On Truffin Avenue in the Havana suburb of Marianao, the Tropicana occupied the lushly landscaped gardens of a mansion—now demolished—formerly owned by the U.S. ambassador to Cuba. The mansion had been replaced by a building of striking modernity with five reinforced concrete semicircular vaults connecting a series of glass ceilings, which created the illusion of a semi-feral show staged under the stars and the trees. Next to this amphitheater, which seemed like something out of a pornographic science-fiction movie, was a smaller glass ceiling that housed a casino. And here there was even a salon privé with an armor-plated door, behind which government officials could gamble without fear of assassination.

I wasn’t interested in any of that any more than I was interested in the show, or listening to the band. Mostly I just watched the ash on the end of my cigar or the faces of the suckers at the other tables: women with bare shoulders and too much makeup, and men with Vaselined hair, clip-on ties, and Cricketeer suits. A couple of times the showgirls came parading around the tables just so that you could get a closer look at their costumes and wonder how something so small could keep a girl decent. My eyes were still brimful of wonder when, to my surprise, I saw Noreen Eisner coming through the club in my direction. And, sidestepping a girl who was all breasts and feathers, she sat down opposite me.

Noreen was probably the one woman at the Tropicana who wasn’t displaying either some cleavage or the whole toy shop. She wore a two-piece lavender-colored suit with tailored pockets, high shoes, and a couple of strings of pearls. The band was too loud for her to say anything or for me to hear it, and until the number finished, we just sat looking at each other dumbly and tapping our fingers impatiently on the table. It gave me plenty of time to wonder what was so urgent that she had driven all the way from Finca Vigía. I certainly didn’t think her being there was a coincidence. I supposed she had gone to my apartment first, and Yara had told her where I was. Maybe Yara would have let off some steam about how I hadn’t allowed her to come with me to the Tropicana, which meant that Noreen’s arrival wouldn’t have helped persuade her that my visit to the nightclub was for the strictly business reasons I had claimed. There probably would be some kind of scene when I got home.