Colin Harrison - The Havana Room

Poppy shook his head. "That's for Jay. I didn't come here to tell you."

"The word makes no sense," I told him. "Krow-lay?" How could we tell this to Marceno?

Poppy handed the napkin to Allison with tender formality. "Will you give it to him, miss?"

She nodded anxiously and tucked it into her purse.

"Allison," Ha called down the stairs. "Some men here to see you."

"Okay," she called, "send them down here."

We heard footsteps. "This is a guy named Marceno," I told her. "The man who bought Jay's land. Lucky Poppy's still here."

"But I'm going," Poppy announced. "Before they come."

Ha appeared inside the Havana Room, eyes wide open. "Miss Allison-" he began, then stumbled forward.

"Keep going, Buddha-boy."

H.J.'s two men followed Ha down the stairs, with guns pointing at the floor. They looked around, took in the room. I remembered the taller one as Denny. "Get back inside."

"Who are you?" Allison asked.

"You may call me Gabriel," said the other man, who wore a necktie and a rather good watch. "We are seekers of mislaid persons." He motioned with his gun. "I suggest you all have a sit in this lovely wee underground bar."

Denny pulled out a cell phone.

"Tell his greatness the fat one that his underpaid hoodlums are in the restaurant, that the great American artist named Wyeth is here and that he should come have a look."

Denny punched in a string of numerals.

"Lucky day," Gabriel said to me. "And thank you," he said to Poppy.

"For what?"

"You did just as we hoped, old man."

"I did?"

"You drove into Manhattan and found your friends, your intentional community." He pointed at me, then looked around. "One could make a lot of noise down here and no one would hear it."

We sat for ten minutes, saying nothing. I studied Gabriel and Denny, watched how fast they breathed. Normal, for the most part. Used to situations like this.

"I'm afraid that I have to use the bathroom," Allison said.

"Too bad."

"There's one at the end of the room."

"You'll need someone to go with you."

"All right," she sighed.

Gabriel followed her to the men's room, looked in, then let her inside. He kept the door open with his hand. "No, keep the door open there, too," he told her.

I heard some small voice of protest.

"I don't care about your bloody privacy." Gabriel stood, watching her. "That's it. Very tasteful underwear, miss, quite expensive I'd say. Victoria's Secret?"

"Is it?" called Denny, looking back and forth.

"Can't tell."

"How's her female equipment?"

"Standard. Working order." He followed Allison's actions. "Now the paper, hurry along, please."

A moment later Allison emerged. "Hope you enjoyed the show," she said.

"Sit next to Buddha-boy there," said Gabriel.

We heard a noise upstairs, a knocking. Maybe this would be Marceno.

"The boss?" said Gabriel. "Already?"

Denny stood and went upstairs. Then we heard footsteps coming down. A tall black man in a heavy coat entered, checked out the room, and stepped aside for H.J., who arrived with expectant aggression, face wrapped by sunglasses and roundly enormous, his head a thick ball of shaved flesh.

"Lamont, I like this place!" H.J. announced, looking around, teeth gleaming. "Very comfortable." He fixed on me. "The white dude lawyer! I told you to get my money, and you didn't and now you see we got a problem." He looked at Allison and lifted up his sunglasses. "Mmm, and who are you?"

"I'm the manager."

"You can manage me." He pointed at Ha. "Who's the old Chinese?"

"He works here," Allison said. "He has nothing to do with any of this."

"What's he do, clean the white man's toilets?"

"He's an excellent cook. A trained chef."

"That right? Got a specialty?" But he didn't wait for an answer, instead waving his hand at the room, enjoying his power. "All right, this is where we goin' to do business today. We goin' to get to the bottom of the whole damn thing. My uncle is sittin' in his little box of ashes waitin' for me to get this done. His ghost is tellin' me, Boy, make this right. Man works sixty-somethin' years, he ain't supposed to freeze to death. My aunt just sit at home and cry and say I got to do somethin' for the family. They puttin' a lot of pressure on me. Now I'm puttin' it on somebody else. My aunt say somethin' bad went down, somethin' ain't right. She don't like the explanation the police gave her. She say she got nobody but her nephew. So I got obligation in all this, y'all hear what I'm sayin'? I don't care how long it takes, I got the whole day. I'm goin' to Philadelphia later but right now I got the whole damn day." He looked at me again, smiled at my discomfort. "You remember me, right? Remember my anti-fuckin'-social tendencies?"

"Yes," I said.

"Good. So, where's your man at?"

"Rainey? I don't know."

"Well, call him."

"I could do that."

I pulled out my phone and dialed Jay.

H.J.'s newest man, Lamont, held his gun on Allison and Ha. Gabriel kept his on Poppy. The phone rang. No answer.

"Not there," I volunteered.

"You that Poppy I keep hearin' about?" asked H.J., pulling out a gold-plated automatic from the pocket of his coat.

Poppy shrugged. "I already told everything I got to say."

"You the man who killed my uncle Herschel?"

"It wasn't like that."

"My aunt say he was frozen to a bulldozer."

Poppy lifted his gaze. "I was working on the bulldozer. He came by and said what are you doing. He did some bulldozer work a week before. He thought I was messing it up. He thought I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing. I said nothing that's your business. And we had a big argument. He's bigger, got good hands. He jumped up on the Cat… I guess he got a shock and had his heart attack."

H.J. smiled hatefully. "That don't smell too good." He pointed the gun at me. "Lawyer-boy, you believe that?"

"He was driving by," moaned Poppy. "I already told this! He saw me and wanted to know what I was doing."

"That's why Herschel stopped?"

Poppy lay his head on the table. "Yes. I was adding some earth."

H.J. looked surprised. "Why?"

"Because I didn't want anyone to know what's down there."

"What is down there?" I asked.

Poppy's eyes closed. "I'm not telling you."

H.J. moved over to Poppy and put his gun directly into his ear. "My uncle Herschel see you diggin' around the field when he go drivin' by and then he stopped and got out and said stop doin' what you be doing?"

"Yes."

"Please don't shoot him!" exclaimed Allison.

H.J. jolted the gun deeper into Poppy's ear. "Why? Why he do that? On a cold and snowy day?"

Poppy started to lift his head but felt the gun. " 'Cause I was messing up the field!"

"So he said let me get up there on the tractor? This ain't makin' any sense. I ain't getting any of this."

I remembered that the tractor had been found on the sea cliff set in reverse. "Poppy," I asked. "You let him get on the Cat?"

"I didn't let him do anything. He's bigger than me."

"He got on the Cat."

"Yeah."

H.J. removed the gun, interested in this sequence. "Then what?"

"He asked what I was doing and I was so mad I told him, I told him the truth."

"Then what?"

Poppy lifted his eyes. He was a sad guy, and he didn't have time for any more lies. "He had a heart attack. He grabbed his chest and fell back."

"You told him and he fuckin' had a heart attack?" H.J. shook his head at the seeming absurdity of this tale. "You gotta do much better than that, old man."

"Is it a straight shot from wherever you were working with the bulldozer to the sea cliff?"

Poppy looked at me. "Yes, but-"

The problem, I realized, was that H.J. still did not know that the bulldozer and Herschel had been recovered from the sea cliff and moved to a barn on the adjoining property.