The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [155]
The annoying fact that she kept blushing made her blush more. “Don’t push.”
His smile, unlike Brad’s, had confidence without smugness. “I’m not pushing. But I do want to see this statue. The night’s young.”
She glanced at her watch. “The night’s tomorrow.”
He kept staring at her. “Your ex-husband was an idiot.”
Her blush deepened. “Almost ex.”
“Almost ex-husband was a complete idiot to let you go.” He looked at her without smiling.
The silence went on too long for comfort. “…Do you know why my dad keeps flying to Cuba?”
“No.” Dan poured himself more margarita. “Do you?”
Annie repeated that she had known nothing specific about her father’s activities since she was seven years old.
He flicked at the blue plastic netting above their heads, so a sand dollar rolled up against a starfish. “He’s doing serious people serious favors and like I say, they’re not just favors about a Holy Thorn from the Sacred Crown, although I’m sure Diaz and Archbishop de Uloa plan to showcase the ‘Thorn’ on a church altar.”
Annie stared into her empty glass. “My dad’s a sting artist. He’s got a fake relic and these suckers are buying it from him. I don’t know how he faked it because I saw it and it looks damn real, but he’s scamming them.”
He waited while their waitress set down two complimentary glasses of almendrados. “Want some advice, Annie? Men like Diaz are not suckers. Get your dad out of this thing. Whether he’s really got cancer or not, and frankly I don’t believe it, there’re things he could die from a lot quicker than cancer.” The young man nodded earnestly. “Your dad is a talented, upscale grifter, but just a grifter.”
Annie sighed. “Sort of curiously naïve?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” Reaching into his jacket, he brought out a folded newspaper. “I’ll bet you my ’57 Thunderbird, and I love that car, he’s got no idea what they’re using him for. Or how dead he’s going to be when they’re done with him.”
The Miami Herald he held out to her showed a large photo of cheerful men clapping at a dedication ceremony. Near them the governor of Florida waved his arm in greeting to an off-camera crowd. Among those standing close to the podium was Feliz Diaz, unmistakably the same man who’d stepped out of the Mercedes in front of Golden Days, the man with whom the handsome woman had driven away. Diaz stood next to a white-haired priest whose scornful disdain for his present surroundings was deeply etched in his face. “That’s Archbishop de Uloa,” Dan told her. “These guys are all buddies.”
“Business buddies or political buddies?” she asked.
“Same thing in Miami, especially when you’re talking Cuba.” His phone rang again. This time he spoke briefly with someone. After he finished, he said, “My partner told me that Diaz just sent his girlfriend to Cuba.”
“Helen Clark?”
He shrugged. “She calls herself that.” He oddly added, “Remember William McKinley’s platform when he ran for President in 1896?”
Annie had to admit that she did not.
“There were two big mandates the Republicans had that year—‘Protect American Business’ and ‘Free the People of Cuba.’ Those mandates were the same thing. Freedom was the freedom to keep Cuban resources for American business. Boom! 1898. ‘Remember the Maine!’ 1899. United Fruit Company.” Dan picked up Annie’s Navy jacket, lying beside her on the bench and held it up.
“I don’t want to hear you bad-mouthing the Navy,” she warned him.
“Tell it to Spain. They’d been in Cuba four hundred years.”
Annie said, “You should hear my friend D. K., the guy that taught me to fly. He’s part Algonquin and he’s always talking about how the Arawaks had been in the Caribbean a lot longer than the Spanish. D. K. always says, ‘Instead of waving at Columbus, they should have torched the boats and blow-darted the crew.’”
“I met D. K. I liked him.” Dan drank from his glass of almond liqueur. “I read Spain kept the heart of Columbus in a box in a cathedral in Havana. You know that? They took it home to Madrid after the U.S. Navy sank their fleet in Havana Harbor and Dewey blew them out of the water at Manila