Noel Hynd - Hostage in Havana

“Oh, yeah. Financial crimes. Money. You’re down on Wall Street, right?”

“Nearby. Right,” she said.

“Yeah. That’s right. You got brains too. That’d disqualify you from modeling. Wall Street, huh? Plenty of financial crime there. The whole place is a financial crime. Banks. Stock markets. Convertible debentures. Predatory lending. Bailouts for people who shouldn’t even be out on bail. They should all be in jail, but I don’t run the world. Plus, I wouldn’t put them in jail; I’d just have them shot. Anyway, what’s on the plate today?”

“For starters, does the name Paul Guarneri mean anything to you?” she asked.

“No. Should it?”

“Probably not.”

Sam thought for a moment. “Mafia guy?”

“Connected family,” Alex said.

“New York?”

“The city and Long Island.”

“I don’t know him,” Sam said. “Does he say he knows me?”

“I never asked.”

“Then don’t. He’s probably connected. Italian. If he’s on some list of yours and he’s Italian, he’s connected. I’m Italian, did you know that?” Sam asked. “All Italians are connected to the Mafia in some way, large or small.”

“Really?” Alex asked, bemused.

“No,” Sam countered. “But why you asking me?”

“Because I want to pick your brain about Cuba,” Alex said.

“Ha! What about it?” Sam asked.

“I heard you’ve been there,” Alex said.

Sam sipped more of his beer and smiled. “You’re a clever little fox, Alex,” he said. “You going to Cuba?”

She remained silent. She winked.

“Enjoy your trip,” Sam said. “The rum is fabuloso.”

“You were around for the Bay of Pigs in ‘61, weren’t you?”

“I was a kid. I was around for the aftermath. So what about it?”

“I’m a newbie on Cuba, Sam. Impress me with your inside knowledge.”

It was just the encouragement that Sam needed. He laughed.

“What do you want to hear about?” he asked. “The really bad old days of the ‘40s, when Lucky Luciano came back to the island after exile in Italy, or do you want to hear about how Sinatra used to be a courier for money from the American mob to the Havana casino operators, then would sing at private performances for his mobster friends?” Sam laughed again. “Or how about when JFK was a U.S. Senator and a hood named Santo Trafficante set up an orgy for him at the Hotel Comodoro?”

“Start with JFK, but skip the rest,” Alex said.

Sam smirked. “That’s the best part. But I’m not surprised. Get down to business, no fun and games with you, Alex LaDuca.”

“Why don’t you take me to the Bay of Pigs?” she said. “Playa Giron. That’s what they call it in Spanish, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.” Sam shrugged. “But I don’t know too much more than anyone else,” Sam said. “Kennedy was president by then because Mayor Daley in Chicago stuffed all those ballot boxes and tipped Illinois to the Dems. Anyway, it’s a year after the election, and JFK rushed an invasion plan into play on the idea that Castro would later acquire a stronger military capability and be able to defeat it. Fact was, Castro already had that capability. The CIA also told the president that Castro only had an obsolete, ineffective air force. The agency said they weren’t in combat condition and had no communications in the Zapata Swamp area and had no forces nearby. That’s where the Bahia de Cochinos is, the Bay of Pigs. Everything about the intelligence was wrong. They expected mass defections among Cuban military, and none materialized. The Cuban air force had Lockheed T-33 jet trainers, the same planes the U.S. had given to Batista to fight the rebels. We figured they didn’t have pilots, but we were wrong. They were more effective than predicted. Then Castro’s army moved to the beach and crushed the exiles with greater efficiency than any estimate had anticipated. In fact, the Cuban jets were largely responsible for the exiles’ ammunition losses. Kennedy, having approved the plan with assurances that it would be both clandestine and successful, quickly discovered that it was too large to be clandestine and too small to be successful. Ten thousand exiles might have gotten it done. Twenty thousand would have walked over the Cuban force. But fourteen hundred? Forget about it. There. That’s the front half.”

He paused. Sandwiches arrived. They fell silent. When the waitress was gone, Alex asked. “What’s the back half?”

Sam continued, “The Bay of Pigs had every element for a perfect disaster, and that’s what it turned into. Then the suits at the CIA flipped around and claimed Kennedy had betrayed them when they had set him up with implausible intelligence.”

“They came in at dawn, right …,” Alex asked, “the invasion force?”

“Yeah. And that was a problem too. The brigade relied on a nighttime landing through uncharted reefs in boats with outboard motors. South shore of the island. Even with ample ammunition and control of the air, the brigade couldn’t have broken out of its beachhead or survived much longer without substantial help from either American forces or the Cuban people. Neither happened.” He shook his head and continued. “The invasion was intended to provoke an uprising against Castro. Instead, it gave him a military victory and a permanent symbol of Cuban resistance to American aggression. Great move, JFK. Way to go, CIA. Idiots!”

“Do you still have contacts on the island?” Alex asked.

He took several seconds to answer. “Not really,” he said. “It’s been a long time. There have been so many other fish to fry in the last few years. Colombia. Venezuela. Honduras. Nicaragua.” He shrugged. “I could make some phone calls if you want. I used to know a guy named Gilberto in Old Havana. Used to sell postcards and rum to tourists – and guns, Argentine passports, and black-market dollars to people who wanted to leave the country. I have no idea if he’s still alive. If he is, he’ll talk to me; if he’s dead he probably won’t. I could do some asking.”

“If you would, that would be nice,” Alex said easily. “And look, maybe you could run the Guarneri name past a few of your old Playa Giron contacts,” she added.

Sam laughed and grabbed the notepad in front of him. “What’s the full name?”

“Joseph Guarneri,” Alex said. “G-U-A-R-N-E-R-I,” she continued, spelling it as Sam’s pudgy hand quickly wrote. “He could be down as ‘Giuseppe.’ Born in Italy.”

“Why don’t you throw the name past your friends, the Feds?” he said, throwing a glance at MacPhail and Ramirez. “Or did you do that already?”

“I always like to check the official version against the unofficial version,” Alex said. “That’s why I’m here. Can you blame me?”

“No. Call me in a week,” Sam said.

“I don’t have a week.”

“Ah. I get it. Then I’ll put some zip on it. I’ll phone you when I have something. You working on a CIA assignment?”

She was silent again. Another wink.

“Foxy fox, aren’t you?” Sam said. “I like it. You got great legs too. Did I mention that? What do you do? Run? Swim? Gym? Tight shorts and a muscle T-shirt. I bet you look hot.”

“Can I try another name on you?” she asked.

“Don’t let me stop you.”

“Roland Violette.”

Sam instantly knew the name. “Whoa. That snake! He’s been down there Havana-way doing his senorita and drinking rum for twenty years. That’s what I hear.”

“Twenty- six years.”

“I hear the man’s crazy,” Sam said. “Complete loony tune. Of course, he was always dealing with a deck that only had fortynine cards. He’s vermin, you know. Ratted out a lot of good CIA people. Why’s his name in play?”

“A little birdie told me he wants to come home,” Alex said.

“Ha! That shows you how crazy he is. The CIA has a price on his head. There’s bad, bad blood there. Be careful.”

“May I speak off the record, Sam?”

“Everything’s off the record. You see any record? There is no record.”

“Violette is claiming he has a bag of goodies that he filched from the Cuban government,” Alex said. “He might be looking to trade them for a ticket out.”

“Might be, eh? Who wouldn’t?” Sam snorted.

“Do you think Violette was ever in a position to score some good intelligence?” she asked. “Does his story wash?”

Sam pondered. “It might.” Sam then said, “Violette had access, if that’s what you’re asking. Who knows what he might have swiped?”

“Thanks,” she said.

“Don’t thank me. Thank Violette.” Sam had a faraway look, then came back to earth. “Bloody Cubans,” Sam said. “They deserve better. As much as I hate Castro and his whole red crew, I can’t say he’s worse than Batista. It’s like Russia. Who was worse? Czar Nicholas II or Lenin?”

“Depends which Russian you were.”

“Yup. Just like it depends which Cuban you were. If you were mobbed up or the owner of a sugar plantation, Batista was your man. What did they call him? El Mulato Lindo? If you were a peasant in Santiago or if your sister had been turned into a prostitute by fat American tourists, then Fidel or Che were your guys.” Sam lightened. “My kid came home with a Che T-shirt when he was twelve. I ripped it off him and threw the lousy thing away. I said, ‘Che? You want to know about Che?’ Che performed the same role for Fidel Castro as Felix Drezhinsky performed for Lenin and Himmler did for Hitler. Guevara was Castro’s chief executioner. Under Che, Havana’s La Cabana fortress was converted into Cuba’s Lubianka. Know your Russians and Russian history, Alex?”

“Reasonably well.”

“Che was a Chekist: ‘Interrogate your prisoners at night,’ Che told his goons. ‘A man’s resistance is lower at night.’ I knew this Cuban prosecutor in the ‘60s who defected: Jose Vilasuso. Jose estimated that Che signed four hundred death warrants the first months in La Cabana. I knew a Basque priest named Iaki de Aspiazu who did final confessions and last rites. He said that Che ordered seven hundred executions by firing squad during the period. Some Cuban journalists who later defected claimed Che sent two thousand men to the firing squad. Ever heard of a CIA guy named Felix Rodriguez?”

“No. What about him?”

“He was the Cuban-American CIA operative who helped track down Che in Bolivia. He was the last person to question him. He says that during that final talk, Che admitted to a couple thousand executions. But he shrugged them off. Said they were all imperialist spies and CIA agents. That’s your heroic Che.”

“You have your point of view, Sam,” Alex answered.

“Well you came to listen, right? And to learn?”

“I did indeed, Sam.”

Sam finished his drink. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes before three. “Hey. I got to scram,” he said. “I’ll ask around about Guarneri. My man in Havana. Wasn’t that a book?”

“Our Man in Havana. Graham Greene,” she said.

“Yeah. Brit writer. That’s it. I liked that one. Do you read a lot?”

“When I have time,” she said.

“Yeah, you look like you might. Your brain’s as sharp as your body.”

They walked back along 57 thStreet, with MacPhail and Ramirez trailing behind. The sidewalks were crowded. Sam took a cell phone call but quickly dispatched it. When they reached the southeast corner of 57 that Fifth, Sam stopped again before going back to work. “There’s a couple of things that’d be good for you to remember.”