Philip Kerr - If the Dead Rise Not

García winced a little at this but doubled all the same and then threw a two and a one, which disappointed him. I had the doubling cube now and, sensing I had the psychological advantage, turned the cube and said, “Beaver,” effectively doubling the cube without the requirement of his consent. I then paused and offered him a double on top of my beaver. He bit his lip at this and, already facing a potential loss of eight hundred pesos-on top of what he had already lost-he ought to have declined my double. Instead he accepted. Now I rolled a double six, which left me able to make my bar point and the ten point. The game had already turned my way, with a stake of sixteen hundred pesos.

His throwing became more agitated. First he cocked his dice. Then he threw a double four, which might have dug him out of the hole he was in but for the fact that one of the fours was in his outer board and therefore could not count. Angrily he snatched up both dice, dropped them into the cup, and threw them again, with considerably less success: a two and a three. Things deteriorated rapidly for him after that, and it wasn’t long before he was locked out of my home board, with two checkers sitting on the bar.

I started to bear off, with him still locked out. Now there was a real danger that he might not get any of his checkers back to his own home board before I finished bearing off. This was called a “gammon” and would have cost him double the stake on the cube.

García was throwing like a madman now, and there was no sign of his earlier sangfroid. With each roll of the dice he remained locked out. The game was lost, with nothing left to play for but the possibility of saving the gammon. Finally he was back on the board and racing for home, with me left with only six checkers to bear off. But low throws continued to dog his progress. A few seconds later, the game and gammon were mine.

“That’s gammon,” I said quietly. “That makes double what’s on the cube. I make that thirty-two hundred pesos. Plus the eleven hundred forty you already owe me, and that makes-”

“I can add,” he said brusquely. “There’s nothing wrong with my math.”

I resisted the temptation to point out that it was his skill at backgammon that was at fault, not his math.

García looked at his watch. And so did I. It was ten-forty.

“I have to leave,” he said, closing the board abruptly.

“Are you coming back?” I asked. “After you’ve been to your club?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ll be here for a while. To give you a chance to win it back.”

But we both knew he wouldn’t be returning. He counted out forty-three hundred-peso notes from a fifty-note bundle and handed them over.

I nodded and said, “Plus ten percent for the house, that’s two hundred each.” I riffled my fingers at his remaining cash. “I’ll pay for the drinks myself.”

Sullenly he thumbed another couple of bills at me. Then he closed the catches on top of the ugly backgammon set, tucked it under his arm, and quickly walked away, shouldering his way through the other gamblers like a character in a horror movie.

I pocketed my winnings and went to find the casino manager again. He looked as if he’d hardly moved since I’d last spoken to him.

“Is the game over?” he asked.

“For the moment. Señor García has to visit his club. And I have a meeting upstairs with Señor Reles. After that we may resume. I said I’d wait here to give him a chance to win back his money. So we’ll see.”

“I’ll keep the table free,” said the manager.

“Thank you. And perhaps you’d be kind enough to let Señor Reles know that I’m on my way up to see him now.”

“Yes, of course.”

I handed him four hundred pesos. “Ten percent of the table stakes. I believe that’s normal.”

The manager shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. Thank you for beating him. For a long time now I’ve been hoping that someone could humiliate that pig. And from the look of things, you must have beat him good.”

I nodded.

“Perhaps, after you have finished your meeting with Señor Reles, you could come to my office. I should like to buy you a drink to celebrate your victory.”

STILL CARRYING BEN SIEGEL’S BACKGAMMON SET, I caught the elevator car up to the eighth floor and the hotel pool terrace, where I found Waxey and another elevator car already waiting for me. Max’s bodyguard was a little friendlier this time, but not so as you’d have noticed unless you were a lip-reader. For a big man he had a very quiet voice, and it was only later on I discovered that Waxey’s vocal cords had been damaged as a result of being shot in the throat. “Sorry,” he whispered. “But I gotta frisk you before you go upstairs.”

I put down the case and lifted my arms and looked past him while he went about his job. In the distance, the Barrio Chino was lit up like a Christmas tree.

“What’s in the case?” he asked.

“Ben Siegel’s backgammon set. It was a gift from Max. Only he didn’t tell me the correct combination for the locks. He said it was six-six-six. Which would seem appropriate if it was. Only it’s not.”

Waxey nodded and stood back. He was wearing loose black slacks and a gray guayabera that matched the color of his hair. When his jacket was off I could see his bare arms, and I got a better idea of his probable strength. His forearms were like bowling pins. The loose shirt was probably supposed to conceal the holstered weapon on the back of his hip, except that the hem had got caught under the polished-wood grip of a.38 Colt Detective Special-probably the finest snubbie ever made.

He reached down into his trouser pocket and took out a key on a silver chain, stuck it into the elevator panel, and turned it. He didn’t have to press any other button. The car went straight up. The doors opened again. “They’re on the terrace,” Waxey said.

I smelled them first. The powerful scent of a small forest fire: several large Havana cigars. Then I heard them: loud American voices, raucous male laughter, relentless profanity, the odd Yiddish and Italian word or phrase, more raucous laughter. I came past the detritus of a card game in the living room: a big table covered with chips and empty glasses. Now that the card game was over, they were all out on the little pool terrace: men in sharp suits with blunt faces, but maybe not so tough anymore. Some of them wore glasses and sports coats with neat handkerchiefs in their breast pockets. All of them looked exactly like what they claimed to be: businessmen, hoteliers, club owners, restaurateurs. And perhaps only a policeman or FBI agent would have recognized these men for what they really were-all of them with reputations earned on the streets of Chicago, Boston, Miami, and New York during the Volstead years. The minute I walked onto that terrace, I knew I was among the big beasts of Havana’s underworld-the high-profile Mafia bosses Senator Estes Kefauver was so keen to talk to. I’d watched some of the Senate committee testimonies on the newsreels. The hearings had made household names out of a lot of the bosses, including the little man with the big nose and neat, dark hair. He was wearing a brown sports coat with an open shirt. It was Meyer Lansky.

“Oh, here he is,” said Reles. His voice was a little louder than usual, but he was a model of sartorial rectitude. He wore gray flannel trousers, neat brown shoes with Oxford toe caps, a blue button-down shirt, a blue silk cravat, and a cashmere navy blue blazer. He looked like the membership secretary of the Havana Yacht Club.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “this is the guy I was telling you about. This is Bernie Gunther. This is the guy who’s going to be my new general manager.”