Read Havana Best Friends for Free Online Page A

driving tycoons and presidents and kings nuts, and him too, truth be told.
    No older than twenty, she had a lovely face framed by long chestnut-coloured hair. Something of a child’s sweetness and innocence survived in her dark pupils and gentle smile. Her naked body had to be a sight for sore eyes, he was sure, and he felttempted to ask her to undress and pace up and down the living room until he remembered that he had an assignment to carry out.
    “Is this the best you can do?” he asked Pablo, apparently unimpressed.
    The Cuban was taken aback. “You don’t like?”
    “Can we shop around some more?”
    Pablo marched John to Marinita, three blocks east, where they had a beer, then to Tongolele, five blocks south. Everywhere the short bald Cuban was greeted with affection. John noticed his guide was somewhat hyped up when they left Tongolele. The next stop was La Reina del Ganado, in San Isidro, translated by Pablo as “The Queen of Cattle.” The tourist learned that the name was derived from a Brazilian soap opera,
El rey del ganado –
“The King of Cattle” – whose main character owned hundreds of thousands of cattle. The brothel proprietress’s herd, comprising some twenty women, was displayed posing naked in a snapshot album. She only showed it to foreigners who were not attracted to any of those immediately available at her house. John peered at each photograph, carefully considered three promising candidates, finished a Cuba Libre, then turned to Pablo.
    “Tell you what. This guy at the hotel gave me an address in Guanabo, claims there are fine chicks there. Let’s go get the car and drive over. If I don’t find a broad I really like, we’ll come back to the first place you took me to and I’ll settle for the brunette.”
    Pablo didn’t like the idea, but he had decided to humour John all the way. He found it strange that after leaving the tunnel under Havana Bay, John didn’t ask for directions. He must have been to the beach on his own, the Cuban figured. The tourist remained silent, eyes on the road, observing the hundred-kilometre speed limit, air conditioner on, windows closed.
    The Cuban didn’t feel like making small talk either. He had been very upbeat all day at the office, overjoyed at the prospect of making in one night what many Cubans don’t earn in a year of hard work. He had even sniffed a line at Tongolele’s and bought four more fixes in premature celebration. But now he was feeling uptight. Pablo admitted to himself that the motherfucker was hard to please; he could kiss one of the two Cs goodbye.
    What if the bastard found a woman to his taste in Guanabo? Then he wouldn’t make a penny, since it wouldn’t be as a result of his procuring. He would make a hundred only if they returned to Angelito’s for the brunette the asshole had eyed so hungrily. He had to concoct a story to make him turn back. Maybe if he said that AIDS had struck down hundreds of people in Guanabo? He lit a cigarette and mulled over alternatives for most of the twenty-minute ride.
    It was quarter past twelve when John took a left at the crossing of Vía Blanca and 462nd, coasted down to the town’s main thoroughfare, then glided along until he confidently turned off the boulevard and, heading inland, followed a street for three blocks before taking a left, killing the lights, and pulling over.
    “This is it?” Pablo asked, struck by the strangeness of his surroundings. To their left, behind a barbed-wire fence, the rear of a huge, one-storey warehouse stretched all the way along the block. On the other side of the street several modest houses had the wooden slats of their front windows wide open, the residents likely in bed, electric fans turning at top speed to keep mosquitoes away and fight the heat, lights off. Somewhere close a dog barked unenthusiastically. Streetlight was provided by a low-wattage bulb on an electricity pole fifty metres away.
    “Yeah, let’s go.”
    As John was locking the