The Cat King of Havana by Tom Crosshill

Author:Tom Crosshill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-07-11T04:00:00+00:00

chapter fifteen

ALL THE WAY

“If you want to go all the way with a girl, you’ve got to warm her up first.” Yosvany perched on the edge of his bed and watched me seriously. “No puedes meterle dedo si la jarra está cerrada, entiendes.”

“Enough with the dedo completo,” I said. “Pick a different metaphor.”

“To drink wine you must first ease out the cork.”

On a different day, I might have protested the comparison. But I needed a plan, and Yosvany had one.

“Dress up, guys,” I said to Ana and Yosvany after dinner. “We’re going somewhere nice tonight. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Ana looked suspicious, but Yosvany came in on cue. “I like surprises!” Which seemed to cut off any protest she might have made.

Yosvany had predicted this. “If it’s the three of us, she won’t see it coming.”

We dressed up. In my case, this meant pulling a rumpled dress shirt from my suitcase and running a comb through my hair. Yosvany found a pair of jeans somewhere that didn’t sag below his underwear. Ana emerged from her room in a knee-length dress, intensely blue, sleek and asymmetrically cut, an angled line of buttons down the front.

By dint of much effort, I managed to keep my gaping to a minimum.

Yosvany whistled. “Coño, girl, don’t give me a heart attack!”

I expected her to snap something witty at him, but she only smiled. “Let’s go.”

“Have fun,” Juanita told us at the door. She winked at me. “Good luck.”

“Good luck?” Ana asked in the elevator. “What did she mean?”

“She got stuck in the elevator yesterday,” Yosvany said. “But I think they fixed it.”

It was a comfortable evening for early August, with gusting breezes that converted the suffocating heat into a mere annoyance. We caught a máquina to Vedado, an enormous yellow Chevy with two rows of passenger seats, the three of us clumped together behind the driver. The almendrón creaked and groaned down Neptuno in the gloom of dim streetlights, passing scores of Cubans flagging down a ride.

I checked my watch. Eight forty. Twenty minutes to go.

The driver pulled over to the curb and put the car into park.

We couldn’t possibly be picking someone up. The car was full.

The driver yanked his shiny new MP3 player from the rusted dashboard (in Havana, even the most decrepit old jalopy seemed to have one installed). In the sudden, ear-buzzing silence, he said, “Be right back.” He jumped out of the car and disappeared into the nearest apartment building.

I stared after him, perplexed. Ana asked, “The hell?”

Everyone else in the car sat there as if nothing surprising had happened. Some chatted among themselves in low, unworried voices. Others poked at their cell phones. I cast a questioning look at Yosvany but he only raised his hands: What can you do?

A minute passed. Two. Five. The car’s engine rumbled on, low, even.

I checked my watch. Hesitated. Leaned forward over the driver’s seat and honked the horn, one long, mournful blast.

Nothing happened.

Another five minutes.

“Let’s get another car,” I said.

“No way.” Yosvany gestured vaguely at the street.

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