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“Dos mojitos, por favor,” she said, holding up two fingers.
The man nodded and moved to make the drinks, crushing the mint leaves with focused concentration before pouring a liberal slug of rum into a stainless steel shaker. He added lime juice, sugarcane syrup, and soda and then shook the concoction with sincere intensity, making a production out of the cocktail preparation while several cameras clicked behind Remi’s head.
The drinks arrived on the scarred wooden bar, each with a sprig of mint atop it. Sam held his sweating glass up in a toast that was met by Remi.
One mojito led to another and soon they were chatting with a Canadian group bound for Varadero the next day—a beach resort seventy-five miles east of Havana famous for its hospitality and its sun-drenched shores. As the crowd got louder, Sam glanced at his watch and gestured to the bartender for the tab.
Outside, the darkened street seemed more ominous than when they’d arrived at dusk. They hurried along with other tourists, making their way from the waterfront toward the city center. When they arrived at a large hotel, Remi approached one of the loitering taxi drivers and asked him how far the restaurant was. The old man looked her up and down without expression.
“San Cristobal Paladar? Too far to walk. Maybe ten minutes, maybe less, by car. You want me to take you there?”
Sam nodded and they got in.
The restaurant was in a colonial home in the middle of town and the food was divine—an unexpected treat. When dinner was over, the owner called a taxi for them and waited by the front door for the vehicle to arrive, chatting with Remi about the ups and downs of operating a business in a Communist country.
Back at the hotel, Sam convinced her to have a nightcap in the lobby bar. They savored snifters of aged Havana Club Gran Reserva fifteen-year Añejo rum as a tuxedoed musician stroked the keys of a grand piano in the atrium.
“Well, so far, I have to say this hasn’t been terrible,” Remi conceded.
“Good food, good drink, and good company. Always a winner in my book.”
“I just hope we don’t have hangovers tomorrow from all the rum.”
“It’s common knowledge that when you drink it in the islands, you never get a hangover.”
“Interesting. I hadn’t heard that. Sounds like another Sam Fargo invention.”
For a few short hours in their usually hectic lives, the world was perfect, the mood tranquil, the music hypnotic, the trade winds blowing outside, as they had for centuries and would for countless more.
The next morning Dr. Lagarde was waiting for them in the hotel atrium lobby. A short, paunchy man in his sixties, with a dense gray beard and round spectacles, he wore a white tropical-weight linen suit and a pale blue button-down shirt, a seemingly mandatory panama hat perched on his head.
“I’m honored to meet you,” Lagarde said, shaking first Remi’s hand and then Sam’s.
“Thanks for taking the time out to play tour guide,” Sam said.
“Please, you’re on my island. It’s the least I can do for guests.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Remi said.
“Bueno. So what would you like to see first? There is much of interest here, depending upon your tastes.”
“We’re really here to study Morro Castle, Doctor.”
“Please, call me Raphael.”
“And we’re Sam and Remi. Can you tell us about the castle?”
“Of course. It’s a national treasure. Everyone in Havana knows its history and most have been there a hundred times. In the old days, it was free—for the people.” Raphael sighed and shook his head. “Like so much, that, too, has changed and we must now pay to see our own history.”
“Can we go there and have you show us around?”
“Absolutely. My car is parked around the corner. Although we may want to take a taxi because parking there will be a problem.”
Remi nodded. “Whatever you think is best.”
Seven minutes later, the cab dropped them off at the base of the hill. The fort loomed above them, the ugly black snouts of cannons jutting over the walls, pointed at the channel that any invaders would have to pass through. Raphael led them through the gates, where Sam dutifully paid their entry fee.
Like so much of Havana, the fort’s walls were crumbling, their surfaces marred by centuries of storms and blistering sun.