“Who sent you here?”
Louie stared right at Melchior, but Melchior wasn’t sure if he saw him or not. “¿Qué?”
“I’ll tell your wife where you’re buried,” Melchior said in a soft voice. “Just tell me who sent you here.”
Louie chewed air, but he seemed to be coming back to himself. The plates of his broken pelvis pushed visibly against his skin, but he tried to put on a brave face.
“I don’t got a wife, tell my mother.” He managed a wet chuckle, then said, “Same folks sent me as sent you, I’m willing to bet.”
“I been in this pissant country two years. Whoever sent me here don’t even know I’m alive anymore. So drop the macho act and tell me who you’re working for. Is it just Momo, or is he representing outside interests?”
For the first time Louie seemed to realize that his captor knew who he was. He peered at Melchior curiously.
“Officially? Paychecks come via a sausage factory in New Orleans, but everyone knows it’s a Company front. Banister’s the cutout, but according to him the authority comes from higher up.”
“Banister’s a prick who’d say just about anything. But just for kicks: did he say it was Bobby or Jack or both?”
“Little brother.”
“And did he say why Bobby Kennedy’d risk his and his brother’s careers to hire the Chicago Organization to kill Fidel Castro, when he’s got the whole CIA to do it?”
Louie coughed out another weak, wincing laugh. “Cuz Castro’s still alive, you dipshit.”
Melchior had to give that one to Louie. “What plan did they come up with for you?”
Louie rolled his eyes. “Poison pills. We was supposed to get them in his food somehow.” He turned his head and spat blood. “You?”
“Exploding cigars.” Melchior laughed, then jerked a thumb at the mill. “This is a little far from the Plaza de la Revolución.”
Louie’s eyes glazed over, and Melchior wasn’t sure if he was dying, or thinking what his life might’ve been like if he’d managed to complete his deal. He could feel Louie’s blood warming his knees as it soaked into the ground and was just about to kick the gangster when his eyes snapped back into focus.
“You got any rum?”
“Does a Cuban dog have fleas?”
“No more than a Cuban whore. Gimme a taste, and I’ll tell you what you want to know. I’d just as soon go out of this world like I came into it: drunk.”
Melchior pulled Eddie Bayo’s bottle from his jacket and held it to Louie’s mouth. Louie wrapped his lips around the neck and drank the smoky liquid like lemonade.
“Jesus,” Melchior said when Louie finally came up for air. “That would hurt me more than getting shot in the hip.”
“Yeah? Gimme your gun and let’s find out.”
Melchior laughed. He’d always been partial to a wiseass.
“So: Bobby sent you here to kill Castro. You didn’t kill Castro but you’re still here. What gives?”
Louie burped and spat more blood. “Bastard pulled the plug. Left us high and dry just like Jack did the Brigade.” The disgust was audible in Louie’s voice. “That’s the problem with those smug Paddies. They don’t follow through.”
“Yeah, yeah, save it for the campaign trail. Do they know about tonight’s meet? Does anyone?”
Now it was pride that filled Louie’s voice. “Sam said there’s always a way to make money in Cuba. Sugar, gambling, girls. But not even Sam knows about this.”
“What about the Russians?”
“Vassily—that was the guy I was nice enough to shoot for you—Vassily says Russia’s barely getting by. The people don’t trust the government and the government don’t trust itself. There’s Khrushchev and his guys on one side, the hard-liners on the other. KGB’s got their own agenda, Red Army’s got theirs. If you worked them for once, put one against the other instead-a messing around in no-account places like Cuba, you might actually manage to win the Cold War.”
“Yeah, but then guys like me would be out of a job.”
Louie’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said the Company didn’t know you was here. So who’re you working for? Castro pay you off? The Reds?”
Melchior couldn’t keep from smirking. “Let’s just say one little brother’s gonna have to buy me back from another.”
“Segundo?” Louie pursed his lips, but all that came out was a wet stream of air. “I heard that when the fighting was over in ’59 it was him who lined up what was left of Batista’s men and shot them all. I’d take Bobby over that cold-blooded motherfucker any day—and I fucking hate those Paddy bastards.”
“You do realize your boss gave Kennedy Chicago, which gave him Illinois, which gave him the election? What in hell have you got against him, besides the fact that he’s Irish?”
“Ain’t that enough?” Louie’s laugh turned into a cough, and he spat up what seemed like a mouthful of blood. “Garza,” he said when he could talk again. “Luis.”
It took Melchior a moment to get it. “You’re … Cuban?”
“Can’t keep fucking with someone’s country and not expect consequences. And Cubans is like Italians. They ain’t ashamed to play dirty if that’s the only way to win.”
Louie broke off, panting heavily, but otherwise holding it together. Not crying and carrying on like Eddie Bayo, begging for mercy like a bully with a bloody nose. Melchior thought he would’ve liked the guy, if the circumstances had been different.
“I’m getting tired,” Louis said now, “and my hip hurts like you can’t imagine. Are we done with the twenty questions?”
“Just one more thing.” Melchior jerked his thumb at the mill. “Are the keys in the truck?”
Boston, MA
October 27, 1963
He had a bottle in his car. Vodka rather than gin. “Doesn’t need a mixer,” he said by way of explanation. She told him her landlady didn’t allow coed guests (“Neither does mine”) but if he was surprised that she insisted on this particular motel, so far out in East Boston that it was practically at Logan Airport, he managed to hide it. When he excused himself to go to the bathroom, she poured a pair of drinks and pulled the glassine Morganthau had given her from her purse.
Sometimes the stamps were blank, sometimes they had pictures on them. A rising sun, a cartoon character, one of the Founding Fathers. These depicted a bearded man. She thought it was Castro at first—it was the kind of joke she’d come to expect from the Company—then realized it was actually a William Blake engraving. One of his gods. What was this one called? Orison? No, that was some kind of prayer. Origen? She couldn’t remember.
She was about to drop the stamps into Chandler’s drink when she heard a door in the next room. She looked up and there was the mirror. It hung over the dresser, screwed tightly to the plaster. Naz had been in this room enough times to know that if you got right next to it you could see that it was recessed an inch into the wall. A design flaw, she’d thought—how many five-dollar motels went to that kind of trouble?—but Morganthau told her it minimized the dark corners out of camera range.
She stared at the mirror for a long moment. Then, making sure her actions were fully visible, pulled both stamps from the glassine, dropped one in Chandler’s glass, the other in hers. She swished with her fingers, and in a second they were gone.
“Cheers,” she said to the mirror.
“I suppose if I looked as good as you, I’d toast myself too.”
She whipped around. Chandler stood in the bathroom doorway, his face wet, his hair freshly combed. He’d taken off his jacket and his white shirt hugged his slim torso. Her heart fluttered beneath her blouse. What am I doing? she said to herself, but before she could answer her question, she brought her glass to her lips. Warm vodka rasped down her throat like sandpaper, and she had to fight to keep the grimace off her face.