Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,38
a simple white sports shirt, and suppressed a giggle at the thought of him as a tiger on horseback.
“My parents were poor farmers like the Mexican peasants,” Emiliano explained, “and they wanted their son to grow up to be like Zapata and fight for the oppressed in Cuba.”
Traffic on the six-lane Malecón was flowing heavily, but Emiliano managed to hail a taxi. “La Europa,” he told the driver once he and Jackie were inside.
Looking out the open window, Jackie drew in her breath at the sight of a majestic hotel rising on a hill a stone’s throw from the sea.
Emiliano followed her gaze. “That’s the Hotel Nacional,” he told her. “Beautiful, isn’t it? A lot of famous people have stayed there and still do, everyone from Winston Churchill to Errol Flynn. And well-known American gangsters too, like Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano.”
“Didn’t Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner stay at the Nacional on their honeymoon last year?” Jackie asked. She remembered seeing an item about that in the gossip columns that she perused daily to keep current with celebrities for her Inquiring Camera Girl column.
“Where else would they stay?” Emiliano rejoined, a note of bitterness in his voice. “Frank Sinatra has a suite there, and so does Luciano. The Mob—a perfect name for your country’s organization of Italian American gangsters—controls the big hotels, nightclubs, and casinos in Havana.”
Yes, I know that, Jackie thought, but she kept listening.
“The Mob backed Sinatra’s singing career when he was starting out, and in return, Sinatra became a cash courier for them. Five years ago, he landed at Havana airport carrying a suitcase stuffed with two million dollars in cash, profits from the Mob’s criminal activities in the States. He went to the Nacional with two gangster friends and delivered the cash to Luciano to pour into the Mob’s activities here.”
Jackie was shocked. All she knew about Sinatra was that he had a voice like a dream and wasn’t a bad actor either.
“What has happened to Cuba is sinful,” Emiliano said, the bitterness in his voice more pronounced. “Our beautiful island—the ‘Pearl of the Antilles’—has been corrupted by crime and greed. On the surface, it’s all bright lights and glitter, but there’s an undercurrent of violence. We Cubans want our nation back. The guidebooks describe Havana as ‘a volatile mix of Monte Carlo, Casablanca, and the ancient city of Cádiz all rolled into one.’ Well, that volatile mix is going to explode some day.”
Jackie didn’t know what part of town the taxi had driven them to, but it was off the beaten path. Except for the neon sign that said LA EUROPA over the doorway, the club might have been a large private home out in the suburbs somewhere. It reminded Jackie of pictures she had seen of Prohibition-era speakeasies in the States—a faintly scandalous-looking place for seekers of forbidden pleasures and celebrities who didn’t want to be gawked at by tourists.
Before they went in, Emiliano briefed Jackie on how to conduct herself. “We’re going to sit at the bar and wait for our Fidel Castro contact to come. If they ask you why you’re there, say that you write a newspaper column on entertainment. You love dancing, and you wanted to see the show.”
Well, I love ballet—that much is true, Jackie thought.
As soon as Jackie followed Emiliano into the club, her nostrils were assailed by a pungent odor that reminded her of the stables at Merrywood. She assumed it was from the thick clouds of cigarette smoke swirling around the room and thought the smell was even worse than the acrid aroma of the Gauloises that she’d tried in Paris.
Emiliano pulled out a seat for Jackie at the bar, told the bartender to make her a mojito, and looked around the room. “Our friend isn’t here,” he said to Jackie. “Enjoy your drink while I go look for him.”
This is good, Jackie said to herself as she took the first few sips of her mojito. I wonder what’s in it?
“Delicious drink, isn’t it?” the man seated next to her said, as if reading her mind.
Jackie turned her head to see an impeccably dressed gentleman in what looked to be a bespoke Savile Row suit with a silk handkerchief nestled in the breast pocket—attire that seemed as out of place in a club like La Europa as a tuxedo at a clambake.
“Why, yes, it is delicious,” Jackie said. “Do you know what’s in it?”
“White rum, sugar cane juice, lime juice, sparkling water, and mint,” the man