Spy in a Little Black Dress

XI



It was just like a Hollywood movie premiere, Jackie thought.

Not that she had ever been to one, but she had seen them in the newsreels, like the one for Gone with the Wind. And the Teatro de Cinema was an architectural marvel to rival Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, looking for all the world like a Moorish castle in Castile, complete with turrets and archways and parapets along which shrubbery grew in great abundance. The theatre had just been restored to its former glory, and this was its inaugural presentation. Its marquee proudly read:

THE “MEXICAN” DRACULA

THE LOST VERSION

Klieg lights outside the theatre stabbed up into the night sky, announcing that something big was taking place. So did the red carpet leading to the theatre’s entrance, where limousines were pulling up at regular intervals and depositing luminaries. A tuxedo-clad announcer, his hair brilliantined to a high shine, accosted the celebrities and thrust a huge microphone into their faces for them to sound off on Radio Havana.

Both sides of the roped-off red carpet were swarming with fans hoping to catch a sighting of their favorite personality. They were held at bay by members of the secret police working as crowd control. Knowing that there would be so many police around, Jackie had convinced Emiliano that she would be perfectly safe without him as her bodyguard. She wanted a night out on her own, a chance to experience the event as just another starstruck moviegoer in the crowd of avid fans. And they were more avid than any Jackie had ever seen before. Every time a new limousine pulled up to disgorge its passengers, the fans greeted them with a roar that crescendoed to a frenzy before subsiding, but only until the arrival of the next limo.

Circulating through the crowd were actors dressed as Count Dracula, his main victim, Eva Seward, or his nemesis, Professor Van Helsing. And among the excited onlookers stood Jackie, swaying back and forth with the throng of fans as they attempted to catch a glimpse of Hollywood stars Desi Arnaz and Cesar Romero, who had both flown down to Havana just to attend the premiere. Playing the dutiful journalist, Jackie was checking out the scene outside the Teatro de Cinema before entering the theatre herself. She was wearing a simple black sleeveless dress designed for her by Mini Rhea, the Georgetown dressmaker who had become her own personal Dalai Lama of style.

From this vantage point in the crowd, she spotted Frank Sinatra and Sam Giancana, who both appeared with gum-chewing blond showgirls on their arms. They walked in to shouts of “Frank! Frank!” and “This way! This way!” as press photographers in the crowd attempted to capture this historic moment in Cuban cultural history for posterity.

As Jackie watched the parade of celebrities stroll down the red carpet, she became aware of a man standing near her. Unlike the other members of the mob, he didn’t call out to any of the passing celebrities, didn’t even seem to acknowledge them or rubberneck to stare at them. Instead, he seemed, at least to Jackie, to be biding his time.

And now here came Fulgencio Batista himself, as effulgent as a peacock in his full military regalia, and accompanied by an equally full phalanx of bodyguards. He waved to the crowd as he quickly entered the theatre. There was applause for the less than popular El Presidente, as who in the crowd would be foolhardy enough to boo him and risk getting beaten up by the secret police?

Once again, Jackie was aware of the man near her, whose interest seemed to have perked up somewhat with the appearance of Batista. His eyes followed El Presidente as the leader and his retinue walked down the red carpet and into the theatre. Jackie also noticed that the man, who was dressed in coveralls and carrying a metal toolbox, seemed to have come straight from his job to be a part of the crowd outside the Teatro de Cinema.

More applause came from the crowd, and Jackie looked to see who was coming down the red carpet next. After a few more celebrities unknown to Jackie strutted into the theatre, in snuck Papa, the only movie guest not to be found in appropriate evening attire. With his sneakers, wrinkled cotton chinos, Windbreaker, and long-billed baseball cap, he looked like he was dressed to step onto the deck of his fishing boat, the Pilar.

But the loudest applause was reserved for Carlos Villarías, the movie’s Count Dracula, and Lupita Tovar, who, according to the program Jackie held in her hand, played Eva Seward. Both of them greeted their fans with exaggerated courtesy, as though they hadn’t received this kind of attention in a long, long time, which was probably the case. Jackie had read that Lupita Tovar’s husband, Paul Kohner, was the producer at Universal who’d thought up the idea of filming a Spanish-language version of Dracula as a vehicle for his sexy young wife. Despite the passage of years, she was still an incredibly beautiful woman.

Jackie looked around but was surprised to find that the man in the overalls was nowhere to be seen. He seemed to have vanished entirely. But by now, the last celebrity had entered the theatre, so, dismissing the man from her mind, Jackie detached herself from the crowd, walked down the red carpet herself (and knew enough Spanish to understand the fans who asked, “Who is she?”), showed her ticket to the usher at the entrance, and was waved through into the theatre.

Which turned out to be as elaborate an affair on the inside as it was on the outside. The Moorish castle theme of the theatre’s exterior was continued here with a large Diego Rivera-type mural that wrapped around three walls of the auditorium and illustrated scenes from Spanish history, from El Cid’s noble defense of Valencia, through Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the New World, to the first settlements founded on the islands of Hispaniola and Cuba.

Jackie looked at her ticket stub and found her seat, which was located about ten rows back from the screen. Seating herself, she tried to find where Batista was sitting, and found him with his retinue in one of the boxes on the right-hand side of the auditorium.

Seated several rows ahead of her she could see Sinatra, Giancana, and their “dates” for the evening. The men were busy talking to each other and barely spoke a word to their window dressing. Nearby, Hemingway made himself comfortable and put his feet up on the back of the lone empty seat in front of him.

The two Dracula stars, Jackie saw, had a box to themselves on the left-hand side of the screen and couldn’t seem to wait for the movie to begin.

Just then, the houselights went down, and Jackie settled herself in her seat. She took out a reporter’s notepad, a pen, and a miniature flashlight and prepared to take notes during the movie when Metzger’s treasure map appeared in the film. If Maheu was right, she would have to wait until the third reel. For that reason, she would have to be aware of the reel changes, always designated by four dots that appeared consecutively at the upper right-hand corner of the screen to warn the projectionist that the projectors needed to be switched.

The movie began with the familiar Universal art deco logo of the airplane flying around the globe. Then the titles announced

CARL LAEMMLE

presenta

“DRACULA”

The audience burst into spontaneous applause.

The movie opened with a group of tourists being taken by carriage through the Carpathian Mountains. They were informed that this was Walpurgisnacht, when the dead walked, and that they must be sure not to leave the safety of the inn where they were staying. It was rather funny to watch as one tourist, a frightened young woman wearing owlish glasses, kept getting rocked right into the arms of a male fellow traveler.

As she watched the movie, the memory of the man in the coveralls kept coming back to Jackie. Something about him didn’t seem quite right. The way he didn’t fit in with the rest of the crowd. And the way his attention perked up only when Batista made his entrance. And then there was the matter of his toolbox, which could have concealed any manner of things besides tools. Like a weapon, for instance. Or even worse, a bomb.

More scenes continued to unspool. Count Dracula creepily arising from his mist-filled coffin, greeted by three seductively beautiful lady vampires. The English lawyer, Renfield, arriving at Castle Dracula and giving the count the deed to Carfax Abbey. Jackie found herself torn between watching the movie for any sign of Metzger’s treasure map and concern about that man in coveralls and what possible mischief he might be up to at this very minute.

Jackie watched with growing discomfort as Renfield spent his first night at Castle Dracula, where the count looked on as his three lady vampires feasted on the English lawyer. Then, from out of the corner of her eye, Jackie caught sight of some movement from the edge of the auditorium to her right. There he was, the man with the coveralls. Only now he was wearing a Dracula cape over them to disguise his appearance. Now, for sure, Jackie knew that something wasn’t right. She looked around for someone she could warn about this. But the nearest police were guarding Batista in his box and there was no time to get to them.

Not wanting to waste another second, Jackie quickly stuffed her notepad, pen, and flashlight back into her purse, jumped up out of her seat, and started down the row to the aisle.

“Perdóname, perdóname,” she said to those also seated on the row, whose viewing pleasure she was disturbing.

Once out in the aisle, she turned to see where the man in the Dracula cape had gone. To her right, she saw a sudden shadow flitting up the arched stairway leading to the projection booth, ironically, to Jackie’s eye, imitating the movie’s gothic, shadow-filled mise-en-scène. Without a moment’s hesitation, she went up the stairs and found the door to the projection room. Again, without hesitating, she tried to open it, but the door was locked. Either locked or blocked—she wasn’t sure. So she tried again. And again nothing happened. She tried a third time, now putting the force of her body behind her attempt to open the door. It gave slightly, and Jackie pushed her shoulder up against the door and tried to force it open. It gave a little more, and a little more, and finally she was able to open up a big enough wedge for her to squeeze through.

Immediately upon entering the room, Jackie almost tripped over the door’s obstruction. It was the projectionist, and he was lying unconscious on the floor.

Looking up, Jackie’s instincts told her to move her head to the right, preventing something from smashing into it from the left. That something was an empty film can, and it had been flung at her by the man in the Dracula cape. He was now crouched down over his toolbox, which lay in the middle of the floor. To Jackie’s horror, she could see that the toolbox was packed to the rim with sticks of dynamite. Why, there must have been enough sticks there to blow up the entire theatre. He obviously wanted to assassinate Batista and didn’t care how many innocent people went up along with El Presidente.

The man in the Dracula cape unrolled a length of fuse from the toolbox and was about to light it with a cigarette lighter when he was jumped by Jackie, who couldn’t think of any other way to stop him. It was very close quarters inside the booth, which was crammed with three giant movie projectors and tables piled high with cans of thirty-five-millimeter film. There was also a chair for the projectionist to sit on between reel changes. And it was this chair that Jackie met with now as the man in the Dracula cape threw her off him and sent her hurtling across the room.

She hit her head, losing consciousness momentarily. When she came to, she saw, through hazy vision, the man in the Dracula cape leaving the room. She leaped across the floor and made a grab for him, but all she could latch on to was the cape, which came away in her hands. She let it fall to the floor and heard the clatter of footsteps as the man made his escape down the stairway, leaving her and the unconscious man alone in the room.

Jackie quickly looked at the toolbox. The quick-acting fuse was almost at the end of its run. The dynamite would ignite in about ten seconds if Jackie didn’t do something about it—and fast. She shook her head to clear her vision, then spit on two of her fingers and rubbed the fuse right ahead of where the spark was sputtering. Jackie felt a brief hot stinging in her fingers as the spark went out. She collapsed on the floor, realizing how narrowly disaster had been averted.

But a smell in the room told her subliminally that the threat was not yet over. Because when Jackie had thrown herself at the man in the Dracula cape, she had sent his cigarette lighter flying. It must have landed in an open can of highly flammable nitrate film stock, which, to her shock, she now saw was on fire. In his rush to retrieve the lighter and ignite the fuse, the man in the Dracula cape had obviously ignored the incendiary potential of this situation.

Jackie looked around for something to put out the blaze but saw no fire extinguisher, no bucket of sand or water, nothing. Apparently some short cuts had been taken in the restoration of the Teatro de Cinema to get it ready in time for its opening, clearly in violation of the city’s fire codes.

Before her eyes, the entire projection room began to go up in flames. Jackie ran over to the nearest projection port and shouted out, “Fire! Help! Fire!” hoping that she could be heard above the movie’s dialogue. “Fire! Help! Fire!”

Turning back to the room, she knew that she had two things to do. The first was to look for reel three of Dracula. There was no way she was going to leave without it.

She looked over at the projectionist and saw that he was just coming to, rubbing the back of his head. Good, because that was the second thing she had to do—get him out of here.

“Are you all right?” Jackie asked him in her Berlitz crash-course Spanish.

The man looked too confused to respond.

Despite this, Jackie continued, “Reel three—I need it. Do you know where it is?”

The room began to fill with smoke. The fire was spreading. Jackie knew that they had only a few moments before they would have to abandon this room or risk getting burned to death.

“Reel three—where is it?” Jackie demanded of the projectionist again.

This time he seemed to understand what she was saying. He nodded and went over to a table that was piled high with cans of film. On their sides, they were all labeled DRACULA and numbered. Unfortunately, they were out of sequential order. But the projectionist was able to find one and handed it to Jackie. She looked at it with difficulty through the growing smoke and saw that it was labeled REEL 3.

Holding the film can firmly in her hand, Jackie said, “You better get out of here,” to the projectionist and pushed him in the direction of the door. He was starting to cough from the smoke. So was Jackie, who saw the Dracula cape lying on the floor and used it to cover her mouth and nose.

By now, the booth was thick with smoke, and the flames were consuming the nitrate film stock with the avidity of a starving beggar eating his first meal in a week. Coughing and sputtering, her eyes smarting from the smoke, Jackie made her way to the door, where she spotted a messenger bag used to transport film cans hanging from the inside doorknob. Removing it from where it was hanging, she put reel three in the messenger bag, looped its strap around her neck, and fled the projection booth.

Suddenly she remembered—the dynamite. The flames could set it off at any minute. Jackie ran back inside, risking the smoke and flames, and felt around until she stumbled across the explosives, which she tucked inside the messenger bag along with the reel of film.

She went down the stairway to the main floor. People were swarming out the emergency exits on both sides of the auditorium as well as the doors leading to the lobby. Ushers and the actors dressed as Dracula, Eva Seward, and Van Helsing had been pressed into service to make sure the evacuation of the theatre was an orderly one.

Jackie looked up and saw that the box Batista had been sitting in was empty. She wasn’t surprised at that. Instead of remaining in place and setting a calming example for the others, he had probably been the first one out of the theatre after she sounded the alarm. If he had been the captain of the Titanic, his watch cry might have been, “Women and children last.”

Jackie glanced over at the screen. Improbably, the movie was still playing. Only now it looked like Castle Dracula was going up in flames, thanks to the fire that continued to fill the confines of the projection booth. When was the fire department going to get here?

Jackie decided to leave through the lobby, which seemed to have the least crowded exits. The lobby itself was also starting to fill with smoke. Through its doors, the boulevard in front of the theatre was visible, and Jackie was dismayed to see three familiar figures waiting there: Moe, Larry, and Curly. Moe had his right arm in a sling, a painful reminder of Rosario’s pelota-hurling ability. As she watched, Moe stayed in place while Larry went to the right and Curly to the left so they could each watch one side of the theatre for her exit. How had they known she was at this movie premiere? The answer didn’t matter for now, because she had to get past them if she didn’t want a repeat visit to the crocodile farm.

Jackie retreated back into the auditorium, the flames now spreading beyond the projection booth. She needed some sort of disguise. Still clutching the Dracula cape over her mouth and nose, Jackie suddenly realized that she had one ready to hand. She draped the oversized cape over her shoulders and drew it firmly around her. She saw that it not only covered her entire body, but also came up high enough to shield almost her whole face. It also did double duty in hiding the messenger bag hanging down from her neck.

The auditorium was emptying out, and it appeared that the actors were no longer needed. As a group, they made their way to the back of the auditorium to leave through the lobby exits. When the mob of Draculas passed by her, Jackie simply joined them, mixing in as they left the theatre.

Outside on the boulevard, fire trucks were just now beginning to pull up. Firemen jumped out and began attaching their hoses to the nearest fire hydrants. Smoke was billowing out of the theatre, and the firemen would have to act fast if they wanted to save it before it was in need of another restoration.

Moe was standing there on the sidewalk, his eyes darting keenly from one crowd of moviegoers to another as they dispersed to make way for the firemen and their equipment. Jackie did her best to blend in with her fellow Draculas. The way the individual crowds had formed, it was impossible, though, for her to avoid passing Moe at close range.

As she came level with him, she drew up the collar of the cape as high as it could go. Jackie avoided meeting his eyes as she walked past Moe in the company of the other Draculas. Her mouth dry, her heart beating at a Souza tempo, she walked by him on his right, the side with the sling, and prayed that he wouldn’t notice her. Moe looked right at her, and for one fleeting moment, Jackie thought that the game was over. But his eyes instantly dismissed her before moving on to the next caped Dracula in the pack.

Once they were down the boulevard and out of Moe’s sight, Jackie separated from the parade of Draculas. She looked back and saw the crisscrossed sprays of the fire hoses as the firemen worked quickly to save the Teatro de Cinema from complete destruction.

On her own, Jackie walked another two blocks before hailing a cab. She gave the driver her destination, then collapsed in the backseat, suddenly exhausted from her ordeal. Her body ached in several places where she had impacted with the chair, and she knew she would have some ugly bruises to show for it by morning. In the meantime, she did have the all-important third reel in her possession. Hugging the messenger bag to her bosom beneath the Dracula cape, she realized that she was going to need a place to screen the footage. Surely the resourceful Emiliano would know of a screening room somewhere in the city where she could watch the reel and find Metzger’s treasure map.

Which reminded her—Emiliano, her handsome but supremely reserved Cuban contact. It was a pleasant diversion to wonder what would happen the next time they encountered each other.