[pshrynk]

Harv was at the door when he remembered the advice his mother always used to give him: Never leave the room without being sure you're ready to hightail it in a big hurry. He returned to the bed and grabbed his brand new pair of socks and shoved them into the grip he used as his luggage. Looking around, he satisfied himself that there was nothing unpacked. The door closed behind him.

He was pretty sure that there was going to be a ship or two from the Navy in port tonight. There had been a lot of that recently. Havana was generally a quiet little burg, if by quiet you meant loud and raucous but without a lot of English speaking going on. He was getting pretty proficient in swearing in Spanish.

If he could find a game, he knew that he could skin a few navvies of their shore leave pay. He avoided the Marines, mostly because peace was their profession and killing people was more of a hobby. Nothing like a maddened Marine to make the evening both interesting and short.

He sauntered down the boulevard toward the docks, where the Navvies hung out. He was getting good at sauntering. In fact, he was thinking of entering some competitions.

There was a new bar in town, Rick's Cafe Americain. Some sort of franchise. He walked through the swinging doors. A man in a white tuxedo yelled at him, "I don't want your kind in here! Get out!" Harv waved jauntily at the proprietor and continued his saunter past the ska band that was the evening's entertainment. Harv sort of liked ska, it had a rhythm.

In the back of the lounge, there was a table filled with serious looking men drinking serious looking fluids from serious looking glasses. Harv pulled up a chair and said, "What's the buy-in tonight, boys?"