“A fellow of middling height,” Morton said earnestly, “a gentleman in appearance, rather slender, fashionably dressed. He may have a short beard, neatly trimmed. Speaks with a German accent, or perhaps Austrian.” The casino manager waved a languid hand at the throngs streaming through the Grand Hall, allowing a single elegantly-raised eyebrow to speak his opinion of the worth of that description.
Fielding followed the motion of the hand with his eyes, then continued it by turning his body in a circle. The Spanish-American War had ended in the transfer of Spanish colonies to American hands, but it was easier to change political borders than culture. And so Havana – rich, decadent, tropical, lush and corrupt – continued much as it always had. Founded as a safe harbor for Spanish treasure ships, grown large on profits from sugar, a defeated and occupied Havana had needed to find a new starring role, a path of accommodation to American interests that would enable it to remain the queen of the Caribbean. That adjustment had come rapidly and naturally from the city’s character and culture, from its more permissive laws and the ability of the police to ignore what it was expedient not to see.
At the turn of the century the United States was not only growing its economy at a record pace but was increasing its average per-capita income at a world-beating clip. Where the poor were bettering themselves and middle-class people were able to afford some luxuries, the fortunes of the wealthy were explosively expanding. The well-to-do middle class and burgeoning millionaires were now likely to spend real money on entertainments – on amusement parks, on the new kineluminas, on motor cars and travel and dining in restaurants. Havana was lushly foreign, temperate through most of the year, and had grand hotels and casinos at reasonable rates. Packet steamship lines ran regularly from New Orleans, Philadelphia and New York, meaning an American could get to Havana more quickly and in greater comfort than taking a Pullman car from New York to San Francisco. Too, the public was now accustomed to long-distance travel and could see a trip to Havana as no more unusual than a trip to a World’s Fair. In short order the open gambling, the free-flowing Cuban rum and the wild music of the tropical island drew capacity crowds of wealthy entertainment-seekers, especially when ice and snow gripped the northern US and balmy breezes blew along Havana’s Malecon. Tourist money flowed into the city, driving a construction boom in housing, ports and roads. The hungry labor market sucked in workers from all over the Caribbean, mixing Jamaican and Haitian culture with Spanish Creole. Thousands were retrained as construction workers, waiters, maids, cook, croupiers and other service economy trades, their wages driving Havana’s growth from sleepy provincial capital to bustling, modernizing city.
Among the many new buildings that rose along the harbor’s edge on the Malecon were the towering Hotel Pan-American and the glass-and-iron magnificence of the Casino Miramar. It was to the latter that Fielding and Morton had come, in search not of revolutionaries but of their organizers and paymasters. That journey had taken them on a roundabout tour of the Caribbean: Tobago, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Venezuela, Belize – and now Cuba. It had been an exhausting slog through jungle, slums, elegant drawing rooms, isolated plantations and opulent hotels. Now at the Casino Miramar three months of rumor, hints and hard-won fact looked to come together in revelation of an identity.
Fielding finished his turn, admiring the white-painted iron trusses and sheets of clear glass lit by incandescent bulbs in rainbows of color. On plush carpets sat bronze tubs holding shrubs and entire trees; around them milled hundreds of men in evening dress and at least as many women gowned in creations fresh from London and Paris or daringly cut away in Habanero style. As the manager came in view again the doctor extracted a thick laid-paper envelope from his breast pocket, whipped out a single sheet of paper and passed it over. The manager perused it with bored skepticism until his eyes lit on the signatures at the bottom: the governor of Hispaniola, the Secretary of State and President Theodore Roosevelt. That earned a lift from both eyebrows and a resigned, world-weary shrug.
“If you are not acquainted with the gentleman we seek,” Fielding drawled in his very best public-school voice, “then you will of course have no objection to our seeking him ourselves.” The manager smiled, passed over two gold-rimmed white cards, shrugged again and gratefully turned away to deal with a more understandable problem: a plump gray-haired matron in an unsuitable frock, loudly complaining about the uncultured louts hogging the buffet. Fielding and Morton used the distraction to good effect, blending into the stream flowing through the grand doors and to the great halls beyond.
It was evening and the sun had already dipped below the buildings to the west, but there was no shortage of light. The gaudy colored bulbs of the entrance had given way to a thousand tiny clear white stars, their brilliance attenuated by distance to a mellow glow. The barrel-vaulted main lobby ran the depth of the building, with wings of smaller rooms opening to either side. They paused and exchanged a glance, then Fielding shook his head: No, we shall not separate. With a shrug, Morton turned to his right and Fielding trailed along behind.
Whether by knowledge or chance the rightness of Morton’s choice was quickly made plain. Where the other wing was filled with new mechanical wagering devices and throngs of the merely wealthy, this hallway was richly carpeted and hung with tapestries, its precincts guarded by uniformed servants tasked with keeping out anyone of lesser privelege. The gold-embossing of the little white cards identified them as guests of the house, a casual wave of which converted frowning obstruction into smiling assistance. Between the tapestries discreet doorways opened into billiard chambers, smoking rooms, chemin de fer parlors and temples to la roulette. The numbers of players and audience were fewer, the clothing less ornate but more expensive, the stakes, Fielding assumed, much higher.
Morton passed a doorway then paused by the brocaded wallpaper on the far side, motioning Fielding in close. “Did you see him at the far side of the table? I recognized him, Doctor! He appears exactly as he did decades ago – it is the man who grappled with the Slasher that night in London. The very same, for he seems not one day older!” Fielding had passed on to Morton the little that he had learned from Makhearne, but the detective had been skeptical. It was one thing to hear and another entirely to see the impossible truth with ones own eyes.
Fielding rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Yes, and we are in our sixth decade, old friend, and not up to the same rough-and-tumble as our younger selves. You should go and summon the casino guards… no, policemen, I think – armed ones. I will remain here and keep our quarry under observation.”
Morton shook his head. “We should not separate.”
Fielding sighed. “True, but I did not expect our man to show himself so easily and we cannot take him without assistance.” He looked directly into the eyes of the other man. “Remember Stanhope, old man.” The Jamaican planter had not been a particularly good man, but no-one had deserved to die in such a grisly fashion. “Go now, and gather a squad of neddies, or send to the garrison for those soldiers we were promised. I can keep a watch on our man.” Morton protested but Fielding would have none of it. “The longer we tarry here the more likely he is to leave. I will attempt nothing without you. Now go!”
The room across the hallway from the billiards parlor was an Americanized idea of a gentleman’s club, complete with overstuffed chairs, a not-very-convincing electrical fire in the grate and a profusion of mounted animal heads on the mahogany walls. Fielding took up position at a grouping of chairs and end tables from which he had an uninterrupted view of the doorway across the hall. A query of the serving staff established that there were no other entrances or exits from the billiard parlor. Fielding covered his tracks by saying an old friend was playing, then ordered a champagne that he did not touch and a superlative coffee, which he drank appreciatively.
An hour passed, then another quarter, before Morton appeared at the door. “The management won’t allow the soldiers into the hall,” he said once Fielding had joined him in the hallway. “The only concession they would make was to permit the guardia captain to come present the complaint while his men wait at the entrance.”
“That will be a disaster,” Fielding muttered, then stiffened. “Where did you leave the captain?”
“At the entrance, with the warrant,” Morton replied. “Why?”
“Because that’s him going into the billiard room just now,” Fielding shouted, launching himself toward the opening. It was to no avail; despite overturning a pair of overstuffed gentlemen and their wives, he arrived at the door to see the guardia captain reach up and place his right hand on Messoune’s shoulder. Then time seemed to slow, everyone moving at half-speed except the figure at the center of the action. The captain went down in a heap, two bystanders thrown aside as his body crashed into them. A shock front of the irate and the panicked spread through the tightly-packed room, radiating out from Messoune’s slender figure as it arrowed toward the door.
Fielding had only a few seconds to register the chaos and scarcely an instant to sense the barrel of Morton’s drawn pistol move past his shoulder. The roar of the Parsons revolver, the shouts, the crash of breaking glass – the gladsome sight of Messoune staggering as though slapped by a giant, pocks of crimson staining his white shirt-front – and then the impact of a runaway car, hurling both of them aside and spreading panic into the hallway.
“Whatever is the reason for this outrage!” Fielding rolled to his feet only to be confronted by three gentlemen, wattled, portly and furious. Had this not been American Cuba he would have known them instantly as white-mustachioed colonels of the Indian Army. He shouted the only thing that came to mind. “That man has cheated at cards!”
Down the hallway a stone-faced dowager put out a massive foot and Messoune ran right over it, somersaulting like a circus clown before landing flat on his back. “Beast!” she said, whirling her purse over-arm like a war-hammer. “Bounder! Cad!” Messoune managed to roll to one side, avoiding the rest of the flurry of blows. He attempted to shoulder her aside and, defeated by sheer mass, bounced off the tapestry and brought it down.
Morton had staggered erect, one hand in his coat pocket for more shells. “For the love of God, man, don’t fire,” Fielding said, dodging around the people who were spilling into the hallway from every door. “If you clip her we’re all for it!”
“Shoot the damned rascal!” one of the mustaches shouted, pumping a fist. “A bullet for a fellow who cheats!”
They set off in pursuit, and if Messoune was slowed by the difficulty of breaking trail through close-packed bodies it was no easier for those who followed. They came at last to the main hall. A quick glance to the left showed soldiers lined across the exterior doors with rifles lowered. Looking to the right, Fielding saw bodies down, some bleeding, and a tidal wave of fleeing humanity trampling all before it. He cursed, tugged Morton by the sleeve and set off toward the service areas.
Across the rear of the main hall were the restaurants, an ice-cream parlor and a scattering of businesses: a barber shop, a millinery, a tailor. The restaurants were in an uproar though no-one had been shot – yet, Fielding amended. In the rear were the kitchens and storehouses, and from them there must be a rear exit. Cursing again, he plunged onward through the service doors into the kitchens.
These were in chaos at the best of times, a carefully controlled and choreographed frenzy of movement that resulted in fine foods for hundreds of patrons nightly. Now it was a broken beehive of shouting men gesticulating with knives, the floor slick underfoot from the contents of overturned pans.
“He’s gone out the back!” Morton shouted, but Fielding hesitated. Neither of them spoke Spanish and none of the kitchen staff were saying anything useful in English. Those waving blades, ladles and pans were pointing to glass-paned double doors. Past them was a hallway lined with doors to storerooms and which ended in heavy double doors for the loading dock. Messoune had been shot at least once, and was bleeding. Even a being of superhuman strength and endurance would be off his best game after being hit with a bullet from a .42 caliber Parsons. There were soldiers at the front door; any competent adversary would have soldiers at the back also. Fielding snorted; Messoune could not know how badly organized his enemies were. And so…
“Check the storeroom doors on the right,” he said, then touched Morton on the sleeve. “Is your Parsons reloaded?” Morton nodded yes, then asked “Do you have a revolver?” Fielding raised his eyebrows and mentally chided himself. “Yes.” He pulled out a Netley. “Not a Parsons,” Morton said, “but use it if you must.” Fielding made to step forward but was restrained by Morton’s hand. “Use it,” he insisted. Fielding nodded, and they went through the swinging doors into the corridor.
Fielding stood in the hall and covered Morton as he plunged into the first door on the right, bent over to make a more difficult target. Messoune might have a pistol, or knives, or… something. “All clear,” Morton said, backing out and taking station as Fielding kicked open the door to the storeroom on the left. Whatever it was intended to hold it was now empty and so could be instantly searched and left.
Morton ducked through the second door. There was a sound of something going over and the sound of glass breaking – a lot of glass – and the door slammed shut. The Parsons revolver barked, again and again, overlaying the sounds of a struggle. Fielding leapt for the door – it gave slightly and then stopped – then put his shoulder to it and staggered through as whatever had blocked it gave way. The interior was dark, lit only by a single electric bulb on a cord high overhead. Tall stacks of wooden and boxboard crates had been heaved over. Bottles lay on the floor amid the smashed remnants of others and the air was thick with alcohol. In the middle of the carnage was Morton’s body. Messoune was nowhere to be seen.
As Fielding came through the door it slammed shut and the man who had been hiding behind it leaped. They grappled, falling onto another stack of liquor crates and rolling across the lake of spilt alcohol – rum, from the smell of it, and very potent, Fielding thought, even as his body grappled with his enemy. Messoune’s hand was slick with liquor, or blood, or both, and Fielding was able to fire his pistol into the other man’s torso before it was batted away. Messoune rolled to his feet and darted to Morton’s side, seizing the Parsons. Fielding had no idea how many shells were left in it and no desire to find out; he ran down the passage between crates, turned into a cross-passage and began methodically turning over every stack he could. The acrid smell of spirits made it hard to breathe, but he kept on until the light went out.
“You just stay where you are, Doctor,” Messoune said in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper. “You’ll run out of bottles to break before anyone comes to look. The door is jammed – you can’t get it open before I stop you. So come, let us make a deal. You give me your word to let me go and we walk out of here together. We might even be able to get help for your friend before he dies.” He paused. “Of course, he might be dead now. I’m afraid I can’t say for certain. But you could spare him. And certainly you could spare yourself. Because I will find you – quickly, if you keep making noise, but soon in any case. Give me your word, Doctor, or I will kill you and walk away free.”
“You have – how many? Two bullets in you? Three?” Fielding said softly, moving silently down the aisle toward the next passage. There was a sound and then an explosion of action, a rain of bottles and a crash of broken glass in the darkness. Whatever Messoune had hoped to accomplish, his target had not been where he expected. Fielding groped in his coat pockets but found nothing except his pipe kit and a cigar cutter. He fumbled for matches and ducked low before poking his head into the open area past a crate. He moved as quietly as possible toward the door and made it to the jumbled boxes just short of Morton’s body. Poor Morton – if he had made no sound thus far he was likely dead.
His only warning was the faint prickle of animal senses, perhaps the faintest moton of air as Messoune leapt. Then they were rolling, overturning more boxes and flensing themselves on broken glass. Fielding scrabbled for something – anything – and succeeded only in slicing his hand on a broken shard. Something was torn, perhaps muscles in his back, or perhaps this was the shock that came after a broken bone; whatever the cause, he could not raise himself to his feet. The alcohol burned like fire.
Messoune must have gotten to his feet because the overhead light came on, blinding after the absolute darkness. He stood as though weary unto death, and the hand that held the Parsons revolver was unsteady. With slow, uneven steps he came closer to where Fielding lay on his back in the shattered glass. “One last chance, Doctor.” Fielding said nothing, only shook his head. The burning…
“At this range I suppose I can’t miss,” Messoune said. “Any last words?”
Fielding nodded, said, “Is Morton dead?” His voice was strained and weak, and Messoune leaned down closer to hear.
“If not, he soon will be,” Messoune snarled. Fielding could see the dark red that stained the other man’s shirt, at this close range see the heavy wet darkness where the black coat was soaked through.
“Then I have only this,” Fielding whispered and raised a hand from his jacket pocket. “It seems… that you have met…”
His thumbnail rasped across the matchhead; no worry now of burning his hand. It flared into light and Messoune started, raised an arm to shield his eyes.
Fielding dropped it into the pool of alcohol at his side and heard the soft ‘Whump!’
“… your match…”
