Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene Read Free Book Online

don’t mind, do you, Mr Wormold. You asked me to keep you informed.’ The slip showed an overdraft of fifty dollars.
    ‘Not at all. It’s very kind of you,’ Wormold said. ‘But there’s nothing to worry about.’
    ‘Oh, the bank’s not worrying, Mr Wormold. You just asked, that’s all.’
    Wormold thought, If the overdraft had been fifty thousand dollars he would have called me Jim.
    2
    For some reason that morning he had no wish to meet Dr Hasselbacher for his morning daiquiri. There were times when Dr Hasselbacher was a little too carefree, so he looked in at Sloppy Joe’s instead of at the Wonder Bar. No Havana resident ever went to Sloppy Joe’s because it was the rendezvous of tourists; but tourists were sadly reduced nowadays in number, for the President’s regime was creaking dangerously towards its end. There had always been unpleasant doings out of sight, in the inner rooms of the Jefatura, which had not disturbed the tourists in the Nacional and the Seville-Biltmore, but one tourist had recently been killed by a stray bullet while he was taking a photograph of a picturesque beggar under a balcony near the palace, and the death had sounded the knell of the all-in tour ‘including a trip to Varadero beach and the night-life of Havana’. The victim’s Leica had been smashed as well, and that had impressed his companions more than anything with the destructive power of a bullet. Wormold had heard them talking afterwards in the bar of the Nacional. ‘Ripped right through the camera,’ one of them said. ‘Five hundred dollars gone just like that.’
    ‘Was he killed at once?’
    ‘Sure. And the lens – you could pick up bits for fifty yards around. Look. I’m taking a piece home to show Mr Humpel-nicker.’
    The long bar that morning was empty except for the elegant stranger at one end and a stout member of the tourist police who was smoking a cigar at the other. The Englishman was absorbed in the sight of so many bottles, and it was quite a while before he spotted Wormold. ‘Well I never,’ he said, ‘Mr Wormold, isn’t it?’ Wormold wondered how he knew his name, for he had forgotten to give him a trade-card. ‘Eighteen different kinds of Scotch,’ the stranger said, ‘including Black Label. And I haven’t counted the Bourbons. It’s a wonderful sight. Wonderful,’ he repeated, lowering his voice with respect. ‘Have you ever seen so many whiskies?’
    ‘As a matter of fact I have. I collect miniatures and I have ninety-nine at home.’
    ‘Interesting. And what’s your choice today? A dimpled Haig?’
    ‘Thanks, I’ve just ordered a daiquiri.’
    ‘Can’t take those things. They relax me.’
    ‘Have you decided on a cleaner yet?’ Wormold asked for the sake of conversation.
    ‘Cleaner?’
    ‘Vacuum cleaner. The things I sell.’
    ‘Oh, cleaner. Ha ha. Throw away that stuff and have a Scotch.’
    ‘I never drink Scotch before the evening.’
    ‘You Southerners!’
    ‘I don’t see the connection.’
    ‘Makes the blood thin. Sun, I mean. You were born in Nice, weren’t you?’
    ‘How do you know that?’
    ‘Oh well, one picks things up. Here and there. Talking to this chap and that. I’ve been meaning to have a word with you as a matter of fact.’
    ‘Well, here I am.’
    ‘I’d like it more on the quiet, you know. Chaps keep on coming in and out.’
    No description could have been less accurate. No one even passed the door in the hard straight sunlight outside. The officer of the tourist police had fallen contentedly asleep after propping his cigar over an ash-tray; there were no tourists at this hour to protect or to supervise. Wormold said, ‘If it’s about a cleaner, come down to the shop.’
    ‘I’d rather not, you know. Don’t want to be seen hanging about there. Bar’s not a bad place after all. You run into a fellow-countryman, have a get together, what more natural?’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘Well, you know how it is.’
    ‘I