Killing Castro - Lawrence Block [28]
He took a flight of stairs two at a time, walked through the kitchen to the living room. The Luchar dame was sitting in an easy chair reading a Cuban newspaper. She looked up at him.
“Your friend Turner went out,” she said. “How come you decided to stick around?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sit down,” she said. “Want coffee? Or maybe some lunch?”
He told her that sounded fine. She got up and he watched her leave the room. She spoke English with an American accent and this got him, got him good. It didn’t fit with the rest of her. Christ, she was straight out of A Tale of Two Cities, a twentieth-century Madame Defarge who didn’t know how to knit. She got to him, sometimes. Gave him the chills. He wasn’t sure why, but that was the way it worked.
She came back with a plate of arroz con pollo and a cup of steaming coffee. The chicken-and-rice dish was spicy, tasty. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was.
“Have you been back in Cuba long?” he asked her.
“Since the revolution won. Batista left and I came back. Why?”
“I just wondered,” he said. “Maybe you knew my brother.”
“He was here?”
He nodded. “His name was Joe,” he said. “Joe Hines.”
She looked thoughtful.
“You remember him?”
“I remember,” she said. “I didn’t know him, not person to person. I knew who he was, of course. Castro had him shot.”
He nodded bitterly.
“Of course,” she said. “I wondered why you were here. Revenge, the rest of it. Am I right?”
“Of course.”
“I see,” she said. She turned away slightly. “Well, one must have reasons. And the reasons matter only to the individual. It doesn’t make a bit of difference why you are here, only what you do here. The results are more important than the reasons.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Don’t you?”
“No,” he said, annoyed. “You use a lot of words but you don’t say a hell of a lot. What are you getting at?”
She smiled shallowly. “I told you. It does not matter.”
“It matters to me.”
She shrugged. “More arroz con pollo? There’s a whole pot of it on the stove.”
“No, thanks—”
“More coffee?”
“No,” he said. “Look, you’re trying to change the subject. I don’t want it changed.”
“Sometimes it’s a good idea.”
“Damn it!” He stood up, his hands balled into fists of tension at his sides. “Look, you’ve got something that you’re not telling me and I just don’t get it. I want to hear what it’s all about before I crack up. If you’ve got something to say, say it. Otherwise quit playing games with me!”
She smiled again, unnervingly. “So young,” she said. “When a man is so young everything is simple, true? Easy questions and easy answers. I wish I had learned how to lie to my friends. It is easy to lie to enemies. I cannot lie to friends.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Only that your brother was a traitor.”
He stared at her. She was crazy, that was all. She was some kind of a nut and he was wasting his time paying attention to her. She was out of her skull, off her rocker. She was batty.
“I am speaking the truth, Hines. But you don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to. Perhaps you shouldn’t believe me.”
“A traitor to Castro,” he said desperately. “He saw that Castro was ruining the country so he broke with him. That’s what you mean, isn’t it? He broke with Castro so Castro called him a traitor and had him shot. That’s it, huh? He was a traitor the same way you’re a traitor, because he wanted what was best for Cuba and—”
“No.”
The single syllable stopped him. He broke off, stared, lowered his eyes. For a long moment he stood looking at his shoes. Señora Luchar was still sitting in the easy chair, her eyes quiet. He sat down himself, with a great heaviness and looked at her.
“You’d better tell me all of it.”
“Would it serve a purpose?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be an ass,” she said. “Don’t be a damn fool. Castro killed your brother and blood is thicker than principles. You still have to get your revenge. Joe Hines was still your brother and you still have to get revenge on the man who killed him. Why knock yourself out?”
“Tell me.”
“Listen