Havana Gold (9 page)

 

“Go on then.” Lieutenant Mario Conde looked out from the window of his third floor cubicle at the lonely crest of the laurel tree lashed by the wind. The sparrows that nested in its top branches had migrated and the tree's small leaves seemed about to perish after three days of non-stop buffeting: “Resist,” he shouted to the leaves with a disproportionate, rival energy, as if the endurance of the leaves was also implicated in the struggle for his own life. He'd set up such ridiculous parallels, and always did so when something too intense was torturing him: guilt, shame, or love. Or a memory.

Waving a foot like a nervous ballet dancer about to stumble, Sergeant Manuel Palacios waited for the Count to turn round.

“What's wrong, Conde?”

“Nothing, don't worry. Off you go.”

Manolo opened his battered notebook and began to improvise: “The only thing clear is that nothing is clear. The forensic says the girl had a high level of alcohol in her bloodstream, some 225 mill, and that given her physical make-up, she must have been pretty drunk when they killed her, because the abrasions show she didn't put up much of a defence. For example, her nails were clean, so she didn't scratch her attacker and she didn't have bruising on her forearms, as someone protecting herself would. He can't tell us anything about the marijuana. They scraped the flesh on her fingertips and did an analysis with reagents but nothing showed up. There's no analysis that can detect it in the sample, unless the sample comes from a smoker who's really hooked. Now for the juicy news: she had sexual contact with two men and there are no signs of violence in these contacts: no part of her sex indicates an unwanted penetration. The things one learns on the job, right? If entry is friendly, then it's all squeaky clean, as you say . . . The fact is there is semen from two men, one A-positive and the other from blood group O; that, as you know is much rarer, but the doctor swears on his mother that between one penetration – his words, Conde, don't look at me like that – that between one penetration and the next there was a gap of four or five hours, given the state the sperm were in when the autopsy was carried out. That
means the first penetration took place before she was drunk, because the alcohol had spent less time in her bloodstream. You with me? And then he says, though he's no definite evidence, it seems the A-positive guy, the first in, is a man between thirty-five and forty-five, given the state of his sperm, and that the second, the group O guy, is more vigorous, say around the twenty mark, although some old-stagers have a youngsters' juice and that's why they can impregnate. All revealed thanks to a bastard sperm. And now for a shocker: you already in a state of shock? Well, Pupy, that is, Pedro Ordoñez Martell, the man on the motorbike, is blood group O. Not fallen off your chair yet?”

Without going to such extremes, Conde squirmed in his chair and leaned his elbows on his desk. His eyes settled level with the sergeant's, as if demanding his full attention.

“For once and for all, Manolo, are you or are you not squint-eyed?”

“You still fucking harping on about that?”

“So how did you find out about Pupy being an O?”

“Didn't you know I'm as swift as an arrow? One day they should award me the fastest policeman medal . . . I just thought I'd track him down as I wasn't going to see you for an hour, so I went to the Committee, asked after him, and from what they told me he's a semi-lumpen or a lumpen-and-a-half. He lives on buying and selling
motorbikes. It seems his parents are upright enough and they're always rowing with him, but he couldn't care a damn. He's got a reputation as a charmer and fancies himself with the girls. I didn't try to see him or anything like that, but I had one of those brainwaves of which I have such a good supply and thought about the blood thing and went to see his doctor in case he had that bit of info and, of course, he did: “Oh, it's O, his doctor told me, and he confirmed Pupy is twenty-five. What do you reckon, Duke?”

“That I'm going to nominate you for the fastest policeman medal. But don't change my title, for fuck's sake,” he protested meekly and went back to the window. It was a pristine midday: the light beat down equally on everything within reach and the shadows were severe and fleshless. At that moment a nun in habits ruffled by Lenten winds emerged from the church on the other side of the street. Original sin spares nobody, you know? Two dogs recognized each other, sniffed each other's rumps in a proper, orderly manner, in a gesture of goodwill exploring a possible friendship. “So I take it two men, one around forty, and the other younger, were with her on the same night, but at different times and . . . probably neither killed her, right?”

“Why say that?”

“Because it's a possibility. Remember on that night of love, madness and death there was also a swinging party
and . . . we need to speak to Pupy. And see if he knows who the forty-year-old is . . . Why don't you try to get us a drop of coffee?”

“So you're in the mood for thought?” asked Manolo as sarcastically as he could, and the Count thought better of asking. He watched the sergeant's fragile structure rearrange itself in order to stand up and exit the incubator, as they both dubbed that tiny cubby-hole they'd been allocated on the third floor.

As ever, he went back to the window. He'd decreed that that chunk of city, extending between the weeping figs that surrounded headquarters and the sea that was a faint, distant presence, was his favourite landscape. It encompassed a church without towers or belfry, various tranquil, painted buildings, clumps of trees and the orderly hubbub from a primary school. All that configured an aesthetic ideal under a sun that diffused outlines and melded colours following the rules of the Impressionists. It was true, he wanted to think: the Boss had asked him to sink up to his neck in that murky business where he'd barely found a toehold. He found it increasingly difficult to keep talking about death, drugs, alcohol, rape, semen, blood and penetration, when a redhead with a saxophone might be waiting for him towards the end of that very same Friday evening. The Count was still choked by the heartbreak from his last frustrated love, Tamara, a woman he'd desired over
almost twenty years, the one who'd been the subject of his most enthusiastic masturbations from adolescence to thirty-five-year-old maturity, only to discover, after a night of love they consumed and consummated, that any attempt to hold on to her had been a spurious fantasy, an adolescent mirage, from the day in 1972 when he fell in love with a face he'd registered as the world's prettiest. When will Karina get here from Matanzas? Is this woman on the cards?

 

He sank his finger into the bell, for a fifth time, convinced that the door wouldn't open, despite his silent prayers and despite kicking the ground: he wanted to speak to Pupy, to find out about Pupy and, if she were on the cards, blame him and forget the case. But the door didn't open.

“Where's the guy gone?”

“You know, Conde, people on motorbikes . . .”

“Well, I couldn't give a monkey's for motorbikes. Let's go to the garage.”

They waited for the lift and Manolo pressed the B button. The doors opened onto a gloomy, half empty basement and a couple of American cars of indestructible 1950s vintage.

“Where's the guy gone?” the lieutenant repeated and this time Manolo thought better of responding. They climbed the ramp that led out into Lacret almost at the
intersection with Juan Delgado. The Count now looked back up at the building from the pavement, the only one of its height and modernity in the area and then walked back to the Lada 1600 they'd driven from headquarters. Manolo put back the radio aerial he always removed as a preventive measure whenever he parked in the street, and the Count opened the right-side door.

“Fire away,” said Manolo switching the engine on. The Count looked at his watch for a moment: it was just 2 p.m. and he felt the unpleasant sensation of having time on his hands.

“Turn into Juan Delgado and park on the corner of Milagros.”

“Where we going now?”

“I'm going to see a friend,” the Count mumbled when the car stopped a few blocks on. “Wait here. I've got to go by myself,” he said getting out of the car and lighting up.

He walked down Milagros into the relentless wind and dust. His skin smarted again with the heat from that breeze sent from hell. He had to talk to Candito, had to rid himself of all commitments on that night he'd already staked out, and he had to have the info.

The passageway on the site was also deserted by that time in the early afternoon, so ideal for a nap, and he breathed with relief when he heard the tapping of a hammer from Red Candito's home-made mezzanine.
Hard at it. Cuqui asked “who's that?” from inside, and he smiled.

“The Count,” he answered quietly, and waited for the young woman to open the door. Three or four minutes later, it was Candito who opened up. He was wiping his hands on a dirty rag and the Count realized he wasn't particularly welcome.

“Come in, Conde.”

The lieutenant looked at Red before going inside, trying to imagine what his old pal from Pre-Uni was thinking.

“Sit down,” said Candito, filling two glasses with milky alcohol from an unlabelled bottle.

“Gut-rot?” enquired the Count.

“It goes down a treat,” replied Red and drank.

“If it's not too rough,” conceded the Count.

“What do you mean ‘rough'? This is a Don Felipón, the best gut-rot made in town. It costs fifteen pesos a time and you have to order it in advance. A limited edition, you know. You can't wait, don't tell me?”

“I can never wait. You know me.”

“But I've to take it easy, pal. I'm risking my neck.”

“Don't fuck around, Red, this isn't the Sicilian mafia.”

“You believe that if you want. Where there's grass, there's brass, and where there's brass there are people who want to hang on to it. And it's boiling hot out there, Conde.”

“So there is dope around?”

“Yes, but I don't know where it hails from or where it's heading.”

“Don't try to fob me off, Red.”

“Hey, you think I'm God the Father the all-knowing?”

“And more besides?”

Candito took another sip of spirits and looked at his old schoolmate.

“Conde, you're changing. Watch it, you're a nice guy, but you're turning cynical.”

“Sod it, Red, what's got into you?”

“You mean, what's got into you, my friend? You're using me and you don't care a fuck. All you care about is sorting your problem . . .”

Conde looked into Candito's bloodshot eyes and felt disarmed. He felt like leaving but listened instead to his informer's spiel.

“Pupy's a young devil. He's into everything: he nicks bikes, sells the parts, buys greenbacks, deals with foreigners. He lives like a lord. Just look at his bike, a Kawasaki, a 350 I reckon, real sweet. What else would you like to know?”

The Count looked at his nails, pinkish, so different to Candito's long dark specimens.

“Grass as well?”

“Yes, you bet.”

“He's got to be on file.”

“That's down to you. You're the cop.”

The Count finished his shot and lit up. He looked into Candito's eyes.

“What's got into you today?”

Candito tried to smile, but couldn't. He put his glass on the floor without taking another sip and started cleaning a nail.

“What do you think, Conde? What do you think's got into me? You know the street out there, you weren't born yesterday and you know what I'm doing doesn't go down well. It's no picnic. Why don't you let me get on making my shoes without all this dirt? I feel ashamed to be doing this, right? Do you know what it means to be a snitch? Come on, Conde, what's in it for me? You think I'm going to finger people and live a quiet life? . . .”

The Count stood up when Candito picked up his glass and finished his drink. He knew very well what was riling his friend and he knew that any attempt at self-defence would ring untrue. Yes, Candito was his informer: on the street, his snitch, nark or squealer. He looked at his friend, who'd defended him more than once and felt dirty, guilty and cynical as he'd just called him. But he had to have the info.

“I know you think I'm a bastard, you're probably right. You tell me. But I have a job to do, Candito. Thanks for the drink. Say hullo to your little raver. And remember that I want to give some sandals to a little piece I met,”
and he shook the calloused, gluey palm Red Candito offered up from the depths of his armchair.

 

The wind combed the main street in his barrio as if trawling for dirt and dust were its only mission in the world. The Count found it hostile and resolute, but decided to take it on. He asked Manolo to drop him on the corner by the cinema though he didn't tell him he only wanted to walk, to walk round his barrio on a day that didn't favour such exercise for legs and spirit, because the stress of waiting seemed as if it would be the end of him. Sergeant Manuel Palacios had learned from almost two years of working and co-existing with the Count that there was no point asking questions when his boss asked him to do something unusual. Conde's reputation as a lunatic at headquarters wasn't mere gossip and Manolo had experienced it more than once. His mixture of pigheadedness and pessimism, of nonconformity and pugnacious intellect were components of a mind that was too strange and effective to be a policeman's. But the sergeant admired him, as he'd never admired anyone else, for he knew that working with the Count was at once a party and a privilege.