by Mel McKinney
Raul ran his hand over the three exquisite boxes set before him. The mitered joints, delicate brass hinges, and hand-embossed design surrounding his grandfather’s marque, an elegantly attired gaucho waving his hat from an immense, rearing stallion, heralded the quality of the cigars inside. Jorge was correct, and he had meant well. They should be Raul’s as a right of heritage. But they were not. Unless …
“Ah, my friends,” he said, misting, “you have done so well. And to honor me with such a gift. I cannot find words.”
In truth, Raul could not find the words to tell them that he would not be able to keep the Don Salazarios, not like this.
Raul Salazar’s early years on his grandfather’s tobacco farm, tempered by the rich theater of human nature played out in his father’s casino, had left him with a conscience labrinthed with chambers of rationalization and a unique, philosophical sense of justice. Casting a scenario that left Cornelius Gessleman and the congressman believing they had subsidized the president’s assassination had been a simple marriage of fate, timing, and opportunity. Between Gessleman’s lust for the Kennedy cigars and, now, Gessleman’s fear of exposure for the role he believed he had played in the president’s death, Raul would generate the cash he needed to be rid of his declining restaurant and join Rosa, forever.
But substituting three boxes of some other cigars for the Don Salazarios was, to Raul, an inexcusable fraud. No compartment of Raul Salazar’s complicated conscience housed that degree of duplicity. A bargain was a bargain. He would deliver to Gessleman and the congressman the actual cigars gathered through Kennedy’s guile. The president’s death and the knowledge already seeping through interested circles about Kennedy’s embargo-eve mendacity made the cigars uniquely valuable to Gessleman. Raul would not cheat him of that perverse pleasure.
Perhaps, thought Raul, another bargain could be made. One by which he could honestly claim one of the boxes bearing his grandfather’s marque. What a thing that would be, if someday he had a son and was able to present him with a box of cigars rolled by his great-grandfather!
Raul blinked himself back to the moment.
“How can we be sure that the cigars you took are the thousand cigars Kennedy obtained before the announcement?” he asked. “Our ‘clients’ may want to know that.”
Jorge nodded toward Pedro, giving him center stage.
Pedro answered, grinning. “Number one, there were no other cigars in the room. Just those: 992 cigars. A few of the boxes had been opened.”
Pedro paused, gesturing toward the three boxes in front of Raul. “Fortunately for you, the Don Salazarios were still sealed.
“Number two, Felicia, sweet Felicia. She loved it that I smoked cigars. She told me that she had helped the president’s aide and a man who looked like a movie star carry a lot of cigars to a room in the basement from the back of the aide’s car and a big Cadillac the man was driving. That’s how we knew exactly where to strike. After she saw my love for cigars, she sneaked me into the basement one night to show me all those fine cigars!”
“Amazing!” declared Raul, laughing. “Such talent! And the Señorita Felicia? What of her now? Just a fond memory or is there something else?”
Pedro averted his eyes, smiling.
“Pedro, Pedro. Be very careful, my friend. We all … Ah, I do not have to tell you. You will use excellent judgment, I know. Well, my friends, you deserve a feast.” Opening the doors, he called, “Paulo, we are hungry!”
TEN
“CONSTABLE THORPE HERE.” Hiram lifted his wife’s leg from his thigh, which brought her snoring to a snagged halt. He propped himself up on an elbow and looked at the clock. The luminous hands pointed to 4:07. His wife rallied and the snoring revived.
“Hiram? Oscar Fenton again. Sorry to bother you so early, but well, you did say to call if there was anything else. And there is. Oh, yesiree, there is. Think you should get out here soon as possible.”
“Want to tell me a little now?” Hiram asked. He cradled the phone as he shrugged on his shirt and reached for his pants, alerted by the excited pitch of Oscar’s voice.
“Well, you remember the storm doors? One was all busted up? And the big doors to the wine room? The ones with the big lock?”
“Yes, yes, Oscar. I remember. What about them?”
“Hiram, it’s the damnedest thing. Those storm doors are gone. Plumb gone. And the wine room? It’s a mess! Everything’s all ass-over-teakettle. The lock’s been hack-sawed and … oh, hell, you just better get on out here.”
Hiram shut off the rotating beacon as he pulled into the Kennedy compound. Again Luther had surprised him. He was already there. That’s twice in two days now, Hiram thought. Better watch out for my job. He parked alongside Luther’s patrol car and stepped into the wet, morning darkness.
“Howdy, Hiram!” chirped his deputy, clearly energized by the magnitude of the event.
“Settle down, Luther,” Hiram muttered. “Don’t want to get everyone too excited, do we?” He angled his head toward the half-dozen staff, some in bathrobes, huddled in the early dawn.
“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” he said, setting off for the storm opening.
A half an hour later he knew no more than when he’d hung up with Oscar. Standing in the middle of one of the expansive lawns, trying to decide what to do next, Hiram felt a gentle pull at his sleeve. He turned and found himself looking into eyes darker, softer, and prettier than any he had ever imagined.
“Yes, Miss?” he asked.
“Señor Constable, excuse me. I do not wish to bother you, but …”
Enchanted, Hiram studied the slender, young woman. Her copper skin and black eyes captivated him completely. “Oh, that’s quite all right, Miss. Is there something you want to say? Why don’t we start with your name.”
“I am Felicia Mercado, one of the downstairs maids. I … I …” Her eyes lowered.
Hiram turned and faced the water. Even the golden glow of her exquisite skin could not cover the blush reddening her cheeks. Out of the corner of an eye he saw that she also had turned toward the sea. She started again.
“About two weeks ago a man came to visit another man who had been hired to help the gardeners. The man’s name was Pedro. The helper was Jorge.
Hiram resolved to let her have her say without prompting. As she started to talk, she seemed to gain some momentum. Besides, he could not interrupt a voice that had the loving, sweet richness of a viola.
“I brought iced tea to the gardeners and met Pedro. He was a very nice man, very handsome. We talked and laughed. He was very funny and teased me. I liked him.”
Hiram began to sense where this was going. He let her continue.
“We went to dinner and the movies. Several times. We became … close. He talked of finding work and moving here from Mexico, where he said he was from. But I think he was not. I am Mexican. I think he was from Cuba. There is a great difference in the accent.”
Suddenly the words were tumbling and Hiram looked down at her. Tears filled her eyes, but still the words came.
“He loved cigars and smoked them all the time. I wanted to please him so one night, when none of the family was here, I took him into the basement and showed him all those beautiful cigars, the ones I helped the gentlemen take into that room some months ago. It made him very happy. But then I saw him only one more time.”
After a pause, Hiram cleared his throat and started to fill in some blanks. He obtained descriptions of Pedro, Jorge, and one other who had helped the gardeners. She did not know his name. Then he asked her to tell him about the men she had helped with the cigars.
“Oh,” she said, brightening. “One of them, Señor Swindt, is here all the time. I am sure you know who he is. The other, a short, heavy man with wavy, gray hair, like a movie star, but he looked also like a luchador … how do you say … ?” She made grappling gestures.
“Wrestler?” Hiram asked.
“Sí! Like a wrestler,” she answered.
“
I had never seen him before. He arrived here one afternoon about the same time as Señor Swindt. He was driving a very beautiful big, black car. A Cadillac, I think. There were many boxes of cigars in both cars, and I helped the two of them take them into the room in the basement where the wine and cigars are kept.”
As they walked toward the patrol cars, Luther could not contain himself. “Jeeez! What a morning. First, those three guys, and now this!”
Hiram stopped. “What three guys, Luther?”
“The three guys roaring down the highway lickety-split in the biggest black Cad I’ve ever seen! That’s who. Passed by me as I was coming out here to meet you. If I hadn’t been so gosh durned in a hurry to get here, I would’ve run ‘em down and given ’em the ticket they deserved!”
Hiram dug into his mackinaw for a cigar. Empty. It was going to be one of those days.
ELEVEN
“Boss … JOSEPH, I tell you. There wasn’t a cigar in the place. Just wine. Lots of it. And we really took the place apart. If there had been so much as a cigarette, we would have found it. I helped Peter and one of the maids put the whole lot in there when I delivered yours. We stacked them on shelves, at least thirty or forty boxes of cigars, including the three boxes of Don Salazarios. We made a big production of putting the Salazarios right up front where he would see ’em.”
Joseph Bonafaccio Jr. regarded his trusted Dominick pensively, trying to sort out what this meant. Where else could they be? There was no way the president could have smoked them or given them away in four months.
Romelli walked over to the huge picture window and ran his fingers through the wavy, peppered mass that had spawned a second nickname, “Caesar.”
“It was an odd setup, Joseph,” he said, studying the early skaters below. “It was like no one cared. There was this storm door, all freshly busted up. I mean, the Kennedys, right? They’re not just going to leave a ramshackle door hanging on its hinges. The place is out of a picture book, everything spit and polish. Except the stupid storm door. Which, by the way, isn’t there anymore. We took it with us. Both of them. They became firewood.”
Joseph raised his eyebrows, questioning.
“It was kind of a goof-up. Angelo, he tripped on one of the broken boards and crashed over into the doors. He hadn’t put his gloves on yet, and he left prints all over the place. Rather than try to wipe them down, I figured it was safer to just take them. So we did.
“But that’s not all that was weird. When we got to the place where the wine and cigars are kept, Angelo couldn’t pick the lock.”
Romelli slammed a stubby fist into his other palm.
“Joseph, someone who knew his business had already picked that lock; I’d swear it! It’s a screwy kind of lock. I’ve seen them before. Lots of times when they’ve been picked and then relocked, they jam. You can’t unlock them, and you sure as hell can’t pick them. Angelo tried every trick in the book, and he knows them all. We sawed it. Had no choice.”
Joseph Bonafaccio Jr. let this sink in as his mind expanded into the dark mystery of the night beyond. Then, in his father’s low voice, he said, “Sit down, Fingers, let’s add this up. See where we are.”
Dominick Romelli left the window and took a seat in front of Joseph’s ornate Louis XIV desk. Chastened, he waited.
“Here’s the way I see it,” Joseph began.
“Number one, there are millions stuffed in cigars out there somewhere. Our family’s cigars. Our family’s millions, stolen from us in Cuba by that snake, Victor Salazar.
“Number two, they know there’s been a break-in. The Kennedys, the cops, probably by now the goddamned CIA. Do they know why? No. How could they? Unless … shit. What if he, the president, lit up one of those diamond-loaded suckers? Or he gave one to some Arab or some other puffed-up potentate? Jesus!”
Joseph caught his breath, then continued, putting those possibilities aside for the moment. If the diamonds had been discovered by Kennedy, the problem had no solution, at least none immediately apparent.
“Number three—and this is the ball buster—someone beat us to them. Someone else knows and has our goddamned diamonds!”
His fist slammed down on the inlaid surface of the desk. A row of silver frames, housing photographs of the Don and Joseph Junior mugging with world leaders and celebrities, cascaded into each other, silver dominoes elegantly toppling. The last, a picture of a young Senator Kennedy and a bony Frank Sinatra, flanked by Joseph and his father, Noches Cubanas and the Havana skyline sparkling behind them, fell with a gentle plop to the thick carpet below. Romelli bent down and picked it up.
“Joseph, this isn’t like you,” he said, starting to right the fallen photographs.
Joseph nodded. “You’re right, Dominick. The Don never got mad. He just got even. No matter how long it took. Only one man ever put one over on him and that was Salazar. He paid a hell of a price, didn’t he?”
He tilted back, hands behind his head.
“The Don was right to send me out in the boat with you that morning. I learned more then than in seven years at Columbia. Business, our business, was tough sometimes. People didn’t get away with cheating us. They stole from us, they lost, no matter who they were. Like Salazar. Hell, the Don loved the guy! We all did. It didn’t matter. He cheated us; he had to pay.
“I remember the look on your face when you shoved the poor bastard over. That was awful, with the guy still squirming and kicking. Jesus, life left him hard!
“And when those first sharks hit, the look on his face. Beat up as he was, I’ll never forget that look.”
Joseph stood, shaking off the memory of that long-ago morning on Havana Bay. He walked over to the humidor room, slid open the thick, glass door, and stepped into the redolence of Spanish cedar paneling and aged tobacco.
Standing with his hands folded in the small of his back, slowly moving along the rows and stacks of boxes, an antiquarian in search of a rare volume, he called over his shoulder to Romelli. “Dominick, what we do now is simple. We do what the Don would have done. Pick up the pieces. Put the puzzle together. Get what’s ours.”
Joseph browsed the shelves of boxes, touching, opening. Finally he settled on a box and nodded in satisfaction.
“Victor Salazar’s son, what was his name? Raul, wasn’t it? Didn’t he open up a place in Miami some time after we kicked him out of Cuba? Same name as the old place. Seems to me I heard he had an excellent selection of Cuban cigars down there. We should pay him a visit and see if he knows anything about cigars with diamonds in ’em.”
Joseph stepped back and paused at a guillotine device mounted on an alabaster pedestal. He inserted the end of one of the cigars he had selected into the opening and gave a short flick of the handle alongside. He passed the cut cigar to Romelli.
“Here, a Saint Luis Rey Regios Robusto. Perfect before lunch.”
He repeated the operation on the other cigar, lit it, and started to slip on his topcoat.
“If it weren’t for my date tomorrow night with that Rockette, I’d say we should fly to Miami in the morning.”
TWELVE
RAUL WATCHED FROM above as the congressman stepped from the cavernous rear of the Imperial into the muggy Miami evening. The owl-faced old man with him hovered at the edge of the seat, eyes darting, scanning the windows and rooftops of the buildings along the Avenida de Heros.
Wonderful, thought Raul. Last night I celebrated with comrades, proud and full of themselves. Tonight I meet with quivering pigeons. Look at the old man. He is terrified. I wonder—because he believes we shot Kennedy, does he think we are going to shoot him, too? Look at him! Using his son-in-law as a shield. Disgusting! But it is best he is frightened and unsure of himself. It helps our cause.
Then, as the congressman and Gessleman disappeared below into the entrance to Noches Cubanas, Raul thought again of the three boxes of Don Salazarios. Spreading his most congenial smile, he went down to greet his guests.
“Señores, welcome,” Raul said, ext
ending his hand toward the congressman. Paulo opened the doors for them to the private dining room. Raul’s guests paused; then Gessleman nudged his son-in-law ahead, toward the room.
A faint, “Mr. Salazar,” escaped Wesley Cameron, who started to accept Raul’s handshake. He abruptly retracted his arm as his father-in-law’s look cleared the space it would have occupied.
Raul folded his arms but maintained his smile. All who entered Noches Cubanas were treated with respect and congeniality. These guests, here to be blackmailed, would be treated like royalty.
“Please, gentlemen. Be seated.” His arm swept toward the table set in the middle of the room. Cut-crystal wine glasses and water goblets reflected the rich hues of china plates bordered with gilt tobacco leaves. At each of the three place settings, a fan of five cigars spread tan-and-dark fingers from a round sterling match safe that housed a dozen thick, wooden matches.
“I have instructed our kitchen to prepare several of our finest dishes for you. As you see, a selection of beautiful cigars awaits your pleasure.”
Gessleman squinted to get a better look at the cigars. “All very impressive, Mr. Salazar. Very impressive. But under the circumstances, we are not staying for dinner. Now let’s cut the generous Latin bullshit and get through this horrible business.”
Raul kept his smile, now fueled by the intensity of the battle over the Don Salazarios that had raged overnight between his sentimentality and his conscience. He knew Gessleman would pay him the money. But that was no longer enough. His amigos were right. The Don Salazarios belonged to him. They were his birthright. I will slice this ripe casaba, he thought. I will tease out its succulent fruit—in this case, money and my grandfather’s cigars.
“As you wish, Señor. We should at least sit down, don’t you think?” He led them to the table.
Seated, Raul leaned forward.
