Murder in Havana Read Free Page A

in your spare time.”
    “Not in little green bags. As I said, the money’s good. Jess isn’t thrilled I’m doing it. She’s afraid I’ll get the itch and sign on again—long-term.”
    Gosling sipped, then said, “You already have the itch, Max. It never leaves you. You know that. The question is whether you’ll decide to scratch it, or live with it.”
    “I can live with it. Sorry she’s not here. I’ll whip something up for dinner. You want to check flights to California?” he asked, pointing to a wall phone.
    Pauling took two steaks from the freezer and went to the deck to fire up the grill.
    Gosling joined him in a few moments. “Nothing tonight,” he said.
    “You’ll stay over. I’d like you to meet Jessica anyway.”
    “It will be my pleasure.”
    They ate on the deck and continued drinking throughout dinner. It was a cool and clear night, the western sky a stunning black scrim for the light show provided by thousands of stars.
    “So,” Pauling said, “tell me about this project.”
    Gosling grimaced as he looked into the kitchen through the sliding glass doors.
    Pauling smiled. “Want me to sweep the place, Vic?”
    “Always a good idea,” Gosling replied.
    Pauling shook his head and said, “Doing what we did really screws us up, doesn’t it? A tap in every phone or microwave oven, some guy in a raincoat behind every tree. Jesus! What a way to live.”
    “Have you?”
    “Have I what?”
    “Swept the place. Just because you’re ex-agencydoesn’t mean that they—or others—are no longer interested in you.”
    Pauling slapped the glass-topped table. “No, I haven’t swept the place, Vic, and I don’t intend to.”
    “I don’t blame you,” said Gosling, the bourbon thickening his speech just a little. “Tell you what. Let’s forget the project for tonight. I’ll get to meet your ladylove, sleep soundly on your couch, and tomorrow you can take me for a spin in your plane. I’ve always wanted to learn how to fly.”
    Translation:
We’ll talk when we’re up in the air
.
    Pauling was putting glasses in the dishwasher when Jessica came through the door. She saw Gosling sitting on the deck and asked the question of Max without speaking.
    “Vic Gosling,” Max said, kissing her on the cheek. “A buddy from the agency days.”
    “The book?” she said.
    “Yeah, that’s him.”
    Gosling came into the kitchen and Max introduced them.
    “I see why Max looks so happy,” Gosling said.
    “Does he?” Jessica asked. “Look happy?” She laughed, put her arm around Max’s waist, looked into his face, and said, “That’s what I like, a happy man around the house.”
    She didn’t add that he hadn’t seemed especially happy lately until he started making the runs into Mexico—which didn’t make
her
especially happy. She knew men like Max Pauling only too well. She’d once been married to an FBI agent who spent most of his time working undercover, and who seemed truly happy only when he was in danger, using his wits to survive. Max was cut from that same damnable cloth, she knew, happiest when infiltratingRussian intelligence cells or turning some Central American bureaucrat into an informer. Danger acted like an Adrenalin I.V., providing a burst of satisfaction, even happiness of the sort she knew she could never provide. No woman could.
    Max poured another round of drinks for himself and Gosling, and served Jessica a pony of brandy. They sat on the deck and had an easy conversation—a little politics, some background exchanged, nothing too heavy, a few amusing stories, gentle kidding between the men about past exploits.
    “That’s all history,” Gosling said, “old war stories.”
    Pauling said, “Cold War stories. Boring.”
    “I’m trying to convince your man to help me out with a project,” Gosling said. “You know, Max, I was thinking of you for it before I bumped into you in Mexico. Déjà vu, it’s called.”
    “Or preview. If you believe in that sort of