Night Work (12 page)

She looked up at him and smiled. “I'm very happy. Is that wrong? Is it wrong to be happy and dancing while people you know are dying in the hills?”

“There are always people dying in the hills. We were almost there ourselves. Now we're dancing. Maybe their turn comes next and we get what they have now.”

The music stopped and people left the floor. Cassidy and Dylan found a table under a spreading tree and ordered daiquiris. The lights dimmed. The music started again, but the rhythm was different now, deeper, throbbing, and when the lights came back up, the floor seethed with dancers, tall women in fantastic headdresses of fruit and flowers, bras with red nipple covers, feathers at their shoulders, bikini bottoms, and shoes with impossible heels. The men with them wore skintight pants and red shirts with ruffles in blue and yellow, and they danced as close to sex as they could get with their clothes on, and after fifteen minutes went off to wild applause.

A waiter came to their table with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. “We didn't order this.”

“No, Señor. The gentleman did.”

Cassidy looked to where the waiter nodded. Frank Costello waved from a table where he sat with three other men and four women.

“Who is he?” Dylan asked.

“An old friend of my father's. My godfather.”

“The men he's with are gangsters, hoodlums.” He looked at her in surprise. “I was briefed, Michael. I didn't come to Cuba without knowing who was who. The little one is Meyer Lansky, a Jew, supposed to be the smart one, the brains of the Mob. He made a deal with Batista in 1952 so that he and his friends could control the casinos in Havana. The funny thing is, Batista brought them in to clean up the gambling. He understood that more tourists would come to play if they knew the games were on the up and up. The one with glasses, the one who looks like an accountant, that's Santo Trafficante. His father was from here, but he grew up in Tampa. His family ran the
bolita
there, the lottery, and prostitution, gambling. I don't know who the big one is.”

“Joe Stassi. He used to be just a low-level Mafia hood in New Jersey and Florida, maybe killed a few people for them. He's been down here a long time. We think he's the Mob's day-to-day manager. Costello and Lansky go way back, but I thought Costello was pulling out of the game. A year and a half ago one of the other bosses decided it was time for Frank to step down. He sent a guy over who shot Frank in the lobby of his apartment building. He only grazed him, but the word went out that Frank was putting in his retirement papers.”

Costello beckoned.

“He wants you to go over.”

“The Prime Minister of Crime, according to the papers. I grew up calling him Uncle Frank. Do you want to meet him?”

“No. I don't need to meet a gangster.”

“I'll be back in a minute.”

Costello stood up as Cassidy approached, hugged him and kissed him on the cheek, and then turned him to show him off to the table. “My godson, Michael Cassidy. Tom Cassidy's boy. Meyer, we went to that play last year when you were in the city, house seats down front, best seats in the house, the musical with the tall blonde you liked. That was Tom's play. Michael, Meyer Lansky here, Santo Trafficante over there. He's part owner of this joint. What a show, huh? You never seen anything like that on Broadway. Joe Stassi, lives down here, works for some of us overseeing the casinos.” He didn't introduce the women who sat with them. They were part of the décor. But the one sitting next to Stassi spoke up for herself.

“I know you. The kidder. Boy, you really kicked over the anthill that day.”

“How are you, Alice?” The last time he had seen her, she had her hand in a Florida senator's pocket while General Castillo showed them around the fortress of La Cabaña.

“I'm great. I'm never leaving Cuba again, ever. Paradise. And I've got my little Adam right here.” She clutched Stassi's thick arm and leaned her head against his shoulder. He looked at Cassidy and raised an eyebrow.
Dames. What are you going to do?

Costello touched Cassidy's arm and jerked his head in invitation toward the bar. Cassidy looked over to where Dylan sat.

“A couple of minutes,” Costello said. “She'll be all right. Broads don't mind being alone.”

A man in skintight red pants and a yellow ruffled shirt came onto the floor to juggle flaming batons. He was assisted by a tall, nearly naked woman whose job it was to strut on high heels and point to the wonder of what he was doing. Costello and Cassidy found room at the end of the bar. Costello ordered a daiquiri. Cassidy asked for a Bacardi añejo on the rocks.

“What are you doing with those guys?” Cassidy asked. “I thought you got out.”

“A guy's got to make a living. I kept a couple of things. I thought you were only coming down for a day or so. That's what you told me,” Costello said.

“I'm taking some vacation time.”

“You were bringing a guy down, you told me. What'd he do?”

“He killed some people.”

Costello nodded. Things like that happened. “You're a smart guy, Michael. You keep your ear to the ground. What do you hear about this Castro guy? Is he a Commie?”

“I don't know, but a guy I know who knows him says no. He says he's a democrat, a socialist maybe, but a democrat.”

“Uh-huh. I don't get it. Batista's got an army, all the modern equipment, and he can't get a bunch of guys out of the hills? What the hell? What's Castro got, a few hundred men. Batista's got thousands.”

“Maybe Batista doesn't want it as much.”

“Yeah. Maybe. You'd think the guy with the most guns would take it. I don't know. Do you think Castro's going to win?”

“Yes, I do.”

“We've got a lot of investment money tied up in Havana. A socialist? I guess we can live with that. He needs us as much as we need him. Maybe more. Without the tourists, without the casinos to pull them in, without the profits, his economy goes in the toilet.”

They talked some more, about what Cassidy's father was doing, a new play for Broadway, about the Yankees and the coming season, could they repeat as World Series winners? They made promises to meet for dinner in the city, promises they would not keep.

“What did he want?” Dylan asked.

“He wanted to know whether I thought Castro would win. He's worried about his investments.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him I thought he would.”

They were dancing when the bandleader took the microphone and announced that it was midnight and offered
Feliz año
. Dylan kissed him, and said “Happy New Year” and kissed him again. She put her arms around his neck and he put his around her waist and pulled her tight, and they stood there among the cheering people, some cheering for the passing of the old, and some for the coming of the new.

As they went back to their table, a whisper burned from table to table where Cubans sat.
Se fue. Se fue. Se fue.

Ribera found them. His face split in a grin, and his arms were wide to embrace them and all that was about to happen. “He's gone. He's gone. The son of a bitch Batista took off from the airfield at Camp Columbia. He's gone. We won.” He looked happy and stunned, the way one does when the impossible, long hoped for, happens.

While they waited outside the lobby for the Packard, Cassidy watched Meyer Lansky, Santo Trafficante, Frank Costello, and Joe Stassi get into separate cars. Trafficante carried two heavy suitcases. The men looked grim, but Alice, still in a party mood, spotted him, blew him a kiss, waved, and then followed Stassi into the Cadillac.

They rode down into the city in Ribera's Packard with the glass lowered between them and Miguel, a gesture to the new democracy. Caravans of horn-blowing cars clogged the avenues. People rode their fenders waving Cuban flags and banners marked “26” to commemorate Castro's July 26th Movement. Crowds milled in the streets celebrating. People attacked the parking meters that lined the curbs with pipes, axes, crowbars, baseball bats, and battered their heads off.

“The parking meters were owned by Roberto Fernández Miranda. Do you know who this is?” Ribera asked.

“Batista's brother-in-law,” Cassidy said.

“And a most hated man, an asshole. He owned the parking meters, and the slot machines, even the little ones that gave candy and prizes to children. It is said he made half a million dollars a month. Can you imagine?” It was the same tone of awe Echevarria had used when talking about Miranda's monthly take.

When they turned a corner, two men ran across the street in front of them. For a moment they were pinned in the glare of the headlights, startled like animals, faces stretched by terror. They wore SIM uniforms, and one of them carried a big, chrome automatic. They turned away from the light and fled down the sidewalk. Their pursuers ran into the street after them, and Miguel had to stop to let them pass. There were at least twenty of them, young men for the most part. Some of them carried clubs, and they howled as they ran, an ancient cry of blood pursuit. More men appeared from an alley and the SIM officers were trapped against a building between the two groups. The one with the gun fired and two men went down, and then the mob overwhelmed them. Clubs rose and fell, rose and fell and the headlights threw grotesque shadows on the wall.

Then it was over. The men stood and parted, drew back from the bloody bundles on the sidewalk. One of them held the chrome automatic. Another pointed at the car and said something, and others turned to look.

Cassidy sensed the danger. “Miguel,
atrás
.”

When Miguel looked back to scope his path of retreat, his face was taut with fear. He tried for reverse as the men stepped off the sidewalk and started toward them. The gears ground and clashed, caught, and the car stalled. Miguel turned the key. The starter whirred, but the engine did not catch.

“
Suavamente, hombre. Con cuidado.
”

But Miguel was too scared to do it gently, to do it with care. The starter ground and ground, and the battery whined down in protest, and through the windshield they could see the men approaching. They came slowly, steadily. The one with the pistol walked in front as if the gun had given him the authority to lead.

“I'll talk to them,” Ribera said and put his hand on the door handle.

Cassidy stopped him. These men were not going to talk.

Dylan unsnapped her purse and took out the small automatic.

The starter ground on as the battery weakened.

“We should run,” Ribera said.

“It didn't work for those guys,” Cassidy said.

The engine caught, sputtered, and caught again. Miguel clashed the gears, searching for reverse.

The leader of the mob raised the pistol and fired, and a bullet clanged somewhere in the body of the car. Miguel found reverse and lifted his foot from the clutch as the engine whined high. The car lurched backwards. The gunman fired again, and the windshield starred and a piece of glass blew into the backseat. The car rocketed back. Miguel jerked the wheel, and the car slewed around the corner as the man fired again. The bullet slammed into the car body, and then they were around the corner. Miguel kept his foot down, and they ran backwards down the street and into a small plaza. He slammed on the brakes, clashed into first, wrenched the wheel, and shot the car up a side street, and they were gone.

“Coño,”
Ribera said. “That was close.”

“I guess they didn't recognize the People's Packard limousine,” Cassidy said.

For a moment there was silence, and then Dylan laughed. Ribera chuckled and then roared, and soon they were all laughing, Ribera until he choked, Dylan till she cried, Cassidy until he gasped. They would stop, and then someone would say People's Packard limousine, and they would start again. Miguel, forlorn of English, kept glancing in the rearview mirror to gauge their madness.

*   *   *

The word went out, and the cars began arriving at Joe Stassi's house around one in the morning. Gunmen checked the cars at the bottom of the drive and then waved them on to park near the house where men with submachine guns stood in the shadows and watched the drivers and passengers unload heavy suitcases and carry them into the house. By two in the morning there were twenty men in the living room drinking and smoking and talking in quiet voices waiting to be told what to do next by the four men in the dining room. Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Santo Trafficante, and Joe Stassi stood talking by the window while a team of accountants from their casinos counted the money that had been brought to the house and stacked in piles on the tables.

“Just in case,” Lansky had said. “We don't know this guy Castro. Till we do, it's better we keep the money where he can't get it.” The others had agreed and the casinos had been stripped of cash and checks.

“Jesus, have you seen what they've got in there?” Doreen asked. “I've never seen so much money.” The women had been told to go into the kitchen and make sandwiches and coffee. All the Cuban servants had been sent away.

Alice dabbed at a spot of mayonnaise on her blouse with a wet dish towel. She picked up a plate of sandwiches and pushed through the door into the dining room. The men at the window turned to look at her with cold eyes. “I thought you guys might be hungry. Ham and cheese, roast beef, chicken salad.”

“Put 'em over there,” Stassi said with a gesture toward a sideboard. She was careful not to look at the money on the tables pushed together at the center of the room, but she could see it from the corner of her eye as she turned, mountains of greenbacks, and the open suitcases on the floor where the money went as it was counted.

“Do you guys need anything else? Can I make anybody a drink?”

“Beat it, Alice. We'll call you if we want something.”

She could feel their eyes on her as she went back through the swinging door to the kitchen.