“Is that a helicopter?” Figuerito asked. “I’ve always wanted to ride in one of those, too.”

“Are you nuts? It’s a German shepherd, for christ’s sake. Okay, let’s go—on our hands and knees. Where does the woman live?” Tomlinson began to crawl toward the nearest shack.

“You gotta get your head checked, brother. That isn’t a dog unless dogs can fly.”

He heard it then, the whine of a powerful engine, but it was a boat, not a helicopter; the distinctive seesaw roar of a boat negotiating sharp turns, moving fast on the river where he had beached the canoe.

“In my village,” Figgy said, “we got a doctor. She’ll look at your head. There’s something bad wrong if you think a helicopter is a dog. Try closing one eye.”

Finally, Tomlinson turned to look. “We are so screwed,” he said, because he saw it, a chopper flying low. It was following a searchlight, coming toward them at an incredible speed. Something else: the Mercedes had returned, sat squat in the middle of the street to seal off the block.

“I think we should leave now,” Figgy said. He wiped his hands on his shirt, then dropped to his knees. “Are you ready?”

“Oh god, yes.”

Single file, they crawled into the next lot, pursued by the ceiling fan thump-a-thump-a-thump of the chopper and the squelch of police radios. Houses here were tiny, built shoulder to shoulder amid a poverty of weeds and smoldering trash, each backyard a tangle of clotheslines and scrawny dogs chained to trees.

Figgy talked as they crawled: “I couldn’t hurt a dog, but it’s different with people. Some anyway. If they come to catch me or rob my mu-maw—my abuela, you know?—it doesn’t bother me. There’s a cliff near my village. Or did you forget that, too? It drops straight down to the sea.” He looked back. “Are you sure you don’t want to steal that Mercedes?”

Tomlinson replied, “Somehow, the timing doesn’t feel quite right,” but he was thinking, I should have slapped a restraining order on myself years ago. My sorry ass belongs in the insane asylum.

Mostly, he worried about the German shepherd nailing him from behind, until the helicopter screamed past at tree level and, for an instant, blinded Figuerito with the searchlight.

“You shouldn’t have waved,” Tomlinson said. “Christ, why’d you do that? Not with a machete in your hand. Get down before they circle back.”

Figgy, rubbing his eyes, replied, “Pinche par de pendejos,” which was profanity that could not be argued.

The helicopter didn’t circle. From the safety of some bushes, they watched it hover over the river. Soon, the jeep sped toward it, followed by the Mercedes, while the helicopter drifted seaward, following something or searching.

“I heard a boat,” Tomlinson said. “Fast one, a really big engine. Maybe they’re after the boat, not us.” But then remembered the canoe and the dinghy. “Yeah, we are totally screwed.”

“Never have I seen a light so bright,” Figgy remarked, still rubbing his eyes. He made some comparisons—stadium lights, the sun—before asking, “A boat with a motor? A big motor or a big boat?”

“An oversized outboard, yeah. Which way is the woman’s house? Let’s get out of here.”

“That river is too shallow for a big boat—unless the captain is a magician. Well . . . except for the spot with the tire swing where I nearly drowned. In the Estados Unidos, what is the brightest light you ever saw?”

They were jogging through backyards, with the river, the helicopter, and cars behind them. Tomlinson didn’t respond.

Unless the captain is a magician. The phrase stuck in his head, although he tried to convince himself, Naw. Impossible.

It couldn’t be Marion Ford.

•   •   •

FIGGY TOLD the woman who owned chickens but couldn’t drive, “If I was going to lie, I would have chosen a happier lie. If the Guardia finds us in your house, they’ll arrest you, too. I have no passport or birth certificate, and the gringo is carrying illegal drugs. You should also know that if the helicopter comes to take us away, don’t look up or you’ll be blinded.”

The woman listened to this and more, often glancing at Tomlinson as if to ask Is he crazy? Or drunk?

Finally, she posed the question herself. “Why would I let two strangers stay in my house? I have only one bed, and no food. Well . . . eggs, of course, and sometimes a rooster who is too old to screw. Is there something wrong with your head?”

“I’m tired of that question,” Figuerito replied. “The judge who sent me to the crazy prison didn’t believe me either.”

“An insane asylum?” she asked. Manicomio was the word in Spanish.

“No,” the shortstop replied, “the prisión demente near José Martí Airport. Everyone knows the fences and baseball field there. From the outside, it looks nice, but it’s not.”

The expression on the woman’s face—horrified—but then she smiled. “Whoa! What a fool I am—you’re joking, of course. You are an entertaining pair, you two.”

“You can’t hear the helicopter? Step outside, walk to the river. There is a bad Russian there the size of a whale. You’ll see a Mercedes. I wanted to steal it, but this gringo wouldn’t let me.”

“A Mercedes . . . in this village?” She was laughing now. “Such an imagination. What you are is a wild boy full of the Ol’ Nick. At first, I was sorry I opened the door. Now I’m not.”

Figgy replied, “As long as you understand. Our plan is to stay until the Guardia leaves, and we will pay you . . .” He turned to Tomlinson for a dollar amount.

Tomlinson, ducking his head because the ceiling was so low, asked her, “How much is the most beautiful dress in Havana? And shoes to go with it? A woman who lives alone deserves to feel as special as anyone else.”

Her name was Olena, a widow in her fifties who had been beaten down by work and loneliness, but still had a spark of Africa in her eyes. In her body, too. It was in the saucy way she said, “There’s only one bed, so you crazy boys will have to sleep on the floor . . . or take turns.” Then later, with the lights out, doors locked, she asked, “Is it for true you have drugs? What kind?”

“Just ganja,” Tomlinson said. “Don’t worry, we won’t smoke in here.”

Olena’s response: “You’re too selfish to share?”

Figgy, who’d been bouncing off the walls, mellowed after that. In a cluttered room that smelled of incense and chickens, they passed a joint around. The helicopter left, then the jeep and Mercedes made a slow tour of the streets and left, too. They rolled another one and drank aguardiente. Olena, who had done more in life than sell eggs, offered Tomlinson advice. “If you don’t want the pesquisa to notice you, you’ve gotta change how you look.”

“¿Pesquisa?”

“The secret police,” she explained. “Clothing is just a costume, and all costumes are a disguise. I know. I was a dancer at the Copacabana before my life went to hell.”

Olena could still dance. Tomlinson liked that about her, too. And trusted her enough to wait while she rousted a neighbor, then brought him a change of clothes. A whole new look she created for him.

“This is so me,” he said in front of a mirror. “I always wanted to be a Rastafarian. But don’t you think my beard should be a little darker? Or braided—that could work, but not too much. I don’t want to look like a pirate.”

Something else she returned with was local gossip about the cops and the helicopter. The boat Tomlinson had heard was probably Bahamian gangsters from Cay Sal or Miami Cubans up to no good. She hadn’t gotten the whole story, but rumor was that the boat had been shot out of the water when it was a mile or two offshore.

“But they often lie about shooting Miami Cubans out of the water,” she added.

He and Figgy departed at ten-fifteen in the old Buick, a car Olena said she was too smart to drive, so be careful, don’t trust the brakes, and never, ever go fast enough to need third gear.