Nineteen fifty-three, the year that Alicia Figueroa began dancing with Alberto Alonso’s conjunto at Montmartre, was also the year that Meyer Lansky left the county jail in Saratoga after serving a two-month sentence and made what was to be a permanent move to Cuba. Lansky had pleaded guilty to conspiracy, forgery, and gambling charges brought against him by New York State under pressure from the Kefauver Committee. Despite this, Lansky was back on the nation’s payroll as a gambling advisor, courtesy of his old pal Batista, as soon as he made it back down to Havana. Lansky might seem a poor
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