Cocktail Talk: Killing Castro
I’ve gone into talking about my on-again, off-again, relationship (and by relationship, I mean I’m a reader and he’s an author who’s never heard of me) with pulp, police procedural, detective, etc. writer Lawrence Block already. So, I won’t go into that. But I did just read the randomest book of his, which he wrote long ago under a pseudonym he never used for another book (a fake name that I don’t know, and which isn’t listed, by the way). The book’s called Killing Castro, and that’s the basic overview. Five guys, for different reasons, get together to go kill Fidel in the 60’s, then are broken into groups, and the book has them all narrating at different parts, and also has sections of Castro history. Weird, right? Actually, pretty darn fine (I love the multiple narratives when done well). Lots of drinking, mostly of the whiskey straight variety, but the quote I liked best doesn’t even mention a specific drink. But there’s something so, matter of fact about it,. I love it (and wish I was tough enough to live it). Maybe you will, too? Maybe Castro does, too, for that matter.
‘We’ll sack out for eight hours, then send out for some food and some liquor. You drink?’
‘Sure.’
‘Good,’ Turner said. ‘We’ll get some food and we’ll get some liquor, and I’ll call somebody on the phone and get a couple of girls. We’ll eat the food and we’ll drink the liquor and we’ll lay the girls. Then we’ll go to Cuba and get our asses shot off. That sound okay to you?’
‘Sure,’ Hines said.
‘Fine,’ Turner said. ‘Now let’s get some sleep.’
–Lawrence Block, Killing Castro
