I was fresh out of insightful incidents of my own, so I stayed silent. Besides, I didn’t have a particularly warm opinion of Americans myself. They weren’t as bad as the Russians or the French, but then they didn’t expect to be liked and they didn’t much care when they weren’t. Americans were different: even after they’d dropped a couple of atom bombs on the Japs, they still wanted to be liked. Which struck me as just a little naive. So I stayed silent and, almost like two old friends, together we enjoyed the view from the rooftop for a while. It was a great view. Beneath us were the treetops of Campo de Marte, and to the right, like an enormous wedding cake, was the Capitol Building. Behind that you could see the Partagas cigar factory and the Barrio Chino. I could see as far south as the American warship in the harbor, and west as far as the rooftops of Miramar, but only with my glasses on. The glasses made me look older, of course. Older than Max Reles. Then again, he probably had some glasses of his own somewhere and just didn’t want to let me see him wearing them.
He was trying, without success, to light a large cigar in the stiffening rooftop breeze. One of the parasols, which were all closed, blew over, which seemed to irritate him.
“I always say,” he said, “that the best way to see Havana is from the rooftop of a good hotel.” He gave up with the cigar. “The National has a view, but it’s just the fucking sea or the rooftops of Vedado, and in my humble opinion, that view doesn’t begin to compare with this one.”
“I agree.” For the moment I was through needling him. I was just beginning to have my reasons for that.
“Of course, it does get a bit windy up here sometimes, and when I catch up with the sonofabitch who persuaded me to buy all these fucking parasols, I’m going to give him a lesson in what it’s like when the wind catches one of these things and carries it over the side.” He grinned in a way that made me think he meant every word of it.
“It’s a great view,” I said.
“Isn’t it? You know, I’ll bet Hedda Adlon would have given her eye-teeth for a view like this one.”
I nodded, hardly wanting to tell him that the Adlon’s rooftop had afforded the hotel patrons with one of the best views in Berlin. I’d watched the Reichstag burning from that particular hotel rooftop. And you don’t get much better views than that.
“What ever happened to her, anyway?”
“Hedda used to say that a good hotelier always hopes for the best, but expects the worst. The worst is what happened. She and Louis kept the hotel going all through the war. Somehow it always escaped the bombing. Maybe someone in the RAF had stayed there once. But then, during the Battle for Berlin, the Ivans subjected the city to a barrage that destroyed almost everything that hadn’t been destroyed by the RAF. The hotel caught fire and was all but destroyed. Hedda and Louis retreated to their country estate near Potsdam and waited. When the Ivans turned up, they looted the house, and mistaking Louis for an escaping German general, they put him in front of a firing squad and shot him. Hedda was raped, many times, like most of the women in Berlin. I don’t know what happened to her after that.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Reles. “What a story. Pity. I liked them both a lot. Jesus, I didn’t know.”
He sighed and made another attempt to light his cigar, and this time he succeeded. “You know, it’s funny you turning up like this, Gunther.”
“I told you before, Max. It’s Hausner now. Carlos Hausner.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. You and me, we don’t have to worry about that shit. This island’s got more aliases than a filing cabinet in the FBI. If you ever get any problems with the militia about your passport, your visa, anything like that, you come to me. I can fix it.”
“All right. Thanks.”
“Like I was saying, it’s funny you turning up like this. You see, the Adlon’s one of the reasons I got into the hotel business here in Havana. I loved that hotel. I wanted to own a classy place like the Adlon here, in old Havana, instead of in Vedado like Lansky and all those other connected guys. I always had the idea that this is the kind of place Hedda would have picked herself, don’t you agree?”
“Maybe. Why not? I was just the house peeper, so what do I know? But she used to say that a good hotel is like a car. What it looks like is only half as important as how it drives: how fast it can go and if the brakes work all right and if it’s comfortable are what really matters. Everything else is just bullshit.”
“She was right, of course,” said Reles. “God, I could use some of her old European experience right now. I’m after the same high-end crowd here, you see. The senators and the diplomats. I’m trying to run a quality hotel and an honest casino. The truth is, you hardly need to run a crooked one. The odds always favor the house, and the money floods in. It’s as simple as that. Almost. True, in a city like Havana you gotta watch out for the sharks and the grifters. Not to mention the faggots and the female impersonators. Hell, I don’t even allow hookers to operate in this place. Not unless they’re on the arm of someone important. I leave that kind of vice to the Cubans. They’re a degenerate lot. Those guys would pimp their own grandmothers for five bucks. And, believe me, I should know. I’ve had more than my fair share of mocha-flavored flesh in this city.
“At the same time,” he continued, “you shouldn’t ever underestimate these people. They think nothing of putting a bullet in your head if they’re connected. Or tossing a grenade in your john if they’re into politics. A man in my position needs to get eyes in the back of his head or pretty soon the back of his head will be lying on a floor. Which is where you come in, Gunther.”
“Me? I don’t see how I can help you, Max.”
“Let’s have some lunch. And I’ll tell you how.”
We rode the elevator up to the penthouse, where we were met by Waxey. Seen from up close, his face was like that of a Mexican wrestler—the kind that usually wears a mask. Come to think of it, the rest of him looked like a Mexican wrestler, too. Each of his shoulders resembled the Yucatán peninsula. He didn’t say anything. He just frisked me with hands like Esau’s black-sheep uncle.
The penthouse was modern and about as comfortable as a space-ship. We sat at a glass table and watched each other’s shoes while we ate. Mine were locally sourced and none too clean. My host’s shoes were shinier than a brass bell and every bit as loud. To my surprise the food was kosher, or at least Jewish, since the tall, good-looking woman who served it was also black. Then again, maybe she was a convert to Judaism. She was a good cook.
“The older I get, the more I like Jewish cooking,” Max explained. “I guess it reminds me of when I was a kid. All the food the other kids had, but never me, because my bitch of a mother ran off with a tailor, and Abe and I never saw her again.”
When we got to the coffee, he relit his half-smoked cigar, while I fetched one from his cemetery-sized humidor.
“So let me tell you how you can help me, Gunther. For one thing, you’re not Jewish.”
I let that one go. A quarter-Jew seemed hardly worth mentioning these days.
“You’re not Italian. You’re not Cuban. You’re not even American, and you don’t owe me a damn thing. Hell, Gunther, you don’t even like me that much.”
I didn’t contradict him. We were big boys now. But I didn’t underline it, either. Twenty years was a long time to forget a lot, but I had more reason to dislike him than he would ever know or remember.
“All of this makes you independent. Which is a very valuable quality to possess in Havana. Because it means you owe no one allegiance. None of that would matter if you were a potchka, but you’re not a potchka, you’re a mensch, and the plain fact of the matter is that I could use a mensch who has grand hotel experience—to say nothing of your years with the Berlin police. Why? To help me keep things straight here, that’s why. I want you to take on the role of general manager. In the hotel and in the casino. Someone I can trust. Someone who doesn’t give me any shit. Someone who shoots straight from the hip. Who better than you?”
“Look, Max, I’m flattered, don’t think I’m not. But I don’t need a job right now.”
“Don’t think of it as a job. This is not a job. There’s no nine-to-five with this business. It’s an occupation. Every man needs an occupation, right? A place to go every day. Some days you’re around more than others. Which is good, because that’ll keep the bastards who work for me guessing. Look, I hate to sound like a noodge, but you’d be doing me a favor here. A big favor. Which is why I’m prepared to pay you top dollar. How does twenty thousand dollars a year sound? I bet you never made that kind of money at the Adlon. A car. An office. A secretary who crosses her legs a lot and doesn’t wear any panties. You name it.”
“I don’t know, Max. If I did it, I’d have to do it my way. Straight or not at all.”
“Didn’t you hear me saying that’s what I want? There’s no other way but straight for a business like this.”
“I’m serious. No interference. I report to you and no one else.”
“You got it.”
“What would I do? Give me an example.”
“One of the things I want you to do right away is take charge of the hirings and the firings. There’s a pit boss I want you to fire. He’s a faggot, and I don’t like faggots working in my hotel. Also, I want you to handle all the interviews for any positions in the hotel and casino that come up. You got a nose for these things, Gunther. A cynical bastard like you will want to make certain that we’re hiring honest, straight people. That’s not always so easy. You can get a lot of smoke blown in your eyes. For instance. I pay top money here. Better than any other hotel in Havana. Which means that most of the girls who want to work here—and it’s mainly girls I hire, because that’s what the customers want to see—well, they will do anything for a job. And I mean anything. Only that’s not always so good for business, see? And it’s not always so good for me. I’m only human, and that amount of major fucking temptation is not what I want in my life right now. I’m through with all of that fucking around. You know why? Because I’m going to marry Dinah, that’s why.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“Does she know?”
“Of course she knows, you nudnik. The girl’s meshugge about me and I feel the same way about her. Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re going to say—I’m old enough to be her father. Don’t start with the gray hair and false teeth again, like last night, because this is the real thing. I’m going to marry her, and then I’m going to use all my show-business connections to help make that girl a movie star.”
“What about Brown?”
“Brown? What’s Brown?”
“That’s the university Noreen wants her to go to.”
Reles grimaced. “That’s what Noreen wants for Noreen. Not for Dinah. Dinah wants to be in motion pictures. I already introduced her to Sinatra. George Raft. Nat King Cole. Did Noreen tell you the girl can sing?”
“No.”
“With her talent and my connections, Dinah can be pretty much anything she wants.”
“Does that include being happy?”
Reles winced. “Including being happy, yeah. God damn it, Gunther, you’re a hard fucking bastard. Why is that?”
“I’ve had a lot of practice. More than you, perhaps. And I guess that’s saying something. I’m not going to give you the whole lousy résumé, Max. But by the time the war ended, I’d already seen and done a few things that would have given Jiminy Cricket a heart attack. The conscience I’d started out in with life grew a couple of extra layers, like the skin on my feet. Then I was a houseguest of the Soviets for two years in one of their rest homes for exhausted German POWs. I learned a lot from the Ivans about good hospitality. But only what it isn’t. When I escaped I killed two people. That was a pleasure. Like it never was before. And you can take that to mean whatever you want. After that I ran a hotel of my own until my second wife died in a lunatic asylum. I wasn’t cut out for that. I might as well have tried running a finishing school in Switzerland for young English ladies. Come to think of it, I wish I had. I could have finished quite a few, forever. Good manners, German courtesy, charm, hospitality—I come up short on all of those, Max. I make hard bastards feel good about themselves. They meet me and then go home and read their Bibles and thank God they’re not me. So what makes you think I’m up to this?”
“You really want to know?” He shrugged. “All those years ago. The boat on Lake Tegel? You remember that?”
“How could I forget?”
“I told you then I liked you, Gunther. I told you then that I’d thought of offering you a job, only I had no use for an honest man.”
“I remember. The whole evening is still etched on my eyeballs.”
“Well, now I have a use for one. It’s as simple as that, pal. I need a man of character. Pure and simple.”
A person of character, he said. A mensch, he said. I had my doubts. Would a mensch have helped Max Reles to silence Othman Weinberger by handing the American the means to destroy Weinberger’s career, and possibly his life, too? After all, it was I who had told Reles about Weinberger’s Achilles’ heel: that the little Gestapo man from Würzburg was suspected, wrongly, of being a Jew. And it was I who had told Max Reles about Emil Linthe, the forger, and how a man like Linthe might bribe his way in the public records office and give another man like Weinberger a Jewish transfusion just as easily as he’d given me an Aryan one. In my own defense, I could argue that I’d done all of that to protect Noreen Charalambides from being murdered by Max’s brother. But what character was left to a man who’d done something like that? A mensch? No, I was anything but that.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll take the job.”
“You will?” Max Reles sounded surprised. He stared at me for a while with narrowing eyes. “So now I’m curious. What was it persuaded you?”
“Maybe we’re more alike than I care to admit. Maybe it was the thought of that brother of yours and what he might do to me with an ice pick if I said no. How is the kid?”
“Dead.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. The kid turned rat on some friends of mine to save his own skin. He sent six guys to the electric chair. Including someone I went to school with. But he was a canary who couldn’t fly. Abe was about to finger a boss when he got himself thrown out of a high window of the Half Moon Hotel on Coney Island in November 1941.”
“You know who did it?”
“He was in protective custody at the time, so, sure, I know. And one day I’ll take my revenge on these guys. Blood is blood, after all, and there never was any permission asked or given. But right now it wouldn’t be good for business.”
“Sorry I asked.”
Reles nodded grimly. “And I’d appreciate it if you never asked me about it again.”
“I already forgot the question. Listen, we Germans are good at forgetting all kinds of things. We’ve spent the last nine years trying to forget there ever was a man called Adolf Hitler. Believe me, if you can forget him, you can forget anything.”
Reles grunted.
“One name I do remember,” I said. “Avery Brundage. What ever happened to him?”
“Avery? We kind of fell out after he got himself on the America First committee to keep the U.S. out of the war. It made a change from trying to keep Jews out of Chicago country clubs. But that slippery bastard’s done all right for himself. He’s made millions of dollars. His construction company built a large chunk of Chicago’s gold coast: Lake Shore Drive. At one stage he was going to run as a candidate for governor of Illinois until certain people in Chicago told him to stick to sports administration. You might say we’re competitors these days. He owns the La Salle Hotel in Chicago. The Cosmopolitan in Denver. The Hollywood Plaza in California. And a large chunk of Nevada.” Reles nodded. “Life’s been kind to Avery. Recently he got himself elected as president of the International Olympic Committee.”
“I suppose you made a fortune in 1936.”
“Sure
. But so did Avery. After the Olympics were over, he got himself a contract from the Nazis to build the new German embassy in Washington. That was payback from a grateful Führer for heading off an American boycott. He must have made millions. And I didn’t see a cent of it.” Reles grinned. “But it was all a long time ago. Dinah’s the best thing that’s happened to me since then. She’s a hell of a girl.”
“Just like her mother.”
“Wants to try everything.”
“I guess you must be the one who took her to the Shanghai Theater.”
“I wouldn’t have done it,” said Reles. “Taken her there. But she insisted. And the girl gets what she wants. Dinah’s got a hell of a temper.”
“And how was the show?”
“How do you think?” He shrugged. “To tell the truth, I don’t think it bothered her much. That little girl is game for anything. Right now she wants me to take her to an opium den.”
“Opium?”
“You should try it yourself sometime. Opium’s great for keeping down the weight.”
He slapped his belly with the flat of his hand and, in truth, he did look slimmer than I remembered him in Berlin. “There’s a little joint on Cuchillo where you can smoke a few pipes and forget everything. Even Hitler.”
“Then perhaps I’ll have to try it, after all.”
“I’m glad you’re on board, Gunther. Tell you what. Come back tomorrow night and I’ll introduce you to some of the boys. They’ll all be here. Wednesday night’s my cards night. You play cards?”