younger, poorer than richer and that if you want people to think you have a limp, put a rock in your shoe. That way, you’ll actually limp.
So when I went to the apartment of Nick Balsalmo’s girlfriend in Little Havana, I tried to look as innocuous as possible, since I wasn’t sure if I was going to stumble onto a dead body, or a booby trap or a bunch of bikers waiting to kill whoever showed up at his house. I opted for jeans, a T-shirt, a straw hat and ugly shoes with no socks. Looking obviously lost is a good way to avoid trouble, even in a war zone.
I also had two guns on me, because there’s never been a single person who thought being overly armed was a bad thing. When you’re not sure how many bullets you might need, bring as many as you can hold.
Little Havana is just that: little. Densely packed with businesses, shops, bars, the streets of Little Havana feel like they’ve been cut and pasted into Miami from any of a dozen towns in Cuba. Salsa and merengue bleat through cars and the open windows of small apartments above storefronts and there seems to be an open-air restaurant on every corner.
For the most part, Little Havana is safe. There are plenty of families, which means people tend to look out for their own, but then there’s also plenty of Families, too, so the crime in Little Havana can be organized and brutal. That Nick Balsalmo, who wasn’t Cuban, was living in Little Havana with his girlfriend didn’t necessarily mean that he was being protected, but a guy like him living in the same neighborhood as Cuban crime families meant something.
The address Bruce gave me was a three-story stucco apartment building not far from the domino park off of Calle Ocho where, even though it was getting late in the afternoon, old-timers in guayaberas were still throwing bones and whooping at one another. On one side of the building was a liquor store and on the other was a cigar shop and then two doors down there was a McDonald’s and a Domino’s. That was the weird thing about Little Havana—it looked like Cuba apart from how much it looked like any neighborhood in Any-town, U.S.A.
Nick and his girlfriend—whom Bruce only knew as Maria—lived on the second floor of the building. The front door of the building was locked and required the person living in the apartment to buzz you up, so I found Maria’s name and hit the button. The system rang their number and a mechanical voice announced that their voice mail was full.
Not a good sign.
The door had an electric strike lock activated by discontinuing the electrical circuit by hitting a number (or a series of numbers) on the phone’s keypad. These locks usually confound people intent on breaking in because they don’t understand how easy they are to break. Most electric strike locks in older buildings are fail-safe, which means they need electricity to stay locked, which gives you two easy options:
Find the electrical path to the door in the wall and yank out the cords.
Go to the side of the building, find the power box, and turn off the power. You might need to pick the padlock on the box, but as long as you have two paper clips, this should take only about five seconds.
Or you can do what I did: Wait three minutes for a young woman to walk out the door, smile at her, say “thanks” and she will hold the door open for you while you gather your materials and walk inside. The nice thing about people is that they are usually very polite and helpful, even when letting perfect strangers into their home.
I climbed a flight of stairs to the second- floor landing and made my way down the hall. There were six apartments on the floor and all of them, except for the one at the end of the hall, had their front doors wide open. As I passed each one, I could hear the drone of televisions, the cacophony of too many people in a small space having arguments and the wail of more than one child. I peered into each apartment and was struck by how similar they
So when I went to the apartment of Nick Balsalmo’s girlfriend in Little Havana, I tried to look as innocuous as possible, since I wasn’t sure if I was going to stumble onto a dead body, or a booby trap or a bunch of bikers waiting to kill whoever showed up at his house. I opted for jeans, a T-shirt, a straw hat and ugly shoes with no socks. Looking obviously lost is a good way to avoid trouble, even in a war zone.
I also had two guns on me, because there’s never been a single person who thought being overly armed was a bad thing. When you’re not sure how many bullets you might need, bring as many as you can hold.
Little Havana is just that: little. Densely packed with businesses, shops, bars, the streets of Little Havana feel like they’ve been cut and pasted into Miami from any of a dozen towns in Cuba. Salsa and merengue bleat through cars and the open windows of small apartments above storefronts and there seems to be an open-air restaurant on every corner.
For the most part, Little Havana is safe. There are plenty of families, which means people tend to look out for their own, but then there’s also plenty of Families, too, so the crime in Little Havana can be organized and brutal. That Nick Balsalmo, who wasn’t Cuban, was living in Little Havana with his girlfriend didn’t necessarily mean that he was being protected, but a guy like him living in the same neighborhood as Cuban crime families meant something.
The address Bruce gave me was a three-story stucco apartment building not far from the domino park off of Calle Ocho where, even though it was getting late in the afternoon, old-timers in guayaberas were still throwing bones and whooping at one another. On one side of the building was a liquor store and on the other was a cigar shop and then two doors down there was a McDonald’s and a Domino’s. That was the weird thing about Little Havana—it looked like Cuba apart from how much it looked like any neighborhood in Any-town, U.S.A.
Nick and his girlfriend—whom Bruce only knew as Maria—lived on the second floor of the building. The front door of the building was locked and required the person living in the apartment to buzz you up, so I found Maria’s name and hit the button. The system rang their number and a mechanical voice announced that their voice mail was full.
Not a good sign.
The door had an electric strike lock activated by discontinuing the electrical circuit by hitting a number (or a series of numbers) on the phone’s keypad. These locks usually confound people intent on breaking in because they don’t understand how easy they are to break. Most electric strike locks in older buildings are fail-safe, which means they need electricity to stay locked, which gives you two easy options:
Find the electrical path to the door in the wall and yank out the cords.
Go to the side of the building, find the power box, and turn off the power. You might need to pick the padlock on the box, but as long as you have two paper clips, this should take only about five seconds.
Or you can do what I did: Wait three minutes for a young woman to walk out the door, smile at her, say “thanks” and she will hold the door open for you while you gather your materials and walk inside. The nice thing about people is that they are usually very polite and helpful, even when letting perfect strangers into their home.
I climbed a flight of stairs to the second- floor landing and made my way down the hall. There were six apartments on the floor and all of them, except for the one at the end of the hall, had their front doors wide open. As I passed each one, I could hear the drone of televisions, the cacophony of too many people in a small space having arguments and the wail of more than one child. I peered into each apartment and was struck by how similar they
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