The Betrayal Game - [Mikhal Lammeck 02]

by David L. Robbins

  “The national capitol.”

  “The former national capitol. It is currently vacant. May I teach you something, Professor Lammeck? About Cuba?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Well...” Johan grinned. “Obviously, the capitol is an exact replica of the American Capitol. Do you see? Every detail is there on a smaller scale—the dome, the pillared wings, high white steps. In 1929, it was built for us by the United States to house the Cuban Senate. More important, El Capitolio was designed to remind every Cuban that we were an American possession. A little copy of your Capitol, given to us as little Americans.”

  Johan said this without rancor; in fact, he smiled as if he’d made a jest.

  “After the revolution, Fidel called it a symbol of Cuba’s suppression. The place was abandoned. But as can you see”—the police captain swept a hand across the wide grounds, filled with children and adults playing baseball or eating lunches on the tall marble steps—”El Capitolio still serves the people.”

  They rounded the corner of the capitol lawn. Ahead stood the Partagas cigar factory.

  “You spend too much time in the library, Professor. I should like to show you some of the real Havana. We are not a people who can be captured so well on the page.”

  Lammeck narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure I like the fact that you’ve been following me.”

  Johan waved this off. “I will explain and you will forgive me. But not right now. I have to return to the park and Fidel. I have responsibilities there. I cannot be gone for long.”

  “And when do I get this explanation? Or will I just turn and find you there again?”

  Johan inclined his head. “I shall leave you here for a taxi, Professor. You should not have a long wait.” Johan gestured at the cigar building. “I would like to bring you a gift of a box of Partagas number twos. They are my favorite. Che prefers the Montecristo and Fidel the Cohiba Lancero, but my taste runs to the milder Partagas.”

  “And you figure I’ll like what you like?”

  “Yes,” Johan said, with a touch to Lammeck’s forearm. “I have reason to hope we have much in common, you and I. Tomorrow night, seven o’clock, I will come to your home. Then we will talk.”

  “About how everybody’s sure there’s an invasion coming?”

  “And many more surprises. Tomorrow night, then.”

  The policeman walked off. Lammeck opened his mouth, not certain if he could object.

  Johan called over his shoulder, “Don’t worry, Professor, I know your address.”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER FOUR

  March 13

  Miami Beach Convention Center

  Miami Beach

  WITH TEN THOUSAND OTHERS, Bud Calendar shot to his feet. The whole building shook with the crowd’s cry when Floyd Patterson’s back hit the canvas. Calendar shouted with them, “Ohhhh!” but without worry. He knew the champ would get back up. Patterson had been knocked down more than any heavyweight champion in boxing history, but, as Patterson had said, he also “got up the most.”

  The Swedish challenger Johansson bounced on his toes waiting for the champ to resurrect. The referee’s count reached four; black Patterson took his time to get the wobble out of his legs before he stood. The big Swede looked to be in the worst shape of his three bouts with Patterson. Even so, he’d drawn first blood and ten thousand gasps.

  Calendar glanced away from the mat, where Patterson had risen to one knee at a seven count. Celebrities caught Calendar’s eye— Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, Joan Crawford, and Sammy Davis Jr. All ringside.

  Inside the ropes, Patterson bounced to his feet, pounding his gloves together. Lucky punch, the gesture said, but it wasn’t and Calendar could tell that Patterson knew it. The champ had leaped in, careless and too aggressive. He’d lowered his guard to loose a roundhouse right; the Swede stayed cool and popped him with his own right hand, the one he called “Thor’s Hammer.” Calendar reached into his pocket to finger the boxer’s mouthpiece he always carried. Getting old, he thought. Old habits. Even so, he figured he could have stayed on his feet longer in this first round than the champ did.

  Patterson wasn’t upright long before Johansson planted him again with another stiff right to the chin. Calendar bolted out of his seat with the crowd, this time genuinely concerned. The Swede had already beaten the champ two years ago, then last year Patterson pounded him, becoming the first heavyweight to lose the belt and win it back. Tonight was the rubber match. Right now, on his back for the second time in just the first round, the champ hadn’t lifted his head yet, with the ref over him sweeping fingers past his face.

  Calendar shouted with everyone in the arena, “Get up! Get up!” Patterson shook his head; under the hot kliegs, sweat beads haloed off his brow. The ref shoved an open hand—”Five!”—in front of the champ’s nose. Calendar flicked his eyes to Johansson. The big Swede wasn’t bouncing this time. The boxer stood flat-footed, glaring down at his black opponent. Johansson was compelling Patterson to stay down, adding the weight of his will to bind Patterson to the mat. Johansson knew the champ’s heart better than anyone in the world. This is what it’s about, Calendar thought. This right here.

  Patterson slid his gloves under him. He sat up, and even with the ref’s count at eight, took a moment to push his mouthpiece back over his teeth. The look he gave the Swede made Johansson start bobbing again, dancing away as if Patterson weren’t sitting on the mat but standing and charging already. By ten, the champ’s legs were under him and firm. The ref swiped Patterson’s gloves on his shirt to clean them, then diced both hands through the air to say: Fight, boys!

  The spectators stomped and screamed. Calendar shouted to the unknown man beside him, “Like a fucking Lazarus, this guy!” The man nodded, then cupped his hands to holler his own support for the champ.

  The rest of the opening round continued with the two boxers parrying, no advantage taken. Patterson had weathered the best Johansson had for him. With seconds left, the Swede came in, fierce and unprotected, trying to finish Patterson off. Johansson knew, Calendar knew, it was now or never. In response, Patterson clipped him with a big left hook. Johansson crumpled. The building exploded. The bell sounded in the din, saving the Swede.

  The crowd was slow to take their seats between rounds, they were so charged with the event. Calendar eased a hand into his other pocket to touch a little glass bottle. With what was inside it, there was no one CIA Agent Bud Calendar could not put down.

  And they would stay down.

  ~ * ~

  Fontainebleau Hotel

  Calendar lifted his chin to the moon and closed his eyes. In each hand he held one of his shoes. He’d rolled his pants legs above the calves. Between his toes, sand shifted under a withdrawing wave.

  “This is what I’m talking about,” he said to the warm water at his feet and the Miami night. “Way too much time in the cold.”

  A balmy breeze caressed his cheeks, seawater foamed at his ankles. He recalled a massage from a long-ago woman in Berlin that felt this good. Or was it Moscow? Prague? He couldn’t remember; it was somewhere cold.

  He opened his eyes and looked around. Up and down the beach, evening strollers walked the sand, or, like him, stood barefoot in the shallows.

  “After I get Castro,” he muttered, setting his resolve one more time, “I’m done. I’m moving down here. Screw the cold.”

  Calendar listened to the sounds of the curling and withdrawing at his feet.

  “Just lemme take care of Castro.”

  Calendar kicked through the shallows to the sand, then to the boardwalk steps leading into the courtyard of the Fontainebleau. He used his socks to dry his feet, then rubbed his soles before cramming them back into the hard shoes. He thought how many countries they’d stood him upon; his stalwarts, these two knobby white feet, never failed him. Never got bloody like his hands. He slid on the socks and promised his feet he’d never wear shoes again, not down here in Miami, only sandals.

  Before
heading inside, he took another full, salty breath of the Atlantic. Calendar felt every one of his fifty-four years. His twenty years in intelligence work. He was tired and he wasn’t finished. But this is what it’s about, he thought. Like Floyd Patterson. Get up off the mat and slug another round, ‘til you’re done.

  The Fontainebleau’s lobby decor reflected Miami Beach’s deco style, with all the pastels of a coral reef, blues, pinks, greens, yellows. Moving through it, Calendar imagined himself a fish on such a reef. What kind of fish would he be? Not some scared little denizen but a shark, a feeder. He liked the comparison. Feeders and bleeders, that’s all there was in the world. He indulged in a vision of frenzy, bloodied water. This freshened his sense of his own girth, and the power the United States had deposited in him. Calendar straightened his posture and widened his stride.

  In the elevator, Sinatra crooned “The Best Is Yet to Come.” The elevator rose creakily. Calendar used these moments with Frank to dump the last of his fatigue. These men waiting for him, they were sharks, too. They could sense if you weren’t swimming right. Calendar crammed his hands in his pockets; sifting through loose change and his room key, he fingered the poison pill bottle, then shifted his touch to the plastic mouthpiece he always carried in case of a fistfight.

  The elevator doors parted. The hallway carpet glowed watermelon red. Standing on it were two oversized men in sunglasses. This was a habit Calendar disdained, wearing shades indoors. It made a man conspicuous.

  “You Calendar?” one of the guards asked.

  Walking forward, Calendar answered, “You the Bobbsey Twins?”

  He did not pause for the pair’s scrutiny but ambled down the hall toward another shaded goon standing outside a room.

  “You Calendar?”

  “I get asked that a lot.”

  “Lemme see some ID.”

  Calendar reached into the pocket with the mouthpiece. He withdrew his hand holding up the middle finger.

  “Here you go. Don’t it look like me?”

  The sentinel pulled down his sunglasses to tuck them in his jacket. His small eyes did not blink.

  “You a funny guy?”

  Calendar smiled. “I dunno. Is your Uncle Sam a funny guy? ‘Cause that’s who I am. Now let me inside or I turn around and walk. And you can explain to your bosses how you and I quarreled and I left with my feelings hurt.”

  The man’s quandary was interrupted by the door opening. The knob was in the hand of a tall, bald, round-faced man. He didn’t look Miami, and he didn’t look New York, in sports coat and slacks. He was California, lightly tanned and smugly grinning.

  “Mr. Calendar? Come in.”

  Before entering, Calendar faced the guardian.

  “What did you think? Was I funny? Yes, no? Well”—he patted the guard’s shoulder—”you can tell me later.”

  The man answered by sliding his sunglasses on, aiming them blankly into Calendar’s face.

  Inside the closed door, Calendar shook hands.

  “We meet at last,” the tall man said. “Bob Maheu.”

  “Bud Calendar. Everybody here?”

  “Right on time. You need any briefing before we start?”

  “Do you?”

  Maheu’s grin flatlined. Calendar guessed the man’s shirt and silk tie cost what his own suit was worth.

  “Not at all. Mr. Calendar?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I appreciate the tough talk like what I heard through the door. I do. But... it might not go over so well with these gentlemen. If you catch my drift.”

  Calendar donned an understanding demeanor. “Certainly, Bob. And that explains why they get along so well with you.” He showed his teeth in his own smile. “Shall we?”

  Maheu nodded, eyes narrowing, calculating the CIA man. Not what you expected, Calendar thought, am I? Maheu knew to bite his tongue. The man had connections, but Calendar didn’t care about Maheu’s power, or that of anyone else in the next room. Whatever they had, it didn’t stack up to the U.S. That’s who Bud Calendar represented.

  Calendar followed Maheu through the chintz fabrics of a large sitting room. The man walked elegantly, a seamless flow of long arms and legs. The view out the windows faced the Atlantic, moonbeams broken on its dark surface to the horizon. Calendar didn’t covet power—he had plenty of his own—but he did admire the view.

  Maheu opened the door to a meeting room. A long oval table held the center between eight padded leather chairs. Again, the decor was tropical, a vibrant kiwi carpet beneath white and lime striped wallpaper. Lamplight cast a green hue over the three men, who did not stand upon Calendar’s entry.

  Maheu tapped the back of a seat at the open end of the table. Calendar ignored the suggestion and sat where he chose, in what was probably Maheu’s spot, to the left of a hawk-nosed little thug with big, veined hands at the head of the table. The balding man wore a plain white shirt opened enough to show a hairless and sunken chest. He had hunter’s eyes, quick and narrow, a deeply lined mouth.

  Next to him, across from Calendar, sat a pudgy man in a dark suit and black tie. Perched on his flat face were black rimmed glasses, beneath a receding hairline. A hangdog look made him appear droopy and sad. Beside him was the muscle, with Brylcreemed white-gray hair in a black Ban-Lon shirt. The older gents smiled and nodded when Calendar sat. The big guy scowled. The first two were bosses. This third one reeked of soldier.

  All three had their fingers knitted on the tabletop. Calendar made a show of doing the same, lacing his fingers and dropping them on the polished wood.

  Maheu slid into his leather seat as if buttering it. He did the introductions, indicating first the large man.

  “Bud Calendar, I’d like you to meet Johnny Roselli.” Calendar reached across the table, receiving a meaty mitt decked with two fat gold rings. “How you doin’?” Roselli muttered. Calendar nodded and answered breezily, “Good. You?” He pretended to be impressed with Roselli’s handshake. “Hey, you work out? Wow.” Roselli sneered, patient.

  Maheu cleared his throat, to move Calendar past Roselli.

  “This is Joe the Courier.”

  Calendar shook hands with the man in the suit. The hand was flaccid, gentle after Roselli’s paw.

  “Thanks for coming, Joe,” Calendar said. “Maybe we can get you into a pair of shorts, huh? Hey, it’s Miami. Loosen up a little.”

  Joe the Courier sniffed, a jolt of amusement. “I’ll see if I got some in my car.” He cut his eyes to the hawk-nosed man, to communicate that they had a joker at the table with them.

  “Hey, so you live around here?” Calendar said. “I’m thinking of getting a place in Miami myself. Maybe you can help me out, show me the good neighborhoods.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” Joe the Courier stared at Calendar, confounded.

  “So, you really a courier?”

  “Yeah.”

  Calendar nodded approvingly, as if this were a wonderful profession.

  Maheu interrupted. “Mr. Calendar?” He aimed his manicured nails across the table. “And this is Sam Gold.”

  This one ran the show, Calendar decided, shaking hands with the man beside him. The eyes, the casual dress, the seat at the head of the table. Sam Gold said, “How’d you do on the fight?”

  “I don’t gamble.”

  “No? Too bad. If you change your mind, I can get you set up.”

  “I’m sure. How’d you do?”

  Sam Gold chuckled. Roselli, too. “Good,” Gold said. “Fucking good. That moolie Patterson. You can’t keep him on the mat. You’d hafta shoot him, for Chrissakes.”

  Joe the Courier pushed up his glasses and interrupted Sam’s clucking over his winnings. “Before we get going, I’d like to know the connection here. Who knows who?”

  Big Roselli answered: “I’ll go first. I met Bob Maheu out in Vegas two years ago. We hung out, broke some bread, he seemed okay. Then it turns out he’s Howard Hughes’s righthand guy. Then, when I was in LA once, I gave him a call. We hooked up, did some
lunches and got to be pals. One time I was at his house for one of them clambakes he throws.”

  Maheu cut in, “I used to live in Maine and we did this all the time. Buckets of lobsters and steamers, plenty of liquor.”

  “Sounds great,” said Sam Gold, still expansive.

  Maheu kept going. “Anyway, I heard Johnny was in town so we invited him. At the party he met one of my pals, Sheff Edwards. Sheff checked Johnny out and was impressed with his resume and”—Maheu indicated Sam Gold and Joe the Courier— “connections.”

  “Edwards is CIA,” Roselli said. “We talked a little about this and that. Next thing I know, I get a call from Bob saying Edwards wants me to put together a sit-down.”