The Havana Room

by Colin Harrison

  "I sort of figured it out, then he admitted it."

  She stared dumbly at the windshield.

  "Let's get Poppy inside, let's get this done with," I said.

  She didn't have it in her to protest.

  "All right, Poppy," I told him.

  "Can you move this?" Allison asked Ha, pointing at the heavy, old truck.

  Ha nodded. "I park it down the street."

  Poppy let me lift him up. The bottle fell to the well of the truck, the liquor pouring out of it. He didn't notice. I wanted to get him inside until Marceno came, try to get him sobered up a bit so that Marceno would believe him. I took both of his arms as he stood and slipped a hand under him. He leaned heavily against me, and he smelled bad. But he made it over the pavement.

  Allison opened the front door. We lurched into the foyer. Poppy leaned over the maître d's lectern.

  "Gimme something to— wait, wait—" Poppy pointed to the Havana Room door. "In there, I want privacy."

  I looked to Allison.

  "Well, we're closed for lunch Mondays."

  "But do you have staff coming in, to clean or whatever?"

  "Not until much later, four o'clock. We open at six for dinner. It's just me and Ha here now. Of course, this is exactly what I was hoping to do on my only morning off!" She looked at her watch. "I mean, I didn't leave this place until one o'clock last night."

  She unlocked the Havana Room door. "Can you make it down the steps?"

  "Of course," Poppy groaned.

  But he couldn't, not really, and I kept him up as he staggered down the stairs. The long room was dark and I smelled smoked-out cigars. I found a light. The enormous nude loomed over the bar, her dark eyes considering me. Poppy slumped into one of the booths, his head down. "Gimme something to write with."

  "I think you need some coffee, maybe something to eat."

  Poppy lifted his eyes. "Forget that. Give me a pen or something." He pulled an embossed HAVANA ROOM napkin from the holder. I turned on the sconce light near his head, leaning close enough to see the broken capillaries in his nose, then handed him my pen. He had trouble holding it, more trouble than the first time I'd seen him. He looked at his hand and couldn't seem to make a fist. "I mighta broke this."

  "How?"

  He looked up, eyes half closed. "I tried to fight back yesterday, for a minute. They found me. They knew right where I was."

  "Who?"

  "Some—" He looked at the pen and threw it aside. "I got no hands!" he bellowed wetly. "Come on, gimme something—"

  Allison came down the stairs and turned the light on over the bar. She seemed to have regained her composure. I studied her back in the mirror, the curve of her shoulders, her neck. Despite myself, I remembered her curled up in her bed. "I have pens, pencils…"

  "No!" Poppy cried, eyes almost shut, head bobbing a bit. I wondered if he was suffering from a concussion. Hard to say, with the whiskey in him.

  Allison seemed to think the same thing. "He looks bad, Bill. Like he's half asleep or something. Maybe I should call an ambulance."

  Poppy showed his rotten yellow teeth. "Don't call no one."

  "Here, here." Allison fished in her purse and produced a gleaming gold tube of lipstick. She popped off the top and twisted up half an inch of the red stick.

  "Wait," I said, "I want you to tell somebody else this, not us."

  "I ain't got time." Poppy took the lipstick and leaned over the napkin like a tired but obedient child trying to do homework he didn't quite understand. "I'm leaving this for him, then getting out of here. I got money and coffee and I'm going for a little drive."

  "Where?"

  "Don't know. California, maybe. Florida's warm."

  "In that truck?"

  "Sure, sure. A little drive. Ain't been to Florida in years." Poppy made a quick upward stroke that left a line an inch long. This was followed by three more strokes— creating the four sides of an uneven rectangle. He coughed pensively. "I didn't tell them. No pity for a old man, neither. No class, just a bunch of lowlifes."

  "Who?"

  Poppy made three X's in a row on the napkin. The rectangle looked catty-corner to the last X, but I was too far away to see it well.

  "Who?" I repeated.

  "Them boys who done this to me." He examined his drawing with simian curiosity, then folded the napkin in half. "Oh yeah." He unfolded it. "Almost forgot." He looked at Allison plaintively.

  "Yes?" she said.

  "See there." He stabbed at the box. "I want you to write this for Jay so he will know."

  "Sure. Where? Here?"

  "Anywhere in there is fine!" He handed her the red lipstick. "First put C."

  "Okay, C."

  He rolled his head strangely, like he had water in his ear. "No, no, make it a K. It's a K!"

  Allison made the correction.

  "Then R, like ring-a-ding-a-bing."

  "R, yes, okay."

  He opened his eyes. "Then, uh, put O."

  Allison caught my eye, her expression suggesting that we humor him. He seemed to be getting worse. "Okay, Poppy, you're doing very well. We have K, R, O. What's next?"

  He shut his eyes again. "Put a W. Like whiskey woman. I knew a whiskey woman."

  "That's it? KROW, like crow, the bird?"

  "Now L-A," he insisted, eyes opening. "Just like the city."

  "Pronounced la or lay?"

  Poppy smiled at me malevolently. He seemed not just drunk but either crazy or brain-damaged. "I seen lawyers like you. I used to beat on guys like you."

  "I'm sure you did." I leaned over to look at the napkin.

  "Hey!" Poppy put his hand over it. "Take your eyeballs out of here, mister."

  I leaned back. I'd see it later, I assumed. "That's it?" I asked. "The whole thing?"

  "I said L-A, right?"

  "KROW-lay? KROW-la?"

  "Yes."

  It sounded like the beginning of a Polish surname, something like Kowalski or Krawczyk, and I remembered that a number of Poles had settled in eastern Long Island in the early part of the twentieth century. Or maybe he had the spelling wrong and it was some other word, French perhaps. "What's it mean? Is it somebody's name?"

  Poppy shook his head. "That's for Jay. I didn't come here to tell you."

  "The word makes no sense," I told him. "Krow-lay?" How could we tell this to Marceno?

  Poppy handed the napkin to Allison with tender formality. "Will you give it to him, miss?"

  She nodded anxiously and tucked it into her purse.

  "Allison," Ha called down the stairs. "Some men here to see you."

  "Okay," she called, "send them down here."

  We heard footsteps. "This is a guy named Marceno," I told her. "The man who bought Jay's land. Lucky Poppy's still here."

  "But I'm going," Poppy announced. "Before they come."

  Ha appeared inside the Havana Room, eyes wide open. "Miss Allison—" he began, then stumbled forward.

  "Keep going, Buddha-boy."

  H.J.'s two men followed Ha down the stairs, with guns pointing at the floor. They looked around, took in the room. I remembered the taller one as Denny. "Get back inside."

  "Who are you?" Allison asked.

  "You may call me Gabriel," said the other man, who wore a necktie and a rather good watch. "We are seekers of mislaid persons." He motioned with his gun. "I suggest you all have a sit in this lovely wee underground bar."

  Denny pulled out a cell phone.

  "Tell his greatness the fat one that his underpaid hoodlums are in the restaurant, that the great American artist named Wyeth is here and that he should come have a look."

  Denny punched in a string of numerals.

  "Lucky day," Gabriel said to me. "And thank you," he said to Poppy.

  "For what?"

  "You did just as we hoped, old man."

  "I did?"

  "You drove into Manhattan and found your friends, your intentional community." He pointed at me, then looked around. "One could make
a lot of noise down here and no one would hear it."

  We sat for ten minutes, saying nothing. I studied Gabriel and Denny, watched how fast they breathed. Normal, for the most part. Used to situations like this.

  "I'm afraid that I have to use the bathroom," Allison said.

  "Too bad."

  "There's one at the end of the room."

  "You'll need someone to go with you."

  "All right," she sighed.

  Gabriel followed her to the men's room, looked in, then let her inside. He kept the door open with his hand. "No, keep the door open there, too," he told her.

  I heard some small voice of protest.

  "I don't care about your bloody privacy." Gabriel stood, watching her. "That's it. Very tasteful underwear, miss, quite expensive I'd say. Victoria's Secret?"

  "Is it?" called Denny, looking back and forth.

  "Can't tell."

  "How's her female equipment?"

  "Standard. Working order." He followed Allison's actions. "Now the paper, hurry along, please."

  A moment later Allison emerged. "Hope you enjoyed the show," she said.

  "Sit next to Buddha-boy there," said Gabriel.

  We heard a noise upstairs, a knocking. Maybe this would be Marceno.

  "The boss?" said Gabriel. "Already?"

  Denny stood and went upstairs. Then we heard footsteps coming down. A tall black man in a heavy coat entered, checked out the room, and stepped aside for H.J., who arrived with expectant aggression, face wrapped by sunglasses and roundly enormous, his head a thick ball of shaved flesh.

  "Lamont, I like this place!" H.J. announced, looking around, teeth gleaming. "Very comfortable." He fixed on me. "The white dude lawyer! I told you to get my money, and you didn't and now you see we got a problem." He looked at Allison and lifted up his sunglasses. "Mmm, and who are you?"

  "I'm the manager."

  "You can manage me." He pointed at Ha. "Who's the old Chinese?"

  "He works here," Allison said. "He has nothing to do with any of this."

  "What's he do, clean the white man's toilets?"

  "He's an excellent cook. A trained chef."

  "That right? Got a specialty?" But he didn't wait for an answer, instead waving his hand at the room, enjoying his power. "All right, this is where we goin' to do business today. We goin' to get to the bottom of the whole damn thing. My uncle is sittin' in his little box of ashes waitin' for me to get this done. His ghost is tellin' me, Boy, make this right. Man works sixty-somethin' years, he ain't supposed to freeze to death. My aunt just sit at home and cry and say I got to do somethin' for the family. They puttin' a lot of pressure on me. Now I'm puttin' it on somebody else. My aunt say somethin' bad went down, somethin' ain't right. She don't like the explanation the police gave her. She say she got nobody but her nephew. So I got obligation in all this, y'all hear what I'm sayin'? I don't care how long it takes, I got the whole day. I'm goin' to Philadelphia later but right now I got the whole damn day." He looked at me again, smiled at my discomfort. "You remember me, right? Remember my anti-fuckin'-social tendencies?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Good. So, where's your man at?"

  "Rainey? I don't know."

  "Well, call him."

  "I could do that."

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Jay.

  H.J.'s newest man, Lamont, held his gun on Allison and Ha. Gabriel kept his on Poppy. The phone rang. No answer.

  "Not there," I volunteered.

  "You that Poppy I keep hearin' about?" asked H.J., pulling out a gold-plated automatic from the pocket of his coat.

  Poppy shrugged. "I already told everything I got to say."

  "You the man who killed my uncle Herschel?"

  "It wasn't like that."

  "My aunt say he was frozen to a bulldozer."

  Poppy lifted his gaze. "I was working on the bulldozer. He came by and said what are you doing. He did some bulldozer work a week before. He thought I was messing it up. He thought I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing. I said nothing that's your business. And we had a big argument. He's bigger, got good hands. He jumped up on the Cat… I guess he got a shock and had his heart attack."

  H.J. smiled hatefully. "That don't smell too good." He pointed the gun at me. "Lawyer-boy, you believe that?"

  "He was driving by," moaned Poppy. "I already told this! He saw me and wanted to know what I was doing."

  "That's why Herschel stopped?"

  Poppy lay his head on the table. "Yes. I was adding some earth."

  H.J. looked surprised. "Why?"

  "Because I didn't want anyone to know what's down there."

  "What is down there?" I asked.

  Poppy's eyes closed. "I'm not telling you."

  H.J. moved over to Poppy and put his gun directly into his ear. "My uncle Herschel see you diggin' around the field when he go drivin' by and then he stopped and got out and said stop doin' what you be doing?"

  "Yes."

  "Please don't shoot him!" exclaimed Allison.

  H.J. jolted the gun deeper into Poppy's ear. "Why? Why he do that? On a cold and snowy day?"

  Poppy started to lift his head but felt the gun. " 'Cause I was messing up the field!"

  "So he said let me get up there on the tractor? This ain't makin' any sense. I ain't getting any of this."

  I remembered that the tractor had been found on the sea cliff set in reverse. "Poppy," I asked. "You let him get on the Cat?"

  "I didn't let him do anything. He's bigger than me."

  "He got on the Cat."

  "Yeah."

  H.J. removed the gun, interested in this sequence. "Then what?"

  "He asked what I was doing and I was so mad I told him, I told him the truth."

  "Then what?"

  Poppy lifted his eyes. He was a sad guy, and he didn't have time for any more lies. "He had a heart attack. He grabbed his chest and fell back."

  "You told him and he fuckin' had a heart attack?" H.J. shook his head at the seeming absurdity of this tale. "You gotta do much better than that, old man."

  "Is it a straight shot from wherever you were working with the bulldozer to the sea cliff?"

  Poppy looked at me. "Yes, but—"

  The problem, I realized, was that H.J. still did not know that the bulldozer and Herschel had been recovered from the sea cliff and moved to a barn on the adjoining property.

  "Why you ask that?" said H.J. "They didn't find him in no field!"

  But before I could answer, Poppy pushed himself to his feet. "I'm leaving," he announced. "I told you enough." He gestured at Allison. "Give that napkin to Jay. I can't do it."

  "You ain't goin' nowhere!" said H.J. "Get back there." He waved at his bodyguard to stand in front of the door. "Lamont?"

  "I'm going out to my truck—"

  H.J. straightened out his arm, the gun three feet from Poppy. "You know who I am?"

  "No, and I don't care," slurred Poppy. "I'm going to Florida."

  "You're stayin' till I get my satisfaction."

  "Nope."

  "Sit down, Poppy," I warned. "These guys are serious."

  "You got no reason to hurt me." Poppy held out his hands.

  "Get back, old man!"

  "I can't take no more," cried Poppy, unsteady on his feet. "I'm tired, my head hurts." He lurched toward the door. "I ain't been to Florida in—"

  "Get back!"

  "Come on, fuck you, I'm just—"

  Lamont shoved Poppy backward. He hit the wall. It didn't appear to scare him, and he measured the distance to the doorway.

  "Sit down, old man," said Lamont, sticking his gun out. "I don't want to hurt you."

  "I'm walking out of here," said Poppy, and he did— or started to, when there was a terrible noise, and his neck exploded in blood. Allison screamed. Poppy fell over, head loose.