Trafficante lined up a make-believe putt. “Good. And I’ll set you up with a guide. He’ll drive you around and take you and the UP man to the airport. He’ll rob you before he drops you off, but that’s as good as the help gets with these fucking Reds in power.”
o o o
A croupier supplied directions to the house–Tom Gordean threw a torch party there just last week. Jesús the guide said Mr. Tom burned a mean cane field–he was hot to revamp his fascisto image.
Jesús wore jungle fatigues and a baseball cap. He drove a Volkswagen with a hood-mounted machine gun.
They took dirt roads out of Havana. Jesús steered with one hand and blasted palm trees simultaneous. Sizzling cane fields lit the sky up orange-pink–torch parties were a big deal in postBatista Cuba.
Phone poles blipped by. Fidel Castro’s face adorned every one.
Pete saw house lights in the distance–two hundred yards or so up. Jesús pulled into a clearing dotted with palm stumps.
He eased in like he knew where he was going. He didn’t gesture or say one fucking word.
It felt wrong. It felt prearranged.
Jesús braked and doused his headlights. A torch whooshed the second they snapped off.
Light spread out over the clearing. Pete saw a Cadillac ragtop, six spics, and a white man reeling drunk.
Jesús said, “That is Señor Tom.”
The spics had sawed-off shotguns. The Caddy was stuffed with luggage and mink coats.
Jesús jumped out and jabbered spic to the spics. The spics waved to the gringo in the Volkswagen.
The minks were piled above the door line. U.S. currency was bulging out of a suitcase.
Pete caught on, dead solid perfect.
Thomas Gordean was weaving. He was waving a bottle of Demerara rum. He was putting out a line of pro-Commie jive talk.
He was slurring his words. He was dead drunk working on dead.
Pete saw torches ready to light Pete saw a gas can sitting on a tree stump.
Gordean kept spritzing. He got up a fucking A-#l Commie cliché head of steam.
Jesús huddled with the spics. They waved at the gringo again. Gordean puked on the hood of the Caddy.
Pete slid next to the machine gun. The spics turned away and went for their waistbands.
Pete fired. One tight swivel at their backs cut them down. The ack-ack sent a flock of birds up squawking.
Gordean hit the ground and curled himself up fetal-tight. The bullet spread missed him by inches.
The spics died screaming. Pete strafed their bodies into pulp. Cordite and muzzle-scorched entrails formed one putrid smell combination.
Pete poured gas on the stiffs and the Volkswagen and torched them. A box of .50-caliber ammo exploded.
Señor Tom Gordean was passed out cold.
Pete tossed him in the backseat of the Caddy. The mink coats made a cozy little bed.
He checked the luggage. He saw a shitload of money and stock certificates.
Their flight left at dawn. Pete found a road map in the glove compartment and marked a route back to Havana.
He got in the Caddy and punched it. French-fried palm trees provided a glow to drive by.
o o o
He made the airport before first light. Friendly militiamen swamped El Señor Mitchum.
Tom Gordean woke up with the shakes. Pete fed him rum-and-Cokes to keep him docile. The spics nationalized the money and furs–no big surprise.
Pete signed Robert Mitchum autographs. Some Comnue commissar escorted them to the plane.
The pilot said, “You’re not Robert Mitchum.”
Pete said, “No shit, Sherlock.”
Gordean dozed off. The other passengers eyeballed them–they reeked of gasoline and liquor.
The plane landed at 7:00 a.m. Kemper Boyd met them. He handed Pete an envelope containing five thousand dollars.
Boyd was juuuuust a tad nervous. Boyd was more than just a tad dismissive.
He said, “Thanks, Pete. Take that jitney into town with the other people, all right? I’ll call you in L.A. in a few days.”
He got five grand. Boyd got Gordean and a suitcase full of stock shares. Gordean looked bewildered. Boyd looked quintessentially un-Boyd.
Pete hopped on the jitney. He saw Boyd steer Gordean to a storage hut.