Havana Gold (23 page)

“Go on, hit him on the jaw.”

“Fuck, great punch.”

“I'm betting on Striped Shirt.”

“Hit him! Hit him!”

And a hoarse voice, shouting in his ear, in a tone he didn't recognize.

“I'm going to have to kill you, you idiot,” and then an immediately changed inflection almost whispering: “It's all right now. It's all right.”

 

“Look, Mario Conde, I'm not going to argue with you about what happened. I don't even want to hear about
it. I'd prefer not to see you, you bastard. I know you loved Jorrín, that you're uptight, that you're a neurotic fellow, I even know that Fabricio is an arsehole, but there's no forgiving what you did, and I at least will never forgive you, even though I love you like a son. I – will-not-forgive-you – get it? Give me your lighter. I think I lost mine in the fight you started. It's the only smoke I've got left and the burial's tomorrow morning. Poor Jorrín, Jesus fucking wept! No, don't speak, I said, let me light up. Here's your lighter. Hey, didn't I tell you to keep as quiet as a nun? Didn't I warn you I didn't want any problems? And look what you do: slugging it out with an officer in the middle of the street, in front of an undertakers packed with people from headquarters. Are you mad or an arsehole? Or both? . . . All right, we'll leave this to later, and prime your arse for a good caning. I'm warning you. And don't wipe more Chinese pomade over your forehead because it won't make me take pity on you . . . Fuck, you're over forty and still behaving like a young kid . . . Look, Conde, we'll leave this to later. Now try to do your job properly. You can do that, I know. Take it easy tonight and tomorrow, after the wake, pick this boy up from his house. By that time we should know what the peasant from Escambray knows, the one Orlando San Juan mentioned. The boy has classes in the afternoon, right? Well, bring him along here and Cicerón's gang will check out his house for
drugs, because that's probably where the Russian keeps it. But remember he's a boy from Pre-Uni, so easy does it, a firm hand and a tight leash and dig out the name of the midwife who brought him into the world. We need to know whether Lando was in a relationship with the teacher or if it was the boy who brought drugs into the teacher's house, and we need to know how much the drugs circulated in Pre-Uni. The Pre-Uni business terrifies me, it's shit-scary . . . And I think you're right, the marijuana lead will solve the murder, because it would be a big coincidence if the drugs person weren't the murderer, in a case where at the end of the day there's been neither theft nor robbery, and I don't give a fuck for coincidences. Your face hurts. Well, too bad. I wanted Fabricio to knock the living daylights out of you, which is what I'd like to do. Go, move yourself, and get your act together, because now you're going to obey my orders to the letter or I'll stop calling myself Antonio Rangel. Look: I'll swear to it right now, on my mother's life.”

 

Depression still weighed heavily on his shoulders as he slumped on his bed and closed his eyes in the hope that his headache would disappear. Depression was a burden for wrists, knees, neck and ankles, all acting as if exhausted by the huge task. He hadn't the strength to rebel and shout out “Shit, fucking shit”, “Go to bloody
hell”, or to try to forget everything. Depression had only one cure that he knew of: company.

When he left headquarters the Count was already laid low by that nightmarish depression. He knew he'd violated the code, but an even more deeply rooted code had launched him at Fabricio. So he stopped off at a bar, then understood, from his first gulp, that solitary flight down the alcohol trail didn't make any sense either. He felt alien to the joys and sorrows of the other inmates who delved deeper into their necessary confessions with each shot: rum was an emetic for doubts and hopes, not a simple potion to herald in oblivion. That's why he paid, left a half-full glass and went home.

In search of possible relief, the Count dialled for the very first time the number Karina had given him, eight days ago, when they'd met next to a punctured Polish Fiat. His memory successfully reclaimed the number: the ring was faint and distant.

“Yes,” said a woman's voice. Karina's mother?

“Can I please speak to Karina.”

“She's not been here today. Who's that?”

“A friend,” he replied. “When will she be back?”

“Oh, I couldn't say . . .”

A pause, a silence, the Count thinking.

“Could you take down a number?”

“Yes, wait a moment . . .” she must be looking for the wherewithal, “right, go on.”

“409213.”

“Four-zero-nine-two-one-three,” the voice checked.

“Huh-huh. Tell her Mario will be back after eight. And will be expecting a call.”

“All right.”

“Thanks a lot,” and he hung up.

He made an effort and got to his feet. On the way to the lavatory he undressed, dropping clothes everywhere. He stepped on the shower tray and before submitting to the torture of a cold shower glanced through the small window. Outside twilight falling. The wind still stirring up dust, dirt and melancholy. Inside hatred and sadness had ground to a halt. Would it always be thus?

 

As he walked past Karina's house, the Count noted the orangey Polish Fiat wasn't there. It was a quarter to eight, but he decided he'd have plenty of time to worry later. He looked at the window in the porch, not intending espionage, and only saw the same ferns and
malangas
, turned a golden yellow by the light of a brightly burning lamp.

The door to Skinny's house was open as usual and the Count walked in, asked: “What time they serve dinner in this place?” And he went as far as the kitchen where Skinny and Josefina, like minstrels in vaudeville, were waiting for him hands on head and eyes goggling, as if to say: “It can't be”.

“No, it can't be,” said Skinny, with the intonation of the character he was performing and finally with a smile. “You telepathic?”

The Count walked over to Josefina, kissed her on the forehead and asked emphasizing his innocence, “What did I tell foretell?”

“Can't you smell it, lad?” the woman asked and then the Count carefully – as if on the edge of a precipice – peered into the top of the pot on the stove.

“No, it's not true, casseroled
tamal
!” he shouted and realized his headache had gone and that depression had a cure.

“Yes, my love, but it's not just any
tamal
: it's made from grated maize, that's much better than if it's been ground, and I sieved it so there were no bits and added marrow to give it body and it's also got pork meat, chicken and beef chops.”

“Bloody hell! And look what I've got here,” he said, taking a bottle of rum out of its cardboard cone: “threeyear-old Caney, golden and smooth.”

“Well, in that case I think you can consider yourself invited,” Skinny opined, swaying his head from side to side, as if seeking approval from a bevy of guests. “And where did you fish that out from, savage?”

Conde looked at Josefina and put his arm round her shoulders.

“Better not know, because you're no policeman, are
you, Josefina?” and she smiled, and gripped Conde's chin and tilted his face.

“What did you cop there, Condesito?”

Conde put the bottle down on the table.

“It's nothing, I fell out with a mop. You know, I stepped . . .” and he tried to mime the origins of the scratch that Fabricio's ring had left on his cheek.

“ . . . Hey, savage, you telling the truth?”

“Come on, Skinny, forget it . . . Do you want rum or don't you?” he asked looking at the clock. It was about to strike eight. She must be about to ring.

 

The background music indicated the heartache brought by the Brazilian soap was over for the night, but the Count appealed to the clock: half past nine. He flopped his head back on the pillow, exhausted, and held out his glass when he heard Skinny pouring himself more.

“That's the end of that,” he announced, as if he was the bearer of bad tidings. “You've had a hell of a bad day, haven't you?”

“And then there's what the Boss has got in store. And that youngster tomorrow. And the whore who doesn't ring. What's she got up to, pal?”

“Hey, stuff the whining, she'll turn up . . .”

“It's all too much, Skinny, too much. I realized that when the Boss told me to leave the youth's questioning to tomorrow and I agreed. I should have gone after
him today, but I wanted to see her. What a fucking disaster.”

The Count sat up and sipped the last drops of rum from the bottom of his glass. As usual, he regretted not buying another bottle: those 750 millilitres didn't satisfy the hardened veins of that pair of high alcoholic averages. Because he'd already downed half a bottle of rum and his thirst remained unslaked, even keener, and he felt he'd been drinking doubt and despair rather than alcohol. How much more would he have to drink before he could finally look over the edge of the canal and slosh over into a lack of consciousness, the object yet again of his consuming thirst?

“I feel like getting plastered, Skinny,” he said dropping his glass on the mattress. “Plastered like an animal, crawling on all fours and pissing my pants and not thinking about my life ever again. Never ever . . .”

“Yes, I reckon it's just what you need,” the other agreed finishing his rum. “And it was good stuff, you know? One of the few rums that can still hold its head up high in this world. You know it's the real Bacardi?”

“Yeah, I know the story: it's the best in the world, the only genuine Bacardi they make and so on. Right now I couldn't give a fuck: any rum will do. I want 90% proof, dry wine, meths, purslane wine, rat poison, anything that will go straight to my head.”

“You're far gone, aren't you? I told you the other day:
you're like a bloody lovesick dog. And the woman's not back from work yet. You tell me if she gives you . . .”

“Don't even mention the possibility. I don't want to think about it. Come on, give me money to make it up. I'll kick up a fuss until I find a litre somewhere,” he said as he stood up. He looked for the cardboard cone he'd brought and put away the empty bottle.

Josefina was in the living room watching the
Write and Read
programme. The panellists had to identify a twentieth-century, historical, Latin-American figure, and Cuban into the bargain! An artist, they'd just discovered.

“It must be Pello the Afrokán,” said the Count going over to Josefina. “Did you get it, Jose?”

Josefina shook her head, keeping her eyes glued to the set.

“Ay, my love, I've been sitting here for two days. Look who the historic figure was,” she said, pointing her chin at the screen. “Chorizo the clown. That's an insult to those clever professors who know so much.”

Before leaving, the Count kissed her forehead and said he'd soon be back – with more rum.

He stopped on the corner of the street and hesitated. To his left bars summoned, and to his right Karina's place. There was only a lorry parked in front of the whole block and he raised his hopes thinking a Polish Fiat might be lurking behind it. He turned right, passed by the girl's house that was still shut up and saw there
was nothing behind the lorry. He walked to the corner, turned half round and walked back past her house. He wanted to go in, ring, ask – I'm a policeman, for fuck's sake, where's she got to? – but a last ounce of pride and commonsense repressed his adolescent impulse when he put his hand on the garden gate. He walked on down the street, after rum and oblivion.

 

“Well, pal, she didn't ring,” he managed to say with enough strength to raise his arm and drink some more. The second bottle of firewater was also practically dead when the National Anthem blared out to mark the end of the evening's programmes.

Josefina stood in the doorway, observed the hecatomb and crossed herself mechanically: the two were shirtless, and gripping their glasses tight. Her son, slumped over the arm of his wheelchair, his flabby flesh streaming with sweaty. And the Count, sitting on the floor, back against the bed, suffering the last rattle from a coughing attack. On the ground, an ashtray steaming like a volcano and the corpses of two bottles and the epilogue to another.

“You're killing yourselves,” she said picking up the bottle of firewater. She fled. Those scenes filled her heart with sadness because she knew she spoke the truth: they were committing suicide, cowardly but surely. And only love and loyalty remained from the times when Skinny and the Count spent their evenings and nights in that
same room, listening to music at a superhuman volume and arguing about girls and baseball.

“She didn't ring. I'm going for fuck's sake.”

“Are you mad? How can you go in that state?”

“Not dragging my bum across the floor. Walking,” and he made an unlikely effort to revert to the vertical. He failed twice, but succeeded at the third attempt.

“Are you really leaving?”

“Yes, you beast, I'm throwing myself out. I'll die like a stray dog. Just remember one thing: I fucking love you to death. You're my brother, friend and you're my skinny little pal,” he said and, abandoning his glass on the night table, he hugged his pal's sweaty head and gave his hair a slobbering kiss, while Skinny's massive hands gripped the arms that hugged him as the kiss turned into a hoarse, sickly sob.

“Hell, brother, don't cry . . . Nobody deserves your tears. Castrate Fabricio, kill her, forget Jorrín, but don't cry, otherwise I'll cry too.”