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recalcitrant recordkeepers.
    Police records can be withheld during an open criminal investigation—but in this case, I figured, the only potential suspect was deceased and would therefore never be charged with a crime, if one had occurred.
    “I’ll be back in an hour or so to look at the report,” I told him.
    He shrugged nonchalantly, but something in his eyes had changed. I saw him reach for the phone as I flounced out the door.
    I drove over to Esquina De Tejas for Cuban coffee and a pastele de guayaba, a crisp flaky pastry with sinfully sweet guava and cream cheese filling. Another plus about this job is that when I lack enough sleep, I can eat anything without gaining weight. The first swallow of thick black Cuban coffee sent a shudder through me, and suddenly I felt truly awake and full of fire.
    Maggie, the comfortably plump and motherly waitress, kept up her usual chitchat, all the advice any one could want, and more. “Such a pretty girl, with that face, that blond hair, those green eyes, but too skinny. You should eat more.”
    Luis, the young counterman, shimmied to the internal rhythm of a merengue beat and began the usual questions. “When will Fidel fall?”
    “I wish I knew,” I said, shrugging.
    “How do you think it will be?” he said eagerly.
    “Maybe it will be a bloody coup, like in Romania.”
    He liked that one, slicing a forefinger across his throat as he nodded, looking pleased. “I hope they cut off his head.” His eyes then took on a wary expression, I knew what would come next; the question I hated.
    “Why is the News so anti-Cuban?” His expression was intent, accusatory.
    “I’m Cuban and I work there.” Why me? I wondered, irritably. “Maybe the people who say those things are the anti-Cubans.”
    “You hear it every day, on the radio, the News is soft on Castro. You print only what the Cuban government feeds you. You do not do enough to expose the atrocities…”
    “Don’t believe everything you hear on the radio, Luis. You think I would work there if the paper was soft on Fidel? My father…”
    “Don’t listen to him, Britt,” Maggie interrupted. “He’s been running around the Everglades in the hot sun too long, training for the invasion. Too many guns were fired too close to his head, and now he is loco.”
    I bought another sweet pastry to go, and made my getaway, back to the paper. When I arrived, I stopped in at the photo department.
    “You know I’m on a diet,” Lottie wailed when I placed the paper bag in front of her. Her protest finished, she eagerly unwrapped it. “What, you only brought one?’’ She plugged in the kettle she kept on her desk. “Tea?”
    “No thanks, I just had two cups of Cuban coffee.”
    “Gawd.” She wrinkled her nose, teeth on edge. “I wouldn’t sleep for five days. Only Latinos can drink that stuff. Your stomachs must be stronger than anybody else’s. Well, Britt, you missed it all last night. I finally met Steve, your friend Larry’s buddy, and I think I’m in love. We have to date these guys. We’ve been putting them off for weeks.”
    She pulled a mug from her desk drawer, poured boiling water over an herbal teabag, and stirred in a spoonful of honey.
    I was not enthusiastic. I had met Larry while working on a story. One of his clients had heavily insured and then murdered his bride, hardly the sort of first encounter that leads to romantic fantasies. Besides, his favorite topic of conversation was tax-deferred variable annuities. My personal life is a battlefield littered with the corpses of once-promising relationships, casualties of my job. I had come close to marriage once, with Josh, the college sweetheart who had followed me home from Chicago. But he disliked Miami, and sharing me with the police beat. Somehow the job, with its deadlines and long, unpredictable hours, always interferes with romance. The two seem unable to peacefully coexist. So right now, I give work priority.
    “You know how tough it is for