by Paul Monette
“Oh yeah, I worked in a lotta pictures,” said Luis, still listening at the phone. “I was in that picture Burn, y’ ever see it? With Marlon Brando. He’s a good friend o’ mine. I was his driver, like.”
“Oh yeah?” said Nick, not looking up from his stacking. Not even listening.
“Yeah sure, in Cartagena. That’s where they shot it. Gillo Pontecorvo, he was the director. Italian guy.” No response from Tony and Nick. A look of contempt flashed across the Colombian’s face. It was as if he could kill them for not caring. “Yeah, I also know Paul Newman. I worked with him in Tucson.”
Nick perked up. “Tucson, huh? You know a guy named Bobo Alvarez?”
“Uh . . . no.”
“That’s funny,” said Nick coolly. “Everybody knows Bobo.”
Seidelbaum finished the first suitcase. As he shut it and turned the key in the lock, he called over his shoulder to Tony. “Okay, now we’ll draw you a company check off Consolidated Carriers for two hundred eighty-three thousand.” He reached up another suitcase off the floor. “The rest’ll be drawn off the bottling company. Helluva lot o’ bottles, huh?”
Tony spoke very precisely: “My figures say two eighty-four.”
Seidelbaum frowned and checked the printout, long and coiled like the slip from a cash register. “That’s just not possible,” he said.
“Okay, we’ll count it again,” said Tony. And when Seidelbaum groaned with exasperation, he added: “Hey business is business, Seidelbaum. We’re talkin’ a thousand bucks. I didn’t get rich throwin’ away a thousand bucks.”
“All right, all right,” said Seidelbaum. “You keep the change, okay? I don’t give a shit.”
There was silence after that. They counted and counted and drank more coffee. A second suitcase was filled, then a third. Tony and Nick relieved each other so they could stretch and rub their eyes. After three hours Tony had been issued seven checks totaling one million three hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred dollars. Seidelbaum was drenched in sweat. There were eighty cigarette butts in the ash tray. The boredom had strained relations so, they couldn’t even talk to their own men. They were burnt out like factory workers.
Tony pulled the last fistful of bills from the duffel bag. He wet his thumb to begin counting and gagged on the taste of money. On an impulse he tossed the last handful into the air. As the twenties rained down around them, everyone looked up with a kind of glazed astonishment.
Tony laughed. “You think I could take a leak before we do the last batch?”
Seidelbaum sighed, as if he was glad the tension was finally broken. He smiled for the first time, reached around to his back pocket as if he was getting a handkerchief, and pulled out a .38. “I think we got enough,” he said pleasantly, training the gun on Tony. “You’re under arrest, Montana, under the Rico statute. Continuing criminal conspiracy.”
Tony was completely thrown for a moment. The other men now took out their guns. Luis gave a one-word signal into the phone. Tony groaned, then muttered under his breath: “Aw shit.” His eyes darted about the office, scrambling for an option.
“Go ahead, motherfucker,” said Seidelbaum. “It’ll save me a lotta paperwork.” His eyes were mean and agile now. He didn’t seem quite so fat.
Tony grinned. “You’re not kiddin’, huh?” He raised his hands above his head; Nick followed suit. At a signal from Seidelbaum, the nephew stepped forward and disarmed them. Tony said: “How do I know you guys are cops?”
Luis, the budding movie star, flipped a wallet from his back pocket, swaggered forward and shoved it under Tony’s nose. “What’s that say, asshole?” he sneered. What it said was that he was a Fed.
Tony whistled. “Hey, that’s real good work. Where can I get one o’ those?”
Seidelbaum began to drone: “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to have an attorney present . . .” The door to the office opened, and several more came in, a couple of them wearing the uniform of the Miami Police Department.
Tony turned to Nick: “Gee, we got lucky. They are cops.”
“Hey,” said Nick to Seidelbaum, “you think we could speed this up? I’m supposed to meet this chick at three.”
“Can I use the phone now, Seidelbaum?” asked Tony. “I wanna call my lawyer. He oughta get a real kick outa this.”
“He ain’t gonna do you a bit o’ good, Montana.” Seidelbaum pointed to a picture of Lincoln on the opposite wall. “That’s an eye over there. Say hello, tweetie.”
Now they looked closely, they could see a hole in Lincoln’s beard. It looked like a tasteless assassination joke. Tony said: “Is that what you jerk off in front of, Seidelbaum?” Nick the Pig let out a big guffaw.
“You got about an hour, Montana, before we bring the U.S. Attorney’s people into this.” Seidelbaum sat on the edge of the desk. “They don’t make the same kinda deals we do. You know what I mean?”
Tony was suddenly red with anger. “Listen, you fat prick, whaddayou take me for? One o’ your whores? I don’t make deals with cops, they’re too fuckin’ crooked. You got no case, Seidelbaum. I’m here changin’ dollar bills, ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. So book me, cocksucker.”
Seidelbaum drew himself up to his full five-foot-eight. He strode across to Tony and spoke through clenched teeth. “Have it your way, dickhead. This one’s for free—from Mel Bernstein’s buddies.” And he raised the butt end of the .38 and cracked Tony across the face, right along the scar.
Tony reeled back against the wall. Nick lurched forward like a bear, making for Seidelbaum, and two cops jumped him and dragged him back. Seidelbaum slashed with the gun again, connecting with the bridge of Tony’s nose. A great gout of blood came spurting from Tony’s nostrils, but he did not raise his hands to protect his face. He stood there, bruises welling on his cheek and his nose, prepared to take whatever was coming. He even seemed to be sneering, though his lips were covered with blood.
“You pigshit, Montana! You’re gonna rot this time!” Seidelbaum was crazy. The nephew had to step up and hold him, or he never would have stopped hitting. He seemed to take the whole thing personally. “By the time you get outa jail,” he shouted, “you’ll be walkin’ with a cane!”
Tony leaned over and spit blood in the wastebasket, like a cowboy in a saloon getting rid of a chew of tobacco. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, grinned at Seidelbaum, and said: “Wanna bet five bucks?”
The headline in the Miami Herald was about two inches high. It looked as if nuclear war was being announced. It said: DRUG KING POSTS RECORD $5 MILLION BOND. Below this was a photograph of Tony walking out of Dade County Jail, Elvira just behind him on his left, Sheffield beside him smiling at the camera. The next day at the courthouse the press numbered over thirty, with minicam units from all the local stations and correspondents from both major wire services. Tony, Elvira, and Sheffield stepped out into the steamy sun, each of them wearing dark glasses. Before they were halfway down the steps they were mobbed.
“Tony!” cried a gaggle of reporters, “Tony, over here! What’s it feel like shelling out five million bucks?”
“Don’t worry,” Tony said with a cockeyed grin, “I’m gettin’ it back. Maybe I’ll sue ’em for interest.”
Virgil Train, Channel 2’s drug investigator, thrust a mike in Tony’s face: “What do you think, Tony? You think you got a chance?”
“Hey Virg, how are ya? You kiddin’? We’ll knock ’em dead. I got the Fourth Amendment in my pocket.”
Sheffield hustled Tony down the steps. A couple of Cuban kids—maybe ten, twelve years old—materialized out of the crowd and held up the Herald front page to be autographed. Tony obliged, huddling over the papers and scribbling his name with a flourish as Sheffield opened the limousine door and ushered Elvira in. The photographers crouched and got a picture of Tony with the kids that made him look as fit and wholesome as a pitcher writing his name on a baseball. Virgil Train caught up with him.
“You think you’re a sca
pegoat, Tony?”
Tony stared into the Channel 2 camera and spoke with enormous conviction. “These bums,” he said, “they think they can snoop everywhere. It’s gettin’ to be like Russia. What’s America comin’ to?”
“Are you proud to be an American, Tony?”
“Virg, I came to this country from a dictatorship. Every night I thank God—on my knees—that I’m free. This country’s done real well by me. I plan to spend the rest o’ my life returning the favor.” He handed the last paper back to the kids, tousled the short one’s hair, and turned to the limo.
“Thanks, Tony,” said Virgil Train. “Ladies and gentlemen, a remarkable man.”
It was that day, between the posting of the bond at the courthouse and the late-night powwow at Sheffield’s office, that Tony started using regularly. There was always coke in the house, in five-gram vials in every drawer, like a chain-smoker’s cigarettes. He’d been snorting a fair amount at parties, and if Elvira was especially ripped late at night and he felt like making love, he’d toot a few lines with her. But nothing regular. Not half a gram in the afternoon as he wandered among the cages, standing on the edge of the moat in a staring match with the Bengal. Not with a gram in his watch pocket as he left for Sheffield’s office.
It was a very tense meeting. Tony paced nervously, smoking a cigar, while Manolo sat in a swivel chair, rocking back and forth as he slugged at a six-pack of Heineken. Sheffield talked through a cloud of Camel smoke, explaining options, charting who was on their side and who was straight. Whenever Tony or Manolo felt like a toot, each brought out his own vial and tapped some out and snorted. They didn’t share. Sheffield didn’t indulge. But it made no more of a stir than if they’d been eating Life Savers. Nobody noticed Tony was using especially heavily. Everyone they knew did lots and lots.
“The bottom line is this,” said Sheffield. “You give me a check for a hundred grand, that’s for me, plus three hundred more in cash, and I guarantee you’ll walk on the conspiracy charge. But then they’re gonna come back at us on a tax evasion. And I’m tellin’ ya, Tony, they’ll get it.”
Tony said: “What am I lookin’ at?”
“Five years, maybe three,” shrugged Sheffield. “Maybe less if I can make a deal.”
Tony whirled around and smashed his fist on the desk. “Three fuckin’ years in the can? For what? For washin’ money? Gimme a break, George—this whole country’s built on grand theft. I’m not gonna take the rap.”
“Hey, Tony, what’s three years? It’s not like Cuba here, ya know. It’s like goin’ to a hotel, for Christ’s sake.”
Tony shook his head coldly. No deal.
“Come on, Tony,” coaxed Sheffield, “I’ll delay the trial. A year and a half, two years—you won’t start doin’ time till eighty-five.”
“No way, George.” Tony kept shaking his head. He drew the vial of coke from his watch pocket. “They ain’t never gonna get me back in a cage. Never. You got that?” He paused just long enough to tap the coke on the back of his hand and breathe it in with a grunt. “Look, George, how ’bout I go another four hundred grand? How ’bout eight hundred grand? With that you oughta be able to fix the Supreme Court, huh?”
Sheffield sighed. “It ain’t that simple, Tony. Look, the law has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. I’m an expert at makin’ ’em doubt, but when you got a million three undeclared dollars staring into a video camera, honeybaby, it’s hard to convince a jury you found it in a cab.”
Tony paced back and forth like—well, like a tiger. He could barely contain his rage, and neither of the other men spoke for a moment, for fear he would explode. He looked terribly lonely just then, like a king in exile. Finally he turned to face them. He stared first at Manolo, the closest thing he had to a brother, almost as if he’d never seen him before. Then he leaned across Sheffield’s desk and spoke with a savage patience.
“All right, George. I do the three fuckin’ years. But lemme tell you about my law. There ain’t no reasonable doubt, it’s real simple. If you’re rainmakin’ the judge or you screw me outa the four hundred grand and I come in guilty on the big rap, then you, the judge, the prosecutor, the whole fuckin’ U.S. Army, nothin’s gonna stop me. I’ll come and tear your eyeballs out. Okay?”
Sheffield nodded coolly. “You’ve made your point. Where’s the money?”
Tony looked at Manolo, who picked up a large briefcase off the floor and set it on Sheffield’s desk. As he flicked the catches and lifted the lid, revealing stacks and stacks of twenties, Tony turned abruptly and strode from the office. He was damned if he’d watch them count it.
Chapter Eight
THE HELICOPTER CAME in over the mountain in dazzling sunlight, landing on the pad as neatly as a Cochabamba butterfly lighting on a flower. Tony climbed out followed by Ernie, who served as his bodyguard now on all international runs. Tony couldn’t stand to have bodyguards around him in Miami; they made him feel caged. He walked across the throbbing green lawn toward Sosa’s Villa. It was his first trip here in a couple of months, his first time out of the country since being busted.
Sosa stood up and waved from the terrace. As Tony approached, he could see there were several men lounging under the arbor having their midday coffee. He didn’t recognize any of them. Sosa walked forward with open arms, grinning brightly as he engulfed Tony in a bear hug. They spoke one another’s names with feeling, as if they were family.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” said Sosa, one arm around Tony’s shoulders as he led him toward the arbor. “How’s Elvira?”
“Great, just great. And Gabriella?”
Sosa sighed with contentment. “Three more months, Tony. I can’t believe it.” He gave Tony’s arm an affectionate squeeze. “How ’bout you, amigo? When we gonna see another little Tony?”
“I’m workin’ on it,” Tony said with a tight smile.
“I guess you’ll have to work harder, huh?” Sosa laughed, but Tony could feel a certain reserve in him, consonant with the other men in the circle under the arbor, who now stood up to greet him. “I want you to meet some friends of mine,” said Sosa, starting at the left, rather as if they were going through a receiving line at an embassy. “This is Pedro Feliz, chairman of Tropical Sugar in Bolivia . . . Tony Montana.”
“A pleasure,” said Feliz, clicking his heels a bit as he shook Tony’s hand. He looked like the fly-by-night presidente of a dirt-poor banana republic.
Then came General Jorge Navarro, Commander of the First Army Corps, with a breastplate of ribbons and only one arm. Then César Albini, of the Ministry of the Interior, his eyes as blank and pitiless as the jungle wastes he administered. Then Charles Cookson of Washington, crew-cut and Brooks-Brothered. This one even smelled like a government type. They were all very glad to meet Tony, they said.
Sosa called over his black aide and said: “Please have Alberto come out now.” The aide disappeared into the house. Sosa gestured Tony to a chair in the middle of the group, and they all sat down. Sosa personally prepared Tony’s coffee. As he handed it over, he said: “Tony, I want to discuss something that concerns all of us here.”
“Go ahead, Noldo, I’m listening.” Tony sipped his coffee and noticed that Ernie had been ushered to the far end of the arbor, where he stood around with a group of four or five brutal-looking men. Suddenly he realized these were the bodyguards of all the big honchos sitting around Sosa’s table. This struck him so funny he grinned. The other men at the table shifted nervously. They didn’t like the grin.
“Tony, you have a problem and we have a problem,” said Sosa. “I think we can solve yours and you can solve ours. We understand that you’re having some difficulty with taxes. It looks like you’re gonna have to do some time. This distresses us, Tony. We don’t like to see a friend in jail, and frankly, we wouldn’t want any interruption in our deal. Mr. Cookson here has some good connections in Washington who tell us these troubles of yours can be taken care of. Maybe you’ll have to pay a fine and some back
interest, but you won’t have to serve any time. How does that strike you?”
All the men’s eyes were on Tony. He was startled. He thought he’d come down to renegotiate the monthly flow of the drug. No one had prepared him for this. He turned to Sosa and said: “And your problem, Noldo?”
Just then Alberto, the man they called the Shadow, materialized on the veranda. He focused his venomous eyes on Tony. “You remember Alberto,” said Sosa. Tony nodded. The Shadow stood at attention, ready to kill. “Our problem, Tony, is somebody’s making a lot of noise in the States about the way we do business down here. This person is very influential. People are starting to listen to him. He’s a communist. Alberto here is going to help solve our problem. As you know, he’s an expert in the disposal business.” Sosa permitted himself the smallest smile, which Tony returned. This was all by way of an homage to Omar. “The difficulty is, Alberto doesn’t know his way around the States too well. He needs a guide.” Sosa paused to light a cigarette. Tony locked eyes with Alberto, whose eyes were not human at all. “You think you could help us out?”
Tony looked around at the faces of the men assembled in Sosa’s arbor. Together they constituted the whole power network of the drug trade in Bolivia. He could see they treated him as an equal. His money, his daring business sense, his meteoric rise—all of this assured him a place at the council table. What struck him here was that he was by far the youngest of them, by ten years at least. He could see the hunger in all the men’s faces to be as young as he was.
“No problem, Noldo,” said Tony, grinning around the circle.
In the packed auditorium at New York’s City College, Aristidio Gutierrez was just winding up a most passionate address. He was a dark, intense, distinguished-looking man in his mid-fifties, with a thatch of unruly hair that looked as if it had never been combed, bushy eyebrows that jumped about when he talked, and great baggy eyes like a hound’s. Behind him on the stage, where the white and green Bolivian flag stood adjacent to the stars and stripes, Gutierrez’s wife sat proudly, her eyes radiant behind thick glasses. Assorted deans and political types made up the rest of the half-circle that sat behind the hero. Most of his audience was Latin, exiles of one stripe or another, and those Americans who sat among them glowed with a counter-cultural fire. They could have been attending any leftist rally of the last forty years. It was surely the first time in the annals of political oppression that a crowd of idealists had turned out to protest cocaine.