Storm Clouds Over Havana by Mike Marino (novel24 .txt) 📕

“Yeah,  sure in Pilar’s pack. What’s the rush?”

“Sit down and let’s have a drink first,” he said with an edge to his voice as sharp as a farmers machete. “We have a problem, we need to resolve.”

Pilar looked at me with the fire of fear in her eyes. I have to admit, I wasn’t feeling like Superman myself. “What kind of problem, Scalisi?”

Lansky spelled it out simply…”You and Pilar are the problem. We need to get this straightened out. You’re getting too close to the truth.”

“Truth? About what?” I blurted out with anger fueling my words.

“The Santiago murder. We didn’t think you would be so efficient in digging into it. Now, OUR problem. What do we do with you? Remember, it’s only business.”

Business to Lansky and to the CIA could mean only one thing. We were now in the crosshairs of a kill zone…...

I was up against the proverbial wall without a thought in hell of how I was going to breach the barrier. “You haven’t really contacted the State Department about this, or anyone for that matter, did you Scalisi. Why’d you lie about this? What’s the big deal anyway? What the hell is going on?” I demanded with as much gusto as a condemned man does when he asks for a last meal of steak and potatoes, a final bungle in the jungle conjugal visit with the warden’s daughter and a Turkish cigarette.

Lansky, the Merlin of Murder  started to put the pieces of the puzzle together for us in plain Brooklyn English. “You see Mickey, we have a good thing going here, and we like it just the way it is. We practically have our country, we OWN Cuba!  Americans own most the manufacturing plants, supermarkets, and all of the tourist facilities. Casinos, hotels, bars, and of course the bordello’s”

“Whore houses you mean.”

“I dislike that term, but yes, we control the prostitution and gambling and hotel action. It’s better and bigger than Vegas. American banks also hold 25% of all bank deposits in Cuba not to mention American interests own 50% of the public railway system, the telephone and power companies. We have a friend in Batista. If he goes…..we go...and that’s not good business.”

I had also heard the mafia had their hooks in a Massachusetts senator, and son of the bootlegger Joe Kennedy. If he ran for president as they expect him too, and he wins….they would then own the White House! Chances were slim...he’s a Catholic, and no Catholic has a chance at the Beltway Brass Ring. Like Castro, perhaps no one will remember  him either. They’ll both be just two forgotten footnotes in a dusty encyclopedia.

Scalisi,  now that his tongue was limbered up with the help of  few drinks gave us the geo-political slant on affairs. “If Ike gives Castro the time of day...it’s telling the world we recognize his revolt as legitimate and we’re turning our backs on Batista. Castro would then have more validity...prestige…. and this may even push the remaining population on the island over to his side...that would be a wake up call to the masses to overthrow the current regime. Ike a leftist? How would that look to our allies around the world?”

I could see I was going up against a formidable double team of politics and greed. “What were Pilar and I  doing that was going to upset your pineapple cart, and goddamn it,  why are we your guests or should I say prisoner...or don’t you like that term either. Meyer, we’ve been friends for a long time, now our relationship is coming apart like a cheap suit at Sears.”

Lansky of course had an answer for everything, including why Pilar/Sienna and I were expendable now. “You were getting nowhere in fixing the blame on Castro for the death of the beloved Santiago. A saint in the publishing world. Soon you would aim your sights on Batista, who is guilty of many things, but I can assure you, not Santiago’s demise.”

“I smell Langley in this, Meyer. Buster,  the CIA pulled this off? I can’t believe it, why?”

Buster explained, “No, it was not CIA, it was me, well and Meyer.  We  engineered it with to look like Castro did it. The CIA had no involvement and in fact has no clue... nor does Batista know that we did it. To them, cut and dry, it was Castro. We wanted to undermine his influence, but unfortunately it failed. He’s still...uh, viable. So now we have another plan and unfortunately, you are in the middle of it. ”

I can’t wait to hear this,” I said visibly shaken.

“In this Act or our staged production  Castro will be accused of killing a US citizen, a journalist in fact, which will cause a reaction from the White House and the American public. Respected journalist, Mickey Russo, killed by a firing squad as a spy posing as a journalist. Remember, you were recruited by Sean Donovan in New York so it will be a case of mistaken identity, or will it? You could be CIA, no one will confirm or deny, but either way, you are an American. Red, white and blue and all that jazz. Ike will come unglued and Castro will never get his backing or recognition,” Buster explained with self inflated pride at his Master Plan.

Lansky added a footnote...a big footnote.  “Not only that, but the island residents will be up in arms calling for his head on a platter when they find out he also ordered the execution of Sienna Santiago, his daughter.”

I had to laugh. “Killing me won’t get the reaction you think it will, the boys back at the bar in New York will simply drink themselves into oblivion toasting my ghost. As for his daughter you have to find her first! That will throw a monkey wrench into the gears.”

There was a pregnant pause, (I hate pauses that get knocked up)“We have found her Mickey, in fact she was never lost to be found,” Lansky pompously stated. “You really don’t know what’s going on here, do you?”  

“I guess not, what are you talking about?”

Buster got up walked over to Pilar and put his .45 against her head. “Let me spell it out, sort of the ABC’s of this little drama.” I felt the floor falling beneath my feet, no net to break my fall.  My whole world was falling apart at the seams.

“You see Mr. Russo, Sienna Santiago was sent to Mexico City to live with an aunt when she was younger when things were heating up here. We gave her a new identity, Pilar, for her own safety Santiago was getting death threats constantly from both sides. Many of those we created ourselves. We eventually, the CIA, actually Sean Donovan in New York had her brought  back to Cuba at  her request as Pilar to be with her father.  We forged documents showing she was indeed Pilar, a journalism student from Mexico City now enrolled at the university in Havana. Perfect cover. She wanted to be with her father so we arranged the charade but wanted to protect her identity so she wouldn’t be used as leverage in a tug of propaganda war. However, I arranged for her father’s assassination….”

At this point Pilar, Sienna, whoever she was now broke down in tears. She had no idea until now that her father was killed by Buster Scalisi and Meyer Lansky’s hired thugs. All along she thought, as did many, that Castro was indeed the architect of the murder.

Pilar was now in tears. “I had to keep this a secret from you so you wouldn’ be in any danger, I thought Castro did have him killed so I assumed the role  as a Castro activist on campus to get close to his student contact and runner Victoria so I’d have access to Castro. I wanted to kill him myself. Then you came along and I wanted you with your expertise to help me prove Castro was guilty. I wanted justice at all costs, and you were the key. I didn’t count on falling in love with you. Everything changed and after all the facts, I no longer believed he had anything to do with it...Mickey, please forgive me. I had no idea it would end up like this.”

Buster then put the frosting on the cake. “Remember the recent assassination attempt on Castro in the camp?  We were going to fix the blame on you and you would have been killed by the rebels which was our original plan to have a US citizen killed, have you killed, a such a shitfaced wake back in New York it would have been too. Well, It backfired, when this Victoria, the vigilant vigilante shot and killed our man,  but now we have you and Sienna to take the fall. We kill you and quietly dump your bodies in the Sierra Maestra where they will be found and life will go on as it has. Except you two won’t be around. Castro’s balls will be in Batista’s hands so to speak.”

“Mickey,” Lansky said almost paternally, “It’s just business. We have a good thing here and your two lives won’t matter.” I held Sienna close in my arms for what could be our last night on Earth. The revolution would go on without us….in fact as Meyer said, life will go on without us. At least Sienna and I would die in each other’s arms.

Soon it would be dawn….and then...bullets for breakfast!

It was all coming together now. Even Hemingway was privy to a portion of the puzzle. He’s good I have to admit. He never let on to me that Pilar was Sienna, the young girl who used to call him “grandpa Ernesto”.  Everyone involved knew something, but very few knew of us everything. It was as though each of us had one syllable of a zen haiku which is meaningless alone until the words were strung together in a necklace of the great No-Thing.

I was still holding a trembling Sienna. These were emotional aftershocks taking their toll on her and me as well. Suddenly one of Lansky’s gunmen standing guard outside burst through the door, as