Havana World Series

by Jose Latour

  A second split occurred, this time 313,500 two ways, and greed eased anxiety. Fermín left to buy what he’d need for stashing his cut; Contreras planned ahead. He forced a contraction of his rectum to feel the stainless-steel, bullet-shaped, made-to-order hollow receptacle where, tightly folded, lay the receipt for the double-bottomed suitcase stored at the warehouse.

  His mind searched for a second hiding place. There was this mausoleum built by a rich and now extinct Spanish family at Cementerio de Colón, whose last burial took place in 1921. The vault had an ornamental amphora where in 1944 he’d concealed six handguns and eleven sticks of dynamite in a well-preserved package. Ten years later, after his pardon, he’d found everything in perfect condition. But nowadays it was pretty risky to visit the cemetery: Police used it as a secret dumping ground for murdered revolutionaries.

  Contreras decided he ought to search for a spot as close as possible to the mental clinic—maybe the abandoned old residence two hundred yards away. It probably had nooks and crannies he could check over as often as he wanted to; one or two containers could be buried there. He also had to buy a secondhand car. Change his appearance, too—dye his hair, shave his mustache off. Teresa came to his mind. Being a beautician by profession, she could help him; a three-year steady relationship made him trust her.

  Anxious to get going, he impatiently paced up and down the ground floor for a half hour and smoked two cigarettes. Fermín came back at 8:25 A.M. He carried a bulging leather portfolio holding four roast beef sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, a five-cent cellophane package of ground coffee, and a small paper bag full of sugar; they had breakfast in a hurry. Later, standing by the front door ready to face the risks of broad daylight, Fermín searched Contreras’s eyes before voicing his thoughts.

  “Listen, you know there’s no spoon for us up there,” he said, alluding to their shared intention of never going back to the Havana prison on top of a hill, overlooking the Cuban capital.

  “I know.”

  “We should stay in touch; agree on some sort of meeting.”

  Contreras didn’t like it, and remained silent.

  “Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean we ought to bunch together,” Fermín pressed on. “It’s just to … find out if one of us learned anything the other doesn’t know, if someone needs help.”

  The gray-haired man wanted to make a categorical refusal without insulting his partner and didn’t know how. His gaze roved from one place to another with something approaching patience. Fermín realized what his pal was thinking.

  “Okay, Ox. Anyway, just in case, the new National Library opened a few weeks back at the Civic Plaza—it’s nearly empty most of the time.”

  “You sound like a damn bookworm.”

  “Cut the crap. I’ll be there on Fridays, between five and six P.M., for the next two months. Ground-floor reading room, left wing.”

  “I don’t think you’ll see me there.”

  “It’s up to you. Let’s blow now. Good luck.”

  “Same to you, Gallego. Say hello to Liberata for me when you see her, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  …

  At 8:51 A.M. that same morning, once he’d finished a steamy cup of espresso, Colonel Orlando Grava nodded his assent solemnly. The aide considered this authorization to report on the minor matters handled by subordinates while their boss had seized $100,000 worth of cocaine from a jewelry store on Prado Promenade; the morning papers called it “a stunning blow to drug trafficking.” Grava lit a Rey del Mundo cigar as the second lieutenant in regulation blue began reading from a clipboard. Twenty seconds later he had Grava’s full attention.

  “… finding two cadavers that, according to the NIC fingerprint archives, belong to (1) Wilberto Pires, Caucasian, twenty-six years of age, of Portuguese citizenship, admitted to Cuba on January 11, 1958, holder of a specialist certificate issued by the Ministry of Labor, employee of Casino de Capri, S.A., whose other vital statistics remain at the moment unknown, and (2) Elias Naguib, Caucasian, fifty-th—”

  “WHO?” Grava bellowed.

  The aide, like most aides a coward, backed up a step. Fearing the wrath of his lord, he lowered his eyes to the name typed on the page.

  “It says here ‘Elias Naguib,’ Colonel, sir.”

  By 11:04, goaded by numerous phone calls from the terrified aide, experts completed a three-page summary which, due to haste, reached Grava with numerous typing errors. The pathologist cited as cause of death for Deceased Number One an encephalorraghia caused by a spent bullet, fired at short range, to judge by the powder traces. Number Two had bled to death, the consequence of a punctured right carotid artery resulting also from a spent bullet, presumably identical to the one dislodged from the cadaver’s right shoulder, in what could be termed a nonlethal wound.

  Ballistics stated that the .38-caliber slug extracted from the bedroom’s eastern wall was so deformed it had been impossible to determine the firing weapon’s model and manufacturer. The two .32 slugs recovered from (1) the right shoulder of Deceased Number Two and (2) the living room’s south wall had been fired by the Llama pistol with attached silencer found at the premises. The paraffin test done on Deceased Number One was positive. Measured distances and angles followed.

  Dactyloscopy reported that the .32-caliber Llama automatic with attached silencer found in the bedroom had the fingerprints of Deceased Number One. It also reported that, among other fingerprints, on the front door handle and on the bedroom door impressions had been lifted pertaining to former convict Mariano Contreras, aka Ox, Bureau of Investigations record number 1720.

  “Son of a whore,” Grava mumbled.

  Attached to the report were thirty-two 8-by-10 glossy photographs and a provisional hypothesis suggesting that Deceased Number One, while sitting on chair B, had fired against Deceased Number Two, sitting in armchair A. Then Deceased Number One went into the bedroom, where a third unknown person had shot him point-blank.

  “‘Unknown’ my ass,” Grava murmured.

  The dry, matter-of-fact police prose couldn’t hide a measure of surprise when it hypothesized that the third person who walked away probably didn’t know about the 162,500 pesos in cash found in the chest of drawers.

  Grava finished reading the report and scanning the photos shortly before noon. He was alone in his office, a 25-by-20-foot room with two air conditioners in full blast and a set of old-fashioned Mexican office furniture made from carved hardwood and embossed cowhide. Besides the desk and two huge armchairs, a tall glass-fronted bookcase stood behind Grava. There were also two filing cabinets, three aluminum-and-vinyl chairs, and a glass-topped table where a thermos bottle and six clean and upturned demitasses could always be found. A large blotter and an inkstand, two direct lines, an extension, and an intercom were on the cop’s desktop.

  Grava stared at the door facing him. Obviously Naguib and Contreras had pulled off something big, and he didn’t have the faintest idea what it was. Ballistics exonerated the ex-con from responsibility in Naguib’s death, but what if Pires shot the Moor on orders from the man who a minute later murdered him? And what about the money? Obviously, Ox hadn’t known about it. Why did Naguib have such a huge amount there? And nobody could touch a cent! Several witnesses, including the Château’s general manager, signed the draft of the minutes taken. Somebody knocked on the door.

  “Come in.”

  “With your permission, Colonel,” the aide said before coming in.

  “What the fuck’s the matter, Lieutenant?”

  The bootlicker found the courage to enter and closed the door behind him. “The body of a white male was found at a vacant lot on Twenty-seventh Street this morning. Blade wound in the head.”

  “In the head?”

  “Yes sir. Somebody rammed a knife under his chin and it went all the way to the brain.”

  Grava chuckled. “That breaks the mold. Has he been IDed?”

  “His prints are in NIC. An American named Marvin Grouse. He’s registe
red as deputy hall supervisor at Casino de Capri.”

  Grava stared at the aide for half a minute, his eyes reflecting a mind frantically processing information. Out of the effort, a sequence creeped out: Naguib killed by a Casino de Capri dealer, a mid-level executive of the same casino murdered, the mug shots loaned the day before to a compulsive gambler and former minister of Interior. He had acceded to this as part of the usual favor-swapping among batistianos.

  “Listen, Lieutenant. Call Tourism and tell them I wanna know whether last week anything unusual happened at the Capri, the Riviera, and other big casinos. Order them to milk their goats and send me the bucket at noon tomorrow. Got it?”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Call Ureña and tell him he’s to conduct the Château Miramar investigation. Put Garrido and Castillo under him.”

  “Very well.”

  “Phone Dr. Tey’s residence and tell his secretary, or whoever the fuck is taking messages, that we’ll pick up our records at three P.M. sharp.”

  “Very well.”

  “Will you ever say ‘Very bad’ to one of my orders, Lieutenant?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good boy. Now blow.”

  …

  In the master bedroom of the Fifth Avenue residence, Nick Di Constanzo fell silent. Jacob Shaifer presented a hypotensive pill to his boss, who was wearing red silk pajamas and had his back against the headboard of his queen-sized bed. Lansky swallowed the pill with a sip of water. He left the glass on the bedside table and reached for a pack of Pall Malls and a Ronson lighter. The Commission’s ambassador to Cuba tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail as he pondered his next move. He’d just learned that selected casino staff and hotel attendants had unanimously picked two Cuban criminals out from among 111 mug shots as the faking bastards of suite 406.

  Lansky lit the cigarette and returned the pack and the lighter to the bedside table. Knowing that he needed a clear mind to figure out the counteroffensive that could vindicate him, he’d slept placidly. Di Constanzo sat in a chair upholstered in sky-blue moiré. Shaifer, standing, rested his flexed right arm on a long-legged cedar wardrobe that reached the level of his armpit.

  “We gotta find the canary before he dusts out,” Lansky said. “And we gotta do it fast, Nick, so we’ll take it easy. I wanna personally check with you every single person with access to the office, from the Cuban waiters who serve food and drinks to Marvin himself.”

  “Whaddaya mean Marvin?” an amazed Di Constanzo asked.

  “He could’ve been double-crossed by these three creeps at the last moment, to cut him out of his share.”

  “Jesus, Meyer, the man was with us for seventeen years.”

  “Nobody’s excluded, Nick.”

  “So, I’m included.”

  “And myself. The Commission will sit in judgment of us unless we recover the money,” Lansky coolly stated. Then, after a short pause, he added: “But for me, personally, this isn’t so much about the money as who’s behind it.” His lips twisted in a way Shaifer and Di Constanzo had seen many times. It signaled his wish to change the subject. The boss dragged on the cigarette, then stubbed out the butt as he forced twin smoke streams through his nostrils. “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Before I came over,” Di Constanzo said, in the tone of a man readying himself to present the worst of bad news, “the aide to the chief of the Bureau of Investigations called. He left the message that …”

  Di Constanzo glanced at a piece of paper he’d just extracted from a pocket of his sports jacket.

  “… Colonel Orlando Grava wants to have a word with me and would I please call 3-9951? My guess is they found out something. How should I handle it?”

  Lansky, observing the white sheet that the nails of his left hand were scratching, remained silent for a longer time than Di Constanzo expected. Up to a point it was possible to deflect Cuban police. Beyond it, their collaboration or indifference had to be bought, the boss had long ago concluded.

  “Deny what’s deniable,” he instructed. “The man asks if something happened at the office, tell him the lock jammed or snapped or did whatever broken locks do. If they learned about the heist, laugh it off, say it’s an outright lie, unless by some miracle they recovered the money. If they found Marvin’s body, pretend to be surprised, ask when, why, how. We may change course tomorrow, but let’s do that for the moment, till we know what Grava knows and what he wants. And watch your step, Nick: This guy’s no fool.”

  Di Constanzo drove back to the Capri and sent for Bonifacio García, the casino’s lawyer and official interpreter. From his office, Di Constanzo asked García to phone Grava, who informed the lawyer that the body of Marvin Grouse had been found in a vacant lot. The Capri’s top man agreed to visit Bureau headquarters at four o’clock to learn the details.

  He marched into the gray building at the corner of Twenty-third and Thirty-second Streets seventeen minutes late, what he considered the right delay when summoned by a banana republic cop. Sitting in one of the two squeaking Mexican armchairs, he displayed the frigid courtesy of superior people forced to deal with the lower classes and intimated that his cooperation was a tribute to the memory of a trusted subordinate. He said he’d seen Grouse last on the tenth, after the casino closed in mourning for the Pope, and peremptorily demanded to know what had happened.

  Grava belonged to that ilk of men who base their behavior toward others on social hierarchy. Toward his superiors and for the rich and influential, he was all kindness, friendship, and smiles; his equals he treated matter-of-factly; the rest of mankind he crushed under his heels. Given his present position, most of the time he abused and affronted pliant subordinates. However, he restrained the impulse to bully Di Constanzo a little, for even though the old fop clearly wasn’t a superior, he seemed a bit oversized for the “equals” slot.

  In this mood, Grava explained the Bureau’s findings in the Grouse case and suggested robbery as a possible motive. Then the colonel announced that he would question casino employees during the ongoing investigation. A next meeting with Bonifacio García was scheduled, to agree on who would claim the body and whether it would be buried in Cuba or the U.S. It looked as though all essentials had been dealt with when Grava exacted his revenge with certain finesse.

  “Have you experienced any other inconvenience where I can be of assistance, Mr. Di Constanzo?”

  “None whatsoever, Colonel,” Di Constanzo replied through García.

  “Bear in mind that it’s my duty to serve you.”

  “I know that, thanks.”

  Di Constanzo rose to his feet, getting ready to leave. Bonifacio García imitated his client.

  “May I ask a small favor from you?” Grava asked as he also stood.

  “Of course.”

  “Could you instruct one of your dealers to drop by at seven this evening to make a statement?”

  Immediately Di Constanzo realized that something was wrong, but he forced a smile before tossing up his own question.

  “Sure. What’s his name?”

  “Wilberto Pires.”

  “Why him?”

  “A trifling, a small matter he may clear up for us.”

  “Very well, I’ll pass on your summons. Thank you and good-bye.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Di Constanzo.”

  Grava had given careful consideration to which corpse he should momentarily conceal before selecting the dealer’s. He pondered his lower rank in the gaming organization, the man’s inexplicable link to Naguib, and his own need to unearth additional information. The deciding factor, however, had been time. Grouse’s autopsy showed that the man had died at least a day before Pires; possibly Di Constanzo didn’t know he had to cross out a second name on the payroll.

  Grava hit the nail on the head. At 5:20 P.M., Jimmy Brun told Di Constanzo that Willy hadn’t shown up, adding that the dealer missed that morning’s mug-shot session and was apparently sick, since last night he’d left at ten with a splitting headache. Di Cons
tanzo was not easily annoyed, but now he was peeved. With Brun in tow, he drove to the 8 y 19 Hotel, where Pires rented a furnished room by the month. Nobody had seen the dealer since the previous afternoon; his ’53 Pontiac was missing from its usual parking space. The Capri’s top man ordered Brun back to the casino and steered his Lincoln toward Fifth Avenue.

  Lansky was about to get in the backseat of his car for the short ride to the Havana Riviera when Di Constanzo parked in the driveway and asked for a five-minute conference. The Commission’s ambassador to Havana, his bodyguard, and Eddie Galuzzo reentered the mansion, and Lansky eased himself into a nineteenth-century French armchair in the living room. Shaifer and Galuzzo remained standing. By 6:19 Di Constanzo, sitting on a sofa, had finished recounting in plain, concise terms what he’d learned in the last two hours.

  “Bring me ten gees, Jacob,” Lansky ordered the instant Di Constanzo concluded.

  And at seven sharp, having reconsidered his perception of proper delay when summoned by a banana republic cop, Di Constanzo laid on Grava’s desk a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills bound with two rubber bands.

  “Mr. Di Constanzo wants to anonymously donate ten thousand dollars to the Retirement and Pensions Commission of the Cuban National Police,” Bonifacio García said with a knowing smile. “He’ll consider it an honor if a superior officer as upright and honest as yourself would serve as intermediary.”

  “I express my profound admiration for such a noble gesture,” an immutable Grava declared.

  “If our recollection is precise,” the lawyer went on, “this afternoon you made an offer of assistance to my client.”

  “Your recollection is perfect. I’m here to serve you.”

  García turned to Di Constanzo, nodded slightly, and half-closed his eyelids.

  “Where’s the sonofabitch?” Capri’s top man asked.

  “Do you, by any chance, happen to know Mr. Wilfredo Pires’s whereabouts?” García translated.

  “As a matter of fact I do. He’s presently at the morgue, Mr. Di Constanzo,” a beaming Grava said.