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Rachel K was leading President Prio, “Handsome,” she called him, as if it were his name, through the Pam-Pam Room to his own VIP booth. He was not, in truth, so handsome, but he was president and vain. She and Handsome passed the mysterious Frenchman’s table. A Frenchman who might have been, in fac…

Marcel bequeathed his aunt Leonie’s couch to a bordello, and whenever he visited the place, to tease Rachel of my Lord (but never buy her services), it unnerved him to see tarts flopped on its pink crushed velvet cushions, even if there was maybe nothing more perfect and appropriate than pink velve…

An executive of the United Fruit Company, a Mr. something Stites—she couldn’t remember his first name and simply called him “you”—took her east to Oriente in his private plane. She’d been hesitant to go. He seemed like a person who was dangerous because he didn’t know which parts of him were rotten…

“A nothing. A stranger who left me here when I was thirteen.” She and her mother had ducked into the Tokio from the blinding sun of midday Havana. It was so dark inside the club that Rachel K could barely see. They waited at the Pam-Pam Room bar until a manager appeared from a back office, trailing…

The Americans who weren’t just abstract leaseholders were mercenaries and AWOL factotums left over from the war.