“I even said to him before he left, ‘Tell your pal next door that her pork is going to turn into chicharrón if she doesn’t take it out of the oven,’” she said. “Five minutes later, Pepito came back carrying the pork leg. It was enormous, with a big bone sticking out, and it was piping hot. ‘Victoria’s so busy with her Yuma friends that she forgot her lunch!’ he said. Pepito was hungry and we didn’t have anything ready, so he suggested we have at the animal. He was laughing the whole time like it was a big joke.”
“Didn’t he suspect that Victoria would get mad at him for taking food from her kitchen?” Padrino asked. “It’s a serious matter, mija, and more so if she was expecting guests.”
Magdala shrugged. “He said that her Yuma friends must have invited her to eat out. Anyway, he was doing her a favor. If it had been left in the oven, that roast could have burned down the entire building with all of us inside!”
“Right.”
Magdala started rocking furiously. She fingered her necklaces and avoided looking at Padrino.
“Between you and me, even if Victoria had caught him red-handed, she wouldn’t have been mad at Pepito,” she whispered. “She had a crush on him. That’s why he did it, because he knew he could get away with it.”
“Does Pepito get pissed off easily?” Padrino asked. “How does he react when you tell him to stop playing the drums after midnight?”
“He always cooperates! He’s a nice kid. Are you implying, Padrino, that my nephew would murder someone over a pork leg?”
Padrino shook his head. “I’m just getting the facts straight. That’s what the police do.”
“Well, the cops don’t know a thing about the animal,” Magdala whispered. “Or the cell phone. As you can imagine, this is strictly confidential.”
“Tell me about the cell phone.”
Magdala glanced at the Virgin of Charity statuette. The siren of an ambulance wailed in the street.
“Pepito told me that it was lying out on a table,” she said slowly. “I scolded him. I said, ‘Don’t touch what isn’t yours.’ Taking food isn’t that bad since there are usually—what do you call them?—extenuating circumstances.”
Padrino frowned. “Ay, mija—”
“Understand that Pepito is still a child, Padrino,” she pleaded. “He doesn’t think things through sometimes.”
Padrino studied his goddaughter’s expression. She kept fidgeting with her necklaces and the hem of her dress.
“I’m scared,” she said, lowering her voice again. “The lieutenant, that big-assed bitch, thinks Pepito did it. I could tell by her questions that she suspected him.”
Padrino’s face lit up. “Lieutenant Martínez?”
“That’s her name, yes.”
“We used to work together.”
Magdala’s unibrow went up in alarm. “Please don’t mention the cell phone or the pork roast to her!”
This time, it was Padrino who looked at the Virgin of Charity, asking for patience.
“Tell me everything that happened yesterday, Magdala,” he said. “Don’t leave anything out, even if you think it’s not important.”
“It all started with the rain,” Magdala sighed. “My bedroom window was coming apart. There was water all over, and it was driving me crazy. My husband had gone to the grocery store, and I asked Pepito to fix the window. He went next door, borrowed the screwdriver and started tinkering. In the meantime, I saw a woman go into Victoria’s apartment.”
“What did she look like?”
“I don’t know, but I heard her heels click-clacking up the stairs and peeked out as she went into his apartment. I didn’t see her, but she hung a red umbrella outside the door, still dripping. She smelled good too. One of those foreign fragrances. Maybe it wasn’t a woman, but a he-she like Victoria? When Pepito finished with the window, he returned the screwdriver and came back with the pork leg and the phone.” She paused. “He wasn’t at Victoria’s apartment more than five minutes, barely enough time to get the roast out of the oven. We had lunch. A little later, I heard Lázaro screaming that Victoria had had an accident in the bathroom. I hurried to find out—”
“‘A little later’—what does that mean, Magdala? Ten minutes? Half an hour?”
“Half an hour, perhaps. I don’t remember. I was busy putting away the leftovers. I would have given them back to Victoria if she’d asked for them.”
Padrino took a cigar out of his pocket and lit it. After inhaling deeply, he said, “Your neighbor might have already been dead when Pepito went to return the screwdriver. If the body was in the bathroom and he didn’t go there, he had no way of knowing . . .”
Magdala paused again to think. Padrino watched her. Was she really considering that as a possibility for the first time or just pretending to do so? She nodded quietly.
“Did he really leave the screwdriver there?” Padrino went on. “I’m assuming his fingerprints are all over it.”
Magdala threw her arms in the air.
“Yes, he did. See, that shows you he didn’t have bad intentions. If he had, he would have cleaned the screwdriver or just kept it. We’ve watched enough CSI episodes to know that!”
Padrino smiled. CSI: Havana, he thought.
“It was a little joke, Padrino,” she whispered. “Stupid, yes. Criminal, no.”
Padrino put his hand on hers. “Let’s hope so, mija. Where was Lázaro when you came in?”
“In the living room crying.”
“What about the damn screwdriver? Was it around?”
“I don’t know! I didn’t even think about it until the cops came back and started snooping around and asking questions. I imagine Pepito left it in the kitchen, then retrieved the pork leg from the oven and brought it here. But I haven’t had the chance to ask him about it.”
Padrino stood.
“I’ll try to help your nephew, Magdala,” he said. “But no promises.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine. I trust you! And I’m not trying to cover up for Pepito. If I thought he had killed Victoria—if it even crossed my mind that he had, I would tell you. I wouldn’t tell that big-assed lieutenant, but I wouldn’t be sitting here lying to you with a straight face.”
“I believe you,” Padrino said, though he didn’t. Not totally. “Now, where is that cell phone?”
Magdala stood. The rocking chair continued to move. She hurried to stop it.
“Siacará!” she cried out. “I don’t want any bad spirits sitting here and getting ideas.”
“Of course.”
She went to the bedroom and came back with Victoria’s phone.
“Did Pepito call anybody?” Padrino asked.
“I don’t think he even knows how to use that thing. I don’t, for sure.”
Padrino pocketed the phone. “Call me if you hear from the police.”
“Do you think they’ll release Pepito soon?” Magdala asked, holding her breath.
“Who knows, mija?” Padrino answered, but added in a low voice, “Probably not.”
4
Radio Bemba
After leaving his goddaughter’s apartment, Padrino went straight to Los Tres Perros, a bar three blocks away. He needed a cañangazo, and this was the best place for a cheap, stiff drink. The bar was low-end, with gray walls covered in stained posters of Los Van Van and Irakere, bands that had been popular in the eighties. A mural depicting three spotted dogs gave the establishment its name. The place smelled of the lard used to make fish fritters and croquettes. There was music—reggaeton, of course—but at a tolerable level. There were only five patrons there, quietly sipping their drinks.
Padrino sat down at the counter and ordered a doble. When the bartender brought him a glass full of rum, he gulped it down. He was nervous and somewhat out of sorts. For the first time in his life, he was sorry he had taken a case. He had done it for th
e money, no question about that. Though Magdala was his Santería goddaughter, religion was one thing and business another. She had asked him to help her nephew using his skills as a detective, not his babalawo gifts. They had agreed on 200 CUCs as payment for his services. To shop at the parallel-market stores, the only outlets that carried products like deodorant, electronics, milk and red meat, he needed CUCs. Summer was quickly approaching, and the electric fan that Padrino and his wife owned, a venerable 1959 Montgomery Ward, had finally died. Electric fans retailed for 60 CUCs at the Plaza Carlos III Mall.
Padrino didn’t charge for his Santería work. He accepted what people gave him, but also worked with those who couldn’t pay. His godchildren brought him fruit, bags of rice and homemade treats. He never went hungry, because his wife raised chickens and pigs, and they had a vegetable garden, but so many indispensable items were only in that damn “convertible currency” now! His monthly pension was 600 Cuban pesos, which amounted to 24 CUCs. He had worked with some Americans and Europeans who had gotten in trouble with the police and paid in dollars, but those gigs were scarce.
Padrino knew other santeros who demanded only dollars or CUCs for payment. They advertised on specialized classifieds websites popular among Cubans with Internet access and disposable income. But he just couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t risk enraging the orishas for a few dirty bills. His Angolan godfather had forbidden any monetary transaction the day he’d consecrated him to Yemayá, the goddess of the sea.
Time fell away. The bar and its surroundings receded. Padrino remembered his first encounter with the orisha in 1987. He hadn’t been Padrino yet but Sergeant Leonel Fábregas. Young and idealistic, he had gone to Angola to support the MPLA, the ruling party, against the UNITA, the rebel forces led by Jonas Savimbi. Leonel didn’t believe in Santería then, or in anything that wasn’t backed by Marx. Unlike many of his comrades-in-arms, he wasn’t a career soldier or conscript but a volunteer, having signed up for the Angola adventure in a fit of patriotic fervor inspired by El Comandante’s five-hour speech on May 1 of 1986. Cubans were actually Latin African, Castro had stated that day, because most of their ancestors had come from Africa. It was their duty to help the Angolans. Leonel, a descendant of African slaves, agreed.
Once in Angola, despite his best intentions, Leonel was often left confused and angry at the very people he thought that he had come to help. Some supported the government but struggled with ethnic loyalties: Savimbi was Ovimbundu, and many Angolans were related to him by tribal links. But no one explained that to the Cubans. They didn’t understand the local language or internal alliances, the current affairs or ancient resentments. Years later, Padrino concluded that they had acted like Martians landing in the middle of World War II.
The day Leonel died, his platoon had been marching through the bush, breathing in the stench of dung, wetness and rotten carcasses, surrounded by the constant buzzing of insects. They had traveled from Cuito Cuanavale to a town called Mavinga to attack a UNITA camp. Padrino saw himself again, a skinny guy with grubby fatigues and heavy combat boots that made him drag his aching feet. He was developing ulcers in his legs due to infected wounds, and his toenails had turned black.
The UNITA camp was quiet and everyone inside hopefully asleep. There were three Olifant MBTs, the South African Army’s pride and joy, monster tanks that the Cubans jokingly called “elephants” and planned to capture that day. The sixty-ton machines did resemble the huge animals that Leonel had caught sight of a few times. The platoon hid in the bush, waiting for their officer to give the order to attack. But then the main gun of the closest tank turned toward them. Leonel couldn’t see anyone in the hull but understood, in the few seconds that lapsed before the gunner opened fire, that they had been led into a trap, that the UNITA guys had known they were coming, that they didn’t have a chance.
He heard shots and felt a pang in his chest. A popping noise, then nothing. Silence and darkness engulfed him as he lost consciousness. The next thing he knew, he was staring at his own body, which lay on the ground in fatigues drenched in blood and with eyes closed. He looked down from above, peering over the branches of a tree he had floated into unbeknownst to him. He didn’t feel pain or fear, just awe at his newly acquired ability to fly.
His comrades were corpses all around him. He realized he was also dead. He hovered over his body, recalling the stories he had heard about wandering ghosts and lost souls. Was he one of them now? Later, in Cuba, he would talk to others who had also left their bodies and returned to tell the tale. Most recalled feelings of peace, love and becoming one with the universe. Many had seen a tunnel, a bright light . . . but they’d had their experiences in hospital rooms, not on a battlefield. All Leonel had felt was pure hatred for those who had killed him.
A tall, imposing black woman dressed in all blue came out of nowhere. She knelt by Leonel’s body and touched his forehead. He heard another pop and was sucked back to life, right when an MPLA chopper landed nearby to rescue what was left of the platoon.
He was taken to a hospital and made friends with his nurse, an older, motherly Ovimbundu woman named Balbina. She spoke Spanish and not only helped him heal but gave him a crash course in Angolan history. “Usted no sabe en lo que se está metiendo,” she would say, tousling his hair. No, he certainly didn’t know what he had gotten into! When Leonel told her about his experience in Mavinga, Balbina said that the orisha Yemayá had chosen him for her personal service and he needed to be initiated. She introduced him to her godfather, Okeke, who refused to deal with Leonel at first because he didn’t trust foreigners, particularly Cubans, whom he called intrusive, busybodies and worse. But after a few weeks, the old man relented. Okeke took Leonel under his wing and agreed to teach him about Santería. They ended up communicating in an invented language, Portuñol, because Okeke didn’t speak Spanish and Leonel didn’t understand Portuguese.
It wasn’t an easy process. Leonel had rigid ideas about what religion meant and a degree in dialectical materialism from the University of Havana. He was a staunch atheist, and everything that Okeke said was against the beliefs Leonel had held up to then. In Marx’s book, there was no room for the experience he had had. His known world had turned inside out—war and the orishas did that to you, he would later say.
Finally, he was initiated. Okeke told him in no uncertain terms that he now belonged to Yemayá. He was her instrument for healing and guiding people, and he was to do it for free. Balbina and Okeke remained in Angola, but Santería followed Leonel back to Cuba. He retired from the police service and became a babalawo. Now, almost thirty years later, he knew he still couldn’t charge for his Santería work when he thought Yemayá was looking the other way. The orisha didn’t have a sense of humor.
He was thankful that his private-eye work was different, and happy to keep it separate from his santero practice. After his retirement from the National Revolutionary Police, Padrino had put to good use the skills he had learned during his career. Sometimes he teamed up with his former comrades, as he planned to do with Marlene Martínez, but he often acted alone. The work was profitable and stable, as steady as crime itself, but he was getting tired. Maybe he was just getting old, he concluded. After all, he was sixty-five. Time to retire for good, if he could just afford it.
He ordered another drink. He thought again of Pepito, the dead man and the mysterious woman with the red umbrella. Somehow, he had the feeling this wasn’t going to be easy.
“He had it coming,” a voice said, bringing Padrino back to Los Tres Perros. “It didn’t surprise me that someone dispatched him.”
“Well, it surprised me,” another voice answered. “In fact, I didn’t even know she was a guy. She had me fooled this whole time.”
“Did you ever look at his feet? Even tall women don’t have feet that big. His hands were pretty muscular too. They’re a dead giveaway with these people.”
“I never really looked at her hands.”
News about violent crime traveled fast in Havana. Padrino glanced discreetly at the two men who sat at the other end of the counter. One was wearing overalls. The other, who looked like an office worker, had a button-down shirt and black pants.
“I know it straight from the horse’s mouth. I used to work with Lázaro,” the guy in overalls said. “At first, he talked nonstop about his girlfriend. It was ‘Victoria this’ and ‘Victoria that.’ One day, ‘Victoria’ stopped by the construction site, and we finally took a good look at her. Man oh man! Lázaro quit two weeks later, tired of getting into fights with people who called him a maricón to his face. The guy had hard fists and a temper to match. But it got to be too much, even for him.”
“Do you think he killed her?” the office worker asked.
“No, no! He was way too in love with her—him, whatever. I bet it was that neighbor of his, the drummer. You know him?”
“Pepito?”
“Yep. I saw two cops arrest him with my own eyes!”
“But why would he kill Victoria?”
The guy in overalls lowered his voice. Padrino strained to hear. “Because ‘Victoria’ had a thing for him, that’s why. I bet he got too frisky with the kid, and Pepito . . . well, he had to put him in his place, and got carried away. Not that I blame him, eh. I would have done the same.”
There was a brief silence as the bartender brought them a couple of beers.
“I heard it was an accident,” the office worker said.
“Accident? They found the guy with his throat slashed open!”
“Who said that?”
“Radio Bemba.”
Radio Bemba, the grapevine, was responsible for the wildest rumors and the most twisted truths. Nobody trusted Radio Bemba, yet everyone listened to it. It was the voice of the street, both wise and unreliable, Central Station of slander. Padrino listened intently, pretending to be brooding over his drink.
“No way,” the office worker said. “I can’t see Pepito doing that. Just a couple years ago, he was a kid playing baseball in the street!”
Queen of Bones Page 12
