Night Work (29 page)

“You know this man?”

“He is one of my bodyguards.”

“He had a gun.”

“As I said, he is one of my bodyguards.”

“He can't carry a gun in this city. How many other of your men are carrying?”

“I don't know. Some.” Castro shrugged it away as unimportant.

“Okay, let's get everybody over to the hotel and sort this out.” It was going to be a long week.

*   *   *

“We'll give the guns back to your men when you leave New York,” Cassidy said. “You won't need them here. You'll be covered by a hundred cops every time you leave the hotel.” They were alone together in the bedroom of Castro's suite in the Statler Hilton across from Pennsylvania Station. The window was open, and the traffic noise drifted up from the street.

Castro shrugged. “
Bueno.
It is all unnecessary. I am sure there are many things the police could be doing in this city besides watching me.” Cassidy noticed that Castro used Spanish when he wanted to assert his authority, English when he wanted to please. “I do not need your protection.” He took a long cigar from a box on the table, flicked a wooden match with his thumbnail, and carefully applied the flame to the cigar end, rolling it until he had an even burn.

“We have information that there may be an attempt on your life.”
Attempt on your life
sounded formal, bland, without danger.

Castro dismissed the idea with a wave of the cigar. “They can't kill me. Batista and his army tried for three years and could not. Thousands of men with thousands of guns. Do you believe in destiny, Detective?”

“No.”

“I have a destiny to lead my people out of the poverty and despair they have lived in for generations, to free them from the oppression they have suffered. This cannot be done in a few months. It will take years and years. No one is going to kill me before I fulfill that destiny.”

“No one's going to kill you in New York, because we're going to make sure it doesn't happen. After that, you're on your own.”

Castro smiled and opened his arms. “Very well, I am in your hands. I could not feel safer if I was home in my own bed.”

The living room of the suite was crammed with Castro supporters, and they burst into cheers when he appeared in the bedroom door. Women presented themselves to be kissed, and men moved close to warm in his presence. Castro worked the room, hugs for the women, strong handshakes and clasps of the arm for the men. Smiles through the beard. Laughter. Occasionally he offered a cigar or bent to whisper in an ear, marks of favor, of intimacy, and those who received them glowed when he moved on. Three young women dressed not in fatigues but in tight cocktail dresses watched him with proprietary interest and glared at each other. Cassidy knew Castro was married but, what the hell, surely the revolutionary leader of a country should be granted some leeway in such mundane matters as women.

The door opened at one side of the room and Susdorf and Cherry came out of the bathroom. “Don't you think that's carrying the partner thing a little too far?” Cassidy said. Cherry flushed with anger, his automatic response to most things.

Susdorf, a man with a literal bent, said, “It's hard to find a private place to talk here. We just stepped into the bathroom for a moment to share some information.”

“Are you afraid the NYPD is going to leak something?”

“No, no, of course not. Director Hoover has put protocols in place that we have to adhere to. We've received some information pertinent to the operation here, and we needed a couple of minutes to talk it over.” A serious business carrying the burden of the Director's directives.

“Are you going to tell me, or am I outside the protocols?”

“No, no. We were going to reach out for you.”

“Shall we step back into your office?”

Susdorf looked around at the people in the room. “Yes, I think that would be a good idea.”

The bathroom was barely big enough for the three of them. Cassidy went in first and leaned against the sink, forcing Susdorf and Cherry to stand one behind the other, and Cherry had to butt up hard against his partner's back to make room to close the door. Susdorf flinched and then leaned past Cassidy and flushed the toilet and spoke over the rush and gurgle of water. “We've been running down those reports of an assassination attempt. What we've got so far is three men headed north in a Cadillac or a Lincoln sedan with Florida plates. We've alerted Highway Patrol and State Police and our local FBI offices.”

“That's it?”

“At the moment, but we're confident we'll have more information soon.” He didn't look like a man who was confident.

“Florida?”

“Yes.”

“There are a lot of Cubans in Miami, people who took off when Batista got kicked out. I'm sure some of them want Castro dead.”

“We have no information that the men coming are Cuban, but if we learn something, we'll reach out to you.”

“Terrific.”

Susdorf checked him for sarcasm.

“I guess we can go now if Agent Cherry would open the door.”

Cherry pushed up against Susdorf again while he opened the door, and Susdorf gave Cassidy a pained smile and started to back out of the room. Cassidy stopped him. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

“No.”

Cassidy spoke to the cops manning the door to the suite and then stopped by the room down the corridor the Department had set up as command headquarters. A metal coffee urn sat on a folding table next to a plate of doughnuts. There were ten uniformed cops in the room, and their conversations died when Cassidy entered. He picked up mimeographed copies of Castro's schedule and took the elevator to the lobby while he read one.

He went to the desk and showed the clerk his badge and asked for the manager. The desk clerk went away carrying one of Cassidy's business cards and came back with a tall, dignified man with the wary eyes of someone who was called when there was a problem. He wore a tailored black suit with a white shirt and a dark blue tie swimming with small yellow fish and he held Cassidy's card between his thumb and forefinger. “I'm John Quincy, the day manager. May I help you, Detective Cassidy?” Helpfulness and reserve.
Tell me your problem and I will do everything I can, but some things cannot be solved. We both know that.

“Eight twenty-four, the suite where Mr. Castro is staying. Did the Cubans send an advance party to the room before Mr. Castro arrived?”

“An advance party? No.”

“Nobody went into the rooms after they were cleaned.”

“Nobody but the FBI agents.”

“Tell me about the FBI agents.”

“An Agent Susdorf and Agent Cherry. They had two other men with them who they did not introduce. They said they had to make a security check. Is there a problem?”

“No. No problem. Thank you very much.”

“You're welcome.”

Cassidy found Orso in the bar off the lobby. It was too early for the evening drinkers, and the room was empty except for the bored bartender, elbows on the bar, reading
The Racing Form,
and one cocktail waitress with dyed blond hair and eyebrows plucked to thin curved lines. She sat beside Orso in a booth while he read her palm. He held her wrist and traced a line on her hand, which made her giggle and jump. “And this one,” Orso said, “means you are adventurous in love. Hmm, I could use a little adventure.”

“You be careful,” she said, not meaning it.

“And this one,” he ran a finger lightly over her hand, and she twitched and sucked in her breath. “Whoa, this one.”

“What?”

“I probably shouldn't tell you about this one.”

“You better.”

“Hmmm, later.”

“What you mean, later? I've got to go to work.”

“I'll pick you up when you're done. What time do you get off?”

“I don't know. I mean, I don't even know you.”

He still held her wrist, and he ran his finger over her hand again, and she giggled.

“Don't you want to know what this one means?”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don't.” She gave him a look up from under her fake eyelashes.

“What time?”

“Eleven.”

“I'll see you then.” He released her hand.

The woman stood up and said “Excuse me” to Cassidy, and stilted off on high heels, smoothing her skirt with her hands.

Cassidy sat down across the table in the booth and told Orso about the meeting with Susdorf and Cherry in the bathroom of Castro's suite.

“What's that all about, the bathroom and all?” Orso asked.

“They've got a bug in Castro's suite.”

“Okay. Why does that put them in the bathroom?”

“They don't want to be on tape saying something Hoover might not like.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know, and neither do they. He might not like their tone of voice. He might not like their use of the passive voice or the subjunctive. Who knows what God likes or doesn't like? Better safe than sorry.”

“Jesus. And I thought working for the Department was a pain in the ass. What's our deal with Castro?”

“We're with him tomorrow for lunch at the Overseas Press Club, and then the Bronx Zoo.” He slid Orso a mimeographed copy of Castro's schedule. “Let's get out of here and find a real bar and I'll buy you a drink.”

Orso pocketed the schedule. “Thanks, but I can't. I've got to meet a guy about something.”

“I'll walk with you, buy you a drink when you're done.”

“No. Thanks, Chief, but I better not. I don't know how long this is going to take. Could be a while. I'll see you in the morning.” A half smile that was not a smile at all, and he got up and went out. Cassidy watched him go. Why was he lying? What made him so nervous? The hell with it. Orso led a complicated life. If he didn't want to tell, why should he? Let it go.

 

17

The Bronx Zoo on a cool, gray day. The animals paced metronomically behind their bars. On the weekend the zoo would be crowded with families showing their children the exotic beasts trapped on the dreary concrete, but it was the middle of the week, and there were few children there. What few there were Castro found. He lifted the boys onto his shoulders, and hugged the girls, and talked to their parents as if they were old friends. Cassidy admired his easy way with them, but it put the cops on edge. How do you guard a man who won't be guarded?

Castro paused for a long time in front of the tiger cage. The big cat walked to the bars and stared through yellow eyes at the men gathered there, as if assessing their protein value. It yawned to show them its teeth. Then Castro reached through the bars and patted the animal on the head. People around him gasped. The tiger submitted without moving, and Castro withdrew his hand and turned away. A compact between predators, Cassidy thought. Professional courtesies.

Castro and his entourage drove back to Manhattan in their Cadillacs escorted by squad cars, lights and sirens to clear the traffic. Cassidy and Orso watched them go and then walked to where their car was parked in the shade of trees just beginning to push out their spring buds, the season of hope. A man waited in the shadows near the car. “Do you see him?” Orso said.

“Yes.”

“Do you know him?”

“I can't tell yet.”

They separated. Orso went toward the back of the car, Cassidy toward the front. The man saw what they were doing and stepped into the light and put his hands on the car hood.

“Carlos,” Cassidy said.

“Michael.” Ribera came around the front of the car and hugged Cassidy.

“Tony Orso, Carlos Ribera.” The two big men shook hands and looked each other over warily the way men often do when they first meet someone a friend has talked about.

“What are you doing here?” Cassidy asked.

“I go early where he is going to go later. I like to walk around before he gets there. Sometimes you see something that shouldn't be there. Sometimes you feel something that isn't right.”

“Are you any good at that?” Orso asked.

“I don't know. Maybe. There was a day in Santiago a month ago. Fidel was there for a speech. His men had searched the hall and found a bomb, but I felt something was still not right. How was it that the bomb was so easy to find? I went back. There was another in a light over the stage.” He shrugged. “So, just a feeling, and I was lucky. Let's get out of here. I don't like zoos. I don't like the way men cage wild things to feel better about their own limitations. Buy me a drink, and I'll show you something.”

They drove back to Manhattan and left the car in a no-parking zone with a police plaque on the dashboard and went into the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel and took a table near the windows. Dusk darkened toward evening. Across 59th Street a young man handed his date into one of the horse-drawn carriages and drew the blanket up around them for a romantic ride through Central Park. Men hurried by on their way home from work, disembodied heads under fedoras as they passed the high windows.

A waiter brought their drinks. When he went away, Ribera took a sheaf of photographs from his pocket and pushed them across the table to Cassidy. “Do you recognize anyone?”

Cassidy spread the black-and-white prints out on the table and examined them. They showed crowds in a street. In one he could see the columned façade of Pennsylvania Station. “This was the day Castro arrived.”

“Yes.”

“You were taking pictures. I didn't see you.”

“No. But I saw you.”

Cassidy looked back at the photographs. “Ahh.”

“Yes. You remember him.”

“The colonel from La Cabaña. Fuentes.”

“Yes, Colonel Diego Fuentes, lately of SIM.”

“Do you think he was going to try for Castro?”

“That day? Maybe. He was far back in the crowd and he did not try to get close. I think he was just scouting.”