Quinn found Alfie at the pool with a long-legged middle-aged blonde, his catch of the day, who was rubbing suntan oil on his deeply tanned back and shoulders. Quinn sent a note with a waiter and Alfie came over.
“A business matter, Alfie. You still selling avocados?”
“In season.”
“I’m not the one talking here, I’m just a writer.”
“You write about avocados.”
“Don’t trust me.”
“When did I ever trust you?”
“I have somebody who wants to talk.”
“I sometimes talk to people who talk.”
“Do we go someplace?”
“We are someplace. Where’s your man?”
“My man is a woman, out in the patio.”
“Bring her in. Has she got money?”
“I think so. And she’s in a hurry.”
“I’ll talk with her in the pool.”
“She doesn’t have a bathing suit.”
“Buy her one.”
Quinn went back to the patio but Renata was not at the table. Their drinks were there, untouched. She was not in the garden that the peacocks ruled. He found a waiter who had not seen her, took a swallow of his rum and left money for the drinks. She wasn’t in the lobby or by the public phones. At the front desk he asked about messages. None. He saw her coming from the far end of the lobby carrying a paper bag. She had followed him out to the pool and had seen him with Alfie. She read their lips about the bathing suit so she bought one at the boutique.
“Narciso reads minds and you read lips,” Quinn said. “There’s no privacy in Cuba.”
They went to the pool bar and Renata changed into her new suit, dove into the pool, and swam like a dolphin before pausing in neck-deep water. Alfie stepped into the shallow end and swam on his back until he bumped into her. They then discussed avocados.
A panel truck with two young men pulled into the driveway of Garage Miami in Miramar and parked in front of one of the two bays. A few yards back from the two gas pumps Alfie’s blonde from the swimming pool was sitting in a folding chair alongside a pile of tires, her elegant legs crossed, a streetside attraction. Quinn did not think she belonged in a garage. The garage sign advertised PLANTA DE ENGRASE, SE COGEN PONCHES, ABIERTO 24 HORAS. Esme’s Buick was parked in one bay and a pickup truck full of toys, lamps, and pots was on the runners of the grease pit’s lift. The two young men in suitcoats came through the open garage door and Renata introduced the older one to Alfie as her friend Pedrito.
“And who is his friend?” Alfie said.
“My name is Javier,” the friend said. “I am buying your guns.”
“Pedrito is buying them, no?”
“We are buying them together. We are friends,” Javier said. “Who is this?” And he gestured with his head toward Quinn.
“He’s the one who started this,” Alfie said. “He came to me. You don’t trust your own contact?”
“I am grateful for the contact but I don’t know him.”
“This is Quinn,” Renata said. “He is my friend, and he helped me and I trust him. You don’t worry about him.”
“I worry,” Javier said.
“I would like to see las cosas,” Pedrito said.
“I would like to see the money,” said Alfie.
Pedrito took a fold of cash from his pocket and fanned it.
“Where do you want to make the transfer?” Alfie asked.
“Are you making a joke?” Pedrito said. “Where are they?”
“We can unload wherever you want.”
Javier walked outside and looked up and down the street.
“We can do it here,” he said. “There is little traffic. Take these vehicles out, we will pull in, then you bring in the guns.”
“I don’t bring them in,” Alfie said. He lowered the tailgate of the pickup revealing three wooden boxes with toys, pots, rugs. He lifted off a pot and a rug and guns were visible. “Open your truck’s back doors, I’ll load them in.”
“You want to load guns on the street?” Pedrito said.
“Load guns on the street?” Alfie said. “Who would do such a thing? We are moving pots and toys.”
“You are very smart or very stupid,” Javier said.
“Yes. I never know which.”
“He is crazy, but smart,” Pedrito said. “Do it.”
Pedrito counted out four thousand dollars for Alfie as Javier climbed into Alfie’s truck. He picked up an automatic rifle, removed the magazine. “Thompson,” he said, “nice,” and he snapped the magazine back in place, removed it.
“If you want to check every weapon,” Alfie said, “we can go down to the beach, fire them all to see if they work.”
Javier smiled at the maniac, then picked up a .45 caliber Spanish machine pistol and snapped in a loaded clip and put it in his belt under his coat.
“Open your truck,” Alfie said and he lifted the box with dolls from his pickup and carried it to the panel truck. He slid it into the back and came in and said to Quinn, “I need a hand with the big one.”
Quinn lifted one end of the box that was topped with a large model airplane and carried it out with Alfie. Javier monitored the loading while Pedrito talked quietly to Renata. Alfie loaded the third box alone and closed the truck doors. A car pulled up to a gas pump and the driver spoke to the blonde, who pumped gas for him while Pedrito and Javier pulled away in their truck. The blonde came into the garage and put money in the register. Quinn saw a triangle and five numbers tattooed on her left forearm.
“That Pedrito,” she said to Alfie. “He is Aurelio from the Directorio. He was with Holtz when Gustavo and I met them on the dock.”
“Did he recognize you?”
“I doubt it. Gustavo and Holtz did the talking. I sat in the car.”
Alfie looked at Renata. “You’re with the Directorio,” he said.
“I have nothing to do with it,” she said.
“Your friend Pedrito-Aurelio doesn’t know he just bought the guns I brought in for him. He and his friend Holtz made the deal with my partner but they never came to get them. You don’t know Holtz either.”
“I know nobody named Holtz. I know Pedrito from the university. I did this as a personal favor to him.”
“Aurelio paid too much,” Alfie said. “Our price to Holtz was thirty-five hundred, not four thousand.” He took out his cash and held out five hundred to Renata. “Give this to Aurelio.”
“Why should I take this?”
“Aurelio will be angry they overpaid. You can do him another favor.”
Renata put the money in her brassiere. “I will see if Pedrito takes this. If he doesn’t, I’ll return it. He will be grateful if it is as you say.”
“The Directorio people are mostly dead,” the blonde said. “That Aurelio now has more guns than people to use them.”
“I don’t know anything about the Directorio,” Renata said.
“You should listen to the radio,” said the blonde. “They are mostly dead.”
“We should go,” Renata said to Quinn.
“I want to take you both to dinner,” Alfie said. “This was a good day for business.”
“I’m sorry,” Renata said. “I have to go.” She got into the Buick.
“Dinner is a fine idea,” Quinn said to Alfie. “Where do you want to go?”
“The Montmartre. The owner is a friend of mine. Their steaks are as good as the floor show.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Quinn said, and in the Buick he said to Renata, “We have to let him thank us, and I want to know more about him. He’s unusual.”
“He is a gangster.”
“Some gangsters are unusual. It’s the Montmartre. They have good steaks. I told you not to lie to him. He knows who Pedrito is and you even took the money. I thought you were a good liar. You’re a terrible liar.”
“He knows I’m lying. He also knows I did not betray the Directorio. Are you so stupid?”
Quinn considered this.
“It’s possible I’m stupid,” he said.
“I think Inez is a whore,” Renata said. “She has the whore’s manner, the coldness.”
“You can’t know that about her.”
“I don’t like what she said about the Directorio.”
“She may be conditioned to be cold. Did you see that tattoo on her arm?”
“Yes.”
“The Nazis did that to Jews.”
“I never saw one before.”
He backed the car out. Alfie carried the tires inside and locked the garage and Inez padlocked the gas pumps. Then they got into the backseat.
“So we’re on for the Montmartre, you’re both my guests. And we’ll take Inez, who works in the casino there.”
“That’s fine,” Quinn said. “Isn’t that fine, Renata?”
“Yes, it’s fine.”
“Inez used to be a dancer,” Alfie said. “She danced all over Spain and France in the war years.”
“And in Havana,” Inez said.
“Where in Havana?” Renata asked.
“Many places. The Sevilla-Biltmore, the Savoy, the Sans Souci. I was very young.”
“The Sans Souci—I went often when my sister sang there,” Renata said. “The dancers in those places always became whores. Customers offered them so much money.”
“Is that what happened to you?” Inez asked.
“I was not a dancer,” Renata said, “I would never take money for that.”
“You only do it for love,” Inez said.
“Exactly. Do you know the owner, Trafficante?”
“I do.”
“My sister is a good friend of his.”
“He is a generous man.”
“We’re going to the Montmartre, not the Sans Souci,” Alfie said. “Lansky owns the Montmartre casino.”
“I cannot like him,” Renata said. “I dislike his eyes.”
“He’s a sweetheart,” Alfie said.
“Who do you think that Javier is?” Quinn asked. “I think he’s with Fidel.”
“You may be right,” Alfie said.
“I would love to work with Fidel,” Renata said.
“I’m going to try for an interview with him,” Quinn said.
“The New York Times just did that,” Alfie said.
“Fidel can’t have too many interviews. Batista’s army kills him every day in the papers. He has to keep proving he’s still alive.”
“Everybody wants Fidel,” Inez said.
“He’s got momentum,” Quinn said.
“He’s the only game in town,” Alfie said.
“Maybe you should move your store to Santiago,” Quinn said to Alfie.
“Why didn’t I think of that?”
“I am going to Santiago,” Renata said. “Definitely. I’ve said it before but now I’m going to do it. I am.”
“I’ll do the driving,” Quinn said. “Can we keep this car?”
The Montmartre was at O and Twenty-fifth and they dropped Inez at the door on Twenty-fifth that led directly up to the second-floor casino. After she was out of the car Quinn said, “She has a Nazi tattoo.”
“She was in a camp,” Alfie said. “Worked with her father in French nightclubs until someone betrayed them as Jews. She weighed seventy pounds when I met her in Europe after the liberation. She wanted to go to New York but they wouldn’t let her in—Commie Jew. Then Trafficante gave her a job down here.”
“Why did he do that?”
“I asked him to,” Alfie said.
“I owe her an apology,” Renata said. “I thought she was a whore.”
“She was a whore. Her father pimped for her. Then they used her that way in the camp. She was gorgeous. Her father died in the camp and when she got well she survived as a whore. She couldn’t dance anymore. They ruined her knees.”
“Is she still a whore?”
“Yes,” Alfie said, “but only for me.”
When Renata said she would not go to dinner in the tour guide’s blouse and skirt she’d been wearing for two days, Alfie went into the club to arrange for the table and Quinn dropped Renata at a fashion boutique on Twenty-first Street that specialized in Paris imports. He felt obligated to call Max at the newspaper and find out what part of Cuba was erupting in blood, and should he be covering the spatter?
“Cooney’s looking for you,” Max said. “He called twice and then came in person and left you a letter. And Hemingway called you. Big day for you and Hemingway. Cooney’s challenging him to a duel and wants you to set it up.”
“A duel? Really? Rapiers or flintlocks?”
“That’s up to Hemingway.”
“Did Hemingway mention the duel?”
“He didn’t even mention his name. He just asked for you and hung up. I recognized his voice. Cooney’s letter is short. ‘Dear Mr. Quinn, you’re a friend of that bum Hemingway. Tell him I think he’s a bum and I challenge him to a duel, any kind of gun or whatever he likes, I ain’t particular. I’m not kidding here. I’m taking this public. You can write the story but if you don’t want to I’ll get somebody else. He’s a bum to hit me like he did and I want everybody to know what a cheap coward trick it was. He’s a bum and a cheap coward. I hear he’s a good shot but so am I. Tell him to wear his soldier medals. I’ll be wearing mine. Yours truly, Joseph X. Cooney.’”
“Good letter,” Quinn said. “We can sell tickets.”
“You know how to reach Hemingway?”
“Hang around the Floridita.”
“I’ll draw you a map to his house. Out near San Francisco de Paula. You should tell him in person.”
“You mean now he’s a story?”
“Dog shoots man. I’ll print that.”
“Get me his phone number.”
“Have you seen Renata?”
“We eloped last night.”
“Have you been sucking on the rum bottle?”
“That’s my next assignment.”
“How is she?”
“She’s shopping for the honeymoon.”
Max drew a long breath. “Are you up for this story or are you piped?”
“Get me his phone.”
“Dial oh-five and ask the operator for five-four-four. The phone is listed under José C. Alemán.”
“I’ll let you know what he says tomorrow.”
“Call him tonight.”
“Would you interrupt your honeymoon to talk to a writer?”
Another long breath. “How is she?”
“Erratic but it doesn’t interfere with her sensuality.”
“You better do right by that girl.”
“You can’t believe how hard I’m trying.”
Renata emerged from the store transformed into a denizen of the beau monde, stunning in a white off-the-shoulder sheath, white high-heeled pumps, white earrings and white sunglasses, blond hair upswept, and the necklace of the Orishas stylishly pendant on her bosom. She also carried a new suitcase that promised additional transformations.
“Guapísima,” Quinn said. “I don’t recognize you. Gorgeous.”
“I am never the same, even when I am not somebody else.”
“I think I may have to memorize that. You’re a blonde.”
“It’s a wig.”
“It’s a good one. I thought you had gotten it bleached.”
“Now we must get you a necktie.”
Newly garbed, they rode the elevator to the Montmartre’s second floor and stepped into a foyer of full-length mirrors, the vitalizing rhythm of a mambo drifting in from the nightclub on the right, and the clicks and bells of slot machines on the left beckoning arrivals toward the roulette and blackjack tables in the casino beyond. Renata took Quinn’s arm as they went into the nightclub, which shimmered in black and chrome, its mauve curtains billowing on the elevated stage, its tables filling up. When Quinn pointed to Alfie at a center table two tiers up from ringside, the maître d’ led them to him. Before they were seated Alfie had a waiter filling their champagne glasses.
; “Hey-soos Maria,” Alfie said as the newly designed Renata sat down; and his eyes said the rest. Another scalp in her saddlebag.
“Good table,” Quinn said, changing the subject.
“They know me. The place will be packed by eight and it stays that way till four a.m.”
“I always liked this club,” Renata said. “I’m sure I sat at this table when my sister sang here.”
The lights and the piped-in mambo went down abruptly and a voice boomed through the speakers, “Damas y caballeros, ladies and gentlemen, el club Montmartre presenta la Orquestra de Bebo Valdés!” Billowing curtains receded, twenty musicians on stage erupted with a magnified mambo that was quickly joined by twenty mulata dancers moving to the feverish beat with their feathers, flounces, ruffles, spangles and vast expanses of flesh, and the pulse of nighttime Havana skipped a syncopated beat.
Quinn was still finding it difficult to realize that he was actually a player in this manic culture—across the table from him a woman of hyperventilating beauty with rebellion running in her veins, and a loner hoodlum who peddles tools of psychotic vengeance to suicidal rebels. Keeping with this improbable beat he told them about Cooney’s challenge to Hemingway.
“Viva Cooney,” Renata said. “I’m on his team.”
“I’ve read Hemingway,” Alfie said. “He knows guns. Cooney’s in trouble.”
“Would you really arrange it?” Renata asked.
“Why would Hemingway even consider this? And why involve me? He’s got a brigade of acolytes. But if he really does ask me to arrange the duel of the century, I’ll do it, and put you both on the weapons committee.”
“You should set it up in Madison Square Garden,” Alfie said.
“Cooney’s not a contender,” Quinn said.
The steaks arrived and at mid-meal the headwaiter came over to Alfie to whisper the buzz in the room—Colonel Fermín Quesada had arrived in the casino fifteen minutes ago. Quesada, the army commander in the city of Holguín, the latest of Batista’s avengers, had become the most hated figure in Cuba to the rebels. Alfie passed the news of his presence to Renata and Quinn on the chance they would consider it a threat. Quinn and Alfie agreed they had done a bit of gun handling, but who knew that? Quinn looked at Renata in her new whites. Did she look like a quarry of the army or police? With that wig she didn’t even look like she looked yesterday. Renata said she was fine; they all felt remote from official scrutiny.
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