are ready." Tyler waited for Boudreaux to look up and acknowledge them. The men with him, Americans, all appeared well-to-do, patient, content to follow Boudreaux's plan for a road or maybe a rail line that would extend across half of Cuba.

They waited, Charlie Burke and Fuentes behind Novis, holding their hats in front of them. Waiting for an audience with the king. To ask a favor. Tyler remained a few steps behind them, wondering now what would happen if he were to say, Excuse me. How long are we supposed to stand here? Or give this important man one more minute. If he didn't look up and say something by then, walk out. The trouble was, Tyler didn't have a watch to time the man with.

He turned enough to take in the room, the crystal chandelier, a bottle of cognac, snifters, a coffee service and cups on the tablecloth… and a girl-he couldn't believe it, not ten feet away from him-sitting by herself at the other end of the table, a girl with reddish-brown hair piled and swirled in a way that showed her slender neck, her hair shining in the light from the chandelier, the girl looking right at him, already looking at him when he turned and saw her. In one hand she held a demitasse raised almost to her lips, and in the other a perfectly round cigarette, no question about it, a tailor-made. She said to Tyler, "I like your hat," and kept looking at him-not smiling or anything, like she was giving him the eye, no just looking him over.

Tyler touched the brim to her realizing this must be Boudreaux's mistress. Fuentes had mentioned his boss's lady friend being here and Tyler had imagined an older, more mature woman with rouge on her face, not anyone like this girl. She was a beauty and looked rich, even smoking the cigarette. Camille had smoked, but she was a whore.

Fuentes was saying, "Mr. Boudreaux, you know Mr.

Charlie Burke from when he was here, and this is Ben Tyler, the one brought the horses."

Tyler turned as Fuentes said his name, heard the girl say "Ben?" and saw Boudreaux looking this way, at the girl and then at him. From his expression he seemed pleasant enough, a man who could be as old as fifty, had that wave in his hair and was called Rollie, the only one at the table without whiskers or a mustache.