Naked In Havana (Naked Series Book 1)

by Colin Falconer

  There was a radio playing somewhere, tuned to an American station: “Peggy Sue.” I started to regain my composure.”

  “Are you still mad at me?” he asked.

  “Why should I be mad at you?”

  “Because I told you the truth about your boyfriend. What’s his name - Angel? The most unlikely name for a career opportunist I ever heard. Come on, I didn’t mean anything by it. Let me buy you a coffee.”

  We went to the Plaza Hotel near the Parque. The Plaza was elegant, one of the city’s oldest hotels. Men stood at the bar drinking espressos, their cigar smoke drifting towards the ceiling fans.

  I sat by the window watching the shoeblacks, a fat man in a white best and a battered straw hat with a wheel for sharpening knives. A woman in a bright orange turban was selling sugar cane juice from a cart that had lost two of its wheels.

  Reyes sat close. I could feel his knee touching mine under the table but I didn’t try to move away. I liked it. His shirt was open to the second button, and I stared at the knot of dark hair at his throat. I thought about that glimpse I’d had of him, naked, in Inocencia's bed. I imagined, just for a moment, what he might look like in mine.

  Be careful, Magdalena, hadn’t Papi warned you about this man? But then he didn’t like Angel either. Perhaps it would always be like this--I would always fall in love with unsuitable men.

  “You dance well.”

  “So do you,” he said.

  “No, I just followed you. I’ve never danced tango before.”

  “Tango is all about the difference between a man and a woman. You allow, I suggest. That’s all. If we dance badly, it’s the man’s fault; if we dance well, it’s because you’re a beautiful woman and a wonderful dancer. You see? It’s a connection that allows the woman the freedom to be herself. You feel what I’m going to do but I must feel how you will do it. It is different for everyone. Some of it is practice, some of it is experience, and some of it...” He stopped and their eyes locked. “Some of it is knowing something about the woman that no one else knows. Can I come close to you without stepping on your toes? Do I lean on you, do you lean on me? The secret is to come close without locking together. It is not about steps and clever tricks, but connection. It’s a little mysterious, in fact. If you find just one partner like this in this life, you are lucky and you’ll never want another.”

  He turned those ice blue eyes right on me and smiled. I caught my breath. He wasn’t beautiful like Angel, but there was an animal force about him that utterly disarmed me. I had to look away, give myself time to think.

  Don’t fall for it, Magdalena, this is just another play. You’ll end up like Inocencia, caught in his web and not able to get out.

  He reached across the table and took my hand. He had nice hands, with long tapered fingers, like a priest or a pianist. It surprised me.

  He lifted my chin and leaned forward. He would have kissed me right there, in the middle of the Plaza hotel with all of Cuba watching, but just then the waiter arrived with the coffee and the moment was gone.

  “You never told me what you were doing in the church,” I said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You’d come to pray for Inocencia as well.”

  “I’m not a God fearing man, princess, but it doesn’t hurt to hedge your bets.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “Yes, I love her, but I’m not in love with her. She knows that.”

  “She told me.”

  “She told you?”

  I thought about that night in the club. That man! He loves me halfway, and I swear, that’s the worst of it.

  I wondered what would have happened if the waiter hadn’t appeared a few moments before, what it would have been like to have kissed him.

  It seemed as if he was thinking the same thing. “You know something?” he whispered to me. “You’re going to love me one day. The very first time I saw you I knew it. And so did you. It’s fate.”

  “I don’t believe in fate.”

  “Fate doesn’t care if you believe in it or not.” He finished his coffee and looked at his watch. “I should get you back. You told Luis you would be fifteen minutes, we’ve been gone almost an hour. He’ll think I’ve raped and murdered you.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  “Everybody thinks that about me.”

  As he walked me back to the cathedral square his mood changed again. He became morose. He was thinking about Inocencia again. I suppose we both were.

  We reached the cathedral. Luis was standing under the colonnade, tapping his newspaper against his thigh, looking up and down the street. He looked relieved when he saw me.

  Reyes took her hand. “You have to get out of Cuba,” he said. “This place is going to hell. I mean it.”

  “Papi will never leave. They’ll have to carry him out.”

  “That’s an option.”

  “What does it matter to you what happens to us?

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “And what happens to you when the rebels walk into Havana?”

  “Me? I’ll be on the last plane out. I’ll have turned a profit by then, and it will all be in cash in a suitcase. Your father should do the same thing. Tell him to sell the Left Bank before it’s too late.”

  “It’s just been bombed. How can we sell it now?”

  “He’ll still get takers, there’s a lot of investors out there who think this will all blow over. Lansky is one.”

  “Papi’s made his mind up.”

  “When Havana burns it’s not going to be pretty, princess. The clock is ticking. You don’t have a lot of time. You’re the only one who can change his mind.”

  “If he thinks we should stay, then that’s what we’ll do.”

  “Your funeral.” He shook his head. “You know, it might not have been the rebelde who planted the bomb,” he said.

  “Then who?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

  Luis opened the door of the Bel Air and I jumped in. He looked as if he disapproved of Reyes almost as much as my father did. As we drove out of the square I looked back for a sign of him, but he was lost among the bootblacks and the tourists and touts.

  Chapter 22

  It wasn’t the heat that got me down as much as the humidity. It was as if there wasn’t enough oxygen to breathe, and it brought on a torpor that made it hard to do anything after midday. It was unrelenting. I never felt dry, even when the ceiling fans were working flat out.

  I wiped the condensation off my glass, touched it to my neck and forehead. I was about to meet with one of America’s most famous gangsters and I felt tense, though not as much as you might expect.

  Once, when I was nine years old, I fell from my horse and broke my ankle. When my mother found me, my foot twisted round, she fainted. Even my father had panicked. I had to tell him what to do, and I didn’t cry, not once.

  Afterwards my father said I should have been a boy.

  “I’m tougher than any boy,” was apparently how I’d responded to that.

  I didn’t need a diploma from the drama school to tell me I was a good actress. It wasn’t that I pretended to be two different people; I was two different people. I didn’t love my papi any less for sometimes being the daughter he would be ashamed of, but at least I could make him proud this afternoon.

  So there we were, the two Magdalenas. When I needed one, the other stood back.

  While I waited for Lansky I practised my arpeggios on my knee. “More feeling into it,” Inocencia had said.

  Is this enough feeling, Señora Inocencia? Is this enough al forte?

  The Left Bank was still a mess. The staff were on their hands and knees scrubbing at the blood on the floor, trying to get the stains out of the wooden dance floor. Glass had been swept into piles by the bar and no one had come to take it away. The chairs and tables had been stacked against the walls, but there were still blast marks on the walls and the ceiling. God only knew when Papi would
be able to reopen.

  There were just two chairs set up, and this table, right in front of the stage.

  Waiting for Mister Lansky.

  He arrived on time and he had his bodyguard with him, as usual. He waited by the bar.

  Lansky was immaculate as always. They said he had the biggest collection of bow ties anywhere in Central America, if not the whole continent. He took off his Panama and looked around, taking in the damage. He raised his eyebrows, gave me an apologetic smile. “Bastards,” he said and sat down.

  I didn’t get up or offer him my hand. My mouth was suddenly dry and I wanted to take a sip of my lime and soda, but I was afraid that my hands might shake and betray me. I said nothing straight away, not even trusting my own voice.

  “How’s your father?” he said.

  “He has a concussion. The doctors say he’ll be fine in a day or two.”

  “That’s good, he was very lucky. It could have been much worse.”

  Was that a threat? I thought about what Reyes had said; “it might not have been the rebelde who planted the bomb.”

  “When are you going to reopen?”

  “I don’t know. As you can see, there’s a lot of work to be done. He asked me to look after things here for a day or two.”

  “Only two people killed. It was a miracle.”

  “One of our boleros lost both her legs.”

  “I’m sorry. I heard her sing once. She was very good.” He tapped his Panama on his knee. We watched each other. “It’s going to be expensive, the clean-up. How long you gonna be closed? Week? two? Maybe more. And people don’t come back, not straight away. They wait a while, make sure there’s no more trouble.”

  So, here it comes, I thought, the shakedown.

  “I could fix this up for you, be good as new in a week. And I could guarantee a crowd the first night, twice as big as you’ve ever had.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Did your father tell you I offered him a concession? Look at all that space out the back there, going to waste. A few craps tables, some roulette, all very discreet, separate from this nice little dance room you got here. It makes a lot of sense. Of course if I’m going to fix up the club, there’d be no skim the first year, but after that, we could come to some arrangement.”

  “Why are you so interested in my father’s club, Mister Lansky? We’re in the middle of a revolution.”

  “A few hundred hot heads in the mountains.”

  “From what I hear, Batista is losing the war.”

  He looked surprised that I should know that. “If you don’t mind me being frank with you, young lady, I don’t give a damn about Batista or about the rebels. I have businesses to run, and I am not about to get run out of town because of some intellectual goof-off with an unruly beard.”

  “You think Fidel is an intellectual?”

  “I seen his type before. End of the day they know the rules. Without American tourists and without American trade, this country is going to be broke in a week. So whoever is running this country, they’ll have to talk to us. Even if he does win, what’s the worst that’s going to happen? They’ll shoot a few people in the street, make a few speeches, and then it will be business as usual. Now, do you want my money or not?”

  I thought about what Reyes had said to me, about getting out of Cuba before it was too late. I think if it was up to me that day, I would have taken Lansky's money. I would have sold him the whole place, right down to the dancing girls. But it wasn’t up to me and I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Mister Lansky. The answer is no.”

  Lansky stared at me as if he needed a translator. But it was the same word in Spanish as it was in English.

  “My father doesn’t want it, Mister Lansky.”

  “That a fact?”

  I knew what he was thinking: here was some bobby soxer trying to frustrate his business plans. What does she know?

  “Well, tell him I’ll talk to him when he feels better.”

  “The answer will be the same.”

  “This is a genuine business proposition. I’m not some third rate gangster, missy.”

  “I never said that you were.”

  He leaned in. “Because you know, there’s a lot of very dubious gentlemen in Havana. But I am offering you very favourable terms here and I do not like being treated as if I am just some Bible salesman in off the street.”

  He leaned back in his chair and let me think about that.

  I let the mood settle. “My father wants to keep this as a music club.”

  He nodded and stood up. He leaned over the table, hoping to intimidate me perhaps. “Tell him I had nothing to do with this. It’s not my style. It’s crude.”

  “You think it was the rebels?”

  “I know it was them. Your place is an easy target. Me, I got security on the doors, all my places. Your father’s a nice guy, but he’s too lax.” He straightened and put his hat back on his head. “It was nice meeting you.”

  He left.

  I sat there for a long time until I was sure I would be able to stand up without my knees giving way. But for once I had done something I knew Papi would be proud of. I had just faced down Meyer Lansky. Not bad for a princess.

  I thought again about what Reyes had said to me.

  You have to get out of Cuba. Tell him to sell the Left Bank before it’s too late.

  I hoped my papi had made the right decision. Sometimes letting some gangster take what he wants is not the worst thing you can do.

  Chapter 23

  For days Papi lay in bed, the blinds down, taking his meals in his bedroom, not saying anything. I thought he’d given up.

  But then, the day after I met Lansky, he was awake early, got dressed for breakfast and said he had to go to Miami. He had packed his suitcase and put on his best white linen suit and two-tone shoes. The swelling around his eyes had gone down and the bruising had faded. There was still a raw strip of scalp with fresh stitches, but he could hide the scar easily enough with his Panama hat.

  “What are you doing in Miami?” I asked him.

  “Just a little business,” was all he would say. He gave Maria instructions to look after me, said he would be back in a few days, and jumped in the back of the Bel Air. Luis drove him to the airport.

  Angel telephoned the house. The first two times he rang I refused to take his calls, in fact I was disappointed, I was hoping it was Reyes. I told Maria to tell him I was washing my hair. Both times. But the third time curiosity and - yes, need - got the better of me.

  I still hoped.

  “I have to see you,” he breathed into the telephone.

  “What for, Angel?”

  “Just to talk, that’s all, baby. Hey, what about I take you to the Tropicana? My father’s out of town and I have the car.”

  “Papi would never let me.”

  “Your papi’s in Miami,” Angel said, surprisingly well informed. I think about it now, I should have said no, of course I should. But I could never say no to Angel, that was the trouble. I thought about it; Luis went home every night, he lived somewhere in the Ciudad Viejo. Maria always went to bed at nine o’clock.

  “Meet me outside after the cannon,” I said, and put the telephone down and cursed myself for a fool and a puta.

  The Tropicana! I had always wanted to go.

  At nine-thirty Angel was waiting outside our villa in his father’s Pontiac. I crept out, knowing that if Papi ever found out about this he’d kill me, and he’d have a right to.

  We drove down the Prado. Havana was ablaze with neon. Buskers roamed the streets singing “Guatanamera,” the rebel’s theme song, and the tourists threw them money, thought it was quaint. There were Americans everywhere, mostly men looking for somewhere to lose their money--on booze, on girls, on gambling.

  They’d sure come to the right place.

  I was scared. This was the most reckless thing I’d ever done. Sleeping with Angel was worse, but at least I knew how to keep it a secret. But this was p
ublic; this was out of my control.

  I glimpsed my reflection in the wing mirror. Did that face belong to a girl who was out having fun?

  What were you thinking, Magdalena? He calls you up and you just drop everything to be with him. Is that the kind of girl you always wanted to be?

  While he drove, Angel talked about how much he’d missed me and what a great time we were going to have. I was barely listening. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Papi would say if he found out about this. All I could think was: someone’s bound to see you at the club, he’s sure to find out.

  Oh, Magdalena, another voice said, you’re not a little girl anymore. He can’t keep telling how to live your life. Didn’t you just stand up to one of the biggest gangsters in town?

  Yes, but this is going to hurt him. I’m going behind his back.

  And what about Reyes?

  Yes, what about Reyes. I realized I didn’t want him to find out about this either.

  I wound down the window, there was a cooling breeze coming off the ocean. I saw sheet lightning in the distance, over the Florida Strait. There was another storm on the way.

  The Tropicana was on a huge estate out at Marianao, on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by jungle. When we arrived, taxis were stacked three deep at the curb, there were well-groomed men in dinner jackets, stylish women in jewels and gowns.

  And an eighteen-year-old with her flashy boyfriend who was engaged to someone else.

  Old man Salvatore had a big stake in the place, and when Angel got out of the car the busboys recognized him straight off and they were all over us, taking the car keys, leading the way inside, making sure we got the best seats. Angel loved it. Maybe he didn’t love Salvatore’s daughter, I thought, but he sure loved being his future son-in-law.

  The gardens were overgrown with jungle and lianas, there were coloured spotlights, classical statues and fountains. It was breath-taking. The chandeliered gaming room was right off the entrance lobby. Already there were men crowding around the craps and roulette tables or playing blackjack or poker. It was never too late at night or too early in the evening to give your money to the Mob. There were even slot machines around the walls. Papi told me once the Tropicana made more money from gambling every day than the Cuban mint.