Night Work (17 page)

“Most of the people who own casinos down there are hoods.”

“Hey, I'm just a small part of it. I have no control of the daily workings.” If there was something unclean about the deal, Mark was holding it at arm's length.

“The brochure's got your name on it too.”

“Sure. That's what you do if you're trying to attract investors. You go get a couple of names that are known on the Street. It builds confidence. Sanborn's leant me his name on a few projects. He came to me about this, and I said, okay.”

“Do you have any money in it?”

“Some. Nothing like what Sanborn's put in. He sees this as taking him to the next level where he can look down on his father and spit in his eye.”

“So why is he so worried?”

“Everyone's a little scared of what might happen down there. If Castro encourages tourism and keeps his hands off the hotels, everyone will make out like bandits. The hotels have casino licenses, and casinos are mints.”

“And if Castro is a Communist he might close the casinos or take them over.”

“Right. Then everybody takes a bath.”

“Would you lose much?”

“A couple hundred thousand. Nothing compared to Sanborn.” It wasn't a throwaway number, but it did not seem to bother him much. “If it doesn't completely wreck him, it'll put a big dent in what he's got.” He took a slug of his drink. “What do you think? Do you think he's a Commie?”

“I don't know.”

“That doctor from Argentina, Guevara, he's a Commie.”

“There were Americans fighting on their side too. And Eisenhower wasn't doing a lot to prop up Batista.”

“Says who?”

“Brian, for one.” Cassidy's older brother was a producer of news for ABC television. “You'd think that if Ike was afraid Castro was a Commie, he'd have done more to make sure Batista stayed in power.”

“I should talk to Brian. I hope he's right. I guess we're just going to have to wait and see. Ahh, screw it. Are you sure you don't want to stay for dinner? I'll seat you next to Sanborn and you can stab him with your fork.”

 

8

Diego Fuentes had lost his uniform to the revolution but not his military bearing. He stood ramrod straight with his hands clasped behind his back and watched the seals roll through the murky water of the Central Park Zoo's pool. “Castro comes to New York next month,” he said. “He will be some days in Washington, and then here in New York. We will have a week.” Fuentes wore a beautifully tailored pale gray suit that accentuated his slimness, an ivory-colored silk shirt, and a raspberry tie decorated with blue birds. He carried a light raincoat over one arm in case the bright sun was a lie and the March day turned cool. He stood back from the iron fence surrounding the seal pool to avoid dirtying his clothes.

Ex-Sergeant Paco Lopato stood next to him. He was dressed in a secondhand suit of some shiny brown material that had been made for a smaller man. His big wrists stuck out below the jacket sleeves, and the trouser hems revealed inches of socks. His shirt was green, and his tie was maroon and made of rayon. Clothes meant nothing to him. He had no vanity about things like that. He had always appreciated the simplicity and lack of choice in a uniform. He was a doer. The action of the mission was important, nothing else. His big hands rested on the fence and he leaned toward the seals. “I have seen an animal like this. My uncle caught a young one in a fish trap when I was a boy in Cojimar. No one had ever seen one before. It tasted like beef. They should clean the water here. Animals like these should live in clean water.”

A young couple with a small boy came to stand near them to watch the seals. Fuentes, an instinctive and practiced conspirator, walked away from them and the pool, and after a last look, Lopato went with him.

“A week is not much time,” Fuentes said as they walked. “But all we need is one moment in that week.”

“What will his security be?”

“We don't know yet. This is not an official state visit. The American government has not asked him to come. He has been invited by something called The American Society of Newspaper Editors. He has come to tell them lies they are eager to hear. We do not think the American Secret Service will be involved. Perhaps the New York Police Department.”

“Ah,” Lopato said and rubbed his forefinger and thumb together in the sign of money grease.

“Yes. They do not seem to be as corrupt as the Havana Police Department, but we are investigating some possibilities there.”

“Does he bring his brother and the doctor?”

“No. Raúl and Che stay in Havana. It's too bad. All three of them in the same room and we take care of our problems in one moment. Still, we should take advantage of this opportunity. Fidel is the head of the snake. Cut it off and the body dies.”

They stopped and looked through the black bars of a cage to where two polar bears lay on a ledge of stone above a small pool of brown-green water. A third swam languidly back and forth in the pool, up to one end, a sinuous turn, return to the other, over and over again, its back and head out of the water, its big paws driving it like paddles.

“Do you know where he is staying?” Lopato asked.

“Not yet. We have people working on that. There is much to learn, much to plan.”

Lopato nodded. Colonel Fuentes was a smart man. He would get the information they needed. There was no need for ex-Sergeant Lopato to think about it. “I thought these bears would be very white, white like the pictures of snow.” The bears' fur had a dingy yellow cast from too much sun, too much city air. Much of New York disappointed him, the cold, the food, the air, the women who shied away from him, the hurrying people, the noise, the anonymity. He was nothing in New York, but soon they would be back in Havana. Soon he would be Sergeant Lopato again, someone to fear, to respect.

They left the zoo through the west exit and walked south. Colonel Fuentes turned onto a narrow, little-used path, and when he was sure they were alone took a folded piece of paper from his inside pocket and gave it to Lopato. “These are the names of people we must deal with before Castro arrives. There is a number there to call when you are ready.” Lopato nodded and put the paper in his pocket without looking at it. They parted without good-byes. Fuentes walked south toward a lunch meeting in the Theater District, a meeting with useful men with similar if not parallel interests, men who knew that rewards came with risks, and did not shy from them.

Lopato watched the Colonel walk away. Lopato was not an educated man. He had left school after fifth grade to fish, and then left fishing to join the army, where he had found his true skill, providing discipline and strength where it was needed. He joined SIM and saved the money that came his way, as money did in that world. He owned three rental houses in Havana, and a small fish processing plant in Cojimar. He was not a rich man by Colonel Fuentes's standards, but he was far richer than his father and uncles had ever hoped to be, and he had been content with that. The revolution threatened to take all that away. There were rumors of confiscations of assets from supporters of Batista. There was a list of names at La Cabaña now, it was said. A list of men from the Batista regime whose turn it was to occupy the cells, to go to the wall. Lopato was on that list.

Colonel Fuentes continued south along the paved path without looking back. Lopato understood the vast chasm between his world and the Colonel's, and he did not resent it. But it occurred to him that the Colonel had not mentioned how he was to get away after he performed his task with Castro. Well, the Colonel had many things of importance to think about. Lopato's father said that the rich use the poor like tools for their own profit, and when the tool is worn out or broken, they throw it away. Lopato would take care of Lopato. He always had. So, perhaps he should know who the Colonel was meeting. Knowledge is power, the Colonel once told him, and the Colonel was a man who knew about power.

Lopato followed Colonel Fuentes through Columbus Circle and down Seventh Avenue through the crowds of tourists headed toward Times Square. He turned west on 54th Street, crossed Broadway, and continued along the block toward Eighth Avenue before stopping in front of a restaurant called Mario's in the ground floor of a six-story brownstone not far from the end of the block. Lopato, following from across 54th Street, watched through the windows of a parked delivery van as Colonel Fuentes selected a cigar from the leather case he carried, bit off the end, and lit it. He turned toward the door and then stopped as a large black sedan pulled in to park next to a fire hydrant in front of the restaurant. Two men got out and surveyed the street for threats and then one of them opened the back door, and a small man in a well-cut gray suit and gray fedora got out. He greeted Fuentes with a smile and an outstretched hand. Fuentes shook the man's hand and offered a small bow, a sign of respect Lopato had never seen him use before. The small man took the Colonel's arm and guided him toward the restaurant door. Lopato recognized him from pictures in the Havana papers, Meyer Lansky, the man Batista had brought in to clean up and organize the casinos in Havana. It made sense that they would meet. There was talk that Castro would take over the casinos. If he did, the men who owned them would lose money. It was better for everybody who had power and made money under Batista that the old ways returned. These men were natural allies. There was nothing new to learn here.

Lopato was about to go when a taxi stopped and a man got out. Lopato did not know him. He was a tall, thin American with a small head and hunched, narrow shoulders. He walked with a stilted forward lean, and he reminded Lopato of a large stick insect as he hurried into the restaurant.

As Lopato turned to go, he bumped into a businessman carrying a briefcase who started to demand an apology, but then took a look at Lopato's face, put his head down, and hurried away. Lopato smiled. At least someone in this fucking city would remember him for the rest of the day.

 

9

Cassidy woke up with a mouth like dried muck, gummed eyes, and a pounding head in a bedroom he did not recognize next to a woman he did not know. Julie? Jessie? Janice? Would she remember his name? Ahh, christ, what had he said to her? What had she said to him?

Hazed memories of a basement bar full of smoke and boozy laughter, his arm around the woman and a row of shots on the bar top.

The gray early-morning light showed the lines in her face, the dark roots in her blond hair, the bags under her eyes. Well, he probably looked better in bar light too. Could he get out without waking her? The trick, he had learned from experience, was to gather the clothes and shoes quietly and dress in another room, avoid the awkward morning conversation, the hopeful look for assurances he could not give. A coward's retreat. Where was his tie? Who knows? To hell with it.

He went out onto the street, Lexington and 54th, no memory of getting there, and hailed a cab to take him home to a shower and a handful of Bufferin. How many mornings like this had there been in the last couple of months? A lot.

*   *   *

Orso waited on the sidewalk outside the Bellevue morgue. He held cups of coffee from the Greek across the street, and he handed one to Cassidy after he paid off the cab. “I've got a pint of rye in my pocket. You want a jolt? It might make you feel better.”

“What makes you think I want to feel better?”

“Okay, then. Jesus, when did guilt happen to you? Did you suddenly turn Catholic?”

They went into the hospital and down the stairs toward the morgue.

“Did you have a chance to read the canvassing reports on the Central Park guy?”

“No. They came in late. I was out of there early,” Orso said. “Mom's birthday yesterday. The whole family goes to dinner in the back room at Pellini's over there off DeKalb Avenue. Like feeding time at the zoo. Thirty-two Italians shouting at each other. My cousin Johnny's there with his new girl; Francine, his ex-wife, is down at the end of the table wondering how she can kill him and get away with it. Pete and his brother Allie are out in the garden having a fistfight over the new lift Allie bought for the garage, didn't tell Pete. Aunt Tess is cold-shouldering Uncle Willy, caught him making a half-assed pass at the neighbor downstairs. Half the people there aren't speaking to each other. Mom's at the end of the table saying isn't it wonderful to have the family together? We all get along so well.”

“How is she?”

“Ahh, I don't know. Getting old. She's going to need some taking care of pretty soon. Pop left her a bit of dough from insurance. I got word from a guy who knows his stuff about an investment opportunity, so I took it, a little bit more I scraped up and put it someplace I hope it's going to grow.”

“At least she's got the house.” Cassidy had been there many times, a modest clapboard-sided house in Brooklyn near Prospect Park usually crammed with members of the extended family. “And it's paid for. Jesus, that was a party.” A burn-the-mortgage party that went on until sunrise.

“Yeah, yeah, the house.” He said it as if it tasted bad.

“She's got a big family. Won't they step up?”

“Cheap bastards. I mention it, they all say, yeah, whatever she needs, but I ask them to write a check, it's always, it's a tough week, I've got some unexpected expenses, Tommy's got this thing at the orthodontist is going to cost an arm, I'll put a check in the mail tomorrow. It never comes.”

They found Al Skinner in his office reading a furniture catalog. A skull on his desk wore novelty Groucho Marx glasses with an attached mustache. A pile of papers was held in place by a skeletal hand with the bones wired together to replace the lost tendons. Skinner tossed the catalog aside when they came in. “Ahh, and I thought I was going to get a couple of minutes of peace and quiet. I shoulda known better. What is it with you two? Do you know how many cops I get coming in here? I get you two. What is it? You can't wait for the report to come over to the squad room?”