Little Havana Exile Read online

  “Alright, I’m gonna snooze until the food comes. Wake me up if you have to,” Keith said.

  Teddy was most definitely looking forward to that impending five-course gourmet meal. Slow-braised balsamic beef, herbs dumplings, and twice-baked cheese soufflé with roasted Portobello mushrooms. Hell yes!

  “Menu looks ace, I’ll give you that,” Teddy said.

  “You need to come back to earth, kid,” Keith said, as he pulled his sleep mask over his eyes. “Wait until the bums bring over that rabbit food. A culinary journey to hell, I’m telling you. I’m just bloody starving. Been running around all day closing deals.” He crossed his arms over his belly and fell silent at last.

  CHAPTER 8

  As the aircraft touched the ground, Teddy let out a sigh of relief. He had gone into the habit of consciously suppressing any hint of fear or apprehension since leaving his family years ago, but it did not mean that he was fearless. Flying thirty-six thousand feet up in the sky wasn’t natural for our species, he reasoned, and he had felt a nagging discomfort right until the landing at six forty A.M. local time.

  As he walked down the air stairs, a warm breeze tickled his face. Keith Price was following closely.

  “Here we are, son. Miami. Also called the Magic City.” The man momentarily stopped at the top of the stairs to survey the surrounding. He said, “And this is where we part ways.”

  “I’ll shed a tear when you’re out of sight, Keith,” Teddy replied, as he finally set foot on dry ground.

  “Oh bollocks!” the old man said, feigning indignation. “Here, take my card, and give me a ring if you get into troubles.” He produced a small carton that read Keith Price, CEO Boat Masters Ltd. “Least I can do for a fellow Englishman, especially a decent young man like you. But don’t call me just because you’re bored, I’m a busy man.”

  “Thanks, it’s much appreciated, it was good meeting you, Keith,” Teddy said, as he accepted the gesture of goodwill.

  For a while, they strode in silence on the tarmac with other passengers along the lane toward one of the airport entries. Out of the blue, Keith Price broke off from the trope, throwing his hand in the air to bid farewell.

  Teddy glared at the man, curious as to where he was headed. A gleaming white Rolls Royce was stationed in front of an aircraft hangar in the distance, with what Teddy reckoned was the old man’s driver leaned against the hood.

  “I’m only half English, Keith. My mother is American,” Teddy shouted as the man opened the rear door of his car. For a moment, it seemed as if Keith was giving him the middle finger, but eventually, he realized it was just a thumb up. It occurred to Teddy that this old exuberant man was his only acquaintance on this foreign land.

  …

  There was no welcoming committee waiting in the arrival area. No sign with his name on the horizon. The Padrino the old Wilkinson was talking about certainly wasn’t there. Oh great, this better not be a fucking misunderstanding!

  The whole evasion had been arranged on the go, and there was always room for information to be lost in translation in such rush jobs. Teddy scanned the airport’s massive hall, on the lookout for anything that looked familiar.

  Suddenly a hand grabbed his shoulder from behind.

  “Harper? Theodore Harper? Only an Englishman would look so lost,” a voice said.

  Teddy spun around and couldn’t resist flashing a smile. The man standing next to him looked like he had been summoned from a cartoon.

  “I’m Paco, el Padrino sent me to pick you up.” He extended a tiny hand, which Teddy shook vigorously.

  The man must have been in his thirties, and yet Teddy was almost twice his stature. Paco’s most disturbing characteristic was without a doubt his protruding dentition, because of which he had received the nickname of burrito, he explained. Literally little donkey, in Spanish. Teddy figured he was the Padrino’s driver and handyman, which made the moniker even more fitting.

  The man was sporting a pastel blue suit and a pink shirt with Italian collar, his thick black hair combed backward. The colorful attire contrasted with the underwhelming image that the man was projecting.

  But Teddy knew better than judging a man based on his demeanor and looks. He had done exactly this several months ago, and had learned his lesson in blood. Underestimating Kieran O’Connor had been a costly mistake, as the coward proceeded to ambush and murder his best friend.

  “I’m relieved to see you, Paco. I was starting to think I might have to go out there and conquer the city all by myself,” Teddy said, as they walked out of the airport.

  Paco let out a heartfelt laughter, “An ambitious man, very good. That’s how you make it here. But if you want my advice, don’t show that side to everyone. El Padrino, for example, he doesn’t like that. But I do, so do tell me your plans to conquer Miami, I might want in.”

  They had stopped right in front of a gorgeous imperial red convertible Cadillac Eldorado. The vehicle looked like a squashed piece of metal, yet at the same time, it conveyed an impression of quaint refinement with its angular face.

  “You like my ride?” Paco said, noticing Teddy’s intrigued expression. “Hop in, we’ve got a long drive to Calle Ocho.”

  “Calle Ocho? Is that where Joaquin Herrera lives?”

  “El Padrino? No, no. We’ll meet him later. For now, we’re off to la Pequeña Habana, I’ll show you what we Cubans are all about.”

  The drive to Little Havana, located right next to the airport and west of downtown Miami, wasn’t scenic by any means, but it was enough to offer a glimpse of what was Teddy could expect in the Florida metropolis and how it differed from the more familiar British cities.

  Despite the disorientation that came with such a change of scenery, Teddy immediately felt this was a place he could call home. Wide avenues with impersonal names and numbers appealed to his desire for freedom and anonymity. He peered out the window, his eyes struggling to absorb the outpouring of sensory information from his novel surroundings. It was as if the streets had been built for car races, and that thought gave him chills.

  This was a place where he would be able to breathe, a world apart from the oppressing narrow streetscape of Birmingham, where it took years to change a reputation. It’s day versus night, Teddy thought, as they entered Little Havana via West Flagler Street. Hell, it wasn’t even eight A.M. and the sun was already blinding. He was unable to take his stare off the street, and wondered at the lines of palm trees, the fleet of yellow school buses, the Stars and Stripes flags everywhere.

  “Calle Ocho!” Paco announced. “Tourists have invaded the place after the end of the drug wars in the mid-eighties, but any Cuban will tell you that this is the soul of Little Havana. You’ll probably spend quite some time around here if you work for us.”

  Teddy was careful to limit his words and was satisfied with his role as an observer for now. He had come to this faraway country with no reputation whatsoever, a clean slate if there was one. For the first time in his life, he felt that anything was possible. He could be anyone.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Forget about the tropical weather and golden beaches, the only thing we Latinos need to live a happy life is the bolita,” Paco said, pointing to a crowd of huddled passersby on the sidewalk, gathered around a van.

  The car was cruising at low speed as they got deeper into the more populated fringes of Little Havana.

  “I thought all you guys needed was a couple of lines of white powder,” Teddy said in a tone that was purposely cheeky and provocative. It was time to test the limits of his host’s tolerance. Adam Wilkinson had made no secret that he was flying him to an organization involved in illegal activities, with men that were substantially more vicious than the Soho Road Boys. Miami was a much larger territory than Birmingham, and even with that additional territory, the overall crime rate in the inner city was ten times higher.

  Paco chuckled, and said, “A common misconception. The high-profile drug feuds of the seventies and the eighties have distorted
people’s view of the Miami underworld. The Medellin cartel is all but dead, and the massive police crackdown on narcotics in recent years has reduced cocaine trafficking to a few smaller players.

  “Today’s Miami is nothing like what it was in the eighties when people were literally doing cocaine out in the open in bars, and with bloody shootouts staining the streets. Those days are gone. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a highly lucrative business, but Miami was built as a gambling ground, and if you ask me, this is also where the future lies for this city. Miami could become the Las Vegas of the South-East. All the rich tourists are already flocking here.”

  “Is that what this bolita thing is about then?” Teddy asked.

  “No, the bolita is a game of the poor. It’s a lottery game made up of a hundred small balls with numbers drawn from a bag. It used to form a sizeable part of the local economy, not to mention all of the cash that it brought to gangsters’ pockets.”

  “You guys love your gambling, don’t you? Reminds me of the local betting shops at home, full of punks at any time of the day,” Teddy said.

  Glad to see that the topic had picked his guest’s interest, Paco explained, “You need to understand that the gambling situation in the Cuba is unlike anything else. Gambling is a way of life for us, it permeates all layers of the society. Most forms of gambling are legal back home, casinos certainly are, even cock-fighting is legal. Numbers operations like bolita, on the other hands, are prohibited by law.” Paco paused, as he took an abrupt turn, making the tires creak. “Where it becomes complicated is that it’s fairly easy to spot policemen betting a few pesetas on a number with the local writer. The upshot is that there are relatively few arrests compared to other crimes.

  “Many old law-abiding citizens, honest people that have worked all their lives, typically see writing numbers and selling lottery as an opportunity to earn some extra cash, a little entrepreneurial venture that can keep them out of the welfare rolls. And for crime gangs, there are several advantages to using these people. First, they’re unlikely to get arrested. Even policemen know better than to lock up a harmless seventy years old women for writing numbers, and even if they are arrested, there is virtually no chance of a jail sentence.”

  “Makes the bloody pimps look good as well, giving the elderlies a chance to make some extra bucks,” Teddy said.

  “Exactly. And they’re less likely to cause troubles and run away without paying their dues. For the Cubans of Miami, playing bolita in the streets is a way to connect with home, and hopefully to win a few dollars that will take them through the day. And believe it or not, this is illegal.”

  “What? Gambling is illegal in Florida?” Teddy asked.

  “Well, not exactly. Now it’s all been legalized in colossal casinos. When the authorities realized that efforts to curb illegal gambling were vain, and seeing the massive tax income this could represent, they legalized everything. You can play lottery and even bolita everywhere now, in dedicated venues that have been granted permits, but deprived people keep playing in the streets an unauthorized version of it.” Paco motioned toward another group of people clustered together at the corner of a crossroads. “Those people are barely making ends meet. They just want some entertainment from a game they’ve been playing for generations in Cuba. But the cops have been harassing them recently, as it’s considered tax evasion. All while they leave Seminoles make hundreds of millions in their casinos, escaping the rule of the Federal state.”

  “Seems pretty unfair to me,” Teddy said, with an empathy that surprised even himself.

  It was obvious that the very thought of that unjust state of affair was hurting Paco deeply. “It is what it is, an endless circle of oppression and guilt,” he said. “Settlers have taken everything from American Indians centuries ago, so the monopoly granted to the descendants of the Seminole tribe is their way to make amends, so long as it doesn’t threaten the rule of the white elite of course.

  “And in the middle of it all, we South American immigrants, who are in effect asylum seekers, are trying to find a way to make a living. Little Havana has become home to so many refugees from the Castro regime, and other political and social migrants from other countries from the Latin America.”

  “Is that what you are? A refugee from the Cuban dictatorship?”

  Paco gazed at the crowd of bolita gamblers as he turned left on Interstate 95, heading north. He said, “I was in the same boat as Joaquin Herrera over ten years ago, during the Mariel boatlift crisis. A hundred thousand Cubans were allowed to flee to Florida. You’re probably too young to have heard of it. Castro opened the Mariel harbor to Cuban looking to leave the island in the spring of 1980.

  “This resulted in a mass exodus over several months, as victims of the brutal rule of Castro and Batista supporters scurried out of the island. People from all walks of life fled their homes – farmers, artists, businessmen, but also people with less benevolent intentions. The US government closed the border once it found out that a number of those asylum seekers were criminals and patients released from mental institutes.”

  As Paco delved deeper into his unfortunate life story, a growing feeling of shame seized Teddy. He had it good in Birmingham and left his home and family for what now seems like petty reasons.

  Realizing that this inauspicious account of his early life had silenced Teddy, Paco said, “But I’ve been lucky, I met Herrera on that very boat and he’s proved quite a visionary, if tough, associate. All of our Cuban brothers have been able to wet our beaks and share his successes. To some extent.”

  “What exactly do you do within that organization, Paco?” Teddy asked.

  “I would say that…” he paused. “I would say that I work in the shadows. I make sure there is no clog in the machinery. I do it for the good people.”

  Teddy shrugged the enigmatic reply. “So where are we off to? I thought we were gonna stop by that Calle Street and taste some of your grilled specialties, maybe enjoy a cigar? That airplane food isn’t as good as it sounds, I’m telling you.”

  “No time for that my friend. There are Cuban sandwiches in the glove box, help yourself. We’re going to Fisher Island, to one of Joaquin Herrera’s residences.”

  Let’s see who you are, Padrino. Teddy opened the compartment and rummaged through the pile of random items. He finally found what he was searching for and grabbed the snack wrapped in plastic film. As he pulled his arm out of the box, the back of his hand brushed a cold metallic object. A gun taped to the ceiling? What exactly are you, Paco?

  They now approached the MacArthur Causeway bridge connecting downtown Miami and Miami Beach. The open sky of Biscayne Bay was devoid of clouds and clearer than anything Teddy had ever seen on his own British island on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

  As he bit generously into the ham sandwich, gazing at the wide water expanse on his right, Teddy was hit by an ominous flash of clarity. If Adam Wilkinson was right, the man he was about to meet would have the power to make his stay in Florida an idyllic vacation, or an utter nightmare.

  CHAPTER 10

  Originally a lush wedge of ground attached to Miami Beach, Fisher Island became a separate piece of land in the early 1900s after a mighty hurricane cut the peninsula into two disjointed entities. Businessman Vanderbilt later struck a deal with owner Carl Fischer, trading his magnificent two-hundred-and-fifty-foot yacht for seven acres of the island. He developed the stretch of land, tearing apart the luxuriant coconut mangroves to replace it with a $1.5 million private retreat and equally opulent guesthouses.

  After numerous changes of ownership from World War II, most of the island’s land holdings eventually fell into the hands of the Fisher Island Club, a consortium of real estate developers. Only a dozen mansions were the property of single investors, most of which were seasonal occupiers, such as Hollywood acting giant Sylvester Stallone and pop music star Madonna.

  A few years ago, Joaquin Herrera had deemed the relative isolation of the island and its quiet reside
nts the ideal conditions to run his fledgling empire from. The investment had been colossal, Paco explained, but the man had a consuming vision that he absolutely had to make a reality. The discretion provided by the island was central to those ambitions. He would escape the police scrutiny that other gangsters established in areas closer to the masses were under.

  Paco parked the convertible Cadillac on an artificial strip across the Miami Beach Marina. He signaled to a plump man leaning against a speedboat a few feet away to start the engine. The island could only be reached by boat. “Leave your bag in the trunk, we won’t be long,” Paco told Teddy.

  They hopped on the watercraft, and Teddy could have sworn the man was leering at him through his pair of shield sunglasses. He sat at the back of the vessel, while Paco moved to the front next to the pilot. The two men exchanged a few words in Spanish as the speedboat took off, and with the hiss of the wind, eavesdropping was unlikely to reveal much about their intentions.

  At eighty knots, the equivalent to ninety miles-per-hour, the cigarette boat would cover the short distance between the mainland and Fisher Island in under two minutes. Teddy reached down to close his jacket’s pocket as the air current threatened to blow its content out. Patting over his hip, he felt the shape of the card Keith Price had given him earlier that day. His recollection of the encounter made him smile. He wondered if the impressive engineering feat he was standing on now was the creation of the spirited Englishman and his team of Ph.Ds.

  A moment later, they were disembarking on the northwesternmost shore of Fisher Island, on the opposite side to the island’s main harbor. For convenience and privacy, Joaquin Herrera had installed a pier right in front of his estate. Teddy surveyed this new environment with the eyes of a child on his first day at school. The neighboring island of Miami Beach was close, on the other side of a thin water stretch that must have been two hundred yards in width at most. The pilot remained on the boat, his eyes conspicuously fixated on Teddy.