by Peter Quinn
The situation in Cuba drove patriots like Wilfredo Grillo mad. Yet Dunne had yet to meet a visitor from the north who wasn’t charmed by the sea-scented island city with its blazing sunlight and torrid nightlife, stately streets and wide avenues, friendly, courteous, disproportionately handsome people as multi-hued as Howard Johnson’s 28 kinds of ice cream—deep chocolate, coconut, vanilla fudge, pecan, cocoa marshmallow, and everything in between. Sedate, orderly, sexy, exciting, seething, beautiful, dirt poor, magical, and everything in between. Habana. Name your poison, pal.
The bitter temperatures in the northeast U.S. made it impossible to get a reservation, now at the height of the tourist season, in one of the grand old hotels, the Seville-Baltimore, or Plaza, or the sumptuous Nacional. Dunne booked a room in a smaller, remodeled one—sleek, modern—that catered to the growing airline trade. At check-in, he bantered in Spanish with the desk clerk.
A retired teacher, widowed, the clerk had landed part-time work at the hotel when the tourist trade was at its peak. The management insisted he become proficient in English, a process he’d only recently begun. Dressed in an old-style wing-collar shirt, an even older-styled pince-nez attached by a black ribbon to his lapel, he gestured at the brash, shiny lobby, Formica counters, faux-crystal chandelier. “We must stay with the breasts of the times,” he said. “¿Ese es el dicho que usan en los Estados Unidos, no?”
“Sí.” Dunne understood Spanish and could speak a fair amount, an ability he’d picked up from Roberta.
He ate breakfast on the balcony outside his room. He enjoyed the morning breeze, though it pushed against the pages of his Havana Post and made it hard to read about the new prosperity washing over the city, plans for new hotels, casinos that would finance public improvements. The ad for the Tropicana boasted that thanks to headliner Nat King Cole, it was totally booked. But he hadn’t come to join the hordes of Yanquí touristas at the sex shows, or in the noisy, crowded nightclubs, with their gaudy-bawdy floor shows, or to gawk at the high rollers in the more well-known casinos. He wanted the distraction of Havana’s relaxed rhythms, the easy gait of that pre-war city, busy but never in a hurry.
He decided to go early to the Club House at the newly refurbished Oriental Park Racetrack, before it got crowded, to watch the workouts and the first races; afternoon, single glass of rum and a cigar in a small café off the Malecón where all the U.S. newspapers were available; afterwards, join all the true Habaneros in a nap. That night he’d visit the Starlight Room at the Old Madrid to play roulette, the place where Roberta had spotted the usually casino-shy Ernest Hemingway. Still had a pre-war feel. Dunne called Eddie Moran, the head bouncer, to let him know he was coming. An old pal from the 69th Regiment, Moran was one of countless Prohibition-era tourists who, after several Cuba Libres at Sloppy Joe’s on Zulueta Street, talked about returning for good. Eddie actually did.
Dunne decided to swim a few laps in the hotel pool but went on for longer than he planned. Afterwards, he had a session with Nestor, the poolside masseur, a tall, muscled Argentinean who raged with barely contained ferocity against Juan Perón and his dead wife, Eva, and the way they ruined his country. “Sooner or later, the bandits come to power.” He pressed his fists down so hard into Dunne’s shoulders that he barely choked back a yelp. “You’ll see,” Nestor said, “one day it’ll be your country’s turn.”
Relaxed and aglow, Dunne closed the shutters in his room and lay down for a few moments under the hypnotic whir of the ceiling fan. He was startled from sleep by the telephone on the nightstand. The time on his wristwatch was 5:15. He’d slept the afternoon away. He picked up the phone. The hotel operator asked him to hold while she connected him to an international line. An instant later, after a burst of static, a nasally, high-pitched voice announced a long-distance, person-to-person call from New York. Mister Bud Mulholland for Mister Fintan Dunne. Is Mr. Dunne available?
Dunne sat up, doubly taken back. He’d presumed Roberta was calling to scold him for not calling to tell her he’d landed safely. “Let me see if I can locate him.” He put his hand over the receiver.
He knew only one Bud Mulholland. Not exactly Mr. Sympathy or somebody to turn to for cheering up, Mulholland was someone you wanted around when the big guns went off. When Colonel Donovan had brought Dunne into the OSS as one of his New York micks—veterans of the first war who added a dollop of operational experience and street sense to the service’s high-toned mix of Wall Streeters and Ivy Leaguers—he’d told him to be on the lookout for other prospects. Dunne recommended Mulholland, who proved a most worthwhile recruit. Tell him who had to be eliminated, time, place, mode of transportation: he’d do it or train someone who could.
It was nine years since Dunne had last seen him. Post-war partying of spring and summer subsided into grim London winter. Mulholland said little, which wasn’t unusual among those long in combat. But he seemed to be suffering not so much war’s impact as absence. Known for the precision with which he dispatched those marked for elimination, he’d been in continual action since 1943, behind enemy lines in Holland, with the Italian partisans, in the advance into Germany. In his cups, one of the Ivy League OSS recruits who’d been with Mulholland on several missions observed: “Bud’s got two passions. Slaying the Axis’s men and laying the Allies’ ladies. Now, he’s reduced to the latter which, unfortunately, isn’t the one he finds most pleasurable.”
Dunne took his hand from the receiver. “This is Fintan Dunne.”
“Go ahead, please, Mr. Mulholland,” the operator said. “Your party’s on the line.”
The voice at the other end came through clearly, except for an echo when it paused. “Dunne, you bum, taking it easy down there, while we’re freezing our keisters off up here … here.”
“Bud?”
“How many other Mulhollands in New York do you know? … know?
“How’d you know I was here?”
“Your wife didn’t want to tell, I think maybe I frightened her, said it was a matter of life and death … death.”
“Who’s?”
“Nobody’s, really, I was exaggerating, but it’s important, and I’m calling on behalf of someone with a lot of clout wants you and nobody else … else.”
“I’m retired.”
“So I hear … hear.” Mulholland didn’t say anything more.
If Dunne wanted to end the conversation, now was the moment. “What’s involved?”
“Even if I knew, I wouldn’t yap about it on the phone, party in question will only discuss it with you and only in person … person.”
“When?”
“Yesterday preferably, tomorrow if possible … possible.”
“I just got here.”
“Fly all the way and don’t worry what it costs … costs.”
“Prefer the train.”
“Suit yourself, but he wants that you should start right away … away.”
“He?”
“Come north, ’cause that’s the only way you’re going to find out … out.”
Holding back an answer, he mentioned business to wrap up, other options to consider. Left unmentioned: pride, genuine uncertainty, abrupt unexpectedness of the offer. He’d call in the morning with his decision.
“Suit yourself, Fin, but an opportunity like this won’t come again … again.”
He ordered dinner in his room. The long nap didn’t interfere with a solid night’s sleep. In the morning, with his mind made up to pursue Mulholland’s proposal, he went in person to let the desk clerk know he’d be checking out.
The desk clerk was busy with a guest. “Estare con usted en un momento, Señor Dunne,” he said. He turned the ledger to face the guest on the other side of the counter. “Mire, aquí esta la lista de reservaciones. Su nombre no aparece en ella.”
The young, blondish man opposite the clerk had shoulders broad and bulky enough to double as automobile fenders. Before he’d opened his mouth, the pink-and-black checkered sports jacket announced he was from up north. �
�Try it in English, pal.”
“He says your name isn’t on the reservation list,” Dunne said.
“Already figured that out.”
“Just trying to help.”
“Much appreciated.” The on-and-off flash of his smile, which had all the spontaneity of a traffic light, said it wasn’t. He aimed a finger at the courtly, gray-haired clerk. A red-and-blue serpent was tattooed on the back of his hand. “I booked this trip a month ago through Gateway Travel, so get on the horn here”—he laid his hand on the desk telephone—“and straighten this out pronto, capice?”
He sounded as though he was from Chicago. Maybe Cleveland. Got accustomed to flying in the service. Instead of schlepping by boat, take the $39 Pan Am round-trip puddle jumper from Miami or book one of the new direct flights from the Midwest to Havana, airfare, hotel and meals, all included for one affordable price, payable in five easy installments.
Outside, a tour bus began unloading a troop of tourists from the airport. The bellhops struggled to keep order and sort the luggage. The clerk picked up the phone. Fingers drumming lightly on the ledger, he waited for an answer from whoever was on the other end. He turned to Dunne. “Siento hacerle esperar, Señor.”
“No se preocupe. No estoy apurado.”
The clerk nodded appreciatively, equally grateful for the courtesy of an answer in Spanish and the good manners of a turista still loyal to the notion that visitors from the frenetic, inclement north should adjust to the easy-tempered, tropical pace of Habana not the other way around. A moment later, he rested the receiver back in its cradle and said with solemn finality, “Lo siento, pero …”
Dunne interrupted. “Look, I think I can solve this. I’ve been called back to the States. My room is available.” He repeated himself in Spanish.
“That’s nice of you, pal.” The guest opposite the clerk stood back, making no attempt to hide that he was sizing up Dunne. His green-blue pupils were the color of angry Atlantic waves. “I got to tell you, you look familiar. Don’t have any long-lost relatives in Cicero, Illinois, do you?”
“Not any who would admit it,” Dunne replied.
The man opposite Dunne introduced himself as Jack Morello. Dunne asked where he was from. “From the place I just left.” He invited Dunne to the hotel bar for a daiquiri (which he pronounced as day-kerry). “Best in Havana, even better than at the Floridita. I’m told I have to try one.” He flashed another mechanical smile. Eyes told a different story: pent-up fury of a man cheated at the track, or cuckolded by his wife and knew it. “And I always do as I’m told.” He made it sound like a threat.
Dunne explained he had to catch a plane. Morello gave a silent indifferent shrug and walked away.
When Dunne came back through the lobby after retrieving his bag, Morello was gone. No sign of him in the bar either. The memory of that smile, welcoming as a headstone, lingered behind like a half-made threat. Far more Cleveland than Havana. Dunne hurried through the blazing sunshine into a waiting taxi. First thing to do when he got home was make a discreet inquiry about the identity of Mulholland’s employer.
He recognized Bud Mulholland right away, appointed time and place, under the clock in Penn Station: gray fedora, gray herringbone coat, black galoshes over black shoes, New York Standard under his arm. Plainclothesman’s plainclothesman. Ordinary and unprepossessing. Just don’t get too near, or mistake that subtle, cynical curve of his mouth for a friendly invitation to get close or make small talk.
“Welcome to the North Pole.” Feet slightly apart, right hand clenched and hanging at his side, Mulholland seemed poised to throw a punch. Unlike so many of the vets Dunne encountered since war’s end, he hadn’t put on weight. If anything, he looked as if he’d lost it. The ramrod straightness that had made him seem taller than he really was had given way to a slight crouch. But maybe the hunch in his shoulders was nothing more than a reflexive defense against the arctic weather.
“Guess I’m too late for Santa.” Dunne extended his hand.
Mulholland undid his fist and shook hands. He sniffed. “You been in storage?”
“Coat has.” Roberta had retrieved his Rogers Peet double-breasted camel’s hair overcoat and packed it in his valise. He’d taken it out to air as the train glided across the Meadowlands, but the smell of mothballs was still overpowering.
“Check your bag, and let’s blow before the fumes knock somebody out.”
“Where to?”
“The Iron Horse. A bar with no TV. One of the few. We can talk.”
“Prefer to listen while you fill me in.”
“Can’t. He says it’s between him and you.”
“Who’s ‘him’?”
“He’ll see you at six. For now that’s all I can say.”
Despite the bustle and hum of the crowds moving through the close-to-shabby station, a khaki-gray sadness haunted the vast interior, as though the memory of all those wartime partings of lovers and spouses—last-minute hugs, clutchings, sobs, tears, forebodings—had seeped into the walls. It was the same tired, worn-down feeling that by war’s end was taken for granted everywhere in Europe but seemed out of place in America. It put Dunne in mind of those former residents of Berlin or Vienna who spent their last days in New York sitting stoically in the corners of Bickford’s or the Automat, their dignity not erased entirely but visibly depleted, once-stylish clothes frayed and out-of-date: political exiles and genteel, formerly prosperous Jewish refugees, visitors from another time and place, stranded between here and the hereafter.
Mulholland led the way onto wind-slashed Eighth Avenue. Low in the west, the sun was ready to sink behind the General Post Office. Slush puddles were fast solidifying back to ice. Dunne raised his collar, glanced up at the vaguely familiar words carved into the façade: SNOW … RAIN … GLOOM OF NIGHT … APPOINTED ROUNDS.
Up close, Mulholland’s quiet, retiring presence had a hard-edged authority, almost menacing, a tightly collared ferocity as charged as an electric wire. He moved a few paces ahead. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “Move it.” Short as he was, people instinctively stepped out of his way.
“How far?”
“Next corner.” Mulholland paused and let Dunne catch up. “You must wish you were still in Cuba.”
“Right now, I’m thinking my wife was right. Said I’d be nuts to come to New York this time of year.”
“Every wife thinks her husband is nuts. Eventually, they’re right.”
Final blush of plum-tinged twilight filled the window beside the bar. Bartender’s banging on the cash-register keys had a musical ring. Impromptu, unintended “Taps.”
Day is done, gone the sun.
“At a certain age, things that once seemed important, don’t.” Fintan Dunne listened for slurring in his voice. Pace yourself. So far, so good.
“Stop making yourself sound like Methuselah,” Mulholland said. “You look good, Fin. Even got a tan.”
Dunne rattled the cubes in his Scotch glass. Crackle, crackle. Ice tumbled and fissured. Crack. A small sound, but sharp as a pistol shot, accompanied the slowly melting dilution of water trickling into amber-colored alcohol. Always plenty of rocks. Part of the secret of pacing yourself. “This point I think I know more dead people than living.”
“Two world wars. And the conflict or scrape or whatever-the-hell-they-call-it in Korea. Finally a fight they didn’t want us in.”
Cash-register music again.
Fare thee well; Day has gone.
“Only a few went that way.” More than a few, but by unconscious, almost universal agreement among those who’d experienced the worst of war, a topic left undiscussed. Lately, it was getting hard to keep straight who died in which war. Nardelli, Scanlon, Haines, Billy Sullivan in the first. Long list in the second included that milk-faced first lieutenant from Iowa cut in half by a German machine gun at Anzio—whatever his name. “Cancer, strokes and heart attacks are the culprits now.”
“Sooner or later something gets you.” Mulholland squee
zed thumb and forefinger, tweezers-like, into the pack, extracted a last bent cigarette, crumpled the empty pack into a ball, and dropped it in the ashtray. Elbows on the bar, he ripped a match from its book and lit his cigarette. “Me, I’ll take the John Garfield way.”
“Who hasn’t heard that story?” Dunne poked the ice with a plastic stirrer, horse-shaped head, name printed lengthwise: IRON HORSE LOUNGE. He remembered Garfield in Body and Soul. Slugged it out with the moxie of a real boxer. I’m the champ. It’s gonna be easy. Then it got hard. Dead five years later, not even forty. “He had a wife and kids. True or not, they can’t like hearing it.”
“Ever hear of a man died screwing his wife?” Mulholland scooped loose change from the bar. “Garfield croaked saddling a showgirl. Other things contributed, sure, booze, bum ticker, blacklisted from the movies on account of that stuff about being a Commie. They tried to get him ‘to name names.’ It ate at him. A buddy of mine did the investigation, let me eyeball the file. Garfield was an alley cat. Poke any knothole available. Least he died smiling.”
He went over and deposited coins in the cigarette machine and returned with two packs; he laid one on the bar and slid it to Dunne. Out in L.A., Jeff Wine’s sordid intelligence on the movie industry came with the details of the night when Garfield’s little girl died in his wife’s arms, and he sprayed the backyard with an automatic weapon before staggering mad with grief into the Hollywood hills as he howled like a werewolf in a B-grade horror film. A heart that broke before it stopped.
“Whoopi-ty-aye-oh,” Mulholland crooned in a low, surprisingly mellifluous voice, “let me go the John Garfield way, back in the saddle again.” He opened the pack, lit a cigarette, extinguished the flame with a single hard snap of his wrist. “You’ve been away a while.” He handed the matchbook to Dunne.