by Jose Latour
“You believe Batista’s finished?” Lansky asked Di Constanzo after swallowing most of his antacid and belching.
“Yes, Meyer. I’m sorry—I know he’s a lifelong friend of yours, and that thanks to him we’re in business here, but all that mustn’t make us close our eyes to reality.”
Lansky turned to Grouse. “Marvin, you share Nick’s opinion?”
Grouse had his noncommittal response ready. “I never get to first base in politics, Mr. Lansky. Maybe Nick is right, I don’t know.”
“What’s your view, Santos?”
Trafficante raised his eyes, crossed his legs, then brushed a lock of straight hair from his forehead with an unconscious movement. His father had bequeathed him the leadership of Tampa’s organized crime after having taught him how to restrain ambitions, make deals, share influences, and escape legal nets like an eel. He would have been the valedictorian of his class, had a class existed, and his brains had propelled him to the national hierarchy as the Florida representative. Following Anastasia’s murder on October 28, 1957, he had asked for the floor at the Appalachin crime convention and speculated that maybe those interested in wresting casino gambling in Cuba from the hands of Lansky and Costello might share the fortune of the executed executioner. Frank Hogan, district attorney in the Anastasia murder trial, subpoenaed Trafficante. Under oath, the head of Casino Deauville expressed his dismay over the assassination and his total ignorance of motives.
“I wrote off Batista last March, when American arms sales stopped,” Trafficante said. “But I believe that whoever comes after him will respect our interests. Army brass takes over, everything will stay just like it is; rebels win, same thing. Tourism is the second industry here; no government or union will fuck with investors that build modern hotels, create jobs for the natives, and bring in thousands of tourists who leave their dough here. We ought to expand now.”
“I see. Joe?”
“I share Santos’s view, Mr. Lansky,” was Bischoff’s succinct reply.
Lansky sipped the remaining digestive, placed the glass on a coffee table, and carried on with his survey.
“Lefty?”
The Las Vegas veteran sighed, then shook his head as if reluctant to express what he was about to say. “Jesus, Meyer, this is paradise! Money rolls in by the truckloads. I still can’t believe my place recovered installation costs, seventy-five grand, in the first two nights! Climate is nice, dames are gorgeous—I wouldn’t like to leave, ever. But suppose the next government gets messy, huh? A fifty or sixty percent tax on profits would affect us, ’cause capital recovery is based on present profit levels. Even if we keep double sets of books we’d have to bribe a lot of people, which hurts profits too. I mean, what do we lose if we wait one more year? See what happens before committing such a bundle?”
“Okay. Tom?” Lansky said.
“I think Nick may be right,” Magenty began. “Nothing seems to stop the rebels, but the fact that our government cut off military supplies in March clinched it for me. Chances are Dulles advised Ike to sever ties with Batista to win points with the opposition. I’ve been told Cuban Army buyers are roaming the world purchasing Sea Fury planes from the British, rifles from Trujillo, Uzis from the Israelis....”
“So?” Lansky pressed on. He didn’t want the weapons issue aired. Nobody in the room knew that he had arranged the contacts with Tel Aviv arms dealers and was getting commissions from them.
“Perhaps we should wait a while, Mr. Lansky,” Magenty concluded.
“Yeah, well, let’s take a count,” Lansky said. “Nick, Lefty, and Tom don’t think this is the right time; Santos wants to go ahead, an opinion shared by Joe and Eddie. Isn’t that so, Eddie?”
Galuzzo nodded gravely when all eyes focused on him.
“Marvin hasn’t got an opinion. So, it’s three against, three for, one undecided,” Lansky summarized. Then he lit a cigarette, blew out smoke, and, while looking at the gray sky, devoted a few seconds to remembering that one of the prerequisites of leadership was to inure oneself to criticism. So once again he coolly pondered the issue from every possible angle as, moving somehow among his neurons, business considerations beat down the anger of having had his authority challenged. Those present knew from experience he’d give his reasons before taking sides.
“I have faith in this country,” he began. “Cuba will become the U.S. playground because of its beaches, casinos, hookers, music, and national spirit. I understand Nick, but I side with Santos, Joe, and Eddie. Who wins is irrelevant in these little wars, because all the winners want is to become millionaires as quickly as they can. And to get there they can do many things, except one: upset Uncle Sam. Cuban politicians have got to respect, protect, and attract American capital. But ours is in casinos and hotels. Under a different government the damn moralists, or those who pretend to be so, will preach that gambling corrupts people, and they’ll stand in our way. I don’t buy that, but even if it’s true, the Cubans already were pretty corrupted when we got here.”
Lansky dragged on the cigarette. He forced twin streams of smoke out through his nostrils as he snuffed the butt in the ashtray.
“When we opened the Parisién, the four Cuban-owned casinos were always crammed. Besides, there was the weekly state lottery, plus four numbers rackets with daily draws in Havana. Now these same four boliteros draw three times a day—can you believe it? There were horses, dogs, cockfights, and jai alai. Bets on baseball games and prizefights were anybody’s guess. Newspapers raffled homes and cars, soap manufacturers hid prizes in the damn bars, Havana was choking on pinball machines, and if two Cubans had a drink in a bar, they rolled dice to decide who would pick up the check. At home, people played every conceivable game, from dominoes and bingo to poker. Street punks bet on nearly everything: the last number on the plates of the next car to cruise by, a cop’s badge number, you name it. The whole fucking country gambled, for Chrissake! Right now, here in Havana, you know my estimate for the World Series winner? A dollar per person, believe it or not. And they bet another dollar on each new game. Did we corrupt them in a couple of years? Don’t make me laugh.”
But Lansky smiled and shook his head so facetiously to affect disbelief that the others chuckled.
“However, we should look far ahead. The next political bosses might label us the Mafiosi, the gangsters. Maybe they want to score with Hoover and deport some of us, repeat what they did to Lucky in ’49, on trumped-up charges, of course. In fact, word is the arms embargo is our fault. The old faggot is mad because he can no longer get at us, so he asked Ike to sever ties with the present government. Batista refuses to budge, but if he finds himself in a very tight spot, has to negotiate, he’d give us time to readjust, name figureheads.”
Marvin Grouse saw the scale tilt and started nodding in agreement every few seconds. By showing that he was going along with Lansky’s view, he hoped to hide from everybody the fact that ten minutes earlier his boss’s defiance had terrified him. Nick Di Constanzo groaned inwardly; the about-face of his newly appointed hall supervisor badly dented the respect he felt for the guy.
“So, maybe it’s not such a bad idea to wait six more months before making a decision on expansion,” Lansky concluded. “The winter season will be over, the next president will have ruled for a few months, or, if Nick’s predictions come true, either the military or the rebels will be in power. In the meantime, we ought to bring in some new faces, people with a clean sheet who front for us. If a crusade against the bad guys were organized, they’d be in the clear. Whaddaya think?”
During the brief silence that followed, all eyes focused on Trafficante.
“Okay,” the Deauville boss said. Joe Bischoff said he was in agreement. Eddie Galuzzo nodded for the second time.
Approving comments by Di Constanzo closed the subject. Stress dissolved into small talk. Then Lansky announced his intention of taking a nap. The rest got up to leave.
…
The debriefing session was taking place at a
bar which was a rather extended enticement to liquor ingestion. Ninety feet long—seventy-five in a straight line parallel to Ánimas Street, the rest at right angles on both ends—it offered rotating ebony stools, a polished brass rail, and spittoons to its carefree clientele. For years the mahogany top had been saturated with spills of all kinds of distilled products, plus overflows of soda pops, water, and beer, that barmen had wiped clean a million times, unwittingly giving it a delicate gloss. Behind the bar were six stainless-steel sinks, ice chests, space for empty bottles, and shelves for cigars, cigarettes, matches, and condoms.
Moving on wooden platforms laid between the sinks and an enormous eighteen-door refrigerator on whose top stood over a thousand bottles, the bartenders revealed a sense of space comparable to that possessed by blind people. Among the multitude of possible choices, their hands would immediately close on the particular liquor ordered, no small feat considering that only three or four bottles of each brand were kept over the backbar. Among connoisseurs, Sloppy Joe’s was rated the best-stocked bar in Cuba, and should an argument demand immediate elucidation, the antagonists would visit the place and ask for a bottle of Tres Raposos brandy or Glommen’s aquavit. These were rare items, so the barman would snoop around for a few seconds, then flex his arm suddenly and settle the dispute.
At the corner farthest from the Zulueta entrance, Green Chips made his report in a normal tone, forearms resting on the counter, a Tres Ceros-and-soda highball in front of him. To his left, Arturo Heller and Melchor Loredo, wearing lousy suits, held Cuba libres. To his right, the smoke spiraling from a La Corona cigarette added another gray tone to Mariano Contreras’s hair. Fermín Rodríguez had his eyes on the Bauzá cigar that he spun between thumb and forefinger. They all seemed deeply engrossed in what was being recounted, and their glasses remained almost full.
“… the guards, like always. One by the front door, another by the lobby door, the third by the nightclub door, the fourth moving around. They never leave their posts except to take a leak, and then the guy making the rounds stands in the empty spot. Oh, I forgot, there was a new hall supervisor; maybe the other guy is on vacation or sick, I don’t know. Around one-fifteen both cashiers start their shop-closing routine and right then the front-door guard moves a little to his left....”
Valentín Rancañ—Meringue in Havana gaming circles—was recounting his fourth reconnaissance of the Casino de Capri in three months. The one-hundred-by-forty-foot rectangle behind those at the bar was packed with customers gabbing loudly to make themselves heard. The square-shaped central columns and the walls were covered with photographs of visiting celebrities, most of them in black and white, the ones of screen stars colored in with brush strokes. Wooden-bladed ceiling fans circulated the fresh air flowing in through gratings that faced the sidewalks, thus cooling off patrons, waiters, and discreet peddlers of maracas, porno photos, lottery tickets, hand-woven palm leaf hats, and little Cuban flags.
Although tourism was Sloppy Joe’s main source of income, enough locals had made it their favorite watering hole to provide a vernacular atmosphere. Wearing starched white drill trousers and linen guayaberas, as they downed rum or ice-cold beer, munched olives, roasted peanuts, or slices of cheese, most Cuban male customers swapped jokes and made wild boasts about their sexual prowess in a Spanish sprinkled with slang.
A wide diversity of professions, cultures, personal beliefs, and political ideas spawned affinities among lawyers and judges, wooing couples, politicians exchanging sophisms, hardened whores counseling their nubile replacements, tourist guides talking shop. Contrasts also stood out: a classical composer playing castanets, a 105-pound jockey sitting by a retired 240-pound heavyweight prizefighter, an eight-year-old boy guiding a blind elderly beggar, a bookie chatting to a priest in lay clothes, poets rhapsodizing over the raw expressiveness of an illiterate marijuana pusher, a court clerk playing dice with a professional pickpocket. The passage of time and liquor consumption made some initial attractions evolve into rejections, just as certain early repulsions became friendships in the long run. All this, plus the unmistakable smell of burning Cuban cigars and cigarettes, and the taste of Cuba libres, mojitos, and daiquiris, created a tangible, authentic Cuban environment which attracted inquisitive foreigners looking for the true thing.
“… then this American looks like a carrot came over and said they were closing in a few minutes and that he liked my system—”
“Damn it, Meringue!” Contreras said through clenched teeth, holding back fury.
“What’s the matter, Ox? Damn who?” the scout retorted.
“I told you not to attract attention, buddy.”
“Yeah, and you gave me sixty pesos. How the hell you think I can stretch sixty pesos for nearly three hours if I don’t play it right? Give me some leeway, for God’s sake.”
There was a moment of silence among the group. Contreras clicked his tongue, shook his head resignedly, then sipped from his glass.
“What else did the guy say?” Heller asked.
“Nothing else,” Meringue continued. “I picked up my chips and went to cash them in. The safe was closed, both briefcases ready. I guess they keep a small fund there and the rest of the mazuma goes up. The money ride after closing time was the same as always.”
“We don’t know what goes on when a high roller plays after hours,” the bald man said.
“Can’t find out everything, Gallego,” Contreras butted in. “Besides, the supervisor can write a check if the sucker hits the jackpot and there’s not enough cash on hand.”
A fresh pause developed. The conspirators looked the place over as they drank and smoked. There were bursts of laughter, bear hugs, and backslaps among a nearby group. The frantic rattling of dice inside leather dice cups could be heard. Heated arguments went on about the fourth World Series game, which had taken place that Sunday, October 5, in New York.
“Stupid,” a miffed Heller muttered.
“Who?” Loredo asked.
Heller tilted his head to the side, to a Milwaukee fan basking in his team’s victory. The others decided to take a break.
“Milwaukee didn’t win the game, the Yankees lost it. Siebern lost it, not the Yankees,” Heller fumed.
“Yeah, the poor guy had a bad day,” Loredo said as he returned his empty glass to the bar.
“‘Poor guy’? ‘Bad day’? C’mon, Wheel, you know better than that. Right now the motherfucker is counting the dough the fixer gave him. Any eight-year-old kid on my block would’ve fielded Schoendienst’s fly in the sixth; not Siebern— he ‘got confused’ and turned it into a triple. Same thing with Spahn’s fly in the seventh: another hit. In the eighth he lost Logan’s liner and it went for a double. Anybody can bungle it, but three straight errors by a Major League left fielder in the same game? Fuck off, man.”
“Nah, it’s too much, Abo,” Meringue said. “Player who sells out drops one ball, not three. They’d kill him.”
“Hey, buddy, those three errors gave Milwaukee three runs,” a scowling Heller said. “I guess tonight he’ll bunk with New York’s police chief to stay alive. Can you imagine how much dough changed hands on account of Siebern’s ‘bad day’?”
Sipping their drinks, Contreras and Fermín kept aloof from the discussion.
“How’s Liberata?” the gray-haired man asked.
Fermín smiled before replying. “I came straight from her place. Had lunch with her today. She’s fine.”
Contreras nodded, sighed, then addressed the whole group. “Okay, gentlemen, let’s get back to business. Tonight I’ll introduce myself at the casino; tomorrow we go in. The day the Series is over we make our move. The least you go out, the better; cops are edgy with so many bombs and get nasty when they see two or three men together in the streets.”
He drained his glass and placed it on the bartop, then inspected the other four jailbirds in a huge mirror over the refrigerator. Did those guys possess the right mix of experience, skill, courage, and ambition to pull off the
job? He wasn’t sure, but they were the best he knew.
“Abo, call me at eight tomorrow morning.”
“Sharp,” acquiesced the youngest with a smile.
“Okay, fellows, see you.”
It was 5:32 P.M.
…
Four and a half hours later, Contreras was pacing around Casino de Capri, looking hesitant. He wore a three-piece, ten-year-old brown suit custom-made for someone else from excellent cashmere. In his left hand he held a Borsalino trilby manufactured in 1935; in his right, a superb Cinco Vegas cigar burned evenly.
Interested observation was nothing out of the ordinary in the casino. Frequently people went in, looked around, then left without betting a penny. Well aware that curiosity is the first encouraging sign, casino managers restricted onlookers only on packed evenings. For the past months, though, there hadn’t been many night crawlers in Havana.
Grouse, Jimmy Brun, and the guards had noticed the quaint-looking Contreras. The man’s obvious lack of sophistication, old-fashioned clothing, and wince of mild repugnance intrigued them. They suspected him of being a square snooping around before pulling his cash out.
After brief stops at the baccarat, craps, and blackjack tables, Contreras spent almost half an hour keenly observing the four roulettes. Suddenly, as if he had just made a decision, he lifted his head and gazed about, searching for someone or something, then approached the cashier’s glassed-in box. A man too young to look after so much money smiled at him.
“May I be of assistance to you, sir?” the cashier said in Spanish, his accent barely noticeable.
“Yeah, I’d like to talk to the owner of this joint.”
The cashier called a guard, who led Contreras to Marvin Grouse. The hall supervisor summoned José Guzmán, a Cuban inspector who dropped out of George Washington University’s law school in 1952, spoke good English, and served as unofficial interpreter when necessary.