“The mob has asked you to investigate Max’s murder?”
“In my capacity as a former homicide detective.”
Noreen shook her head. “Why you?”
“I guess they think I can be objective, independent. More objective than the Cuban militia. Dinah’s nineteen years old, Noreen. She strikes me as a lot of things. As a selfish little bitch, for one. But she’s not a murderer. Besides, it takes a certain kind of person to climb over a wall eight floors up and shoot a man seven times in cold blood. Wouldn’t you say?”
Noreen nodded and stared off into the distance. She dropped her second cigarette on the ground, half smoked, and then lit a third. Something was still troubling her.
“So, you can rest assured I’m not about to lay the blame at Dinah’s door.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. She is a bitch, you’re right. But she’s mine and I’d do absolutely anything to keep her safe.”
“I know that.” I flicked my cigar at the fountain. It hit one of the nymphs on her bare behind and fell into the water. “Is that really what you wanted to tell me?”
“Yes,” she said. She thought for a moment. “But it wasn’t everything, you’re right, damn you.” She bit her knuckle. “I don’t know why I ever try to deceive you. There are times when I think you know me better than I know myself.”
“It’s always a possibility.”
She threw the third cigarette away, opened her bag, took out a little matching handkerchief, and blew her nose with it. “The other day,” she said. “When you were at the house. And you saw Fredo and me coming back from the beach at Playa Mayor. I suppose you must have guessed that he and I have been seeing each other. That we’ve become, well, intimate.”
“I try not to do too much guessing these days. Especially concerning things I know absolutely nothing about.”
“Fredo likes you, Bernie. He was very grateful to you. The night of the pamphlets.”
“Oh, I know. He told me himself.”
“You saved his life. I didn’t really appreciate it at the time. Or thank you properly. What you did was very courageous.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I didn’t come to see you about Dinah. Oh, perhaps I just wanted to hear you reassure me that she couldn’t have done it, but I’d have known. A mother knows that kind of thing. She couldn’t have hid that from me.”
“So what did you come to see me about?”
“It’s Fredo. He’s been arrested by the SIM—the secret police—and accused of helping the former minister of education in the Prío government, Aureliano Sánchez Arango, to enter the country illegally.”
“And did he?”
“No, of course not. When he was arrested, however, he was with someone who is in the AAA. That’s the Association of Friends of Aureliano. It’s one of the leading opposition groups in Cuba. But Fredo’s loyalty is to Castro and the rebels on the Isle of Pines.”
“Well, I’m sure when he explains that, they’ll be happy to send him home.”
Noreen didn’t share the joke. “This isn’t funny,” she said. “They could still torture him in the hope that he’ll tell them where Aureliano is hiding. That would be doubly unfortunate, because of course he doesn’t know anything.”
“I agree. But I really don’t see what I can do.”
“You saved his life once, Bernie. Maybe you can do it again.”
“So López can have you instead of me?”
“Is that what you want, Bernie?”
“What do you think?” I shrugged. “Why not? Under the circumstances that’s not so very strange. Or have you forgotten?”
“Bernie, it was twenty years ago. I’m not the same woman I used to be. Surely you can see that.”
“Life will do that to you sometimes.”
“Can you do
anything
for him?”
“What makes you think that’s even a possibility?”
“Because you know Captain Sánchez. People say that you and he are friends.”
“What people?” I shook my head, exasperated. “Look, even if he was my friend—and I am not at all sure about that—Sánchez is militia. And you said yourself that López has been arrested by the SIM. That means it’s nothing to do with the militia.”
“The man who arrested Fredo was at the funeral of Max Reles,” said Noreen. “Lieutenant Quevedo. Perhaps, if you asked him, Captain Sánchez would speak to Lieutenant Quevedo. He could intercede.”
“And say what?”
“I don’t know. But you might think of something.”
“Noreen, it’s a hopeless case.”
“Aren’t they the ones you used to be good at?”
I shook my head and turned away.
“You remember that letter I wrote to you, when I left Berlin?”
“Not really. It was a very long time ago, like you said.”
“Yes, you do. I called you my knight of heaven.”
“That’s the plot of
Tannhäuser
, Noreen. Not me.”
“I asked you always to seek the truth and to go to the aid of the people who needed your help. Because it’s the right thing to do, and in spite of the fact that it’s dangerous. I’m asking that now.”
“You’ve no right to ask it. Can’t be done. I’ve changed too, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I don’t think so.”
“More than you could ever know. Knight of heaven, you say?” I laughed. “More like knight of hell. During the war, I got drafted into the SS, because I was a policeman. Did I tell you that? My armor’s very dirty, Noreen. You don’t know how dirty.”
“You did what you had to do, I expect. But inside, I think you’re probably the same man you always were.”
“Tell me this: Why should I look out for López? I’ve got enough on my plate. I can’t help him, and that’s the truth, so why should I even bother to try?”
“Because that’s what life is about.” Noreen took my hand and searched my face—for what, I don’t know. “That’s what life is about, isn’t it? Looking for the truth. Going to the aid of the people we don’t think we can help, but trying all the same.”
I felt myself flush with anger.
“You’ve got me confused with some kind of saint, Noreen. The kind who’s okay with being martyred as long as his halo’s straight in the photograph. If I’m going to throw myself to the lions, I want it to mean a lot more than just being remembered in some milkmaid’s prayers on a Sunday morning. I never was a man for a useless gesture. That’s how I stayed alive this long, angel. Only there’s more to it than that. You talk about the truth like it means something. But when you throw the truth in my face, it’s just a couple of handfuls of sand. It’s not the truth at all. Not the truth I want to hear, anyway. Not from you. So let’s not fool ourselves, eh? I won’t play the sucker for you, Noreen. Not until you’re prepared to stop treating me like one.”
Noreen did an impersonation of a tropical fish that was all popping eyes and open mouth, and then shook her head. “I’m sure I don’t have the least idea of what you’re talking about.” Then she laughed an off-key laugh in my face and, before I could say another word, turned on her heel and walked quickly toward the parking lot.
I went back inside the Tropicana.
The Cellinis didn’t give me much. Giving wasn’t exactly their strong suit. Nor was answering questions. Old habits die hard, I suppose. They kept on telling me how sorry they were about the death of a great guy like Max and how keen they were to cooperate with Lansky’s investigation and, at the same time, not having the first clue about anything I asked them. If they had been asked Capone’s Christian name, they would probably have shrugged and said they didn’t know it. Probably even denied he had one.
It was late when I got home, and Captain Sánchez was waiting for me. He’d helped himself to a drink and a cigar and was reading a book in my favorite armchair.
“It seems I’m popular with all kinds of people these days,” I said. “People just drop in, like this is some kind of club.”
“Don’t be like that,” said Sánchez. “We’re friends, you and I. Besides, the lady let me in. Yara, isn’t it?”
I glanced around the apartment for her, but it was plain that she’d already gone.
He shrugged apologetically. “I think I scared her off.”
“I expect you’re used to that, Captain.”
“I should be at home myself, but you know what they say. Crime doesn’t keep office hours.”
“Is that what they say?”
“Another body has been found. A man called Irving Goldstein. At an apartment in Vedado.”
“I never heard of him.”
“He was an employee of the Hotel Saratoga. A pit boss in the casino.”
“I see.”
“I was hoping you might accompany me to the apartment. You being a famous detective. Not to mention his employer. In a manner of speaking.”
“Sure. Why not? I was only planning to go to bed and sleep for twelve hours.”
“Excellent.”
“Give me a minute to change, will you?”
“I will wait for you downstairs,
señor
.”
19
T
HE NEXT MORNING I was awakened by the telephone.
It was Robert Freeman. He’d telephoned to offer me a six-month contract to open up the West German Havana cigar market for J. Frankau.
“However, I don’t think that Hamburg’s the right place to base yourself, Carlos,” he told me. “It’s my opinion that Bonn would be better. There’s the fact that it’s the West German capital, of course. Both houses of parliament are situated there, not to mention all the government institutions and foreign embassies. Which is the kind of well-heeled market we’re looking for, after all. Then there’s the fact that it’s in the British zone of occupation. We’re a British company, so that should make things easier for us, too. Plus, Bonn is only twenty miles from Cologne, one of the largest cities in Germany.”
All I knew about Bonn was that it was the birthplace of Beethoven, and before the war that it had been the home of Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. When Berlin ceased being the capital of anything except the cold war, and West Germany needed a new capital, Adenauer had, very conveniently for himself, chosen the quiet little town where he had lived quietly throughout the years of the Third Reich. As it happened, I’d been to Bonn. Just once. By mistake. But before 1949 few people had ever heard of Bonn, let alone known where it was, and even today it was jokingly known as “the federal village.” Bonn was small, Bonn was insignificant, and Bonn was above all things a backwater, and I wondered why I hadn’t considered living there before. For a man like me, intent on living a life of complete anonymity, it seemed perfect.
Quickly I told Freeman that Bonn was fine by me and that I would begin to make travel arrangements to go there as soon as possible. And Freeman told me he would go about drawing up my all-important business credentials.
I was going home. After almost five years of exile, I was going back to Germany. With money in my pocket. I could hardly believe my luck.
There was that, and the events of the previous evening, at an apartment in Vedado.
As soon as I was washed and dressed, I drove to the National and went up to that big, spacious suite on the executive floor to inform the Lansky brothers that I had “solved” the Reles case. Not that you could ever have really called it a case. Public-relations exercise might have been a more accurate way of describing my investigation, provided your idea of a public was all of the mobbed-up casinos and hotels in Havana.
“You mean you’ve got a name?” Meyer’s voice had the deep-fried, rich tone of an Indian chief in a western. Jeff Chandler, maybe. The little man had the same sort of inscrutable face, too. Certainly the nose was exactly the same.
As before, we sat on the balcony with the same ocean view, except that now I could see the ocean as well as hear and smell it. I was going to miss the grating roar of that ocean.
Meyer wore a pair of gray gabardine trousers, a matching cardigan, a plain white sports shirt, and thick-framed sunglasses that made him look more like an accountant than a gangster. Jake was similarly informal. He wore a loose terry-cloth shirt and a bookmaker’s little straw Stetson with a hatband that was as tight and narrow as his mouth. And hovering in the background was the tall, angular figure of Vincent Alo, whom I now knew better as Jimmy Blue Eyes. Alo wore gray flannels, a white mohair cardigan with a wide collar, and a patterned silk cravat. The cardigan was bulky, but not enough to hide the spare rib he was wearing under his arm. He looked like anyone’s idea of an Italian playboy as long as the play was a Roman revenge tragedy written by Seneca for the amusement of the Emperor Nero.
We were drinking coffee from little cups, Italian style, pinkies out.
“I’ve got a name,” I told them.
“Let’s hear it.”
“Irving Goldstein.”
“The guy who killed himself?”
Goldstein had been a pit boss at the Saratoga, occupying a high chair over the craps table. Originally from Miami, he had trained as a croupier in several illegal gambling houses in Tampa before his arrival in Havana in April 1953. This followed the deportation from Cuba of thirteen American-born card dealers who were employees of the Saratoga, the Sans Souci, the Montmartre, and Tropicana casinos.
“With the help of Captain Sánchez I searched his apartment in Vedado last night. And we found this.”
I handed Lansky a technical drawing and let him stare at it awhile.
“Goldstein had become involved with a man who was a female impersonator at the Palette Club. It’s my information that before he died, Max had found out about it and, not at all comfortable with Goldstein’s homosexuality, he subsequently told him to look for a job at another casino. The Saratoga casino manager, Núñez, confirmed that the two men argued about something not long before Max died. It’s my belief that this is what they argued about. And that Goldstein murdered Max in revenge for his dismissal. So he probably had the motive. He almost certainly had the opportunity: Núñez told me that Goldstein went on his break at around two a.m. on the night of the murder. And that he was away from the craps tables for about thirty minutes.”