Havana Best Friends

by Jose Latour

  Shortly after 3:00 a.m., the cops returned to the DTI. Pena called National Headquarters and talked to Colonel Adrián Bueno, the man who held the reins of the whole Cuban police force between midnight and 6:00 a.m. Trujillo was impressed by the way his boss, in a little over three minutes, delivered a summary that began with the murder of Pablo Miranda and ended with the discovery of an abandoned rental, the disappearance of a Canadian male, and the fleeing of two Canadian females, one of them a deaf-mute, who had made up some story about gaining admittance to a Cuban hospital and left behind an old suitcase in a hotel room.

  “So, what do you want me to do, Major?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you would contact Immigration and order them to –”

  “I don’t give orders to Immigration, Major.”

  “Yes, excuse me, ask them to keep a lookout for three Canadian citizens at all Cuban airports and prevent them from leaving the national territory before we can question them. Their names are –”

  “Hold it. Hold it, Major. Why do we want to question them? What sort of crime have these people committed? Homicide, mayhem, arson, rape, robbery?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact –”

  “You have evidence that these people have something to do with the murder of Pablo Miranda? I remember the case, the son of Manuel Miranda.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You have evidence linking these Canadians to that case?”

  “Well, the man and one of the women visited Elena Miranda yesterday, I mean, the day before yesterday. They were in Cuba last May, visited Pablo and Elena, then left three days before Pablo was killed.”

  “Before Pablo was killed, Major?”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “You checked that?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “So, they couldn’t have murdered Pablo Miranda, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Since when you say Elena Miranda has not been seen?”

  Pena realized he had lost the argument. “I know it seems as if I’m acting hastily, but …”

  “What will I tell Immigration, Major? That Elena Miranda has been missing since yesterday morning? That these Canadian women lied about being admitted to a hospital? That they abandoned an old suitcase in a hotel?”

  “Colonel, something fishy is going on. I don’t know what. But something fishy is definitely going on.”

  “Major, please reconsider. I’m on duty until 6:00 a.m. You find some hard evidence before six, I’ll hear you out. With what you have now, I’m not going to ask Immigration to bust three Canadians.”

  “I’m not asking you to have them arrested. I just want to question them.”

  “Right. And make them miss their plane, and have them file a formal complaint through the Canadian embassy, and have the brass chew my ass. No thanks, Major. Find some evidence that a crime has been committed and I’ll do what you want. That’s all.”

  “At your service, Colonel. Goodbye.”

  Pena hung up, ran his hands through his hair, and shook his head. It was why he was still a major at fifty-six. Impulsive Pena, doltish Pena, immature Pena, shit-eating Pena.

  “He said no,” Trujillo said.

  “Of course he said no. We don’t have a case. I shouldn’t have called.”

  “Okay, what do we do now?”

  “We go home, Trujillo, that’s what we do. We stop chasing our tails and tomorrow morning, I mean, in four hours, we come back here and see if we can lend a hand in the investigation of the murdered cop.”

  The phone rang.

  “At your service,” Pena barked.

  “Major, this is Lieutenant Gomez, the duty officer.”

  “Yes, son, what’s up?”

  “I have a guy from Havanauto on line four. He says yesterday you were interested in a Hyundai that was abandoned on First Avenue, Miramar.”

  “That is correct.”

  “It had been rented by a Canadian: Sean Aftercon.”

  “Abercorn.”

  Trujillo perked up.

  “Yeah, well, sorry. Now this guy from Havanauto says a while ago a patrol car reported that a Mitsubishi Lancer parked very close to where the Hyundai was, on 30th Street between Fifth and Third, had been stripped. Its radio and two tires were missing.”

  “You said 30th between Fifth and Third?”

  Trujillo jumped to his feet.

  “Yes, Major.”

  “Well … so what? I mean, why is he reporting this to us?”

  “He says it was also rented to a Canadian, a few hours after this Abersomething rented the Hyundai, at the same location, Terminal 3 of the airport. His name is … wait a moment … Anthony Cummings. He thought you might like to know.”

  Staring at Trujillo, Pena remained silent for a moment. The captain was burning with curiosity.

  “Major?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Well … what should I say to this citizen, Major?”

  “Tell him that … that it’s okay. Thank him. Then call Sergeant Nivaldo and ask him to get ready. Send a car to pick him up.”

  “At once, Major.”

  Pena hung up. “A patrol car found a stripped Mitsubishi Lancer two blocks away from Elena’s building. It had been rented by a Canadian. Anthony Coming or something like that.”

  The hint of a smile danced on Trujillo’s lips. “And you sent for Nivaldo.”

  “Been doing this for thirty-five years. It’s too long. If I’m wrong, the pension is good. Don’t worry, nothing will happen to you. I’m taking full responsibility.”

  Four and a half hours sitting in a lounge, stressed out and unable to communicate, bred intimacy. During the first hour or so the two women’s thoughts were the same: that Sean had come up with something less taxing than the deaf-mute con. They longed to be able to talk, comfort each other, maybe even joke a little. To be able to release tension. But he hadn’t, and they resigned themselves to silence.

  Having made sure the bathroom was empty, Elena told Marina why she had gasped. Marina saw that she had a point. It would be a rare coincidence if Pablo and Sean had been murdered in the same way by different killers. Back in the lounge, the suspicion Marina had harboured after learning that Pablo had been killed resurfaced. Maybe Sean really had known an American fugitive who had hijacked a plane and settled here. Could it be that the dead stranger was the man Sean had paid to keep an eye on Elena and her brother? Elena said he spoke a few words only of heavily accented Spanish.

  Sean had been concerned that Elena’s brother might try to grab the whole loot; perhaps he asked this expatriate to kill Pablo. The man may have demanded to know why Pablo had to die. It wasn’t as though Sean could dictate conditions; not in Cuba where he didn’t know anybody, least of all hit men, so if the guy had demanded to know why Pablo had to go, Sean would have had few options. Either he’d lied or he’d told the truth. Probably Sean told the truth and the son of a bitch became greedy, wanted all the gems for himself, and killed his employer. That had to be it! The hunch she’d had by the pool at the Copacabana had been right! Sean hadn’t deserved to die, but he had played with fire for too long and in the end he’d been burned.

  The earlier compassion she’d felt for him dwindled. Perhaps he’d had it coming, dug his own grave. Anyway, if they managed to flee with the cane, she and Carlos would split Sean’s cut. Probably two or three million dollars. And there was nothing wrong with that. It was like … an inheritance. She shouldn’t feel happy about it, though. It wasn’t right.

  Her thoughts moved to the blind man and her heart melted. He was … well, if she were sentenced to life in prison without parole, and she could choose one cellmate, she would pick Carlos. Was that love? If it was, there was nothing extraordinary or earth-shattering about it. It wasn’t sex, although he was a great lover. It was his sensibility, and his tragedy, and his intelligence, and his manners, and his preferences, and his patience, and his music, and … how well he knew her moods, aspirations, tastes, whims, erogenous
zones, everything. Well, not everything, no. She had to exclude her favourite visual stimuli. But barring that, no other person had known her better than the blind man.

  Marina began moving back in time, trying to explain herself to herself. She had never done this before. Only after looking death in the face, on the verge of getting caught or becoming a millionaire, was she seriously wondering why she was such a misfit. She thought of her female friends. Those her age and older had given up, got married, had kids, divorced, remarried. Felicia and Vanessa had married three times; Ethel four times, to guys so different that her friends wondered whether the soft-spoken psychologist was researching why most marriages fail.

  But she refused to surrender, not even to Carlos. Well, the fact was he hadn’t asked her. But had he, she would have said no. Why? She didn’t know. It wasn’t that she feared losing her independence. If that happened, you got a divorce. But that wasn’t an option with Carlos. She would despise herself for abandoning him, for giving him the ultimate proof of total rejection, for deepening his feelings of inferiority and dependence. She would never marry a man she would hate to divorce. Which reminded her of the married acting-school teacher who had been crazy about her …

  Lost in the swirl of memories, Marina spent the next hour back in her early years in New York, then in Buenos Aires, where everything was so different: the hot Christmases and the cold Augusts; the jokes (“You know why the coffins of Argentinians have holes on the lid?” “So the worms can go out to puke.”), the slang: pucho, botón, quilombo, boliche, y un interminable etcétera; her first glass of red wine and her first cigarette; losing her virginity at fifteen, “the movies,” holding a bombilla and sipping the maté infusion; her parents tangoing in the living room …

  It was Elena’s first visit to an airport terminal, and apprehension and curiosity combined to keep her from reminiscing. Her gaze kept being drawn to what she feared most: the Immigration booths, and the doors with frightful “PRIVATE – NO ADMITTANCE” warnings, behind which she imagined tall, cigar-smoking soldiers with revolvers, handcuffs, and dogs ready to apprehend drug traffickers, fleeing counter-revolutionaries, and diamond smugglers. She examined the other signs – what did VIP mean? It was the only one with no translation into Spanish – and the stands for souvenirs, snacks, books, and CDs. She wished she could ask Marina a hundred questions.

  People caught her eye too. Passengers hurrying in and out, or strolling by, occasionally stopping to window-shop. Women sweeping floors and emptying trash cans and ashtrays. Porters pushing their carts. Elena was amazed at the number of people carrying walkie-talkies. They were in the hands or on the hips of several Customs inspectors, of many Immigration officials, of most airline attendants. All the security guys, who wore sombre expressions for the benefit of their supervisors, had one. A few young cops in uniform held walkie-talkies as well: they were the only ones who didn’t look self-important; they just looked plain tired. Only cleaners and porters were exempt from toting the gadgets.

  But after an hour she got accustomed to the sights, sounds, and smells, and her preoccupations and misgivings returned. Her father was her number-one concern. The old lady who lived in the house next to her apartment building would implicate him, she was sure of that. Elena had the impression she didn’t approve of snitching or gossiping and kept very much to herself, but when a double murder happens everyone comes forward. Once the bodies were discovered, her neighbour would swear she had seen the three of them leaving at noon on Sunday.

  Would he be able to talk himself out of being charged? And if not, would he be sentenced to the death penalty? Could she live with that on her conscience? The notion that running away might result in her father’s execution was too much to bear. She rejected the idea with an almost imperceptible shake of her head. He would beat the rap. To comfort and convince herself, she began enumerating all the favourable arguments she could think of. Should things take a turn for the worse, if somehow the police managed to prove that he had killed a man and forensic evidence forced him to admit it, could he argue that he had acted in self-defence? The gun had the big man’s fingerprints on it, right? Right. What else? Following Pablo’s death he had made a habit of visiting her on Sunday mornings. He could prove that, she hoped, and show there was no premeditation. And what was a father supposed to do if his daughter was attacked by a beast in a murderous rage under his own eyes?

  Could he be linked to the diamonds? No. There was no way the police could find out about the diamonds. He wouldn’t tell, she was sure of that. What the police would find was the empty space where a soap dish had been. The soap dish broke, that was all. But then, what was the motive? The police would want to know. Why did these men invade your daughter’s house? I have no idea, was what he ought to answer. Or maybe … she suppressed a giggle, then wondered if she was going mad. On second thoughts, it didn’t seem too far-fetched. Her father might speculate it was a crime of passion. Perhaps both men were in love with his daughter: that might be the motive. Would he think of that? It wasn’t impossible, not even improbable. She was a good-looking woman. She knew it and she presumed that most of her friends and neighbours would confirm it.

  For an instant Elena found herself recalling how attractive she had found Sean. Embarrassed, she immediately pushed him out of her mind. It was perverted to entertain such thoughts about a man who had died twelve hours earlier. He had tried to put up a fight. To save her? She wasn’t sure.

  What about her students? The sweet Danita, an eleven-year-old black quadriplegic with a brilliant mind. That girl reminded her of Stephen Hawking. She was too young to choose a field of study, but whichever she chose, she would make history in it. And so attached to her. Like Felipe, the nine-year-old white boy whose kidneys refused to function, hooked daily to a dialysis machine, waiting for the accidental death of a compatible boy or girl his age. They wouldn’t understand why she had deserted them. How could they?

  She had been repeatedly warned, like all special-needs teachers, not to forge too close a bond with her students, but like most of her colleagues she had been unable to heed the warning. She loved them and suffered for them much more than she delighted in their frequent moments of happiness. Now she would disappear from their lives without a word. Well, she would disappear even if she remained in Cuba – into a prison cell. She was not deserting them deliberately. What could she do for them? Should she finally be able to sell her diamonds, she would send them all sorts of things that would make their lives easier, whatever the cost. Yes, she would do that.

  That resolution comforted her and she sighed deeply. Then she stole a glance at her watch: 1:55 a.m. It was going to be a long night.

  Three

  8

  People observing Sergeant Arenas at work often entertained a sneaking suspicion that this mean-looking, chain-smoking, silent cop might not always be on the right side of the law. Anyone who knew he was a locksmith would wonder why a man with his ability to gain access to all kinds of places, from homes to bank vaults, had resigned himself to suffering the same privations endured by most of his fellow countrymen and resist the temptation to steal from others. Policemen, especially rookies, were doubly suspicious: the guy – they reasoned – is a fucking cop. Before or after doing his task, he watches experts dust for fingerprints, pick up hairs and samples of glass, fibres, paint, and earth, examine the marks left by a tool, lift tire and footwear impressions. He knows exactly what mistakes he shouldn’t commit, for God’s sake!

  Nivaldo Arenas had learned the trade from his father, but after joining the police in 1965 he’d taken courses in the trade in Moscow (a full semester in 1977) and Czechoslovakia (four months in 1986). He filed for retirement in 1992, when two Havana hotels installed the first electronic locks imported to Cuba, arguing that at fifty-one he was too old to start learning about scanners, magnetic strips, and related shit. Police brass realized that electronic locks would remain less than 0.0001 per cent of all locks, and that they couldn’t afford to lose the
national expert on traditional locks. The chief of the National Police, a two-star general, sent for Nivaldo and personally assured him that he would never be asked to work electronic locks, then asked him to postpone his retirement for a few years and train some young officers. Flattered, the sergeant had accepted.

  Arenas was an introvert and precious few people knew – Major Pena being one of them – how proud he was of the fact that he had never made illegal use of his skills. It made him feel superior. He was positive that 99.99 per cent of law-abiding people abstain from committing criminal acts because they fear penalties, not as a matter of principle. The locksmith considered the Proven Few the most select group of people on Earth. Those who could steal, or kill, or counterfeit, or defraud, or commit any other crime without fearing retribution, and yet didn’t! Those were the really superior people, the keepers of the flame, as extraordinary and inexplicable as beings from another planet. And he was one of them! His all-time hero was Harry Houdini.

  Major Pena was recalling all this as he watched the expressions of José Kuan and Zoila Pérez once the sergeant opened the front door of Apartment 1. It took him less than sixty seconds, under the weak light provided by matches struck by Captain Trujillo (the DTI’s supply department had had no flashlight batteries since July). Zoila, in a housecoat and slippers, was leaning forward to stare at the cylinder. She looked like a spectator trying to work out how a magician had performed a trick. Kuan, wearing a pullover, dark-green slacks, and brown lace-up shoes, appeared equally mystified.

  Arenas shut his toolbox, got up from his knees, and gestured that they could go in now. He had just downgraded himself from male lead to extra, but he couldn’t have cared less. From the door frame, Captain Trujillo groped for the light switch, found it, and hit it. Light sprang from a solitary sixty-watt light fixture on the living-room ceiling. Two cockroaches scuttled under the chesterfield.