JOSÉ MIGUEL BATTLE HAD A WAY WITH PEOPLE. EVEN THOUGH HE COULD BE CRUDE, and he was obviously someone you did not want to cross, on a personal level he was charismatic and appealing. He projected a mix of ego and humility at the same time. He was down-to-earth, and he made friends easily.
There were close associates who had once been cops with him in Havana, like Joaquin Deleon Sr., now a bolita banker; there were associates who had been with him at the Bay of Pigs, like Angel Mujica and others; and there were friends and associates that he made around the poker table.
One such friend was Carlos Rodriguez, whom Battle met during a poker game in 1970. Rodriguez was known by the nickname “Trio de Trés.” A trio of threes is not a great hand in poker. Carlos had a habit of losing at cards; his nickname was a reference to his bad luck.
Rodriguez knew very little about Battle when they sat down with three or four other Cubans to play poker at a flophouse casino in Union City. One of the first things he noticed was that Battle was cheating. He had surreptitiously retrieved a card that had been discarded from his hand. Rather than make a commotion about it, Rodriguez said to Battle, “Que buen caballo que lo montan dos jinetes en la misma carrera (What a good horse that two jockeys can ride him in the same race).” It was his way of letting Battle know that he knew he was cheating without making an issue of it.
Battle looked at Trio de Trés, assessing this slick hombre he had just met. The Godfather’s lips tightened into a slight smile. Rodriquez nodded in acknowledgment. And a great friendship was born.
After the card game, Battle gave Rodriguez a business card and said, “I like your style. If you ever need anything, call me at the number on my card. I will help you out.”
Rodriguez left the poker game that day with no idea that he would ever need to call Battle. He asked around about the guy and was told that he was the bolita king of New York and New Jersey. He learned of Battle’s reputation as a hero at the Bay of Pigs invasion and of the time he spent in Castro’s hellhole of a prison on the Isle of Pines. Some friends told him that if he were to have José Miguel Battle as a friend, he would have a friend for life. That’s the kind of guy he is, they told him.
Rodriguez shrugged and wondered if that was true. Clearly, Battle couldn’t be trusted in a card game. Rodriguez was not the first, nor would he be the last, to catch José Miguel cheating at cards. But it had seemed so obvious and lighthearted, as if Battle didn’t care if someone saw him stacking a deck or hiding a discarded card. It was all part of the camaraderie of playing the game.
Trio de Trés tucked José Miguel Battle’s business card into his wallet without thinking much about it.
Though he liked to play cards, and he did occasionally bet the number, Rodriguez was not a habitual bolitero. Born in Matanzas, Cuba, on August 30, 1934, he left the island in 1962 and arrived in Union City with his wife in the mid-1960s. He earned a living by working in a garment factory. The garment business was the primary industry in Union City; it was the main reason most Cubans had come there in the first place. The work was sporadic. Rodriguez did not have a full-time job. He worked when he could find it, and when he wasn’t working he hung out at neighborhood poker games or at one of the many Cuban bars and cafecitos in Union City or West New York.
One night Rodriguez was at a bar called El Brinque in Union City, shooting pool with a couple of strangers who had walked into the bar. He took turns playing eight-ball with the two shady-looking characters. They were playing for money. As Rodriguez racked up one victory after another, taking bill after bill from the losers, he began to get the sense that these hombres were not about to let him leave the bar with their money. Quite possibly his life was in danger.
Rodriguez noticed that he still had Battle’s business card in his wallet. He handed the card to someone he knew at the bar and said quietly, “Find a pay phone. Call this man. Tell him Trio de Trés is in trouble at El Brinque.”
“What if he asks who is calling?”
“Just do it.”
His friend called Battle. Within ten minutes, there he was, El Gordo, in a suit and tie, with two bodyguards. The men with whom Rodriguez had been playing billiards seemed to recognize Battle, and they backed off. Battle said, “Hey, chico, what are you doing here? I told you to go pick up that thing.”
Rodriguez recognized this as his cue to skedaddle, and so he did.
The next time Rodriguez saw Battle, he told him, “You may have saved my life.”
“I’m glad I could help,” said Battle. Then he asked Rodriguez if he’d like to work for his organization.
Carlos Rodriguez quit working in the garment business and became Battle’s confidant and errand runner for the next thirty years. On various FBI surveillances, he became a new face on the radar. He was seen driving around with Battle and others in his organization.
One day, Rodriguez was at his home in Union City. There was a knock at the door. His wife answered. He heard her talking to some men—in English, which was unusual.
Then his wife came to him and said, “The men with three letters are at the door.”
Rodriguez thought, F-B-I. Coño (damn).
He let the two agents into his home. They said, “We’re going to record everything that’s said here.”
Rodriguez didn’t know if that was legal, but he didn’t want it to appear that he was hiding anything.
They showed him a photo of José Miguel Battle. “Do you know this man?” they asked.
Rodriguez was pretty sure they must have been following him around. Why else would they be here?
“Yes,” he said.
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“Yes, he is.”
The men became very serious. One of them asked, “Why is he a friend of yours?”
Without hesitation, Rodriguez said, “Because he’s a war hero.”
They asked him if he knew what Battle did for a living. Carlos said, “He owns a jewelry store on Bergenline Avenue.”
Then they asked Rodriguez if he knew three other people. One was Celin Valdivia, a politico–law enforcement liaison in Union City. The second they identified only as Rafaelito. And the third was Captain Frank Scarafile, a powerful figure in the Union City Police Department.
Said Rodriguez, “I know one and two, but not the captain.”
The FBI agents wanted to know if Battle was making payoffs to Captain Scarafile.
“I know nothing about that,” Carlos told them.
The agents finally left the house.
Rodriguez waited till later that night. He left the house and made various evasive maneuvers to ensure that he was not being followed. He met Battle at La Gran Via Restaurant on Bergenline Avenue and told him about the visit from the FBI agents.
Battle did not seem surprised, nor did he seem too worried. He told Carlos, “Gracias for bringing this information to me.” Then they ordered some food. Battle had what he usually had for breakfast, lunch, or dinner—harina and picadillo (cornmeal and ground beef). Years later, Trio de Trés would remember, “That man, he sure did like to eat.”
ON JULY 22, 1970, NEWARK U.S. ATTORNEY FREDERICK B. LACEY ANNOUNCED THE indictments of fourteen people, including Battle, Mujica, and José Miguel’s brothers Aldo and Hiram. Bench warrants were issued for all of the defendants.
José Miguel turned himself in at the police station in Union City and was taken to the federal courthouse in Newark to be arraigned. His friend Trio de Trés, Carlos Rodriguez, was there in a show of solidarity. Said Rodriguez, “I remember we were in the hallway, and there was a woman crying. She had been fined five hundred dollars for some matter, and she didn’t have the money. Battle reached into his wallet and took out five hundred. He gave her the money. The woman was stunned. So was I. Here was this man facing serious legal problems of his own, and still he stops to help this woman. He was very generous.”
Battle’s attorney was Maurice M. Krivit, a Jersey City criminal lawyer. Krivit cautioned Battle to keep his mouth shut. They stood before the judge, who read the charges: “The defendants herein did knowingly, willfully, and unlawfully combine, conspire, confederate, and agree together and with each other, and with diverse other persons whose names are to the Grand Jury unknown, to commit an offense against the laws of the United States . . . It was a part of said conspiracy that said defendants and co-conspirators would travel and cause others to travel in interstate commerce between Hudson County in the state and district of New Jersey and New York City in the state of New York, with intent to promote, manage, establish, carry on, and facilitate the promotion, management, establishment and carrying on of an illegal activity, said unlawful activity being a business enterprise involving gambling offenses.”
Various counts were read as they related to each individual defendant. It took some time. Eventually, bail was set for the lead defendant, Battle, at $50,000. José Miguel posted a surety bond for that amount and was released from custody.
The charges were substantial, but it could have been worse. Three months later, federal courts would enact the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a law aimed at criminal conspiracies that allowed for much steeper sentencing. Under RICO, Battle might have been facing thirty years; under the current laws his sentence would be more like three to six.
Even so, he had no intention of going to prison. He expected his lawyer to negotiate a deal that would involve perhaps a fine but no jail time.
Battle was out on bail and free to circulate in his world, but his business suffered because of the government’s case. FBI surveillances were still ongoing, and it had been revealed in court that the case would be based in part on informant testimony. That meant Battle’s Cuban Mafia had a rata—a rat—in their midst. Who was the rat?
Battle’s attorney filed a motion in court arguing that the government should be forced to reveal the name of their informant so defense lawyers could adequately prepare for trial. Prosecutors claimed that if they provided this person’s name, his life might be in danger. The judge sided with the government and dismissed the motion.
Meanwhile, Battle’s gambling operations suffered. El jefe, the boss, may have been feeling pressure, but he had a way of keeping it bottled up until it exploded, usually in an act of violence.
Just such an event occurred in September 1970 in Jersey City. And it had to do with Battle’s son, with whom José Miguel had a difficult relationship.
José Miguel Battle Jr., whom everyone knew as Miguelito, had come to the United States at the age of nine. His first home was at Fort Benning, where he lived with his father and mother. They had then moved to Union City.
Miguelito was quiet as a child. As a teenager, he showed little interest in his father’s business—bolita—and seemed determined to go his own way. His primary interest was music; he became part of a band that played rock music like the Beatles with a Cuban flavor, what would later be identified by musicologists as “the Latin tinge.” He and his band-mates came up with the idea of holding block parties around Hudson County, mostly for teenagers like themselves. There would be food, nonalcoholic beverages, and live music. The events were popular and helped to give Miguelito a sense of identity and accomplishment, something he did with little or no involvement on the part of his father.
One afternoon, at a block party in Jersey City, Miguelito got into a fistfight with another kid. An acquaintance of Miguelito’s named Alejandro Lagos stepped in to break up the fight. At that moment, José Miguel Sr. arrived on the scene. He saw Alejandro with his arms around Miguelito and assumed he was the person Miguelito was fighting. Battle snapped. He pulled out a gun and began pistol-whipping Lagos, putting him in the hospital. Later that day, Senior was arrested by officers from the North Bergen Police Department, charged with aggravated assault, and released on his own recognizance.
It was a situation similar to when Battle had shot the guy at the barbershop a few years earlier. He had acted impulsively, created a problem for himself, and now he needed to find a way to make the problem disappear.
The day after the incident, Lagos was visited in his hospital room by four men who said they were there representing José Miguel Battle Sr. One of them was Rene Avila, a well-known figure in the community. Avila owned a Spanish-language newspaper called Avance and was active in community events and local political campaigns. Lagos was told by the visitors, “Listen, the man that hit you is El Padrino. He feels bad about what he did. He wants to make the charges go away.”
Lagos was told that he would be paid $3,000 and given a job in the organization if he dropped the charges. Lagos had some inquiries made on his behalf; he learned whom he was dealing with. He dropped the charges and, once he recovered from his injuries, went to work as a pickup man for the Battle organization.
El Padrino was fortunate. Since he was out on bail on federal gambling charges, an assault charge would certainly have muddied the waters. As it was, the gambling case was not going well. The judge overruled every pretrial motion put forth by defense lawyers. It appeared to Battle that he was being railroaded and would likely be sent to prison. He did not want to go to prison. Memories of the Isle of Pines were still fresh in his head. He would do almost anything to avoid that.
In February 1971, seven months after he had been indicted, Battle disappeared. He packed up with his wife and son, boarded a plane, and headed for Spain.
On February 16, FBI special agent Anthony Vaccarino, who had worked the Battle case from the beginning, notified the judge that Battle had not appeared for his latest court date. He had apparently skipped bail and left the country. A charge of unlawful flight to avoid arrest was levied against him, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
THE LIGHT IN MADRID IS OFTEN SPECTACULAR. SINCE THE CITY WAS FIRST LAID OUT in the Middle Ages, the morning sun comes from the east and brightens its darkest corners. This was sometimes seen as a problem, as the city was designed as a series of fortresses, making it a place of refuge for some, but also a haven for scoundrels. It was in this ancient capital of Europe that José Miguel Battle would hunker down and try to figure out his future.
As it turned out, Battle and his family were not the only Cuban exiles in Spain. Angel Mujica had also skipped bail and fled to Madrid. The two men who had guarded the patio together at the Isle of Pines prison seemed to be inseparable.
Pedro Battle also wound up going to Madrid as an act of solidarity with his brother even though he wasn’t facing charges. In Spain’s capital, José Miguel would meet many other Cubans in flight from Castro’s Cuba, which every day was evolving more and more into the full-fledged communist disaster they had predicted.
Battle had a nice apartment in Madrid, at Calle Jaime Conquistador No. 48, in a residential area on the outskirts of the city. Since Spain did not have an extradition treaty with the United States, El Padrino was in no danger. He circulated openly in business and political circles and was seen on occasion socializing at the Venezuelan embassy.
Among his many Cuban friends who were in Madrid was Joaquin Deleon Sr., who had moved there only recently. Battle knew Deleon from Havana, where they had been cops together in the same police station. They had even been born on the same day, September 14.
Short and lean, like a long-distance runner, Deleon had come to New York and became a key banker in Battle’s bolita operation. He was based in upper Manhattan, in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, a key barrio where the brain trust of the Cuban Mafia often met in restaurants and bars to talk business.
Deleon was in Spain with his wife, whose uncle had been a colonel in the Cuban police, and his son Joaquin Jr., or Joaquinito, who was thirteen years old. Joaquinito was a godson of José Miguel, having been christened back in Havana, where he was born in 1957.
The younger Deleon was the quiet type, always observing and saying little. He was especially fascinated by his godfather, whom he felt had a charisma that made him a natural leader. Of Battle, Joaquinito remembered, “He could be loud, but he could also be quiet and intense. He had a way of looking at you and slightly tilting his head, assessing you . . . He would say to me, ‘You’re not going to say anything, right?’ And my dad would say, ‘Joaquinito never talks.’ ‘That’s what I like about this kid,’ Battle would say. We had a special connection because he was my godfather.”
Joaquin Jr. also got to know Battle’s son, Miguelito, who was a few years older. “He wasn’t like his father. He didn’t seem to have any interest in his father’s business, unlike me. I was into it. I watched everything and listened.” Miguelito was spoiled. He drove a red Grand Prix in Madrid and was known by all the doormen at the nightclubs.
Also present as part of Battle’s circle of friends and associates in Madrid was Humberto Dávila, an esteemed bolitero going back to Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. Dávila was from a family of boliteros. When he arrived in New York in the early 1960s, he established a base of operation, mostly in Brooklyn, at the same time Battle was forging his alliance with the Italians.
Dávila and Battle could have seen themselves as competitors. Dávila had more knowledge of the bolita business than Battle, who was a Johnny-come-lately to the numbers world. Dávila made the business work at the retail level. He knew all of his customers and runners by name. He was not by nature a gangster, and preferred to run his business free of violence.
Dávila’s nickname was “Isleño,” which meant “the Islander.” He was built like a small island, five feet nine inches tall, and stout. Though he had dropped out of school after the sixth grade and was functionally illiterate, he was a genius with numbers and had recently pioneered a method of operation that would transform the bolita business. Rather than have numbers runners circulating in the community taking bets and collecting money, why not have a set location for people to place their bets and do business? Isleño saw the value in purchasing or renting commercial space and setting it up as a “numbers hole,” a location where people would come to do bolita business. There could be no narcotics or guns at the numbers hole; people had to know it was a safe location to place a bet.
Isleño knew that most gamblers were creatures of habit. Many bet the same number every day. And the idea of a set location to place a wager was part of creating a routine for gamblers that was as important to their compulsion as winning.
Unlike Battle and other bolita bankers in the New York area who invested their gambling proceeds in businesses such as bars, clubs—or, in Battle’s case, a jewelry store; a car wash in Washington Heights; and a botánica on 48th Street in Union City that sold candles, religious figurines, beads, and incense—Isleño was old school. For years he had been smuggling cash out of the United States and depositing it in banks in Spain. Earlier that year, on a flight to the Dominican Republic, he had been stopped at a New York airport carrying $408,000 in cash (equivalent to over $3 million today). Because he had not declared the cash at customs, the money was seized. Isleño wrote off the loss and continued on to Santo Domingo, where he secured a false passport and boarded a flight to Madrid, where he was now hiding out for a while.
Isleño Dávila was bolita royalty, but in Spain, Battle also established relationships with much shadier characters.
Ernesto “Ernestico” Torres had been born in Cuba and come directly to Spain in the late 1960s. In Madrid, he became friendly with Pedro Battle. It was Pedro who introduced Ernestico to his brother. At the time, Ernesto’s hair was neatly trimmed and schoolboyish, though he eventually let it grow long and maintained a wispy beard, earning him the nickname “Rasputin.” He had a feral intensity that José Miguel in his days as a vice cop would have recognized as the demeanor of a killer.
As it turned out, Battle knew Ernestico’s father, who had been a gangster and drug dealer in Havana. The father was also named Ernesto Torres, and by the time José Miguel Battle met him in the early 1950s, he was already something of a legendary figure. Born in Galicia, Spain, he had migrated with his mother and sister to Cuba in the 1920s. In his early teen years, he became a professional criminal. Before long, he was in trouble with the law and fled to the United States. He was imprisoned for a time in New York, where, he claimed, he trimmed the hair of Mafia boss Charles Luciano (Torres was a barber by trade).
During World War II, like many prison inmates in the United States, Torres was offered a deal in which he could join the military and in exchange would be given an early pardon. He joined the U.S. Army to get out of prison. When his division arrived on a U.S. warship in the Caribbean, he went AWOL and returned to Cuba. It was there that Ernesto Jr. was born in 1952.
In mid-1967, Ernesto Sr. decided to return to the country of his birth. He more or less kidnapped his son from his mother and took him to Madrid, where he intended to groom Ernestico as a young hoodlum.
By the time the Battles arrived in Madrid, Ernesto Sr. had once again gotten into trouble with the law and been imprisoned in Spain. Ernestico, only nineteen years old, was basically living as an orphan.
Both José Miguel and Pedro Battle formed an immediate bond with Ernestico. The relationship with José Miguel was more of a patriarchic connection, with the elder man serving as a replacement for Ernestico’s own absent father. With Pedro (who in Madrid went by the name of Raymond) the bond was more of a brotherly relationship.
As a Cuban street urchin in Madrid, Ernestico was a seductive character. He was a teenage con man and hustler who could take care of himself in the criminal world, but he was also sickly and vulnerable. He was thin to the point of being gaunt, and he suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, which caused him great pain.
Antonia Izquierdo was a young woman who met Ernestico during this time. He became infatuated with her. One year later, she became the mother of his first and only child, an occurrence that also brought the young hoodlum even deeper into the realm of the Battle family.
When Antonia met Ernestico, she was working as a domestic servant for a general in the army of Francisco Franco. It was a full-time job. She lived in the general’s home but had been given time off to sit in on flamenco guitar classes two days a week. At her very first class, Ernesto Torres walked in. He was friendly with Antonia’s friend and asked to meet her. He said to Antonia, “I want to get to know you better. If I have a party and invite you, will you come?”
Antonia said that she would. But when Ernestico had his party, she didn’t show up. At the next guitar class, Ernestico confronted her. “Do you have something against me?”
She said no but that she had a job that kept her busy much of the time. Ernestico asked if on her day off he could take her dancing, and she agreed.
They went to a small club. Now that they were alone together in an intimate setting, Antonia felt the chemistry. A song by a Spanish pop group called Los Angeles came on the jukebox. The song was “Monica,” a lush love ballad with swelling strings and sentimental lyrics. Ernesto said, “Forever after, this song will remind me of you. In fact, from now on I’m going to call you ‘Monica.’ ”
A week later, Ernestico told her, “I want to be your man, and I want you to be with me. I don’t want you working for that general anymore.”
“Are you going to take care of me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
They moved together into an apartment in the center of Madrid. Antonia quickly understood that her new boyfriend was a hustler who conned people out of money, but somehow that only made the situation more romantic. After a few months living with Ernestico, she became pregnant.
At the same time this was happening, Ernestico had become tight with the Battles and other Cubans from New Jersey who had formed their small community on the lam in Spain. Not everyone was enamored with Ernestico. Isleño Dávila, for one, believed that the young hoodlum was a hopeless case. One night, when the Cubans were all gathered together at a party, Isleño saw Antonia with Ernestico, and he said to her, “You’re too good to be hanging out with this guy.” Ernestico heard that and went crazy. He pulled out a knife that he always carried and threatened to kill Isleño. Others who were there separated the two men before it escalated into a physical altercation.
By mid-1971, Ernesto and Pedro Battle had become so close that when Antonia gave birth to their child, the father asked Pedro if he would be the godfather. Said Pedro, “Of course, Ernestico. I would be honored. You’re like a brother to me.”
The child was baptized in a majestic Catholic cathedral in Madrid. Pedro was there to serve as godfather, along with a female friend of Antonia who served as godmother. Having a rebel spirit, Ernestico did not want to give his son the traditional name of Ernesto Torres. He wanted to name the kid Ringo, after Ringo Starr of the Beatles. However, this being Spain under Franco, a Catholic traditionalist, the church would not let him baptize his child as Ringo, and so the child was christened, inevitably, as Ernesto Torres.
Fatherhood did little to tame Ernestico. He remained impulsive, with a self-destructive streak that defied logic.
One day, José Miguel Battle was explaining to the young Cuban that a man was coming to see him. The man owed him $10,000 but was coming to explain that he did not have the money. It was Battle’s intention to terrify the man so that he would realize that he could not trifle with José Miguel Battle, the Cuban Godfather from America.
Ernestico listened carefully and took it all in. Later that day, the guy arrived in a Madrid taxi, black with a red stripe along the side.
Battle was inside the apartment on Calle Jaime Conquistador. He heard Pop! Pop! He went outside, and there was the guy in the back of the cab, shot twice in the head, Ernesto standing by with a gun. “You’ll have no more problems with this guy,” said Ernesto.
Battle was astonished. “What do you mean? Are you crazy?”
“Let this be a message to your enemies.”
“You just cost me a lot of money. You are crazy. Get this body out of here.”
Battle pulled out some cash and handed it to the driver. “Go. Disappear. We’ll take care of it.”
The driver took the money and split.
Battle looked at Ernestico, both stupefied and somewhat impressed. It says a lot about Battle that he looked at the dead body, and at Ernesto, knowing that this was an outrageous act, but also perhaps the thought entering his consciousness that he could use this kid.
Aside from Ernestico’s impulsive acts of violence, Battle and the other Cubans in Spain had a wonderful time. They traveled together to the ruggedly beautiful area of Costa Brava, on the north Mediterranean coast, and all stayed at the same hotel. Spain was the motherland, the maternal womb for all Latinos, and together they could squint their eyes and almost believe they were back in the fatherland, La Patria, Cuba. They were able to speak in their native tongue every day. The weather was similar to La Isla, hot and humid. And the cuisine was close enough to remind Battle of his home province of Oriente. It was a time of fantasy in vacationland, a place where the men with three letters—FBI—could not bother them. For a while, it seemed like paradise.
However, by September 1972, Battle had been in Spain for nineteen months. His fellow bolita banker, Isleño Dávila, had a saying: “El circo está cerado, pero los leones siguen comiendo (The circus is closed, but the lions are still eating).” There were mouths to feed back in New York. By then, Dávila and Joaquin Deleon Sr., who were not facing criminal charges, and his brother Pedro, had returned to the United States. Ernestico, for whom Battle saw so much potential, had also departed to the States. José Miguel was mostly alone with his wife and Miguelito. He was getting restless. You could only neglect the bolita business for so long before it fell apart, or into the hands of someone else.
In early September, Battle sent his wife and son ahead on a flight to Newark. On the twenty-fifth of that month, Battle himself boarded a plane in Madrid under a false passport. The flight was destined for Costa Rica and then Miami.
Apparently someone tipped off authorities in the United States, because when Battle landed at Miami International Airport, he was immediately arrested by federal agents.
While stewing in custody, El Padrino pondered his predicament. He was facing two substantial charges, the gambling case in New Jersey, and now the charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
He was soon transferred to a federal facility in New Jersey. There, he huddled with his lawyers, who decided that it was best for him to avoid trial. In exchange for his pleading guilty to both charges, the lawyers would attempt to work out the best deal they could.
It was a sweet deal. By pleading guilty, Battle received a sentence of just eighteen months. At the Isle of Pines, eighteen months had seemed like an eternity, but for Battle, who had been expecting a longer sentence and would be serving his time at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, this eighteen months would be a piece of cake.
BATTLE ARRIVED AT DANBURY CORRECTIONAL FACILITY WITH A BOUNCE IN HIS STEP. Once he got settled in, he was a minor celebrity among the mafiosi, who had heard he was a “friend of the family.” To the Cuban American inmates, he was a major celebrity, El Padrino, a war hero from the Bay of Pigs.
Whatever notoriety Battle might have had, however, was overshadowed by the arrival of some new celebrity inmates—the Watergate burglars, otherwise known as “the Plumbers.”
The infamous Watergate burglary had occurred while Battle was in Spain; the arrest of the burglars had riveted Battle’s attention, as it did many Cuban émigrés in the United States. Most Americans followed the evolving scandal as it related to the administration of President Richard Nixon—whether or not the break-in at Democratic Party National Headquarters in the Watergate hotel and office complex in Washington, D.C., had been authorized by Nixon’s people, and was being covered up by Nixon himself. Most Cuban Americans saw the story as a home movie. A number of the burglars were Cuban exiles, and four were former members of the 2506 Brigade. Also involved were retired CIA agent E. Howard Hunt, who had been a crucial organizer of the Bay of Pigs invasion, and Frank Sturgis, a recurring character in recent counterrevolutionary history whom Castro’s mistress claimed to have seen in Dallas, in the company of Lee Harvey Oswald, days before the JFK assassination.
Battle knew most of these men, and he was excited to have them in his presence. Five of the seven Watergate burglars had come into Danbury prison at the same time the Senate Watergate hearings were playing out on national television. Unlike Howard Hunt and some of the others, the Cubans in the group had refused to cooperate with the Senate committee and had been sentenced to thirteen months in prison. They saw themselves as prisoners of la lucha, or prisoners of war.
Battle’s interpretation of the Watergate scandal was, as with most Cuban exiles, different from that of the average American citizen. The exiles saw the Watergate caper as a continuation of the struggle against Castro. And for them it was deeply rooted in the Bay of Pigs invasion.
The burglars had been recruited by Hunt, who was putting together a team of political saboteurs to work on behalf of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). Hunt had met with Eugenio Rolando Martínez, Virgilio González, Bernard Barker, and Felipe de Diego at the Bay of Pigs monument on SW 8th Street, Calle Ocho, in Little Havana. His pitch was simple. Hunt explained that Nixon was reigniting the U.S. government’s secret war against Castro. Becoming involved with the Plumbers, a unit dedicated to committing subversive acts against communist sympathizers and other political enemies, was the first step in this renewed effort. “Do the Watergate caper, and then we go after Fidel,” was how it was presented to the Cubans.
Rolando Martínez, Gonzalez, and Barker had all worked as part-time agents for the CIA. Martinez in particular had in the early 1960s taken part in numerous maritime sabotage activities against the Castro government, all sponsored by the CIA. According to Agency records, he was placed on a retainer of $100 a month and not taken off the books until the day he was arrested for the break-in.
Battle, like everyone else in America, was learning about the details of the Watergate story as it evolved in the public arena, first in the Washington Post and then through the dramatic, televised public hearings of the Senate Watergate Committee. But he knew more than the average citizen about the bona fides of the burglars.
At Danbury, Battle greeted Martinez and the others as patriots and war heroes. Just as he had once presented Luis Posada Carriles with the gift of a gun, in honor of his efforts on behalf of La Causa, the Cause, Battle presented a brand-new expensive watch to Rolando Martínez. He was able to get the gift into the facility by paying off some guards.
“This is for your integrity, your principles, and your track record in combating Castro,” Battle told Martínez.
The ex-CIA operative knew Battle from when he was a cop in Havana, though they were not close friends. Upon receiving the watch, Martínez said, “Battle, thank you for the watch, but, coño, we can’t use this in here. Estamos jodidos (We’re screwed).” They both laughed at their mutual predicament.
Doing time with the Watergate burglars was something Battle would never forget. It somehow ennobled his criminal efforts, and added meaning to his time in prison. These men were fellow brigadistas, fellow anti-Castro warriors, and the fact that their drama was playing out on such a grandiose national level was awe-inspiring.
As the saga unfolded, the legacy of the Bay of Pigs invasion seemed to lurk in the shadows. During the hearings, it was dramatically revealed that Nixon had secretly taped many of his conversations in his office in the White House. Eventually, those tapes were transcribed and released to the public, and it was made clear that Nixon, who as vice president had been an early enthusiast of the invasion, saw the legacy of that disaster as a means to an end. In attempting to blackmail the CIA director into dropping the Watergate investigation, he warned that it would dredge up “the whole Bay of Pigs thing.” Nixon was using the Bay of Pigs as a metaphor to reference Operation Mongoose; perhaps the JFK assassination; and other secrets that sprang out of covert efforts to kill Castro. Nixon was using the dark legacy of the Bay of Pigs invasion as a club to intimidate whomever he could.
On August 9, 1974, Nixon was forced to resign as president of the United States, a monumental event in U.S. history.
It was also personally monumental for Battle and his friends watching the news unfold on television at Danbury prison. The legacy of the invasion—the brigadistas’ own personal history—and the ongoing efforts to undermine Castro and reclaim Cuba were now in the bloodstream of the body politic. The personal history of the exiles had become a living history of the United States, and it made Battle and those who were caught up in this history feel as if, on some profound and near-cosmic level, they were part of an ongoing political narrative that was still being written.
At Danbury prison, as Battle’s release date approached, he might have been asked, “Padrino, when you get out of here, what are you gonna do?”
The answer was predictable, burned as it was into the man’s DNA: “We’re gonna go get that bastard, Castro, and take back La Patria.”
IN THE DECADE OR SO THAT BATTLE HAD BEEN GROWING HIS BOLITA BUSINESS, THE months on the run in Spain, and, later, while he was serving time at Danbury—through it all la lucha, the struggle, lived on, and the dream never died. With the assassination of JFK bringing about the discontinuation of Operation Mongoose, the anti-Castro movement had broken open like a piñata, spewing forth a generation’s worth of CIA-trained spies, killers, and covert operators. The Mafia was no longer involved, but the relationship between the militant exiles and the CIA had become, if anything, even more entangled.
A primary player in this alliance remained Luis Posada Carriles, Battle’s poker buddy and friend from the army base at Fort Benning. Like the Watergate burglars, Posada was a dedicated combatant in the secret war against Castro. But unlike Rolando Martínez and the others, he remained on the front lines as a CIA operative, active in South Florida and in various anticommunist efforts throughout Latin America. In Miami, Posada was one of the cofounders of a paramilitary organization called Alpha 66, which was created to carry out anti-Castro terrorist bombings, political assassinations, and other counterrevolutionary acts.
In 1965, Posada took part in what became known as “the Alejos conspiracy.” In an elaborate plot to stage a coup d’état in Guatemala, the CIA devised a plan to infiltrate operatives and a huge cache of weapons into that country. Posada was one of numerous Cuban exile conspirators who were apprehended in the United States and forced to turn over guns, ammunition, and explosives to U.S. Customs. At the same time, Posada was active in Mexico, where he became part of an anti-Castro cell that intended to blow up some Russian ships in the port town of Veracruz.
Posada’s partner and primary financier on the Mexico operation was a 2506 Brigade veteran named Jorge Mas Canosa. At the time, Mas was active in the anti-Castro underground; in later years, he would become a prominent figure aboveground as the president of the Cuban American National Foundation, the most influential Cuban American political lobbying group in the United States.
Posada, for his part, remained firmly underground. Since leaving the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company and preparing for the Bay of Pigs invasion, he had opted for the life of a covert operator. The failure of the invasion, and the fact that so many of his compadres had spent time in Castro’s prison, had instilled in him a sense of mission that would keep him occupied for many decades to come.
As Posada engaged in various clandestine operations and began to leave a paper trail within classified files of the CIA, his internal evaluations were laudatory. One report noted:
His performance in all assigned tasks has been excellent . . . It is [my] observation that although A/15 [Posada] is dedicated to the overthrow of Castro, he is acutely aware of the international implications of ill planned or overly enthusiastic activities against Cuba.
Another report noted:
Subject is strongly anti-communist. In addition he sincerely believes in a Democratic/Reform government for his homeland . . . He is strongly pro-American, and believes that when [Castro] is overthrown, the only hope for his country is through U.S. government indirect participation in [Cuban] affairs.
Posada’s file noted that he traveled undercover as a professional jewelry salesman, and that the CIA was paying him $300 a month. Under the section titled SUBJECT’S PERSONAL HABITS, it read, “Subject does not gamble.”
Apparently, playing poker for money, as he had at Fort Benning, did not qualify. But the point was well taken. Compared to his friend José Miguel Battle, he was an amateur.
In 1971, Posada ran into his old friend once again. By then, Posada was heavily active in the war against communism in Venezuela. Castro had sent armed intelligence operatives into that country in an attempt to influence its direction, and Posada was part of an armed Cuban exile unit that resisted. There had been actual combat, and Posada had been shot. Later, the exiled activist was appointed head of Venezuela’s secret intelligence unit, which apprehended and tortured communist sympathizers believed to be enemies of the state. Posada was now on the vanguard of the war to seek out and fight Castroism wherever it reared its head.
On a visit to Miami for recruitment purposes, Posada ran into Battle at a cockfight. Though illegal in the United States, cockfighting was a strong cultural tradition among Cuban men, and there were often illegal cockfights set up in makeshift arenas around South Florida and in the Keys.
Posada and Battle embraced. They had not seen each other since their days together at Fort Benning. Through the Cuban exile grapevine, Battle would have known of Posada’s activities in the war against Castro and communism—maybe not the details, but enough to know that his old friend was on the front lines. Posada knew that José Miguel was the bolita kingpin of New York and New Jersey. He knew that Battle had recently been indicted on federal gambling charges. Though the two men were on different career paths, they still shared the common goal of wanting to see Fidel Castro dead. They both believed this was going to happen one day—hopefully soon—and they would all return to their beloved Cuba.
At the cockfight in Miami, Battle did something that Posada would remember for the rest of his days. He placed a wager of $1 million. “Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Posada years later. In 1971, $1 million was the equivalent of $6 million today.
Battle lost the bet.
Posada was astounded by the sum involved. Immediately, Battle rose higher on the list of people he would lean on for financing of anti-Castro operations.
What Posada did not know at the time was that José Miguel was about to flee the United States for Spain. This bet may have been a last grand gesture before he became an international fugitive from the law.
LA LUCHA WAS A VAST WEB, AND IT WAS ALIVE ON MANY FRONTS, INCLUDING NEW Jersey, where Battle was king. Two notorious militants who lived in Union City, in the shadow of Battle’s bolita operation, were the Novo brothers, Guillermo and Ignacio. These were the men that Castro’s mistress, Marita Lorenz, claimed to have seen with Frank Sturgis and Oswald in Dallas.
Their hypothetical involvement in the JFK assassination, if true, was below the surface, known only within the inner sanctums of the Agency, and presumably among the participants. But the Novo brothers had made themselves famous for another event that was undertaken out in the open for all to see.
Back in 1964, while Che Guevara was giving a speech at the United Nations, the Novo brothers positioned themselves at a location in Queens, across the East River from the U.N. building. From a homemade bazooka they had constructed out of parts purchased at a local hardware store, they fired a missile at the location in the building where Guevara was giving his speech. The missile did not have the range to hit the building; it came up short and fell into the river. The Novo brothers were arrested but did no time for the attempted assassination. They became heroes among anti-Castro Cuban exiles everywhere, but especially in New Jersey. In Union City, they cofounded Omega 7, a clandestine terrorist group that was viewed as New Jersey’s equivalent to Alpha 66 in Miami.
The Novo brothers and José Miguel Battle knew each other, but because they were all engaged to one degree or another in a clandestine war against Fidel, they knew better than to be seen together in public. The FBI was watching. And yet they somehow managed to interact and perhaps commit crimes together as soldiers in the war against Cuba.
In April 1974, while Battle was still in prison, there occurred in Miami a notorious political murder. The victim was José Elías de la Torriente, a vocal anti-Castro activist who had been raising money for something he called “Work Plan for Liberation.” On April 25, Good Friday, Torriente, age sixty-nine, was shot dead by a sniper while watching television with his wife in his Coral Gables home. Outside his front door, a message was found, a piece of paper with a large zero and a line drawn through it.
In recent months, the exile activist had made enemies within his own community by continuing to raise money for a plan that some suspected he had no intention of carrying out. To these people, Torriente was seen as a profiteer, a scam artist, who was using anti-Castro rhetoric to cheat Cuban exiles in Miami and New Jersey out of money.
The day after Torriente’s murder, a lengthy communiqué, typewritten in Spanish, was delivered to various media outlets in Miami and in Hudson County, New Jersey. It was addressed to “public opinion” and signed by an entity that called itself “Zero Group.” Labeling Torriente “a traitor to La Patria,” the statement spelled out the group’s intention to eliminate any and all exile leaders who “block this process of liberating their homeland by working only to advance their own bastard ambitions.” Within days, another letter went out in which Zero Group listed ten names of prominent exile activists marked with a zero. The letter read, “Each in his own time and in a cool and dispassionate way will start getting his zero. An infinite zero that will adorn their soon to be forgotten tomb . . . Cemeteries are very big and we have more than enough time to fill them.”
The messages set an ominous tone: many believed that Castro government functionaries were behind it somehow. To others, it was an example of how factionalized the anti-Castro movement had become, with various groups turning against one another. Militant activists weren’t just targeting people and political entities that were believed to be sympathetic to Castro, they were killing each other.
Like many events within the anti-Castro movement, the Torriente murder remained a mystery for some time, until an FBI special agent in New York City reached out to a well-placed confidential informant in New Jersey. Special Agent Larry Wack filed an intelligence report that read, in part:
This investigator contacted Source #1 in New York City in regards to an ongoing investigation of Omega 7, a Cuban terrorist organization based in the United States. Source #1 stated that Guillermo Novo is a close associate of Jose Miguel Battle, a known organized crime figure from the New Jersey area and a Bay of Pigs veteran (2506 Brigade). Source #1 said that in the early 1970s, Jose M. Battle contracted Guillermo Novo to subcontract assassination hits on several individuals in the New Jersey, New York and Miami areas.
One of the assassination hits was of Jose Elias De La Torriente, a Cuban activist that was assassinated at his residence. According to street rumors, a day before the homicide of subject De La Torriente, Guillermo Nova’s brother, Ignacio Novo, was caught in the backyard of the residence of subject De La Torriente; subject Ignacio Novo was stripped [sic] searched at gunpoint by subject De La Torriente.
The FBI was never able to make a case against Battle, the Novo brothers, or anybody else for the murder of José Elías de la Torriente. To this day, the murder remains an open case.
The fact that Battle was in prison at the time of the murder ultimately proved to be good cover for the Mob boss. To say that Battle was involved would have been a rebuke to security measures at the facility, an indictment of the system itself. Could this murder have been hatched from behind the walls of Danbury prison? Prison authorities might have scoffed at the idea. But there is little doubt that José Miguel Battle had the means, and the motive, to assemble a plan to carry out such an execution.
Among those in the know, it was a killing that seemed to suggest that there was taking shape within the womb of the exile community a sinister intermingling—a potential dark alliance—between the anti-Castro movement and the Cuban American gangster underworld.
PEDRO BATTLE WAS THE YOUNGEST AND MOST WELL LIKED OF THE BATTLE BROTHERS. He was not physically intimidating, like José Miguel, nor sometimes surly, like Gustavo. He had a friendly disposition, which some may have interpreted as a sign of weakness.
Since the infamous shootout between the Battle brothers and Hector Duarte in the streets of Little Havana, Pedro had moved north to New York City. With brother Gustavo having been convicted and imprisoned on cocaine charges, José Miguel, El Padrino, reiterated his ban on narcotics as a source of revenue for his organization. But by early 1974, he was away in prison. Pedro, who had originally transplanted himself to New York to oversee the Cuban Mafia’s bolita operations in the Bronx, had begun selling cocaine on the street. A key partner of Pedro’s in this enterprise was Ernestico Torres, his friend from Madrid. Pedro had served as godfather to Ernestico’s son, and after leaving Spain and returning to the United States, they had remained close.
Knowing that José Miguel had prohibited the selling of drugs, Pedro and Ernestico were aware that they were treading on thin ice. It was important that news of what they were doing did not travel on the underworld grapevine to El Padrino in prison, or they were going to be in trouble. In the year or so since they had returned from Spain, things had gone well. They were making money by peddling coke, mostly in the South Bronx, and there were few problems. That all changed with the emergence of an ambitious Cuban gangster named José “Palulu” Enriquez.
Palulu was an old rival of Pedro’s from Miami. Back in the 1960s, while selling coke in the Magic City, the two had territorial disputes that on at least one occasion led to gunfire. By the early 1970s, Palulu had moved north. The New York–New Jersey area was where the money was, and like many enterprising Cuban exiles from South Florida, he came looking for a piece of the action. In Miami, Palulu had mostly been a bolitero. He knew that in New York the Battle organization had that sewn up. And so he focused on the cocaine business, which appeared to be wide open. His primary area of operation was the Bronx. He established a modest system, with cocaine being brought into the country mostly by drug “mules”—body smugglers—across the Mexican border into California. When the product arrived in the New York metropolitan area, Palulu purchased in bulk, warehoused his product in the Bronx, and sold it on the street through a network of dealers.
It was a solid operation, until suddenly Pedro Battle and his crazy sidekick Ernestico Torres started moving in on his territory. Now here he was in the Bronx, years after his territorial dispute with Pedro down in Miami, having to deal with the Battles once again. To Palulu, the Battles were like the plague; left unattended, they spread like a disease.
The situation in the Bronx quickly came to a head. A heated dispute developed over one street corner in particular where both organizations were selling their product. Pedro Battle believed that this corner belonged to him. One night, when he received word that Palulu’s people were selling product at the location, he sent out a crew headed by Ernestico. There was a shootout. Ernestico shot and killed one of Palulu’s dealers, a Puerto Rican known as “El Raton,” the Mouse. Not only did Ernestico kill the man, but he and the rest of his crew then absconded with $20,000 worth of Palulu’s cocaine, claiming that it was a legitimate street tax for the rival dealer’s having violated their territory.
When Palulu heard what had happened, he was deranged with anger and vowed revenge. He was known to be relentless. Born in Cuba, he had—as with nearly everyone else among his generation of exiles, clandestine operators, and gangsters—tried to make a go of it under Castro’s revolutionary regime but soon found out that communism was not conducive to the kind of street-level entrepreneurship he most admired. He fled the island and became a professional criminal.
He had always harbored resentment, or perhaps jealousy, toward the Battles. José Miguel was El Padrino, and the others rode his coattails. Pedro in particular he saw as a fraud. Back in Miami and also in New York, Palulu had enthusiastically circulated his opinion that Pedro Battle was a coward. In the shootout with Hector Duarte in Little Havana, Pedro had fled the scene, leaving his brother Gustavo bleeding in the street. Palulu’s jealousy toward the Battles was crystallized in his disdain for Pedro.
Right around the time of the El Raton murder, something happened that altered the landscape somewhat. After having served sixteen months of an eighteen-month sentence, José Miguel Battle was released from prison.
As always when a boss returns after a stint away in the joint, the news created a buzz throughout the Cuban American underworld. The boss was back. For some, the prospect of once again making big money was the primary stimulator. For others, there were old scores that needed to be settled. In family squabbles, one sibling might say to another, “You just wait until Daddy gets home.” The criminal underworld, especially with racketeering operations that revolved around blood relations and “family,” had a similar dynamic. The return of El Padrino held the promise of old accounts being settled and dormant operations being put into motion.
It is not clear at exactly what point Battle learned about Pedro’s cocaine business, and Ernestico’s involvement in that business, but when he did, he was livid. Their own brother Gustavo was in prison on drug charges. It was too damn risky. And then there was the killing of El Raton, which created a blood feud with Palulu that Battle suspected would put everyone on edge and become a major distraction. Clearly, what he needed to do was tend to his bolita business. Between his time on the lam and time in prison, he’d been away for three years. The best use of his time was to make a full accounting of his criminal operations and make adjustments, if necessary. Having to deal with a street war that had been generated by an aspect of the black market—narcotics— that he’d forbidden was a headache he did not need.
Battle was concerned about consequences. He could not have known that those consequences would become apparent almost immediately, just two months after his release from prison.
The neighborhood of Washington Heights had become a primary locale for the Cuban Mafia in the area. It was an easy drive from Hudson County, New Jersey, where many of them lived. You crossed the majestic George Washington Bridge and you were in the heart of Washington Heights. It was also a short drive from the Bronx. The neighborhood was New York’s version of Miami’s Little Havana, without the palm trees, homegrown cigars, and persistent sunshine. The Colonial restaurant, on 181st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, was a place where the boliteros— Battle, Mujica, Isleño Davila, Joaquin Deleon Sr., and others—met to discuss business, especially the bankers. But Washington Heights was also a place where the Cubans socialized, in clubs and after-hours locations where music blared and the revelry sometimes spilled out into the street.
In the early morning hours of December 23, two days before Christmas, the Guanabo Bar and Grill at 1487 St. Nicholas Avenue, between 184th and 185th streets in Washington Heights, was overflowing. Pedro Battle was there with his wife, Elda. Wearing a maroon jacket, a red tie, and a pink shirt, clearly Pedro was not concerned about being noticed in a crowd.
Palulu Enriquez entered the bar with an entourage of four other men. Palulu had a distinctive look: he was a dark-skinned, Afro Cuban, with a Fu Manchu mustache that made him resemble the famous major league baseball pitcher, Luis Tiant, who was also Cuban. As Palulu often did, he was wearing a hat. Even though it was after 3 A.M., the place was so filled with customers that Palulu was there for a while before he spotted his nemesis in the maroon jacket, Pedro Battle, seated with his wife in a booth near the entrance to the ladies’ room. Palulu felt the .45-caliber handgun tucked in his waist. He walked over to Pedro and said, “Well, look who’s here, the maricón who had one of my men killed. Didn’t even have the cojones to do it himself, ordered that scumbag Ernestico Torres to do the hit.”
Pedro tightened; he also was packing heat, a .45 inside his jacket. He was ready for a moment just like this. “Palulu,” he proclaimed, “you been a lambe culo ever since Miami. Get out of my face before I have to teach you a lesson.”
Raising his voice a couple decibels, loud enough so that he could be heard over the jukebox, Palulu responded, “You gonna teach me a lesson? The guy who deserted his own brother? Left him to bleed in the street while he ran away? You gonna teach me? You and what army, you fucking coward.”
Being publicly called out for having deserted his brother hit Pedro where it hurt. For years he had harbored guilt and shame about having fled the scene after the shootout on Flagler Street. Now that shame was being summoned by a person he despised more than any other.
Pedro reached for his gun, and Palulu reached for his; the two men started blazing away.
Customers in the bar stampeded for the exits. It was not uncommon in a bar in Washington Heights for someone to whip out a gun and start talking trash, but this was the real deal. Boom! Boom! Bullets were flying. The two gunmen traded shots across the bow. Palulu was grazed in the shoulder, but he kept blasting.
Pedro was hit three times, twice in the left arm and once in the face. He crashed to the floor and did not move.
Elda cried out. She turned over the body of her husband and saw that he was dead. She stumbled out of the club and said to a gypsy cab driver in front of the place, “My husband is dead, they killed my husband.” The cabdriver quickly drove to the nearby 34th Precinct station house and informed the officer at the front desk about the shooting. The desk officer immediately put out a radio call that included the location of the bar.
By the time cops arrived at the Guanabo Bar and Grill, the place was mostly cleared out except for the manager of the bar, a few staff, and Elda Battle, who was on her knees crying over the body of her dead husband.
After a quick look at the body, the cops could see that Battle, lying in a pool of his own blood, was dead. Detective Thomas E. Henry, standing over the body with a pad and pen, made note of Battle’s colorful attire, his expensive Lucien Piccard watch, his black patent leather loafer-style shoes, and the gold wedding band on his left hand.
Other detectives questioned the handful of workers at the bar. The employees described the mayhem that had taken place, but none of them knew or had seen the shooter—at least that’s what they said.
The wife was still wailing over the dead body. Uniformed cops had to peel her off and lead her away, so that emergency personnel and a forensics team could address the crime scene.
It was now 4 A.M. Outside the Guanaba bar, squad car lights flashed and the area was marked off. At that hour, you wouldn’t expect there to be many people on the street, but there they were mingling in the winter cold, some talking under their breath, others shocked and startled. After hours could be brutal in el barrio.
Those who knew anything about the assailant and the victim— patrons who had perhaps fled the bar and were now on the sidewalk or in the street pretending to be anonymous onlookers—had intimations of what lay ahead. Pedro, the youngest of the Battle brothers, had been murdered in a very public way. This was a dagger aimed squarely at the heart of the Battle organization, an act that would resonate throughout the Cuban American underworld.
Palulu had declared war on El Padrino, and now there would be hell to pay.