Authors: Greg Dinallo
37
E
xcuse me? Excuse me?” I’m out of the car and hurrying into the cobblestoned shopping plaza. A group of old men around a table outside a coffeehouse look up as I approach. Two are playing dominos. The others, arms sagely folded across ample stomachs, kibitz between sips of café Cubano. “Cop-pelia?” I demand, pointing to the posters on the wall. “Cop-pelia? What’s Coppelia?”
They’re taken aback by my intensity at first; then their eyes crinkle with recognition. “Coppelia.
Sí, sí,
Coppelia.” One of the kibitzers pokes his corpulent colleague in the stomach. It swallows his finger to the knuckle. “Coppelia!” They all explode with laughter. A barrage of rapid Spanish follows. I make out words, phrases. “
Izquierdo . . . Calzada de Infanta . . . Ve-dado . . . contiguo Habana Libre
.” They’re pointing and gesturing this way and that. Directions! They’re giving me directions!
I hold up my hands to stop them and fetch the map from the car. The fat one screws his cigar into the corner of his mouth and takes the map from me. He angles it toward the light that comes from inside the shop, then finds what he’s after and begins to laugh.
I’m baffled. “What’s so funny? What?”
He points to something and shows it to the others. They’re
pointing and roaring with laughter again. The map finally makes its way back to me. One of them stabs a gnarled finger at it; and there, smack in the middle of downtown Havana, is the word COPPELIA.
I shrug and grin sheepishly. Like Havana’s major hotels and places of interest, Coppelia’s location is marked with a symbol and labeled in block letters. Whatever the hell it is, I’ve no doubt I’ll find the cash-filled container there.
“
Gracias, gracias
,” I call back as I return to the Lada wondering about Coppelia. A wax doll. A factory that makes dolls? Dolls exported to Russia?! Coppelia. A ballet. The national ballet? Founded by expatriate Russians? Where a touring company is performing. A touring Russian company?! Yes, that sounds more like it. The container will join others in which costumes, lighting gear, and theatrical sets are shipped, and be smuggled into Russia when the troupe returns home!
Calzada de Infanta, a broad boulevard that cuts diagonally across the city, takes me to the Vedado District. The lights are brighter here, the streets progressively more crowded with pedestrians. I maneuver the creaking Lada between them and turn into Avenida Rampa. Up ahead, a large illuminated sign flashes COPPELIA. A long line of people snakes around the corner from the entrance. Ballet. It has to be the ballet. That’s odd. The building doesn’t resemble any theater I’ve ever seen. The two-story, star-shaped structure looks more like something from outer space that landed in a park. If I was curious before, I’m totally baffled now. Coppelia isn’t a doll factory. It isn’t a ballet. It isn’t a paper company either. Coppelia is a gigantic ice cream parlor.
A vague uneasiness begins gnawing at me. I leave the car and stroll through the park. It’s like a festive picnic ground filled with tables and chairs. There are two queues. One to buy tickets, the other to exchange them for immense scoops of ice cream. Very Russian. Very frustrating. Despite it, Coppelia is packed. Flirting teenagers. Couples holding hands. Children clutching melting cones, faces smeared with their favorite flavor.
I stop at one of the small tables and notice that the napkins bulging from the plastic dispenser do more than clean sticky hands and faces. They also tell the “Story of Coppelia” in several languages, explaining that twenty-five years ago Fidel Castro
decided his people would have quality ice cream. He put Celia Sanchez, his cultured revolutionary companion, in charge of the project. She named it Coppelia after her favorite ballet; she also designed the plaid skirts worn by the waitresses. It has since become a national institution, functioning as the heart of the city.
By the time I finish reading, I’ve circled the building. My eyes widen at the sight of a truck at the delivery entrance. It turns out to be a refrigerated van. The driver is stacking cardboard drums of ice cream on a handcart. A delivery at eight-thirty in the evening? Evidently, as the napkin boasts, Coppelia has never run out of ice cream and never will. There’s no sign of container 95824 anywhere.
I’m reeling with disappointment. Suddenly the vague uneasiness snaps into focus. Chilling, insidious, too painful to contemplate, it points an ugly finger at the identity of the insider. The thought makes me shudder. Losing track of the container is nothing compared to this. No, this—this
betrayal
—threatens everything: my sense of judgment, my confidence, my hunger for the truth. Indeed, if this is it, I’ve no desire to know it. I can’t accept what it portends. I can’t. No. No, it’s Gudonov. I know it is. It has to be Gudonov who’s on the inside.
I’m in need of sustenance, but it’s not ice cream that I crave. I plunge into a darkened lane behind the park. There’s one on every street here. No need to look for the sign. I can smell it at ten paces. The inside is dingy and decrepit like the rest of Havana. Like Moscow. About a dozen men perch on stools, brown arms encircling their beers, eyes riveted to a television where a baseball game is in progress. At the other end of the bar, a woman with heavy makeup and skimpy, tight-fitting clothes watches them with amusement.
The bartender drifts in my direction.
“Cerveza?”
he prompts, his head cocked to the television.
I put some money on the stained hardwood. “Vodka.”
One hand comes up with the bottle. The other with a squat tumbler. He fills it to the line without ever taking his eyes from the game.
“You have any ice? Ice.
Lyot. Khalodni.
Cold.”
“No. No hielo. Beisbol.”
He gestures to the television. “Linares.” He says it with pride and reverence. As if referring to a god.
The vodka goes down like water. The batter swings and misses. The men at the bar groan in unison. Linares is a god—as best I can gather, the star of the Cuban national team. He swings and misses again, and then again. My bar mates are devastated. The woman with the heavy makeup and skimpy clothes moves in to console them. This entrepreneur knows her market well.
An hour later, I’m staring into my third tumbler of room-temperature vodka, alternately feeling sorry for myself and wracking my brain for the whereabouts of the elusive container. I’m replaying the conversations I had with Rubineau in search of a clue when the pieces fall into place. There’s only one other spot in all of Havana it could be.
38
I
’m barreling west on the Malecon with my map of Havana spread across the steering wheel. Except for a few fishermen on bicycles, the Lada is the only thing with wheels moving on the six-lane boulevard that parallels the seawall.
In the distance, a modernistic Y-shaped building dominates the skyline. Sheathed in turquoise tile and cantilevered balconies, the twenty-story hotel towers over the placid ocean. Next to it, the infamous casino-turned-convention-center nestles like a gigantic Fabergé egg, its gilded shell shimmering in the darkness. A large sign flickers RIVIERA in green neon.
The service entrance is adjacent to the parking lot. A long driveway leads to a turnaround large enough to accommodate tractor-trailers. It’s blocked by a wooden barricade, but I’m close enough to see the eighteen-wheeler backed up to one of the loading docks. The steel shutter is rolled up, and the container on the rig’s flatbed mates neatly to the opening. Shafts of light stream from the narrow space around it, raking across the number on the container—number 95824! It’s clear and unmistakable. I stare at it for a long moment, verifying each numeral anyway.
My excitement is short-lived. The area beyond the barricade is fenced. Razor wire spirals across the top of the chain link.
Armed guards are posted at the gate. A German shepherd heels next to the one with the bulletproof vest. It’s a two-billion-dollar security package. Impenetrable.
I shift into reverse and swing around to leave. Two guards are standing in the Lada’s headlights. One levels his rifle at me. The other advances with a cocky stride and shines a flashlight in my face, then shifts it about the car’s interior. The map, the tan, the T-shirt, the camera on the passenger seat do their job. “
Turista
,” he grunts with a tired scowl.
The other nods sullenly. “
Parque de automóviles
.” He points toward the guest parking lot and steps aside. “
Parque de automóviles por convidados
.”
“Ah,” I reply with an insipid smile. “
Gracias, señor. Gracias
.” I resist the temptation to floor it and drive off slowly instead. Okay, Katkov. You’ve been officially declared a tourist; it’s time to act like one. Time to stop sneaking around. Time to hang the camera around your neck and walk in the front door. Why the hell not? After my face-to-face with Ray-Ban, I’ve little fear of being recognized.
The Riviera’s entrance is marked by a reflecting pool and large sculpture of a stylized mermaid and sea horse who seem entwined in procreative bliss. Like the rest of Havana, Meyer Lansky’s once-grand gaming palace is in desperate need of repair. The glass doors open into a shabby lobby where dusty chandeliers burn dimly. The marble floors look gritty and dull, the carpeting, drapery, and furniture threadbare. A few loiterers. A yawning bellman. An old man reading a newspaper. The Russian engineers who once frequented the convention center felt perfectly at home here.
The check-in desk is empty. I stroll past and come upon a marble atrium. A bank of hotel elevators on one side, the main entrance to the convention center on the other. It’s obvious this juxtaposition is no accident, obvious that in the old days, whether coming or going, guests had an inviting sightline into the casino. It’s blocked by a row of steel doors now. Closed. Locked. Sealed like a vault. A line of velvet ropes wards off straying guests. Small signs atop the stanchions warn CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC in several languages. No need for armed guards here. No need to call attention to the convention center’s current event.
Impenetrable security or not, there’s no way I’m leaving without
getting a look at the two-billion-dollar extravaganza going on inside. It dawns on me that the gaming equipment and furnishings were long ago removed, but from the looks of this place, there’s little chance the casino has even been repainted, let alone renovated. If that’s the case, if the interior is still intact, I’ve got a pretty good idea how I can pull it off.
I slip behind the velvet ropes and past the steel doors into a corridor that turns left and then right before reaching a door labeled
ADMINISTRACION
. It opens into what looks like a converted backstage area—high ceilings, concrete floor, a walled-off proscenium. The dressing rooms where famous entertainers once held court serve as convention offices now. Like the lobby, they’re shabby, ill-furnished, and unoccupied at this hour. They’re also disorienting. I’m searching for the convention center’s curving wall. A loud whirring noise comes from one of the offices. I freeze at the sound, then advance cautiously and peer through the doorway. An old woman, reminiscent of Moscow’s
babushkas
with their birch-twig brooms, is vacuuming the worn carpet. I wait until her back is turned and slip past the door, the sound of footsteps on concrete covered by the racket.
I finally come upon a curved section of corridor that rings the egg-shaped building. It leads to a makeshift storage area. Boxes of supplies are piled neatly in one corner. I’m about to move on when it dawns on me that they’re piled too neatly, rising in stepped tiers—rising like the staircase on which they’re stored! This is what I’ve been looking for.
The thought of how close I came to missing it makes me shudder. It’s obvious that the staircase isn’t used, that, as I suspected, the place hasn’t been renovated, that my plan to get a look inside the convention center might be about to pay off.
I pick my way between the cartons, climbing in darkness. The stairs lead to a landing that’s strung with cobwebs. I claw them aside and feel my way along the wall. My hand finds a light switch. Click-click. Nothing happens. It’s pitch-black up here. I strike a match. There’s only one door. It’s locked. The latch is formidable. The hinges are on the other side. The flame stings my fingers. I light another match to get my bearings and start back down.
The maid has moved on, her vacuum a distant hum now. I find the largest office, ostensibly that of the center’s manager, and rifle the desk. The kneehole drawer is cluttered with the
usual assortment of junk: pens, paperclips, pads, family snapshots, calculator, and a flashlight, which I pocket. In the back, beneath sheafs of notes and outdated schedules, I unearth two rings of keys. There must be several dozen on each. Some have paper tags affixed, but the notations are scribbled in Spanish.
I return to the landing. The flashlight makes the task a little easier, but the keys don’t. I’m into the second ring before one even slips into the lock. It’s a short-lived high. The key steadfastly refuses to turn. Maybe the lock’s jammed from lack of use. I jiggle the key, then force it left and right. It still won’t budge. I’m down to the last few keys when one finally engages the tumblers with a crisp click, and turns smoothly, withdrawing the dead bolt.
The door opens into the space above the convention center’s ceiling. I
am
right. It’s no longer a casino, but it’s all still here: security office, observation platforms, and two-way mirrors through which the gaming tables below were once surveilled. A pale glow comes through them, illuminating the network of catwalks above the hung ceiling. I crouch to one of the mirrors. It’s like being on a roof at night and looking down through a skylight. The massive hall below appears empty. Am I too late? Has the money already come and gone? Damn. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours. The rig and container are still here. I’m getting that hollow feeling when a muted, shuffling sound rises. I trace it to a group of angled mirrors in the center of the ceiling; and there, directly below me, is a mountain of plastic bags filled with money.
Other two-way mirrors reveal an assembly line operation, cranking at full tilt. No dealers, no pit bosses, no feverish players; but diligent money handlers, their machines, and two armed watchdogs: Ray-Ban, perched vigilantly atop a stool cradling a compact machine gun; and Rubineau’s bodyguard, the one from the elevator, outfitted in an impressive shoulder holster that hangs from his armpit to his waist.
I slip the camera from my pocket—the LCD panel indicates I used four of thirty-six exposures on the
Halifax
—and begin taking pictures through the mirrors. One gives me an angle on tables where the bags are opened and emptied, where the crude bundles of currency—all hundreds—are broken down.
Another mirror is positioned above a group of automated money-counting machines. Here, the currency is racked up in
long chutes and processed in lightning-fast bursts that pump out identical bundles of cash.
Another provides a vantage point of machines that square, compress, and then wrap a wide paper band around the individual bundles. Each is about the thickness of a five-hundred-sheet package of heavy-weight stationery. Each contains only hundreds. Each therefore contains fifty-thousand dollars.
Yet another mirror reveals equipment that packages the finished product. It combines twenty of these fifty-thousand-dollar bundles—five wide, two deep, two high—into a precise, rectangular volume about the size of a large attaché case, then wraps it tightly in heat-sealed plastic. These million-dollar packages are stacked on the floor like concrete building blocks.
Though the crew and every piece of equipment are operating at breakneck speed, there’s still a long way to go. I’m exhausted, hungry, and fearful of being discovered, but there’s no way I’m leaving now. I pocket the camera and follow the catwalks back to the security office. From here, eagle-eyed observers phoned reports about cheaters and complicit dealers to security personnel working the floor below. It’s obvious no one’s been up here in decades. There’s probably no safer place in all Havana. I’m about to stretch out on a dusty sofa when I notice the phone. Is it still connected? I’m suddenly taken by an impulse to call Scotto.
“Hi. Guess where I am?”
“In the arms of a sizzling, dark-eyed Latina?”
“Well, I am rather irresistible, but at the moment it would be more accurate to say I’m a voyeur.”
“You’ve stooped to peeking in keyholes?”
“Much better than that. I’m taking pictures through two-way mirrors—”
“
Katkov
.”
“—from the ceiling of the Riviera’s casino.”
“What the hell are you doing up there?”
“Watching the high rollers count their winnings before they’re hatched.”
Dare I chance it? I lift the handset. The line is dead. I fall on the sofa wondering what Scotto’s doing, listening to the muted shuffle of the counting machines below. The last thing I remember is the scent of her perfume. Direct, full bodied, a little brassy at first blush; but enticing and surprisingly pleasant if
given time to mellow. Like her. I don’t know how many hours I slept; but the machines are still going full tilt when I awaken and squint at my watch. Five in the morning. No wonder I feel so rotten. I pull myself together and make my way across the catwalks to the observation platforms. Bundles of cash still cover the tables, but the mountain of bags is gone; the operation is winding down.
The million-dollar packages are separated into two stacks now—but not into halves. Indeed, one appears to be ten times larger than the other. Still, something tells me I’m looking at a two-way split. The small stack—eight wide, five deep, and five high—contains two hundred packages. Assuming a two-billion-dollar total and one million dollars per package, that’s a ten-percent or two-hundred-million-dollar cut, probably for the Cuban government. That leaves ninety percent—eighteen hundred packages—1.8 billion dollars to be invested in Russia by Rubineau.
A few hours later, a garage-sized door in the wall of the convention center rumbles open. People begin arriving in vehicles that are driven right onto the floor. Zil limousines. Official staff cars. Several spanking new Mercedes sedans. I begin moving from one mirror to the next with the camera, getting the best angle, zooming in on their faces. Members of the Cuban government resplendent in military uniforms. Nameless, faceless crime bosses in baggy suits. Drug lords in gaudy jewelry and designer sunglasses. Then Arkady Barkhin, who gravitates toward Ray-Ban. And finally, ever dapper in beige linen, Michael Rubineau, smiling, loquacious, taking center stage. I can hear him now, reminiscing about the old days, about how fitting it is that this historic transaction is taking place in the Riviera’s casino, about how the house always wins—and wins big—in the end, about how proud and fulfilled Meyer would be if he knew.
Like high rollers cashing out after an incredible run of luck, they hover about the stacks of money, barely able to contain their delight. Several reach out to touch them. Others pace anxiously. All appear to be waiting for someone; and suddenly, so am I. The representative from the Russian government—Banzer’s dangerous insider, the official who can execute the industries-for-cash deal—has yet to arrive. I’ve been too caught up in all that’s been going on even to think about him until now.
Another Zil pulls in. Several men get out. I scurry across the catwalks to a mirror that affords a better angle. Eye pressed to the camera. Poised to fire. A face moves into the lens. Zoom. Focus. Red hair. Pock-marked complexion. Bad teeth. Yes! Yes, I was right. It’s Gudonov! He’s the insider. My worst fears were unwarranted. Coppelia was a coincidence. I take a shot. The autowind whirrs. The shutter cocks. It’s still Gudonov. I’m sighing with relief when I notice the man who’s with him. There’s something familiar about his carriage as he steps forward; but my sightline is blocked. Rubineau towers over him. Gudonov stands in front of him. The Cubans and the others encircle him in a display of respect and deference. Then documents. Signatures. The deal is being consummated. Smiles all around.
I scurry across the catwalks to get a better angle, then crouch to a two-way mirror. Eye pressed to the camera. Waiting. The group parts. The man turns. Zoom. Focus. He’s short. Thin-boned. I take a shot. The autowind whirrs. The film advances. Another shot. Click. Whirr. Advance and fire. Another. And another. But nothing changes. The sharp cheekbones, the rodentlike countenance, the neatly razored mustache. Each shot confirms the ugly truth. Each confirms, that sick mother or no, he isn’t away taking care of her! He’s here betraying me! Deny it, dislike it, condemn it as I might, the face centered in the lens is Yuri’s.