Havana Noir (20 page)

c) At the end of the sixth inning, Santiago was ahead by one run and El Torpedo seemed invincible. It would have been easy to get a bunch of neophytes to bet on them.

d) Pupy went to complete the second half of her assignment—to promote big bets against Las Ratas.

e) The walk, the stolen second, the hit all made it look like El Torpedo was doing his part.

f) Azúcar got up to go bet a bundle in favor of Las Ratas—that is, against the popular current.

g) El Torpedo reacted. We could attribute it to his pride, perhaps because of something said by a teammate, or maybe an insult hurled from the bleachers, or perhaps he simply realized he was having an exceptional night and he wasn’t prepared to throw it away. h) When he decided to stand facing the batter to pitch, with men on first and third, El Torpedo defled those who were trying to buy him. The dimwits figured he was just shamelessly screwing up. The more alert understood he was laughing at them.

i) When El Torpedo managed to dominate Las Ratas without allowing the tying run, Pupy’s fate was sealed.

I repeated Azúcar’s words: “She was out of her league.”

“So who do you think killed her?” my mother-in-law asked. Her look wasn’t curiosity so I was prepared to have her contradict me.

The chops were just about ready, the game was about to start, and there were still two outstanding questions. Or three. And a clarification.

“Do you know why Azúcar isn’t a suspect?”

Luis shook his head.

“Because he got up before Las Ratas became a threat, and because he came back too quickly.”

My wife said it was all absurd and went to deal with the lettuce and tomatoes.

“Who’s an easy touch for a lot of money on a bet? Who would bet against Las Ratas at the Latino?”

I’ve always admired how keen Charo can be, and her response was what I expected: “No Habanero would dare it, and people from Santiago never have enough money.”

So who was in position to lure the foreigners, for whom betting was probably not illegal, to the stadium? Who, in fact, was in a position to make the bets that, in the language of the profession, could be called part of the “tourist package”?

My wife brought the salad. “Olivia,” she said.

“Oh, please, be quiet,” my mother-in-law admonished, immediately surveying the top of the fence for listeners.

“The one whose father’s on the radio?” asked Luis.

Trying to imagine the actual killing seemed futile to me, but my audience demanded it. The women’s bathroom, where the stadium security guards have little access, could easily be a betting spot.

Olivia might well have been with her guests in the stands, explaining the doings on the field. “The one who’s going up to bat next is the loud one from the restaurant,” she might have said, and the tourists would have looked at the guy under mercury lights, hardly believing he was the same man who had slept in a chair in the hotel lobby.

Did Olivia kill with her own hands or merely order the hit? My mother-in-law, for the second time, said she didn’t want to hear anymore. I couldn’t imagine Olivia going into those flooded bathrooms, which you could smell from far away. At the third out of the seventh inning, there would have been plenty of resentment to go around.

“Olivia probably didn’t even have to have her killed,” Charo proposed.

I declined to accept the idea. How much money did those people lose who’d trusted in Pupy, in El Torpedo? Who had thought up the operation?

So that it wouldn’t be Olivia’s cadaver that showed up in the hallway at the Latino, or in one of the dark little streets around it, Pupy had to die.

“Thank God they didn’t kill El Torpedo.”

“Too risky,” I said.

“Yes, here we’re all equal, but some are more equal than others,” added Charo.

My wife came to tell us that they were singing the national anthem in the stadium in Santiago. “Are you finished wasting time yet?” she asked.

“This has given me a headache,” Luis said.

“That’s because you let him get to you.”

But Luis and Charo agreed that my conclusions were irrefutable.

“If it’s so easy to solve the murder, why haven’t the police been able to do it?” my wife asked.

“Because they’re idiots,” explained Charo.

“I don’t think they’d play around with a murder.” My wife had lost her sense of humor. “It’s a good thing you never wanted to be a policeman.”

According to her, the detectives had to know everything we’d come up with, and more. In fact, we didn’t really know much about that world of gambling and revenge. For what I was saying to be true, wouldn’t Olivia have had to pay something to someone? Where would she get that kind of cash? Was Javier, her husband, unaware of her dealings, or was he in on it too?

My wife might very well have been right, but in cases like this, I know she can get insufferable, and it becomes impossible for me not to argue against her.

“She’s a murderer,” I said conclusively.

Luis took his plate to the living room and I went ahead to tell my mother-in-law she could serve.

“She’s always up in the clouds,” my mother-in-law said, as she gave the black beans a final touch by pouring just a smidgen of olive oil and vinegar on top. “And you don’t even know what I know!”

I tried to get her to at least drop a hint: Had the police interviewed Olivia?

“Are you crazy?” When my mother-in-law decides to bite her tongue, she’s as silent as a tomb. Anyway, El Torpedo was on the pitcher’s mound and Luis was screaming for me to come watch.

I went to bed early and in a foul mood: El Torpedo was spanked and the championship had slipped through our hands. By the fifth inning, the game was a mess and we had abandoned the TV. Out on the terrace, which was still haunted by the smell of the grilled chops, Luis and I silently finished off the two bottles of rum that were left. I fell asleep out there, without noticing when our friends went home. The world was still in balance inside my head when I dropped into bed. I shut my eyes. Then the world made a sudden turn. I opened my eyes and tried to focus until the ceiling above me almost righted itself.

“You know you screwed up,” my wife said.

I pleaded with her not to move the bed; I assured her I was feeling better. But she was talking about Olivia. The ceiling was now just about flat again and parallel with the floor.

“If she finds out what you were saying about her, she could make trouble for you, and you won’t have an easy time of it.” The ceiling was once more intent on oscillating, on coming closer then retreating. I got up and had a glass of ice water. Dawn found me in a chair in the living room.

Some days after those pork chops had been served and devoured, I was sitting on the porch reading. My mother-in-law was in the garden admiring some gardenias that were beginning to sprout. Olivia and her husband walked by on the street and greeted us. Their arms were full and their exhaustion was obvious. My mother-in-law didn’t even lift her eyes from the gardenias’ pale, fragile stems.

“Has their car broken down?” I asked my mother-in-law.

Olivia and her husband stopped to talk with Pupy’s parents.

My mother-in-law watched the scene, then shook the dirt off her shoes. “They had to sell the car,” she said. “It’s a miracle they didn’t kill her too.” As she walked by me, she muttered, “Degenerate.”

Translation by Achy Obejas

PART III

S
UDDEN
R
AGE

THE ORCHID

BY
M
ARIELA
V
ARONA
R
OQUE

Santos Suárez

T
he man takes the orchid down from the balcony wall. He breathes, as always; his breaths seem like sighs. He considers the poor orchid, tied unjustly to this fake branch, and he imagines the size, number, and thickness of the petals if, instead of this fourth-floor apartment, he had a house with a yard. The yard would be filled with ancient trees, worthy of this orchid.

The excited, almost hysterical voices of his wife and a neighbor come to him from the kitchen. Oh my God, only seven years old, and Marta had told him to come straight up here, that Alfonso was going to babysit him, but Alfonso says that when the boy didn’t show up, he went down to his house to get him and found the house locked; that’s when he figured Marta must have decided to leave him with his grandmother…Alfonso? Just imagine, he’s been struck dumb by this terrible thing, like me, that boy was like a son, or a grandson, to us, you know that. I imagine the police will want to question us now…

The man has taken the orchid to the bathroom. He poses it delicately on the rim of the pan in the shower stall and pours water from a bucket, filling the pan to the exact brim so that it is perfectly balanced. The voices can still be heard in the bathroom, though they’re deadened by the thickness of two concrete walls. Yes, of course, she’s under psychiatric care, they have her on pills. She came home at 2 in the morning, and since her son has stayed here so many nights before, she didn’t want to wake him up at that hour, believing the whole time, poor thing, that her little angel was fast asleep, when by then he was…

The orchid has two withered petals the man tries to remove from the stem. One falls into his hand but the other still has some sap and refuses to fall. The fleshy, bright texture of the petals remind him of animal skin rather than plant leaves. The man sits on the toilet lid, sighing constantly, and he takes the little jug that his wife has used for the last twenty years to wash herself and dips it in the bucket. He surprises himself when he tries to remember the last time his wife washed herself before going to bed.

It’s her voice he hears, rising in tone, becoming more dramatic. Whoever did it should be castrated, should be left to bleed until his mouth overflows with ants…He was an innocent creature who couldn’t defend himself. It must have been a mentally ill person, one of those drunks who spend all day on the corner, over there at San Benigno and Zapotes, with their bottles in hand. One of them is an ex-convict, he has tattoos. You can see it in his face that he’s capable of all kinds of savagery. It was probably him—he saw the boy walking all by himself and sweet-talked him; kids go along with whoever shows them anything of the slightest beauty, the poor things…Alfonso is devastated. I could never have kids, and ever since we got to know Marta, that boy has spent more time here than with his real grandmother…

The man brings up the little jug, full now, and begins to water the orchid, which shines its venomous color in the shadows. He asks himself why this thing with the boy had to happen now, this weekend, when all signs had pointed to calm. We have to buy groceries, Alfonso. Groceries bought. And we need to get money to pay the light bill because what you gave me for household expenses has been spent. Lights paid. And please do me the damn favor of fixing the oven, because it’s leaking oil. Oven fixed. And make sure that all your messy tools and parts are put away by the time I get back. Tools and parts picked up and put away. And go by Mirna’s and return the blender, since I have to live my life borrowing blenders because it’s never occurred to you to buy me a blender. Blender returned. And remember that Marta wants you to watch the boy this Saturday, that she’s going out.

He turns the light on and closes the door to keep the voices out. Isolated phrases still come through. Seven years old, goddamn it, and no pity…Nude, smeared with blood and left in the mud, the little angel…The doctor on call at the clinic found out everything from the morgue. Yes, in the mud, in a ditch on the way to the river, behind the brickworks…It was the old man who gives massages who found him, he was looking for herbs for one of his teas…It had to be the ex-convict: Who else could it be but him? The only person who’s sick in the head around here is that guy…

The man aims the flow from the little jug to water the fake branch to which the orchid is pinned. He knows that the water will soak into the organic matter in its thick layers, and that the orchid will suck it out later like a vampire. He sees the petals shining; they seem as alive as he is, but incapable of blossoming. He remembers Marta’s boy touching the plump petals with his fingertips whenever he accompanied him on his ritual of watering the plants.

There was no need to water the boy’s cheeks to see them shine. One time, in this very bathroom, Alfonso had emptied the little jug of warm water over the boy, and his color had not been venomous at all; on the contrary, it was the healthy color of a beautiful boy, with bright eyes and red lips, splashing water everywhere, never still like an orchid. His skin reflected all the colors of a rose, including a morbid mauve under his brow. They were the colors the man imagined on the flower to come, after watering that mute plant for so many years.

But now it is the same as always: The petals are dry and hard, like a fistful of indigenous, maybe obsidian blades. Not a single bud coming up anywhere. He sees himself, as he did so many times at sunset, sharing his secret hiding place between the trees by the river with the boy. They sit in an old abandoned truck covered with vines and flanked by piles of old bricks, and he listens to the boy’s chatter while he gazes out at the trees that don’t belong to him and imagines them covered with orchids.

He lifts the fake branch and waits for the water to drip off the stem and the petals, then scurry down the shower drain. Later, he holds it with one hand, keeping the other hand under it to catch the water that continues to leak through as he takes the plant out of the shower, with his flip-flops dragging, and back to its nail on the wall in the balcony. When he returns, he hears his wife’s voice saying goodbye to the neighbor, tearing into him right away. There you go again with your hang-up with that orchid, instead of getting dressed to go help Marta, that poor woman, and then to the wake. I don’t know how you can concern yourself with that idiotic thing with the boy’s disgrace still so fresh, and knowing that it happened while he was walking over here…

The man doesn’t say anything. He goes back to the bathroom and carefully closes the door so his wife doesn’t hear him lock it. He puts the bucket and the little jug back where they belong; he uses the bathroom rug to wipe off the water that dripped on the floor, then stands before the mirror hanging above the bathroom sink. He looks at his faded eyes and hears the boy’s voice pounding in his ears, telling him not to go to his house, that it’s better to meet by the hideout near the river, the only really safe place. And he remembers his sudden rage, the childish eyes growing wider from shock, and that sensation of power once everything was finished. He pulls from his pocket the blade with the golden handle, a gift from his father, and checks the sharpness with the same spare discipline with which he performed the ritual of watering the plants.

Translation by Achy Obejas