Havana World Series

by Jose Latour

  Eduardo Brunet, from behind a table on the left at the back of the reading room, took aim and fired his Browning twice. One bullet buzzed an inch to the right of Contreras’s right ear and splintered the closest card-catalog cabinet; the other broke the glass of a window and got stuck in a limestone wall. Hunkering down behind a writing desk, Contreras saw Fermín frantically crawling in the direction of Talavera and figured he was going for the automatic on the floor. Brunet reached the same conclusion, so he fired two more rounds, aiming at Fermín. The slugs were deflected by the legs of tables and chairs, changed course several times, disappeared into thick volumes.

  Contreras watched Brunet aiming again at his buddy and fired his fifth shot. It was lost in the humid dusk after puncturing a window. The cop turned to the fugitive and fired twice. Contreras felt his left foot give under him and looked down. The heel of his shoe had been partially torn out by a stray bullet. Fermín seized Talavera’s .45 Colt. Ureña turned his reading table sideways and ducked behind it.

  Contreras registered movement to his left. A young man who had been industriously practicing his integral calculus six seconds earlier dived to the floor and rolled over to the wall. Even closer to Contreras, a Ministry of State orientalist, who’d been placidly studying Mikado Court sketches before the shooting started, sat tight, holding the book over his head and urinating profusely. Then Contreras heard a different gun report and a shout.

  “You’re gonna get it now, motherfuckers!”

  Fermín had also turned over a writing desk, and now crouched behind it. Its inch-and-a-half thick mahogany top provided one square yard of dubious protection. Gripping Talavera’s gun in his right hand, with his left shoulder Fermín pushed the piece of furniture between the tables arrayed at the center and the writing desks lined alongside the wall. Brunet lost what little cool he had left and fired twice over the creeping thing, but the bullets missed Gallego. As he feverishly changed clips, Brunet noticed that Ureña, ten yards to his right, was doing nothing except crouching. The cop was stunned into immobility for a full second.

  “Ureña! Ureña! What’s the matter with you! Shoot, goddammit, shoot!”

  Astonished by Ureña’s inexplicable behavior, shaken by Talavera’s demise, and fearing Fermín’s relentless progress, Brunet rose and opened fire at the improvised barrier. Contreras took careful aim. Brunet’s third empty shell had just been ejected when a .38 slug drilled into his chest, broke the fifth rib, invaded the heart’s left ventricle, pierced the left lung, and finally broke the scapula. The body collapsed as the echoes of the gunshots gradually faded away.

  Not one step, word, shout, sob, or cough could be heard. From behind the writing desk, Fermín questioned Contreras by wrinkling his nose and shrugging. Contreras slid his forefinger over his throat, then pointed to his Colt and made a zero by joining his thumb and forefinger. Fermín puffed his cheeks out and spread his arms to inquire about the sergeant. Contreras was thinking of something to say when Ureña bellowed, his voice broken by tension.

  “Ox, Gallego, don’t move.”

  The seven slugs in his Parabellum deliberately finished their short journey inside walls and books, rekindling fear in attendants and readers. Fermín peered over the edge of the writing desk, aimed, next fired twice. The slugs drilled the tabletop and missed Ureña by inches.

  “Gallego, Gallego!” Contreras bawled out.

  Fermín glanced at his buddy and saw him shaking his head repeatedly. Nonplussed, openmouthed, he watched as Contreras rose to his full height, his empty gun pointing to the floor.

  “Ureña.” In a normal tone now.

  From behind the parapet. “What?”

  “Are you … okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Contreras bit his lower lip for a second. “We’re leaving,” he probed.

  “Can’t stop you; I fired my last shot,” the sergeant shouted. He wanted all the witnesses he could find. “But you ought to turn yourselves in. I mean, I order you to turn yourselves in.”

  “C’mon, Gallego, c’mon,” Contreras said. Crouching, without taking his eyes from Ureña’s overturned reading table, Fermín joined his pal.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “He warned me.”

  “He what?”

  “Gave me a break when he saw me coming in. Didn’t shoot until now, and he did it for appearances. C’mon.”

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “Goddammit! Move!”

  Both men turned around and started for the main entrance, Contreras hobbling somewhat on account of the partially dislodged heel. Every few steps they looked over their shoulders; no one was to be seen. Fearing for their lives, readers and attendants remained under marble counters, behind doors or pieces of furniture, lying on the floor. Both elevator doors were closed, the stairway deserted, the lobby empty. In a firmly closed office, the courteous willowy woman who had welcomed Contreras was desperately flipping the pages of the telephone directory.

  “Pocket the gun,” Contreras said as he returned his revolver to its waist holster. Fermín looked back one last time to be sure he was doing the right thing and then, holding the hammer with his left hand, he pulled the trigger and stuffed the warm automatic under his belt.

  “Now what?”

  “Let’s see if a green Chevy is still out there.”

  The cabbie hadn’t heard the shooting because of the rain. He had been acoustically isolated in the closed car, the radio tuned to his favorite cha-cha-cha program. He spotted Don Juan coming out, a short bald peewee after him, both darting down the sidewalk. The drizzle, of course. But what about the dame? He noticed the taut expression of his fare, now looking rather unkempt. Both men jerked open the back doors and hopped in. The driver turned off the radio and started the engine.

  “My chick couldn’t make it, champ. The rain, I guess. But I bumped into this pal of mine and we’re gonna have a coupla beers. Take us to the … Puerto de Jagua is okay, buddy?”

  “Sure,” Fermín said.

  Ureña heaved a sigh of relief once he made sure that the other two cops were dead. The orientalist had collapsed on the reading table. Standing now, the math student conscientiously slapped clean his clothes, as though laundry bills were his most pressing concern. Ureña sashayed, solemn and pathetic, to the marble counter beneath which Evelina and Leticia sobbed and sniffed back mucus.

  “Come out, please. I’m a police officer. Where’s your phone?”

  PART THREE

  Eight

  Mariano Contreras turned his head in embarrassment and stared at the bathroom door. Fermín’s attempt to fight back tears had failed and they were sliding down his cheeks like he hadn’t wept from the time he was four. He probably hadn’t, Contreras surmised. In their childhood, crying was a sign of weakness, the kind of thing hombres didn’t do, and possibly Fermín had been, like himself, a sneering bully who would make tattletales whine and blubber. Well, now the man was catching up, head bowed, sniffling back mucus, trying to repress the sobs that made his shoulders shake. To spare his friend the humiliation, Contreras decided against yanking out some toilet paper from the holder to dry the floor.

  He didn’t doubt for a second the story’s authenticity. Had Gallego spilled the beans the minute he was collared, his nails wouldn’t have been plucked out. Had he thrown in the sponge after two or three nails, the undamaged fingers would have given him away. No, he had been subject to something a lot worse. In the macho culture they were raised in, what could be worse than threatening a man with castration? And then let him live, of course. Let the whole Havana underworld learn that Gallego, the tough guy who everybody knew had won a hundred-peso bet by screwing six broads in one night in the presence of seventeen witnesses, was now a eunuch.

  For an instant Contreras wondered what he would have done. He dismissed the thought immediately. Nobody ought to pass judgment, he told himself, because no one knew what his reaction would be. It was one thing to picture yourself under the circumstance
s, something altogether different to experience the ordeal. The best thing was to know nothing about the others: not their latest addresses, nor their phone numbers or hiding places. And to try to shoot your way out if you were cornered, then blow your fucking brains out if you couldn’t—anything rather than fall into the hands of those beasts. Under Batista the rules of the game had changed. Before him you could expect to get pushed around, boxed on the ears, clubbed on your head—the kind of music most guys could face. Ureña had tongue-lashed him for fifteen minutes prior to slapping him twice when he was busted in ’47. And that had been it.

  Now he owed his life to the fat sergeant. It was there for all to see. The big question was why. He couldn’t figure it out. Moral scruples? The guy wasn’t a bleeding heart. Fear? He wasn’t a coward, either. Siding with him? Cannonball wasn’t corrupt. He hoped the other two cops were dead. If so, nobody could refute the sergeant’s version. Of course, seething with rage, Grava would take it out on him, maybe slap him in the face, have him suspended, but the colonel wouldn’t shoot or torture the sergeant. He was too respected and well known; besides, it would send the wrong message to the rest of the force.

  “Gallego, get ahold of yourself.”

  Fermín rose from the chair and shuffled to the bathroom. They hadn’t walked into the Puerto de Jagua. As soon as the unsuspecting cabbie had driven off, they’d flagged another taxi and asked to be taken to Mantilla. A third cab left them three blocks away from the clinic. Nothing had been said in the presence of the cabdrivers, but Contreras rightly guessed his buddy had blown the horn on him. No one else was present when Gallego had suggested the rendezvous, and his partially healed fingers confirmed Ox’s suspicion. Once in the cabin, Fermín recounted his nightmare. Ox felt sure his friend had to get it off his chest, so he listened intently until Gallego broke down.

  Sitting on the bed, his coat off, his forelock hanging down on his forehead, Contreras lit a La Corona and waited.

  Fermín came out avoiding the eyes of his friend, plopped on the chair, kept his gaze on the floor.

  “So, you … told everything.”

  Gallego nodded.

  “And?”

  “Next morning they took me to the bank.”

  “The bank?”

  “I rented a safe-deposit box to store my share.”

  “Ah.”

  “Five days later, on the way to the infirmary for a change of dressings, I spotted Abo and Meringue in different cells.”

  “What?”

  “They collared Abo and Meringue, too.”

  Anguish gripped Contreras. He couldn’t care less about Meringue, but with Abo he had a very close bond. When they pulled jobs, he assigned the easiest task to the team’s youngest, kept his eyes on him constantly, taught him all the tricks. One month before the heist he’d instructed Heller to invent himself a credible life story and arrange for a hiding place nobody should know of, to get lost from all his usual hangouts for a minimum of six months. The stupid fool.

  “You know if they were tortured?”

  “They didn’t look it.”

  “What about Wheel?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Go on.”

  Fermín breathed deeply. “Then they took me to the library for three consecutive Fridays. Ureña used to come to my cell around three-thirty and …”

  Contreras didn’t interrupt. Fermín was leaning forward on the chair, elbows resting on his knees, eyes on the floor, eyebrows raised. He talked in a low, apologetic tone and frequently turned the palms of his hands up, as though seeking absolution, body language that pointed at his inability to excuse his own behavior, Contreras thought. But this wasn’t church and he wasn’t a priest. He understood, but would never forget.

  “Okay. You got it out of your system,” with something approaching patience. “Now let’s leave behind the whole thing, Gallego. What happened, happened. Stop blaming yourself. I would’ve done the same thing had I been in your place.”

  “No you wouldn’t.”

  “You never know, Gallego. Never. How about a sausage sandwich and a beer? I’m starving. Then let’s see if there’s something we can do for Abo and Meringue.”

  A male nurse able to use an extra peso on a quiet night went for the snack, and then they started debating the best course of action. Both knew the smart thing to do would be to dig a thirty-foot-deep hole in the middle of nowhere and bury themselves alive for a year. But that remained on the back burner as the passive alternative. What could they do for Heller? Rancaño would be towed along behind the affection both men felt for their junior partner.

  Even before the food arrived, it was plain as day that nothing violent was feasible; negotiation was the sensible way. They had one thing to trade, but it wasn’t mentioned. The food was eaten in silence, Fermín torn between his consuming desire to repair the damage he had inflicted on others and the unfairness of asking his rescuer to sacrifice his future. Swilling his second beer, he made a suggestion.

  “Listen, Ox. Maybe we contact Lansky, say if he manages to have Abo and Meringue released we’ll tell him who organized the hit.”

  Contreras grunted and smiled bitterly before saying what he would have considered unthinkable eight hours earlier. “Gotta give my cut back.”

  Faking surprise. “What?”

  “Oh, c’mon, Gallego, don’t play dumb. You know the only thing that can make Lansky listen is my cut. He probably knows that the Moor recruited us. And if he doesn’t, he ain’t gonna ask Grava to let loose two thieves ’cause he wants to have a talk with me. But my cut might buy their freedom.”

  Fermín wanted to pump his pal’s hand, pat him on the back, congratulate him on his placing loyalty and friendship above personal gain, but he thought it proper to look resigned and pretend to reluctantly go along with Contreras’s proposition. “If that’s what you think best …”

  It took them nearly two hours to work out a rough draft; for another hour they made minor adjustments, and that clinched it. Five minutes after three in the morning they left the cabin and slowly followed the walkway, looking for Pedro and feeling a humid chill. They found the night watchman as he moved from one of his clock keys to the next. Contreras introduced Fermín under an assumed name and told Pedro that his compañero would rent the other cabin for a few days. Then he asked the pensioner to get beneath the light cone of an incandescent bulb protected by a dark green metal lamp shade.

  “Take a look at his fingernails, Pedro.”

  “Coño!” Pedro whispered after casting a horrified glance at the tissue growing over the purplish skin.

  “Fifth Police Station,” Contreras explained. “Right now they must be giving the same treatment to some other revolutionaries.”

  “Sons of the Great Whore!” the night watchman mumbled, grinding his teeth.

  “We need your help. No risk at all. You have my word.”

  …

  Benjamin Ashkenazi was chief rabbi in the modern synagogue at the corner of I and Eleventh Streets in Vedado. The light-skinned clergyman was six feet tall, serious-looking, bald, and wore rimless bifocals. At 2:50 P.M. on Saturday, November 1, he was in his small book-lined office, sitting at his desk, sipping hot tea and studying the Talmud, when the doorbell rang. Ashkenazi sighed, got up, and marched to the door, wondering whether it was some Cuban who didn’t know about the Sabbath’s strict rules or a Jew confronting some serious problem. He was mildly surprised to find a well-clothed, well-fed white boy roughly twelve years old.

  “Yes?” the rabbi said.

  The boy extended a thick envelope to Ashkenazi. “That señor on the corner gave me two pesos to deliver this.”

  The rabbi looked to where the finger pointed. An old man in a black beret turned and walked away.

  “Thank you, young man. That’s very kind of you. Thank you,” Ashkenazi said as he accepted the envelope.

  “You’re welcome,” the boy said before turning and trotting down the steps to the sidewalk.

 
Ashkenazi closed the door and returned to his office, sat down, and inspected the envelope. It had been addressed to The Rabbi, Eleventh and I Synagogue, Vedado. From the central drawer of his desk, Ashkenazi produced a letter opener and slit the envelope. He found ten hundred-peso bills and a note, written in Spanish.

  November 1

  Jehovah has revealed to me that before 9 P.M. tonight

  you’ll deliver the following message to Mr. Meyer Lansky at the Havana Riviera Hotel.

  “The tobacco grower wants to give it back. He will phone tonight at ten.”

  The enclosed money should be assigned to helping Jews in distress.

  Ashkenazi thought things over for nearly three minutes before storing everything in a side drawer. Then he resumed reading.

  Three hours later, at sundown, he looked up the Riviera’s switchboard number in the phone book, then dialed it. He had to fight off several intermediaries before Eddie Galuzzo patiently explained to him that Mr. Lansky was not available. Galuzzo feared that Ashkenazi simply wanted to put the screws on Lansky for the synagogue, so when he politely informed the rabbi that he had been authorized to take any messages, Ashkenazi translated the note for him in his serviceable English.

  Eddie Galuzzo kept his gaze on the phone’s rotary disk for a moment. He perfectly recalled the tobacco-grower-and-disabled-son act.

  “Would you mind repeating that?” he said at last.

  “The tobacco grower wants to give it back. He will phone tonight at ten.”

  “And how did this message reach you, Father Ashcondasi?”

  “Mr. Galuzzo. I am not your father and my name is Ashkenazi. Please tell Mr. Lansky that if he wants to read this note and learn how it came into my possession, I will receive him at eight this evening. It has been a real pleasure to talk to you, sir. Thank you kindly. Good-bye.”