Read Online Once a Spy by Keith Thomson - Free Book Online Page B

hole in the ceiling.
    “I hope it doesn’t rain,” he said.

Part Two
Secrets of Appliance Sales

1
    Fielding met Alice under strange circumstances.
    He was in Havana, at a cocktail party. “Another woman asked to meet you, Nick,” the hostess told him. “I’m going to have to start handing out numbers.”
    His physical appearance had something to do with it. He would have been just another bright-eyed, fortysomething surfer from San Diego, though, if not for his string of finds, which ranged from a cache of centuries-old gold coins to the wreck of a legendary pirate ship. And the thirty-room villa it bought him, which came with its own island off Martinique, didn’t hurt.
    At the same time, his success had made life tedious. The motives of others were increasingly obvious to him, and almost always economic. And he’d seen enough of the world to know it was the same everywhere. Drinking restored some of the edge—or so he rationalized it.
    No amount of alcohol could make this gold-digger fest endurable, he thought. With the right woman, however, the night might be salvaged.
    The woman he had in mind was Mariana Dominguez, aged ninety-four. She could be found on the veranda of the Hotel Nacional, rolling tobacco leaves from her own field into cigars that he believed were the finest on the island and possibly the world. “They’re going to earn you sainthood,” he liked to tell Señora Dominguez.
    On the way out of the party, he traded the bartender a roll of ten-peso notes for a bottle of dark rum. He worked the foil from the cap as he strolled along the deserted Malecón. He admired the once-majestic Spanish town houses, now boarded up to keep out squatters. It was anespecially dark night. If not for the slapping of waves against the seawall, Havana Bay could have been mistaken for a vacant lot.
    Because of the waves, at first, he couldn’t hear what the man ahead was saying, just the cruelty in his tone. Drawing closer, Fielding made out, “What’s a matter, puta , you too good for us?” spoken with a heavy Cuban accent.
    Fielding accelerated, soon discerning from the shadows a trio of street toughs surrounding a cowering young woman. The tough closest to her face repeated, “You too good for us?” A stout man with apelike facial hair, he reminded Fielding of Blackbeard.
    The woman was a jogger and, taking into account the way her muscles swelled her running tights, a devoted one. Also she was lovely. And a redhead—Fielding’s favorite. Minus the terror, he thought, her eyes would be spectacular.
    The thugs reared on his approach, probably wondering whether he was drunk or crazy.
    “Buenas noches, amigos,” he said. “I’m hoping you can direct me to the Hotel Nacional.”
    Blackbeard aimed a thick finger at the radiant, twin-spired colossus a half mile down shore. “See that?” he said. It was the only structure in sight bigger than a house. The other men sniggered.
    “Thank you ever so kindly,” Fielding said, starting toward it.
    He halted when he came even with the woman. She didn’t look up. Probably didn’t dare. “Are you staying at the Nacional too, by chance?” he asked, knowing she had to be. It was analogous to running into a man on the moon: The lunar lander had to be his.
    She cocked an eye toward Blackbeard, seeking permission to speak. He gave it with a shrug.
    “Y-yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” she said. Her accent was British. Fielding had presumed as much from what he would affectionately come to call her bathtub-white complexion.
    “It’s really dark between here and there, and possibly unsafe,” he said. “Perhaps we ought to walk back together?”
    The Cubans eyed one another, apparently trying to decide whether this was amusing or galling. Stepping his big chest into Fielding’s face, Blackbeard said, “She’s with us.”
    “How about I buy all of you a drink?” Fielding asked. He flashed his rum bottle.
    Blackbeard grabbed a handful of Fielding’s linen