He removed his rimless glasses and wiped them on a napkin. He wore his gray civil servant’s suit-old habits die hard-despite his new status as an international thief and potential billionaire. “Soto’s brains were fried a long time ago, but you’re right about one thing. I’d be crazy not to consider the political situation here. What if Castro pulls a double-cross? Takes his fifteen percent commission, then makes a deal with the West to ship me back in exchange for some tractors. Or what if he dies and the next head Red doesn’t like the way I part my hair? The Politburo just bounced Carlos Aldana, the number three commie, the other day. It’s just too volatile here. What if they hold free elections and beautiful Cuba”-he gave it the Spanish pronunciation, Coo-ba — “decides to become the fifty-first state?”
“Then you’re fucked, Foley.”
I must have been smiling. He said, “Don’t be so happy about it, or you won’t get your fee.”
And I thought this was a pro bono case. “My fee?”
A smile added lines to his creased face. “How’s ten million sound?”
“Like a symphony,” I said.
As if on cue, a trumpet sounded. Women in multicolored feathery costumes began descending stairs to the main stage. The music blared, and the stage was a procession of bare limbs and exposed breasts. Under the feathers, the costumes were scanty, halter tops and bikini bottoms cut high on the hips. Long-legged women of varying hues began swaying to a Brazilian beat. A tall cinnamon-skinned woman swiveled to the front of the stage, holding a cordless mike, and began singing in Spanish.
Foley watched the stage without noticeable interest. Achieving his goal seemed to leave him empty. All that loot and maybe he felt, so what? For a lot of us, it’s that way. Striving for the goal is often better than attaining it.
“Don’t care for the show?” I asked.
“They haven’t changed the acts since Meyer Lansky used to sit over there, his back to the wall.” He gestured toward a corner that had a commanding view of the stage. “Like falling into a time warp, Vegas thirty years ago.”
His mind was drifting. But then so was mine. Did he say ten million? “What do I have to do for the money?”
“Be my lawyer, for chrissakes. Negotiate the deal. I’ll give everything back in return for full immunity plus a finder’s fee or a reward, whatever you want to call it. Keep me from being the most famous thief on two continents.”
“You’ll need complete transactional and use immunity.”
“That’s all your department. You figure it out, transmit the offer, do the paperwork, and guarantee me it’ll stick. Got it?”
A fat round seed fell off one of the towering trees and plop ped onto the table, just missing my beer. “You haven’t told me how much you want.”
“What do you think it’s worth, Lassiter, finding and returning the priceless heritage of a nation?”
“How about a Boy Scout merit badge and a thank-you note from Yeltsin?”
Above us, the dancers had changed costumes. The same amount of legs, breasts, and buttocks were showing, but now the band was playing “The Girl from Ipanema.” A table of what looked like Saudi sheiks behind us was humming along.
“I’m not greedy,” Foley said, “and this is standard procedure. Insurance companies pay off all the time to get back precious art. I deserve to be compensated. First, get my expenses covered. That includes your fee plus what it cost me to get the stuff here. Bribes, shipping, something for Castro for letting me in. Figure forty million.”
I used a pen to make notes on a cocktail napkin. “Forty million for shipping and handling.”
“So my services got to be worth two hundred million, don’t you think?”
“You’re the client,” I said. “It’s your call.”
“Two hundred million,” he repeated, weighing the words, one at a time. He seemed to like their heft. “So start playing lawyer, Lassiter. You know how to structure the deal?”
Unlike a lot of Miami lawyers, I don’t specialize in money laundering. Still, I know the basics. “I’ll set up a Cayman Island trust with ownership controlled by a limited partnership on the Isle of Man. A Bahamian corporation can be the general partner, with you owning all the stock. The money will be wired to the trust, and you can make transfers from there to Switzerland or wherever you want to live.”
“Good. Get to it. I’ve got clerical help, word processors, fax machines, everything you need. The art will be on a ship in international waters. I get the money on execution of the documents, at which time I’ll give them the coordinates, so they can take immediate delivery. Nobody tries to screw anybody, all on the up-and-up. Make sure the paperwork is airtight.”
“It will be. A confidentiality agreement, because the last thing you want is publicity. A waiver of the government’s right to seek injunctions against transfer of the funds. No frozen accounts, no civil liability of any kind, and of course, complete immunity from criminal prosecution.”
Foley studied me. “Can it be done?”
“Sure, on paper at least.”
His laugh had no pleasure in it. “This isn’t make-believe, Lassiter. This isn’t some cute trick like getting a judge to sign an attachment order. This is real. This is money and power, life and death. Take it seriously, pal. Take it goddamn seriously. Understood?”
“If you’re looking for a guarantee, you need a new lawyer. I can draft the prettiest contract you’ve ever seen. All the words will be spelled right, and every copy countersigned in triplicate. But if your old buddies in Washington or Moscow want to put a bullet in your head on the ski slopes some day, I can’t stop them. Understood?”
“Just get me the money, Lassiter, and I’ll take my chances.”
On the stage, a comedian was finishing his act, drawing respectful applause. My Spanish was just good enough to understand the setup and miss the punch lines. I finished my beer. The comedian took his bows, and bullfight music began, a matador waving his red cape at a scantily clad woman who must have been the bull. Foley signaled the waiter for the check, and almost immediately the black-haired young woman reappeared, slinking between tables into the seat next to him. “So, Lassiter, you know what I want?”
“Two hundred million,” I said, figuring that was the answer to the question: Just how much money does one man need?
I t has been agreed by the bureaucrats,” Severo Soto told me, his voice dripping with disgust. “Your government will give Foley his money and the Russians their art.”
Funny how he always called it my government, always distanced himself. From the beginning, he had planned to return to his homeland, had never become an American citizen.
“Everyone should be happy,” I said. “In a roundabout way, the plan succeeded. The thefts have been stopped, the reformers saved from embarrassment.”
We stood on a street corner in Old Havana near the ornate Grand Theater. Soto was leery of talking business in the hotel room. Hundreds of men and women on Chinese bicycles streamed past, headed for work. A skinny teenage boy in torn sneakers approached us, offering to exchange pesos for American dollars at triple the exchange rate. I picked up a few one-peso notes as souvenirs and studied one of them. Beneath the inscription, Entrcida a la Habana 8 de Enero de 1959, Fidel Castro rode triumphantly atop a tank, surrounded by his soldiers. One of Fidel’s compatriots, a bearded warrior, held a (lag and wore crisscrossing bandoliers. To me, he looked like a young Severo Soto.
I said, “I thought the money might have been a problem.”
“They would have paid even more. Money is unlimited to bury mistakes.”
“Cheer up. Mission accomplished. Castro won’t get his hands on the billion dollars that could save his economy. You can wait for him to fall.”
Soto pulled a cigar from his guayabera pocket. A Partagas corona. I had watched him buy a handful in the hotel lobby. Most exilado s refuse to smoke them until Fidel is toppled.