“Yes. I think so. But Fidel used to say you shouldn’t trust someone merely because he is a friend. It’s good advice. You should remember that.”

I nodded. “Oh, sure. And believe me, I know. Looking out for number one is usually what I do best. I’m an expert in survival. But from time to time I get this stupid urge to do a good turn for someone. Someone like your friend Alfredo López. It’s been a while since I did anything as selfless as something like that.”

“I see. At least I begin to think I do. You think that by helping him you’ll be helping her. Is that it?”

“Something like that. Perhaps.”

“And what do you think you can tell a man like Quevedo that might persuade him to release López?”

“That’s between me and him and what I rather quaintly used to call my conscience.”

Sánchez sighed. “I did not take you for a romantic. But that is what you are, I think.”

“You forgot the word ‘fool,’ didn’t you? But it’s more what the French call ‘existential’ than that. After all these years I still haven’t quite admitted my own insignificance. I still believe what I do makes a difference. Absurd, isn’t it?”

“I’ve known Alfredo López since 1945,” said Sánchez. “He’s a decent enough fellow. But I fail to see how Noreen Eisner prefers him to a man like you.”

“Maybe that’s what I want to prove to her.”

“Anything is possible, I suppose.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he is a better man than me.”

“No, just a younger one.”

Chapter 21

21

THE SIM BUILDING in the center of Marianao looked like something out of Beau Geste—a white, two-story, comic-book fort wherein you might have discovered a company of dead legionnaires propped up along the blue castellated rooftop. It was a strange building to find in an area otherwise given over to schools and hospitals and comfortable-looking bungalows.

I parked a few streets away and walked along to the entrance, where a dog was lying on the grass shoulder. Dogs sleeping on the streets of Havana were neater and tidier about the way they did this than any dogs I had seen before, as if they were keen not to get in anyone’s way. Some were so neat and tidy about how they slept on the street that they looked dead. But you stroked any of them at your peril. Cuba was the very well-deserved home of the expression “Let sleeping dogs lie.” It was good advice for everyone and everything. If only I had taken it.