by Jose Latour
Galuzzo joined them after midnight and the three men talked shop until 2:01 A.M., when the phone rang. García marched to the library and lifted the receiver.
“Hello.”
“It’s the tobacco grower.”
“Would you prefer talking to Heller or to Rancaño?”
The caller took a split second to answer. “Heller.”
Guarded by Galuzzo, the wide-eyed young man trotted into the library nearly a minute later. He had been sleeping soundly, but now fear made him feel very alert. García extended the handset to him.
Cautiously. “Yeah?”
“Abo?”
“Ox?”
“How’re you doing, Sweet Dick?”
“Coño, brother, what’s happening? Where are you?”
“There’s no time for that. Do as these people tell you. I’m giving back my mazuma to buy off our freedom and leave Cuba, the five of us. You know anything about Wheel?”
“Not a word. Hey, listen, Gallego disappeared from—”
“I know, I know. He’s okay, at a safe place. Remember this: Do what these people ask you to do. Say hello to Meringue for me. Put the man back on now.”
Heller returned the phone to the lawyer. With a nod, Galuzzo signaled the way back to the bedroom. The prisoner turned and left, followed by the man from the Riviera.
“Are you satisfied?” García asked.
“Very much.”
“Mr. Lansky needs to know when you plan to travel.”
“When will the passports be ready?”
“It depends on how long I have to wait for the fifth man. Have you located him?”
“Not yet.”
“Shall I go ahead with the other four?”
Silence.
“Well?”
“Yeah. Go ahead. How long will it take?”
“Two or three days.”
“Then we’ll leave next Saturday, the eighth.”
“Where will we meet?”
“I’ll let you know at noon that same day. Should I call this number?”
“Just a minute.”
García went back to the living room and explained things to Lansky. Lansky heard him out, then pulled himself up from the armchair. He shuffled into the library, accompanied by the lawyer. “Translate,” he ordered.
“Mr. Lansky says that yes, you can call this number at noon next Saturday. He wants you to know he doesn’t bear any grudge against you and your men. You were hired to do a job, and did it well. But he wants to make three things very clear. The first is: He doesn’t want any additional demands at the swap. Stick to the deal—two hundred thousand in exchange for your men and passports.”
“Passports with visas to the three countries I mentioned,” Contreras interrupted.
“Right; you made that clear when we met. Second thing is: He won’t be there, but gives you his word that all your conditions will be met. And the last thing is that whatever you and your men do in the future, you shouldn’t mess with us again. It’ll be full-scale war with no prisoners taken if you pay no heed to this warning. You understand?”
“I do. Tell Mr. Lansky there’ll be two substances in the money bag that burn fast when mixed. A sudden movement and the bills will go up in smoke in ten seconds. Good-bye.”
…
On Tuesday, November 4, Silvio Molledo visited the Vaccaro Lines pier and the offices of Passengers and Luggage, Repression, and Smuggling and Legal Proceedings, all under the Port of Havana’s Customs and Excise Department. He also marched into the Commerce Exchange Building, rode an elevator to the sixth floor, and gained entry to the Harry Smith Travel Agency.
Bonifacio García had a very busy day too. In the morning he visited the Ministry of State and talked to friends before greasing their palms. After lunch he headed out to a men’s store, where, estimating heights and weights, he bought two suits off the rack, one maroon and one charcoal-gray, as well as two long-sleeved dress shirts and two ties. From the store he drove to a photo studio and with twenty pesos convinced the owner to close up shop for the day and accompany him to take the photographs of two clients. On his way to the Fifth Avenue residence García told the photographer that the passport-sized photos had to be ready the next morning. In the evening he got on the phone and before nine had talked to the consuls of Honduras and Panama, the Mexican consul absolutely refusing to take the call at his residence.
On Wednesday afternoon, Silvio Molledo repeated his tour, picking up the things he had asked for and surreptitiously handing over sheaves of bills of varying denominations. Two hours had gone by when he deposited everything in his safe and went to have a talk with the proprietor of a Diamond T truck that made a living hauling cargo from and to the port.
That same morning, García drove to the studio early, collected Heller and Rancaño’s photos, and headed for the Ministry of State. An hour later he left the building with four new passports and drove to the Panamanian Consulate, then to the Honduran legation. By the time he got to the Mexican Consulate, it was closed for the day.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, the phone in the back,” Molledo said to the barman in the evening. After two minutes spent giving instructions, he returned to the bar, finished his drink, and went home.
…
“Black guy, in his fifties or sixties, dairy-farm worker?” Contreras probed.
The middle-aged man with the ruddy complexion took his red baseball cap off and scratched his head as he glanced at the whitish soil. He also had on tennis shoes, old faded jeans, and an unbuttoned, short-sleeved checkered shirt that revealed a muscular chest and sixteen-inch biceps.
They were standing by what remained of a small hill, one kilometer away from the town of El Calvario. Not a single cloud could be seen in the beautiful blue sky. The hill had stayed uncut for several millennia until the owner discovered, forty years earlier, that beneath the barren, three-inch-thick layer of earth covering the hundred-yard-high elevation lay a million tons of hard rock. With limited capital he set up a stone mill and started selling different sizes of ground stone to concrete contractors, block manufacturers, and people in the home-building business. At present, half the hill had disappeared and blinding sunlight reflected off the ivory-colored, top-to-bottom vertical wall that faced the two-lane road between Mantilla and El Calvario.
The middle-aged man was known to everybody, except his wife and kids, as Dynamite. Using six-foot-long, thirty-five-pound bullpoint iron bars, he and his assistant drilled blasting holes. After the sticks were inserted, they lay a very heavy net, made from discarded steel towlines, over the area to prevent pieces of rock blown away by the explosion from harming anyone. Then the fuses were lit and the two men got out of the way. Once the dust settled, they retrieved the net. Both were in great physical shape; shaking hands with one was like gripping a two-by-four.
Dynamite and Contreras had known each other for over fifteen years. The man with the dyed hair held a bag with half a pound of black powder he had just bought, which was the reason for being there. But being so near El Calvario, he recalled that Wheel often mentioned that his father-in-law earned a living in a dairy farm close to the small town. Knowing that the stone miner also lived there, and wondering whether he should try to find the old man and sound him out about his son-in-law, he asked Dynamite if he knew anybody who fit the vague description he’d given him.
“You don’t know his name?”
“Nope.”
“Strange that you ask. Yes, there’s an old black couple lives on the outskirts. Very poor people, you know. And, yes, I believe he milks cows at a dairy farm. I hadn’t heard about them until a few weeks ago. Their son-in-law was gunned down by the police.”
“WHAT?”
Dynamite was taken aback. Ox wasn’t known as a short fuse.
“Well, it’s what the town gossip says. Why do you ask? You don’t even know his name.”
Contreras forced himself back to normal. “Oh, I guess being here made him come to my mind. He’s related to som
eone I know. His son-in-law was a revolutionary?”
“How should I know? They buried him at our cemetery, I hear. The word is this old man and his wife learned what had happened after the burial, when their daughter took her two kids to their hut.”
Squinting, Contreras stared at the huge wall in front of him, then inhaled deeply. “Do me a favor, Dynamite, willya? I might have to stand on the highway for a half hour before an empty cab cruises by. Why don’t you take me to La Palma in your heap.”
“Sure. What happened to your Chevy?”
“Tune-up.”
“And what happened to your hair?”
Contreras just smiled.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Dynamite said.
…
On Saturday, November 8, as gold-rimmed clouds enhanced the magic of a tropical sunset, three cars stopped by the curb at the entrance to the Vaccaro Lines pier.
Eddie Galuzzo and Bonifacio García emerged from a black ’58 Thunderbird with Dade County plates. A dark blue ’59 Buick released Fat Butch, Dino Cellini, Arturo Heller, and Valentín Rancaño. Tom Brodsky, Tony Razoni, and Joe Silesi got out of a dark maroon ’58 Cadillac sedan.
On the sidewalk, the six Americans clustered around the three Cubans and, led by Fat Butch, briskly approached the galvanized-pipe-and-wire-mesh gate. A strong westward breeze flapped their clothes; the straight hair of the hatless Cubans lost all semblance of order. At the gate, a Maritime Police corporal listened to García for a few seconds, palmed a twenty-peso bill, and let the group in. Nine wild gorillas would have blended better with the surroundings.
They marched along the pier following a railway track embedded in the pavement. Eighteen distrustful eyes gazed at the long warehouse to the right; the forklift operators and sinewy stevedores carrying out their chores blatantly stared back with no less mistrust. Two trucks were positioned at the end of the pier, facing the entrance. To their left, a moored merchant ship, the name Fundador on the bow, its smokestack spewing out burnt fuel oil, seemed capable of sailing away at a moment’s notice.
Built in the Lubeck shipyards three years earlier, the Fundador displaced 1,600 tons fully loaded. It was 66 meters long and had a 10-meter-beam breadth. Two refrigerated holds could stow fruit between four and minus ten degrees Centigrade; it had half a dozen three-ton cranes and was manned by a crew of twenty-two men on its crossings from Puerto Cortés, Honduras, to Jacksonville, Florida. That morning the captain had vacated a cabin shared by the steward, the purser, an oiler, and a sailor by telling the four men they would stay in Havana with full pay and out-of-pocket expenses. A fifth sleeping space was provided by the third mate’s recent appendectomy.
Two men left the cabin of a Diamond T truck at the end of the pier and sauntered toward the incoming group. Mariano Contreras, his freshly rinsed hair blown back by the wind, firmly gripped a leather overnight bag in his left hand; his right closed around the butt of the Colt inside the pocket of his dark blue muslin jacket. Fermín Rodríguez, wearing the same clothes he wore when he was collared, had Talavera’s automatic in the small of his back, ready to fire. They were the first to reach the ladder hanging from starboard, and stopped alongside it.
The approaching group checked its progress ten steps away. Eddie Galuzzo and Bonifacio García drew nearer to Contreras and Fermín. Heller smiled faintly, beginning to believe in miracles; Rancaño had a grave expression on his face.
“You managed to get the Mexican visas?” Contreras asked of the lawyer.
“At the last minute, yes. They cost more than four visas to heaven. What do you need them for? This ship is going to Honduras.”
“Give my friend the passports,” Contreras said.
For nearly two minutes, Fermín inspected the five passports closely. Then he made the agreed-on sign: running his left hand over his bald head. From the warehouse shared by Customs and Immigration offices, Silvio Molledo emerged. He hurried toward Fermín, took the passports, trotted back to the building.
García was no longer comforted by the fifteen thousand dollars that had been transferred that morning to his New York bank account and was chickening out fast, casting frightened glances in every direction. Three days in the same ship with a bunch of criminals wasn’t his idea of a holiday cruise to Central America.
Galuzzo took a Philip Morris to his lips, cupped his hands around a very modern Ronson butane lighter, and tried to light it, but the breeze didn’t let him and he ended up throwing away the cigarette. Fermín felt the sweat under his armpits and wished he hadn’t left behind the cigar he’d been chomping on a few minutes earlier in the truck’s cabin. Contreras spotted the gloomy expression on Rancaño’s face and smiled encouragingly.
Less than three minutes later, in what was probably the fastest proceeding ever carried out on that particular pier, Molledo came back and returned the passports to Fermín. The bald man gave García his and stuffed the others in the left pocket of his jacket.
“Let’s go up,” Contreras said.
Nobody paid attention to the first mate’s welcoming words. The captain left the bridge, from where he had observed everything, to guide the eleven men to the sailors’ mess hall, then departed. Fat Butch closed the door. Contreras placed the leather bag on the table, opened it, carefully pulled out a flask containing white phosphorus in fresh water, and threw it into the pier’s murky waters through an open porthole. Then he returned to the table and removed twenty wads of fifty-peso bills and ten of one-hundred-peso notes.
Joe Silesi sat, and within eleven minutes had deftly flipped over the corners of three thousand bills. Nobody said a word. The only sounds were the droning engines, coughs, sighs, shuffling feet, the clicking of lighters, and the rasping sound made by Contreras’s hands as they swept black powder out of the bag and threw it into the sea.
“Okay,” Silesi said, lifting his eyes to Galuzzo. Contreras handed over the bag to the man from the Riviera and Tony Razoni put the money back inside it. He was closing the lid when Contreras addressed Heller and Rancaño.
“Step over here.”
The swap completed, Galuzzo signaled in García’s direction with his thumb. “We want this man back in perfect health.”
The lawyer interpreted in a firm, almost menacing tone.
“For everybody’s sake, his and ours,” Contreras began, and paused. He was getting to like using a translator; it gave him more time to figure out what he should say to the enemy. “It would be best if police don’t board this piece of junk when you go ashore, and if no PT boat intercepts us in territorial waters. We’ll stand watch, twenty-four hours a day, for the first two days. We value our health too.”
García hadn’t thought about that, and translated with supplicating eyes, believing his employer unscrupulous enough to plan some revenge after recovering the money. To compound his fear, a pilot’s tug was approaching the Fundador for the castoff. The chugging of its engine might have been mistaken for a Maritime Police launch getting ready to storm the ship.
“You keep worrying so much, your blood pressure will go sky-high,” was Galuzzo’s comment. Then he shook hands with García and turned around. Fat Butch opened the door for him.
The ladder was lifted as soon as the Americans went ashore. Two men released mooring lines and the pilot’s tug began its work. In the ship’s mess hall, the exultant Heller and the ecstatic Rancaño could barely suppress their urge to congratulate and thank Ox and Gallego, but the presence of García made them restrict themselves to smiles and handshakes.
At 8:09 P.M., when the Fundador left behind Morro Castle and veered west full steam ahead, Contreras felt safe enough to grant García’s request to retire to his cabin. Once there, the lawyer swallowed a strong sedative, hoping to sleep all the way to Puerto Cortés.
On deck, elbows resting on the railing, the four survivors stared at the countless city lights and hundreds of multicolored neon signs blinking along the Malecón as they took swigs from a bottle of rum presented by the captain. Contreras was relea
sing pent-up frustration; the others repressed excitement. With brief nods, Ox accepted praise for his generosity, then informed Abo and Meringue of Wheel’s possible fate. Meringue wasn’t overwhelmed by grief, but Abo looked deeply shaken, and began searching for a way to discredit the story. It was some other guy, some other family, it was just a coincidence, Wheel was okay somewhere, maybe in Santiago de Cuba. No, his pal was too clever for Grava’s goons.
“How did they get to you?” Contreras asked.
Abo told the truth; then it was Rancaño’s turn. Contreras was nauseated by Meringue’s galling stupidity, and sorely disappointed in Heller for his devil-may-care behavior, but he kept his opinions to himself and waved away their belated regrets. For several minutes, as they were getting a glow from the rum, nothing was said. The engines’ humming, the swooshing of the breeze, and the bow’s plaintive rumble were the only sounds heard. Then, Contreras took a deep breath and addressed the rocky coastline.
“Good-bye, Cuba. You’ll be a better place to live in with four shit-eaters less.”
…
In the living room of his Havana Riviera suite, Meyer Lansky smiled faintly as he peeked inside the travel bag on the coffee table. In an armchair, facing the boss, Eddie Galuzzo stubbed out a butt on a green-spotted marble ashtray. Through the plate-glass window, the lights from a small merchant ship en route to Central America could be seen on a strip of dark calm sea.
“If somebody had told me on October tenth that we’d turn a 41,500-peso profit on the Capri heist, I would’ve thought the man was loony. We’ve got to find a way to let Joe Bananas know the final outcome of his little scheme,” Meyer Lansky said.
He lifted his eyes to the ceiling and heaved a sigh of relief. His prestige had been restored; he was a happy man.