“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.

He was trying, without success, to light a large cigar in the stiffening rooftop breeze. One of the parasols, which were all closed, blew over, which seemed to irritate him.

“I always say,” he said, “that the best way to see Havana is from the rooftop of a good hotel.” He gave up with the cigar. “The National has a view, but it’s just the fucking sea or the rooftops of Vedado, and in my humble opinion, that view doesn’t begin to compare with this one.”

“I agree.” For the moment I was through needling him. I was just beginning to have my reasons for that.

“Of course, it does get a bit windy up here sometimes, and when I catch up with the sonofabitch who persuaded me to buy all these fucking parasols, I’m going to give him a lesson in what it’s like when the wind catches one of these things and carries it over the side.” He grinned in a way that made me think he meant every word of it.

“It’s a great view,” I said.

“Isn’t it? You know, I’ll bet Hedda Adlon would have given her eye-teeth for a view like this one.”

I nodded, hardly wanting to tell him that the Adlon’s rooftop had afforded the hotel patrons with one of the best views in Berlin. I’d watched the Reichstag burning from that particular hotel rooftop. And you don’t get much better views than that.

“What ever happened to her, anyway?”

“Hedda used to say that a good hotelier always hopes for the best, but expects the worst. The worst is what happened. She and Louis kept the hotel going all through the war. Somehow it always escaped the bombing. Maybe someone in the RAF had stayed there once. But then, during the Battle for Berlin, the Ivans subjected the city to a barrage that destroyed almost everything that hadn’t been destroyed by the RAF. The hotel caught fire and was all but destroyed. Hedda and Louis retreated to their country estate near Potsdam and waited. When the Ivans turned up, they looted the house, and mistaking Louis for an escaping German general, they put him in front of a firing squad and shot him. Hedda was raped, many times, like most of the women in Berlin. I don’t know what happened to her after that.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Reles. “What a story. Pity. I liked them both a lot. Jesus, I didn’t know.”

He sighed and made another attempt to light his cigar, and this time he succeeded. “You know, it’s funny you turning up like this, Gunther.”

“I told you before, Max. It’s Hausner now. Carlos Hausner.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. You and me, we don’t have to worry about that shit. This island’s got more aliases than a filing cabinet in the FBI. If you ever get any problems with the militia about your passport, your visa, anything like that, you come to me. I can fix it.”

“All right. Thanks.”

“Like I was saying, it’s funny you turning up like this. You see, the Adlon’s one of the reasons I got into the hotel business here in Havana. I loved that hotel. I wanted to own a classy place like the Adlon here, in old Havana, instead of in Vedado like Lansky and all those other connected guys. I always had the idea that this is the kind of place Hedda would have picked herself, don’t you agree?”

“Maybe. Why not? I was just the house peeper, so what do I know? But she used to say that a good hotel is like a car. What it looks like is only half as important as how it drives: how fast it can go and if the brakes work all right and if it’s comfortable are what really matters. Everything else is just bullshit.”

“She was right, of course,” said Reles. “God, I could use some of her old European experience right now. I’m after the same high-end crowd here, you see. The senators and the diplomats. I’m trying to run a quality hotel and an honest casino. The truth is, you hardly need to run a crooked one. The odds always favor the house, and the money floods in. It’s as simple as that. Almost. True, in a city like Havana you gotta watch out for the sharks and the grifters. Not to mention the faggots and the female impersonators. Hell, I don’t even allow hookers to operate in this place. Not unless they’re on the arm of someone important. I leave that kind of vice to the Cubans. They’re a degenerate lot. Those guys would pimp their own grandmothers for five bucks. And, believe me, I should know. I’ve had more than my fair share of mocha-flavored flesh in this city.

“At the same time,” he continued, “you shouldn’t ever underestimate these people. They think nothing of putting a bullet in your head if they’re connected. Or tossing a grenade in your john if they’re into politics. A man in my position needs to get eyes in the back of his head or pretty soon the back of his head will be lying on a floor. Which is where you come in, Gunther.”

“Me? I don’t see how I can help you, Max.”

“Let’s have some lunch. And I’ll tell you how.”

We rode the elevator up to the penthouse, where we were met by Waxey. Seen from up close, his face was like that of a Mexican wrestler-the kind that usually wears a mask. Come to think of it, the rest of him looked like a Mexican wrestler, too. Each of his shoulders resembled the Yucatán peninsula. He didn’t say anything. He just frisked me with hands like Esau’s black-sheep uncle.

The penthouse was modern and about as comfortable as a space-ship. We sat at a glass table and watched each other’s shoes while we ate. Mine were locally sourced and none too clean. My host’s shoes were shinier than a brass bell and every bit as loud. To my surprise the food was kosher, or at least Jewish, since the tall, good-looking woman who served it was also black. Then again, maybe she was a convert to Judaism. She was a good cook.