Ruben Cienfuegos groaned painfully. He started to shake his head.
I tried to move my head, tried to look back over my shoulder. I was aware of two men standing behind me. I turned back to face the Italian once more. He had eyes like a shark, dead and without reflections. I knew that black, lightless expression would be the very last thing I saw.
I decided I would die. In that moment I decided that I would die, and if I did not die then this point would be a catharsis. If I survived this test then it would prove to me that all I had done was not wrong. This would be the confirmation of my life’s direction, and if not… well, if not, I would not have to concern myself with it any more.
I decided not to be afraid.
I thought of my mother, and the pride she would feel in my strength.
I decided that I would not be afraid, and if this man with the dead eyes killed me then I would find my mother and tell her that everything had not been in vain.
I would live, or I would see my mother again; that was my choice.
‘One of you is lying,’ the man said. ‘You admit your name is Ernesto Perez?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I am Ernesto Perez.’
‘And this one here?’ he asked, indicating Ruben with a sweep of the gun.
‘Is someone I have never seen before.’
Ruben groaned once more. I could feel his pain, but in feeling it I also began to feel nothing at all. Whatever capacity for sympathy I might have possessed had dissolved and vanished. I realized then that, in being confronted with my own death, the lives of everyone else around me became truly insignificant. This moment would be the exorcism of whatever shred of conscience and compassion I might still have owned.
‘So if this is someone you have never seen before it will mean nothing to you if he dies?’
I looked at the man. I did not flinch. Not a single muscle moved in my face. ‘Nothing at all,’ I said quietly, and then I smiled.
‘And of this man that was killed last night in the motel? This one here says that you were guilty of his murder, that he was not there and you were the one who killed him.’
I shook my head. ‘If he was not there then how does he know anything about it?’ I asked.
‘You are saying he is a liar?’
‘I am,’ I replied. I felt my heart slow. I felt my pulse in my neck. I felt the tension in my head and heart start to ease. I believed that I had never lied so well in my life.
‘And what does that say about you… you can stand there and let another man defame and slander your name? Let a man call you a murderer and you do nothing?’
I stared back at the Italian. ‘I will exact my vengeance at the appropriate time.’
The Italian laughed, threw his head back and laughed out loud. ‘
‘You exact your vengeance now,’ he said, ‘or both of you die here in this room.’
I looked at Ruben, could see that he was straining to make eye contact with me out of the swollen wreck of his face.
‘You pay for the death of my friend and you clear your own name with this killing,’ the Italian said. ‘You prove yourself a man, my little Cuban friend, and you preserve your own life.’ He smiled once more. ‘We have a deal?’
‘We do,’ I said, and I glanced once more towards Ruben.
The Italian stepped back, lowered his gun, and moved to the side of the room. The two men behind me untied my hands and I stood there, my heart thundering in my chest, sweat running down my entire body, my hands shaking violently as the blood rushed back into them and gave them feeling once more.
The Italian nodded. One of the men behind me stepped forward and handed me a tire lever.
‘There are two hundred and six bones in the human body,’ the Italian said. ‘I want to hear you break every single one.’
Later, much later, seated on the floor in my own room, the Italian told me his name.
‘Giancarlo Ceriano,’ he stated, and he lit two cigarettes, one of which he passed to me. I looked at him then, looked at him for the first time without death staring back at me. He was dressed immaculately, everything about him precise and exact and tailored. His hands were manicured, his hair smooth, his every movement somehow graceful but in no way anything but masculine. Ceriano seemed like something feral, something between a man and an animal, and yet elegant and discerning and very intelligent.
‘I know you killed the man in the motel room,’ he went on. ‘Do not question how I know this, and do not deny it. You will offend me greatly if you lie to me now.’ He looked at me with his black deadlight eyes. ‘I am right, no?’
‘You are right,’ I said.
Ceriano nodded and smiled. ‘His name was Pietro Silvino. He worked for a man called Trafficante. You have heard of Trafficante?’
I shook my head.
‘Trafficante is a very important man, a very good friend of mine. He possesses interests in some of the casinos out here, the Sans Souci, the Comodoro and the Capri. He believes in family, he believes in honor and integrity, and it would break his heart to learn that his friend, a member of his own family, a man with a wife and three beautiful children, was out here paying boys for sex… you understand?’
‘I understand.’
Ceriano flicked the ash of his cigarette on the floor. ‘In some way you have spared Don Trafficante’s family a great deal of heartbreak by killing Silvino before such a thing was discovered, and though I can in no way condone your action, I am nevertheless impressed by your unwillingness to stand down in the face of your own death. You have a brave spirit, my little Cuban friend. I am impressed by your performance, and there is perhaps some work you might be interested in.’
‘Some work?’
‘We are the foreigners here. We stand out in the crowd. People know who we are and what we are doing here. We do not speak your language, and nor do we understand well your customs and rituals. But a native-’
‘I am from New Orleans,’ I said. ‘I am an American, and I was born in New Orleans.’
Ceriano widened his eyes and smiled. He started laughing. ‘From New Orleans?’ he asked, in his voice a tone of surprise.
I nodded. ‘Yes. My father is Cuban, but my mother was from America. He went there and married her. I was born over there, but we came here recently after my mother died.’
Ceriano shook his head. ‘I am sorry for the death of your mother, Ernesto Perez.’
‘As am I,’ I replied.
‘So, New Orleans,’ Ceriano said. ‘You have heard of Louis Prima?’
I shrugged.
‘Louis Prima was born in Storyville, Louisiana. The singer. Plays with Sam Buttera and the Witnesses? You know… “Buona Sera”, “Lazy River”, “Banana Split For My Baby”… and what was that other one?’ Ceriano looked at one of his henchmen. ‘Aah,’ he said, and with a wide smile on his face he started singing, ‘I eat antipasta twice just because she is so nice… Angelina… Angelina, waitress at the pizzeria… Angelina zooma-zooma, Angelina zooma-zooma…’
I smiled with him. The man seemed as crazy as a shithouse rat.
He waved his hand aside nonchalantly. ‘Whatever… so you are an American, eh?’
‘I am.’
‘But you speak like a Cuban.’
‘I do.’
‘Then, for us, you shall be a Cuban, you understand?’
I nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘And you shall do some work for us here in Havana, and we shall pay you well and protect you, and if you serve us we shall perhaps let you keep Pietro Silvino’s beautiful car, right?’
‘Right,’ I said, because I believed I had no choice, but more than that I truly believed that here I had been presented with an opportunity to fulfil my vocation, to find my place in the world, to return to America with enough
