Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes (32 page)

“Not big. We do not do anything that makes money.”

Max pulled a two-inch fold of cash from his trouser pocket and took off the rubber band that bound it. He counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills and pushed them aside, counted another ten. “Two thousand,” he said, and began a third pile.

“Two thousand is all I asked you for.”

“I’m giving you six. You want ten? Have ten.”

“Six? Ten? My god,
hombre,
no. We could never pay it back.”

“No need. Tell me a number.” He counted out six piles, then made them into a single pile.

“Six thousand?” she said.
“Un milagro!”

Max handed her the money, then pocketed the still hefty wad. She put the six thousand in her purse.

“Do you always travel with so much cash?”

“It’s very spiritual to carry large sums, a holy form of danger. I once carried eight hundred thousand in two suitcases.”

“
Madre de Dios.
Eight hundred thousand. Why?”

“I was delivering it.”

“Political money?”

“I took it to an embassy.”

“Ah.”

“You think my money is evil. I see it in your eyes.”

“I don’t know you anymore, Max. It’s been a long time.”

He leaned toward her and went down on one knee.

“It stuns me to see you, Natita. After all these years I’m still tortured in your presence. It’s an obsession. I’ve never been able to love anyone else, not even your sister.”

“Max, get up. This is bizarre.”

“You should’ve married me,” he said. “Leave your poverty and marry me now.” He put his hand on her knee.

“Max Osborne marries whichever woman is next to him.” She lifted his hand off her knee.

“Don’t scold me. I’m your fool. Love me. Love Max the fool.”

“Get up. Fools don’t kneel for anybody.”

He stood and he leaned over to kiss her. She did not turn away.

“Sit down, fool. You haven’t asked about Gloria.”

“No. Tell me,” and he sat. “What’s the matter with her? Why is she sleeping when her father is here?”

“Father?
Sinvergüenza.
You haven’t seen your daughter in a year.”

“I came to take you away from your husband.”

“Nonsense. You have another motive.”

“You read minds, like your
babalawos
.”

“So do not lie to me. Why did you come?”

“I want to go to Cuba. It’s unlikely they’ll let me in, given my agency connection, but what I know may interest Fidel.”

“He’ll think you’re still a double agent. Why do you want Cuba?”

“Cuba doesn’t extradite you to the U.S.—hijackers know this. So do black rebels who’ve gone down there. So do fugitives on the run—like me.”

“You’re a fugitive? From what?”

“I’ve been working with Alfie. They raided his operation and he left town. And so did I. I haven’t seen the papers but I assume they’ve gone public with my name.”

“Those suitcases were Alfie’s?”

“Yes.”

“Drug money.”

“I deal in money, not drugs. I’m just a courier.”

“This is a
tragedia,
Max, a man of your intelligence doing crime.”

“You think intelligence serves only law and order? What about all your intelligent Directorio friends who died trying to murder Batista? The lust for adventure can arrive at a late hour.”

“A late hour. Are you ill? Dying? What is it, Max?”

“Let’s say I’m aging rapidly.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“I need help in getting to Fidel. He’s the only one who can make it happen. I want you to take me in. We can go through Mexico, or Canada. You have the connections and I have the money to buy our way in. You can’t imagine how much money I have.”

“You think I have connections? You are
loco.
I am out of favor in Cuba.”

“You were important in the struggle, even after you left Cuba, and Fidel knows it. Also, Moncho has risen very high. He’s close to the inner circle. He can get Fidel’s ear.”

“I am an outsider to the revolution. I live in Albany.”

“People talk of you. Renata Suárez is still a heroine for the torture she suffered and never giving them any names. For getting guns from Miami to Fidel with Alfie.”

“You are an appealing liar.”

“And you were a lover of Fidel.”

“I was not Fidel’s lover.”

“You were one of them.”

“They say that of hundreds of women.”

“And it’s true of hundreds of women, maybe thousands. And of you.”

“Believe what you like.”

“It’s valuable that you slept with the Comandante.”

“Valuable to whom?”

“To anybody who needs the ear of the mighty, and right now that’s Max Osborne. I rescued you from death, now it’s your turn to rescue me.”

Max unbuttoned his guayabera to reveal a thin, brown leather shoulder holster belted across his chest. He lifted out a .32 automatic and set it on the coffee table. Renata clapped her hands and laughed.

“A gangster, Max.
¡Qué mono!
How cute you are. And your pistol is cute, maybe too cute to do what you ask it to do. Do you remember I carried a Cobra in my purse when I drove with Diego?”

“I’m not as serious a shooter as you, my dear. I only want to protect myself.”

“You will shoot the police when they come for you?” Gloria said as she came down the stairs.

“Gloria,
mi amor,
how are you?” Max said, and he walked to the bottom of the stairs, kissed his daughter, held her, stared at her. “You are a magnificent child, my Gloriosa, are you all right?”

“She’s been working and studying too much. Life is overwhelming her,” Renata said.

“Who are you going to shoot, Papa?”

“I have enemies.”

“Who is Alfie? What kind of criminal is he?”

“He’s a Cuban we knew in Havana who ran guns. Never mind Alfie, tell me how you are.”

“I just came home from a psychiatric ward. I’m not the Gloria you knew, Papa. I’m a crazy person and I can’t live here anymore. If you go to Cuba I want to go with you. Will you go with us, Aunt Ren?”

“Do not make such plans,” Renata said. “That is not possible.”

“Wait a minute,” Max said, “what happened to you?”

“They locked me up, Papa. I tried to kill myself. I smashed a window to cut my wrist and I tried to bleed myself with a straight razor.”

“But why?”

“I’m worthless, useless. I foul what I touch.”

“You are priceless,” Renata said. “You are a perfect woman.”

“They fired me from Holy Cross. They called me a slut.”

“Who did?”

“A woman on the board at Holy Cross.”

“Why would she say that?”

“I had sex with two men. One of them is her husband.”

“Two men doesn’t qualify you as a slut.”

“Don’t mock me, Papa.”

“She has discovered the liberality of love,” Renata said.

“Everybody knows what I did.”

“How do they know?” Max asked.

“The woman told them.”

“Who is she, who is her husband?”

“Alex Fitzgibbon.”

“The son of a bitch.”

“Yes, that’s him,” said Gloria.

“Who is the second one?”

“Roy Mason. We work together. You don’t know him.”

“I spent this afternoon with him.”

“No. Why, where?”

“I went to Cody’s club. He tends bar there.”

Max groped for a way to respond. Distant father suddenly privy to his daughter’s crisis, wise counsel now expected from him to manage her imagined disaster. Counsel her to change her ways? Absurd advice from Max the libertine. Point out she’s neither a slut nor crazy, that some women think one love, one man, is never enough, your Aunt Renata always needed a crowd. For years Max had imagined Alex turning his cultivated eye to the beautiful virgin on his doorstep. Women always stood in line for him. No doubt he gave her a graceful introduction to love, but the bastard shouldn’t be anywhere near her. Doting godfather, father substitute for the absent Max. During their lunch he said she was working well with a social agency that dealt mostly with inner-city blacks. He was voluble on Roy, who worked for the same agency and who also fronted for the Brothers, a Panther-like bunch that sees the Mayor as their enemy, and he says they’re ready to fan the race riot that could erupt any minute in this town.

“You’re not crazy and it’s certainly not a tragedy,” he said. “Tragedy would have been that straight razor.”

“Alex will punish Roy,” Gloria said. “He already sent him to jail once.”

“For the poll watching.”

“How do you know that?”

“I had lunch with Alex today. He talked about Roy. He knows Cody and I are friends.”

“Did he mention me?”

“He said you were working with a social agency but that he hadn’t seen you lately.”

Gloria now knew she was stupid, knew nothing, was wrong whatever she did or thought. She has learned to be a freak, failing even to die properly, and an imbecile with sex. Who thinks as mindlessly as she? Parents, nuns, priests, teachers all instructed her in ignorance. Why didn’t she discover anything on her own? The only wisdom came from Renata, who was with Fidel and Quinn and my father and who knows how many others, but is not a slut. Tell me how this is so.

“Were you really Fidel’s lover?” she asked Renata.

“No one should ask or answer such a question.”

“Will you open the door to Havana?” said Max. “Will you try?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t have much time. I can’t stay in one place.”

“I bet you can do it,” Gloria said.

“I will think about it,” Renata said.

Actually the world might improve if we all went to Cuba. They say Fidel has a romantic memory. But that was nine years ago. He looked at her and asked, And what about you? And Renata answered, Only after you take a bath.

Quinn called Renata on his way to interview the Mayor and she told him that Alfie and Max were fugitives from a major drug bust, and that Max wanted her to get him into Cuba.

“How does he think you’ll do that?”

“Through Moncho.”

“Isn’t that far-fetched?”

“Moncho has connections and Max is ready to buy his way in.”

“Max has money?”

“He gave me six thousand cash. He wanted to give me ten,” Renata said.

“For what?”

“I asked him for two thousand last week to pay Gloria’s hospital bill. I said it was for our mortgage.”

“You ask for two and he gives you six.”

“He’s a generous man, he always was.”

“Did you find a way to reward his generosity?”

“Not yet. Gloria heard Max talking about Cuba and now she wants to go down there with him.”

“She wants to be anywhere but here. How is she?”

“Max perked her up. I think she likes criminals.”

“Of course. That’s why she took up with Alex. I’m seeing him at seven at the Fort Orange Club.”

“Tell him I spit on the tits of his mother.”

“I’ll try to work that in,” Quinn said.

“Can you find out if the police are really looking for Max?”

“Where was the bust?”

“Miami, Alfie’s house and loft. They found a few ounces of marijuana but Alfie wasn’t there.”

“Did it get into the papers?”

“In a big way.”

“How does Max come into it?”

“Somebody saw him in Julian Stewart’s movie last month and recognized him as the man who delivered money for Alfie. Max now carries a gun.”

“Why does a fugitive with a gun spend a public afternoon at Cody’s bar?”

“Max is not logical. Maybe he decided not to behave like a fugitive.”

“Then he won’t be a fugitive long. Are you and Gloria going to Cody’s concert?”

“I hope so. I put Gloria back to bed so she’ll be rested,” Renata said.

“And will Max go?”

“We haven’t discussed it. I think Max is sick. Maybe seriously sick.”

“From what?”

“I don’t know. He’s very thin, and he seems obsessed with death.”

“Crime doesn’t agree with him.”

“I’ll try to meet you there. Pop is going too, with a woman he met someplace.”

“Pop with a woman?”

“Vivian something, she knew my parents years ago. She’s fine.”

“George has never gone with another woman.”

“We don’t know that. Sometimes people start over.”

“You really think so?”

“You couldn’t prove it by me.”

Renata had been leaving Quinn for years, but not yet, and not for anyone; though there were two or three in waiting, not including Max. The Santeria marriage warning lingered, Floreal saying a knitting woman was trying to save me from I never knew what, and the
babalawo
’s advice last month that this wasn’t a good time for separation. And Gloria: no way I can leave her alone. I am my grandmother, who knows, who knows how to lead her away from disaster, how to sort out her chaotic sex. But Renata, how do you do that? Become her therapist? Love, oh yes, love. She and Quinn had begun well with love. It had been instant, true as blood, and it lasted, but it evolved into love-in-waiting, starved for joy. Renata found joy elsewhere, furtive alliances with
guapos y jóvenes
who kept her from boredom, filled her cup, addictive. She might break the addiction if she replaced Quinn, or if Quinn replaced himself. But how? He’s forty. Can an old dog teach himself old tricks? Well, he does find his way, perfume on the coat collar, out till three exploring the night, Giselle always here for their family reunions.