Grace Kelly. But Eleanor was a reporter, not a starlet, and had ink stains on her fingers and wore black-frame glasses that nearly hid those wonderful brown eyes.
“May I buy you a drink?”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Lord, no,” she said. “I’m still working. We put out a morning paper, Mr. Turner.”
“Then where?”
“Tonight, I’ll want to listen to some Charlie Parker and take my shoes off and stretch out on my sofa and rest off this godforsaken day about that godforsaken man.”
“Ten? Eleven?”
“Eleven,” she said. “God, I hope we’re done by then. Who knows—we might even know the killer.”
“Cute.”
“I don’t joke about that kind of stuff, Virginian.” She turned and then smiled. “Funny running into you here. I was just popping in to see who was about.”
FOUR HUNDRED miles away, at the end of the Calle Obispo in Havana, Santo Trafficante Jr., in his black glasses and graying crew cut, sat down to a lobster plate at the Floridita with an aging movie star best known for playing rogue cops and edgy hit men. Santo was in his midforties, and conservatively dressed in a lightweight khaki suit and brown shoes. He sipped on a Cuba Libre, just to be social, and listened to George Raft talk about a picture he’d just made with Ginger Rogers called Black Widow . Of course, Santo knew Raft as the coin-flipping villain in Scarface, and as the truck driver in a movie he’d made with Bogart. The man had been making pictures since they invented movie houses.
Jimmy Longo, an associate of Santo’s, big and beefy and uncomfortable with a flowered tie choking his neck, joined them at the white linen table, listening to a young Cuban woman in a red dress singing a song about faded love in Spanish, accompanied by two guitar players and a small boy with maracas. The woman was dark, with a deep voice, and sang as if she knew all about faded love.
Santo missed his wife back home in Tampa. Their two daughters. His mother, newly widowed. Cuba was an amusement park of business, even if it was lobster dinners every night with movie stars and beautiful women in red dresses serenading you.
“This is going to be big, bigger than the Nacional. Bigger than the Tropicana,” Raft said, smiling with a big thick Cohiba plugged in the side of his mouth. “Three hundred and fifty rooms. Twenty-one stories.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Lansky is calling it the Riviera,” Raft said. “He’s got a space right off the Malecón. You’ll be able to see the whole bay from the swimming pool. This place is going to be the finest hotel the world has ever seen. How about that?”
The room was all red velvet, with monogrammed china and silver and tuxedoed waiters who refilled your water glass after every sip. Santo finished up the lobster paella and took another sip of the Cuba Libre. He lit a cigarette and leaned back into the chair. A woman at the next table was talking about seeing Hemingway down at the bar telling a joke about a monkey who could play poker.
“I think this place is going to make Havana overflow,” Raft said. “We wouldn’t have a free room at the Capri. We’re estimating ten million in just the first year.”
“I don’t trust them.”
“Accountants?”
“Estimates.”
Jimmy Longo grew bored with whatever money Raft was trying to pull off his boss for another roulette wheel or another wing of rooms or some kind of special VIP deal that would make the Capri the best. Santo watched the big man lean back in his chair and motion over the waiter for dessert. That’s why he loved the guy. Not because he’d saved his life back in Tampa that time, but because he cared more about coconut Cuban ice cream than big deals and millions.
“Co-co-nut,” Longo said to the water guy. “Ice cream.”
“Helado,” Santo said.
That’s why he’d made it in Cuba bigger than any of these hoods from New York. He’d grown up in Ybor City, and could switch from Italian to Spanish without thinking and
“May I buy you a drink?”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Lord, no,” she said. “I’m still working. We put out a morning paper, Mr. Turner.”
“Then where?”
“Tonight, I’ll want to listen to some Charlie Parker and take my shoes off and stretch out on my sofa and rest off this godforsaken day about that godforsaken man.”
“Ten? Eleven?”
“Eleven,” she said. “God, I hope we’re done by then. Who knows—we might even know the killer.”
“Cute.”
“I don’t joke about that kind of stuff, Virginian.” She turned and then smiled. “Funny running into you here. I was just popping in to see who was about.”
FOUR HUNDRED miles away, at the end of the Calle Obispo in Havana, Santo Trafficante Jr., in his black glasses and graying crew cut, sat down to a lobster plate at the Floridita with an aging movie star best known for playing rogue cops and edgy hit men. Santo was in his midforties, and conservatively dressed in a lightweight khaki suit and brown shoes. He sipped on a Cuba Libre, just to be social, and listened to George Raft talk about a picture he’d just made with Ginger Rogers called Black Widow . Of course, Santo knew Raft as the coin-flipping villain in Scarface, and as the truck driver in a movie he’d made with Bogart. The man had been making pictures since they invented movie houses.
Jimmy Longo, an associate of Santo’s, big and beefy and uncomfortable with a flowered tie choking his neck, joined them at the white linen table, listening to a young Cuban woman in a red dress singing a song about faded love in Spanish, accompanied by two guitar players and a small boy with maracas. The woman was dark, with a deep voice, and sang as if she knew all about faded love.
Santo missed his wife back home in Tampa. Their two daughters. His mother, newly widowed. Cuba was an amusement park of business, even if it was lobster dinners every night with movie stars and beautiful women in red dresses serenading you.
“This is going to be big, bigger than the Nacional. Bigger than the Tropicana,” Raft said, smiling with a big thick Cohiba plugged in the side of his mouth. “Three hundred and fifty rooms. Twenty-one stories.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Lansky is calling it the Riviera,” Raft said. “He’s got a space right off the Malecón. You’ll be able to see the whole bay from the swimming pool. This place is going to be the finest hotel the world has ever seen. How about that?”
The room was all red velvet, with monogrammed china and silver and tuxedoed waiters who refilled your water glass after every sip. Santo finished up the lobster paella and took another sip of the Cuba Libre. He lit a cigarette and leaned back into the chair. A woman at the next table was talking about seeing Hemingway down at the bar telling a joke about a monkey who could play poker.
“I think this place is going to make Havana overflow,” Raft said. “We wouldn’t have a free room at the Capri. We’re estimating ten million in just the first year.”
“I don’t trust them.”
“Accountants?”
“Estimates.”
Jimmy Longo grew bored with whatever money Raft was trying to pull off his boss for another roulette wheel or another wing of rooms or some kind of special VIP deal that would make the Capri the best. Santo watched the big man lean back in his chair and motion over the waiter for dessert. That’s why he loved the guy. Not because he’d saved his life back in Tampa that time, but because he cared more about coconut Cuban ice cream than big deals and millions.
“Co-co-nut,” Longo said to the water guy. “Ice cream.”
“Helado,” Santo said.
That’s why he’d made it in Cuba bigger than any of these hoods from New York. He’d grown up in Ybor City, and could switch from Italian to Spanish without thinking and
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