The Havana Room

by Colin Harrison

  "Get back!" yelled Lamont, swinging the gun around at us.

  Poppy lay hunched to the floor, blood spraying over the black-and-white tiles. His face grew pale, followed by a sucking sound from the neck wound, and then he went soft and died before us.

  H.J. looked at his gun. It hadn't fired. He looked at Lamont, who was holding a pistol. "Shit, Lamont," said H.J. "What you do that for?"

  "He was getting too close to you, boss."

  "Oh God," moaned Allison as smoke drifted above us. "He's an old man! Do something."

  But there was nothing to do. H.J. held us in place. "Y'all stand back," he ordered, looking around. "Fuck, Lamont! Now we got a problem, nigga!"

  He certainly did, three people not his own— Allison, Ha, and me— who'd seen what his bodyguard had done. We were the problem. He looked at Allison. "You know where Rainey lives?"

  Allison shook her head.

  "You?" he asked me.

  "Yes," I said. "But I doubt he's there. He didn't answer before."

  "You know where he lives?" asked Allison.

  H.J. looked at Ha and Allison. "Yo, people! You got to tell me what's goin' to get this guy to come here and give me my money, and tell me what I need to know, because otherwise we got a even bigger problem, you know what I'm sayin'?"

  The room seemed hot, wheeled with a dark feeling. Four people could kill three easily enough. Things happened like this in the city from time to time. You read about it in the metro section of the paper with your coffee, shake your head at the strange carnage, then check the stock tables. The men could pull a truck up to the sidewalk doors and load out anything and no one would ever know.

  "I want some answers to my question!" bellowed H.J. "I want to know what happened to my uncle and I want money for my aunt! We live in a fuckin' country where every college and university over a hundred and fifty years old, all those railroads and banks, got slave money in 'em, slave money built 'em up. Martin Luther King only got it half done. Jesse Jackson, he sold the fuck out, Clarence Thomas, he no good. White man still makin' money off the black man every day. Who owns those companies buildin' prisons, who owns the fuckin' NFL? It ain't my uncle, you see what I'm saying? Now I want to find out why he died, why he have a heart attack!"

  I sat in the booth stunned, Ha next to me, his head bowed in submission.

  "Boss," said Gabriel finally, his tone pacifying, "I think Lamont shot the man who could help you with that question."

  H.J. told his men to clean up. Gabriel and Denny found some garbage bags and laid them out a few feet away from Poppy. Whatever had been in his lower intestines had started to seep out of him and we could smell it. They lifted him, feet and armpits, onto the bags in one motion. The blood had traveled to the grout between the tiles. Gabriel hunted around behind the bar and found some twine, which Denny used to bag up Poppy. Then the men laid him behind the bar. They found the closet behind the bar and wet-mopped the tiles. "Use the cleanser," ordered H.J., keeping his gun on me. "Not one speck. And clean the wall, too, clean it good."

  They did. Fifteen minutes later, it was as if nothing had happened. The floor gleamed. Ha watched, his eyelids low, face without expression.

  "What we going to do now?"

  "We's goin' to think, is what we's goin' to do." H.J. straightened his shirt. "Hey," he asked me, "how we going to get this boy?"

  "I really don't know."

  Gabriel put his gun to Allison's head. "Talk to the man. Tell us how to find your boyfriend."

  "He's not my boyfriend!"

  "Whatever you call him, miss, your penile escort, I don't care, tell my boss where to find him!"

  "I don't know, I don't know!"

  Gabriel made a pinched face. "Nothing comes of nothing, miss."

  "I don't know. He used to come over to my apartment in the afternoon."

  "Sounds romantic," prompted Gabriel.

  "It was," said Allison softly, to herself.

  "Pity," noted Gabriel, voice droll. "Please continue with your emotionally charged testimony."

  With that, Allison lifted her head, eyes angry, mood defiant. "So yes, he came over to— well, it certainly wasn't to be with me, I see that now, it was to see—" She glanced at me, including me in her fury. "Well, there's a girl who lives across—"

  "Don't!" I yelled.

  "— the street. She'll be walking home in forty-five minutes along Eighty-sixth Street. She comes home at 2 p.m. from school. That's why he used to meet me at my apartment! That's the time! His daughter. If you can get his daughter you can get him," said Allison. "She'll be wearing a blue-and-white school uniform and probably be carrying some kind of backpack. She's about fourteen or fifteen and dark-haired and quite pretty."

  "That's wrong," I said quickly. "The girl's in basketball practice all afternoon."

  Gabriel looked at H.J.

  "See?" Allison said bitterly, pointing her finger at me. "He knows. He's in on it. He knows who she is."

  "You?" said H.J.

  I shook my head. "She's got nothing to do with all this. She's just some kid."

  "Get her," said H.J. to Gabriel.

  "I'll tell you where Rainey lives," I said. "That's better."

  "We know where he lives," Gabriel said.

  "You do?"

  "Sure. Brooklyn, Seventeenth Street. We followed you. Watched it some. Broke in, fished around. Bit of a creepy setup, no?"

  I was trying to think of a way to avoid involving Sally Cowles. "Did you find the box of cash he has?"

  H.J. swung his gun at Gabriel suspiciously. "Answer the man."

  "No, no, we didn't find a box of cash."

  "He had cash there. You were inside."

  "What?" said H.J., studying Gabriel. "What's the man talking about?"

  "I helped Rainey with a deal," I said quickly, "there was cash. Two hundred and something thousand. He put it in a box and took it home. I know that. I was there a few days ago and the box was empty. Your guys just admitted they were inside. I guess they didn't tell you they found the cash—"

  "That's a fucking lie, Mr. Wyeth, and I'll gladly shoot your face off to prove it," said Gabriel.

  H.J. was inclined to believe Gabriel, I could see, but with a margin of doubt. Which was good, because I was lying. If I'd really led Denny and Gabriel to Jay's apartment, then they couldn't have been the cause of the empty cashbox I'd found. "You ever go in that building downtown, that place my aunt talked with him?" he asked his men.

  "We did once," answered Denny.

  H.J., I could see, was plainly worried. The crazed aggressor who'd confronted me in the hip-hop club was absent; this H.J. was taciturn and analytical, watching each of us, then studying his cell phone on the table before him, then watching us again. Was he expecting a call from someone? Did he need to make a call? Why he was forcing this game toward whatever conclusion awaited us was not clear to me. "No, get his daughter," he ordered, looking at his watch. "We got her, then we got him. Then he has to deal with me. He has to talk to me, he gots to give me my money. And if he don't have it, then you boys got a problem."

  * * *

  A minute later they had bundled me into the white limousine waiting outside. It was the same one as before, late model, spotless, smoked glass. Denny and Gabriel sat across from me, each with a gun drawn. The car rolled smoothly through traffic. The heater was on, the row of little floor lights elegant. I was worried about Ha and Allison, despite her betrayal of Sally Cowles.

  "Stop thinking," Gabriel said.

  "I'll try," I answered.

  "If it was up to me," he announced, "I'd put a wee fucking bullet in your head right now."

  I didn't doubt him. "You guys are insane for doing this," I said. "Just in case you didn't know that."

  They didn't listen. The driver turned on a smooth jazz station. We glided up Sixth Avenue, past Bryant Park, past Forty-second Street, past the dense corporate cliff-dwellings, offices piled into the sky, every third person on the sidewalk talking into a phone, past
Radio City Music Hall, then east at Central Park, past the Plaza Hotel, and on up toward the Upper East Side.

  Where could Jay be, I wondered, dreading our arrival at Sally Cowles's school. If we could go to Jay directly, then we could bypass Sally Cowles. There was still time to turn around. Where would he be? Not in his sad apartment. What interested him most? Sally Cowles. But when she was in school what did he do? He didn't work. Did he hang around outside the school? Looking in the windows? That was not a good idea and probably didn't satisfy his needs. He needed to be near oxygen, of course, needed to have access to it. Yet he was secretive about this, too. There had to be an answer, but I didn't have it.

  We slid up Park Avenue, drawing closer. I wondered if I could somehow jump to the door, scramble out. Not likely. Gabriel and Denny remembered the school from the basketball game and told the driver to pull over across from the main gate.

  "She'll be coming out right here," Gabriel said.

  So we waited. Several mothers congregated to one side, each dressed for the occasion, if not every occasion, their lipstick perfect, sunglasses darkly aloof, hair fabuloso. I was reminded of Judith, picking up Timothy from school.

  "Couple of these yummy-mummies look insufficiently serviced," noted Gabriel.

  Denny looked. "Think so?"

  Gabriel nodded. "You can tell by the shoes. Women needing service tend to obsess about their shoes."

  Denny smiled. "You're a sick fucker, Gabriel."

  "Indeed."

  Now a gaggle of girls in school uniforms left the school. Boys, too, in their coats and ties. Timothy could've been among them.

  "How we going to tell which one?"

  "Mr. Wyeth will advise us."

  "No way," I said.

  More girls were coming out of the school.

  "Mr. Wyeth, recognize any?"

  "Go fuck yourself."

  "Well, if you don't look out of the window, then will you look at this?"

  I looked. And was surprised. Gabriel was holding a picture of Sally Cowles, the one that had been on Jay's wall.

  "Where did you—" I stopped myself.

  "Thank you very much," said Gabriel. "That's excellent. Thank you. Yes, this is her," he said. "Figured."

  He looked from the photo to the school to the photo. "No one is going to think twice about a limo pulled up outside of this school." And indeed there were other limos pulled up outside, and not a few of them.

  "That's her," said Gabriel suddenly. He checked the picture, looked up again.

  It was Sally, walking along Eighty-sixth Street with a friend.

  "Ease along behind," Gabriel told the driver. "Stay back." The car pulled along slowly. "Say goodbye to your little friend, Sally," he narrated.

  The two girls came to the corner.

  "Don't turn, go straight," ordered Gabriel. "Make the light, make the light!" The limo jumped across the intersection. "Now slow, slow! We're ahead of her." He looked back through the rear window. "That's it. They're saying goodbye, very good, yes, see you tomorrow, pimples and all, that's it, right along here. She's coming—" He turned to me and stuck his gun in my face. "You say one word and I'll blow your nose off, right here, in the car."

  "I know where to find Rainey," I told him. "I just figured it out. We can go there. He's in his building, he's—"

  "Bullshit."

  "No it's not. He's at 162 Reade Street."

  "We looked there, do you think we're idiots?"

  "You didn't look in the right place."

  "We went through the boiler room."

  "Did you go upstairs?"

  "We knocked on a few doors."

  "I know where he is, right now! You don't have to grab her!"

  "Yes we do. That's our instruction," Denny said.

  "You ready?" asked Gabriel.

  "Yes."

  Gabriel showed me his gun. "One word from you and you'll never play catch with your boy again—"

  "My boy?"

  "— and his lovely mother. In Italy now, right?"

  I fell backward, cursing Jay Rainey, and myself. The car stopped. Gabriel threw open his door just as Sally Cowles passed by.

  "Excuse me, miss," he called with theatrical friendliness, "we're rather lost."

  "Oh," she said, with a bit of an English inflection.

  "I'm looking for Sixth Avenue."

  She came close to the car, reassured that it was a limousine. "Well, Sixth Avenue isn't nearby, really."

  Gabriel stepped out of the car, leaving the door barely cracked open. I could see part of Sally's back. He showed her a New York City street map. "We're from out of town," he said apologetically.

  "It's okay," came Sally's voice, cool and sophisticated for a fourteen-year-old, "it's sort of a complicated city."

  I was about to yell. But Denny shoved his gun into my armpit, then reached around and rammed three fingers into my mouth.

  "See, Fifth Avenue is here," explained Sally. "And Sixth— hey!"

  Suddenly she was inside the car, backpack falling in front of her, Gabriel shoveling her forward, jumping in and slamming the door behind him. "Go!" he said to the driver, locking the door. "But easily. Roll forward."

  "Hey! What is this!" cried Sally, her eyes angrily studying the men, then the windows and door locks, her distance from escape. "What're you doing?"

  "Mind your manners, luv," Gabriel told her. He lifted his gun and flicked his tongue against the barrel, smiling with such frank sadism that Sally lowered her head in terror, knees locked together.

  "Back downtown!" Gabriel ordered the driver. Then he turned to me. "All right, time to make good on your promises."

  The limo headed south along Fifth Avenue. Sally dared to steal a glance at me. "Where are we going?"

  Denny shook his finger. "Confidential, miss."

  She ducked her head again, her hair curtaining her face, and a moment later I saw she'd started to tremble.

  "Not a sound!" bellowed Gabriel. "Not a bloody whimper! Do you understand?"

  She nodded, her back starting to heave.

  Maybe there's still a way out of this, I thought, leaving her unharmed and not knowing about Jay.

  "Where are you taking me?" Sally sobbed, face hidden.

  "Why, Sally, lass," announced Gabriel, "we're taking you to your father."

  * * *

  We arrived at the building on Reade Street. Sally recognized it.

  "He's upstairs. I know exactly where he is!" I said. "I'm sure of it!"

  "Don't hurt my father!" cried Sally. "Please!"

  "Out," Gabriel said to me. "Nothing funny or they drive away."

  He stepped out first, a hand on my neck. "Thought you were clever with that box of money business."

  "There's a pile of cash, I'm telling you."

  "You better hope so."

  I pondered this, the threat in it.

  "You're thinking," Gabriel said. "I can feel it. Thinking about running, doing the quick squirrel."

  "No."

  "Don't do it, Billy-boy."

  "I could do it."

  "No you couldn't."

  "I'd be down the street, I—"

  "I'd get one clean shot. Might hit you, too. Might blow out your dream factory. Then your son wouldn't have a dad."

  We got to the front door. Gabriel took out a set of keys. Stolen from Jay's apartment, I guessed. "Don't touch the buzzer, either."

  He pulled open the door and pushed me inside. The same Chinese menus as before lay on the floor.

  "Upstairs," I said. "Quietly."

  On the fourth floor I stopped.

  "Open that one," I said, pointing to the door opposite Cowles's.

  Gabriel slipped a key into the lock. Tried another. It worked.

  We stepped into an empty office suite. It needed paint. You could still see the indentations on the carpet where desk and chairs had been, a ghost layout. I saw papers on the floor. Some sort of e-commerce scam.

  "Where is he, Bill?" asked Gabriel, pushing me f
orward.

  In the next room I stepped past food wrappers, cans, bottles, and newspapers. Some clothes. Somebody had been living there. Spending a lot of time, anyway. A small oxygen bottle lay among the refuse. Bits of plaster had been tracked all over the carpeting.