of rum?"
Joe met his smile with one of his own. They were starting to understand each other. They didn't respect each other yet, but the possibility was there.
Joe jerked his thumb behind him. "You take those photos in the hallway?"
"Most of them."
"What don't you do, Esteban?"
Esteban removed his hand from Graciela's knee and sat back. "Do you know much about Cuban politics, Mr. Coughlin?"
"No," Joe said, "and I don't need to. It won't help me get this job done."
Esteban crossed his ankles. "How about Nicaragua?"
"We put down a rebellion there a few years back, if I remember right."
"That's where the weapons are going," Graciela said. "And there was no rebellion. Your country occupies theirs just like they occupy mine when they see fit."
"Take it up with the Platt Amendment."
That put a rise in one of her eyebrows. "An educated gangster?"
"I'm not a gangster, I'm an outlaw," he said, although he wasn't sure that was true anymore. "And there's not much else to do where I've spent the last two years but read. So why's the navy running guns to Nicaragua?"
"They've opened a military training school there," Esteban said. "To train the armies and police of Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Panama, of course, how to best remind the peasants of their place."
Joe said, "So you're going to steal weapons from the U.S. Navy and reapportion them to Nicaraguan rebels?"
"Nicaragua is not my fight," Esteban said.
"So you're going to arm Cuban rebels."
A nod. "Machado is no president. He is a common thief with a gun."
"So you'll steal from our military to overthrow your military?"
Esteban gave that a small tip of his head.
Graciela said, "Does it bother you?"
"Don't mean shit to me." Joe looked over at Dion. "Bother you?"
Dion asked Graciela, "You ever think if you people could police yourselves, maybe pick a leader who didn't loot you six ways from Sunday five minutes after getting sworn in, we wouldn't have to keep occupying you?"
Graciela fixed him in a flat stare. "I think if we didn't have a cash crop you wanted for yourselves, you'd have never heard of Cuba."
Dion looked over at Joe. "What do I care? Let's hear this plan."
Joe turned to Esteban. "You do have a plan, don't you?"
Esteban's eyes registered offense for the first time. "We have a man who will be calling on the boat tonight. He'll cause a diversion in a forward compartment and - "
"What kind of diversion?" Dion asked.
"A fire. When they go to put it out, we'll go down to the hold and pull out the weapons."
"The hold will be locked."
Esteban gave them a confident smile. "We have bolt cutters for that."
"You've seen the lock?"
"It's been described to me."
Dion leaned forward. "But you don't know what kind of material it's made of. It could be stronger than your bolt cutters."
"Then we will shoot it."
"Which will alert the people fighting the fire," Joe said. "And probably get somebody killed by a ricochet."
"We will move fast."
"How fast can anyone move with sixty boxes of rifles and grenades?"
"We'll have thirty men. Thirty more men, if you provide them."
"They'll have three hundred," Joe said.
"But they won't be three hundred Cubanos. The American soldier fights for his own pride. The Cubano fights for his country."
"Jesus," Joe said.
Esteban's smile got even more smug. "You doubt our bravery?"
"No," Joe said. "I doubt your intelligence."
"I'm not afraid to die," Esteban said.
"I am." Joe lit a cigarette. "And if I wasn't, I'd like to die for a better reason than this. It takes two guys to lift a crate of rifles. That means sixty guys would have to make two trips onto a burning naval ship. And you think this is possible?"
"We only learned about the ship two days ago," Graciela said. "If we had more time we could have more men and a better plan, but that ship leaves tomorrow."
"Doesn't have to," Joe said.
"What do you mean?"
"You said you can get a guy on the ship."
"Yes."
"That mean you already got an inside guy on there?"
"Why?"
"Jesus, because I fucking asked you, all right, Esteban? Do you have one of the sailors on your payroll or not?"
"We do," Graciela said.
"What're his duties?"
"Engine room."
"What was he going to do for you?"
"Cause an engine malfunction."
"So your outside guy, he's a mechanic?"
A pair of nods.
"He comes in to fix the engine, starts the fire, you raid the weapons hold."
Esteban said, "Yes."
"As plans go, it's not half bad," Joe said.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. If half a plan isn't bad, it means the other half is. When were you going