by Ted Bell
He’d definitely died and gone to prostitute paradise.
The girl stopped and looked at him, lounging there on the steps of the Swiss embassy, Mr. Casual. Weird, but she looked familiar. She had these slanty Chinese eyes, but she didn’t look all that Chinese. Her skin was the color of one of those three-dollar mocha lattes at Starbucks.
Couldn’t tell if she was a working girl or not, more he looked at her. She had this gold collar thing around her neck that looked real. Had a little gold ring hanging down at the front. Hooker jewelry? Hell, they were all working girls, weren’t they? One way or another when you got right down to it, everybody and everything was for sale around here.
Amazingly enough, she climbed up the steps and banged on the door. He let her rap it a few times, then said, “It’s closed. Sunday.”
“What?” she said in English. All attitude this chick.
“You want a mink coat?”
She flipped him the finger and said something that didn’t sound too encouraging.
“How about we start with a big pitcher of sangria over at the Floridita?”
She stopped again, thought about it, turned around. She was checking him out. He yawned and stretched his legs out, cool as a Popsicle.
“Americano, huh?”
“Home of the brave, baby.”
“Yeah, right, Ernesto Junior here wants to buy me sangria at El Floridita, Papa’s favorite saloon. You’re just another Hemingway sucker, chico.”
“A who sucker?”
“Never mind. What happened to your lip?”
“You should see the other guy,” he said, liking how fast it came out.
“Yeah, that doctor. You broke his jaw. You’re the one who caused all that trouble at the hospital, right?”
He looked at her.
“You were there? I thought I’d seen you before.”
“My sister is head nurse there. She’s the one who told you about the embassy.”
“So you—like, what, followed me over here?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, chico. I had some business at the embassy, too—something to deliver for my brother.” She pulled a manila envelope out of her shoulder bag.
“Stick it under the door,” Gomez said.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s full of money.”
“Oh,” he said, thinking, definitely not a working girl delivering cash to an embassy.
“So, adios,” she said, sticking the envelope back in her bag. He wondered how much money was in there. He could grab it and run. The Malecón was only a block away. He could melt into the crowds. Could she catch him wearing those bright yellow fuck-me shoes? I don’t think so.
“Hey, wait a minute, baby! Where you going?”
“Back to work.”
“You work on Sunday? Christ.”
“My brother has a club. I work there.”
“Yeah, what do you do?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“Hey, that sounds good. Can I come?”
“It’s very exclusive. Members only.”
“I could join.”
She laughed so hard it pissed him off.
“You think I can’t afford it?”
“I know you can’t afford it. It’s the most expensive club in Havana. On the other hand—”
“What?”
“My brother might like you.”
“Why’s that?”
“He likes guys who like to beat the shit out of other guys. They’re always useful.”
Five seconds after she put two fingers in her mouth and blew the loudest whistle he’d ever heard, the biggest, blackest Chrysler Imperial on earth pulled up in front of the embassy. The driver, some muscleman in a black T-shirt, reached over and swung the door open for her. She hopped in the front, leaned over, and gave the guy a big kiss.
Gomez didn’t see her sliding over for him up front so he climbed in the back. The car was mint, like just off the showroom floor. Even had that smell.
“What year is this?” Gomez asked as the guy took off down the narrow street.
“Fifty-nine,” the guy said, and turned around and smiled at him. Big gold tooth up front. “Está bueno, no?”
“This is my cousin Santos,” the chick said, squeezing the back of the guy’s neck. “Sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“Gomez.”
“I’m Ling-Ling,” she said.
“Ling-Ling,” Gomez said, liking the sound of it. “You know how Chinese people name their kids?” he asked. “They throw all their silverware up in the air and name the kids after the sound it makes when it hits the floor. Ling-Ling, huh? Sounds like a salad fork.”
Nobody said another word until they pulled up in front of a big wooden gate set in a high pink wall. Gomez had been following their route on his map. They’d driven all along the Malecón with the Castillo del Morro on his far right, looking like an ocean liner entering the stormy harbor. Big rollers came in from the Atlantic, crashing over the seawall at Punta Brava, the spray misting the Chrysler’s windshield.
Now they were in the shady El Vedado section where all the big old houses were. Most of them built sometime before 1959 B.C. Before Castro.
Gomez and the chick climbed out.
“Hasta mañana,” her cousin said, slapping his meaty brown hand on the door a couple of times. Guy must have been wearing ten gold bracelets. Gomez watched the Imperial slide off into a tunnel of green branches hanging dark and heavy, brushing the top of the car as it slid away.
“Well, this is it,” Ling-Ling said, pushing a button in the wall and waving up at one of the video cameras.
“What’s the club called?” Gomez asked as the heavy doors started to swing inward.
“The Mao-Mao Club.”
They stepped through the gates, and Gomez said, “This isn’t a club, it’s a jungle.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? We have every kind of bird and animal. Even jaguars and leopards.”
“No kidding,” Gomez said, trying not to sound scared. He seemed to remember somebody getting eaten by a leopard in a movie.
After five minutes of ducking under trees and climbing over banyan roots that had buckled the old walkway, they came to another gate. This time, the gate swung open automatically into a courtyard and there was a little Chinese guy standing there in red silk pajamas. He had a silver tray in his hand with some kind of drink in a tall silver cup.
“Every new guest receives one,” Ling-Ling said. “It’s called Poison. Try it.”
“I love poison,” Gomez said, and took a sip. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted in his life.
“You make this stuff?” he asked the Chinaman. The little fellow giggled and scurried away. Probably doesn’t speak a word of English, Gomez thought, hardly surprised.
“This way,” Ling-Ling said. “My brother is probably at the bar in the casino.”
They walked around a pool about half the size of a football field that had a huge splashing fountain in the middle of it. The fountain had some guy with a giant pitchfork riding in some kind of Roman chariot pulled by a bunch of dolphins and whales. Guy had his arm around this mermaid. Biggest damn mermaid tits you ever saw. Solid gold? Had to be.
Gomez heard a shriek and saw a girl climb out of the pool, naked, and watched her get chased by this old fat guy into one of the cabanas that lined both sides of the pool. The girl was wearing the same kind of gold collar around her neck as Ling-Ling.
He noticed that a lot of the cabanas were occupied and most of them had the thick striped curtains closed. He also saw more beautiful girls wearing gold collars at the far end of the pool. He took another swig of his drink and tried not to stare too hard.
At the far end of a wide grassy strip lined with a double row of tall palms stood a big pink building with white shutters that had to be four stories high. Could have been a hotel at one time. Or some dictator’s house.
“I like this club,” Gomez said, following Ling-Li
ng into the cool shade of the main house.
She stopped and looked at him. “There is one rule,” she said. “There are many famous people here. If you recognize someone, you don’t look at them or speak to them. Okay?”
“Got it,” Gomez said, searching the faces at the roulette tables for someone he recognized. He saw one cat looked a lot like Bruce Willis, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure because of the dark glasses.
They found her brother sitting at the far end of the long mahogany bar, talking quietly to some guy with a long black ponytail. “Ciao, Manso,” her brother said to him, and the ponytailed guy immediately stood up and turned away.
“Rodrigo,” Ling-Ling said. “This is Señor Gomez. He is someone I thought you would like to meet.”
Rodrigo stood and stuck out his hand to Gomez. Manso, the ponytailed guy he’d been talking to, wandered off through the casino. Probably famous, because he was careful not to show his face. Swishy walk, Gomez thought, watching the guy. Gay bar? No way. Too much stuff running around bare-ass naked.
“Buenas tardes,” the man said. “A cordial welcome to Club Mao-Mao.” Smooth as silk, man.
Still, Gomez almost lost it.
The man’s eyes were completely colorless.
There was the normal white part. And then, in the middle, where the color usually is, they were totally transparent. Like the guy had a pair of clear marbles in his eye sockets.
“Do I frighten you, señor? Sorry. I sometimes have that effect on strangers.”
“No. I just—”
The guy was a piece of work all right. Tall and thin and movie-star handsome. Dressed in a white linen suit with a pale blue silk shirt. Thin gold chain around his neck. Had the same mocha latte skin as his sister. Same peroxide blond hair, too. But those eyes were out of some horror movie.
“What do you do, Señor Gomez?” Rodrigo asked. “If I may ask?”
“United States Navy. I’m a sailor. Stationed over at Guantánamo.”
“So, what brings you to our ancient capital?”
“A two-day pass. My mother, she’s, uh, in the hospital. She’s dying. Stomach cancer.”
“You are cubano, no?”
“Yes. My mother stayed here when my father took me from Mariel Harbor to Miami in eighty-one. He died last year at Dade County. Prostrate cancer.”
“Prostate.”
“What?”
“I believe the word is prostate, señor. In any case, I’m sorry to hear of his passing. Won’t you have another drink?” He signaled the bartender and another silver cup arrived.
“Thank you,” Gomez said. “These are great.” He was already feeling the first one, but what the hell. Stuff was frigging delicious.
“You had an unfortunate experience at the hospital, I understand,” Rodrigo said.
“Yeah, this goddamn American embargo. My mother is in such pain that—wait a minute, how’d you know about the hospital?”
“My sister. We talk on the phone all the time. You are opposed to the American policy?”
“You could say that.”
“The americanos try to punish Cuba but they only hurt women and children. Do you like to gamble, Señor Gomez? Blackjack? Baccarat? Chemin de fer?”
“Twenty-one,” Gomez said. “Is that the same as Blackjack?”
“Exactamente,” Rodrigo said. He opened a white marble box that was sitting on the bar. It was full of chips, one hundred–, five hundred–, one thousand–dollar chips. He counted out ten one thousand–dollar chips and stacked them in front of Gomez.
“Compliments of the house,” he said, flashing a big white smile. “Ling-Ling, would you introduce Señor Gomez to our head croupier? Make sure he’s well taken care of at the tables, darling.”
“Of course,” Ling-Ling said. “Won’t you come with me, Señor Gomez?”
“Love it,” Gomez said. “And, could I, uh, get one more of these poison things?”
Gomez followed Ling-Ling’s sashaying little spandex butt out toward the casino floor, thinking, have I absolutely died and gone to heaven here or what?
“Jack!” he said, passing a guy in a very sharp sharkskin suit who was rolling the bones. Guy had to be Nicholson. He recognized the haircut and shades from People magazine. “My man, what’s up?”
“Jesus Christ,” Ling-Ling hissed at him. “Didn’t you hear what I fucking told you?”
“Yeah, right. Sorry.”
Chick was pissed. All right, we can deal with that. How many times in his life is a guy going to rub elbows with Jack Goddamn Nicholson? A little slack here, Ling-Ling, please.
“Autograph out of the question, I guess,” he said, following her through the maze of tables.
“You got a pen?” the chick says, giving him a look over the shoulder. “I’ll autograph your dick if there’s enough space to write on.”
“Hey, ease up. I said I was sorry.”
“Here’s your table, sailor boy. This is Francisco. He will take care of you. Okay? Bonne chance. Ciao. Whatever.”
The chick started to walk away. He grabbed her arm.
“Hey. Question. What’s with your brother’s eyes?” Gomez asked her. “You don’t mind me asking.”
She turned and stared at him.
“My brother was imprisoned for twelve years,” Ling-Ling said. “He was kept in a small room with no light. None. No natural. No artificial. The lack of light just leaches all the color out.”
“Man. So, how did he get out? Seems to be doing okay now, I mean.”
“He said that if they’d let him out for just one day he would do anything. Literally anything they asked. They gave him something to do that was extremely—unpleasant. He was permanently released the following day. Now my brother and I are together again.”
* * *
He didn’t know where he was when he came to, but he was pretty damn sure that it wasn’t Hugh Hefner’s bedroom at the Playboy Mansion.
He was sitting in a hard wooden chair in a room with no other furniture. Nothing on the floors or the walls. Not even windows. His hands were duct-taped to the arms of the chair, his ankles bound to the chair’s legs. He didn’t know how long he had sat there with his head pounding before he heard a door open behind him.
“Ah, Señor Gomez,” he heard a familiar voice say. It was, what was his name, Rodrigo. “Did you have a nice siesta? You’ve slept for almost twenty-four hours.”
“What’s the—what’s the deal here? I thought you, uh, that you—” His tongue felt way too big for his mouth.
“The deal is this, Señor Gomez. You owe the Mao-Mao Club one hundred thousand dollars.”
The guy pulled out a piece of paper and held it in front of Gomez’s face. He tried to focus but everything was out of whack.
“There is the ten thousand I extended you as a courtesy. When you exhausted that, you indebted yourself to the house for another hundred thousand. At the bottom is your signature. I am forgiving you the ten, because it was a gift.”
“What’s the, uh, what do you—”
“You have exactly one week to repay. You must understand that I am not one who forgives his debtors as they forgive him.”
“I can’t…I don’t…how will I get the money?”
“That is hardly my concern, señor. Now, turn your left palm upwards.”
The man pulled a pair of nasty-looking silver scissors from his pocket and snipped the blades a couple of times.
“Hey, wait! What are you—”
“Two associates of mine will contact you in a few days. Tell you where to bring the money. I’m going to mark you now so that they will recognize you. Turn your left palm upwards, please.”
“I can’t…please…the tape is too tight.”
“Here, let me help you.”
Rodrigo slashed the tape that bound Gomez’s wrist, flipped his hand over, and crushed his left wrist to the arm of the chair.
“Hey, you can’t—”
Rodrigo looked into Gomez’s face with his two
colorless eyes as he slashed the sailor’s palm with the scissors blade. Gomez saw all the bright red blood spattering this guy Rodrigo’s white linen suit, and the lights went out again.
For a while, Gomez thought the angry red letters carved into his hand were WW. After a couple of days, he realized maybe he was looking at the letters upside down.
Maybe it was MM instead of WW.
Mickey Mouse? Marilyn Monroe?
The Mao-Mao Club?
Yeah.
Maybe it meant he was a member.
4
The Staniel Cay Yacht Club baked beneath a torpid afternoon sun. The old haunt had been built in the late forties, sometime just after the war and prior to the time in the fifties when, in Hawke’s view anyway, a vast majority of the world’s architects had gone completely off the rails.
The pink-hued British Colonial–style clubhouse had the faded façade and the boozy, sunburnt charm of a timeworn playboy. Little of the former glamour remained but, underneath it all, Hawke saw as he strode toward it down the long dock, good bones.
Still, to call it a yacht club was stretching things a bit.
Yachts? Certainly a few serious sport-fishing boats showed up from time to time, especially when the marlin were running. Most of the time, however, there were just small fishing gigs and dories bobbing in the clear blue waters around the docks.
It was a club only in that its membership shared a common partiality to lethal rum beverages, ice-cold Kalik beer, and fishing lies of an order of magnitude seldom found outside these parts of the Caribbean. The “president” of the club was whoever was sober enough to remain standing when the bar closed.
The faded club rules, mimeographed and tacked above the bar, stated that it was absolutely forbidden to sleep on the horseshoe bar. Still, in the very early morning, it was not uncommon to find a few members dozing peacefully atop it.
Suffice it to say, one didn’t stroll through these aged portals expecting limbo nights, cocktails with tiny umbrellas, or the quaint melody of “Yellowbird” wafting through the palms. Perhaps the club had seen better days. Perhaps, worse.
The music on the club’s PA system consisted of either reggae in the evenings, or, as now, scratchy recordings of early American bluesmen such as Son House or Blind Lemon Jefferson.