by Marc Olden
Okay, let’s see what House Beautiful’s missing by not dropping by. A bed to Neil’s left, sagging mattress, dust under the bed, along with two pairs of boots, three pairs of shoes, all worn, all expensive. Dominic lives good. At the foot of the bed, a tiny rickety desk, one wooden chair, a lamp with a torn yellow paper shade on the desk. Also on the desk: one folded copy of the Daily News, a Cuban newspaper, two Cuban girly magazines, an ashtray that hadn’t been emptied in too long, one stick of Juicy Fruit gum, a ball-point pen. On the floor, a blue-and-green throw rug, dirty, worn, stained.
Directly in front of Neil, an unwashed window, half-hidden by beet-red draperies. To the right, a wooden chest of drawers, middle drawer missing, top drawer pulled halfway out, shirts and underwear visible. On top of the chest, two books of matches, another Cuban magazine, and propped up against the wall, an oblong mirror, cracked, peeling from behind, a two-foot glass square of bad luck.
Neil looked at himself in the mirror. Holy shit, is that me? A bad-looking sucker. I’m ugly enough to kick King Kong’s ass. Jesus.
He wore dark green sunglasses to hide his eyes, and a black woolen cap pulled down to his eyebrows to hide his forehead and hair. Three strips of white adhesive across his nose hid that, and his jaws were fat from the cotton inside his mouth. He sweated inside the long green army overcoat he’d bought twenty minutes ago at an army-navy store across from the Port Authority Terminal on Eighth Avenue but what the hell, he had to do something to make himself unrecognizable.
He grinned at his reflection in Dominic León’s distorted mirror. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I look wacko enough to be in an armpit like this. I look like the kind of turkey who gets his ass hauled in just for looking weird on a Thursday.
He patted his left overcoat pocket. His own room key was there, along with a small present for Dominic León. Neil had registered at the Hotel Elliot under the name Dick Hurtz (from high school: “Who’s Dick Hurtz?” “Mine, teacher”). He’d paid for one night, using his key with its large red plastic disk as his right to walk the halls, holding the key in his fingers where it could be seen.
But the few people he passed in the halls, most of them old, lifeless men, didn’t seem to care if he had a key or not. They shrank from him, leaning back against the walls to let him pass, and the brutal truth behind this action didn’t get through to Neil until minutes later when he’d had time to think about it. The Hotel Elliot was a jungle where the young and strong preyed on the old and weak, and Neil, being young, was the enemy.
Time to get cracking. If Dominic the witch returned and found Neil here, Jesus. It was Neil’s guess that Dominic was out chasing money to get him over this gun deal. What else could he do when there were guys on the street hot to waste him unless he paid them back? Dominic’s ounce of cocaine was good only for chump change, just a few dollars, say eighteen hundred dollars if the cut was good, and less if the cut was bad. Depending on how much he and his friends had borrowed from the loan shark, the money from the coke could barely cover the interest.
No. Dominic couldn’t afford to lie around his room counting cockroaches and watching the paint peel. He had to get out and hustle if he wanted to live.
As for learning Dominic’s room number, all Neil did was hand the desk clerk an empty envelope with Dominic León’s name on it and watch the clerk put it in slot 244. Dominic the witch wasn’t a transient, he was more or less permanently living there, and as such, he had a slot to call his own.
Get moving. Neil found the stash in the second place he looked. Not in the top of the toilet, but in a small air vent over the bathtub, in a plastic bag wrapped in the sports section of the New York Times. Would have been one of my last choices, thought Neil, who in his experience at searching for dope had learned that some people hid it well but most didn’t.
Making the switch was hard, because he had to do it with gloves on. Ordinarily, nobody gave a shit about ripoffs in transient hotels, but Neil had to be careful. Dominic León had cops keeping an eye on him, and if it looked as though anything in this room had been touched, the cops might dust the place for prints. Chances are, they wouldn’t, but Neil had too much to lose if they did, so he worked hard at being careful.
That’s why he did everything in the bathtub, working slowly to eliminate mistakes, his ears keen for the sound of somebody coming through the front door, and his mind already made up about what he’d do if Dominic came in. Make it look like a takeoff, an attempted robbery. Just punch out Dominic in a hurry and run like hell. But he wanted to give Lydia more revenge than that, much more.
First he flushed Dominic León’s cocaine down the toilet, flushing it twice, making sure there wasn’t a grain of white powder on the toilet seat or the inside of the bowl. Then, on his knees and leaning over the bathtub, he refilled the plastic bag with the same amount of white sugar, his little present for Dominic the witch. He poured slowly, spilling a little sugar in the tub, but no sweat, he’d take care of that before he left. He sweated. God, he sweated in the army overcoat and woolen cap, and the cotton in his jaws tasted like bricks, and working with gloves on was awkward, frustrating.
Carefully he rolled the plastic bag of sugar back into the newspaper, placing it back in the air vent, keeping the two screws as loose as he’d found them. Then, turning on a faucet, he washed the spilled sugar down the drain, took off his wool cap, and carefully dried the tub.
Seconds later he opened the front door a few inches, saw an empty hall, and stepped out. The door locked automatically when he shut it behind him.
Down in the lobby, Neil had to sit for almost an hour pretending to read the Daily News, but finally the desk clerk left and was replaced by someone else.
For ten dollars, the new clerk gave Neil the envelope from slot 244, and when Neil, his back to the clerk, ripped the envelope to shreds and dropped the pieces in his overcoat pocket, the desk clerk never blinked. In New York, not all the squirrels were in the park. In a joint like the Hotel Elliot, you had Looney Tunes coming and going every day of the week. What’s another one more or less?
28
MAS BETANCOURT PRONOUNCED SENTENCE on René Vega. “He goes.”
“Why?” asked Blind Man. Seventy-three-year-old Blind Man stored his heroin and cocaine in two Brooklyn churches, and despite his sightless eyes he could simultaneously play excellent chess while stroking the bare back of a naked young Hispanic boy sitting at his feet.
“Shana Levin’s father,” said Mas. “He is rich, and the rich buy justice. He is demanding justice for René killing his daughter. Justice or revenge, both are the same, but what does it matter? The father is important, and he can pick up a telephone and frighten people. He will see that the police arrest René Vega, and when they do, René will consider what he has to do to stay out of jail. What does that mean to you, my friend?”
“Trouble.” Over the telephone, Blind Man’s voice had the same slight whistle and hiss it had in person, as though his false teeth were loose while at the same time his mouth was watering at the thought of a delicious meal.
“Trouble,” repeated Mas. “I thank you for telling Christina that René could not be a mule for us. Cristina agrees with me that we take no chances. René doesn’t know everything, but he knows enough to start some kind of investigation.”
“Agreed. It will not be easy making contact with René again, but I will have Jesus work on it.” Jesús Colon was Blind Man’s top lieutenant.
Mas nodded, his eyes on the cook in the kitchen of the Rellena Restaurant on Third Avenue and Seventieth Street. Two other cooks had been asked to leave while Mas was on the phone. The one remaining cook was almost totally deaf, and wise enough to concentrate on slicing cucumbers with a rapid, quiet efficiency, never looking at Mas or at René Ateyala and El Indio, both of whom sat at the other end of the long wooden table facing the cook, both of them eating steaming hot bowls of frijoles negros, black bean soup.
“Hey, hombre,” said Mas. “Tell Jesús to make it look natural. Use a ‘hot shot.
’ That way, people won’t be askin’ so many questions.”
“Sí.” What did Blind Man care? René was young, pretty, but he wasn’t as important as the white heroin Blind Man would be receiving from Mas in the spring, heroin Blind Man had paid three hundred thousand dollars for in advance. Mas was the leader, the man in charge, doing what was best for everyone involved.
A “hot shot,” just one injection, would remove the problem of René Vega. A heroin overdose or a mild dose of heroin heavily cut with strychnine or battery acid. Mas Betancourt, who saw in Shana Levin’s murder the prophecy of the dead babalawo—“a woman … danger to you”—wanted René Vega dead as soon as possible. The only heroin on the street was one or two percent. A shot of eighty percent heroin would kill any man alive. It was the same as a bullet in the brain, swift and efficient. As for strychnine or battery acid, nothing to worry about there. Both could be counted on to do the job under all circumstances.
Blind Man said, “How is Pilar?”
“Fine. She’s doing more exercises, raising her arm above her head higher and higher every day. She’ll be better when I get her to Spain, but everything’s going well. God is kind sometimes. My nephew says that.”
“Ah, Rolando. Our own little priest. He is well?”
“Loves Paris restaurants. Says Mexico City is becoming more expensive.”
“Sí.” Blind Man hissed and whistled. “Well, let me call Jesús and take care of things.”
“Gracias, hombre. Happy New Year.”
“Lo mismo a usted. Same to you. Please give my love to Pilar.”
Walter F. X. Forster’s worry about his own ass found him in a mean mood this morning. On this particular sentence, he pounded his desk with every word. “I want to know about Jorge Dávila!”
Katey, standing in front of Forster’s desk, couldn’t run, couldn’t hide, and was too old to cry, but not too old to wish he was somewhere else. Anywhere else. He kept his eyes down, his gaze moving from his left shoe to his right, and back again. Hell of a way for a grown man to make a living.
“Sir, Shire’s working Dávila, it’s there in the report.”
“Report my ass. Kates, the federals don’t bring a snitch up from Miami to Fun City so’s he can sit around and beat his meat. What’s he doin’ here? And don’t tell me it’s in the fucking report. Nothin’ here says what Dávila’s doin’ in New York. Kates, hear me good: if the federals make this case, and fuck us in the process, if we get left out in the cold, it’s gonna be you and me, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Walter F. X. Forster was as hostile as a strung-out nigger junkie lying on a Harlem rooftop and pissing at the moon. Walter F. X. was chewing huge chunks out of Katey’s ass this morning, using all of the teeth he owned to do it. All Forster wanted to know was why the police department didn’t have more information on Jorge Dávila. That’s all.
“Kates, I’m here to tell you that this case is almost out of my hands. Almost. It’s that big, that fuckin’ big, so a lot of people have suddenly developed an interest in it. People up in Albany, people from the mayor’s office, from a coupla task forces, what can I tell you? They all want to know when’s the fuckin’ press conference and what time does the goddamn picture taking start, so they can show up and get theirs. That’s law enforcement, Kates, in case you didn’t know. Everybody wants theirs.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So, like it or not, I gotta deliver. I’m too old to marry the boss’s daughter, and I’m too white to go on welfare. I live for my pension, same as you. Fuckin’ city’s cutting back on detectives now. Not just the boys in blue, but the detectives are gettin’ it. Less than twelve hundred left. Go figure. So I gotta deliver, and that’s where you come in. All right, we know the federals are building one hell of a conspiracy case. Shire’s got, what …?” Forster looked at the report on his desk. “Thirty-two names. Now, that is going to be one hell of a collar, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, sir. I would say that.”
“Gonna be a lot of ink on that one. Publicity up the ass, and the pressure’s on me to make sure certain people are included when it goes down. So how the fuck you think I feel when somebody like Dávila’s brought in and I don’t know what he’s doin’ here? How you think I feel?”
“Not good, sir.”
Walter F. X. Forster nodded his head several times. “Smart. You hooked on to that without any trouble. Now, hook on to this: tell me something, Kates. Tell me about Dávila. I’m listening.”
Katey looked at the bridge of Walter F. X. Forster’s nose, giving the impression he was staring directly into Forster’s eyes. Got me by the cubes, thought Katey. Why the fuck couldn’t I have been born rich instead of good-looking, so I could afford to quit this job?
“Uh, well, sir, Shire mentioned something, but I don’t know if he was being righteous. Said something ’bout Dávila having an in with this Cristina Reina woman …”
“That’s already on paper, Kates. What kind of in? What’s the actual reason Dávila’s hangin’ around the Cuban woman? He wearing her old dresses or somethin’?”
“Shire says she’s tied in with a bunch of Castro people out of Miami and New York, and she sometimes passes stuff on to the CIA.”
“Shit. Big hairy deal.” Forster opened his fingers, letting copies of Neil Shire’s reports drop to his desk. “Every Cuban in this country over the age of two is supposed to have some kind of connection with Castro. Pro, con, who the fuck knows or cares?”
“Shire says that Dávila feels it might turn out to have something to do with this Betancourt deal.”
“So, why ain’t it on paper?” Forster leaned forward in his chair, slamming the reports with his palm, his face purple with anger and frustration. Survival was taking a lot out of him. “Why the hell ain’t it in our copies of Shire’s reports?”
Katey took a deep breath and plunged in. “I think maybe Saul Raiser might have somethin’ to do with stuff being cut out. I told you ’bout him. He’s the CIA’s man on the feds, he’s their pipeline, their rabbi. I think maybe he cut some stuff out.”
Forster looked at Katey for a long time, too long for Katey’s peace of mind. Then Forster said softly, “So that’s it, right? If we make waves because we think we’re being left out, we end up getting a knot tied in our dongs by more heavy federals. Jesus!”
Forster slammed the desk as hard as he could, then threw himself back into his black leather chair, eyes on the ceiling, as though appealing to God for help.
“I know nobody gets out of this world alive, but still you gotta wonder, you gotta keep tryin’. Some fucking days you wake up, and the assholes of the world are waiting for you at the foot of your bed. You don’t even have to go out on the sidewalk to get carved up. They come right into your home and dump on you. Kates?”
“Sir?”
Forster’s voice was calmer, flat, all the feeling squeezed out of it. He continued to lean back in his chair, eyes on the ceiling. “Work on Shire. Find out what’s with Dávila and this other Cuban bitch. Lydia Constanza’s out of the hospital, right?”
“She’s back working, yes.”
“All right. You go to work. Find out what’s with the CIA, how they fit in. See if this hurts us or not. You gotta know one thing, though.”
He looked at Katey. “You blow this, and I go down. Finished. It’s gonna be that way, because too much is riding on this, too many people will be disappointed at not having their picture took for the New York Times. They’ll get me, no two ways about it. And, Kates?”
“Sir?”
“I’ll get you. Now, get the fuck out of my office, you’re breathing my air.”
29
THE RUBY RING ON Cristina Reina’s right forefinger was worth forty thousand dollars.
Each time she held a slim, blue-veined hand over the ashtray to tap ashes from a tiny black Cuban cigar stuck in a black ivory holder, the bloodred stone demanded attention. Lydia, frightened by Cristina and her reputation for being
ruthless, thought that flashing the ring was jive street shit. The slow tapping of one long silver-painted nail on the black ivory holder and deliberately not talking while doing it. Cristina was an actress, thought Lydia, who considered the red ring just more blood on the woman’s hands.
She watched Cristina place the cigarette holder back in her thin mouth and look across the table at Neil with eyes as tiny and gray as the dots left by a pencil on white paper. This one’s a barracuda, thought Lydia, the kind who always goes for the soft parts on a man’s body and is never in a hurry to see him die.
Tonight, New Year’s Eve, Cristina wore a long-sleeved black silk gown covering her from chin to floor, with a pearl choker around her neck and over the gown. Diamond bracelets, also worn over the gown, glittered on both wrists, and there were two expensive rings on each hand, a symbol of the power and money Cristina Reina had achieved in narcotics. She was a small woman, with short frosted hair combed forward over her forehead to hide deep lines. Pockmarked skin was pulled tight over a chinless, birdlike face. The forty-year-old Cristina Reina also had two steel teeth on the right side of her mouth, the work of one of a handful of Russian dentists still left in Havana after the missile crisis of October, 1962.
Lydia watched her blink twice at Neil before speaking to him in a high nasal voice in heavily accented English. “You only buy white. Your people don’t like brown, maybe?” She narrowed her eyes at him as though he were on a slide under a microscope. Lydia, heart pounding, sipped scotch and milk, remembering that this woman once had an informant’s wife and thirteen-year old daughter raped in front of him. The informant’s eyes had been gouged out so that he could hear their screams but not see what was being done to them.