A figure crept out of the aisle. It was Jeremías, Don Edmundo’s bodyguard. He haunted the temple like a spook with sick eyes. When the lights went on Holden saw half of La Familia. Edmundo had gobbled up an entire row in the middle of the orchestra. He had his daughters with him, his sons-in-law, his soothsayers, his wife, business associates, and another man who turned away from Holden. It was Count Josephus from that restaurant of kings. And suddenly Holden’s three semesters at Baruch made sense. He understood the economics of owning a restaurant. Mansions was a Cuban front, a cashbox for Don Edmundo. The count was Edmundo’s doll.
Edmundo bought champagne for Holden’s darling. No one mentioned Rex.
“That tall one, Gladys,” Edmundo said to Fay about one of the dancers, “did you like her elevation?”
Holden looked at the count, remembered the executioner’s heart on his hand, an Albanian with a Cuban prison tale to tell. But the count never looked back.
Holden didn’t have to lie. He announced to Fay that he was keeping business hours again. But first he taught her to use a gun. He had a Llama .380 in the house. He took her with Harrington to some deer park on the other side of the George Washington Bridge and had her fire into a tree.
“Darling, this is a waste of ammunition. I could never shoot a man.”
“It doesn’t matter. At least you know how.”
He returned her to Chelsea, squeezed her in back of the car, left her with the Llama .380 and its shoulder cup, which he strapped to her chest while she laughed. “It’s ridiculous. I look like Belle Starr. I’ll have to get a new wardrobe to go with that gun. I won’t wear it.”
“You will.”
“Are we going to fight in front of Harrington? ... at least come upstairs.”
“I can’t. But wear the gun, Fay. I have enemies.”
“I thought this apartment was a big secret.”
“It’s only a secret if we stay indoors. We’ve been hopping around. Too many people know about us. I’m a worrier, Fay. I’d never be able to leave you alone. You’d get sick of me. I’d crawl inside your pajamas.”
“That’s not so bad. But I’ll wear your silly gun.”
He kissed her and drove uptown to Mansions. Florinda Infante was at her window table, eating medallions of pork with King Alfonse. Holden saw the streak in her hair through the glass. She knocked on the window, summoned him inside.
“Say hello to Fatso,” she said. “You’re his hero. He read all about the mystery man who stole Fay Abruzzi from the big bad borough of Queens. I think he wants to shake your hand. Right, Fatso?”
“Indeed,” Alfonse said.
“But he’ll be crushed when he hears that you’ve been banging the lady.”
“He doesn’t look crushed to me,” Holden said.
“That’s because it takes time to penetrate. He’s a king ... Holden, you shouldn’t duck out on your friends. I don’t mind your liaisons. But to shack up with a housewife who’s a real flake? Rex is laughing in his pants. I think he got his father to stage that kidnapping. He ought to give you an allowance. Should I ask?”
“I’ll do my own asking.”
“Aren’t you going to sit down with us? Fatso will be disappointed.”
“Sorry. I have an engagement with the count.”
Florinda looked up at Holden with her aristocratic face. She had more bearing than the twig, and she was twice as voluptuous as Fay, but she couldn’t move him to madness. His head wasn’t occupied with the purple in her hair.
“It’s funny the count never told me you were coming. He tells me everything.”
“Well, his calendar got a little clogged.”
Holden bowed to Fatso, kissed Florinda’s hand, and went into the heart of the restaurant. The count was at a table with several other kings. Seeing Holden gave him a touch of gloom. But he wasn’t fickle. He stood up and accompanied Holden to his office behind the bar without exaggerating his limp.
“Count, I don’t want to discuss your imperial past. How you got from Albania to Cuba is your business. Just tell me about the jails.”
“What jails, Monsieur?”
Holden grabbed Josephus’ hand and displayed the executioner’s heart. “Don’t monsieur me so much. You’re a fucking convict. You killed people, or you wouldn’t have that mark.”
“But I could also kill you,” Josephus said.
“Not a chance. You gave up the life. You’re a restaurateur. And restaurateurs are notoriously slow. Tell me, count, were you with Huevo’s gang once upon a time? Be careful, because if you lie I’ll come back and tear your face off.”
“Yes. I was with Huevo.”
“Did he fix up your hand, give you the tattoo?”
“Yes. It’s Huevo’s work.”
“And you sailed out of Cuba with him on a boat from Mariel?”
“Holden, I’m sixty-one.”
“And you really are noble, like those other lost kings who collect here. You came to Cuba without a dime. You ran a couple of casinos, I figure, and you might have switched to Castro’s side, because most counts are a little crazy. But the Fidelistas found out you had your own black market in Havana, and they threw you into Taco-Taco.”
Josephus smiled. “You’re not a bad biographer, Holden.”
“How did you earn the mark on your hand?”
“I killed for Fidel ... and other people. My politics were very wide. I could swing right or left.”
“And where did you meet Huevo?”
“In Taco-Taco. We were both politicals. They stuck us with ordinary convicts. We survived and got to America. Edmundo took us in. He’d never had a count fighting in one of his wars. He groomed me for this job. But Huevo wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to start his own family. He did.”
“And you didn’t go with him.”
The count twisted his head. “Do you know how hard I worked to make Mansions a success?”
“Yeah, you gave every king in town a free ride.”
“But look what a clientele we got out of it? Customers like to eat around kings. They feel good.”
“And you convinced other Bandidos to stay with Edmundo.”
“What could I do? Huevo forced me to pick sides.”
“How come he doesn’t kill you? Or bomb Mansions?”
“We were friends a long time,” the count said. “I taught him about America.”
“What America?”
“You kidding? I went back and forth in the old days. I collected for a couple of gambler friends. I flattened a cop in Boca Raton. The shit started to fly. But they couldn’t find me in Cuba. And Huevo? He was in love with the idea of America. I sang Gershwin to him inside Taco-taco. He had a Captain America tee-shirt. The rojos tore it to shreds ... I’m like his uncle, Holden, and you don’t hurt an uncle even if he’s gone bad.”
“Then tell me how I can get to his madrina.”
The count laughed and showed his silver teeth. “If I didn’t tell Edmundo, why should I tell you?”
“Because you’re useful to him, and he’s impressed with a count. But I’ll strangle you in this closet if you don’t help me.”
“Holden, I’ve bumped more people than you’ll ever know.”
“We’re not talking about batting averages. I need a name.”
The count didn’t have the familiar smell of fear that was like chlorine and piss. Holden had to do something. He took out his Beretta. The count’s eyes were as clear as the enamel on Holden’s toilet seat. But Holden didn’t point the gun. He kicked open the door. “I’ll hit the chandeliers first. Then the bottles of whiskey on your bar. Then the mirrors.”
“You wouldn’t dare. The cops would arrest you in five minutes.”
“So what? I’ll plead insanity. I have a great lawyer. But Mansions wouldn’t look right with gunshot wounds. And they’d start investigating you for letting desperate characters into the place. Who knows? They could discover your past ... and your connections with La Familia. Count, I’d make a great canary.”
“You’re bluffing.”
Holden aimed his gun at the count’s central chandelier.
“Wait,” the count said and shut the door. “Huevo’s not a fool. He doesn’t stick to one madrina. He’d be dead if he ever did that. But I could give you a name ... Chepita, she has a sewing shop in El Norte.”
“Where’s that?”
“You don’t know much, do you, Holden? With all the rats you have, you’re still alone. El Norte is at the bottom of Fort Tryon Park. The real estate barons like to think Manhattan is their personal kingdom. But the Marielitos have taken over the top of the island. There’s two Manhattans now. El Norte and El Dorado.”
“Where do you live, count?”
“On Lexington, Holden. I’m not Cuban. I became a Marielito by chance.” He wrote down the madrina’s address.
“You can start drawing a salary from me, count.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m not one of your rats.”
“What else would you call it? And pray that the madrina’s at this address.”
Holden walked to Florinda with the count. She sat with Alfonse and touched the streak in her hair. “What have you two been conspiring?”
“Nothing,” the count said. “Holden wanted to become my partner and I turned him down?”
“What the hell does he know about restaurants?”
“That’s exactly my feeling.”
“Holden, will you sit with me?” She scowled at Fatso, as if her eyes could shove him off a chair.
“I can’t sit,” Holden said, and he floated out of the restaurant, leaving Florinda with a grim face.
12
EL NORTE.
Now he didn’t even know Manhattan. He was a stranger in fancy silk and wool, a frog spawned in Avignon. He’d lived with his dad in Queens until he was old enough to enter Manhattan as a bumper for Swiss. He’d rocketed over his dad in one or two years. Because bumpers were hard to find, bumpers like Holden who weren’t cruel away from their work. He didn’t seek partners or back-up men. Goldie supplied the guns and the suits. Harrington drove him sometimes, sometimes not. Holden didn’t like patterns that an enemy could trace. But he did have a signature. A bullet hole in the middle of the head. Jeremías had been right about him. He was the paradise man. He never butchered. He dispatched you with the least amount of blood.
He’d watched his dad grow smaller and smaller while his own reputation spread. His dad became Holden Sr. all of a sudden, like he was in exile all over again, condemned to some private Palace of the Popes. He died at Muriel’s, falling down a flight of stairs before Holden had the chance to marry Andrushka. To his father he was always the kid, even after he had his name on Aladdin’s door. Technically, Holden Sr. worked for him. He’d found his father on Muriel’s floor and couldn’t cry. Hadn’t he always waited like this for his father’s death? He’d never have had the nerve to bump people if he hadn’t hated his dad. But he didn’t feel like some triumphant boy at Muriel’s. He looked ashen, like his father. The bumper had gone gray.
He rode up to El Norte like a little king at the back of Harrington’s car. But if it was a Marielito province Holden couldn’t tell from the street. He saw one Jewish center, an Episcopalian church, a movie house with gringo films, an Irish grocery store. El Norte had all the old sinews of Manhattan. It wasn’t like the Cuban zone of Miami with its Calle Ocho, its marketas, cups of coffee in the street. There were no Little Havanas under the elevated tracks. He didn’t stop at the bumpers’ bar where the Bandidos wore eyeglasses with one dark lens. He visited Chepita’s sewing shop on Seaman Avenue.
When he opened the door he knew he’d found fat Dolores, no matter what the madrina called herself. This was the woman who’d raised little Barbara. Holden was certain of that. She looked like a heavyweight Carmen Miranda. Three hundred pounds of prettiness, with hooped earrings, eyebrows that followed a perfect line, and nails that were red as blood.
The shop had no signs of Santería. No saints in the window, no magic leaves. Just doilies and pins and the paraphernalia of a seamstress. Holden didn’t believe Dolores sold a thing. He saw a curtain in the back. That was where she had her shop.
But Dolores wasn’t unfriendly. And what made him think of Carmen Miranda who’d died when Holden was just a baby? His dad had kept a picture of her in his desk. Carmen dancing with Cesar Romero, her many skirts whipping around her legs like the lines of a beautiful flower. Carmen had no underpants. It was the first piece of erotica he’d ever shared with his dad. He was eight or nine when he discovered Carmen Miranda in the drawer. And he still wondered what the picture meant to a man who could have had any whore in town. He’d never discussed Carmen with his dad, but he’d seen her movies on the Late Show and remembered her legs. For twenty years the sight of Carmen Miranda in her tutti-frutti hat gave Holden an instant erection.
“Dolores?”
“I’m Chepita,” Dolores said. “Do you like to sew?”
He didn’t want to get into a fight with Dolores. He knew he couldn’t win. “I’m Holden,” he said. “Your godson’s been trying to kill me.”
“I have no godsons,” she said.
“I think you do ... and I’ve taken something from him ... a little girl. But it wasn’t a scam. Tell him I had no evil intent. I was hired to dispose of two pests, and the little girl happened to be under the table. I’d like to give her back ... if it’s not too late. Will your godson see me?”
That big, graceful body moved behind the counter. Her nails gleamed. Holden shivered. He could have been watching Down Argentine Way.
“Why should I trust you? You come to me with a gun under your coat.”
“Here, you can have it,” Holden said, opening his blazer and uncovering his heart.
Dolores smiled. “Foolish man, your career would end if I shot you in the knees. The executioner would have to crawl home.”
“But you still wouldn’t have the little girl.”
“And you would not be able to stand up so you could steal her again ... come with me.”
He followed fat Dolores behind her curtain. There was nothing remarkable at the back of the shop. A hot plate and a fridge, a shower stall and a can that could have been a child’s throne. The can was painted blue.
They went through a door and into a big alley behind the shop. The wind blew on Holden. Bits of dust got into his eye and he had to shield his face. But Dolores’ body seemed to bite back at the weather. Her hips swayed as she walked. Carmen Miranda. Holden wasn’t frightened of the priestess. He’d have gone with her to Oyá’s kingdom, where all the goddesses dwelled. He’d have swum the river Niger with fat Dolores. He was in her hands.
Yet he knew he’d have to kill Huevo or make peace with a phantom army that could turn off sprinklers and alarms and deliver Cuban cocktails through a wall. Was it Changó who’d come to Aladdin with the goddess Oyá and set Holden’s little house on fire?
They traveled across the alley, Dolores with her light step among clotheslines and mops hanging from a window, and out to Isham Street. He could feel a whole lot of eyes on him. Was Changó wearing his red skirt behind some Cuban window?
They walked into the cellar of an apartment house. The concrete in the courtyard had started to crumble. Holden could have fallen into a hole and sat in a grave of brown dust. But he began to wonder if that god in the red dress had become his personal saint? And had Oyá declared herself Holden’s mistress without bothering to knock?
Dolores had led him to a mattress pad, like his, but it didn’t have a VCR. Three sullen men sat on different mattresses. Dolores’ godsons, Bandidos she’d sworn to protect. If this was Huevo’s army, then Big Balls didn’t have much of a future in Manhattan, north or south. They spoke to their madrina in the same sing-song whisper Holden had heard little Barbara use with her dolls. It was prison patois.
“We would like your gun,” Dolores said.
Holden unclipped his holster cup with the Beretta inside. Dolores handed it to one of the B
andidos, a scrawny black man with flecks of white in his hair. His eyes were green. He looked undernourished.
“This is Valentín,” Dolores said. “He will be your guide. But you will have to pay him. He is very poor.”
Holden removed his money clip.
“Don’t insult him. You haven’t used his services yet.”
And Holden took off with Valentín, leaving Carmen Miranda with the other two men.
They walked back out to Isham Street and climbed a hill, Valentín wearing Holden’s holster cup inside his pants. This was one of the Cuban hillbillies Edmundo couldn’t dislodge? Valentín had tiny hands. He walked with a nervous shuffle. He had razor cuts along his neck. A scar ran down his lips like a burn of white skin.
“Can I help you?” Holden asked. He didn’t know what to say to a bandit who might have been starving to death on Isham Street.
What could Carmen Miranda do for him? The hillbillies didn’t even have a stove with their mattresses. “Valentín, I could give you a bonus.”
“What kind of bonus?” Valentín stared at Holden with watery green eyes.
“An apartment with a fridge. Spending money. The best clothes you ever saw.”
“Like this,” Valentín said, touching Holden’s sleeve.
“If you want. I have my own tailor.”
“And how many I have to kill?”
“I never said kill. I need information. Nothing against your comrades, understand? I wouldn’t expect you to rat on Big Balls. Valentín, am I clear? A simple deal. Why does Huevo want me dead?”
Paradise Man Page 11