Yes, she'd told me that, in her alluring drunkenness. The Havana Room would be open that night. And I was invited.
Six
ANOTHER NIGHT IN THE CITY. Showered and shaved, wallet full of cash. How good can you look, pal? Best shoes, best suit, killer silk tie. Worried H.J.'s men had discovered where I lived. You never knew, until you knew for sure. A quick look up and down the street. Then dart past the gold lettering and potted evergreens, through the heavy door. Immediately, the smell of steak. Then Table 17, as always. Hanger steak, as always. Oil paintings and table linen. No Allison yet. Mexican busboys sailing through the room with steaming trays. Worried about Jay, yes. Determined to have a good time, yes. The joint was topped-off full, an ocean liner of steak-eaters, a fleshatorium. Action upstairs in the private rooms, judging from the lipstick and aftershave heading up the stairs, action at the bar, crossing its legs, checking its watch, shooting its cuffs. I looked around, wondering which of the other men would be heading into the Havana Room. And then there was Allison, coming out of the kitchen, eyes right on me, tongue peeking from the corner of the mouth I'd kissed six hours before, marching toward me in a red satiny dress, which showed me more than I'd seen before. Knees, cleavage, firm attitude. She looked good, Allison, and she knew it as she bent close to my ear.
"Bill!" she whispered. "I'm shocked."
"Why?"
"You took advantage of me!"
"Might have been the other way around," I said.
Allison looked at me fixedly, thoughts kept in reserve, so close that I could see the mascara on her eyelashes, and I didn't know if she regretted the interlude earlier that day. "Midnight," she said. "Door opens at midnight."
I was there on the dot, of course, stepping casually down the stairs and over the tiled floor to the far booth where I'd sat before, wall sconce and painting next to me. Other men followed and I thought I recognized several from the last time I'd been in the room when it was full, including the two large fellows who'd been examining a set of X rays. My eyes drifted toward the enormous black-eyed nude over the bar. The ancient bartender beneath her, his white hair fuzzed to dissipation, took no notice as he set out drafts and highballs and drinks neat and on the rocks and in shot glasses and the last one tonight, I promise. Within ten minutes, two dozen men had arrived, filling the booths and the barstools.
At that moment the aging literary gentleman I'd seen before came lurching in. Somehow he seemed always to know when the room was open. In his suit and greatcoat he was a pile of elegant ruin, but that night's dosing of booze had torn away his mask of droll amusement at the hopeless strivings of men and revealed something more sinister, more hatefully despairing. He reached out and held my arm, tightly.
"I'ma get in here, I'ma see what's going on."
"And what do you think-?"
"I'ma investigate-" But at that he tilted sideways. "It can't be true, just not possible!" He stumbled about and I steadied him, only to confront a leering face whose brows seemed arched in perpetual humor but whose eyes belied unfathomable despair. "You, mister, don't you know what they're doing in here, donya see — is absolutely the final, the last-"
The maitre d' arrived with three busboys, and the man was taken away.
A minute later Allison appeared, having brushed her hair and put on a bit more lipstick.
"Gentlemen," she announced loudly, settling the room, "this is the moment when we explain the Havana Room to new attenders- there are a few tonight- so I am going to go through my entire presentation, which only takes a minute, and then we'll close the door. Good to see so many of you could make it." She nodded at several men- nodded at them in particular, it seemed- and I felt a shot of jealousy.
At that moment the beautiful black woman I'd seen before entered with her blue suitcase. She shrugged off a long winter coat and hung it behind the bar. She was dressed in a frilly cocktail dress with subtle golden epaulets on the shoulders and matching oversized buttons, a getup somewhat theatrical, I realized. She opened the blue suitcase and lifted out a golden tray with two silken straps attached at the sides. These she lifted over her shoulder, raising the tray in front of her like an old-time cigarette girl.
Allison followed her progress, turned back to the men, and began again. "As you may know, the Havana Room has been open continuously for more than one hundred and fifty years, including as a speakeasy, a betting parlor, and even, for a year in the thirties, as an opium den. These nefarious uses would seem more or less obligatory, given its sunken and protected setting, and the fact that there's only one door in. Anything less unsavory would be a bit of a disappointment, don't you think?" The men smiled, happy to feel themselves included in the city's long history of vice and lawlessness. "In more recent years," Allison continued, "it's mostly served as a spare bar for this marvelous restaurant of ours. And except for the routine intrusions of law enforcement, operation of the Havana Room in one form or another has been interrupted only three times in the last century. I know the dates, too. November 23, 1963, the day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and then for two days during the 1977 power blackout in New York City, and for a week following the attack on the World Trade Center. And you, gentlemen"- here Allison smiled at the obviously memorized nature of her speech-"are not the only illustrious patrons of this room. We know that souls who have sat in these very booths include Ulysses S. Grant, "Boss" Tweed, and Babe Ruth. Yes, after he was traded by the Boston Red Sox. We know that Charles Dickens was taken here on one of his celebrated visits to New York City. Mark Twain ate upstairs and was invited downstairs but declined. It was in this room that Franklin Delano Roosevelt first discussed running for governor of New York in 1927. It was also in this room that the details of one of the Joe Lewis title bouts in the old Madison Square Garden were finalized. What else? Billie Holiday met one of her male pals here, and they argued, it is said. Oh, and Eisenhower visited here before he was elevated to power during World War II. The room was opened especially for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis one morning in the 1980s, when she became faint outside."
"What about Elvis?" came a voice. "I heard that he-"
"Yes, that's true. Elvis rented the room in the 1970s after performing at Madison Square Garden only a few blocks away. I could go on and on, gentlemen, but you get the idea. We are proud of the history of the Havana Room, especially its appeal to important and successful men like yourselves."
The beautiful black cigarette girl, if that's what she was, had now started at the far end of the room, presenting her tray to the men.
"Now then," continued Allison, drawing a breath, hands clasped before her, the model of poise, "we know that our clientele lead busy and harried lives, and so what we offer here is a respite from that. Plain and simple, gentlemen. In a moment or two we will lock the door for no more than sixty minutes. You will be sealed in. Quite comfortably, I might add. We have a full bar menu available. Lastly, please note that all our cigars are, of course, Cuban, and are complimentary. We have the very best brands: Cohiba, Montecristo, Excalibur, all of them. Your waiter is knowledgeable, should you need some help with your choice. And yes, you are allowed, encouraged, and invited to smoke here, despite the draconian antismoking laws enforced by the city, which we have managed to elude by way of metaphysical semantics. We hope that you enjoy your brief time in the Havana Room."