'I suppose the lesson is, he struck too soon.'
'Ah,' said Speshnev. 'At last you have said one tiny thing that impresses me. Not much, but a little. Yes, too early, no follow up, no alternative plan, no alibi, nothing.'
'Well, he was outsmarted. His men were captured and I would think tortured and they gave him up. What can be done?'
'What can be done is simple: discipline, patience, coolness, cunning. That is the way wars are won, not by flamboyant stunts.'
Machine gun fire. Lots of it. Then individual shots, as, presumably, troops shot at corpses to make certain they stayed corpses.
'You said we would go look.'
'It's happening faster than I anticipated. Use your ears. This is the radio of failed revolution. He had no need to assassinate the congressman and had he succeeded, the consequences for all ofus-except him-would have been tragic. There are always consequences. Nothing occurs without consequences. You must face consequences.'
'I must be realistic in my thinking, you are saying.'
More machine gun fire. A steady, beating roar, then silence.
'Learn this: you must have discipline. You must not strike until you are strong enough. You must withdraw quickly to avoid being caught. You must bleed them and bleed them and bleed them. It is a question of will. Do you have the will? Colorado did not. He had the means, and that was all, and it got him crushed in the stones of his own house.'
'I see.'
'You were very lucky. You managed to disaffiliate yourself from his plot, and to disconnect yourself from being his pawn. Otherwise you would be in prison now and before the wall tonight. Yet here you sit, drinking coffee.'
'I was lucky to have someone so astute looking after me. I will not be so hasty and foolish in the years to come.'
'I hope not. But I need a promise. You will not do anything stupid or ill-founded, no matter what anger seizes you. Do you understand? If I am to continue, if our sponsorship is to grow, if your movement is to prosper, it has to be well run. You have charisma, but do you have wisdom? The former without the guidance of the latter is pure anarchy. From now on, you must seek approval. If you do that, you'll be surprised how you can be aided by us.'
'I can tell you are experienced.'
A last rattle of machine gun fire echoed down the dusty streets.
'What is next is, you go on vacation.'
'Vacation! Why, I have work to do. We have a plan already in place, I shouldn't tell you this, for Santiago, although, yes, it needs some polish?'
'You have no work. Don't delude yourself. Don't bore me with fantasy. Forget Santiago. For now, you are too famous. I want you gone. And I do mean gone. You don't tell your wife, you don't tell your three mistresses?'
'Four, actually. The new one, so beautiful.'
'— your four mistresses, your three, or is it two, followers. Poof! You are vanished, invisible, as of the moment you leave this cafe.'
'But my wife?'
'— will forgive you, as she always has. I am not joking. There will be something like a terror ahead, and some deaths will be whimsical. With your idiocy, you could walk into that in a second. Some people think you have talent, and must be preserved, and that task, melancholy though it be, has fallen to me. So off you go.'
'Where shall I go?'
'Don't even tell me. Think of me as a magician. I count three, and when I reach it…you are gone.'
The young man had vanished by two.
Chapter 25
What a wonderful story. Drunken American congressman goes to whorehouse, gropes, squeezes, requests vague perversions, acts up, strikes the girl, causes a ruckus and insults Cuban hostess. His bodyguard roughs up the local security. The hostess complains to the overboss, and in that fiery Latino way, psychotically obsessed with honor and face, he takes it too seriously and decides to teach a lesson to the congressman and by extension all arrogant grasping Americans, with their money, their new buildings, their disdain for Cuban machismo.
Alas something goes tragically wrong; the assassination attempt is foiled, and the heroic Cuban security services, ever fast on their feet and so professionally agile, track the attack back to its source and decide that's where the lesson must be taught. Thus the military settles the score, though it's a daylong battle not settled until the tanks arrive late in the afternoon, and scores of the innocent and even some of the guilty die. But finally El Presidente's flag flies over No. 353 23rd Street in Vedado, and for days the curious, the bloodthirsty, the horrified come look at the smokey ruins where so many died, and where the story ended in a brilliant explosion of bloodlust, ambition, vengeance, crazed bravado and fabulous theater.
But the serious people understand that there is so much more to it than that, and underneath the gossip and the scandal and the delicious details, they begin to investigate. This includes the expat business community, diplomatic and intelligence circles, even the American military. All must know more and all are eventually satisfied. But chief among the ranks of the intensely curious is the unofficial American crime boss of Havana, Mr. L, who receives many urgent calls from compatriots back in America. These august, elderly gentlemen are suddenly worried about the political stability of the island in which they've invested so heavily. Mr. L is no fool, and understands that these men need an 'inside story,' the true gen, as it were, that conforms to their intuitive sense of conspiracy. He makes calls, he asks favors, he gently twists arms, until something resembling an underplot emerges and though it's not a thing that could ever be proven in a court, it's enough to satisfy the various people he must satisfy. This is done over several days with careful deliberation, for such is Mr. L's way, cautious and painstaking, good with details, ever patient. And of course finally a plan is devised, and like all good plans it not only satisfies its own mandates but also, magically, several others as well. It's too good an idea, really, not to be implemented.
So Frankie is summoned to the Montmartre from his dank exile, ever ready to please, primed to go the extra yard, incredibly happy to be noticed again.
'You've heard it all, I suppose,' said Mr. Lansky, drinking milk in his office in his linen suit, as always.
'I went down myself to look at the ruins. Man, that wasn't no gunfight, that was a goddamned artillery attack.' Frankie has a black Ban-Lon sports shirt with red piping, white trousers, a pair of expensive Italian loafers. He is holding his sunglasses because his pockets are too tight to accommodate them.
'Frankie, I've told you. Please, no swearing. It's coarse, and other ways can be found to make a particular emphasis.'
'I apologize.'
'It's just a small thing. Anyhow, suppose I tell you there's more.'
'I bet there's more. For one thing, there's twenty-five or more whorehouses completely up for grabs. These houses could be a start. They could be a front for narcotics distribution; they could be a source of talent for color dirty pictures, which I guarantee you is the next big fuck-, uh, next big moneymaker in our business, and already the West Coast is trying to push it; they could be a way to get in with certain business execs who consider themselves too hoity-toity for our kind of action, and politicians too, including, if I hear right, not only congressmen but senators as well.'
'Excellent, Frankie. Your instincts are superior. And I suppose you know just the man for the job and I wouldn't be surprised if he was born Franco Carabinieri in Salerno forty-three years ago.'
Frankie blushed.
'It would be a very tasty deal for everyone, all around the table.'
'It would indeed. Even now the Cubans are jockeying for the strength to make such a grab themselves. There's a certain captain in the military intelligence service named Latavistada, recently of Santiago, where he had a reputation for getting things done, who is most anxious to take over. He owned brothels in that town.'
'I should have a talk with him.'
