Carmine said, "The CIA comes up with exotic poisons one after another. They all end up in the toilets of South Florida."
"But if we want to clip this Castro," Tony said.
"The word is feasible or not feasible. We don't go on fools' errands." He stared at the glass in his hand. "Then there's the other theory why Castro's still alive. One of our people in Florida made a deal with him."
Tony Astorina stood against the wall across the room. Ferrie saw in him the ruins of a certain kind of grace. He was one of those nervy sharp-dressing kids who wake up at age forty, ruefully handsome, with a wife, three babies and a liver condition, the adolescent luck and charm lost in mounting body fat. He'd worked his way from the floor of the gaming room at the Riviera in Havana. Ferrie thought he'd probably built some corpses in order to be standing where he was now.
Tony said, "Speaking of Cuba, a couple of weeks ago I dream I'm swimming on the Capri roof with Jack Ruby. The next day I'm on Bourbon Street, who do I fucking see? You talk about coincidence. "
"We don't know what to call it, so we say coincidence. It goes deeper," Ferrie said. "You're a gambler. You get a feeling about a horse, a poker hand. There's a hidden principle. Every process contains its own outcome. Sometimes we tap in. We see it, we know. I used to run into Jack Ruby now and then. What was he doing in New Orleans?"
"Shopping for dancers. There's a girl at the Sho-Bar he's salivating. "
"I was making leaflet runs in a light plane out of the Keys. A little while after Castro came in. I saw Ruby in Miami once or twice."
"Stop-offs," Tony said.
"He was running cash or arms or something."
"He was buying people out of Cuban jails."
Ferrie was drinking scotch and soda, same as Carmine. He was watching Carmine. They shook their glasses simultaneously, rattling the cubes. The old man's hands were long and thin. His ears were tufted with snowy hair. Ferrie smelled the roasting goat.
Tony Push said, "I remember I seen a picture six, seven months ago in a magazine. Anti-aircraft guns outside the Riviera. Dug in right in the street. Which comes a long way from what we had there. A whole city to pluck like a fruit."
"A whole country," Carmine said.
"It was fucking paradise, Havana, then. The casino was gold-leaf walls. I mean beautiful. We had beautiful chandeliers, women in diamonds and mink stoles. The dealers wore tuxedos. We had greeters at the door in tuxedos. Twenty-five thousand for a casino license, which is the steal of all time, plus twenty percent of the profits. Batista gets his envelope, everybody's happy. We let the Cubans turn the wheel. We did the blackjack and craps. What's it called, brocade, the fucking drapes. I like to see a room where the dealers wear a tux. Plus there's action all over town. Your cockfights, your jai alai. At the track you play roulette between races. I mean tell me where it went."
"Kennedy should have blown it up when he had the chance," Ferrie said.
"You blow up Cuba, you get the Russians."
"I've got my rubber bedsheets all ready. An eternity of canned food. I like the idea of living in shelters. You go in the woods and dig your personal latrine. The sewer system is a form of welfare state. It's a government funnel to the sea. I like to think of people being independent, digging latrines in the woods, in a million backyards. Each person is responsible for his own shit."
Carmine rocked on the sofa. The ice cubes rattled. Ferrie knew he could make Carmine laugh just about any time he wanted. He always knew the moment, always sensed the approach to take. This was because he shared the man's perceptions.
"One thing, I have to say it," Tony said. "I don't bear no feeling against the President one way or the other. It's this rat fink Bobby that's pushing too hard. I say all right. They have their job, we have ours. But he's making it like some personal program. He crosses the line."
"They both cross the line," Carmine said. "The President crossed the line when he put out the word he wanted Castro dead. Let me tell you something."
"What?"
"I want to tell you a little thing you should always remember. If somebody's giving you trouble, again, again, again, again, somebody with ambitions, somebody with a greed for territory, the first thing you consider is go right to the top."
"In other words you take action at the highest level."
"That's where they're letting it get out of hand."
"In other words you bypass."
"You clean out the number one position."
"In other words you arrange it so there's a new man at the top who gets the message and makes a change in the policy."
"You cut off the head, the tail doesn't wag."
David Ferrie loved a proverb. He loved the feeling of being swept into another man's aura. A power aura like Carmine's was a special state of awakening. The man was like a fairy-tale pope, able to look at you and change your life, say a word and change your life. Ferrie had devised a theology based on militant anticommu-nism. He was a sometime master of hypnotism. He studied languages, studied political theory, knew diseases intimately, had official records of his skill as a pilot. All this paled in the presence of a man like Carmine Latta.
Carmine had a battle column of lawyers with millions ready to spend against repeated government attacks. He had men working on conspiracy to defraud, obstruction of justice, perjury, a thousand pain-in-the-ass details. Carmine had Ferrie doing research on tax liens. He had state officials and bank presidents making personal pleas on his behalf. Carmine and the boys were the state's biggest industry. Carmine had finance companies, gas stations, truck dealerships, taxi fleets, bars, restaurants, housing subdivisions. Carmine had a man who washed his pocket money in Ivory liquid to keep it germ-free.
Now Ferrie followed Tony Astorina down a hall flanked by simple bedrooms. On the floor of the last room stood a tall canvas bag laced at the top. Ferrie could see the square bulges the stacks of money made. A gift from Carmine to the cause. Guy Banister saw to it that exile leaders knew who was providing cash for arms and ammunition. It was Latta's bid for gambling concessions after Castro fell.
Back in the living room Ferrie said, "I'll take it straight to Camp Street, Carmine. They'll be very happy, very grateful. All through the movement."
"We all look forward to the day," Carmine said softly. "We only want what's ours."
Ferrie believed there was a genius in the man. Carmine was born in the mid 1880s to an Italian father and Persian mother, at sea, under the sign of Taurus. This was a powerful blend of elements. Ferrie admired Taureans. They were generous people, steadfast and tolerant, with a gift for empire.
He carried the duffel bag to the car. He waved to the boys and drove out to the main road. Astrology is the language of the night sky, of starry aspect and position, the truth at the edge of human affairs.