CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR

Since gas prices were exorbitant, I thought it best not to go directly home from Swampwater U. Instead, I drove down SW 8th—not out of the way at all, since that’s the direction of Highway 826. I drove until the canal running beside the road turned off, until I passed beneath the 826 underpass, until the strip malls and condos gave way to seedy motels and cracked concrete. The leaves on the palm trees that lined the road gradually turned yellower, wilder-looking. Soon I found that the street had narrowed to one lane, as squat pink shops and shanties elbowed the car on both sides. I had hopped the railroad track not too long ago. Now I was on the wrong side of civilization, in more dangerous territory. Calle Ocho, Little Havana…

But this is where I wanted to be. I was a man on a mission, seeking a forbidden grail, a myth. I came to Little Havana in search of cigars. Cuban ones. Aficionados would call them the crème de la crème, though I wasn’t much of a cigar smoker myself. I’d heard rumors they were illegal, and almost impossible to get ahold of, now that there was an embargo on goods coming in from Castro-land. But I’d also heard that a cubano cigar could be obtained with a little luck. And if you happened to be short on luck, the shadow told me, drive down to Calle Ocho and try hagglin’ with the tobacconists.

The first shop had a name that sounded promising: Trans-Atlantic Cigars. The tobacconist was an old man with a tanned face and chewed-up hands. He asked me what I wanted, and I said, “I’m in the market for a Cuban cigar.” “Impossible,” he said. “Even if I had some, it’d be illegal for me to sell them to you.”

“I can make it worth your while,” I replied, loosening up some portraits of George Washington from a roll of green paper I concealed in my pocket. Before the man could reply, I continued, “Come on, amigo. The embargo on Cuban goods must be like transporting tequila across the Mexican border. If you show up with a truckload’s worth to sell, they’ll send you back. But what about personal consumption? Surely you’ve got connections to someone who may have an extra parejo lying around that he don’t need…”

The tobacconist nodded, showing a mouth full of teeth ruined by years of sampling his own product. But he seemed to have gotten my drift, and disappeared into a back room. I spent several minutes pretending to inspect the display cases, when the man suddenly reappeared, accompanied by another Latino, a bigger guy with hair in a ponytail. The other man introduced himself as Rudy, and placed a suitcase atop the nearest display case. Smiling broadly, he explained that he had many wonderful cigars in his suitcase, which he usually reserved for only the most discriminating connoisseur. Surely I was such a man, he said, and would find these gems especially tantalizing. With his forefingers, he undid the two locks on the suitcase. As the lid on the leather case opened, a rich, pungent aroma rose up and gently greeted my nostrils.

For the next half-hour, Rudy showed me all sorts of wonderful cigars, which came from parts all over the world. Each hand-rolled beauty had a story as vivid as the origin of a comic book hero. I could tell the man knew how to sell. Occasionally, he pumped me for personal information, and I replied with believable lies. I told him I was a graduate student in the field of clinical Speech Pathology, looking to purchase a very special parejo for my mentor.

“Ah, medicine!” Rudy exclaimed, clapping his hands together as if bowled over by the force of his new thought. “Just the other day, I sold this wonderful cigar to a physician—a foot doctor, I think. Peruvian, finely aged. Smell this one, young man.”

The bouquet of the cigars affected me like a magic spell. But I fought hard to resist its power. I had come looking for the elusive Cuban parejo, and while these other cigars were appealing in their own way, I only had room in my heart for one, and I did not see her in the suitcase. At one point, while Rudy chatted on and on in his endless way, words slowly boring a hole in my brain like water drops on a stone, I had to stand up, had to try and escape. “Pardon me, senor,” I said. “A thousand apologies. I came here seeking the Cuban parejo, but I see you do not have it. I will not waste any more of your time…”

My mind still reeling from the pungency of aged tobacco, I faltered slightly, and had to place my hand on a display case to keep from falling off-balance. While Rudy and the other tobacconist quickly rose to their feet, I briefly glimpsed behind the glass, and saw beside my hand the words “Cuban Bullet” printed on a label wrapped around a seven-inch long stogie. “What is that one?” I asked.

“Oh that,” said Rudy. “It’s considered a fine cigar. Unfortunately, it was hand-rolled and aged in Nicaragua.” He put special emphasis on that last part, as if Nicaragua and cigars were equivalent to Ocean Drive and good taste.

“So why does it say ‘Cuban Bullet?’” I asked.

“The cigars are made with Cuban tobacco seeds,” said Rudy. “But they’re cultivated in Nicaragua. The soil makes all the difference.”

“But is it good?” I asked.

“’Cigar Aficionado’ gave it a five-out-of-five review,” chimed in the first man I had encountered. Rudy waved his arm to silence him. “Senor,” he began. “You want something better, believe me…”

“You don’t seem to have much variety as far as these Cuban tobacco parejos,” I said.

“They make them right here in Miami,” said the man who mentioned the review. Doubtless, Rudy opened his mouth to speak again. By that time, however, the door was closing shut, and I had gone.

I drove home. Then I looked up “Cuban Bullet cigars” online and got the name of the company that produced them. I followed the link to their company’s web site. Turns out the man in the shop had been right. The makers of “Cuban Bullets” made all sorts of cigars out of Cuban tobacco grown in Nicaragua. What I hadn’t been prepared for was their address. The Miami Lakes area, a mere ten-minute drive from the house.

* * *
Their office was dry and dimly-lit, with a wood finish. Comfortable and cool. In the corner of the lobby was an old Latin fella, hunched over a desk covered in tobacco leaves and paper. I could smell fresh leaves. The tobacco was still green, and after he rolled up one of the new beauties, he slipped it through a hole in the side of this small concrete block. I said hello to the man, but he was too absorbed in his work to notice me. From the other corner of the lobby entered a receptionist, tall and reedy. She took me to the walk-in humidor.

Parejos wrapped in varying colors of plastic, on display like books in a bookstore. I settled on something of good quality, high volume, and decent price. The receptionist put the cigar in a clear plastic bag and handed it back to me. She said, “Hope you enjoy it, sir,” and as I took the goods—dumb, naïve palooka—I actually believed she was being sincere. But as I turned around to walk away, I sensed something wrong. Too late. The shot rang out. Not that loud, actually. Could have been a starter’s pistol, for all I knew. I hit the floor, blood slowly oozing out of my back, not really pooling so much as being absorbed into the rich, red carpet. Through a haze of lamplight—kinda dim, like the gaslights you see in movies about Jack the Ripper—I saw the dame stepping lightly towards me in her small, black heels.

My last thoughts—shoulda stayed out of the shadows, out of Little Havana, shouldn’t have taken up this dangerous game—fluttered across my brain in no particular order. The dame crouched down, aimed the derringer carefully. “My, gas prices sure are high,” she said. Then she pulled the trigger, and everything went black.