Havana Best Friends Read Online Free PDF Page A

do.”
    “Okay, you’re entitled to your opinion. I won’t argue with you. The important thing is you did as you were told. Let’s move on. Tell me what you think of these guys.”
    Marina clenched her jaw, annoyed that her concerns had been dismissed so lightly, but her tone remained controlled. “The freak’s a complete bastard. Never loses an opportunity to embarrass and belittle his own sister. It’s appalling how he looks down on her!”
    Sean paused, then said, abstractedly scanning the blue-black horizon, “But she’s used to it.”
    Marina glanced at the monument to the victims of the battleship
Maine
. To its left, right in front of the U.S. Interests Section, stood the square where the rallies for the return of Elián González took place. “Elena seems pretty decent, don’t you think? A reasonable person, not difficult at all,” she said.
    “I agree,” Sean said. Then, as an afterthought: “Pablo thinks he’s the smartest, smoothest con artist on earth. That’s probably why Elena hates his guts. And why we should expect trouble from him.”
    “Such intense hostility,” Marina said. “There’s a lot of bad blood between those two.”
    “And he’s on coke.”
    Marina turned to stare at Sean. “How can you tell?”
    “I can tell.”
    She faced the sea again. “What did you make of Elena sniggering when her brother said he made sixteen dollars a month?”
    “That he’s making a lot more than that.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I figured too.”
    “But he didn’t want us to know. And she’s so well mannered she didn’t squeal on a sonofabitch who humiliates her for the fun of it.”
    They fell silent. Marina looked across the wide avenue at the metre-high seawall extending miles into the distance. On it, keeping respectful distances from each other, fishermen held lines. The lighthouse beam swept across the water with the same boring exactitude of all beacons.
    “He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who would take his cut quietly and count his blessings,” she said, more to herself than to her companion.
    Sean released the promise of a smile. “Lady, the word
sleazy
was coined for guys like him.” And pointing with his chin toward the ocean, he added, “He would drown his own mother right there to grab it all.”
    “What about Elena? Would she agree to split it?”
    “I don’t know. That woman is …,” he paused, searching for the right word.
    “Unpredictable?” she prompted.
    “No. Not at all. But
I
can’t predict how she would react to our proposition. We don’t know her views on a million things. She’s … difficult to pigeonhole. Special-needs teacher. What kind of a fucking profession is that? Makes me suspect she’s one of those principled, nose-in-the-air spinsters. Know what I mean? Living with her brother, no husband, no kids.”
    “Maybe she married and divorced.”
    “Why didn’t you ask her?”
    “Didn’t want to give the impression I was prying.”
    “Maybe you did right.”
    Marina lowered her eyes and studied the straps of her sandals. “He said they’ve lived there all their lives. How old would you say she is?”
    “Late thirties?” Sean surmised.
    “Yeah, something like that, certainly not older than forty. And the freak?”
    “I’d say thirty-five, thirty-six. He was fascinated by your thighs this morning.”
    “I noticed. Horny little rat can’t keep his hands off women. You saw how he eyed the black waitress? She probably pukes after having sex with him.”
    “You never know. Maybe he’s seven feet tall in bed.”
    She raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t the kind of comment she’d expect from a man. So true, though: You never know. She remembered a shy, unassuming, scrawny, and slightly cross-eyed guy who had led her to the heights of pleasure. Only one of the few hunks she had bedded had taken her there, and he was blind. She wondered whether behind Sean’s remark lurked a phenomenal lover or a bit of a philosopher.
    “Doesn’t look