Havana Blue

by Leonardo Padura

  “I’m off now. Manolo will be here in two ticks. If I can’t come tonight, I’ll ring you and tell you where it’s at.”

  “But don’t think too much. You’ll get indigestion.”

  “Do I have any choice, Skinny?”

  “No, my friend. Just clear some of the shit out that head of yours because what’s fucked won’t get unfucked by you spending your whole day thinking. You know, it’s just like baseball: if you’re going to win, you need a good set of bongos. And ours rumble away, even when we’re awake. That’s why you and I almost beat the lanky coal-merchants from the high school in Havana, you remember that?”

  “Like it was yesterday,” he replied and stood up ready to hit and then took a swing. They both watched the ball fly off and hit the fence right under the scoreboard in the loneliest reaches of centerfield.

  “Surprise, surprise!” exclaimed Lieutenant Patricia Wong in English, her eyes vanishing with her laughter as her right hand brandished the stapled papers which seemed to be the source of her cheerfulness. China’s outburst of excitement went through the Count like a transfusion: went straight into his body and began to course through his veins at a startling rate, making his heart beat fast.

  “Have we got him?” he asked as he searched his jacket pocket for a cigarette and almost shouted when he saw his comrade’s eyeless face sway affirmatively.

  “Fuck, we’ve finally got something,” snorted Manolo, intercepting in midair the cigarette the Count was lifting to his lips. The lieutenant, who hated his colleague’s sporadic but often repeated jape, forgot his usual insults and pulled up a chair next to Lieutenant Patricia Wong.

  “Come on, China, how’s it looking?”

  “Like you said, Mayo, like you said, but more complicated. Look, this is what must be behind it all and we still have to review a stack of paper, one hell of a stack,” she emphasized and started looking for something among the forms. “But it’s red hot, Mayo, just listen. In the last half of 1988, which is all we’ve looked at, Rafael Morín went on two trips to Spain and one to Japan. He’s got more flying hours than Gagarin . . . Look, he went to Japan to do business with Mitachi, but more of that later.”

  “Go on, go on,” insisted the Count.

  “Listen, he went to Spain for sixteen and eighteen days respectively and to Japan for nine, and in each case had to wrap up four contracts, except on his first visit to Spain when there were only three. He had a heap of dollars for marketing expenses – I’d never imagined people got so much – I’ll tell you exactly how much later. There’s a sheet that lists them by the business contacts to be made, but cop this, he’d always double his numbers, as if he were going to work or be away more time. That’s bad enough, but the daily expenses beggar belief, Mayo. The pro-formas he must have filled in for the three trips I mentioned aren’t here, but what’s more incredible is that he filed a claim for expenses for a trip to Panama that was cancelled and didn’t reimburse them. I can’t explain that. Any auditor would spot it.”

  “Yes, it’s odd, but is there more?” the lieutenant asked as Patricia put the sheets on top of the desk. His glee began to wane; such hamfistedness didn’t bear the stamp of Morín.

  “Hey, wait a minute, Mayo. Let me finish.”

  “On your way, China, show us you’re better than Chan Li Po.”

  “I will. Look, this is the fuse to a real time bomb: the import and export enterprise holds an account in the Bank of Bilbao and Vizcaya in the name of a limited company registered at a post box number in Panama and which has a branch in Cuba. It’s a kind of corporation and is called Rose Tree and was apparently set up to sidestep the American embargo. The Rose Tree account can be accessed via three signatures: those of Deputy Minister Fernández-Lorea, our friend Maciques and, naturally, Rafael Morín, but there always had to be two signatures . . . You with me?”

  “I’m giving it my best, my most heartfelt shot.”

  “Well, hold on to your chair now, macho: if I’ve not been misled by the papers here, because there are others that aren’t where they should be and I don’t want to slander anyone, but if I’m not mistaken, a big amount was taken out in December and isn’t tied to any big deal signed around then.”

  “And who was responsible?”

  “Don’t be naïve, Mayo, only the bank knows that.”

  “OK, so I’m naïve . . . Now shock me: how big is ‘big’, Patricia?” he asked, getting ready to hear the figure.

  “A good few thousand. More than a hundred, more than two hundred, more than . . .”

  “Fuck me,” exclaimed Manolo, who started searching for another cigarette. “And why did he need all that?”

  “Wait a minute, Manolo, if I were an oracle I wouldn’t be chewing dust and paper here.”

  “Forget it, China, just carry on . . .” the Count begged her, mentally reviewing an image of Tamara, Rafael’s speech on his first day at school, the head of the camp ringing that bell, their playing field on October Tenth, the cocky unfailing laugh of the man who’d gone missing, and he laughed and laughed.

  “I think it’s all about Mitachi. Mayo, the Japanese weren’t coming till February, and Rafael had first to go to Barcelona to make a purchase from a Spanish limited company I’ve still not checked out, but I bet you anything that Japanese capital is involved. And if that’s so, I’ll take a second bet, that it’s Mitachi capital.”

  “Hold on, China, hold on, explain yourself.”

  “Hell, Mayo, you going brain dead?” protested Patricia, as her smile engulfed her eyes. “It’s as clear as water: Rafael Morín must be doing business with Mitachi as an individual and was playing with money belonging to the enterprise or, rather, the Rose Tree. You on my wavelength now?”

  “And how!” said Manolo, taken aback and trying to smile.

  “And you reckon papers have gone missing, China?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Could they be in other filing cabinets?”

  “Could be, Mayo, but I don’t think so. If it were just one . . .”

  “So they’ve been removed?”

  “Could be, but what’s odd is that they didn’t take everything, including the ones for the daily allowances that Morín himself could doctor.”

  “So too many of some and not enough of others?”

  “More or less, Mayo.”

  “China, I know why there are too many of some, and I think I know where to find the missing ones.”

  When Major Rangel told me, You don’t have to wear your uniform here, you shouldn’t work in uniform, and I saw him there in his olive-green jacket, his rank embroidered on his epaulettes and round his collar, and looking so impressive, I thought it was a joke, that I should resign there and then because it was almost like giving up being a policeman when you’d only just made it. The first time I went into the street in uniform, after I’d passed out the Police Academy, I felt half embarrassed, and half that I was really somebody, the gear fitted me like a glove and gave me something extra, made me stand out, and I thought people were always going to be looking at me, even if I didn’t want them to, because I wasn’t like everybody else. I did and didn’t like that; it was really peculiar. As a kid I’d spent my life in disguise; as I was so skinny, I wasn’t like other kids who wanted to be policemen, generals or astronauts. I dressed up for a while as Zorro, then as Robin Hood and then as a pirate with a patch over my eye and should probably have gone into acting and not the force. But I did become a policeman, and the fact is from the start was thrilled to be in uniform and really thought I was seriously playing at being a policeman until the day I drove up to a shack in El Moro in an academy patrol car. When we got out of the car, we were immediately surrounded by lots of people, I reckon the whole barrio was there, and everybody looking at us, I straightened my cap: it wasn’t mine and wasn’t new. I pulled up my trousers and put on my dark glasses, I had an audience. I was important, right? The woman who’d suffered the attack had already been taken to hospital. There was a god-awful
silence, because we’d arrived, you know, and a grey-haired black man, who was really old, the chair of the committee for the block, said “This way, comrades” and we went into a small house – it had a zinc roof and its walls were part un-plastered brick, part cardboard and part zinc – and when you went in you felt like an uncooked loaf on the tip of the spatula entering the oven, and you don’t understand why there are still people who live like that, and there she was on the small bed, and I almost fainted. I don’t even like telling people, because I remember and see it as if it were yesterday, and can feel the heat from the oven: the sheet was splattered in blood; there was blood on the ground, on the wall, and she was curled up and motionless, because she was dead; her fatherin-law had killed her while attempting rape, and later I discovered she was only seven years old, and I cursed the day I became a policeman, because I really thought these things didn’t happen. When you’re a policeman, you find out they do, and worse, and that’s your job, and you begin to doubt whether you should do everything by the book or whether you should just get your pistol out and put six bullets into the guy who’d done it. I almost asked to leave, but I stayed in there, and was sent to headquarters and the major told me: you mustn’t come in uniform and you’ll work with the Count, and I think you’ll get to like being in the force. You don’t understand me, do you? Although I no longer walk the streets in uniform and people don’t know who I am, I couldn’t care less, and you’ve helped me not to care less, but people like Rafael Morín have helped me more. What a specimen! Whoever gave him the right to gamble with what’s mine and yours and the old man’s who’s selling newspapers and the woman’s who’s about to cross the road and who’ll probably die of old age without knowing what it is to own a car, a nice house, to stroll around Barcelona or wear perfume worth a hundred dollars, and is probably off right now to queue for three hours to get a bag of potatoes, huh Count? Whoever?

  “Oh, it’s you? How are you, Mario? Do come in, Sergeant,” she greeted them with an embarrassed smile, and the Count kissed her on the cheek like in the old days and Manolo shook her hand; they exchanged pleasantries and walked towards the living room. “Anything new, Mario?” she asked finally.

  “There’s always something new, Tamara. Papers have gone missing at the enterprise, and it could be evidence against Rafael.”

  She forgot her irrepressible lock of hair and rubbed her hands. She suddenly shrank, seemed defenceless and embarrassed.

  “Of what?”

  “Of thieving, Tamara. That’s why we’re back.”

  “But what did he steal, Mario?”

  “Money, loads of money.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she exclaimed, eyes glistening; and the Count thought she might cry now. He is her husband, after all? He is the father of her child, isn’t he? Her boyfriend from their school days, right?

  “I want to inspect the safe that’s in the library, Tamara.”

  “The safe?” That was another surprise and came as a relief. She wasn’t going to cry.

  “You know the combination, I suppose?”

  “But it’s been empty for a long time. I mean there’s not been any money or anything like that. As far as I recall, there are just the title deeds to the house and papers relating to the family pantheon.”

  “But you know the combination, don’t you?” Now it was Manolo who was insisting. He’d become a lean, rubbery, edgy cat once more.

  “Yes, it’s in Rafael’s telephone book as just another number.”

  “Can you open it now, comrade?” the sergeant repeated, and she looked at the Count.

  “Please, Tamara,” he asked as he stood up.

  “What’s this all about, Mario?” she asked, although she was really wondering herself as she led them into the library.

  She kneeled in front of the fake fireplace, removed the safety grille, and the Count remembered how it was the eve of the day of the Three Kings who always preferred to bring their presents down the chimney. Perhaps his had arrived, amazingly early. Tamara read out the six numbers and started to turn the handle to the safe, and the Count tried to glance over the shoulder of Manolo, who was in the front row. She moved the wheel a sixth time to the left and finally pulled open the metal door and stood up.

  “I hope you’re mistaken, Mario.”

  “Hope on,” came the reply, and when she moved away, he went over to the fireplace, kneeled down and extracted a white envelope from the cold iron belly. He stood up and looked at her. He couldn’t stop himself: he felt palpably sorry for that woman who’d stripped him to the bone and frustrated him and whom, he now realized more than ever, he’d preferred not to have seen again. But he opened the envelope, took out a few sheets of paper and read while Manolo rocked impatiently on his heels. “Better than we’d imagined,” he said, stuffing the papers back in the envelope. Tamara was still rubbing her hands, and Manolo couldn’t keep still. “Maciques has got an account in the Hispano-American Bank and owns a car in Spain. The photocopies are here.”

  Major Rangel contemplated the sweet-scented death agony of his Rey del Mundo as if he were watching the death of a dog that had been his best friend. Momentarily, as he placed the butt in the ashtray, he regretted he’d not treated it more lovingly. He’d had an awful smoke listening to Lieutenant Mario Conde’s explanation.

  “Seeing is believing,” he pronounced and tried to avoid seeing his cigar go out, perhaps so he didn’t need to believe it. “And how was he able to perpetrate so many dreadful things?”

  “Dreadful things are all the rage, Boss . . . Wasn’t he a totally trustworthy cadre? Wasn’t he a man eternally on the up? Wasn’t he purer and saintlier than holy water?”

  “Don’t be sarcastic, because that won’t explain anything . . .”

  “Boss, I don’t know why you’re shocked at the lack of controls in an enterprise. Whenever and wherever they do a really surprise audit, they find dreadful things that beggar belief, that nobody can explain, but which are for real. You’ve already forgotten the millionaire manager of the Ward ice-cream parlour and Cheep Cheep fried chicken chain, and in . . .”

  “OK, OK, Mario, but let me feel shocked, if you don’t mind? One always prefers to think people aren’t that corrupt, and, as you say, Rafael Morín was a completely trustworthy cadre, and look what he got up to . . . But let’s leave that for later, now I want to know where that fellow is holed up. I want to know so I can hand the case to the industry minister neatly sorted.”

  The Count scrutinized his dry listless cigarette, the ink from the Popular brand that had run, the tobacco flaking out at both ends and the packet that was falling apart, but it was his last one, and when he lit up he enjoyed the strength hidden in that smoke.

  “Do you need more people?”

  “No, just let me finish what I’m saying. Look, everything points to the fact that Rafael Morín was going to show his true colours on a trip to Barcelona in January. He intended vanishing there with all the money of which part was already safely invested, and as he knew for the moment nobody would be checking the paperwork, he may have overstretched himself and started cooking his allowances and marketing expenses, to have money on account, you know? One of Fatman Contreras’s informants, I mean Captain Contreras, Yayo el Yuma, says his photo reminds him of someone, but he’d have to see him personally to be sure. So it’s also possible he changed dollars into Cuban pesos he could spend here, for, according to Zoilita, he did like to throw it around.”

  “And still no news from the coastguards?”

  “Nothing as yet, and I don’t think there will be, although it’s beginning to make more sense that his problems were here and he has been sent to a better place . . . But I’m sure Maciques is behind whatever has happened . . . Because if not, why on earth would Rafael keep those papers belonging to Maciques at home? In any case it all went awry when Rafael found out a delegation from Mitachi was coming to Cuba earlier than expected. Look, here’s the telex. It arrived the morning of the thirtieth. It seems
they were very interested in doing a deal, and when there’s a good deal to be done, the Chinese don’t worry about Christmas trees and New Year. And Rafael knew that the deputy minister, perhaps the minister and other people from other enterprises, would join in the bargaining. As I was saying, he realized he was caught and went into hiding or was put out of harm’s way. So it’s more than likely he left the country illegally, but he hasn’t, otherwise the shout would have gone up over there. Just imagine, Boss, he was a big wheel in the Cuban economy. And if I’m sure of one thing, it’s that Rafael wouldn’t risk his skin trying to make his escape on a raft made from two truck inner tubes. He’d find the safest route and then get to Miami . . . Rafael Morín is in Cuba.”

  “And what if he avoided creating a fuss so his account in Spain wasn’t frozen?” Major Rangel rubbed his eyes, and the Count noted he was reacting anxiously, which wasn’t his style.

  “I reckon that even if he didn’t want a fuss, the people in Miami would have made one. What’s more, time was on his side. And he was a trustworthy cadre, was he not?”

  “So you keep telling me.”

  “Well, he knew nobody would ever imagine anything of this sort, and he’d only have to go into the first Miami bank he found to have money on tap. He reckoned nobody would suspect a thing for a few days and that nobody would ever imagine a guy who made a regular eight or ten trips abroad every year skiving off in a motorboat.”

  “Yes, you’re probably right . . . But he didn’t take the paperwork to do with travel allowances. China found them.”

  “That’s where two and two don’t make four. I thought Maciques had put them there at midday on the thirty-first, but by midday on the thirty-first Rafael already had his hands on those papers.”

  “So, what an earth is Maciques’s role in all this?”

  “This is what I’d like to find out; I’m sure he’s up to his neck in shit. He knows the whole story, or at least the main plot, because on the third, when Manolo questioned him, he was very on edge and kept going back and forth, as if trying to wriggle out of the conversation. And today he was quite different. He was very self-confident, as if there was no mess, and he was quite convinced he wouldn’t have any problems even if Rafael’s fiddle over allowances, marketing expenses and the like were rumbled, which he knew we would do eventually: if not today, tomorrow or the day after . . . The time that has passed since his boss disappeared apparently gave him peace of mind, because he never imagined Rafael was keeping those documents in that safe.”