Havana Best Friends (9 page)

Trujillo drove the Ural back to his outfit on Marino Street, between Tulipán and Conill, where he got receipts from the storeroom
clerk for the video cassettes and the money, then walked back home. He lived ten blocks away at 453 Falgueras Street, in a one-storey wooden house with a red-tile roof. Over the years, the structure had tilted to the right and now it leaned against its neighbour, as if tired after a century of sheltering people.

By the time Trujillo slipped his key into the lock it was 11:50 p.m. Everybody was in bed, the kitchen light left on for him. His mother had left rice, black beans, and a hard-boiled egg in a covered frying pan for him; a pot full of water for his bath. He lit the range and smoked a cigarette as the water warmed. In the bathroom he poured the hot water into an almost-full bucket of water, then tiptoed into his bedroom where he found clean underwear and a fast-asleep wife. After his bath he warmed and ate the food, made some espresso, then smoked a second cigarette.

As he was doing the dishes, Trujillo’s thoughts turned back to the videos. If the whole batch of them were porn, Pablo Miranda must have been one of three things: best client, salesman, or producer. The money found in his bedroom might be related to the videos, and his being able to meet with foreigners at his workplace pointed in the same direction. A considerable number of Italian and Spanish tourists were single men who came to Cuba looking for cheap sex.

All this and the cocaine inclined the captain to believe that Pablo had been involved in something reprehensible, illegal, and sex-related. His murder had all the trappings of a settlement of accounts, professionally carried out. The murderer may just have been following orders from someone who’d decreed Pablo Miranda’s execution. The contradictory indications – the bite marks, the stolen wallet and watch, the two hundred dollars left
in a pocket – likely were an attempt to send the police on a wild-goose chase after a sex maniac or a dumb thief. Had Pablo been blackmailing somebody? Had he demanded a bigger share of the profits? What was his role in the videos? Cameraman? Editor? Talent scout?

Police knew that the production of Cuban porn films was on the rise. Customs confiscated copies at the airport, officers raiding whorehouses and flophouses found some more, but so far no producer had been caught. At national police headquarters a special unit had been put together under a full colonel. Trujillo’s boss, Major Pena, was one of the officers working on it in Havana. So far, Pena had said, three hookers and two male prostitutes had been identified, busted, and questioned. Each of them had told the same story: A man they had never seen before or again talked them into it. He told them to wait for a blue van with tinted windows at an intersection. Once inside the vehicle, they were blindfolded and driven around for half an hour before being let out in the garage of a house. The cameraman, light tech, and sound tech had all worn masks and spoken to each other in whispers. Once the shooting was over, they had been returned blindfolded to the pickup point. No, they had no idea where the house was. No, they didn’t see the van’s plates. And the pay? A hundred dollars.

Describe the contact man, Pena had asked. The first hustler said he had brown eyes, the second swore they were green, the third hadn’t noticed. According to the two men he was clean-shaven; one of the women said he had a moustache. Three of them described him as being in his forties, the other two said he was in his fifties. They couldn’t even agree on the man’s height and weight. Knowing that they were being spun a line, Major Pena and
his subordinates wheedled and threatened, all to no avail. Finally the offenders were indicted, tried, and sentenced; the women to one year in prison, the men to three. And the investigation stalled. Pena and his special unit could do nothing but wait for a fresh lead. They would be overjoyed at Trujillo’s breakthrough.

He climbed into bed beside his wife and set the alarm clock for 6:00 a.m. With hands clasped in his lap, Trujillo’s mind moved to Elena Miranda.

The murdered man and his sister had not liked each other at all. One more case of relatives regarding each other with such suspicion it bordered on outright hostility. She seemed decent enough, clean-cut, self-effacing, sensible, still a very attractive woman. In her twenties she must have been stunning. Pablo’s antithesis? It seemed so.

The lock on her brother’s bedroom proved what she’d said: “He lived his life, I lived mine.” His room was a mess; the rest of the house was neat. Well, the walls needed a lick of paint and the furniture new upholstery, but what Cuban’s home didn’t? Separate cooking, wanting to swap the large apartment for two, it all indicated conflicting personalities. He had seen it many times among divorced couples and in-laws forced to keep living under the same roof because of the housing shortage. Under forced cohabitation tempers get frayed, the police are called in to deal with everything from assault to homicide.

Had Pablo Miranda been an underachiever? A kid spoiled by a powerful father who felt abandoned after his well-connected daddy lost all his privileges? Manuel Miranda. Trujillo tried to recall who the man had been. Certainly one of the few who once held all the cards and wrote all the rules, considering where he was serving time. A former politburo member or general or minister,
for sure. A VIP, even in jail. In the morning he would have to find out whose duty it was to call the General Directorate of Prisons, report the murder of an inmate’s son, and ask to notify the father. They would probably let him come to the funeral, with two escorts, no handcuffs, maybe wearing civilian clothes.

Suddenly, Trujillo sat up in bed. His wife stirred by his side. A politically motivated crime? Someone who had been screwed by the father and killed the son for revenge? Slowly, Trujillo lay back. Too far-fetched. No precedent as far as he knew. No, it couldn’t be. He yawned. It was the kind of case that wins kudos, back-slapping, and an instantaneous promotion for the officer who solves it. And to a lesser extent, the ill will of his equals. He decided that he would take a stab at it. But there was a lot of spadework to do.

As Captain Trujillo drifted off to sleep, Pablo’s killer was boarding a plane bound for Cancún, Mexico.

“If they’re all dirty movies, you’ve hit a fucking mine,” Major Pena said when he learned, at 7:15 the next morning, that Trujillo had put forty-three suspected pornographic videos in the storeroom. Trujillo explained his findings and what he had inferred before outlining his theories. The major was fifty-six, grey-haired, overweight, and most of the time had the frigid, uninterested gaze of those who pride themselves on their realism and who no longer believe in inherent human kindness. But he was respected and secretly admired by superiors and subordinates alike.

“Tell me the receipt number.” Major Pena beckoned Trujillo over with his right hand and left his uncomfortable wooden chair. “I want to start seeing them right now.”

“You dirty old man,” Trujillo said as he dipped two fingers into the back pocket of his pants and drew out his wallet. He produced a pink slip and read out the number, 977.

“Got it. See you later.”

“Hold your horses. The victim’s name is Pablo Miranda, and his father, Manuel Miranda, is serving a prison sent –”

“The father’s Manuel Miranda?” the major cut in, eyes rounded in surprise, bushy eyebrows lifted.

Trujillo had never seen Pena flabbergasted before. The major even bragged that nothing surprised him any more. But now he did a second extraordinary thing. He plopped on to his chair, stared vacantly at a wall, and said, “Oh my God.”

The captain arched an eyebrow and kept his smile in check. Before communist Europe went up in smoke, for Party members – state security and senior police officers in particular – religious terminology just didn’t exist. Then, all of a sudden, pro-government believers were invited to join a political organization that denied the existence of God; cynics had a field day. Trujillo and Pena, like many Cubans, were not religious, but now they used expressions like “Praised be the Lord” to mock the leadership’s sudden turnabout.

“So you know the guy. C’mon, out with it. C’mon. I have to be at the IML at eight.”

Pena snapped out of his reverie and lit a cigarette. “The stories I’ve heard about this guy … It’s like a Hollywood movie. Only it’s no movie. The guy’s fucking crazy. I mean, no man in his right mind would do the things this guy is presumed to have done.”

“Done where?”

“Everywhere. You name a place where Cubans went into battle from – let me see … ’58 to what, ’81? – he was there. A
brigadier general calling the enemy names from the front-line trenches, letting them have it with all he’d got. Short guy, not an ounce over a hundred and thirty pounds. Can you believe it? At the last count he had been wounded six or seven times, I don’t know exactly. The man is a born fighter.”

“So, why is he at Tinguaro?”

Pena told the story in a sad tone. As it unfolded, the captain felt a certain amount of sympathy for the ex-general. For two years Trujillo had suspected that his own wife was cheating on him. There were too many blanks in her explanations for why she was late, an ever-increasing sexual indifference, frequent disagreements. It was a problem he had postponed for too long; he would have to tackle it soon. Would he do what Miranda had done? No way. No cheating woman was worth a day in prison.

“Well, you think you could call Prisons and explain things to them?”

“Right away.”

“I’m going to meet Miranda’s daughter at the IML. Once she IDs her brother, we should let Prisons know where the wake is taking place so Miranda can attend.”

“No problem. Even counter-revolutionaries are permitted to attend the wake of a close relative.”

“Counters too? That a fact?”

“You bet.”

“That’s decent. See you in a while.”

“Wait. You said the victim had shit on him?”

“Four fixes.”

“No chance the guy OD’d before he was killed?”

“Bárbara didn’t mention that.”

“Oh, it’s Bárbara now,” quipped the beaming major.

“Quit busting my balls, Chief.”

“Okay. Take it easy.” Pena held up his hands, successfully fighting off a laugh. “Everybody knows you have a weakness for the Chocolate Queen.”

“I’m getting outta here.”

“When the LCC sends its report, let me know if it’s good or bad.”

“Good or bad what?”

“The shit, man, the shit. Go see her, go, go.”

The captain strolled leisurely along Boyeros. The twelve-lane avenue was congested with heavy traffic in both directions, a fact that never ceased to amaze him. In a country where most people made less than twenty-five dollars a month and the cheapest gas cost three dollars a gallon, thousands of ancient, privately owned American gas-guzzlers congest the streets, the majority financed by unmentionable sources. The cloudy, strangely cool morning indicated it had rained heavily to the south of the city the night before.

Once at the IML, Trujillo sat on a granite bench in the foyer and lit his second cigarette of the day. The captain felt clean and fresh in the uniform laundered and impeccably ironed by his mother. He had shaved carefully too. Just in case he bumped into Bárbara (who had been curious enough to check up on him and find out he was married), and to lessen the impression of untidiness that Elena Miranda must have formed of him the night before, if she had registered anything after being told of her brother’s murder.

Elena arrived at 8:19 looking sad, exhausted, and frustrated by a ride in a jam-packed bus. Her face was sunken, and there were dark crescents under her eyes. The aftershock, Trujillo realized,
then registered approvingly her beige blouse, black mid-calf skirt, black pumps, black purse.

“Good morning,” said Trujillo, getting to his feet, extending his hand, and dropping the “comrade.”

“Good morning.”

“This way, please.”

At the desk they learned that Dr. Valverde was off duty. An assistant led them to the cold room and Elena identified Pablo, then retched repeatedly and vomited nothing. Trujillo steered her back to the main entrance, his arm protectively around her shoulders, then made her sit on a bench. He lit up, inhaled, and blew out smoke.