A Quiet Vendetta (26 page)

It was close to midnight when I turned back and headed home. I was angry, frustrated; irritated that Ruben had left without me, but in some way relieved. I needed to sleep. I felt poisoned with whiskey and cheap rum. I had eaten nothing since I’d woken and my body pained me greatly.

It took me the better part of an hour to reach the rooming house. The place was dark, my father had evidently not returned, and when I started up the stairs towards my room I thought to call in and check if Ruben had returned and was sleeping off his drunk.

The lights were out, the door was still open, and when I pushed it wide and stepped inside I knew that something was wrong.

The light that shone directly into my face blinded me. It was almost painful in its intensity, and before I had a chance to shout, to say something, there were hands on my shoulders. Terror, absolute breathless terror, grabbed me from behind and would not let me go. I was forced to my knees, and even as I opened my eyes once more a rough hessian bag was forced over my head and something was tied around my neck. My hands were tied, so tight I could feel the blood swelling at my wrists. My feet were behind me, and before I could move them or attempt to stand, I felt the pressure of something hard and unyielding against my forehead.

The click of the hammer was almost deafening.

The voice was unmistakably Italian.

‘You are Ernesto Perez?’ the voice asked.

I said nothing. I felt urine escape from my crotch and soak my pants. I could see the darkness that had faced me in the motel room. I could see whatever was inside me and it terrified me.

Somewhere to my left I heard a struggle. I heard a muffled voice, someone suppressing a howl of pain, and then there was silence for a heartbeat.

‘You are Ernesto Perez?’ the voice asked again.

I nodded once.

‘You killed a man in a motel last night,’ the voice stated matter-of-factly.

I didn’t move, didn’t say a word. I had lost all sensation in my hands. I could feel the veins in my neck swelling and pulsing.

‘You killed a very good friend of mine in a motel last night, and now we are going to repay his death.’

I felt the barrel of the gun stabbing at my forehead. I wanted to scream, wanted to lash out any which way I could, but with my hands tied, and the men behind me standing on my ankles, any movement was impossible.

‘Stand up,’ the voice said.

I was dragged roughly to my feet.

I could still sense the bright light shining directly towards my face even through the sacking over my head.

The light moved, back and to the left, and then with one swift motion the bag was snatched from over my face and I stood facing the man with the gun. That gun was now aimed squarely at my stomach.

I felt everything inside lurch upwards into my chest. It took every ounce of will I possessed to stop myself from screaming.

I looked to my left, and there, roped to a chair, gagged and bound like an animal waiting for slaughter, was Ruben Cienfuegos. He had been beaten within an inch of his life. His eyes were so swollen he could barely open them, his hair was matted with blood, his shirt had been torn from his shoulders and there were cigarette burns all over his skin.

I looked back at the man facing me, unquestionably an Italian. He was my father’s age, but his eyes were darker, and when he smiled and nodded there was something truly unnerving in his expression.

‘You know this man?’ he asked. He glanced towards Ruben.

I shook my head.

The man smiled and raised the gun. He aimed it directly between my eyes. I could almost hear the sound of his finger muscles tensing as he increased the pressure on the trigger.

‘You know this man?’

Once again I shook my head. I believed it would not have been possible for me to speak even had I wanted to. My throat was tight, as if a hand gripped it relentlessly, and as I tried to breathe I felt a fear so profound I believed it would stop my heart right where I stood.

The Italian shrugged. ‘Seems to me one of you is lying then,’ he said. ‘He says he knows you. He says your name is Ernesto Perez and you don’t deny it. How come he knows your name?’

I shook my head. I looked directly at the man, past the gun and straight into his eyes. ‘I-I do not know,’ I stuttered. I tried to sound certain. I tried to sound like a man speaking the truth. ‘He is a liar,’ I said.

Ruben Cienfuegos groaned painfully. He started to shake his head.

I tried to move my head, tried to look back over my shoulder. I was aware of two men standing behind me. I turned back to face the Italian once more. He had eyes like a shark, dead and without reflections. I knew that black, lightless expression would be the very last thing I saw.

I decided I would die. In that moment I decided that I would die, and if I did not die then this point would be a catharsis. If I survived this test then it would prove to me that all I had done was not wrong. This would be the confirmation of my life’s direction, and if not . . . well, if not, I would not have to concern myself with it any more.

I decided not to be afraid.

I thought of my mother, and the pride she would feel in my strength.

I decided that I would not be afraid, and if this man with the dead eyes killed me then I would find my mother and tell her that everything had not been in vain.

I would live, or I would see my mother again; that was my choice.

‘One of you is lying,’ the man said. ‘You admit your name is Ernesto Perez?’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I am Ernesto Perez.’

‘And this one here?’ he asked, indicating Ruben with a sweep of the gun.

‘Is someone I have never seen before.’

Ruben groaned once more. I could feel his pain, but in feeling it I also began to feel nothing at all. Whatever capacity for sympathy I might have possessed had dissolved and vanished. I realized then that, in being confronted with my own death, the lives of everyone else around me became truly insignificant. This moment would be the exorcism of whatever shred of conscience and compassion I might still have owned.

‘So if this is someone you have never seen before it will mean nothing to you if he dies?’

I looked at the man. I did not flinch. Not a single muscle moved in my face. ‘Nothing at all,’ I said quietly, and then I smiled.

‘And of this man that was killed last night in the motel? This one here says that you were guilty of his murder, that he was not there and you were the one who killed him.’

I shook my head. ‘If he was not there then how does he know anything about it?’ I asked.

‘You are saying he is a liar?’

‘I am,’ I replied. I felt my heart slow. I felt my pulse in my neck. I felt the tension in my head and heart start to ease. I believed that I had never lied so well in my life.

‘And what does that say about you . . . you can stand there and let another man defame and slander your name? Let a man call you a murderer and you do nothing?’

I stared back at the Italian. ‘I will exact my vengeance at the appropriate time.’

The Italian laughed, threw his head back and laughed out loud. ‘
Quando fai i piani per la vendetta
,’ he said, and the two men behind me started laughing also.

‘You exact your vengeance now,’ he said, ‘or both of you die here in this room.’

I looked at Ruben, could see that he was straining to make eye contact with me out of the swollen wreck of his face.

‘You pay for the death of my friend and you clear your own name with this killing,’ the Italian said. ‘You prove yourself a man, my little Cuban friend, and you preserve your own life.’ He smiled once more. ‘We have a deal?’

‘We do,’ I said, and I glanced once more towards Ruben.

The Italian stepped back, lowered his gun, and moved to the side of the room. The two men behind me untied my hands and I stood there, my heart thundering in my chest, sweat running down my entire body, my hands shaking violently as the blood rushed back into them and gave them feeling once more.

The Italian nodded. One of the men behind me stepped forward and handed me a tire lever.

‘There are two hundred and six bones in the human body,’ the Italian said. ‘I want to hear you break every single one.’

Later, much later, seated on the floor in my own room, the Italian told me his name.

‘Giancarlo Ceriano,’ he stated, and he lit two cigarettes, one of which he passed to me. I looked at him then, looked at him for the first time without death staring back at me. He was dressed immaculately, everything about him precise and exact and tailored. His hands were manicured, his hair smooth, his every movement somehow graceful but in no way anything but masculine. Ceriano seemed like something feral, something between a man and an animal, and yet elegant and discerning and very intelligent.

‘I know you killed the man in the motel room,’ he went on. ‘Do not question how I know this, and do not deny it. You will offend me greatly if you lie to me now.’ He looked at me with his black deadlight eyes. ‘I am right, no?’

‘You are right,’ I said.

Ceriano nodded and smiled. ‘His name was Pietro Silvino. He worked for a man called Trafficante. You have heard of Trafficante?’

I shook my head.

‘Trafficante is a very important man, a very good friend of mine. He possesses interests in some of the casinos out here, the Sans Souci, the Comodoro and the Capri. He believes in family, he believes in honor and integrity, and it would break his heart to learn that his friend, a member of his own family, a man with a wife and three beautiful children, was out here paying boys for sex . . . you understand?’

‘I understand.’

Ceriano flicked the ash of his cigarette on the floor. ‘In some way you have spared Don Trafficante’s family a great deal of heartbreak by killing Silvino before such a thing was discovered, and though I can in no way condone your action, I am nevertheless impressed by your unwillingness to stand down in the face of your own death. You have a brave spirit, my little Cuban friend. I am impressed by your performance, and there is perhaps some work you might be interested in.’

‘Some work?’

‘We are the foreigners here. We stand out in the crowd. People know who we are and what we are doing here. We do not speak your language, and nor do we understand well your customs and rituals. But a native—’

‘I am from New Orleans,’ I said. ‘I am an American, and I was born in New Orleans.’

Ceriano widened his eyes and smiled. He started laughing. ‘From New Orleans?’ he asked, in his voice a tone of surprise.

I nodded. ‘Yes. My father is Cuban, but my mother was from America. He went there and married her. I was born over there, but we came here recently after my mother died.’

Ceriano shook his head. ‘I am sorry for the death of your mother, Ernesto Perez.’

‘As am I,’ I replied.

‘So, New Orleans,’ Ceriano said. ‘You have heard of Louis Prima?’

I shrugged.

‘Louis Prima was born in Storyville, Louisiana. The singer. Plays with Sam Buttera and the Witnesses? You know . . . “Buona Sera”, “Lazy River”, “Banana Split For My Baby” . . . and what was that other one?’ Ceriano looked at one of his henchmen. ‘Aah,’ he said, and with a wide smile on his face he started singing, ‘I eat antipasta twice just because she is so nice . . . Angelina . . . Angelina, waitress at the pizzeria . . . Angelina zooma-zooma, Angelina zooma-zooma . . .’

I smiled with him. The man seemed as crazy as a shithouse rat.

He waved his hand aside nonchalantly. ‘Whatever . . . so you are an American, eh?’

‘I am.’

‘But you speak like a Cuban.’

‘I do.’

‘Then, for us, you shall be a Cuban, you understand?’

I nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘And you shall do some work for us here in Havana, and we shall pay you well and protect you, and if you serve us we shall perhaps let you keep Pietro Silvino’s beautiful car, right?’

‘Right,’ I said, because I believed I had no choice, but more than that I truly believed that here I had been presented with an opportunity to fulfil my vocation, to find my place in the world, to return to America with enough money and power to make my mark. I remembered a sign I had seen over the Alvarez School.
Sin educacion no hay revolucion posible
. Without education, revolution is not possible.

Here was my education. Here was a way into a world I could only ever have dreamed about.

Here was my escape route, and with people such as these behind, beside and ahead of me I foresaw no repercussions, no consequences, no obstacles.

Here was the American Dream, its darker edges, yes, its blackened underbelly, but a dream all the same, and I wanted that dream so much I could taste it.

They left that night, Giancarlo Ceriano and his henchmen, and with them they took the broken remains of my blood-brother, Ruben Cienfuegos. Where they took him and what they did with his devastated body I do not know. I did not ask. I had learned already that with people such as this you answered, but you did not ask. They frightened me, but I found that I respected them as much as any people I had ever known. I recognized their brutality, their passion, their seeming ability to swiftly despatch both the living and the dead. Theirs was a different world, a greater world, a world of violence and love, of family and greater fortune.

As he left Don Ceriano said, ‘We shall tell Don Trafficante and Pietro Silvino’s family that he was murdered by a Cuban thief. We shall tell them also that you were the one to identify the thief and to kill him. You will earn yourself a name, a small name, my little Cuban friend, but a name nevertheless. We will call on you again, and we will talk of business together, you understand?’

‘I understand,’ I replied, and believed – perhaps for the first time in my life – that I had walked into something that
could
be understood.

I did not sleep that night. I lay awake on my mattress, and out through the window I could see the stars punctuating the blackness of the night sky.

In my mind circles turned and within each circle a shadow, and behind each shadow the face of my mother. She said nothing; she merely looked back at me with a sense of wonder and of awe.