“So you were giving money to Batista and the rebels,” I said.

“Indirectly,” he said. “Frankly, I give them a snowball’s chance in hell, but you never know with these bastards.”

“But you do give them a chance.”

“Before the incident with the slots, I saw something interesting. One day I was looking out of a downstairs window of the hotel, not thinking anything in particular, like you do sometimes, and I saw this young Habañero who was walking along the street outside—just a kid, you know. And as I watched him pass by my Cadillac I saw him kick the fender.”

“That cute little ragtop? Where was the ogre?”

“Waxey? He’s not nearly quick enough on his toes to have stood half a chance of catching this fucking kid. Anyway, it bothered me. Not the mark on the car. That was nothing really. No, it was something else. I thought about it a lot, see? At first I thought the kid did it to amuse his girlfriend. Then I thought maybe he had something against Cadillacs. Finally it hit me, Bernie. I realized it wasn’t fucking Cadillacs he didn’t like. It was Americans. Which made me think about this revolution. I mean, like most people, I thought it was all over after last July. After Moncada Barracks, you know? But, seeing that fucking kid kick my car, I thought that maybe it isn’t over at all. And maybe they hate Americans as much as they hate Batista. In which case, if they ever get rid of him, they might get rid of us, too.”

I was fresh out of insightful incidents of my own, so I stayed silent. Besides, I didn’t have a particularly warm opinion of Americans myself. They weren’t as bad as the Russians or the French, but then they didn’t expect to be liked and they didn’t much care when they weren’t. Americans were different: even after they’d dropped a couple of atom bombs on the Japs, they still wanted to be liked. Which struck me as just a little naive. So I stayed silent and, almost like two old friends, together we enjoyed the view from the rooftop for a while. It was a great view. Beneath us were the treetops of Campo de Marte, and to the right, like an enormous wedding cake, was the Capitol Building. Behind that you could see the Partagas cigar factory and the Barrio Chino. I could see as far south as the American warship in the harbor, and west as far as the rooftops of Miramar, but only with my glasses on. The glasses made me look older, of course. Older than Max Reles. Then again, he probably had some glasses of his own somewhere and just didn’t want to let me see him wearing them.