Cuba Straits Read Online Free

items. Anything he can sell on the Internet while the Castro regime collapses.”
    Wind slapped waves against the pilings, sifting odors of saltwater and iodine through the floor. Tomlinson was still wearing baseball pants but had traded his spikes for Birkenstocks. He adjusted the ice pack and wiggled his toes as if they were cold. “For a while,” he said, “I thought you were talking about the Juan Rivera I know—big guy from Masagua, a pitcher with a decent slider? The famous general. It’s such a common name.”
    “That’s him. You were pissed because he wouldn’t give you a uniform when we were down there, then almost hit one out. That was more than, what, ten years ago? Now Rivera’s caught in a squeeze between the Cuban government for stealing players and the Mexican cartels for horning in on their business. That’s why he wants help, I think.”
    Tomlinson smiled, gave a sideways look. “Naw, you’re messing with my head.”
    “Ask him tomorrow when he shows up. If he shows. We’re supposed to help him find a shortstop who wandered off this morning.”
    “You’re serious.”
    “After all your cracks about my lack of imagination, what do you think?”
    That clinched it. Tomlinson placed the beer pitcher on the floor—a man trying to control his temper. “You’re telling me that Juan Simón Rivera, the Maximum Leader of the Masaguan Revolution . . . the
generalissimo
of the goddamn People’s Army . . . is smuggling ballplayers and selling shit on eBay—”
    “On the Internet . . . Yeah, he admitted that much—”
    “And profiting from the flesh trade? Gad, that’s freakin’ human trafficking, man.”
    “Well, depends on the ballplayer, I suppose.” Ford thought that might get a smile. It didn’t. “I could be wrong. Like I said, he gave me that story about motorcycles and machine guns. I can tell you the rest now or wait until we drive in to look for his missing shortstop.”
    Tomlinson didn’t hear the last part. He got to his feet, chewed at a string of hair while he paced, limping a little. “That
bastard
. Is there not a shred of Euro socialist integrity left in our leaders? A feeding frenzy of mobster behavior—that’s what’s happening. Even to advance Utopian goals, it is totally bogus.” He cringed and sighed. “Thank god Fidel and François Mitterrand aren’t alive to see this day.”
    Ford, attempting subtlety, replied, “A lot of people would agree.” He flicked on the aquarium’s lights and noted movement among clusters of oysters at the bottom of the tank that had appeared lifeless but were now coming alive. “Watch this. It took only two days to condition the stone crabs—see that big female creeping out? Lights mean it’s feeding time. At five days, even the barnacles started to respond.”
    Among the oysters, a mini-forest of lace blooms were sprouting, robotic fans that sifted amid a sudden flurry of crabs—dozens of crabs—most of them tiny.
    Tomlinson said, “There you go—a feeding frenzy. I rest my case. Living entities perverted by the system to hide from the light—at least until some poor, innocent shortstop walks into the money trap. Now I understand why Rivera didn’t have the balls to look me in the face tonight and say hello. Which is why I assumed it was a different guy.”
    Instead of pitching for Ford’s team, the
generalissimo
had remained in the main stadium but was gone by the end of the game—a game they might have won if, in the ninth inning, down by two runs, Tomlinson hadn’t tried to steal home. By all standards, a truly boneheaded play.
    Ford asked, “Are you mad at the general or still mad at yourself?”
    “Sure, rub it in. I didn’t buy a plane ticket to fly back here and lose. Be aggressive—that’s just smart baseball.”
    In October, Tomlinson had sailed his boat,
No Más
, to Key West for the Halloween freak show known as Fantasy Fest. That was three weeks ago, but he couldn’t resist returning for a