Under Cuba, page 1
Cover and Interior Design by Smoking Gun Publishing, LLC
Copyright © 2017 Chap Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except for brief quotations used in a review.
This is a work of fiction, and is produced from the author’s imagination. People, places and things mentioned in this novel are used in a fictional manner.
ISBN: 978-1-940586-40-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017938567
Visit us on the web at www.smokinggunpublishing.com
Published by Smoking Gun Publishing, LLC
Printed in the United States of America
Acknowledgments
Fiction writers spend a great deal of time and effort researching the sparse truth that exists in their stories. I am no different. Maybe it’s a feeling of guilt or just compensation for making so much stuff up. In one book, I spent a great deal of time researching the placement and description of the rank and corresponding stripes on the uniform of a naval officer in the Dominican Republic. I wonder who cares.
Once I placed the number 52 as a runway number on an airstrip in the Congo in a story. Thankfully, someone (a former air force officer) told me that runways were all compass headings and therefore they didn’t go that high. I pulled out the picture of the runway and realized I was reading it backwards. It should have been 25. Who would have cared? Possibly no one except pilots and the people who expect writers to at least present those small nuggets of truth in an accurate manner.
I would like to thank all the nonfiction writers who slave over facts. I will continue to read your books, essays, journals, and yes, your Wikipedia entries. Writers need real bones to build a great story. I will continue to come to the bone pile many times in the future.
Chap Harper
May, 2017
Dedication
I doubt this novel will be on any reading lists in Cuba for a long time. It may not be allowed to be sold there since most of the books sold in Cuba have the late Fidel Castro’s picture on them. Nevertheless, I am dedicating it to those Cuban citizens living in their country, and to the Cubans fortunate to have found a home in the United States and other countries.
Cuba is a beautiful country, rich in architecture, with beautiful beaches, lots of palm trees, and forested mountains. The people are friendly with warm hearts. There will be struggles for those Cuban citizens moving towards a market economy. I wish them well as they start businesses and provide services for the growing tourist industry. Like most Americans, I dread the first McDonald’s or Burger King that will be wedged in between Spanish colonial buildings.
We all wish Cuba could remain a place that resembles an old movie set. But it must grow and provide jobs with the new private enterprise expansion. More than anything, they must keep the beautiful old American cars. Cubans already know that we love them as much as they do. It is a strange economy, however, when a Cuban providing a tour in a 55 Chevy could easily make several times the monthly income of a Cuban doctor in a single day. It’s the old Cuba laid next to the new emerging Cuba. It should be an exciting time for the Cuban people.
Prologue
One wealthy US family hurried out of town as Fidel Castro and his rebel army entered Havana. They left their car at the airport, keys inside. Later, Fidel’s forces used metal detectors to find valuable treasures sealed in the walls of the Americans’ large home. Sterling silver servers and gold-plated dinnerware were cleverly hidden away. The rebel newspaper Revolucion displayed pictures of Cuban officials holding metal detectors next to piles of silver bowls and tea sets.
Similar discoveries happened all over Cuba. Many of the valuables were found, but most everyone believes other riches are waiting to be discovered, even after being hidden for over fifty years. It could very well be that the Americans who fled in 1959 passed along to family members the knowledge of exactly where their treasures were stored away. Now their heirs might be waiting for the right time to dig up something that lies under Cuba. Cuba, however, will be watching.
Chapter One
Hotel Nacional de Cuba, Havana, December 22, 1946
Bernie Swartz and Carmine Spada distanced themselves from the important mobsters who sat at a long table in a conference room on the National Hotel’s first floor. Salvatore “Lucky” Luciano had just broached the subject of “the boss of bosses” and Vito Genovese and Albert Anastasia told him they agreed that Luciano should remain the boss even though he had been expelled from the United States and sent to live in Italy. It pleased him greatly to find that he didn’t have to fight for a position he believed he deserved anyway. They discussed the issue of Bugsy Siegel and voted to punish him for the losses incurred on the Flamingo project in Las Vegas. Meyer Lansky wasn’t able to vote since he wasn’t pure blood Italian. He was Jewish, as was Bugsy, yet he spoke up for Siegel and pleaded for the council to wait for the grand opening of the casino, which was only a few days off. They agreed. But Lansky also stated that should the new casino in the desert not be successful, “he would be dealt with.” The entire room knew what that meant.
Bernie and Carmine were low-level mobsters—hardly even mobsters. They jointly owned the Caribe Shores, a small-potatoes casino and nightclub in a seedy outlying district of Havana’s Malecon. Actually, the front of the casino was a restored two-story colonial building across the street from the main waterfront with a view of Moro Castle, which stood high on a bluff with cannons trained down to ward off pesky pirates. The Caribe Shores was very nice inside and out, but a few paces away from the parking lot was a neighborhood crawling with thieves and dope heads. Yet in spite of its out-of-the-way location, the casino was a wildly successful property. The building was paid for, the nightclub had a great reputation, and the entertainment and meals were top notch. Guards were posted in the parking lot and actual run-ins with local thugs were rare. The two owners were not high on the pecking order at the gangster convention underway at the National Hotel and Casino but were well-respected. As they sat some distance from the big Mafia table, those leaving for the restrooms and smoke breaks would stop and talk to the partners. Meyer Lansky was always friendly, especially to his Jewish friend Bernie Swartz; he placed a hand on Bernie’s back as he headed out of the conference room.
“Bernie, can you believe we have rented the whole goddamned hotel for this meeting? It’s wacky! Be glad you’re not at the main table deciding who is going to be left alive to rule the earth,” Meyer said, sporting a big grin.
“Meyer, you and I are the accountant types and not meant to run the show. We do a hell of a job counting the money, though,” Bernie said. Meyer laughed and headed for the exit.
All the casinos in Cuba were surging as they recovered from the war years. Carmine Spada had served in North Africa where he almost lost his foot under a half-track in the desert. He dodged amputation but would always limp as too many bones were broken to ever heal properly. He was discharged in 1943 and shortly after he returned, he saw Bernie leave for Europe as an army air pilot. Bernie flew missions as a P-51D Mustang pilot and escorted bombers on their flights over Germany.
Both were US citizens who had permits to operate a business in Cuba. Fulgencio Batista, who was usually the president of Cuba (and when he wasn’t, he still was), had offered to match casino investments, dollar for dollar, up to a million, to attract investors in his largest city. A typical in-depth background check was waived. All casinos were hurt during the war, but most survived as GIs on leave and other fun-seekers took the ferry, which ran only a couple times a week, from Miami to Havana. Now it ran two times a day during the week—three times on the weekend. 1946 was the rebirth after all those bleak times.
There were Christmas parties at the hotel, and Bernie and Carmine made appearances if they got a phone call asking them to show up. The coveted invitation was for Frank Sinatra’s performance. Of course, the Caribe Shores owners attended and sat among the largest concentration of Mafia, gangsters, Cosa Nostra, and mobsters ever assembled in one place. People would like to think that the singer was naïve about his audience, but he grew up with a lot of these guys back in New Jersey. Many were his friends and always would be. The Italians loved their golden boy, and he returned the affection. The parties started breaking up right after Christmas, and the hotel began to receive their normal wealthy guests from all over the world. Bernie and Carmine went back to their club where Carmine booked the shows, hired and managed the staff, while Bernie massaged the books and supervised the gaming operations.
Carmine lived nearby in a good neighborhood in a large Spanish Colonial house. He had a lovely wife and two beautiful young daughters, Suzanne, age 8, and Liza, age 9, who attended school back in Boston. His wife Betty traveled back and forth to look after them. Their summers were spent in Cuba, Europe, and on vacation with their dad. Carmine knew he couldn’t hold on to them forever since it wouldn’t be long before they discovered boys. The girls were in Catholic elementary boarding school and were only a little more than a year apart in age. Betty had relatives nearby in Cambridge, so there was always family close by. Carmine had married at twenty-one and now was 32 years old—five years older than Bernie. He took on the role of older brother much of the time, yet both were really young to be in the casino business. Betty found out right after the big hotel assembly that she was pregnant again. It wasn’t planned, but the surprise was really welcomed. The girls were away in school so much of the time, she would now have a baby to occupy her time. The girls were also excited and looked forward to a new sibling.
Bernie was also married. He had met a British nurse named Connie after he sustained some flak wounds on a mission deep in Germany’s heartland. She was blonde, sexy, and required a lot of attention. They had an apartment near the US embassy on the other end of the Malecon and a horse farm on the Isle of Pines. Their land contained almost three miles of coastal waterfront, including a nice beach, a house on the water, and a separate large boathouse for Carmine’s 43-foot cabin cruiser named Caribe Queen. In order to get to his farm, Bernie kept a well-maintained twin-engine Beechcraft Model-18, which he picked up as an Army Air Corps surplus trainer and kept at a rented hangar at the Havana airport. The flight took less than an hour, and he made the trip a couple times a week. Connie was six months pregnant with their first child during the big National Hotel meeting. She was never comfortable around the Mafia types—but who was? The free-flowing money and all that it bought suited her just fine. She thought about sending her unborn daughter to boarding school when the child was older. She wanted to keep her children as far away from the mob as possible, and hoped it was a long time before they understood what their father did for a living. They would eventually find out, but the parents delayed revealing this disturbing secret as long as possible. Since she and Betty were pregnant at the same time, the two shared a common bond and became close friends.
The years after 1946 were successful beyond their dreams, but rather than expand the business, the two owners refurbished the Caribe Shores. After Fidel Castro attacked some of Batista’s barracks on July 29, 1953, in Santiago, Cuba, in what was a losing battle, the two men withdrew most of their money from the National Bank of Boston and Chase Bank in Havana. They worried about the future.
“Carmine, it’s not just Fidel and his little rebel band of fuck-ups that worries me. The tone of the country is that Batista has to go. The takeover will be military, and the leader will act as a dictator, most likely. I’ve heard Fidel say that the casinos are part of the corruption of the government. We need to be ready,” Bernie said.
A secret location below the boathouse at Bernie’s place, under several feet of concrete, was the depository of enormous profits. On several occasions, they discussed building an airfield on Bernie’s land for emergency flights. Fidel’s attack had been a complete ass-whipping, but Bernie and Carmine knew the pulse of the people and the tenacity of Fidel’s rag-tag rebels. They believed that if Fidel didn’t survive the war, another military leader would arise to defeat the increasingly unpopular Batista Regime. Neither could imagine a communistic Cuba since the rebels said they were against a soviet-styled government. But a new dictator might outlaw the casinos with whatever brand of government they put in place.
Bernie and Carmine had sons born just six months apart in 1947. Bernie and Connie named their son Moses Franklin Swartz, and Carmine and Betty Spada came up with the name Roman Nico Spada. At least once a week, one couple would babysit the other couple’s child; this gave both couples an opportunity to take in a movie or to visit the Tropicana nightclub and casino. Victor de Correa and Martin Fox always had a special table for them at the Tropicana, and the favor was returned to them at Carmine and Bernie’s Caribe Shores.
Every so often Bernie and Carmine would load up the families and fly to the Isle of Pines where Carmine kept his big Chris-Craft moored at Bernie’s dock. While the wives were at the beach or otherwise occupied, the two casino owners would pull a big rug back in the interior of the furnished boathouse, raise a trap door, and descend down into a small room. There was a table for sorting items, a couple of rattan chairs, and a huge walk-in safe. The boathouse had been built over the safe by American contractors. No native Cubans were allowed near the area when it was built, and as a further precaution, the contractors were from Washington State. They didn’t want anybody who could jump in a boat and nose around, looking to bust into the safe. Not that it would have been easy to do. The sides were made of reinforced concrete and were three feet thick. The ceiling was four feet thick, reinforced with metal rebar, but the steel rods were only placed in the lower part of the ceiling so a metal detector couldn’t pick them up from above. Metal detectors were becoming very popular in law enforcement, and Bernie and Carmine had tested them over the safe. Not a single ping. However, the stairs and the trap door were made of metal, so they had to go. Plans were in the works to rip them out and replace them with either wood or the new hard plastic models that started being used after the war.
Carmine made it a point to attend the Miami boat show every year. On one of these trips, he boarded a brand new blue water sailboat and found a hatch cover and steps made from a hardened plastic.
The sales person remarked, “This plastic isn’t affected by salt water, won’t rust, needs no treatment, and is as strong as metal or wood. The gangway and hatch are an option, so they can be ordered and shipped to Havana for you to pick up.”
Carmine was about to leave when the salesman stopped him.
“Sir, we do have one of the units in stock. It has an extra-long ladder and won’t fit any of the boats we have in stock. If you want it, I’ll let you have it for the price of the shorter one.”
Carmine smiled at his good luck and bought it. Once they installed it, the metal detector didn’t make a sound when it was passed over the hatch. The hatch was recessed about six inches so concrete could be poured over it, sealing it from anyone. Bernie always had sacks of quick-drying cement stored near the boathouse.
Bernie had always liked gold coins and bars. It was illegal at the time to own them in the states, so he kept his collection in the big safe. Carmine owned a few but wasn’t a real enthusiast like his partner. Some were in bags, but the ones with numismatic value were mounted on cards with their assigned grade listed. President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6102 in 1933 restricted the ownership of gold and only allowed individuals to own a few coins unless they were collectors of rare coins. Jewelers could have only enough gold for making products. If you fell under one of these classifications and registered, the treasury agents would be by to check on you. One slip-up and they would confiscate your coins, your gold, and put you in jail for up to ten years.
***
On one of these trips to the Isle of Pines in the summer of 1955, Bernie and Carmine drove their Jeep roadster into town to pick up some groceries. They left their wives behind at the beach house, along with Carmine’s two daughters, Suzanne and Liza, who were now 17 and 18. His son Roman and Bernie’s son Moe, both 8 years old, were also at the house. It was over twenty-five miles from Roja Beach on gravel and dirt roads to the main town Nueva Gerona, but it gave them time to talk about the future.
“Bernie, we need to plan exactly how to escape this place in case one of the rebel factions overthrows that asshole Batista. So far most of these guerilla attacks have been ill-planned and poorly executed. But I’ll tell you what’s going to happen: Batista’s troops are going to be lured up the sides of those mountains where the rebels hide and then they’ll pick them off one by one—steal their guns—and do it again. We can’t be caught with our pants down,” Carmine said as he rose up in his seat spotting a pothole he knew Bernie would hit dead on.
“You and I have this fucking conversation every time we’re away from the wives—the very damn reason we built the safe,” Bernie said. “So far, we’ve been putting from one-to-two million dollars a year in that damn thing—not counting the gold. We have a compartment in the plane and the boat to carry some out, but most we’ll have to leave until later. I’d feel better if I had an airstrip near the house. Right now the airport is about thirty fucking miles away. A lot could happen in thirty miles.”
As they entered the outskirts of the small town of Nueva Gerona, they observed the traffic was unusually thick. A huge crowd stood transfixed while a man standing in the bed of a pickup truck spoke. The two men stopped and got out of the Jeep to hear what he was saying.
