SIN -
With a Rhumba Beat
Prostitution, Politics,
Casinos Cuba 1950
[REFERENCE:
STAG, Vol. 1 No. 5, Nov. 1950 pp22-23, 58]
SIN - WITH A RHUMBA
BEAT!
PHOTO
[caption] Symbolic of
the frivolous debauchery that runs rampant in Cuba, the
famous dancing
nymphs cavort with abandon before the town's biggest
gambling house.]
[NOTE: Another
view
of fountain]
By: Robert Fortune
Page 22
Cubans, in expansive moods, like to call their capital city
"the Paris
of the Western Hemisphere." If Paris means broad
boulevards,
classic architecture and elegant living, their boast runs a
little thin.
But if Paris stands for a city where the barriers are down,
where
anything goes in plain and fancy sinning, Havana wins hands
down in
this half of the world.
Havana is a town where panders join the tourist guides to
greet you at
the airport. Where they keep cocaine handy in the
Frigidaire for
over-the-counter sales. Where embarrassed
office-holders
sometimes ride out a political storm in the haven of a
bordello.
It's a town which boasts the only female gambling boss in
the world, a
town where the overlord of the narcotics trade has a private
line into
the highest office in the land.
Gambling theoretically is proscribed in most of
Havana. Yet, if
you sit long enough in the plush gaming rooms of
Montmartre
and
Tropicana,
you will meet practically every important public servant in
Cuba. And on a humbler level Cuban mothers tend to
gaze anxiously
at offspring who have passed their seventh birthdays without
yet
risking a peso in the illegal numbers game.
Stern laws forbid the operation of houses of
prostitution.
Havana, however, is full of them. One enterprising
Spanish madam
developed the lushest bordello in town on the policy of
offering the
facilities of the house gratis to deserving government
officials.
In short, the law books would seem to tag Havana as a
"closed
town." The fact is that anyone can run the gamut, from
"French
movies" to girlie shows to reefer parties, in this Caribbean
playground.
Cynical Cubans declare that the sugar trade keeps them alive
but the
tourist dollar makes life worth living. Havana is
indeed geared
to the tourist trade as are few other capital cities in the
world. It's a huckstering holiday town with one main
pitch: Come
on, you thousands of Americans, throw off your inhibitions
and play in
an old Spanish city which never heard of the bourgeois
squeamishness of
American play lands! There's something for every taste
and every
pocketbook!
If you brush past the airport and dockside pimps on entering
the
picturesque old city, you merely dodge the first sinful
invitation of
the community. Desk clerks in a good half of the
town's
hostelries are likely to ask if you would like to meet a
young lady
tonight. Or would tomorrow be soon enough?
If you tour the night-life circuit, you mingle with the
upper crust of
the Cuban underworld. Lounging at bars are
slick-haired Cuban
gentlemen ready to give an American secretary one of those
weekends. You can catch every version of the
bump-and-roll
routine that humankind has devised, ground out against a
background of
frenetic Cuban rhythms.
PHOTO [caption] But, to most tourists, Havana
is the home of the
"hot" rhumba. In almost every cellar dive, there is
a native
dance team that will perform authentic, lewd routines,
such as "shoeing
the mare," shown above.
[NOTE: See this dance team in another photo from a 1947
Life magazine
article -- {PHOTO
.. In Las Fritas Nightclub, dancers Clara and Alberto
Render [dance the] traditional Cuban folk dance called
"Shoeing The
Mare".} Pictures are often archived and used for
multiple
purposes with different captions added]
In the Kursaal, where brilliant multi-colored walls seem to
throb with
the beat of the maracas, a dance team does the rhumba the
way its
creators made it – an African mating dance. If you
take a table
alone, you are swarmed under by elaborately sexy women
before you can
order a drink. If your wife or girl is along, the
Cuban B-girls
move in anyway.
PHOTO [caption] Romance is always for sale in
Havana's thousand cafes. B-girls operate with no
fear of police.
PHOTO [caption] In addition to the B-girls,
any number of shady ladies are no more than a telephone
away.
PHOTO [caption] Cuba has a new switch on the
old penny arcade: "peep shows" that plainly peddle
pornography.
Havana's peddlers of passion work indoors and out.
Headquarters
for a venerable group of pimps and hucksters is the broad,
tree-lined
Prado – main street of old Havana.
A sly, grinning old Negro, lounging on the northeast corner
of Parque
Central, has repeated the same question perhaps a million
times in the
last 20 years: "You want to see some feelthy pictures?
Under a favorite tree or posted near one of the Prado's many
sidewalk
cafes are peddlers of "French movies" (usually featuring
parts of
sexual athletes), lottery and numbers vendors and floating
agents for
the nearby Colon red-light district.
"Big-breasted mulatto girls stroll endlessly and aimlessly
down the
Prado, occasionally pausing to suck a paper cone of tinted
ice-shavings
-- the poor man's ice cream in Cuba.
Wandering off the Prado into Barrio Colon, you couldn't be
blamed for
doing a fast double-take. You've stumbled into what
looks like a
reincarnation of Reno's late, lamented Bull-Pen. Along
Trocadero,
Animas and Virtudes Streets–so narrow the battered old
buildings seem
to touch overhead–chattering, cajoling women lean out the
lower windows
24 hours a day. (There's irony in the street names:
Virtudes pays
tribute to Virtue and Animas commemorates the suffering
souls in
Purgatory).
Plucking at your clothes, the women bluntly advertise their
wares. Their English is rudimentary but
specific. "One
dollar! Only dollar! Emerges loud and
understandable from
the welter of Spanish jabbering.
Barrio Colon is the rendez-vous of Havana's less well-heeled
pleasure-seekers. Yet only two twisting blocks away
stands Casa
Marina, one of the most luxurious and notorious houses of
ill-fame in
the Western Hemisphere.
Page 23
Only in a vice-ridden metropolis like Havana, Cuba,
could a two-bit politician "on the lam" ride out the
ruckus in the back room of a high-class bordello.
Dona Marina came from Spain many years ago avid for a New
World
fortune. Starting off modestly, she quickly taught
herself whom
to know and respect in the Cuban capital. She learned
how to make
friends. Her resources, for instance, are always at
the disposal
of politicos with visiting firemen to entertain. Her
ample purse
opens freely for an influential friend in need.
Such diplomacy has built for her a palatial establishment in
the
tradition of the old French "maison de joie." She
cultivates a
cosmopolitan atmosphere providing French, Chinese and
American girls as
well as native lasses. The Americans, she
explains, are
always popular with Cuban customers.
Plush draperies and period furniture adorn her
parlors.
Refreshments are served to visitors by white-coated servants
who
graciously decline tips or payment. Marina's crowning
service is rarely
offered in Cuba or anywhere. Two trained nurses stand
by from
dawn to dawn in a spotlessly-clean "clinic" so guard the
health of
customer and employee alike.
Despite Marina's stubborn loyalty to the old city,
fun-loving citizens
of Havana are moving en masse to newer sections of the
burgeoning city
and bringing their pleasure houses with them. On the
outskirts of
town near San Lazaro stand the neat white-stucco houses of
Cuba's new
capital of sin – Barrio de la Victoria. (Everybody
wins there!)
The district is not large by Cuban standards–a rectangle six
blocks
wide and eight long almost solidly filled with bordellos and
houses of
assignation.
Many are casitas de Layuno, named for the enterprising
Spanish
restaurateur who developed a new twist on the ancient
trade.
"Housekeepers" stand ready at any hour to rent a
well-equipped room to
couples. Usual fee is one dollar per hour or five
dollars for the
night. Free-lancing prostitutes often have working
arrangements
with proprietors of these "little houses." They are,
of course,
available to anyone in need of a discreet rendez-vous.
It was in one of the handsomer houses in Barrio de la
Victoria that a
prominent Cuban politician sought hospitality not long
ago. A
crusading candidate for municipal office had raised
embarrassing
questions about the disposal of public funds. The
government
machine, run by President Prio Socarras, considered it the
better part
of valor to "lose" the offending gentleman during the heat
of the
campaign.
Rumors flitted around town that the politico had taken it on
the lam to
the States. Another inside story suggested he had been
liquidated. (Political murder is old stuff in Cuba).
Actually, the nervous politician had ducked into the safest
and most
comfortable haven he knew – the number one chamber in his
favorite
bordello. The owner-madam received him warmly,
declining payment
for food, shelter or entertainment. She gambled
that her
act of charity would pay off handsomely when the electoral
storm blew
over. And, of course, it did.
Though vice in Cuba walks hand in hand with politics, the
Caribbean
republic has little trouble with such gangs and syndicates
as curse
Chicago, Miami and other big American cities. Havana's
rackets
are keyed to the Latins' individualistic temperament.
There is no
lord of Cuban underworld, no Al Capone or Dutch Schultz, and
there
probably never will be.
An attempt to create a super-syndicate of crime was smashed
with
amazing vigor three years ago by the usually easy-going
Cuban
government.
Indalecio Pertierra, one of a family with large interests in
Havana
gaming and night clubs, moved to organize the rackets.
As
efficiency expert, he chose the best man he could find –
Charles
"Lucky" Luciano. The one-time vice lord of New York
had just been
sprung out of a New York Penitentiary and deported to his
native Italy.
Luciano jumped at the chance for a piece of the $50,000,000
left in
Cuba every year by fun-seeking Americans. He quietly
rushed to
Havana. But just two weeks after
President Prio
heard Luciano was
in town, the erstwhile white-slaver was riding a fast boat
back to
Rome. His host, Pertierra, was already mulling over a
stern
lecture on how "sportsmen" conduct themselves in Cuba.
A government spokesman thundered that no racketeers were
welcome (Continued on page 58)
Page 58
in Cuba.. Nobody believed him. A local columnist
remarked
that Luciano's only sin was his well-known weakness for
running the
whole show. Everybody believed that.
A contributing factor to Luciano's unceremonious retreat
from Cuba
perhaps lay in his long-standing interest in the narcotics
trade.
The dope traffic is the one closed corporation in the Havana
underworld. Marijuana fields in the interior of the
island
supplement the domestic supply with cocaine from Peru and
marijuana
from Mexico. Narcotics are hardly more difficult to
obtain in
Cuba than a shot of rum. And only slightly more
expensive.
Dozens of cafes sell drugs across the counter on a
cash-and-carry
basis. In some bars steady customers can run up a
tab.
Prices are startlingly low – five grams for a dollar.
The monopoly set-up in the dope trade is the exception in
Havana.
The world of vice in general is open to all comers, any
time,
anywhere. Anyone with a little capital and a
solicitous eye for
the needs of underpaid law enforcement officers can launch a
house of
prostitution. He need not bother about "protection,"
split-ups or
accidental drownings in Havana Bay.
Gambling follows the same pattern of organization – or
disorganization. There are a few big names in the
field, but they
merely run the handsomest pleasure domes.
Montmartre,
Tropicana
and the dream-like outdoor casino
Sans Souci
are all separately-owned
and cheerfully compete among themselves and with a dozen
other rivals.
Most spectacular among the gambling world's collection of
adventurers,
businessmen and multi-lingual croupiers is a lissome, silver
blonde
woman lately removed from the wide open spaces of our
West. Part
owner and chief of the gambling rooms at two of Havana's
smartest
clubs, she claims to be the only woman gambling impresario
in the world.
This demure beauty, who boasts a university degree, slipped
mysteriously into Havana three years ago. Before
long she
was handling the dice and chemin de fer concessions at a
now-defunct
government casino.
Happily, she sold out her interest just a few days before
the casino
went broke, then bobbed up a few days later as partner of
Efren J.
Pertierra of the family which describes itself collectively
as "wealthy
sportsmen." The team rapidly moved on to richer
territory.
They purchased and remodeled two swank (Concluded on page
60)
Page 60
nightclub-gambling hells and made them the gathering places
of Cuba's sugar barons and social elite.
Together the clubs make up Cuba's biggest gambling unit,
handling twice
the business of the nearest rival. They have earned
the
31-year-old American woman a fortune to match her
million-dollar figure.
Seven nights a week the tall, perfectly-gowned gambling
queens strolls
languidly among her baccarat, dice and roulette
tables. Her
hallmark is a long, ivory cigarette holder and an icy
politeness that
befits a veteran gambler.
"I never gamble," murmurs her deceptively gentle
voice. She waves her cigarette expressively. "I
only invest
in a sure thing."
Cuba still rides the wartime boom that tripled the price of
sugar and
pours into the pockets of four million Cubans nearly a
half-billion
dollars every year. Prosperous Habaneros whirl through
their
cluttered streets in shiny Cadillacs. Every street
vendor nurses
his dreams of a quick million. The vice lords never
had it so
good.
But tiny clouds perch on the horizon where sky and blue
Caribbean meet
almost imperceptibly. An American depression would
collapse Cuban
prosperity overnight, turning back the clock to the grim
days of 1942
when the city lay almost paralyzed. The Axis submarine
blockade
almost isolated Havana from the world then. Thousands
of
streetwalkers, gamblers and cocaine hawkers bitterly turned
to honest
labor to keep alive.
There are signs, too, that America's 1950 -- model
racketeers – with
their bookkeepers' minds and triggerman's ruthlessness – are
moving
across the strait from Florida.
Cubans – including prostitutes, pimps and faro dealers –
like to enjoy
their sinning. Money is the object, of course, but not
the only
object. The particular nature of debauchery in Havana
– where
everything seems a lot more innocent than it is – could
hardly survive
under the businesslike tyranny of Chicago mobsters.
If the world of vice in Havana strolls along at a relaxed
pace, this
shoddy charm makes it no more palatable to the righteous
churchgoer, of
which Cuba has its share too. Reformers occasionally
raise a
feeble outcry. They accurately call it Cuba's shame
that a
20-minute taxi ride from the white-domed Capitol will bring
you face to
face with every kind of physical, sexual or gaming
experience that the
unregenerate human race has devised. So far, the
viewers-with-alarm have earned themselves a few headlines, a
few pious
phrases tossed from the political forums – and indifferent
shrugs from
their fellow citizens.
Habaneros may have to face an accounting for their
indifferent some
day, in this world or the next. If so, the lady of the
evening,
the man in the street and the President of the Republic will
worry –
but not until tomorrow.
End of Page
Copyright
1998-2014 Cuban Information Archives. All Rights
Reserved.
