Changó's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes

  “If that ain’t crazy.”

  “Not the first time that’s been said. You got all the gun you need? I got two .38s I got in France. You can have either one. Test ’em out if you want. Each one has a single bullet in the chamber now. But my man’s got extra bullets.”

  “I don’t need no French guns. I got a Smith and Wesson.”

  He motioned to the seconds and one of the men stepped forward with a paper bag and took out Cooney’s weapon of choice, a .38 six-shooter with a four-inch barrel. The second cracked the gun and put one cartridge into a chamber of the cylinder. He snapped the barrel into place and handed the gun to Cooney. Juan opened the green velvet box with Hemingway’s matching .38s, both with pearl handles and two-inch barrels, and offered them to the author, who took one, confirmed it had a single bullet in the chamber and showed it to Cooney.

  Quinn stepped between the two men. “This doesn’t have to go forward, you can solve this with words,” he said. “Nobody needs to get shot here. The event that started it is long gone and you’ve both talked it out. I suggest you shake hands and get on with life.”

  “I didn’t come here to shake hands,” Cooney said.

  “Well put,” said Hemingway. “Start the count, Mr. Quinn.”

  Hemingway turned his back to Cooney and Cooney did the same.

  “All right,” Quinn said. “It’s ten paces, then you turn and face each other. One shot is all that’s allowed.”

  “Start the count,” Hemingway said.

  “One,” said Quinn and the duelists stepped off and Hemingway turned and in an underhanded arc he tossed his pistol to Quinn.

  “Two,” said Quinn as he caught it, “hold it, you don’t have a weapon.”

  “Three, don’t need it,” Hemingway said, stepping out, “carry on counting.”

  Four, and Cooney turned to see what had happened but kept moving forward, his gun in his right hand, his arm cocked.

  “Five,” said Hemingway.

  “He don’t have a weapon,” Cooney’s second said. “It’s a trick.”

  “Six,” said Hemingway. “No trick.”

  “Seven,” said Quinn, looking to see if the pistol had a safety.

  “Eight,” said Quinn and Hemingway together.

  “Nine,” said Quinn. “Ten.”

  Hemingway turned to face Cooney and stood with his hands at his side, palms outward. Everybody had a gun in hand: Quinn holding Hemingway’s .38, Juan with Hemingway’s other .38, Cooney’s second and his other friend each with pistols, and Cooney with his. Only Hemingway was unarmed.

  “Shoot,” said Hemingway.

  “Shoot an unarmed man,” Cooney said, his arm at his side.

  “I’ve got arms. I choose not to use them.”

  “So you ain’t got the guts to shoot at me.”

  “I got the guts. I would prefer not to.”

  “Don’t shoot him, Cooney,” his second said. “It’s a trick.”

  “Trick is I shoot an unarmed man it’s murder one,” Cooney said.

  “Maybe you’ll miss,” Hemingway said.

  Cooney thought about that. He lifted his arm and pointed his pistol at a metal vase with a metal flower sitting atop a grave thirty feet away. He fired and the vase flew off the grave.

  “Nice,” Hemingway said.

  “All right, a shot’s been fired, it’s over,” Quinn said. He moved between Cooney and Hemingway and gave the pistol to Juan who was breathing heavily, and who kept his pistol in hand as he accepted Hemingway’s discard. Cooney talked with his seconds and handed off his weapon. They all kept an eye on Juan. Cooney picked up his sport coat and put it on.

  “So you have received satisfaction for your challenge,” Quinn said to Cooney.

  “Is that what you call it? I don’t think so. He weaseled.”

  “You could have shot him. You had your chance. He told you to shoot. What else do you want?”

  “He’s a smart one.”

  “He is.”

  “Fuck you, Mr. Hemingway.”

  “Same to you, Mr. Cooney,” Hemingway said.

  Then they drove out of the cemetery, past the winged hourglass.

  When Quinn stepped out of the elevator on the first floor of the Times Union, destination Cody’s concert, Renata and Max loomed. They’ll be there, but then again she could be anyplace. She goes where she wants to go, and finds her way back home, oddly, and I never stop wondering why. But I’m there when she returns, and I never stop wondering why. Max is her comfort tonight, the old cuñado and savior. The blasé fugitive comes to Albany to see his old school chum, the Mayor, who has been plowing his daughter, and also to court his ex-sister-in-law, whom he once plowed, yes, just once, she insisted. But you can’t believe her. Yet even if that once was true it was enough to bring him up here for seconds, dope entrepreneur on the run, a new career listing for him—Max the fugitive, if that’s what he is. I should have checked Florida about him. So call somebody at the Herald.

  He summoned the elevator, went back up to the third floor and to his desk. He called the Herald’s city room, identified himself to the night city editor, and asked for three old friends, none of them there. What about Charlie Sawyer? Yes, Charlie, a Quinn drinking buddy before the Cuban stint, was around. And yes, indeed, Charlie knew all about Alfie. Quinn told him, I knew Alfie in Cuba and when I heard his news I thought I might do a piece on him, and I’m looking for an update. Charlie said he’d get the clips and Quinn held the line and then Charlie read Quinn the Herald’s story on the bust. And there was Max, a key player who’d made a fateful career decision about showbiz that brought Alfie down.

  A courier for a major dope importer, who was plea bargaining, gave up Max to the prosecutor, having seen him in Up Against two weeks back and remembered him from their meetings in the Drake Hotel in Chicago, and the Plaza in New York. The courier would arrive, call Max’s number and Max would turn up with money—seventeen million delivered over four months in twelve installments, to pay for the thirteen or so tons of dope his bosses had sold to Alfie Rivero for Miami delivery. So Max carried a million plus in every briefcase he handed over to the courier. They talked about more than dope and money, listened to the Palm Court’s harpist, drank dark Puerto Rican rum, which Max said was the closest to Cuban rum, which is the best, but you can’t buy it in this stupid country. Max confessed he’d wanted to be an actor since high school, he knew some movie stars, Bing Crosby, and was trying, without success so far, to convince Bing to let him develop a documentary on Bing’s career. Then last week, the courier said, I go to the movies and there’s Max on the big screen playing a Chicago detective, first time I ever knew his name. Max wasn’t hard to trace: apartment on Miami Beach, close to Alfie Rivero, a heavy duty dealer the Feds had been trying to bring down for a year. They raided Alfie’s apartment and his loft, found a little dope, not much, also raided his town house in Brooklyn Heights. Alfie lived high, art works on his walls, tailored suits in the closet. But the Feds didn’t find the man himself. What we hear, Charlie said, is that he got asylum in Havana, we’re checking it out.

  “Why did you do that movie?” Renata asked Max.

  “Why not? What have I got to hide?”

  “That you’re a drug dealer.”

  “Never. This was economic opportunity, major wages for moving some money. I worried about being robbed, not arrested. Alfie liked my access to exclusive clubs in Washington, and in New York and Miami where he could do business with diplomats and see his customers from Sutton Place and Park Avenue. There was nobody on his payroll with my credentials. And the money I carried was always explainable. Alfie pays his taxes as a gambler and he makes heavy investments in real estate.”

  “The police would never believe that.”

  “He’s been doing it for years and they never came after him till now.”

  “Alfie is not a drug dealer, and you’re an innocent fugitive, so you can spend all afternoon at a bar.”

  “Hiding in plain sight.”


  “What did he gamble at,” Gloria asked.

  “Marijuana,” Max said.

  They were in the Dodge Coronet Renata had rented for Max in her name, with his cash. She had driven her car to the Avis lot at Albany Airport, with Gloria in the backseat, switched Max’s suitcase to the trunk of the Coronet, and left her own car in the public parking lot. They then headed for the concert, which Gloria had not wanted to see until Renata persuaded her Roy might be there and she could talk to him.

  Renata had not yet heard whether Max could enter Cuba, but she had begun the circuitous route of calls that would, perhaps, reach Moncho’s ear in Havana. The question was, can Mr. X enter Cuba and if so, how? What her sources deemed likeliest was a Cubana Airlines flight from Gander, Newfoundland, to Havana. All Cubana flights to and from Europe refueled at Gander, and the reservation would be easy once Max had the okay. Next problem: enter Canada without confronting U.S. Customs; can’t drive or fly, but the border is porous. You can walk across it, and many now do—peaceniks and draft dodgers avoiding the war, it’s a migration. Max needed wheels to get near the border, hence the Coronet; then he needed contacts to help drop off the car and walk him into Canada to new wheels and a driver, and all that was in process. Money was no problem. It all depended on Moncho convincing Fidel that Max was a worthy visitor.

  What would Max bring to the revolution? First, a lot of money. Also the frequent favorable coverage of Fidel’s battle victories that Max had authorized as editor of the Post, despite pressure from Batista to ignore him. There would also be the revelation of his CIA history in Cuba and Miami, but would Fidel trust any of that? He will trust the money. Max is also a confederate of Alfie, one of Fidel’s major gun suppliers, and he’s a friend of the great Renata, and of Moncho, who is close to the Comandante. Outside of the money, Max, this doesn’t add up to a whole lot. But Renata is on the case, even so, and just negotiating you into Canada is a giant step for any fugitive.

  The aroma of the new Coronet’s interior called up Renata’s memory of the police car that they put her in when they took her out of the Casa Granda Hotel, flying her to Campo Columbia’s airfield in Havana and shoving her into the backseat of another police car. Her guardian policeman kept the barrel of a Thompson against her neck, and now in the Coronet she could almost smell the oil on that gun again. She knows the Thompson, how to break one down and clean it, how to fire it, also she knows it fits unbroken under the front seat of a car. This she learned when she was driving Diego, two Thompsons between them on the seat and he said, hide that gun, and he slid one under his own seat. She did the same as two policemen ambled toward them, maybe ready to help, for the car had stalled and wouldn’t start, wouldn’t start, wouldn’t start. Or were they coming to search the car, who knows why? Then the car started, and she waved them away with a smile, thanks but not necessary, and drove away from disaster, maybe death. Had the police searched and found the guns in the trunk, or the weapons under the seats, Diego would have shot them—both Thompsons were loaded—and Renata, God save us, might have done the same.

  She was not then part of the Directorio, just a passionate friend of rebels, one in particular; and being such a friend means you help your friend unconditionally. It also means that such forceful allegiance has transformed you into a conditional cop killer, Renata, which suggests that you have lost your reason. But she shrugged that away, ascribing it to love and her passion for justice.

  At the DeWitt Clinton Renata, Max, and Gloria sat with Matt and his father, Martin, he looks so old, and George and his new lady friend, gordita pero shapely, and quite stylish. George does look unusually happy, the poor man is starving for affection, living with us. The ballroom was nearly full, hundreds and hundreds of fans smiling to Cody’s beat, some still eating, nobody dancing yet, and Cody beaming and playing and singing the tune he wrote, “Home in the Clouds.” Yes, he’s thin, but he looks fine, still handsome. Quinn was not here, but he will be, Matt said. He’s over at the paper, writing his bombshells for tomorrow. And he gave them a brief summary of his and Quinn’s odyssey through the assassination plot, the Four Spot fight, the riot, and Quinn arranging for Tremont to surrender himself and the AR-15.

  “Roy Mason’s also in custody,” Matt said. “They may be charging him with inciting a riot and telling a group of black kids in front of the Four Spot they should have guns and he could get them for them. But those are both fake charges, they just wanted to bust him. His bail could be twenty-five or fifty thousand, which he doesn’t have.”

  “Where is he?” Gloria asked.

  “The Second Precinct lockup at headquarters. They may convene Police Court there tonight. They’re holding forty people. If Roy doesn’t make bail they’ll put him in the county jail.”

  “Can I see him?” Gloria asked.

  “I doubt it,” Matt said.

  “We should raise his bail money,” Gloria said. “Can we put up anything, Aunt Ren? You only need ten percent of whatever the bail is. I’ve helped do that for a few people.”

  “That could be five thousand dollars,” Renata said.

  “I have some money, and there are people I can borrow from,” Gloria said. “I’ll go see how much it is. Headquarters is just down the block. I know some of the detectives.”

  “I don’t want you out alone,” Renata said.

  “I’m all right.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “I am.”

  “You shouldn’t be on the street by yourself, especially tonight.”

  “I can’t stand that they put him in jail again.”

  “Let’s find out what the bail is.”

  “I can do that,” Matt said, and he got up from the table.

  “I’ll go with you,” Gloria said.

  As they left Renata said softly to Max, “I think she’s seriously smitten with this young man. Would you consider putting up that money?”

  “As a favor to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “One good turn deserves another, and that was a good turn with you.”

  “Yes, it was. But I may not see you for a long time, and you keep rescuing me. You are a generous man.”

  “My generosity has only just begun. I’ll put up his bail.”

  “Thank you, dear Max.”

  “Are you also smitten with this kid?”

  “No, but I used to like his father.”

  “I remember,” Max said.

  When her guardian policeman pushed her out of the car she almost fell, and she knew then they really would hurt her. You are a coward, Renata, but you must not let them know. The one with the Thompson poked it into her back to hurry her along toward the grassy bank of El Laguito in the Country Club barrio. This is where they found Pelayo Cuervo Navarro after the Palace attack he had nothing to do with. But he was Batista’s longtime enemy and they put three bullets in his back, five in his chest and dumped him here at the edge of the lake.

  A second car pulled up behind them and a man in white stepped out and came toward her as she stumbled toward the lake: Pedro Robles Montoya, infamous, Batista’s chief of naval intelligence, grown-up puffy boy bulging out of his white guayabera, white slacks, white shoes. Her guard pushed her to her knees, then into a sprawl, and dragged her to the lake. He ripped buttons off her blouse when he handled her and her skirt came up to her lap. She lay exposed, her face inches from the water. The guard grabbed her long black hair in his fist and twisted it once, then pushed her head into the water and held it under—forty, sixty seconds, then up.

  “Who organized the attack on the president?” Robles asked.

  She did not talk, spitting water, faking breathlessness. She was a serious swimmer, could hold her breath five minutes under water.

  “I know nothing,” she finally said. “I am a museum guide, I am a student, I know nothing of the Palace attack.”

  “You are in the Directorio.”

  “No.”

  “Who planned it?”

  “I know none of
those people.”

  “Your lover, Diego San Román, died in the attack.”

  “I hardly knew the man. I saw him in the museum, we talked of art. That’s all there was, talk of art.”

  Robles nodded and the guard pushed her head under water, pulled her out, pushed her under again, out again, under yet again, confusing her breathing. He held her under more than a minute, turning her so she faced the sky. She came up truly gasping, they will drown me. Don’t be a coward, you are a swimmer, you know how to drown.

  “We found guns under your bed, a Luger, a .38 automatic, political literature for the Directorio, the Communists, the Socialists, the Twenty-sixth of July. Which do you belong to?”

  “That was research, a paper I was writing when the president closed the university.”

  “The guns were research?”

  “They were my cousin’s guns. He lived with us and he gave them to me when he was dying. They’ve been in my family since the Machado era.”

  “Where are the survivors of the attack hiding?”

  “I know none of them. I know nothing.”

  “We go to the Buro,” Robles said.

  The Buro was headquarters for the intelligence unit of the Cuban police force, a castlelike structure at Twenty-third Street and the Almendares River Bridge. Robles and the two guards drove her past the Buro’s dock on the river where a small motor launch was tethered.

  “You are a pretty child,” Robles said, “and beauty sometimes protects its possessor. But not today. And you are a privileged child, but privilege has no meaning here, not today. No one of money or power or influence can deliver you out of my hands. You tell me what I want to know or you will feel pain. We will penetrate you, humiliate you, we will spoil your glories.” He pointed to the motor launch. “And if you do not talk we will take you out in that boat and cut you, and when you are bleeding properly we will deliver you to the sharks.”

  They led her up many stairs into the castle, to a windowless room with rough concrete walls, a desk and a few chairs. The two guards hovered behind Robles.