by Jose Latour
“Señor Peraza and his scion,” a smiling José Guzmán said. “Welcome. Make your bet, Señor Tony. And good luck.”
…
Las Delicias de Medina was an old-fashioned bar-restaurant on the brink of collapse. For many years the old Reina Mercedes Hospital had provided 90 percent of its clientele. Patients and their relatives abounded, but so did doctors and nurses, paramedics, ambulance drivers, lab technicians, and funeral-home staff. Las Delicias was the closest eatery to their place of work. During its golden years—the forties—two shifts of cooks, waiters, barmen, and lunch-counter attendants were kept busy eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. But in 1955 the medical institution had moved to a new building a mile away and the old building had been razed. The choice open lot—two and a half acres flanked by Twenty-third, Twenty-first, L, and K Streets, in the heart of what was rapidly becoming the new downtown Havana—waited for investors ready to fork out several million dollars. Complicating matters further, half a block away a recently inaugurated self-service cafeteria sucked in most people in the vicinity with tasty, low-priced dishes.
The dismayed owner of Las Delicias, a Spaniard from Valencia, tried to cope by extending service hours, pampering the dwindling numbers of loyal patrons, and praying to Our Lady of Montesa for her kind intercession. Unable to see the transformation taking place all around him, he hadn’t grasped that with checkered tablecloths on square cedar tables, areca palms in concrete jardinières, antiquated ceiling fans, and traditional Spanish cooking, the place was condemned.
By 11:12 P.M., Valentín Rancaño joined Fermín Rodríguez and Melchor Loredo at one of the tables on the cool terrace overlooking L Street. From there they could keep an eye on a ’56 blue-and-white Ford Victoria parked by the curb on Twenty-first Street. On the wall, a pay phone discreetly served time. Four poorly laid out fluorescent tubes provided lighting.
Contreras had earlier tried to convince them that it made sense to be there three hours ahead of hit time. They’d all gaped at him. “For God’s sake, Ox. Three hours doing nothing in that place?” had been the mildest comment, made by Fermín. But the team leader had decreed they had to be there at eleven. Fermín ordered paella, a dish that required at least one hour to prepare. Meanwhile they would nibble canned salted anchovies and sip beer. As soon as the waiter who served them the fish rolls and filled their glasses with Cristal retired, Fermín warned his companions:
“Easy on the blonde, guys. Let’s nurse this one till the paella is served and then we’ll order another. No more.”
By 11:17, Heller had only 235 pesos in chips left. Restless and worried, he dried the palms of his hands on his trousers. He felt like standing up and getting the hell out. As he bet five pesos on red, ten on the second dozen, five on pair, and five on the 31-32-34-35 block, he wondered how people would react if the polio victim suddenly rose from his wheelchair, nodded to those nearby, and with his best smile and long, graceful strides walked out of the casino. To cleanse his mind of impure thoughts, he watched as the ivory ball slid along the groove.
Contreras’s gaze roved about the hall with a lack of interest bordering on contempt. He saw Jimmy Brun whispering to several attendants, who nodded, said something to the players, and resumed their work as the customers exchanged a few words. Contreras knitted his brow. The chief inspector finally reached his and Heller’s table and for ten or fifteen seconds murmured to Barry Caldwell and Willy Pi, then left. The dealer addressed the physician first, in English, before turning to Abo and Contreras.
“Gentlemen, in mourning for His Holiness, Pope Pius the Twelfth, the house shall close at midnight,” he said in a passable Spanish in which a Portuguese cadence could be felt.
Heller’s lower jaw fell in amazement, his hands knocked down his chips, and nobody noticed the jerky movements of his legs only because they were under the table. “What did you say?” he roared. Contreras’s right hand gripped the muscles on Heller’s collarbone.
“The Pope passed away, sir,” Willy Pi replied patiently, as if talking to a mentally retarded person. “All over the city public places are closing in mourning, and the casino will do the same.”
“It can’t be!” Heller exclaimed. Contreras’s thumb and forefinger dug into him unmercifully. The ball fell on 17.
“Easy, son, take it easy,” the tobacco grower advised. “Breathe deeply. He’s … a devout Catholic. Get him a glass of water, quick. Breathe deeply, son, deeply.”
The physician had a puzzled expression. The inspector snapped his fingers at a waiter and mouthed the word “water.” Willy Pi recovered and raked the casino earnings in. Heller managed to control himself and began gasping. Willy Pi raked the winnings out. The waiter presented a glass of water to the invalid. With shaking hands Heller gulped down a mouthful, before lifting his eyes to Contreras.
“I guess we should leave, Dad. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah. We’ll go call your doctor,” Contreras said as he pulled back the wheelchair.
“Your chips, sir,” said Willy Pi.
The distressed father’s indecision lasted one second. “Leave them at the desk. The clerks know our room number,” he said, and then resumed pushing the wheelchair toward the door opening into the hotel lobby.
The three men at Las Delicias de Medina had made desultory attempts at conversation, but had no real interest in talk. They were nibbling at the anchovies and sipping beer when at 11:26 the pay phone rang. Fermín Rodríguez glanced at his watch, got up from his chair fully convinced the call had nothing to do with them, and answered. From a distance, the waiter stared at him.
“Hello,” he said.
“Gallego?”
“Ox?”
“Everything moves forward two hours, everything. Get your ass here right now.”
“Whaddaya mean ‘right now’?”
“I mean the Pope died on us and the place is closing at midnight. In mourning. We have to move it forward two hours.”
“Cojones.”
“The others there?”
“Sure.”
“Get going, Gallego.”
Contreras hung up, closed his eyes, sighed deeply, then opened the folding door of one of the two phone booths in the lobby.
“Doctor’s on his way,” he told Heller before propelling the wheelchair to the main entrance with an unhurried stride. He stopped five yards away. By flexing two fingers and nodding, he beckoned the man in the absurd uniform to come closer. Staring at the gasping paralytic, the doorman complied. Contreras handed him a five-peso bill.
“My son’s not feeling well. I just asked his doctor to come over. He’s a short bald man. He’ll be here in ten or fifteen minutes. Please, show him to the elevator and remind him we’re in suite 406.”
“Suite 406,” the attendant repeated as he pocketed the bill. “Get well, sir,” he said to Heller.
Loredo and Rancaño were left speechless and gaped at each other. The handsome light-skinned Negro felt something in his chest. The white man with the acne scars judged what had happened a bad omen.
“What a coincidence,” Rancaño mumbled.
“This new schedule …,” Loredo said, doubtingly.
Fermín barged in. “‘This new schedule’ nothing. It’s the same plan. Let’s not futz around. Look on the bright side: We’ll finish earlier. Waiter—hey, waiter!”
Fermín paid the bill and tipped the waiter, muttering something about an accident. Rancaño and Loredo were still stunned as they left. All three boarded the vehicle and Loredo eased it out from the curb.
“Tune in to Radio Reloj,” said Fermín from the backseat.
Rancaño turned on the radio and spun the dial in haste. The station had a unique pattern: Two newscasters broadcast news and commercials 24/7 over a clock’s monotonous tick-tock. Loredo took a right onto M Street, crossed Twenty-third, and drove into the parking lot of a funeral home. He killed the lights first, then cut the engine as Fermín stripped off his jacket, tie, and shirt. From a shopping bag, the b
ald man extracted a white short-sleeved smock, worked himself into it, slipped the jacket back on.
“Okay. Open up the trunk, Wheel,” he said, pulling the left-door handle.
Keys in hand, Loredo stepped out and did as told. Fermín recovered a black leather doctor’s bag from the compartment. Holding it with his left hand, he closed the trunk lid and, followed by Loredo, approached Rancaño’s passenger window.
“Give me ten mi—”
“Shh. Listen!”
“… the Sovereign Pontiff suffered a severe hiccup attack on October fourth at the papal residence of Castel Gandolfo, then sustained a brain hemorrhage on the fifth and fell in coma. We repeat: Around ten o’clock tonight, His Holiness Pope Pius the Twelfth—”
“Turn it off,” Fermín snapped.
Rancaño complied. “What a coincidence,” he commented, still bewildered.
“It’s not a trap,” Fermín said. “Give me ten minutes. Meringue … Well, you know your part. How do I look?”
“Like a broke chiropractor,” Rancaño quipped with the trace of a smile.
“Chiropractor I’m not; broke I am. Let’s see if I can improve my financial situation soon. See you.”
In the suite, once Contreras closed the door, Heller bolted from the wheelchair as if he had been sitting on nails, then started vigorously rubbing and slapping his legs. He was abashed.
“Sorry, Ox,” he said.
“Put your gloves on.”
“I … lost control; it was like after we had just blown out the candles somebody was taking the cake away.”
“It’s over. Put your gloves on. Let’s wipe the wheelchair clean.”
While they were at it, Contreras said he felt certain the money would go up, as always, between ten and twenty minutes after closing time.
“What’s this mourning act? These people don’t give a damn,” Heller said. They were sliding a rag over the main door.
“It’s public relations. Others close, especially musical shows, and they run a nightclub.”
“If you hadn’t asked the boys to … Hey, man, are you clairvoyant or something?”
“Fuck clairvoyants. I learned from my own failures that on big jobs everybody, and I mean everybody, has to be in his place three hours before the hit. That way you slip into your role gradually and if a factor changes you have time to react.”
“Anyway, it’s pretty spooky.”
“Yeah, supernatural. I’ll cast out the spirit—boooo. Let’s get ready, for Chrissake.”
The gear was moved downstairs, the shotguns placed on the red couch, the holsters slipped on belts. Heller moved the sheaves of strings to the pockets of his pants; the pillowcases went into the inner breast pockets of his jacket. Contreras did the same with the pillow linings.
“Gotta take a leak,” the older man said, and marched to the living room bathroom. Once Contreras came out, Heller relieved himself. He was reentering the living room zipping up his fly when someone knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” Contreras asked.
“It’s Doctor Benítez, Señor Peraza.”
Contreras and Fermín shared a smile. Heller embraced the short man, kissed his bald head, called him brother. Gallego looked the place over, said something about the good life, then described the shock of the team members waiting at Las Delicias. Heller recounted his own confusion so vividly that Fermín guffawed over the palm of his hand.
“Gentlemen, it’s eleven forty-four,” Contreras admonished.
Fermín wiped his tearful eyes dry with a handkerchief, placed the bag on the seat of an armchair, and, still smiling, opened it. He slipped on gloves first, then drew out a stethoscope, a sphygmomanometer, and a thick, cotton-plugged test tube containing a five-cc syringe and several hypodermic needles.
“Tell me, Gallego, in all confidence, is this your secret, lifelong ambition? As a kid, did you dream of becoming a doctor?” Heller asked.
From under a white napkin where all the medical paraphernalia had rested, Fermín removed three identical Frankenstein rubber masks, which he dropped on another armchair. Then he unbuckled his belt, tucked the smock’s flaps under the waist of his pants, and buckled up. A Luger Parabellum from the bag went to his waistband. The medical supplies returned to where they’d been.
“I’m ready,” he said.
At 11:46, Valentín Rancaño entered the Capri’s lobby holding a rolled-up copy of Prensa Libre in his right hand, approached the desk, and asked for a room. Ten minutes later he had registered as Eduardo Blanco and paid fifteen pesos; the key to room 1211 and a receipt were in his pocket. Having confided to the desk clerk that he was waiting for a lady, he approached the same armchair he had occupied five nights earlier, unfolded the newspaper, and began spying on the casino door.
The same two men with briefcases came through it at 12:03 and swaggered to the bank of elevators, followed by two security guards. All four shared the cheerful expression of staff members who’d just received an unexpected, paid reduction in their working hours. Two and a half minutes later the guards reentered the casino. Rancaño let thirty more seconds slip by, then approached a phone booth, dialed the hotel’s switchboard, and asked for suite 406.
“Hello,” answered Heller.
“Sorry, wrong room,” Rancaño said, and broke the connection.
Heller returned the receiver to the cradle, looked at his buddies, nodded. Contreras reached for a shotgun, opened his jacket, placed the butt under his sweaty armpit, and held the weapon by both barrels. He buttoned the jacket with his left hand; only the tip of the bayonet was visible. Heller did the same. Fermín handed them the masks, which were quickly pocketed. The three men approached the suite’s main door. Contreras turned the lights off.
Heller operated the handle. Fermín checked the deserted hall, then nodded. They went past the elevator doors and pushed a swinging door to the service staircase. Fermín ascended a few steps to the fifth-floor landing. Contreras and Heller trotted down to the third-floor landing. Heller guessed the sphygmomanometer would read 300 if he strapped it to his arm.
…
Every night, Di Constanzo’s last routine was visiting the office to read and approve the casino and nightclub gross-intake reports, oversee the net results of the sport bets, then close both the safe and the office. Once in a while, when he felt like it, Di Constanzo requested a cash up from the four subordinates, who had everything ready by the time he got there. Since his stand-in had to be well acquainted with the procedure if for some reason he wasn’t available, the hall supervisor always accompanied him to the safest place in the building.
The two men entered the lobby from the casino at 12:14 and ambled over to the elevators, keeping their eyes on the floor scale. Di Constanzo wore a tuxedo over a dazzlingly white shirt. The smoke billowing from his cigarette coiled around him, giving a bluish tint to his aristocratic appearance. At his side, Grouse brought to mind a bad rent-a-suit ad.
From his armchair, Rancaño sighed to release tension. An elevator door dinged and slid open; the two men entered the cage. The attendant pressed a button, turned the lever, and the brightly illuminated metal box went up to the fourth floor.
Di Constanzo and Grouse stepped out, turned left, and went through the swinging door. They took a second left before reaching the service stairway, ascended nine steps to the mezzanine, then turned right into a carpeted hallway, at the end of which a security grille safeguarded a closed wooden door.
Grouse thought he heard something—carpet-muffled steps, the rustling of cloth—so he turned his head, and registered a human form out of the corner of his eye. Without breaking stride, he turned a little to his left to confirm that it was a hotel employee. There were only offices in the mezzanine; it would have been unusual to find a guest in it. Grouse stopped dead on his tracks when he saw the three men behind him.
“Nick,” he called.
Di Constanzo slowed down, swung around to look behind him, froze. The shortest of the masked marauders swiftly
faced the casino boss, stuck the muzzle of a Parabellum in his chest, and in understandable English said:
“The keys.”
The tallest of the three men pushed Grouse against the wall and positioned the tip of a bayonet under his double chin. The hall supervisor felt the cold tickle of the metal, gaped at the mask that was less than fifteen inches away from him, and felt fear worming out of its hideout at the back of his mind.
Di Constanzo was not a coward. He had fought ferociously in Nantes during World War I and had risked his life for the Commission many times. Three punks wearing ridiculous masks did not intimidate him.
“The keys,” the short man insisted, poking Di Constanzo with the muzzle.
“No, peewee, I ain’t giving you no fucking keys,” Di Constanzo deadpanned as he shook his head.
Grouse’s Frankenstein didn’t know a word of English, but having heard “No” twice, he made a sudden upward thrust. The bayonet went through skin, tongue, and the palatine and cranial cavities as if piercing a loaf of white bread. The left parietal bone finally stopped it. The hall supervisor hopped, his eyeballs bulged out, broken nerve connections lost control, sphincters yielded. Urine and excrement gushed freely, the body jerked convulsively, and life fled away in a whirlwind of contradictory impulses. The executioner pulled the shotgun free and a ludicrously small stain of blood, saliva, and cephalic fluid flowed over the victim’s shirt as his body collapsed to the floor.
“The keys,” the short raider snapped.
Shocked by the brutality of the murder, Di Constanzo realized these guys were playing very hard ball and had to be taken seriously. It suddenly dawned on him that he didn’t want to die. Not yet. And not for this reason. His hand went into his left trouser pocket and produced a key ring.