“Rumors that I pal around with known
criminals are nothing but dirty lies.”
—Frank Sinatra, 1947
On February 14, 1947, thirteen years before Frank Sturgis visited Havana to oversee the proposed 'Operation: Lolita' assassination of Fidel Castro, seven years previous to Lee Harvey Oswald’s stepping into a Big Easy grind-house to catch Suddenly, the star of that eventual film majestically positioned himself on a sprawling wood-panel stage before an adoring crowd composed of American Mafiosos, Cuban politicos, and Hollywood celebrities.
Frank Sinatra beamed at those arrayed before him in the cavernous banquet hall of Havana’s Hotel Nacional. The then-32-year-old singing-sensation had flown into Jose Marti airport four days earlier, learning after arrival from his host, Charles Luciano, the supposed reason for this requested visit would be a full-scale gig by a man now known as The Voice.
That would easily be accepted by the authorities in both countries, as well as the media. The true motivation provided a more pressing excuse for this hastily arranged trip. A small suitcase which Sinatra had carried on board and clutched tight during the ninety-seven minute flight didn’t transport his fresh underwear and socks but a special delivery for The Mob.
Now, this impromptu show for friends and family (in every sense of that term) drew down the curtain on Frank’s whirlwind visit. All present oooohed! and aaaahed! as he casually crooned about the joys of “drinkin’ rum and Coca-Cola.” Performed to what would soon become known in the States as the lilting Mamba beat, that song encoded the about-to-be-realized dream of a financial union between Havana’s longstanding if dormant raw materials and the heightened business acumen of an unsavory corner of America's financial communities.
This splendid concert served as a cover in case anyone should venture to ask why Sinatra slipped away from radio and recording gigs in the City of Angels, where he also danced and sang his way through gaudy musicals for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
However happy Frank might appear now, in the limelight, basking in adulation and accolades, that was but a facade for the less than pleasant actuality of his life. Nor had it ever been easy for this fugitive from a rough section of New Jersey’s poorest Italian enclave. The star's popular image, all smiles and sweetness, allowed him to mask deep, smoldering insecurities that tortured this famous, gifted, complex man all his life.
“Thank you,” he beamed, standing center-stage. “Thank you!” Loud applause. A wide grin in return.
This happened to be a particularly troubling time. During the postwar years, a new form of country-western, pioneered by one Hank Williams, added steel guitars and a pounding rhythm to traditional rural music. One entertainment-observer referred to this emergent musical style as The Big Beat. Surprisingly, the warbly hard-edged sound spread to the Midwest, then up to the industrial north thanks to recently created superstations, able to beam programming a quarter of the way across our nation. Now this New Music, as others called it, had coalesced with soulful black jazz from the ethnic south and blue-collar angst pouring out of crowded New York factories and Pennsylvania mine shafts to form an emergent, and important, musical idiom.
Several years hence it would be dubbed rock ‘n’ roll. Already, this blend of contemporary hillbilly and old-time folk, underscored by electric guitars, had knocked pop standards, Sinatra’s specialty, off the charts. He could only hope, trust, and pray that this phenomenon would prove to be a passing fad.
As if that weren’t enough, MGM's big-wigs, always keeping a close collective eye on box-office returns, had come to the conclusion that Frankie’s reign as idol to the bobby-soxer set was over. As a result, and according to their ownership of his services via a long-term contract, MGM now featured him in less prestigious pictures. Sinatra ran scared, and for good reason. Though a huge star, Frank knew he could lose all that he, with mentor Charley, had achieved. He vowed not to let that happen.
Perhaps he’d need to ask Charley to speak directly to the Hollywood suits. It had been Charley who, a decade earlier, “persuaded” Tommy Dorsey to let Frank out of his long-term contract so that the youngster could emerge as a solo artist. Nobody's fool, Frankie knew the way things worked. You wanted a favor, you performed one for Charley first. Which explains, when Sinatra got the word as to this delivery, he didn’t hesitate.
Nor did he ask any questions about the suitcase’s contents when it arrived at his home with the word that he should deliver it to Charley. When the call came, Frank Sinatra answered.
*
Though the message had come to him from Meyer Lansky in Chicago, Frank’s introduction to the Pearl of the Antilles had been arranged by Salvatore Luciana. Now Charles Luciano, older than Sinatra by 19 years, he had been born in Lecara Friddi, the same simple Sicilian village which those humble people Francis Albert claimed descent from had early in the century abandoned, hoping to find fame, fortune and their fates in America. The former two would be a long time in coming. As to Cuba, Charley, as his friends called him (the nickname ’Lucky’ was created by enemies who had failed to eliminate him) first arrived on the lush island shortly after World War II wound down. 'Lucky' had again proven that his nickname fit like the proverbial glove.
He had been released from Great Meadow prison. Charley was sent there (after stints in Sing Sing and Clinton State) after his conviction on charges relating to prostitution. An ambitious Republican, Thomas Dewey, he an aspiring presidential candidate, put Charley away to forge a reputation as the next Eliot Ness. From behind bars, Charley continued to run things in the Mob. Initially, he passed orders on to his second-in-command, the Sotto-capo Vito Genovese, later to Vito's eventual replacement, Charley’s old pal Frank Costello. Both tried to coordinate their activities with those of Lansky and the Jewish mob, these two organizations having merged into The Combination. Neither could manage a working relationship as casual and efficient as the one between Luciano and Lansky, based on a childhood friendship.
However unpleasant a prison cell may be, Charley never lost a sense of himself as a true American patriot. When the U.S. military determined that the invasion of Italy must begin with an upward strike on southern Sicily, Charley offered his full services. The only way in which such an attack could succeed would be if the local Mafiosi cooperated. That would not happen unless members of that Sicilian organization first received some sign from one of their American counterparts. So Luciano, by means known only to him, communicated a green light.
For a price, of course. Always, there is a price.
After victory was achieved, the U.S. had to find some way to say ‘thank you’. Simply letting Lucky walk free? Out of the question. Instead, the unanimous decision was to deport him back to Italy, where Charley could live as a free man. Even Dewey, the G-man who sent Charley up the river, agreed that some sort of compensation had to be extended. The catch was, Luciano had to exit the U.S. at once. There was no schedule, however, as to when he must arrive back home. Charley took the brief flight down to Havana and for the next year ran Mob operations on America’s mainland from there. Luciano communicated daily via phone with Lansky and their man in Miami, Santo Trafficante, Jr.
In Havana, Charley noticed strong business opportunities itching for proper exploitation. These included two casinos located in an area referred to as Oriental Park, a racetrack currently in disrepair, once magnets for wealthy U.S. fun-seekers during the Roaring 1920s. During what had been tagged The Jazz Age, American horse-owners and jockeys cruised on down to compete. Along with them arrived rich tourists eager to squander stock market earnings in exotic destinations. While Prohibition remained the law of the land back home, here they could enjoy alcohol, gambling, music, food, and raw, open sex.
With an emphasis on the latter. Dark sex. Forbidden sex. The kind of sex that smart-suited business types in respectable places like St. Louis, Kansas City, even Dubuque IA secretly hungered for and could afford. Leaving their straight-laced public images at home, such people traveled to Cuba in droves.
All that came to a swift end with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929. After Black Tuesday, ever fewer people were in a position to pony up the dough. As a result of America's crisis, things quickly turned desperate in Havana. The casinos, at best half full during the early-to mid-1930s, lost their luster. By The Great Depression’s end, the track opened each day mostly for locals, these not from the respectable social strata.
This might have continued until the dissipating buildings were eventually torn down for firewood had Charley not one fine day taken a mid-morning drive out to play the horses. After a close consideration of his surroundings, Luciano sensed that, as in time strength gradually returned to the U.S. economy, here was a perfect place to re-develop for those who would shortly enjoy affluence, able to as in the good old days spend and play.
*
“I told ya so,” his pal Meyer laughed when Charley soon mentioned his discovery during a phone conversation. Lansky came to a similar conclusion way back in 1938, when he visited Cuba. Meyer fell in love at first sight with this rich green island, caressed by tropical breezes and gentle trade-winds. At least, that is, when some hurricane didn’t coming roaring by.
As to the people, Lansky recalled enjoying them immensely. Most Cubans displayed a fundamentally gentle, open nature, their joyous celebration of life apparent in every graceful movement. They would stroll, almost dancing, along narrow boulevards. The women in particular caused him to marvel: Their bold femininity struck Meyer as provocative in a natural way, allowing these coffee-colored girls with big, bold eyes to appear innocent even when they rolled over at a moment‘s notice for American dollars.
So many were beautiful, their hue an appealing combination of Caribbean natives who had called this place home long before recorded history, and the Spanish, arriving in large numbers after Columbus claimed the nearly 2,000 mile main-island and its nearby archipelagos for that country in 1492. Spain ruled for the next four hundred years. That era came to a close when a controversial war with America caused Cuba to briefly fall under U.S. domination, in time emerging as an independent nation in the evolving modern world.
As to Lansky, he had arrived owing to a call for help from the then-current political leader, military dictator Fulgencia Batista. The fascist had forced his way into power five years earlier, ruling like a reincarnation of some medieval warrior-king. Though not the president per se, Batista commanded the country as the army’s Chief of Staff. This allowed him to lord it over whoever supposedly ran things at any one moment.
Deeply concerned as to his country's stalled economy, Batista gazed northward. Smart, in an animal-cunning sort of way, he sensed that his huge capitalistic neighbor might well prove the perfect partner for bringing his dream of a wealthy Cuba to fruition. Various American corporations were contacted about mining the rich mineral resources, notably nickel. Batista also guessed that Oriental Park could be restored to its former glories, if people up in the U.S. in a position to finance such a considerable undertaking were willing to fly on down to oversee the make-over, as well as invest in this project.
Lou Smith, a soft-spoken, middle-aged entrepreneur who managed several tracks in New England, was contacted and did express interest. As often happens, one thing led to another. Lou was overwhelmed with various business deals and never got around to making things click. He hadn't forgotten about the offer, though, and in time passed the project along to a trusted friend from bootlegging days. That’s when Meyer got the call.
“I’ll have to check first with my partner,” he informed Lou. Lansky and Luciano conferred the very next day.
Sure, Meyer. Go on down, take a look around. Who knows? Maybe it’ll lead to something. If not, freakin’ enjoy yourself. Jesus knows, you’ve more than earned a vacation.
*
“It’s beyond belief.” Lansky rhapsodically informed his friend and partner upon return. These two had been inseparable since early in the century. On New York’s East Side and all through Little Italy’s fabled mean streets, they wrestled control away from the older order. An earlier generation of immigrant mobsters, the well-heeled mustachios, had controlled the rackets pretty much unchallenged until the mid-1910s. The sudden arrival of these arrogant young turks altered everything. The word on the street: Meyer and his Jews provided the brains, Luciano’s Sicilians adding the necessary muscle.
However much a simplification that may be, their ongoing cooperation created a formidable organization. From day one, this secretive power-structure—The Combination—was built on mutual trust and a genuine liking between the frail accountant and his cold-eyed partner. Opposites that not only attracted but clicked, Lansky and Luciano created and to a degree perfected organized crime as it would exist through 20h century America.
“Okay, already. I believe ya, Meyer.”
“The Depression’s gonna be over soon.”
“I know.”
“We gotta do this, Charley.”
I told ya. I'm sold.”
“When?”
“Right away.”
“Honest?”
Grinning, Luciano spread out his arms. “Would I lie to you? My adopted kike brother?”
*
However sincere Charley may have been, the plans Meyer formulated were set on a back-burner when war broke out in 1941. By then, Charley had been imprisoned, requiring Meyer to zip back and forth between Chicago and New York, then on down to Miami and Tampa, where their coalition owned a considerable number of businesses. Lansky had to do the legwork he and Charley previously shared. In due time, he also had to head west to Las Vegas after Bennie Siegel insisted on building what most mob members believed was one more of their volatile pal's nutty ideas, a financial fiasco in the making: the Flamingo.
Who in his right mind would want to travel to Nevada, for Christ’s sake? If we didn’t already suspect Bennie’s got bugs in his brain, here’s the proof. This according to Frank Costello.
Though Siegel hadn’t lived to see it, whacked by his own gang-backers after the Flamingo’s costs skyrocketed far beyond any acceptable level owing to his obsession with a two-timing whore, Vegas did turn out to be profitable. Still, the Flamingo sat there like a steel and concrete albatross on an arid stretch of uninviting desert. A fountain in no man’s land. Cuba? Eden revisited! Cuba it was, then, for the time being.
As a result of such complex reorganizing, on December 26, 1946 a summit meeting was arranged in Manhattan. Batista arrived sporting his military uniform with enough medals to weigh down a full-grown bear, his presence topped off by a tan cap with black visor that dwarfed the man’s head and caused this inherently cruel person to appear slightly comical. He had flown up for the occasion. Contracts were signed, hands shaken, toasts offered.
From that moment on, The Mob was in. Cuba would never be the same, for better or worse.
Better for some. Worse for others.
*
Six weeks following that summit meeting, on the morning of Sinatra’s arrival, a gun-metal gray limo awaited the guest of honor’s disembarkation from a state-of-the-art airliner. The sleek auto sped the star past a neat line of swaying palms to the city’s upscale Vedado area. During the drive, Frank clung to the briefcase, held squarely on his lap. Inside, as he well knew, were two-million dollars the Mob in general, Charley specifically, needed to cover some unexpected costs.
Lansky had rung up Sinatra in Hollywood, suggesting he head south to cheer up their mutual pal. Do “a favor for a friend?” Sinatra understood what that meant. He would once more serve as courier. Other travelers might have to present carry-on baggage for a routine check. Frank Sinatra? Miami guards would request an autograph, then politely usher this lofty passenger on board.
Giddily, Sinatra agreed. Always, Frank experienced a rush when allowed to live out his secret fantasy of being a gangster. He'd grown up watching Humphrey Bogart play such characters and longed to do so himself, if only MGM could get beyond their limited friggin’ vision of Sinatra as a light-comedy performer.
Oh, well ... maybe someday ...
Once ensconced in his seventh floor suite, Sinatra had rung up Luciano in his rooms on the eighth. Charley had temporarily abandoned his lush villa in Miramar. There, he neighbored with previous and now-again (if temporarily) president Ramon Grau San Martin. Charley wished to spend every possible moment with Frank.
“I’m here.”
“Bring anything along?”
“Sure.”
“Really? Mind telling me what?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Years earlier, Luciano had unofficially adopted the skinny aspiring singer from a seamy section of Hoboken as his kid-brother. Whatever Frankie’s moral failings, disloyalty to those good to him did not rank among them. He like Luciano believed dedication to someone who did favors for you in the past served as a qualification for men worthy of respect. Men of honor.
When half an hour later they met in the brightly-lit bar for rum cocktails and Montecristo cigars, Charley immediately took possession of the all-important briefcase. Once that deal was done, he asked Frank what he thought of his accommodations. Though the singer tried his best to cover any disappointment, Charley saw through Frank’s act. Yes, the Mafioso admitted, everything is a bit shabby still. Expect the same from the Oriental, which they would visit that afternoon.
Meyer had already focused his entrepreneurial talents on solving such problems, lining up top designers to transform declasse La Habana into a decadent Shangri-La. Once completed, they could attract the big rollers from back home. And, for that matter, from all around the globe.
“Sounds like Meyer’s kind of job.”
Charley nodded. “He loves all that kind-o’ shit.”
Frankie smirked. “And you, my friend?”
“Let Meyer do the grunt work. Me? I’ll enjoy the results.”
“We’ll enjoy the results.”
“Hey, you skinny friggin’ wop. When did I ever do anything without you?”
Both laughed loudly, even harshly, at the raw truth of this statement.
*
Reclaiming Cuba’s obviously ripe, too-long latent potential had been one subject of a series of top-level mob meetings held here a month and a half earlier. 24 major-league racketeers, including host Lansky and such flamboyantly nicknamed figures as Joey Adonis and Joe Bananas, arrived amid great fanfare and were welcomed as Herculean champions arriving in ancient Greece for the first Olympics. After some heated discussion, they agreed to name Charley the copo di tutti capi, “boss of all bosses.” Luciano would be the first man to hold that position since he helped abolish it fifteen years earlier in favor of a board of directors known as The Commission. This had brought La Cosa Nostra’s line of procedure more in line with that of so-called legitimate American business interests.
But these were rough times. A strong, no-nonsense leader was needed. “All agreed? Fine. You are the chosen one, Charley.”
After deciding that once-beloved Bugsy Siegel had gone cock-crazy over his hottie Virginia Hill and could no longer be counted on to perform rationally for the organization, Charlie encountered no resistance when he announced that Ben had to be whacked. One of the Italians, probably Johnny Roselli, would be assigned to the hit. That’s the way things worked: whenever one of the Jews warranted elimination, the Italians did it and vice versa. That way nobody had to rub out one of his own.
This unanimously decided on, then set aside, the mobsters moved on to such immediately pressing issues as Vito Genovese’s intolerable moves into other gangsters’ lucrative waterfront properties, as well as the controversial decision to create a French Connection, as all here had tagged it. This would allow raw heroin to be sneaked into the U.S. from that country as part of the Mob’s swiftly expanding international narcotics trade.
Finally, the time came to talk about Cuba, their lovely host country, and the full development of a lavish offshore playground on these shores. For those who had accepted entrance into the drug trade with serious trepidation, Cuba appeared to be a cash cow all could delight in. After some discussion about operational procedures, the group picked Santo Trafficante, Jr., headquartered in Florida, to serve as their permanent contact person: a go-between who would pass the word, whatever the word happened to be, from stateside headquarters in the northeast, where Lansky continued to hold court, on down to this island.
Unless, that is, Luciano found it necessary to board a boat for Naples and run things from there. Meanwhile, word would go from Chicago through Tampa to Charley in Havana and back again.
As for Sinatra, an invitation had been extended. Come! Play, perform. Frankie would have loved to oblige. One problem stood in the way: his wife Nancy. The much-challenged woman had tolerated his flings throughout the year, even as he grew ever less sensitive as to her feelings by openly escorting his latest mistresses around Hollywood. Nonetheless, Nancy laid down the law when it came to being home with the kids for an elaborate charade every Christmas. The full Sinatra clan staged an annual holiday pageant, pretending to be the perfect all-Italian-American family. They did it for the kids, Frank and Nancy assured each other: young Nancy, now seven; Frank Jr., just two.
*
As to the former Miss Nancy Barbato, Frankie had married the lady at age nineteen for one reason: his mother Dolly told him to. Nancy, a nice Italian girl, hailed from a decent family in Jersey City. Solid middle-class at best, a wedding to someone so respectable qualified as a giant step up for the Sinatras.
“Ma, I don’t wanna get married,” Frankie whined.
“What?” Dolly demanded. “What are you hopin’ for?”
“I’ve got a good voice, Momma. I wanna be a singer.”
She slapped him hard across the cheek. “That’s crazy.”
“Why? Momma, this is America. Anyone—”
“Nothing but a dream.”
“Dreams sometimes come true."
”Look around.” Dolly pointed to one after another of their humble pieces of furniture in the crowded home. “Did my dreams come true? Did your father’s?”
“Mine will. I know it.”
Dolly shifted tactics. “Alright, then. Go out and be a singer. Give it a try. A nice wife can support you.”
“No wife of mine will ever work.”
Another slap, harder still. “Shut up. Listen.”
“I’m listening, Momma.”
“She’s the kind of girl won’t mind taking a job until you get success or come to your senses. Either way, you need a good, solid wife. Nancy’s the one.”
Frank hesitated. He didn't want to be hit again, but he had to say it. “Momma, she’s not pretty.”
“Pretty! Who cares about ‘pretty’? Look at me! I was pretty once. How long did that last?”
“But I love pretty girls. Especially blondes—”
A third slap, this one absolutely nasty. “Stay away from them tramps. Italian girls—”
“There are Italian blondes.”
“Not many. Look, you gonna marry Nancy. That’s that. Search her face and you’ll find something pretty there.”
“I’d have to look hard.”
"Her smile. She got a nice smile.”
“People do call her Nancy with the laughing face.”
So Sinatra married Nancy Barbato on February 4 1939. They moved into a small Jersey City apartment. He found work as a singing-waiter. She supported him throughout the lean years, shopping frugally for food, creating most of her own clothes from patches of leftover material, laboring at secretarial jobs. Frankie hit the big time thanks to a much-deserved First Place win on the Major Bowes’ Radio Show, this followed by a lucrative tour with the Harry James band, playing venues like the Rustic Cabin in Englewood.
There, the top bandleader in the business, Tommy Dorsey, caught his act. The bespectacled gent, knowing talent (perhaps genius) when he heard it, hired Frank away from his longtime competitor. That led to Hollywood, Frank’s obvious charisma quickly catching on with American moviegoers.
But if Nancy figured now maybe they had it made, she had to reconsider when word of her husband's dalliances first leaked in from girlfriends who had seen and heard stuff. This in time poured over her like a massive flood. Because the most plentiful human species in Los Angeles, entertainment capital of the world, were Frank’s favorites: Blondes. Big blondes. Little blondes. Natural blondes. Fake blondes. Blondes with big boobs and asses shaped like the caboose on the Orange Blossom special.
The wide, wonderful world of blondes. Not that brunettes were to be scoffed at. Take Ava Gardner, for instance ...
*
When the cigars had burned low, the final cups of choice espresso sipped, Sinatra humbly handed Charley a silver lighter. The words “To my dear pal Lucky from his ‘kid brother’, Frank” were emblazoned on its surface in an overly refined lettering style suggesting a touch of class to people who have no real knowledge of that elusive commodity. Charley nodded warmly as he accepted this peace-offering. He well knew how pussy-whipped Frank was, not only by Nancy but any other woman he became involved with. Realizing that Sinatra, as always insecure under his surface-show of cockiness, needed to hear the words spoken loud and clear, Charlie assured Frankie that there were no hard feelings as to the latter's failure to appear at Christmas.
“Next time? Bring Nancy along.”
“Maybe I’ll do just that.”
“And the kids. They’d love the beaches.”
Already, though, the singer’s mind whirled off in a very different direction. Liking what he’d seen so far, Sinatra hoped a return engagement in the near-future would allow him to impress the starlet to end all starlets, more or less the sex symbol equivalent to capo di tutti capi: the blonde to beat all blondes. Frank had become enamored with one Norma Jean Baker.
This baby-doll had, like so many others who hung around the studios hoping for some hand-out role in exchange for anonymous blow-jobs with ranking executives, had like a loyal dog been thrown several bones: bit parts in big movies like Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! Also, she’d been cast as the lead in an upcoming shoestring-budget item called Ladies of the Chorus. With a little luck that one could make her a star. If not, she could keep trying, like an endless string of well-built glamour-girls before her.
Maybe Norma Jean would prove to be that rare case—like Jean Harlow, Betty Grable, Lana Turner—who hit the big-time. That was rare, but it did on occasion happen. With her child‘s eyes and womanly torso, no question Norma Jean could become a silver-screen goddess. That ass, those curves? With Frankie’s help. Which meant a little help from Charley as well.
“You’re thinking about someone. And it ain’t Nancy.”
The signature sideways sneer, followed by: “Right!”
Then Sinatra and Luciano briefly parted, each heading back to his respective suite to shower, shave, dress. An hour later, Charley spirited his guest off to the Oriental Park in Marianao. They spent their first afternoon together there, accompanied by attractive local girls wearing garish outfits. They spoke only a smattering of English but well knew the score. Looking the racetrack over, Sinatra felt that the scene did appear listless. As they’d agreed, if anything could turn that around it was the mind of the man Charley referred to as The Accountant, Meyer.
After several hours, the sun became unbearably hot so they returned with the women for a light late-lunch of crab salad in Hotel Nacional’s most exclusive dining room. Each man afterwards retired with his woman for a nap. Sinatra swept his lithe beauty up in his arms and under the sheets. Once there he promptly fell asleep, snoring loudly. Exhausted, as he would later convince himself, from the flight, the day’s activities, the considerable amount of alcohol he’d consumed.
The lush woman lay beside his scrawny body, knowing Frankie was supposed to be the world's greatest lover. Considering the circumstances, this disappointed beauty could not grasp why.
Late in the evening the old buddies, having ditched their first set of women, caught a spectacular floor show at Sans Souci casino. Guzzling down one Cuba Libre after another, the drink Charley had personally concocted from rum, Coca-Cola and lime juice, they ogled the nearly-naked mulatto dancers. The girls’ light-brown faces appeared radiant in the spot-lights; their bodies, strong and solid in a way most American women were not built. And how these beauties could move!
Smiling like happy idiots at the two Americans in expensive white suits seated in the front row, the girls’ eyes mutely communicated they were more than willing to share their choice flesh after hours with such men of money and power. The barely-draped dyanmos performed frenetic dances that owed much to ancient voodoo rites. Their feather-adorned costumes, or what there were of them, had been cut from elegant silks and satins, sequined with tinsel. They sported brightly feathered masks, adding an aura of mystery. Here was the first thing Frankie had seen in Havana to convince him that once word spread, well-to-do Americans would fly down to the glitzy New Cuba that Meyer would design, Charley would build, and Frank headline.
*
Even as dawn approached, the two men, accompanied by the most attractive dancing girls, still in the ornate costumes and (at Frank and Charlie's request) wearing those feathered masks, crawled into the limo. The party roared off to visit the worst slum Frankie had ever observed, the bottom rung of Hoboken included. Frank's family home back on 415 Monroe Street had been the Waldorf Astoria compared to this! Narrow, winding, unlit and unpaved boulevards had been piled high with garbage, as well as a sad array of human flotsam-and-jetsom. These sad-eyed creatures sat or sprawled on the steps, or stood stooped over, hunchback-like.
Surrounded by bodyguards, the small party marched on past the sad-faces, degenerate bodies, and wasted lives. The people peered up at Frank and Charlie in awe; at the female companions in anger. Were we only as beautiful as you, the eyes of these desperate females suggested, then we would be the ones proudly trailing along behind such men of power.
Without glancing sideways, the Americans and the expensive whores made their way into a club, past a long line of heavy smokers hanging out in the hallway. Charley’s bodyguards shoved stragglers out of the way. Charley and Frank headed down dimly lit stairs. Once at the bottom, they arrived in a loud, lavish private cellar club, full of elegantly adorned patrons.
“Hello, and welcome!” The men of respect were greeted by the owner, a short, barrel-shaped native in a simple white suit, his jacket stained tan under the armpits from constantly flowing sweat. Obviously, Frank mused, this guy knows Charley. The man bowed low, as if acknowledging royalty, then trippingly escorted his visitors to a prime table beside a small stage, set down in a pit under a single low-hanging light. Other customers, barely recognizable as men and women much less Cubans or Americans in the semi-darkness, hurried aside or shuffled out of the way to make room for what were clearly privileged guests.
Seated beside Charley, the man whom Sinatra in his dreams most wished to be, Frank took in his first cockfight. He cheered along with the crowd as blood flew through the air, splattering onto their clothing. Their faces, too, as the struggle in the pit below grew even more fierce. The sensation felt good: hot, decadent, vaguely immoral. Later, two crazed-looking local women, wearing black leather boots, matching gloves and nothing else, wrestled.
Their bout concluded, the women engaged in sex with a black male giant, decked out in white fur, silver fox-tails hanging from his bejeweled belt. The Colossus wielded what might have been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest cock on the American continent. This finely muscled figure wore a matching white mask during the hour-long specialty act, which concluded with his sodomizing in turn each of what he loudly referred to as “bitches.” All the while the Americans drank down the best rum this infamous Havana house had to offer.
“Like I said: some fun, eh, kid?”
“Charley, I bow before you, as always.”
When, shortly before dawn, Sinatra crawled back to his suite, he found three expensive (though he was not expected to pay) courtesans from Casa Marina, the city’s best brothel, patiently waiting. Frank greeted them with mild enthusiasm.
Shortly after the foursome slipped between the sheets, he again fell fast asleep. As had been the case with his previous companion, the three ready, willing, and able women remained silent, wondering if they ought to wake him or let the great man snore the night away. On consideration, they chose the latter.
*
During a late breakfast the following morning, respite from the way of all flesh came in serious discussions with Charley about mob business and its political backdrop. With an official okay from the man who gradually emerged as the reigning figure in the syndicate's stateside operations, Sam Giancana, Luciano and Lansky planned to fulfill Meyer’s dream from nearly two decades earlier. They had even agreed on their choice for Cuba’s next president: A military martinet, former president Fulgencia Batista (he the very same personage who had requested American participation back in the 1930s) held that post from 1940-44, after defeating Grau at the polls. Since then, Batista lived in the U.S. He’d dumped his aging first wife, married an exotic young beauty, and set up residence in Florida.
With the Mob’s tacit backing, Batista would the following year run in absentia for the Cuban senate. Once he returned to Havana to fill that seat, plans would be carefully arranged for an upcoming presidential bid.
“Nothing against Grau, mind you. I like him.”
“Yet you prefer Batista.”
“He’s tougher on the people. Hungrier for money and power. I admire that in a politician.”
A golpe, or military coup, would soon set Batista back in office, a fixed election to follow. “We’ll share the casino ownerships with him. Everybody makes money. Everyone’s happy.”
“It all seems too good to be true,” Sinatra sighed, sipping his rich Cappuccino.
Well, Luciano admitted, there was a serpent in the garden. A group of radicals, having headquartered at the university, infiltrated unions of cane cutters and banana harvesters. This revolutionary faction had recently tripled in number. These anarchists, or whatever they considered themselves, threatened to overthrow the apple-cart. Luciano laughed as he told Sinatra what such left-leaning subversives called their own movement: gangsterismo, a term borrowed from old black and white Hollywood crime films of the 1930s.
In the minds of such self-styled idealists, those onscreen mobsters had been modern Robin Hoods, reacting against a failed capitalist system. Now, these sons of well-to-do Cubans, their parents despising what their educated offspring were up to, planned a revolt, likely of hard-edged communist orientation. Luciano and Sinatra laughed out loud. What the Made Men in Chicago, New York, and other places depicted in those films had wanted was money. They were not opposed to capitalism, American style. The Mob embodied capitalism on its most elemental level. How fascinating these delusional fools could get everything wrong!
Gradually, the mood turned serious once again, as the old friends finished their breakfasts of eggs and a tasty, spicy meat Frankie could not recognize, bathed in some sort of bright red sauce that reminded him of the rooster’s blood flying about the previous night. Well, he suggested, these gnats likely would not be much of a problem for the well-trained soldati Luciano would import as a counter-measure.
Charley nodded grimly but said nothing. Perhaps he saw more difficulty on the horizon than did his guest.
*
Before the limo headed out to the airport, Frank Sinatra’s first of many visits to Cuba nearing its end, the man who would owing to the enormity of his talent rightly become known as The Main Event ordered his driver to swing by the Malecon for one final glance at this twisting street and adjoining cityscape. Gaily dressed Cubans proudly marched up and down, as if in a constant state of celebration. Every day in this city seemed a spontaneous carnival, the excitement infectious to all who came to visit from the U.S. or any faraway land. Here, people danced rather than walked along the streets! How wonderful ...
Sinatra gazed over the rough sea wall that, back in the halcyon era of pirates several hundreds of years earlier, had provided a natural fortress straddling Havana’s northern rim. The sight remained as awesome now as it must have been then, to the eyes of people whose exploits had become the stuff of rich legend: a mean-looking yet assuring buttress of rock, able to withstand any assault by man or the elements that happened to drift this way.
Exiting the limo, Sinatra again stood, as he had on his second afternoon here, on the storm-shattered precipice. A south-bound wind carried brine across the bay, up to where he’d positioned himself, feeling for the moment like some ancient conqueror of an unknown kingdom, all things possible. The smell of sea-salt seemed appealingly fresh here, not mingled with trash and dead fish, the case back on his beloved Jersey shore.
Breathing deeply, Sinatra enjoyed the rich aroma and its perfect symbiosis with those vast indigo waters that eventually segued with the soft turquoise skyline, the two blending into a shade every bit as seductive as Frank’s infamous bedroom eyes.
He hated to leave. Then again, nothing lasts forever. When he did return, as Sinatra knew he would, here is where he would come first. A sentimentalist at heart, for Sinatra Malecon would always represent the essence of Havana. Not that he’d overlooked much of what the island offered.
What had Charley said? Bring Nancy and the kids along! Hell, no; they won't go. Frank hoped instead to escort Norma Jean, her name recently changed by the Fox studio to Marilyn Monroe, down to stroll alongside him by the sheltering pines.
As soon as possible. Hopefully, those insurgents Charlie mentioned would not interfere with Frank's plans for seduction.