Topaz - Leon Uris [40]
“I will not accept gifts from you,” Juanita said and watched his face grow dark.
“Why do you always make me feel like dirt?”
“Rico, this business has been going on for a year. I have made my feelings clear. It embarrasses me to be put into this position. Please leave me alone.”
He flung his cigar to the floor and squashed it under his boot and moved to her, breathing unevenly, then shoved both hands in front of her eyes. “See! My fingernails are clean! They are manicured just like yours!”
She turned her back on him and walked toward the living room and he followed, pleading ... “Juanita ... please ... you are making a great mistake. I am now one of the biggest men in all of Cuba. Fidel depends on me from morning to night. You know how I crave you.”
She stopped her retreat and stared into the black wounded eyes and the revolutionary quaked before her. “I have no feeling for you, Rico,” she said firmly.
“Because I am a peasant!”
“No. There are many beautiful peasants in Cuba. They live and die with dignity. What you really want from me is respectability. There is no way you can buy it.”
“Why?”
“Because you are scum.”
His eyes watered and he giggled half madly. “But André Devereaux is a gentleman, isn’t he! He kisses your hand and dribbles little whispers into your ears. Oh yes, the great French lover is coming to his Little Dove and you cream!” Rico thumped his fist against his chest. “But he will never be a man like me! Yes, and what about the others ... the great Señor Iglesias with his Venezuelan oil and his yachts taken from the blood and the sweat of the people! And the Italian wop bastard aviator. Very brave when it comes to bombing defenseless Ethiopian villages .... Well ... I thought as long as you were passing it out so freely you might give a few of your countrymen a break.” He grabbed her arms and pressed his fingers until his knuckles turned white. “Behind all of that crap ... that nobility ... you’re just a slut.”
“Good day, Rico,” she said softly, “Emilio will see you out.”
17
KLM FLIGHT 431 TERMINATED at Rancho Boyeros, with the stairs being rolled to the DC-6B. A trio of immaculately white-clad Cuban musicians stationed themselves to greet the debarking passengers with rumbas, cha-cha-chas, and sambas. This was Castro’s proof that there was still a “beat” in Cuba.
However, the “beat” began and ended right there.
André stepped into the suffocating terminal, where the air-conditioning had long been out of function for fear that explosives would be set into the ducts.
The old health officer, a relic of Batista days, recognized him and called him to the desk ahead of the others, where he was waved through to the immigration booths.
These were now manned by a half-dozen Castro militia clad in ill-fitting faded green fatigues. A Negro militiaman, who attempted to identify himself with the Revolution by a growth of straggly beard, took André’s passport and thumbed the fully stamped pages with confusion. André reached over, took the passport and handed it back, right side up.
“Diplomat,” André said.
The guard stared angrily, then gave the passport to an assistant who could read. A blank space was sought out and stamped with vigor.
André stood by his own immune luggage as more militia poked through the baggage of the others, confiscating all English-language newspapers and magazines, both pro- and anti-Castro.
The customs chief, a short, fat, big-bottomed woman, appearing ridiculous in green slacks, waddled over to him and placed the necessary stamps on his bags.
Outside the checking rooms, the French Ambassador to Cuba, Alain Adam, greeted André warmly. The chauffeur gobbled up his bags and they made for the car.
Alain Adam was a member of that dwindling band, a ranking diplomat who had escaped President La Croix’s axings and, like André, continued in office on borrowed time.
They had gone in dozens. Good men. Good Frenchmen cast out of the services with objective ruthlessness and once out were usually unable to place