Escape from Castro's Cuba by Tim Wendel

Author:Tim Wendel [Wendel, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC038000 Fiction / Sports
Publisher: Nebraska

21

“C’mon, where is this kid?” Chuck said. “The door is closing fast.”

“Chuck if you don’t shut up,” Eván said from the backseat, “I’m going to slap you upside the head.”

“You can come up and try, sweet miss,” Chuck replied.

“Hey, hey,” I said, trying to calm both of them down. That said, my old Lions teammate was right. Time was running out fast, with it now approaching four in the morning in Monterrey.

Together we had watched the game earlier that evening on TV at a nearby sports bar, listening to the distant roars of the crowd. As expected, Team Cuba had trounced the college all-star team, 12–5. For tomorrow’s game, things would be even more locked down when it came to security.

Chuck looked back up at the team hotel. Almost all the rooms were dark and we knew it would be impossible to get another message through to Santos.

“He ain’t coming,” Chunk said. “God damn, he doesn’t have the guts.”

“I’m going to tear you a new one,” Eván said from the backseat, and Chuck and I couldn’t help smiling.

“Where did you hear that one?” I asked her.

“Where do I hear anything in your country?” she said. “The TV, the radio—it’s so much talk, talk, talk in this land. Before too long, it seeps into your bones. It’s like you have no choice.”

Chuck nodded at this. “I can’t disagree with that, darling.”

In the hours after the game, after the parking lot emptied to only a few cars, we had changed location and were now parked in an alley a block down from the Crowne Plaza.

“Let me take another walk by,” Eván said, sitting up. “See what I can see.”

See what I can see? Where did she come up with these sayings?

“I hate to say it, sugar,” Chuck told her, “but if you meander past that hotel at this hour, they’re going to arrest you for the oldest crime known to man,” Chuck said.

“Murder?”

“No, darling, whoring. I mean, I may be old but I ain’t dead, and some Hondo is going to think you’re selling.”

“Chuck, I’m warning you,” Eván replied in a low purr that I knew was trouble. She was tired and anxious, like the rest of us.

“Please stay put, Eván,” Chuck added. “Here, we’ll try this.” And he eased the car a little farther up the alley, poking the BMW’s nose out so we could see all the way down the street in either direction. Nothing was going on. A doorman paced back and forth, and the neon light reflected off the windows of the storefronts across the way.

“Reminds me of the old days back in Havana,” Chuck said. “When it got too late for anybody’s good.”

“What was that like?” Eván asked him, the anger fading from her voice.

“Havana?”

“Yes, back in those old days.”

Chuck turned the car off and glanced at me with a wry smile.

“In those days, Havana at night was the most beautiful place in the world,” he said. “Of course, it was corrupt and dangerous, too. But you

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