Havana Fever

by Leonardo Padura

  As he used a dirty cloth to bring the colour back to his fingers, Mario Conde tortured himself thinking about the hundreds of times he’d put other men, guilty and innocent, through that same humiliating process. He suddenly grasped the reasons behind the evil, hate-filled looks he received from men he’d subjected to that ritual, because his own discoloured skin had now suffered that degradation, and he thought how he’d plied a destructive trade for far too many years. Although he’d always known the police are a necessary social evil, charged to protect and to serve – as one motto said, one of the most euphemistic ever coined – more often to repress and so protect the rights of the powerful, was their real mission in life, though it was never stated so brutally. Working hard to get his fingers spotlessly clean, Mario Conde scanned the horizons of his conscience, hoping to find some comforting evidence there that he’d been an honest cop, unable to be violent towards other men, averse to arrogance, romantically sure he was performing tasks that would help the world to become a better place, however minimally. But no such assurance came to his rescue, and he was left to sink in the mire of evidence that he had been a policeman after all – perhaps a too cerebral, if not bland example of the species – and had formed part of that uncompromising fraternity now stripped naked before him and exposing its distinctive features.

  With no strength to offer resistance, he let himself be led by Sergeant Atilio Estévañez down the corridors of Central Headquarters, whose walls still echoed with stories of his miraculous solutions to complex cases he was always assigned by a mythical boss. A boss suspended for perpetuity in an underhand manner by the Internal Investigations Committee, and who went by the still unutterable name of Antonio Rangel. Had he really always been even-handed? He tried to persuade himself he had, to salvage some of his devastated self-esteem, because the Count knew they were heading to one of the rooms used for interrogations and that he was going to need massive amounts of that in there.

  When he entered the oppressive cubicle, Sergeant Estévañez pointed him to a chair, behind a small formica table. Conde looked at his place, opposite where he sat when he was the interrogator, and at the mirror across the room. He imagined Manolo must have put off his conversation with Yoyi in order to sit, perhaps next to a big boss, behind that glass panel that separated the interrogation room from the room for officers and witnesses, drawing an iron line between the powerful and those stripped of all power.

  “I’m sorry,” said Sergeant Estévañez, as if that were really possible, “but we have . . . just a few questions, more routine than anything else . . . Captain Palacios told me to say you’re making a statement rather than being questioned . . . You say that last night you were by yourself at home? Did anyone see you or ring you?. . .”

  At that last word the sergeant was shocked to see Conde stand up, as if jet-propelled, knock his chair over, and walk towards the mirror, which he banged twice with the palm of his hand.

  “Manolo, come in here.”

  Conde returned to his place but, before he got there, the door opened and his former colleague came in.

  “Couldn’t they talk to me elsewhere? Does it have to be in this interrogation room, like some fucking murderer?” his voice was angry and staccato. “Is he taking a statement? Don’t try to mess me around . . .”

  “Listen, Conde, it’s different now from when we . . .”

  “Different, my ass, my friend, my ass,” a wave of indignation restored his lost energy, sent feelings of harassment packing, and he flopped down.

  “Go out for a moment, Atilio,” Manolo instructed Estévanez, then added, glancing at the mirror. “Leave me alone and switch the equipment off, right?”

  Manolo waited a few seconds and rested one buttock on the edge of the table, as he used to in the old days.

  “Calm down, for fuck’s sake . . .”

  “No, I won’t. I’ve spent too much time in a state of calm. Now I’m going to defend myself.”

  Manolo sighed, clicked his tongue and shook his head.

  “Will you let me say how much I regret this?”

  ‘No,” the Count answered, not looking at him. “You must be kidding.”

  “It’s a formality, Conde. We have to find things out . . . Do you think I ever thought you?. . . Don’t you realize I’ve got bosses who wouldn’t believe their own mothers?”

  “I’ve never felt so humiliated . . .”

  “I can imagine.”

  “No, you can’t, you can’t. And if you can, it’s worse, because you know what you’ve done to me.”

  “That’s why I’m saying I’m sorry, for hell’s sake,” Manolo lamented.

  “You’ve burnt your bridges, you’ve really fucked it up . . .”

  “Hell, Conde, it’s not that bad. Don’t start playing the victim . . . Does all this mean you’re not going to help me?” there was a familiar imploring tone to the captain’s voice.

  “Don’t imagine I will for one minute,” replied the Count, driven by indignation, and making the most of the advantage he’d just established. “I’m going to fuck you up good and proper . . . because I’m going to find out who killed Dionisio Ferrero before you do. And I’m going to show all the hotshots like you and your current bosses who’s the best detective in town.”

  Manolo smiled, slightly relieved. The Count was fighting back, as was to be expected.

  “All right, OK. Is that what you want? We’ll see who gets there first . . . But I warn you: it will be a pleasure rubbing this who’s best shit in your face. Because now we’re playing hardball, I’ll remind you of something: when we worked together, on the pretext that you were my boss and my friend, you always gave me the shit: you took over our cases, and got me to check the files, like an asshole, because you didn’t think I—”

  “That’s a lie,” the Count protested.

  “It’s true, and you know it. But we’ll soon see who’s really who when it comes to being a detective.”

  “Are you being serious?”

  “What do you think? I’ll tell you one thing: I’m a policeman and I’m going to do my job, whichever heads have to fall. I don’t like bastards doing things and getting away with it . . . Remember that?

  . . . So if your partner Yoyi is involved in this . . .”

  Conde lit a cigarette and looked at Manolo. He had a sudden thought: that they might work together again, but he gave the idea short shrift.

  “You still think it’s about stealing a few books?”

  “I don’t know,” Manolo admitted. “I’m going to have to investigate. I’m going to find out who killed Dionisio Ferrero before you. That much I do know . . .”

  The midday sun seemed about to melt the pavement when Yoyi Pigeon came out of Headquarters. Mario Conde threw his cigarette on the ground and bid farewell to the stone where he’d been sitting for more than two hours, in the shade of the weeping figs planted in the street that ran along one side of the building.

  “What a bloody mess we’ve got ourselves into, man . . . These police are like crabs; they want to crawl into everything. Even the car, your gold chains . . . And your friend Manolo is the worst: when he gets his teeth in, he won’t let go without a struggle. I thought they were going to keep me inside I swear.”

  “What’s new: they don’t have anything and are looking for scraps to help them,” pronounced the Count as they walked up the avenue. “They’re at their most dangerous when they’re flailing around. If they let you go, it means they don’t have a thing to go on.”

  “Oh yes they do,” whispered Yoyi and the Count looked at him quizzically. “Dionisio had a piece of paper with my telephone number in one of his pockets. I’d written it down . . .”

  “I don’t get you,” hissed the Count.

  “I gave him my telephone number, just in case . . .”

  “Were you going to do business behind my back?”

  “No, Conde, I swear I wasn’t . . . It was just in case.”

  “So it was just in case . . . You’ve fuck
ed up, Yoyi.”

  “They say I’ve got to be reachable.”

  “Don’t worry about that. So have I.”

  “Who might have done it, Conde?”

  “So far there are four likely candidates . . . and you and I are two of them. Amalia and the man who paid them a visit are the others . . . But it might have been someone else . . . In any case it was someone Dionisio knew.”

  “But why the fuck should we want to kill him? It would only make doing business more difficult . . . You know that, don’t you?”

  “They know that too. They realize we didn’t need to kill Dionisio for a few books we could buy for three or four dollars a time . . . But we police know odd things happen. For example, a future murderer and would-be corpse agree to do business and—”

  “Don’t fuck on about that: all I did was give him my telephone number . . . But I get you. And look what you just said: we police know . . .” “Did I say that?”

  Yoyi nodded.

  “If there was a bit of policeman left in me, they killed it off today.”

  “I think they’re really riled because we earn in one day what they get in a month, and we don’t have bosses or union meetings . . .”

  “That’s true. But there are police who like to work properly. Like Manolo . . .”

  “So what about the lame black guy who wanted to buy their books?”

  “We’re going to find out who he is,” said the Count. “That’s the only lead we have, because apparently six books were removed from the section we’d not checked out, and that’s probably what Dionisio’s murderer was after . . . What I can’t get off my fucking brain is that hunch I’ve had from the moment I entered the Ferreros’ library. It’s one hell of a feeling. It’s stuck right there,” and he pointed to the exact spot in his chest where the hunch was burning him, “There was something strange in there and, I don’t know why, but I still think it’s all got to do with Violeta del Río . . .”

  “That same old tune. What the hell’s the connection between Violeta del Río and all this?”

  “I don’t know, but hunches are like that sometimes you can’t make head nor tail of them, but when you try to dig deeper, all hell breaks loose.”

  “I told you you were crazy, man, didn’t I?”

  “You tell me three times a day,” the Count calculated and pointed to a stall selling coffee. “Are you going to help me find out who killed Dionisio, and get to the bottom of what was in that library that we didn’t see?”

  Yoyi ordered two coffees and stared at the Count, feverishly stroking the bony protuberance on his chest.

  “You mean we can play cops and robbers?”

  “Stop pissing around, Yoyi. You’re a fucking idiot sometimes. Don’t you get it? You and I have been let out but there’s still a guilty party out there. Don’t you realize the bit of paper with your telephone number puts you in danger?”

  “But I didn’t do anything. Do I have to swear that to you?”

  “Don’t fucking swear anything: start helping me. You’re going to find out where the tall black guy interested in buying books came from and I’m going to see Silvano. Isn’t your talent getting good deals? Well, the best deal now is to play to our strengths, because we know things they don’t. We two are going to find out what went on last night at the Ferreros’ place. Fucking hell, this coffee tastes of shit . . .”

  24 December

  My love:

  What else can I wish you, on such a day as this, than for you to be as happy as can be, and to enjoy being with your children, wherever you now live. What else could I desire (it is what I long for most) than for you to share that happiness with me, with all your children, unburdened by secrets that now weigh far too heavily, and with eyes on the future, that no longer stare into the past.

  The Christmas and New Year holidays always make me more vulnerable, and this year I’ve felt more fragile than ever. Some thing strange is happening, I don’t know if it is the time of year or a backlog of sorrow, but at night I hear voices that speak of guilt, sin, betrayal, sometimes so vividly that I am forced to switch on my reading lamp and look around me but then I only find the same loneliness.

  I think all this began to stir after the visit from that persistent policeman, just over a week ago, do you remember? the one leading the investigation. The damned fellow came to see me to tell me exactly what you think: he is convinced something happened that he cannot get to the bottom of, but he is prepared to swear that she didn’t commit suicide, even when he hasn’t the slightest proof to back his idea. After saying that, he explained that in fact he had come to tell me the case was going to be closed on orders from his superiors, or, in other words, the investigation will not continue, in spite of his doubts. Nonetheless, while he was drinking his cup of coffee, he asked me ever so many questions, almost all the ones he’d asked before, about that woman’s friendships, possible enemies, unfinished business, drug addiction and, naturally, possible suicide motives. I told him yet again what I know, as sincerely as I knew how but not mentioning other matters I still think are unrelated to her death: you know what I’m referring to.

  But that man’s suspicions, your doubts and the voices that speak of guilt, are undermining my convictions. Although there is something I am totally clear about (my innocence and, I hardly need to say this, yours as well), I have begun to think about what happened over that period of days, looking for a black spot, a detail that does not fit the usual patterns, to try to find, if one existed, an indication that her death might have been provoked by an individual who desired it.

  I have thought, naturally, that someone like her, in spite of the unhappy past as an orphan girl she told you about, as a decent girl desperate to sing and be successful, must have left behind her enemies and hatred. So, the change you brought into her life might have sparked resentment in somebody determined to make her pay for a happiness she thought was undeserved.

  What is terrible, given everything you and I know, is how the portrait of this individual keeps evoking my own face. The knowledge I am innocent allows me dismiss that false image, but does not help me find another, if one exists. Could one of her girlfriends have been the guilty one? Perhaps that good-for-nothing who used to visit her and even accompany her on her trips to spoil herself with your money, who even dared to pass herself off as a respectable lady when everyone knew what she did in life . . . But why should she want to? Was she really her friend? Could envy at your lover’s good fortune be sufficient to push her into preparing that road to death? She had opportunities enough: she went in and out of that woman’s house whenever she wanted, even used to spend afternoons at the flat with your friend Louis. But I don’t think envy is motive enough, because if you work through it in logical fashion, by killing her, she would have killed the goose laying the golden eggs, since when that woman became your wife, as you had decided, the other ne’er-do-well could continue to profit from her old friendship, thanks to which she’d succeed in gaining God knows what benefits, apart from the ones she already enjoyed because you were grateful to her for introducing you to that woman in the first place.

  28 December

  My love:

  The voices pursue me, obsessed as I am by finding out. I put this letter to one side a few days ago because a frightful headache prevented me from writing. Today, I feel calmer and I will try to finish it, but only to say that a voice woke me up last night and told me it’s my fault because I don’t know what I ought to, what I would never wish to have known. What was it referring to? I don’t know, but I swear to you that, with or without those voices, with or without your agreement, I will continue to search for my only solution: the truth. Although it may be the most terrible of truths.

  I hope you enjoy a lovely end to the year. We’ve experienced twelve wretched months, with all manner of misfortune, exacerbated by your being so far away for more than three months now. I hope these festivities and holy celebrations bring a little peace to your soul and that you have a happy re
spite. In my solitude, I console myself as ever with the idea that we will soon be into another year, and that it will be a year to favour us all.

  I really hope you are very happy, as happy as one can be, because I love you . . .

  Your Nena

  One of the blessings Mario Conde never ceased to be thankful for was the fact he had three or four good friends. The almost fifty years spent in this world had taught him, sometimes perversely, that few states are as fragile as the state of friendship, and hence he fiercely protected his many layered camaraderie with Skinny Carlos, Candito and Rabbit, because he considered it to be one of his most precious gifts from life. Several years earlier, Andrés’s departure to the United States had provoked a sense of desertion among the remaining friends, but, at the same time, it had had the beneficial secondary effect of bringing them closer together, welding their connections, making them more tolerant of each other and transforming them into life members of the party of eternal friendship.

  The permanent threat represented by Carlos’s physical deterioration meant the Count never failed to safeguard the time he spent near his old friend, dedicating all the hours he could to him, aware it was the best way to act in preparation for a future emptiness, the arrival of which drew nearer by the day.