With another successful venture under my belt, I called Rick Munday, head of VIP Services at the Las Vegas Hilton. He was reluctant to go into detail over the phone but confirmed he was in the market for Cuban cigars. He suggested I reach out when I had a larger supply available.

The cigar boom was booming and the demand in LA was increasing exponentially. Now that Hollywood stars like Arnold and Sly were featured on the cover of Cigar Aficionado, everyone wanted to be part of the new fad. I had celebrity contacts in the film industry who smoked so now I needed to increase my supply to a minimum of 25 boxes per month.

My travel itinerary was getting stale so I rerouted through Mexico City for a change of pace. The downside was flying via Mexico City was it required a red-eye flight out of LA.  I’d arrive in Mexico around 6:00 am and the connecting flight to Havana didn’t depart until mid-morning. Before I knew it, I was back on the road again.

I arrived at LAX around nine and checked in. There was a nice bar across from my gate where I had a couple of Vodka Martinis and a few tall IPAs. I thought the booze would help me sleep on the overnight flight but I was wrong. I even took a sleeping pill to ensure some rest but to no avail. By the time I arrived in Mexico City at five in the morning, I was a fucking zombie.

Now I had to deal with a four-hour layover. After clearing through immigration and customs, I went to Baron Rojo Restaurant and ordered some breakfast. After some lousy pancakes, burnt bacon and coffee, I staggered to my gate and crashed in a chair until it was time to check-in.

Every minute of the layover was painful. I felt that I was near death. But somehow, some way, I made it through again. At nine, I got in line with mostly Mexican and Cuban passengers carrying large bags, giant boxes and silly Western hats stacked five high on their heads and checked in for Havana.

Three hours later I walked out of Jose Marti International Airport and into the suffocating July heat.  Harry was there to pick me up. He had found a new apartment for me in the Miramar district called Reparto Nauticol. Once a gated community for the wealthy, Nauticol was now a residential neighborhood for government employees and Fidelista’s to reside. According to Harry, even Fidel’s son, Alejandro, lived on the next street.

Nauticol was only a block from the ocean and I was also moving onto the same street as my boxing idol and new acquaintance Teofilo Stevenson. My new place was an upstairs studio apartment owned by a large middle-aged divorcee named Teressa who lived next door with her teenage son Alejandro.

We dropped off my bags off and went for egg rolls and fried rice in Barrio Chino. After a mojito stop at Café de Farnes, we rolled to Old Havana and picked up Dolce Maria. She was such a sweet little girl, I enjoyed banging around with her. Short and petite, she had thick brunette hair and large brown eyes and a very hairy pussy which I found kinky. I didn’t mind spending a few extra dollars on her.

Being with Dolce Maria was almost like a real boyfriend/girlfriend experience. At night we’d strolled down to the water hand in hand and sit on the break wall of a large rock that was dumped in the water from a nearby construction site. With the sound of the black waves stirring around us, we’d lay there looking up at the twinkling night sky.

One night, lying there I made the decision to become a writer.  Dolce Maria asked me what I wanted to do with my life and told her write. The night sky is extremely clear from the Caribbean. I pointed up to the brightest constellation above us and told her I would take its name as my “nom de plume”…it was Orion’s belt.

Maria smiled and whispered, “Daniel Orion.”

Later that night we had a few Cuba Libre’s and watched a Latin soap opera for an hour or so and went to bed. We fell fast asleep without fucking but horny little Dolce Maria woke me up in the middle of the night. Laying like two spoons in a drawer, she moved close and started rubbing her little ass against my dick.

 Although I was half-asleep and half-drunk, I was hard in five seconds. As I was climbing on top of her, she spread her legs wide to receive me and we started pounding away.  Little Maria must have been dreaming about sex because she started thrusting her hips up and down to create a rhythm. Our passionate lovemaking transported me to another world. It was one of the best fucking experiences I ever had.

The next morning when I came out of the shower, Maria was sitting topless, her back against the headboard. She asked me about a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka I had sitting on the mini-fridge. She wanted to give it to her father as a gift. “Si,” I said. “no problema. Un regalo para tu papa.”  She motioned for me to throw the bottle so I grabbed it off the fridge and tossed it over to her.

I threw it too high and the bottle bounced on the bed and then I heard a dull clunk sound. Suddenly she had her head in her lap and was holding her mouth. When she removed her hand, her front tooth had been knocked out. Oh my God…. now what? The tooth had been broken off at the gum. I could see the root dangling in the center.

I called Harry and told him we had to get Dolce to a dentist immediately. The wait time for a dentist in Cuba was weeks if not months so we had to take her to a hospital used by tourists called Clínicia Cira Central Garcia in Miramar. I could pay cash there and get her treated immediately.

We arrived at the hospital we had a dentist assigned to us within 15 minutes. He and his assistant performed a root canal on Dolce Maria to eliminate the pain. The whole procedure only took about 30 minutes and cost me $100.

We made an appointment for the following week to see about getting her a dental implant but when we got to Dolce Maria’s house her father said she had gone to the beach with friends. Cuba never ceases to amaze me. Oh well, apparently hustling money day was more important than having a front tooth.

I found a new cigar supplier named Ray who lived downtown on Obispo Street. Obispo Street is in the heart of old Havana and it’s one of the main drags that cuts through the city. This famous old Calle was constructed in the 1500s.  It’s a crowded, narrow walking street lined on both sides with stores and restaurants.

At one end of Obispo is the El Floridita Restaurant/Bar the opposite end of the street is Hotel Ambos Mundos where Ernest Hemingway resided in the 1930s. His room on the fifth floor is now a museum. Hemingway had a home in Key West at the time but moved to Havana permanently in 1940 when his third wife Martha Gellhorn found a home in San Francisco de Paula

Ray was a great guy and had a striking resemblance to Hollywood actor Armand Assante. He charged $25 per box and offered to extend credit if I didn’t have enough cash. It takes him a few days to find the boxes together so I have to order them as soon as I arrive and pick them up the day before I leave. I think his black-market (La Bolsa Negra) cigars are rolled in homes or possibly stolen from the factories, but the samples he showed me looked great.

With Dolce Maria MIA, I decided to hook up with Melanis. She was a nice Mulatta girl, a little low-key for me but I knew I could trust her.  Melanis was always glad to see me and told me that her sister Yoani had someone she wanted me to meet.  It turns out it was Yoani’s boyfriend William, a Canadian guy in his 60s who lived on a cabin cruiser in Marina Hemingway.

William was constantly going back and forth between Key West and Havana bringing televisions, microwaves, electronic equipment, and anything else he could sell in Havana.  Yoani thought that he might be able to help me transport my cigars to the States. It was a great idea depending on the parameters of the deal. I wanted a sit-down with William.

Yoani arranged a meeting for the next day and we met on William’s yacht in the Marina. I pitched him on the idea of muling cigars to Key West for me.  This way I could bypass Customs in Cuba and Mexico and rendezvous with him in the US. If he could bring 25-50 boxes to Florida, I’d return to Los Angeles on a train. This would solve my numbers problem. From Orlando, I’d go straight to my VP friend at the Las Vegas Hilton. I could probably unload 30 boxes at the Hilton alone.

When doing business with Vegas casinos, price was no object. ­William had never thought about cigar smuggling but when I explained the profit margins, he was in. It was a win-win situation. Now he could make money going both ways. Our plan was to take 50 boxes each and he would find someone to fence his in Florida.

The first thing I had to do was convince Ray to front me as many boxes as he could. I could buy 25 boxes and maybe persuade Ray and Juan Carlos to spot me 25 each. William wanted  $100 per box to transport them to Key West. He would allow me to defer payment until they were sold. William kept his car in a Key West marina so he could drive me up to Orlando, then the Sunset Limited all the way home.

It took about 10 days to get the order together. Convincing a Cuban to defer payment is harder than meeting Fidel Castro. By the time we were ready to go, Wiliam had 50 boxes and I had 100. The problem we faced was hiding the cigars on the boat. Our solution was to remove the wood paneling from the walls and bury the boxes in the hull, away from the prying eyes of Cuban agents.

At the last minute, I decided to sail to Key West with William. There was too much money at stake now to blindly trust someone I didn’t know very well.  My only concern was clearing Customs at Key West. William laughed when I asked him about it.

“Do you think we’ll be okay clearing US Customs in Key West OK?”

“We’re not clearing any Customs in the US Danny,” William said.

“We’re  going to expand our route and come into the US further East as if we were returning from the Bahamas, not Cuba.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

The last night I stayed at Manny’s so I’d be able to grab an early taxi from the hotel. As promised, I met with William at his boat at 5 AM. He was sitting in the cabin drinking coffee when I arrived. He had sandwiches and cokes ready for the agents who would be Inspecting the boat.

The first group to arrive was immigration. They took our passports and visas to their office. A few minutes later Customs boarded and last but not least the damn Cuban Navy even came aboard. They probably just wanted a free sandwich and drink.

They were extremely cautious with cabin cruisers leaving Cuba. A large boat was a perfect way to traffic Cubans out of the country. Most Cubans had rich relatives living in Miami who were willing to pay up to $10,000 to get a loved one out of this shithole. It was a lot safer muling cigars than people, but if we’re popped, they’ll probably confiscate William’s boat and boot us both out of the country.

William knew a few of the government agents considering he travels in and out of Havana so often. The boys ate their sandwiches and drank their cokes before nonchalantly snooping around the cabin and engine room below. The whole process took less than an hour.

Once we were cleared and our passports returned, William kicked up the engines and navigated us out of the harbor and into the deep blue sea where the Atlantic and Caribbean collide. As we churned across the whitecaps, light was breaking on the horizon. The morning air was warm but the humidity had not yet risen.

I took a moment to reflect on my latest adventure and truly believed it would work out right. As we pulled out of the harbor, William set his barring to NNE 20.58°. The estimated travel time would be around 8 hours which kind of surprised me.

From the deck, the warm salty breeze caressed my face as I watched the horizon slowly transform itself from a deep purple to a swirl of amber-orange and azure blue. The sea reflecting the changing sky mirroring the brilliant colors that danced on the water’s surface. As Havana faded away, the boat left a gentle, rippling trail in the water.

William piloted from the flybridge on top of the boat. I asked him if he could just put the boats navigation on autopilot but he was an experienced sailor. He explained that fact that we were traversing the Straits of Florida which is a busy shipping lane and a collision with a tanker is a real possibility.

I spent most of the journey in the cabin, out of the blinding July sun. The boat’s constant bouncing and pitching started to make me nauseous which apparently was normal. William suggested I focus on the horizon but lying on the cabin bunk made the dizziness go away.

Two hours into our journey, William called me to the flybridge.

“You’re doing good, Danny,” William yelled. “Everyone who sails across with me has thrown up over the rail by now. So, you’re doing good man. Take a look in the distance.”

A couple miles east of our course, a massive container ship was cutting through the shipping lane which was directly in front of us.

“That’s why you have to stay alert Danny,” William said

“If you run on autopilot and fall asleep, you could lose your life.

Approximately seven hours after we departed Cuba, we chugged into a small marina in the Florida Keys. Once we were settled, we dismantled the walls of the cabin and removed the stash from the walls. Almost immediately, I noticed a problem. William had put the cigars in plastic grocery bags that were not sealed air-tight.”

I noticed moisture on the inside of some of the bags. If that salty seawater seeps inside the cigar boxes they’ll be ruined. We could inspect the product closer once we made it to a hotel room in Ft. Lauderdale. We finished unloading the cabin, washed down the boat, and pulled out of town.

As we drove the seven-mile bridge, I crunched the numbers in my head. I had 100 boxes in my possession. The resale value at $300 per box was $30,000. William was owed $10,000. My cigar guys were owed $2,500 then my profit would be $12,500. In Vegas, I could bump up the prices to cover my travel expenses. After a good night’s sleep in a cheap Lauderdale motel, William drove me to Orlando Station to catch the Sunset Limited.

I boarded the train for my two-day journey through the southern states of the country. It would make stops in New Orleans, San Antonio, Phoenix and Tucson. After a pit stop in Las Vegas, it was on to Los Angeles. I booked a first-class Roomette on the lower level which allowed me some privacy. It had two comfortable seats that transformed into upper and lower bunks at night.

I stacked the boxes on the top bunk and wrote “FILM ELEMENTS” on them in case anyone inquired about their contents. I stayed to myself most of the time and had my meals delivered to my room. The only time I left my space was for the bathroom, shower and occasionally a walk to the Bar Car for a cocktail. As we rolled across the wide open country $12,500 kept dancing in my head. Vegas or Bust!