by Jarret Keene
I have a wife, Bennie started to say, then he remembered he hated his wife. This was a perfect opportunity to escape the clutches of his lousy marriage, to escape all he sensed was coming to the island.
Six other dealers volunteered that day as well as eight cooks, twenty showgirls, and an unknown number of musicians. Two weeks later Bennie was at the Las Vegas airport, waiting for his bags and making small talk with Orlando and three of his culinary colleagues. The taciturn man with the scar led the five of them to a Ford station wagon and drove them to a motel off Rancho Drive. It was mid-July and the heat rose from the asphalt, turning the station wagon into a pressure cooker. The heat of Havana was nothing compared to this. Bennie mentioned his discomfort to the cooks but they, used to the infernal atmosphere of commercial kitchens, thought nothing of it. Paradise indeed.
Another man met them at the motel and gave each of them a room key. Bennie’s was number 207.
Good number to play, he said to Orlando. Number two is butterfly. Number seven is seashell.
Mine is 112. One is horse. Twelve is whore, Orlando responded. Not too good. That Chinese system is foolishness. There are better ways to make money.
Then the man announced that someone would be by for them the next morning at 7:30 and left.
For seven years Bennie lived in that motel, caught between a present substantially narrowed by a dead-end job and a suffocating nostalgia for the glories and joys of a past that was neither glorious nor joyous. His one friend, Orlando, was a man of limited intellectual capacity and no imagination to speak of. His conversations never strayed from the perfect demi-glace he’d concocted that morning or the bread he’d baked for lunch or the celebrity who’d entered the kitchen and offered his compliments on the salmon mousse. When Bennie tried to engage him in more expansive topics, such as baseball or women, a blank look came over Orlando’s face and at the first opportunity he’d switch the conversation back to kitchen matters. Bennie worked the graveyard shift because nights were hardest for him to spend alone. He’d sleep mornings as much as he could, until about noon or so. Then he’d shower, pick up the local paper, and go to a cafeteria on Sahara where he’d have two eggs fried over easy, bacon, toast, and bad American coffee. The rest of the time was his to do as he wanted. He napped, read the paper again, and, in the cool months, took long walks on streets that led nowhere but back into themselves. His shift began at 11 p.m. but more often than not he did a double, starting at 3 o’clock and going straight through until 7 the next morning.
Making money wasn’t the object; he simply had too much time on his hands and no way of whiling it away. The summer was too hot for anything but sitting in air-conditioning; the winter was high season and Joey, his pit boss, threw as much work at him as he could handle. His wife, who had since moved to Miami, sent him divorce papers, which he signed and sent right back. There was no ocean to look at like there was in Havana; only desert and fancy casinos where the tourists dropped their money. Mostly there was a lot of dust which got in his eyes and made him teary, as if he wasn’t teary enough already. There were plenty of women, beautiful ones, but none was accessible to him, a simple dealer from the tropics with a thick Cuban accent—like Desi Arnaz chewing on a raw steak, Joey once said—and the looks of a Galician grocer. The way to attract women, an uncle of his told him long ago, is to impress them with your power and your wealth. Good looks will only go so far. The woman needs to see you as a god, and those attributes are the closest we humans have to divinity. And just when Bennie had resigned himself to a life of celibacy, he met a woman, a round Mexican who cooked him fiery dishes and made love like a Zapotec beast. She always brought food—enchiladas, tacos, moles—enough for him and for Orlando who lived downstairs. Her name was Mercedes. She took care of both of them, in more ways than one, but she had her eye on Bennie. Barriga llena, corazón contento, she would say with a sparkle in her eye, expecting any moment he would say back to her the magic words.
As he sat outside his room on his day off, Bennie heard a commotion on the first level of the motel, followed by a woman’s voice that sounded very much like Mercedes screaming, Puto, cabrón, hijo de la chingada. He rushed down the steps to the first level and saw Orlando the cook on the floor, leaning against the brick outer wall of his room with a butcher knife stuck half-way into his chest. His eyes were glazed and a string of bloody saliva hung from his lips. Orlando babbled something about someone taking twenty thousand and said nothing else. He looked up at Bennie before letting out a long sigh like a balloon deflating; then his eyes lost their bearing and his head drooped softly to the side.
Bennie’s first instinct was to go back upstairs and forget what he had seen, let someone else deal with the situation. Instead, out of deference to his friend, he looked around to make sure no one else had witnessed the killing, maneuvered Orlando away from the wall with great difficulty—he was a bulky guy, as cooks tend to be—and dragged him back into the room. Bennie shut the door and turned the air-conditioning as high as it would go, figuring it would help preserve Orlando. He sat on the unmade bed and tried to light a cigarette. His hands were shaking so badly it took four tries before he could bring the match to the tip and take the first drag. Sure, he’d seen plenty of people die, like his mother and her sisters, and a cousin with leukemia, but never like this, with a knife sticking out of them and their last words about money. This would never happen in Cuba, he thought, then thought again. Of course it would. Still, at this moment he wanted to be back there in his old apartment on Lagunas Street where his parents had lived and their parents before them, now occupied by his revolution-crazed cousin Aleida, who had beautiful eyes but farted like a foghorn.
Bennie surveyed the room and spied a half-full bottle of Don Q rum on the dresser, which he could reach without having to stand up. Two healthy swigs settled him somewhat and he considered the situation. Calling the police was out of the question. They’d snoop and his bosses weren’t fond of snooping. So he called Joey, his pit boss at the casino—he’d know what to do—and waited for him to show up.
It took Joey three hours to get to the motel. When he saw the cook lying on the carpet, his first words were Holy fucking shit. Orlando’s face had acquired a blue pallor and rigor mortis was beginning to set in, no matter that it was damn cold in the room. Those were Joey’s second words: It’s damn cold in here, followed by, What was your fight about?
Fight? Bennie kept to himself the fact that he heard Mercedes screaming just before he found the cook. Joey, he said, I didn’t kill Orlando. He was my friend.
Friends kill each other all the time. Why didn’t you take the knife out of him? The longer he’s dead, the harder it’s going to be. And next time, put a shower curtain under him. That way the blood won’t get on the rug.
You do it, Joey. You take the knife out. I couldn’t even watch my mother kill a chicken.
Didn’t they teach you anything in that damn country of yours? Fucking Latin lover can’t get his hands dirty.
Joey looked long and hard at Bennie, then he kneeled next to Orlando and jiggled the knife handle. Blood’s pretty much set. We won’t be needing the curtains. And before he’d finished saying the word curtains, he had the knife out and was holding it next to his head. It was a huge nasty thing. For an instant Bennie had the image of the blade entering Orlando and causing massive damage to his inner organs. The thought made him shiver.
This is a job for the rough riders, Joey said, and made a phone call. In ten minutes two men showed up, a tall slim guy in a gray suit and a short heavyset one in a blue shirt and beige linen trousers. Bennie noticed that the short man had a tomato sauce stain on his right pant leg. The men looked at dead Orlando on the floor and proceeded to ransack drawers, pulling them out of the dresser and upending their contents on the body. When they were done with the drawers they took the bed apart, then started on the closet and rifled through Orlando’s clothes, discarding them this way and that and making a huge mess. Finally, one of them turned to Be
nnie, who was now standing in a corner of the room, and said, Where’s the money?
Money? Bennie asked, trying to be as sheepish as possible. Now the three men were looking at him, waiting for an answer. I don’t know about no money. Bennie’s legs were shaking and his throat was beginning to tighten as it did every time he was nervous, making him cluck like a chicken.
We better cut him up, one of the men said. It’ll be easier that way.
Bennie made a move for the door.
Where you going? said the man in the blue shirt.
I live upstairs, said Bennie. I just thought I’d lie down for a while. I work tonight.
You staying right here, Jack. He turned to the man in the suit. Bring the tools.
Bennie needed to sit down but the mattress was up against the window leaning over the two armchairs. The only other chair was on the opposite side and he’d have to step over Orlando. He looked at Joey, who shrugged.
Joey, please, he implored him, I don’t want to watch this.
I don’t either. They’ll do it in the bathroom.
But I can hear.
Cover your ears.
After the two men carted Orlando’s pieces wrapped in wax paper and tied neatly with butcher string out of the room, they came back in and stood on either side of Bennie and asked again where the money was.
Bennie’s lips were shaking so badly they couldn’t meet to form words, to say simply, I don’t know, I didn’t take it. Despite the very real danger he was facing, however, there was a spot of coolness inside him that kept him from falling apart. It surprised him. He’d always thought of himself as a coward. That coolness led him to conclude with absolute certainty that Mercedes had taken the twenty thousand but he wasn’t about to tell these guys that. Right now every little bit of knowledge he kept from them was to his benefit.
Then Joey saved him. Guys, he said, Bennie don’t know anything. He’s a stupid Cuban. All he knows is dealing cards. Leave him alone.
The two men looked at each other, then back at Joey. The small one said, We don’t take orders from you.
Listen fuck-head, Bennie here doesn’t have the money. And if Archie gives you any grief, tell him I answer directly to Meyer and he can go suck a moose.
The men grumbled some curse words at Joey and left to drop pieces of Orlando all over the desert. Bennie asked Joey what was going on. Either Joey didn’t know or he didn’t let on. Later that night, as the two of them shared a six-pack of beer, Bennie asked Joey how he knew these thugs.
I got some juice in this town, Bennie. Me and Meyer grew up on the same block in the Lower East Side. You can’t fuck around with Lansky. He owns everyone in Vegas, including me. He owns you, except you don’t know it. Orlando tried to pull a fast one and he paid for it.
What did he do? Bennie asked.
I’d like to know that myself. The whole thing’s unsavory, I know, but there’s nothing to be done about it. Joey used the word unsavory with great delicacy, saying every sound as if it were a precious jewel. You sure you don’t know anything about that money those guys were talking about?
Bennie shook his head.
I have a feeling you do, Joey said. He finished his beer and left.
Bennie didn’t see Mercedes for two weeks, and every day of those two weeks one of Archie’s men came by asking about the money. Joey’s so-called juice was the only thing between Bennie and the butcher’s block. It was the loneliest period of his life. He worked, he ate, he came home, and he sat by the door to his room until it was time for bed. Day in and day out without a holiday, not even Christmas, on which he worked a double shift and made five hundred dollars. The money didn’t matter that much to him. He had nothing to spend it on. He didn’t like whores and had no need for a car. He paid a full twenty dollars a week for his room. His work clothes were provided for by the casino and he had no family to care for, not in Vegas or Miami or Cuba. As he pondered his sorry state, cursing the day he ever decided to leave the island, he heard a knock at his door and Mercedes’s plaintive voice asking to be let in.
Where have you been? he asked.
I was in Mexico but I’m back now.
I can see that, he said. What happened between you and Orlando?
He tried a nasty thing on me, ese cabrón.
You didn’t have to kill him.
He wouldn’t stop. There was a knife there. I just try to scare him but he kept coming and so I hit him with it. I just try to scare him.
By now Mercedes had grown very agitated. Her eyes were wide open and her lips were spread into a grimace, like those Mixtec goddesses you see biting into the hearts of men. Hijode la chingada, she grumbled.
Bennie wanted to shut the door on her and forget she ever existed. What about the money? he asked.
Mercedes was silent for a moment and grew meek, hunching her shoulders downward and looking up at him with beseeching eyes.
I didn’t steal it. I just found it.
Oh, to be back in Cuba right now, he thought. Communism had to be better than this.
Mujer, are you crazy? You know half of Vegas is looking for you? What did you do with it?
Mercedes was silent.
If you don’t return that money to its owners, they’re going to grind us up into picadillo. You understand?
Mercedes straightened up and narrowed her eyes into fierce slits. Let me tell you three things, she said. First, the money is hidden; second, I ain’t giving it to nobody; third, you are a big pendejo.
Why do you come here? You are incriminating me, he said to her, which was stupid, considering he was incriminated the moment he landed at the Vegas airport.
I miss you, güerito. I want you to go away with me and we can be rich together.
That’s when he took her by the arm, shoved her out of the room, and slammed the door. When he turned around he saw a letter-size white envelope lying on the dresser. Bennie sat on the bed and stared at it, not knowing whether to pick it up and count it or flush it down the toilet or simply ignore it as if it were never there. He did the latter for a few hours until his fantasies got the better of him and he started thinking of everything he could do with the money. He could buy himself a fancy car. That would draw the women. He could buy a house. That was a smart thing to do. Or he could escape Las Vegas once and for all. Go to Miami, open up a barber shop, run a small book on the side, marry a nice criolla who would give him lots of children.
What about Mercedes? After all, she was the one who had killed Orlando and took the money. She worked incessantly, the poor woman, doing laundry, cleaning houses, and selling herself when the opportunity availed itself to lonely men like him who lived in cheap motels without a hope in the world. Most of what she made from her menial labors she sent to her family in Mexico like a dutiful daughter. At least she said she did. Eventually Bennie’s sense of fair play won out. Mercedes was foul-mouthed and overweight but not a bad sort. If he squinted really hard, he could see traces of María Félix in her features. If she killed Orlando she did it in self-defense. How many women would not have done the same under similar circumstances? The more he stared at the envelope the more he thought, Mercedes, Mercedes with that singsong Oaxacan accent of hers and hair like black milk and ever-so-dim resemblance to the most beautiful actress of all time.
He called in sick to work and sat on the bed consumed by an idyll he had never before experienced. He imagined himself in Mexico, owner of a hacienda surrounded by acres and acres of maguey and a distillery bearing his name, Benjamín Rojas, Producer of Fine Tequilas. He imagined a stable of black paso fino horses and a herd of gleaming prize zebu cattle that were the envy of every ranchero in the comarca. He built a whole architecture of fantasy with him at the center: cars, women, presidents, prime ministers, cardinals, all currying his favor. What Mexico needed was a Cuban with balls, coño, who would create an empire of liquor that would rival the great distilleries of the world—Bacardi, Jack Daniel’s, Hiram Walker—and with those twenty thousand dollars Mercedes had
given him, by God, he could do it.
That’s when someone knocked at the door.
Bennie picked up the envelope and stuffed it into the back of his pants. He looked through the peephole and saw that it was Joey.
Jesus, Joey said as he walked into Bennie’s room. It’s freezing in here. You’d figure Cuba was in Siberia the way you guys like the cold.
It’s on its way there, Bennie said.
Joey sat on the bed and lit up a Cuban Churchill, every puff of smoke round and sweet and perfect.
You have the money, Joey said. As a matter of fact, I’m willing to bet my left testicle you have it on your person even as we speak.
Bennie felt his throat tightening. He sat on the armchair, took out a handkerchief, and blew his nose. The cigar smoke was getting to him. How about Mercedes? he said. You know, the Mexican.
Yeah, the one you wiped your sword with. A man needs that every once in a while. Joey blew a puff of blue smoke up toward the ceiling. You fucking Cubans can sure make cigars, he said. It’s about the only thing you’re good at. Mercedes is taken care of. Twenty G’s is pocket change for Meyer, but he just hates to be swindled. Why don’t you give me the money, spare yourself?
Bennie hesitated. All those dreams of women and paso finos and thousands of acres of maguey plantings going up with Joey’s smoke. He reached behind him and handed Joey the envelope.
I’ll make you a deal, Bennie. I keep fifteen and I’ll give you five. Call it a reward for a job well done. Just between you and me. Nobody else has to know.
Joey counted out the five G’s and passed them back to Bennie, who took the money without hesitation and put it in his pocket. As he did so he felt his blood thicken and his heart slow a few beats.
After Joey left, Bennie pulled the shades shut and lay on the bed. He tried to summon up his fantasies but all he could think of was the money in his pocket. What was fat Mercedes to him anyway, and Orlando with that eggplant face of his? Five thousand wasn’t twenty but it was enough for a down-payment on a small house. The wife and the book operation would come eventually. So would the juice. Without his realizing, the coolness inside had turned to ice.