<div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/5/55/Elbrujito.jpg)</div><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Benito "Benny" Tonante</strong></span><br/><br/><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;">"All I ever wanted was to <em>be</em> somebody."</span></strong><br/>The son of a prostitute and an Italian drifter who left his son nothing but his name, Benny was born on the bottom rung of life in Havana, too black of hide and too low-class to have any hope of making something of himself by any means other than crime... or music. From the beginning, the music was his real dream -- but since it couldn't put food on the table, at least not for a long time yet, crime was his bread and butter. He ran the streets with a kid named Moses and for a long time they were friends, graduating from petty scams to more and more serious capers as Havana grew around them into a bona fide modern Babylon... until the day when Moses double-crossed his "friend" and disappeared. Benny never forgave him that, but luckily wasn't completely wiped out by the loss; deciding to go after his long-forgotten dream instead, he used his contacts in Havana's constellation of casinos to secure his first singing gig.<br/><br/><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;">"Be careful what you dream about... you just might get it."</span></strong><br/>Benny began singing in bars and cafes, really dedicating himself to his music for the first time in his life, resorting to thieving and running scams now only to supplement his income from performing, travelling all over the island as he struggled to build a name for himself. He caught his big break when a man named Maximiliano "Max" Gutierrez heard him singing in a cafe in Cienfuegos; Gutierrez was the leader of the Orquestra Progreso and hired Benny on to be the lead singer of his band, which was helping to pioneer a new style of music called batanga. Regular gigs in Havana's lounges and nightclubs followed, radio airplay followed that, and with it came international touring, fame and notoriety as "the Voice of Havana," the adoration of women and even a certain level of modest wealth.<br/><br/>But what didn't come was the respect that Benny had long dreamed of. The rich and powerful in Havana and around the world would listen to his records and applaud at his shows, but he wasn't welcome at their tables. And not one of the many "friends" who materialized to bask in his fame could lend a helping hand when Benny's mother fell ill. Even the money he was making with Orquestra Progreso wasn't enough to pay for medical treatments. He was the only one there to hold her hand when she died in the hovel he'd been born in. And he was the only one at her funeral.<br/><br/>A terrible rage grew in Benny then... and that was when his friend Max revealed that he had connections in areas of Cuba no-one had ever suspected.<br/><br/><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;">"If the People want respect -- then Cuba needs a Revolution."</span></strong><br/>Max revealed to Benny that he was more than just a bandleader. He was part of a movement whose aim was to take Cuba back from Batista and his thugs and deliver her riches back to the People... a revolutionary movement. The kind of movement that never would have left Benny's mother to die forgotten in poverty. The kind of movement that needed well-placed people in Havana and around the world who had the resourcefulness to acquire the materiel its freedom fighters needed. People like Benito Tonante.<br/><br/>The embittered Benny was not a hard sell. He struck a pact with Max -- who was departing Havana to join the rebels -- to be the eyes and ears and secret hand of the Revolution. He went back on tour with a new band, the Orquestra Gigante, and in New York met a dazzling American blonde who would be a centrepiece of the new act.  They made a splash on tour, but it wasn't about the music anymore; all of it was now just a front for Benny's real occupation, his obsession... would-be gunrunner for the Revolution.<br/><br/>Unfortunately his first few schemes to deliver arms to Max from abroad didn't pan out. Connections were broken, middlemen proved untrustworthy... and the Revolution was beginning to suspect that maybe his heart wasn't in the fight after all, that perhaps he couldn't be trusted. He was still confident that he'll deliver for his comrades and earn their trust, but he was uncomfortably aware he'd be a dead man, one way or another, if he didn't make good his word to Max. He had one last chance: to return to Havana himself and oversee the delivery of the goods personally. With his band and his glamorous blonde muse in tow, he came back to the island just at the time when an old "friend" was coming back into the picture...