“I told you you’d like it,” Landon said, seeing Charlie’s expression. “The head of political wanted it, but his wife wouldn’t uproot the kids from their existing house.”
As they walked up the gravel path that dissected the front lawn, Charlie couldn’t believe his eyes. This had to be a four-bedroom house, at least. Surely this didn’t fit within the government guidelines for housing single employees?
“Isn’t it a bit … big?”
“It’s the foreign service, Charlie, not the foreign legion,” Landon cracked, as he searched for the key to the front door. “But seriously, we did sort of luck out with this one. It just came available a couple of weeks ago, and the Cubans offered it to us first, for a song. We’ve been looking for a single-family for a while — the last MCO had three kids and they were in an apartment that really wasn’t suitable.”
“And there aren’t any families that … need it?”
“Right now, most members of our Canada-based staff are single or couples; the ones with families are content where they are. But you might be in trouble if we have another family posted next summer.”
Charlie waited by the front door as Landon fumbled with a ring of keys before finding the right one and fitting it into the lock. The door came open with a satisfying click.
“Su casa,” Landon said, swinging the door open and letting Charlie go first. Stepping inside, all he could think to do was offer a silent prayer that no one with a family would be assigned to Havana for the duration of his posting. Despite the intense heat outside, the interior of the house was cool, likely because of the high ceilings and tile floors, which combined to give it an airy feel.
Landon led the way through the furnished dining room, family room, and study, before heading upstairs to show him the four spacious bedrooms. Arriving in the master, Charlie glanced at the massive wrought-iron bed before noticing that a little balcony lay beyond the floor-to-ceiling French doors on the other side of the room. Opening the doors and stepping outside, he gasped at the sight of the shimmering azure rectangle of water below.
“It has a pool?”
“I told you it was nice.”
“When do I move in, again?”
Landon laughed and looked to Carlos. “When’s the electrician coming?”
“He say tomorrow.”
“He’s been saying that for a week.” Landon grimaced.
“Mañana,” Carlos repeated, with a nod of assurance. “For sure.”
“What’s wrong with the wiring, anyway?” Charlie asked.
“Nothing major, just some of the lights are on the fritz in the basement,” Landon replied. “We’ll have you in by the weekend; Monday at the latest.”
They returned downstairs to complete their tour of the house, with Charlie marvelling at the spacious kitchen and the lush greenery surrounding the pool in the garden. It was with great reluctance that he accepted Landon’s apologies for having to bring the tour to an end, due to some unfinished business back at the office.
“We’ll probably get you in to see the ambassador tomorrow morning, around ten,” Landon said, as Carlos pulled the van away from the curb.
“Hmm?” Charlie had barely heard him, focused as he was on watching the villa — his villa — disappear in the rear-view mirror. “Sure. That sounds good.”
“There are some decent restaurants in that little mall next to the hotel. I’d offer to take you into town, but I’ve got some stuff to do tonight. Maybe I can show you around Old Havana on the weekend?”
“I’d like that.” Charlie felt re-energized by the brief visit to his new house. It was almost enough to make him forget the sight of his office. “If you want tickets to a show, you tell me,” Carlos was quick to offer. “Or maybe cigars?”
Charlie found himself wearing one of Carlos’s infectious grins. “Thanks, Carlos, I might just take you up on that.”
Charlie sat at one end of a long, polished boardroom table. Sharon and her divorce lawyer James Leitch, nicknamed (aptly, in Charlie’s opinion) Jimmy the Leech, were seated in the distance at the opposite end. They were smiling and whispering together, while Charlie sat alone. Every few seconds, the lawyer would shout a new demand across the space between them and Charlie would nod in agreement, unable to respond in any other manner.
“We want your share of the house,” he demanded with a sneer. Charlie nodded slowly. “And all the furniture,” Leitch continued, clearly relishing each new demand and the automatic nod from the other end of the table that it produced.
“We want your pension too, Charlie — all of it.” He was laughing now, and Charlie could see that Sharon was enjoying herself, too, but he remained powerless to resist.
“Okay, but where’s my lawyer? Um, shouldn’t he be here?”
“I killed him,” Leitch replied, as he and Sharon burst into manic laughter. “We want your car, your salary, and all of your underwear,” he continued, dabbing away tears, as Charlie nodded again. “Oh, and Charlie,” he added, the smile disappearing from his face as he looked at Sharon and pulled what looked like a machete out from under the table. “There’s one more thing she wants.”
Charlie sat bolt upright in his bed, his body bathed in sweat, his heart pounding in his ears and his hands clasped around his crotch. It was several seconds before he recognized his surroundings and began to breathe again. He got out of bed and padded to the mini-bar, squinting at the interior light as he fumbled for a bottle of water. He gulped at the cold liquid in the dark until the bottle was empty, his nerves still jangling from the nightmare.
Stepping out onto the balcony, Charlie took in a lungful of the musty, salty air and leaned on the railing. Though he could see nothing but inky blackness past the lights of the pool below, he could hear the waves crashing along the ragged shoreline beyond the grounds of the hotel. A few stray notes of Spanish guitar rose above the sound of the swell, though it seemed too late for the hotel bar to be open. He peered over the rail at the still waters of the enormous pool, with its lagoons and swim-up bar, and thought of the happy couple on the plane. Perhaps they were somewhere in this very hotel, resting naked in each other’s arms, their only concern whether to tour the old city or hit the beach in the morning.
Charlie tried to put them out of his mind as he stared out into the starless night and listened to the waves, until the ghost of a chill on the onshore breeze sent him back inside.
Chapter 3
Charlie sipped his lukewarm coffee and tried to find a comfortable seated position. The newish chair he had found behind his desk when he came in was a definite upgrade over the relic from the day before. In fact, the whole office had undergone a transformation, with the windows, floor, and furniture having been scrubbed clean and the dead plants removed. After getting his pass and access code from the security officer, Charlie had been visited by the resident IT expert, who set up his computer account and got him ready for his first real day of work. He was reading an email summary of his first consular case — a tourist from Moose Jaw who had lost his passport on what appeared to be a drunken junket into Old Havana from Varadero — when Landon appeared at his doorway.
“Ready?”
Charlie hopped out of his chair and searched his desk for a pad of paper. Michael Stewart was a career diplomat on his fourth posting, his second as head of mission, and he was unanimously described as decent and down to earth. Still, there was something unnerving about having an ambassador as your boss. Finding a pad and donning his jacket, Charlie followed Landon over to the main building,