by Jose Latour
…
Utterly exhausted, Mariano Contreras turned off the headlights of a light green ’56 Buick Special, killed the engine, rolled the windows up, stepped out, and locked the door. It was 7:12 P.M.
The attendant on duty gaped at the cabin dweller before handing him the key. Having shaved his mustache off and with his hair dyed, the patient looked ten years younger. As he took the footwalk, Contreras surmised that the man must have interpreted this as further confirmation that he was fucking nuts. His steps resounded on the hard surface, and the crickets interrupted their chirping. Contreras paused and glanced at a deserted round pergola built over wooden beams and thatched with palm leaves. On its cement floor, rustic high-backed armchairs welcomed him to a serene listening experience. Cutting across the lawn, he gained access and eased himself into one of the seats.
After a few moments, the insects’ symphony peaked again and Contreras dived to the bottom of his vast sea of memories. The family hut his father had built, with walls that came from the fibrous tissue found at the top of royal palm trees, a roof of palm leaves, and packed earth for floor, came to mind. He could almost sniff the smoke from burning firewood under an iron pot in which sweet potatoes boiled; see the blue-black sky, tinted to the west with the receding glow of sunset, sprinkled above with flickering stars. Untamed nature—one of the few pleasant recollections of his childhood.
And right then, like a lightning bolt, his own mortality struck him for the first time ever. It occurred to Contreras that, way past middle age, he’d achieved nothing aside from a moderately successful criminal career. No family, no business, no education, no hobby, few friends. What he could really call his own was a permanent distrust of the human race. His virility was slipping away too. That afternoon, after more than a month of sexual inactivity, he’d known he shouldn’t take a shot at a second round of lovemaking with Teresa. Those great years when he believed himself to be stallion to the world were just a dim memory.
And now, with over 200,000 safely salted away, more than enough to retire on and live like a king, he had to hide for God knew how long—in a madhouse, of all places. To his mind came the phlegm he spat after clearing his throat in the mornings. Did something lurk in his lungs? What would he die of? Bullet? Cancer? Cardiac arrest? Wasn’t it time to get out of the fast lane?
Teresa was the sweetest woman he’d ever met. Somehow she managed to pump all his cynicism out and fill him with peace and gentleness. And the present physical condition of the forty-six-year-old divorced beautician clearly indicated she must have had a fabulous youth he’d missed. He toyed with the idea of choosing her for a long-term relationship. Her hopes dovetailed with his own. She never asked questions, had followed today’s crazy demand as though she’d been thinking along the same lines. “Yeah, great, let’s dye your hair; I recommend chestnut—Roux’s the best.” His right hand moved to his chest and felt the gold chain and Saint Barbara medal. She’d taken it off and slipped it over his head when he was about to leave, begged him to wear it until their next meeting.
The realization that life was depriving him of boldness and hormones in an indivisible, irreversible process led him to shake his head in wonder and smile. The promise of a normal life had never been closer. He told himself he shouldn’t get involved in new schemes, nor throw away his money the way he used to. Now he felt, could virtually touch, the promise of a nice quiet future, if he had enough brains to be cautious and discreet. The notion of having reached a turning point in his life fully dawned on him. From now on he’d be a different man—not better or worse, just different. Overwhelming fatigue seized him. He closed his eyes, and big waves of sleepiness engulfed him. Grabbing the arms of the seat, Contreras pulled himself up and trudged toward the cabin, imposing a new fearful pause on the crickets.
…
At 3 A.M. sharp on October 12, a Sunday, at a Hotel Comodoro suite mutually agreed upon as neutral ground, Meyer Lansky and Orlando Grava conferred.
The six-year-old, six-story building was located at First Avenue and Eighty-fourth Street, very close to the shoreline. Lansky had arrived fifty minutes early, accompanied by Bonifacio García, Jacob Shaifer, and Eddie Galuzzo. The bodyguard, assisted by Galuzzo, had checked thoroughly for hidden microphones before declaring the place clean. The suite’s spacious living area was decently furnished and acceptably decorated, but it looked like a fleabag to men accustomed to the best.
Grava came in at 2:50, escorted by two plainclothesmen from his security detail. One of the gorillas knocked on the door; Bonifacio García let them in. Introductions were unnecessary; the men had met at a political banquet held in the Havana Riviera nine months earlier. After a shaking of hands, the colonel gave a quick nod to his subordinates, Lansky waved Shaifer and Galuzzo away, and the four guardian angels ambled over to the hallway.
The Hebrew chose the right side of a sofa upholstered in magenta vinyl, signaled Grava to his left, lit a cigarette. The colonel unbuttoned his jacket before sitting down. Then he turned slightly to better watch Lansky and crossed his legs. The interpreter sat in one of the two armchairs facing the sofa.
A year earlier, Grava had spent three hours at the U.S. Naval Mission reading a dossier on Lansky, originally prepared for Interpol by the FBI, with an appendix devoted to the gangster’s past and present Cuban operations. It was said that J. Edgar Hoover, incensed by the fact that Batista had provided a safe haven to the Mafia, was doing everything he could to punish the Cuban dictator and expel Lansky. Stanley Walburn, the FBI’s liaison officer with the Bureau of Investigations, operating from a small office at the Naval Mission, had shown the dossier to the Cuban police colonel.
Few secrets escaped Grava. He knew that Washington and Havana strongly disagreed on how to deal with Lansky. For the Cuban regime, stimulating capital investment in Cuba was the top priority. For the U.S., the fact that some of America’s most renowned gangsters were living abroad precluded the FBI from pursuing the day-to-day surveillance it wanted to keep them under. It also hindered efforts to send them to jail on income-tax evasion, the charges Hoover favored.
But Grava also realized that Fulgencio Batista and Meyer Lansky were mutually satisfied businessmen and friends, that the president signed the appointment to the post of chief of the National Police, and that he ought to cleverly reconcile all these conflicting factors to his own benefit. For this overriding reason, that evening, after having agreed to meet with Lansky, he had phoned Walburn, the FBI agent, and asked him for an interview the next day.
The colonel had fairly well inferred what had happened. Last June, Naguib had chosen Contreras from among three experienced Cuban criminals he’d been asked to recommend. After his last conversation with the Lebanese, Grava had concluded Contreras was involved in some sort of soft crime, like the car-smuggling operation informants reported Naguib had been fine-tuning. When to this he added the fact that the Moor had been murdered by a Capri dealer, then snuffed by Contreras, plus Grouse’s corpse and a request to access Bureau files by a notorious Lansky client, the whole mess smelled rotten. To top it off, Tourism Police reported that in the small hours of October 10, Lansky had paid a surprise visit to the Capri, where a locksmith had to open some malfunctioning locks at an office where a lot of money was kept. The conclusion that Naguib had fed Lansky a spoonful of his own medicine was inescapable.
Grava felt betrayed and threatened. Everybody knew that the casinos were off limits because their owners contributed directly to the president’s coffers, and Naguib had been a very well-informed man. Planning the heist, he must’ve reflected on the consequences, including the razzmatazz if anyone found that the chief of the Bureau of Investigations had actually recommended the man who pulled the job. Naguib had no right to do that to him, not even after presenting him with a hundred thou in cocaine, the colonel fumed.
Even though Lansky hadn’t read any dossier on Grava, countless verbal reports had convinced him the man was his favorite kind of police official. Grava’s corrupti
on was legendary, his ambition unlimited. Lansky always tried to accurately catalog men and issues, for the right match was a prerequisite to success. He never assigned a third-category problem to a first-echelon man, or vice versa, and now he felt certain of entrusting a secondary issue—recovering the stolen money—to a second fiddle. A third-rater like Di Constanzo should clear up how and when he’d lost the loyalty of two subordinates. The fundamental quest was up to him—learn who had decreed his quick retirement and was acting on it.
Alternately shifting his gaze from Grava to the interpreter, Lansky gave a factual account of the robbery and told most of what he already knew in five minutes, except for the true cause of Grouse’s death, for this would imply that he’d ordered the body removed. He named Contreras and Heller in giving details of the heist, then revealed that their identification had been based on Bureau files. Lansky also asserted that, obviously, Wilberto Pires had betrayed Di Constanzo and become the inside man. Then the Hebrew asked for three things: recovery of the money, arrest of the perpetrators, and the opportunity to interrogate them personally.
“Of course, Colonel,” Lansky concluded, “you manage to get the money back, collar the sonsofbitches, and let me talk to them, you’ll get twenty percent of the loot.”
Grava assented and cleared his throat before asking his first question. “And this percentage could potentially reach …?”
“Around a hundred twenty thousand pesos.”
Grava lifted his left eyebrow. “You mean Ox made off with six hundred thousand?”
“More or less,” Lansky confirmed aloud after he’d already nodded.
Grava furrowed his brow in admiration before changing the subject. “I understand you wish to keep this … incident under wraps.”
“Right.”
“I should warn you—that’s impossible. Enforcing the Censorship Law can prevent publication, but this will be the talk of the town among police officers, journalists, the underworld. And of course, I can’t hide anything from President Batista, or from the chief of the National Police, should they ask.”
Lansky dismissed the comment with a shrug. “I don’t believe that Fulgencio or Pilar will devote time to this nuisance,” he said, to underscore that he was on a first-name basis with the president of Cuba and the country’s chief of police.
“But if they want the details, give it to them. Say I dealt with you personally so as not to bother them with chicken feed.”
Grava nodded to conceal his amazement—600,000: chicken feed. The old fart probably would just cluck his tongue and shake his head sadly if he were fleeced for a million.
“Maybe you should tell Walburn, too,” Lansky added.
For a few moments Grava stared blankly. He knew he ought to say something, but all he could think of was that Lansky’s informers knew their trade.
“Oh … really? You don’t mind?” he finally uttered.
“Of course not—that’s exactly the kind of thing the FBI wants to learn from you.”
“Yeah, sure. Uh … I assume our … understanding can be restricted to this very close circle?” Grava said, staring at the interpreter.
“That’s a fine assumption. Okay, Grava, cards on the table.”
Colonel Grava ran the tip of his tongue over his lips and stared at the floor as he collected his thoughts. Lansky and García lit cigarettes.
“Wilberto Pires was found dead at a Château Miramar apartment. You know the place?”
“Yep.”
“Close to his body was the corpse of the lessee, a Lebanese who settled in Cuba over twenty years ago. His name was Elias Naguib.”
“Fags?” Lansky asked as García wrote down the name on a blank page of his pocket phone book.
“No, it doesn’t seem so,” Grava went on. “My people claim Pires shot Naguib and afterward a third party blew Pires’s brains out.”
“You know who?”
“Well, Contreras’s fingerprints were lifted from doors. He’s the older of the two guys your people identified as the perps. I bet my balls he did Pires.”
Lansky scratched his right eyebrow. He did that only when something escaped his comprehension, but his companions didn’t know him well enough to know that. Appearing relaxed, he dragged on the cigarette and then exhaled through his nostrils. “Tell me more about this Arab.”
“Well, in fact it’s too soon—the investigation is picking up speed now. From my files I’ve learned he was fifty-three, arrived from New York in 1936. Single, had no relatives, at least not in Cuba, was well-off. He imported gold and precious stones for his jewelry company, manufacturing and wholesale. He also dealt in the stock market and in used cars. His house in Alturas del Country is pretty huge—too huge for a loner, you ask me. In June of ’54 he leased the apartment, to screw broads mostly, but from time to time some men visited the place, on business as it seems. That’s all for the moment. We are working on it.”
Lansky waited for García to finish jotting down essentials. “Okay, now tell me about Contreras.”
Grava sighed disgustedly and rolled his eyes. “That man annoys me in spades. He’s a pain in the ass. His file’s this thick, Mr. Lansky; believe me, this thick.”
The colonel raised his left hand and splayed its thumb and forefinger a couple of inches.
“He’s been mean from the time he learned to walk. Specializes in armed robbery. He’s even hit banks, at least four. Was caught red-handed in ’45 when he went for a Bank of Nova Scotia branch on Galiano Street, and did nine of a fifteen-year stretch. He came out under an amnesty decreed by General Batista before the last election. Now he’s back at it. Last year three men held up El Águila Imperial, an insurance company in downtown Havana, and fled with seventeen thousand. My people suspect Contreras was the brains behind it.”
García didn’t take notes on Contreras. Lansky asked whether some significant amount of money had been found in the apartment.
“It was one of the things that had me wondering—162,500 pesos were found in a chest of drawers, the kind of money nobody, and I mean nobody, keeps at home,” Grava said. “Now I realize it came from the robbery.”
Again Lansky scratched his right eyebrow. He stubbed out the butt and talked while crushing some tobacco threads that were still burning. “That’s a funny percentage—twenty-seven point something. Doesn’t look like somebody’s share. Anything else, Grava?”
“Not at the moment. The whole thing happened twenty-eight hours ago and we’re—”
“Okay, okay, now I’ll tell you what I need you to do.”
…
At 11 A.M. on Sunday, October 12, the Department of Communications of the Bureau of Investigations issued a request to the nineteen Havana police stations, the two independent squad-car divisions, the autonomous Secret, Judicial, Tourism, and Maritime police corps, and also to the Military, Regional, and Naval Intelligence Services. They were asked to hunt for and arrest Mariano Contreras and Arturo Heller, wanted for questioning on armed robbery and homicide charges. Twenty-six hundred front- and side-view mug shots were printed and allotted proportionally. Orlando Grava talked on the phone with thirty-two Army and police brass hats to hint that a nice surprise was in store for whoever collared the runaways. He also tapped the nationwide network of paid civilian informers.
Elsewhere, old-timers in police circles watched the vast dragnet unfold and concluded that Ox and Abo, unknowingly, had screwed someone closely related to Batista himself. By early evening, hundreds of men trawled bus terminals, hotels, railroad stations, travel agencies, airports, taxi stands, bars, and other promising places. Standing on corners, they showed the mug shots to drivers, conductors, cashiers, busboys, bellboys, attendants, bartenders, whores, pimps, and any other individual who might possibly have seen the fugitives.
Like a vibration perceptible only to a few varieties of the species, the chase escaped the attention of 99 percent of the population. In the small world of grade-A criminals, nobody tried to warn the runaways, figuring that by
now the two perps were headed to the South Pole disguised as Argentine cowboys.
Around 6:30 P.M., Benigno Ureña, the very overweight police sergeant in charge of the investigation, recalled that Fermín Rodríguez was a close buddy of the two felons. Two hours later, the super of the old mansion at the corner of Monte and Someruelos Streets told Ureña that last Friday, Gallego had said he would spend a few weeks at some little country town where an unmarried aunt who owned eighty acres of sugarcane was dying without leaving a will. From there, the smiling sergeant headed straight for the Capri, where he asked the doorman whether he’d been on night duty last Thursday. The man nodded; then the cop showed him the recent photo of Fermín that he’d removed from the criminal’s rented room. Yes, that was the doctor who took care of the young invalid in suite 406. As he walked away, Ureña suspected that Gallego hadn’t been identified at Tey’s home because in that old mug shot he still had his hair, was twenty pounds thinner, and looked a lot younger. He was wrong; none of the casino staff who got to view the mug shots had seen Dr. Benítez.
As part of the search for leads, early Monday morning Marcelo Garrido and Gabriel Castillo, under instructions from Ureña, gave a look-see to the La Rosa Street apartment. Strands of hair identical to that found by the body of Wilberto Pires were collected. By pure chance, Garrido observed that page 918 of the Havana phone book was dog-eared. After scrutinizing the yellow page, the cops headed for Casa Fernández, on 617 Neptuno Street, where Everett & Jennings wheelchairs were sold and rented. A salesman identified Contreras the moment he glimpsed his picture, recalled renting a wheelchair to the gentleman, and, after checking records, told the detectives that on September 19 Señor Manuel Suárez had left the store with the biggest available chair. The guy also remembered that Señor Suárez had mentioned that his disabled uncle was a tall, very fat man.
The Secret Police scored when agents paid a visit to Compañía Importadora y Distribuidora de Autos de Uso, S.A., at the corner of Infanta and Manglar Streets. Over the years, Argimiro Mainieri had hawked dozens of cars to criminals and was considered a trustworthy middleman, but two weeks earlier, detectives had found three hot cars undergoing alterations in his shop. The head of the Robbery Section had been waiting for the opportunity to add Mainieri to his roll of informers, and after completing the paperwork he explained to the gloomy owner of the small company with the large name that future cooperation would determine whether his case reached court in less than a month, or if it would be mislaid in the wrong filing cabinet. So, when the cop showed him Contreras’s mug shot and asked if he’d seen this man recently, Mainieri blew the whistle loud and clear.
