by Mel McKinney
Within thirty minutes they confirmed they had crossed paths with Raul Salazar at the airport. Joseph sulked as he sat in the waiting area clutching his ticket on the 3:00 P.M. flight to Miami. One fleecing by the Salazars was one too many. He would recover the treasure skimmed from the Bonafaccio family, with interest.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE POCKED STUCCO front of the dreary, low building revealed nothing. It was simply one of the many hundreds of wretched, though functional, structures in Little Havana. You had to know where to look for the faded wooden plaque, nearly hidden by a drooping eave. EL ROSARIO—FABRICA DE TABACO, it proclaimed with tarnished pride.
Raul coaxed the truck’s bald tires up onto the curb. Rounding the truck bed, he patted the rolled tent. “Smells good, eh, amigo?” he said out loud, drawing in the pungent aroma of aged tobacco escaping through holes and cracks in the skewed structure. He moved toward the building’s large, wooden door, pushed it open, and stepped inside.
The mottled outward appearance of the building yielded within to soft, effective, overhead lighting. Twenty wooden worktables spanned the large room, facing the door. Each table was divided into four work stations occupied by men and women, their skin the color of Moroccan leather. The men wore stained sleeveless undershirts or loose-fitting, short-sleeved shirts that had once been white. The women were topped in faded prints that had once burst with color. Many of them smoked the results of their labor. In a relaxed, steady rhythm, they rolled the piles of brown leaves splayed in front of them into new cigars.
A dark pulpit imposed itself at the head of the room, just to Raul’s right, inside the door. There, a heavy woman, la lectora, sat reading in a robust voice to the intent assembly. At the moment she was turning a page of an open newspaper. A pile of newspapers and magazines waited in front of her.
Raul closed the door behind him, and la lectora’s animated recital of baseball scores came to an abrupt halt. A soft clacking filled the room as the torcedores tapped their chavetas against the wooden tables.
“Señor Salazar!” the reader called, beaming. The torcedores ’ tapped greeting faded as many pairs of white or yellowed eyes reflected the lights above.
She stepped down from her stool, casting a stern look across the room. The tabaqueros regrasped their tools and the gentle work resumed.
“So soon?” she asked. “You just took fifteen boxes three weeks ago. Business must be good, very good!”
Since the embargo, there had been a brisk demand for the hand-rolled cigars crafted in the small factories of Little Havana, particularly those like El Rosario, which still drew from their warehouse of previously imported Cuban tobacco. Raul had seven boxes of his recent purchase of El Rosarios left. When his own stock of true Cubans was gone, which would be in a matter of days, he would easily sell fifteen boxes of the El Rosarios in much less than three weeks. But after that, when the Cuban tobacco in the sheds of Little Havana was gone, the boom would end.
“I wish that were so, Señora. No, this time I have come about something else. Is Señor Torres here?”
Her disappointment flickered briefly, then she stepped down and regally strolled the few steps to a door behind the podium. She knocked softly, nodded to Raul, and returned to her stool.
The door opened.
The old man’s tan, weathered face was in sharp contrast with his white linen suit. His broad, silk tie flourished in brocaded splendor against a tailored, lime-colored shirt. Pleasure warmed Raul, and he clasped his grandfather’s best friend in a firm embrace.
“Raul, my son. Welcome!” the old man said, in a voice softened by what Raul could only guess must be around eighty-five years.
“Ernesto, you are a tribute to all that is civilized,” said Raul. He stood away and held onto the older one’s forearms, admiring the perfection of stature and dress before him.
“Ah,” Ernesto Torres demurred, “señoritas and cigars. They have been kind to me. That is true. But evening is finally here and soon my midnight will come, as it does for us all. Come, sit down.”
The old man closed the door and moved to his desk, a rich mahogany table. Its gleaming surface was studded with neat piles of yellow paper slips bearing handwritten scrawls. Raul recognized them as the tags identifying fields of origin and harvest dates of tobacco bundles from the Vuelta Abajo, Cuba’s inland tobacco treasure house. As a boy Raul had helped his grandfather print slips like these and attach them to bundles. It was said that Jennaro Salazar had originated this “system,” such as it was.
“It is nice to see some things that do not change,” Raul said, sweeping his hand over the desk.
“Yes, Raul. Your grandfather’s way has served us well. Like labels on fine wine. But, sadly, it is ending.” He laid his hand on a small pile about two inches high. “These represent the last hoja de fortaleza we have from Cuba, the last of our leaves of strength and flavor. I am afraid that the Norte Americanos will not change their policy toward Cuba for many, many years. Next week we start using tobacco from other countries. Nothing will ever be the same.”
So, Raul thought, even sooner than I had expected. Yes, he had been right. His business could not help but strangle in the choke hold of the embargo. What good was a fine Cuban restaurant without fine Cuban cigars?
Belying the funereal tone of his soft voice, the old man’s eyes sparkled from their dark crevices. Clearly, he was pleased at the visit from his old friend’s grandson.
“What brings you to El Rosario so soon, Raul? Did you not just make a purchase from us?”
Raul nodded. “Yes, Ernesto. But today I am here to ask a favor. A very special favor. One that will bring the blessings of my father and grandfather down upon you. Someday, when we are all together, we will laugh over it.”
Ernesto Torres made the sign of the cross and shook his head sadly. “Ah, your grandfather, God rest his good soul. Jennaro taught me everything. If only he had listened to me! When the gangsters came, I told him it was only a matter of time. And look what happened. They murdered his son and stole his lands. He could have been here, working side by side with me all these years. Instead, he died alone and penniless, a trespasser in his own fields. When they took your father, their cruel knife cut out your grandfather’s heart as well. Stripped of you both, he had nothing to live for.”
Raul hesitated. Friends of Paulo had sent news of his grandfather’s death a month after he’d landed in Miami. There had been no details.
“You know of Jennaro’s death … how he died?”
Ernesto Torres embraced Raul with his eyes. “Yes, I know. We shared many friends, as you know.” Reading the torment in Raul’s expression, he continued.
“Within hours of murdering Victor, the gangster, Bonafaccio, was at Batista’s side. He asked that all the Salazar properties be forfeited to him as payment for his services to Cuba and as compensation for Victor’s thievery. The story goes that he and Batista enjoyed a good laugh over that and then Batista drafted a decree granting Jennaro’s lands and the Salazar Fabrica to Bonafaccio.
“The next day the Mafia snake took his men and drove to San Luis. They found Jennaro at the warehouse and drove him out, laughing and beating him with sticks. Bonafaccio showed him the paper signed by Batista and told him the only way he would return to his fields would be as a laborer, working for Bonafaccio. It is said that Jennaro picked himself up from the dirt, laughed in Bonafaccio’s face, and walked away. He was found a week later, dead, in the middle of one of his fields—a heart attack they said.”
The old man’s eyes glazed as he pictured what might have been. Then he looked directly at Raul. “Of course, I will do you any favor. Tell me what you need.”
Raul sat down. “First, I must tell you a story,” he said quietly, “of why my grandfather was able to laugh at Bonafaccio and of our dear friend Paulo. It will help if you know.”
Raul left the El Rosario factory forty-five minutes later, lacking conviction that his fragile thread of a plan would withstand the coming stra
in. He wondered whether those surreal minutes after discovering Paulo had laid waste to his reason. Common sense told him to forget the Don Salazarios, as Rosa had begged. Bonafaccio’s deadly net would soon close, and any sane man would flee for his life, satisfied with the money teased from Gessleman. Paulo’s horrible sacrifice had made that option unthinkable.
Raul now knew that his sliver of a chance had opened when Joseph Bonafaccio and Dominick Romelli had disembarked at Kingston. Paulo’s anesthetic must have been his knowledge that Raul would return that morning to Miami and that by directing his torturers to Kingston he was buying his employer precious time. The hunters would miss their prey—for now.
As Raul reached Paulo’s truck, he again smoothed his hand across the tarped bundle in the pickup bed. He thought of the early morning quiet before a bullfight, broken only by the encierro, the delivery of the bulls from the ranch where they were raised to the ring where they would be fought. “Thank you, my friend,” he said, “for the encierro.” Paulo had delivered the Bonafaccio bull to Raul. Now he must fight it.
Normally it took less than twenty minutes to reach Key Biscayne—but that was in the Bonneville. Paulo’s truck protested whenever the needle behind the cracked speedometer approached forty-five miles per hour. Rattles and knocks signaling terminal engine failure passed through the fire wall, while gears and shafts, long weary of meshing with each other, whined through gaps in the oil-stained floorboards. Raul fought his impatience as the familiar miles ground by in maddening slow motion. He couldn’t help but contrast what he knew would be the speed of Bonafaccio’s fury when he learned Raul had fled Kingston. Each minute for Raul would be seconds for Bonafaccio.
He sighed with relief as the hour-long ordeal from Little Havana wheezed to an end and he pulled into the marina parking lot. After locating a dolly outside the harbormaster’s office, he loaded the bulky tarp onto it. Satisfied the load looked sufficiently nautical to appease any curious onlooker, he wheeled down the ramp to the slip and slowly pushed Paulo toward the Don Salazario.
The twenty-eight-foot fishing boat bobbed gently at its mooring as an early afternoon breeze rattled riggings and outriggers throughout the harbor. Raul unsnapped and stowed the blue canvas that sloped from the rear of the cabin. Then he stepped back onto the adjacent finger of dock and carefully slid the bundle from the dolly to the stern of the boat. After that, he entered the cabin.
Immediately, he knew that Paulo had succeeded. The sliding hasp to the compartment built under the bench seat was pointing down. It was a quirk of Raul’s to turn it up when securing it.
Quickly, he unlatched the compartment. He lifted the seat, and his breath caught at the sight. There, nestled in the seat nook, were three richly decorated boxes of Don Salazarios—the cigars Cornelius Gesselman had traded for the gilded Sancho Panzas.
“Thank you, Paulo, thank you,” he whispered, thinking of those terrible last minutes when Paulo must have known he could have bought the sweet death of a bullet in exchange for the cigars.
There was no need to open the boxes. He knew his father’s treasure was there. Besides, he had no intention of sacrificing any more of them to the frenzied discovery of the night before. Each one would be lovingly smoked for its prize.
Raul went astern and began to drag the cumbersome bundle into the cabin. After stowing Paulo’s tent-shrouded body in the narrow passage, Raul took the cigars, locked the cabin door, and stepped onto the dock. He did not refasten the canvas cover. He raised his hand in salute toward the cabin.
“When I return,” he said, “to send you to your final rest, my friend, I will be in a hurry. Until then, adios.”
Raul looked around and confirmed that he had not been observed. Carrying the three boxes back to the pickup, he steeled himself for the return drive to Miami. This time he would not be in such a hurry. And he had yet another stop to make.
TWENTY-FIVE
IT HAD TAKEN Cornelius Gessleman two hours to commandeer an airplane and a pilot brash enough to challenge the winter storm.
Enduring the turbulent passage south with gritted teeth and a death-claw grip on each armrest, every violent soar and plunge that buffeted the twin-engine Cessna further widened the vents of his anger. He drew comfort only from the anticipated news that his bumbling son-in-law no longer drew breath.
Gessleman snorted aloud, recalling how he had shoved the miserable bootlicker aside on the Hyannis tarmac. “What about me?” Wesley had croaked. “Get your own plane, asshole,” he’d retorted, the satisfaction of leaving his son-in-law standing there shivering a mere fraction of the pleasure he would feel when Dominick Romelli called to confirm his Wesley’s untimely demise.
Now, straining in his seat, grimacing at every surge, dhe began to realize that Wesley’s death would not be enough. The whole cigar fiasco had simply exacerbated his impatience with Wesley’s bumbling. If it had not been the cigars, it would have been something else. Wesley was like that: doomed to succeed at failure.
What emerged as the real source of his displeasure was that he had forked over one hundred thousand dollars to that assassin-blackmailer Raul Salazar for the Kennedy cigars, which were now in the clutches of some hick sheriff.
Suddenly, Gessleman stiffened, this time not from the turbulence. How had that sheriff managed to appear on the scene precisely as Salazar’s “amigos” were delivering the cigars to Gessleman? Of course! It had been a setup from the outset! Salazar had shrewdly let the cigars remain in Massachusetts because he was in cahoots with the sheriff. How else could the Cuban’s so-called “professionals” have pulled off a burglary of the Kennedy estate?
His face mirroring the darkening hues outside the aircraft’s cabin, Gessleman pondered this for several minutes. Then a narrow smile split his grim features. The answer didn’t matter. He was not quite done redeeming favors from the Bonafaccios.
He recalled young Joseph’s passion for fine cigars. The iron reputation of Joe Senior had been forged from the retribution visited ruthlessly on those who had cheated him. Certainly Joseph Junior would be sympathetic to the plight of an old man who had been in his father’s favor, an old man cheated by the son of the man who had cheated the Bonafaccios. It was little more to ask that Bonafaccio extract a refund of Gessleman’s one hundred thousand from Salazar before handing the slick Cuban blackmailer his last cigar.
Finally, as the beautiful symmetry of it all settled in, Cornelius Gessleman began to chuckle. How fitting that he not only would recover his losses but would also bring down the president’s assassin! He would see that history received a polished version of his role so future generations could pay grateful homage to his memory.
His chuckling swelled to a hacking crescendo. Old Don Bonafaccio had been a conspicuous patriot and close friend of Joseph Kennedy. The Bonafaccios would no doubt deal with Raul Salazar in their own painfully special way before letting him die. Cornelius might just present young Joseph with a gift: one of the boxes of Sancho Panzas. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t.
As the beleaguered aircraft drove though waves of sleet and skirted mountainous thunderheads, the struggling pilot was momentarily distracted by a noise behind him. He glanced quickly over his shoulder and, at first, thought he was witnessing the fear of God striking a skinny old man panicked by the raging storm. Then, amazed, he realized his passenger was convulsed in hysterical laughter as Gessleman’s explosive peals greeted each fresh flash of lightning.
TWENTY-SIX
“FINGERS, WE’RE NOT leaving until we find that thieving sonofabitch and get those diamonds.” Joseph Bonafaccio Jr. folded his hands across his chest as they threaded their way through Miami’s afternoon traffic toward Little Havana and Noches Cubanas.
During the long course of Dominick Romelli’s service to the Bonafaccio’s, he had been called upon to handle just about everything friends and enemies of the Bonafaccio family could conceivably devise. With the unfolding transition from Mafia bosses to entrepreneuring capitalists, Dominick had been pleased
to see most of the old ways fall away—the feral violence gradually replaced by the reasoned, bloodless power of money. The old ways led to prison; the new style led to flattering pieces in the Wall Street Journal.
Romelli’s young employer had always been the epitome of the new leadership, his Columbia pedigree and instinctive ease in the loftiest towers of finance cutting him off from the paths of the past. Until now.
A powerful sense of déjà vu overcame Romelli. For an instant, it was the Don seated next to him, not the educated, urbane son who had been so carefully groomed to inherit the Bonafaccio empire.
As traffic permitted, Romelli continued his clandestine study of Joseph Jr.’s face, noting the eyes were narrowed in a countenance of anger and revenge. Joseph seemed possessed by his untapped heritage—the code of the Sicilian hills that refused to accept honorable defeat, where retribution had been spit with a fiery, two-barreled blast from a Lupo. Romelli knew he would be unable to dissuade Joseph from his quest, but hoped he might yet protect him from it.
“Joseph, when we catch up with Salazar, maybe I should do the talking. You’re too involved, too emotional about this. Hell, you’re wearing the guy!” Joseph shot him a black look. Romelli continued.
“Remember, it’s only business. It was his father who stole from the Family, not him. We’ve got no reason to hurt Salazar.
“Of course, it’s complicated by this Gessleman’s petition that I kill him. But again, that’s strictly business. What do we gain by carrying out this contract? Obviously, I can’t kill Salazar until he turns over the diamonds and his family’s debt is paid. Then our only reason to kill him would be your father’s pledge to Gessleman. Is that enough? What would your father want? Remember, the Don cared for Victor Salazar and was saddened to learn of his treachery. He decided the kid shouldn’t pay for his father’s crime. Would he want us to kill him now? When we used to take on contracts we always screened them for conflicts of interest. Seems to me we’ve got sort of a conflict here.”
