Grab a Snake by the Tail

by Leonardo Padura

  Conde felt like he was visiting a prehistoric cavern. Why do I keep getting into this kind of shit? he wondered, and went upstairs to find a completely unexpected space: all kinds of electrical equipment for every possible use glinted in that improvised bolthole, a spot which betrayed unexpected economic potential that revealed the strongest inside protection in a range of forbidden ventures. But he remembered Contreras’s warnings.

  Narra offered Conde a chair with a battered seat, before sitting on the edge of his bed.

  “They’re going to roast me, Lieutenant. Contreras is putting on the pressure. This area is red-hot at the moment.”

  “You’ve nothing to worry about. Nobody saw me.”

  “They miss nothing around here. The street’s full of eyes.”

  “Don’t get worked up,” said Conde, trying to calm him down. He could smell the fear of that fierce-looking guy who’d entered into a pact with the devil.

  “The police never lose,” came the reply, and Narra took the cigarette Conde offered him. He looked for an ashtray and put it on the floor between them, within easy reach. “If anyone cottons on that I’m snitching for you, I’ll be straight off to heaven. You do realize that?”

  “I can imagine … Though I’m not sure it would be heaven … But I needed to talk to you today.”

  Narra looked at his nails: he had long, thick nails, sharp as razor blades.

  “So what do you people want now?”

  “It’s easy enough. Did you hear about the chino who was strung up in the rooming house on Salud and Manrique, three blocks from here?”

  “Yes, everything gets out. And if it’s a chino who’s been hung …”

  “That’s precisely why I’m here now. What are people saying about it in the Barrio?”

  Narra took a puff before replying. “Not much, just that they strung him up.”

  “I reckon they weren’t intending to, but the situation got out of control. They were looking for something they apparently didn’t find, because they came back … Was that fellow involved in the coke that’s around in the Barrio?”

  Narra avoided Conde’s gaze, and the policeman took the opportunity to observe his informer’s hands: they had a slight tremor, but it was more sustained and visible than anything fear might cause. Cold turkey? Conde wondered, and regretted having promised not once but twice to restrict his questions to his search for the murderer. Narra finally spoke as if what he was saying wasn’t important.

  “Naw, I don’t think so. That consignment left the Barrio some time ago, all there is now is a bit of marijuana … The people selling charlie to tourists are suicidal and you never see them around here … No, not with that shit …”

  “But people here are saying the chino had Amancio the banker’s money. What can you tell me about that?”

  Narra was definitely far too nervous. He stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. Conde knew the man had a history of violence and aggression, but now, when he saw how his hands were shaking, maybe at the idea he might be discovered by others who were equally violent and aggressive and might have power, he pitied him. I’m too soft for this shit, he thought. How long am I going to be stuck in this rat trap? The idea of using his own position of power to apply force to a man to make him bend and shake in fear or wish to escape also degraded him as a human being. But it was assumed he must do that job, re-establish order, shed light on mysteries, find a murderer … and his sarcasm, which seemed to upset so many, was the personal resource he used to protect himself. And conversations like these were the nefarious means he often had to resort to on behalf of a socially necessary end. It’s shit all the same, he thought.

  “You never leave anyone in peace …” his snitch finally mumbled.

  “Forget that and tell me what people are saying round here … And remember: it’s better to have two friends than one, and I know how to repay a favour.” Conde felt himself slip several rungs down the ethical scale simply by uttering those words. As I said: shit and more shit.

  Narra took a deep breath and flung himself in at the deep end.

  “Well, about a month ago I heard some gossip in the domino school that sets up next to the barber’s that’s part of the San Nicolás store. About that chino having Amancio the banker’s loot. If it’s true, it must have been a lot, because Amancio was a real mover and shaker …”

  “Uh-huh. Who mentioned Amancio’s money?”

  “Naw, it was the riff-raff in the Barrio, and they were drinking … Pissing gossip.”

  The snitch kept nervously fingering his tattooed arm. Conde remembered he should ask about the virtues of Eva. But later.

  “Narra, don’t beat around the bush. Tell me who it was.”

  The snitch patted his jeans pocket and Conde got the hint: he took out his packet and offered him a second cigarette. Narra needed to plug nicotine into various holes gouged out by fear.

  “Panchito,” he said, after lighting up. “But he was blathering, I think he’d smoked a toke tube.”

  “A toke tube?”

  “A doobie, a spliff, a blunt, a weed joint …”

  Conde took a last drag on his cigarette and prepared to ask the question. He hoped against hope that the imminent reply wouldn’t be what, inevitably and fatally, it was bound to be.

  “Who’s Panchito?”

  “Panchito Chiú. He lives up the top of Lealtad. But, as I said, that guy is a professional fucking big mouth. He always carries a chino knife with him and says he’s an eighth-dan karateka …”

  “A karateka?” rasped Conde, feeling the bottom of his skull, which was still sore. A contusion to be added to a long list of collateral damage he could see coming.

  “Yeah, he spends his whole time talking big so people are afraid of him, and now he’s a high priest and always bragging that Changó is protecting him and all that shit, but the guy —”

  “Yes, you said: he’s a fucking blabbermouth … I’ll give your regards to Captain Contreras,” said Conde, getting to his feet. He didn’t need to know any more. He didn’t want to know any more. Not even about Eva. Then he wondered how he should say goodbye to the snitch. Should I thank him? he wondered. “Thanks for everything,” he said in the end and was about to shake Narra’s hand, but decided not to: the canary’s hands were still shaking and must have been sweaty. He was already carrying enough shit, on top, inside and out. And a canary will always be a canary.

  He was now in a position to gauge the severity of the error he’d made under Patricia’s insistence: he should never have forced Juan Chion to get mixed up in that business. But then he remembered the matter of collateral damage and better grasped what Lieutenant Chion was up to: the china, who must have suspected where the shots were coming from and even had other fears she’d not confessed, must have reckoned it was preferable for the case to fall into Conde’s soft hands and not the claws of another detective. And that breakfast with coconut and guayaba cakes, followed by her succulent body, had perhaps been part of her scheming. Would Patricia, a colleague, have dreamed up such a tactic? Was she asking him to cover up, rather than expose something, and had she done so using every one of the weapons in her armoury? No, Conde couldn’t believe that. But at the same time he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  He came out onto the street and neither the bright sunlight nor the image of Narra skulking behind the door, staring at the ground as he headed outside, annoyed him, because Conde felt he’d been forced to profane a grave he should never have touched. Troubled by business that included dead from the past and present, but above all disgusted with himself and his inability to grasp people’s motives, he crossed Calzada del Cerro and walked to where he knew Manolo was waiting for him in the car. As usual, the lieutenant felt he was on the verge of solving the case, yet the thought didn’t bring him any cheer. On the contrary, he sensed the job was coming to an end and leaving in its wake a long and painful trail of shit.

  It was no surprise: unless he radically changed his life, another sordid job woul
d always be waiting around the corner. Then he turned an actual corner and made a V sign when he saw Manolo: the unfortunate Pedro Cuang’s murderer wouldn’t be free for much longer, because even if it wasn’t Panchito, he would lead them to the snake’s tail. Or was it its head? And what if, as he thought, the criminal was Panchito, Juan Chion’s godson? Well, Panchito would be up shit creek: guilt must be paid for. If not, someone should go down to hell and ask that bastard, the Greek captain, who liked to freeze chinos and throw them overboard. But … which chino had been meant to get those cemetery directions?

  “I think we fucked up badly,” he blurted, almost without thinking, as he got into the car.

  “How did it go?”

  “In the Barrio they reckon Pedro Cuang had Amancio’s inheritance, or knew where it was, and that a Panchito Chiú was pretty interested in the old man’s money. What’s more, the guy always carries a knife and is a palero, and would know the Zarabanda signature … And as you can imagine, this Panchito Chiú is Francisco Chiú’s son, and it wouldn’t be too much of a coincidence if the shadow of that giant cat we saw in the Chinese Society was his, would it? I think the clever ruse of branding old Pedro and cutting his finger off is going to cost him dear. Divine punishment for playing games with Zarabanda, right?”

  Manolo drove by the Cerro stadium: the cathedral of baseball in Cuba. Conde looked down one of the open passageways between the terraces and caught a fleeting glimpse of a ground that was so green and peaceful, now empty. He recalled the countless occasions he’d sat down with Skinny – when he was still skinny – Andrés, Candito and other friends of theirs on the terraces of that sanctuary of soil and grass where the magic rites of the sport (if it could be called that) were practised. The last time had been barely two months ago and with the very same friends, Skinny Carlos included. When Conde stepped inside that magnetic place he felt released from the tensions of life, a freedom that only came with the build-up of other tensions inspired by a good game of baseball. The championship had finished two weeks ago and he was still suffering from his team’s inexplicable defeat; they had collapsed in the final straight after leading from the start of the season. Those pansies ought to have won, he thought, remembering how devastated Skinny had been after their three-month dream of glory had been dashed in just one horrible week.

  “Balls, they don’t have balls!” Carlos had shouted, and he had been so right. It was all a matter of balls (or rather a lack of …).

  When they came out on Calle 19 de Mayo, Conde looked at Manolo: “How many useful fingerprints were found in Pedro Cuang’s room?”

  “Seven.”

  Conde put his hand in his trouser pocket and extracted the envelope containing San Fan Con’s wooden rod.

  “See if any match the ones on here …”

  “Are you saying that Francisco Chiú —”

  “I’m not saying anything … But I do believe that if Panchito’s prints are among those found in the room, he won’t even need to confess. And you know what? I hope they aren’t his. I hope what I’m thinking isn’t what happened … Even if I have to spend another week on this case, and have to learn to speak Chinese, eat with chopsticks and join the Long March … I hope it isn’t him and that his father isn’t involved in any way … For old Juan’s sake …”

  They drove up Ayestarán, crossed the traffic lights on Carlos III, and turned onto Calle Maloja. Juan Chion’s house was still there, crushed by its neighbours, “until death do them part”.

  While Conde knocked on the door, Sergeant Manuel Palacios repeated the inevitable rite of unscrewing the radio aerial and putting it inside the car. Those streets were capable of robbing even police. “Let him take his precautions, Conde, that’s not your business,” the lieutenant muttered as he banged the knocker hard and waited to see Juan Chion’s smiling face.

  “Oh, police,” he said, and invited them in.

  “Why you in such a sweat, Juan?”

  “Exercise, Conde. You should t’ly some. Look, you skinny, but you got a belly on you.”

  “And I’ve got news … Bad news, I reckon,” he paused, before throwing the stone that would trigger the avalanche. “It looks as if Panchito Chiú, your friend’s son, is involved.”

  Juan Chion looked at Conde and then at Manolo. Any remnant of a smile disappeared from his face and drips of sweat ran slowly towards his neck. The old man slumped into his battered chair and sighed, as if he were deeply in love. A painful love, thought the lieutenant, for whom that part of his history was dead and buried and who was now enjoying the advantage of being able to read the signs.

  “See, Conde, why I didn’t want to be in this? Chino searching misfortune of other chino …” he said, getting to his feet.

  Juan walked further into his house and Conde stared at the photo that always occupied pride of place on the small table in the centre of the room: Juan Chion didn’t have any grey hair and was smiling happily at the camera. He was carrying a toffee-coloured two-year-old girl with chinoesque eyes that had been enhanced with make-up. The little girl was wearing the shiny dress of an Eastern princess and only her skin colour and curly hair cast doubt on her Asian origins. A woman was standing next to Juan Chion, and she and the girl were holding a fake diamond-and-emerald crown that rounded off Her Highness’s outfit. She was a beautiful black woman with exuberant hips and sturdy, sculpted legs, and she too was smiling for the camera. The print could have been called “Happiness”.

  Juan Chion came back carrying one of his pipes. He sat back in his chair and said: “Misfortune b’ling misfortune. Chino shouldn’t meddle where he not wanted. I learned that a thousand years ago,” he said with a cryptic reference that was now as clear as daylight to Conde, before closing his eyes and inhaling. He took the pipe from his lips and the smoke slowly escaped from his mouth, as if it was abandoning him for ever. Conde felt excluded from old Juan Chion’s grief and reflected that his work usually brought that kind of lousy reward. “Shit work,” he muttered, took another look at the photo and opted for the patience of Job, as they say.

  He wasn’t overly surprised by Juan Chion’s fresh revelation that his journey to Cuba had been financed by his old friend Francisco Chiú. He had purchased the permissions and boat ticket so Juan could flee Canton’s appalling poverty and start a new life, perhaps a better one, on that remote Caribbean island. The chinos thought such a gesture had eternal worth, because it represented a defiance of individual fate and, at the same time, created for each of the protagonists responsibilities and obligations that lasted for the rest of their lives: Francisco became like a father to Juan, who, in turn, owed perpetual gratitude to his benefactor. Was it that burden of gratitude or the fate of Sebastián that had made up Juan’s mind to accompany his friend the day they had gone to kill the Greek captain? Conde would never know, although he believed the horrendous death of a loved one must have prompted Patricia’s father’s drastic decision.

  The friendship between the two men was much more than social convention or moral obligation, much more than an affinity through being born in the same Cantonese village or having played in the murky waters of the same river and knowing they descended from warriors who had fought with Cuang Con to free the women of their realm. It related to what was unutterable, painful and forbidden. That’s why they had tried, with the joint baptisms of their children, to seal the bond from the blood they had spilt: in their eyes that commitment before a God that was new but one they accepted had a single clear meaning: the godfather is a second father and the godmother a second mother, and that was what they had pledged on that afternoon in front of an altar in Havana.

  Panchito’s mother had died first, and his father, working long hours in the grocery store, had no time to look after his son, who was brought up on the street without the advantages enjoyed by Patricia. And that was what most worried old Juan Chion: he was the father of Patricia, whose mother had brought her up with so much love and integrity, while his second child, Panchito Chiú, hadn’t had the
same opportunities. And now, to top it all, he’d participated in the outcome of an investigation whose climax would not have a happy ending … The news would kill Francisco, Juan had declared, and Conde remembered the Tao philosophy and the paths for humanity Juan Chion himself had told him about: wasn’t each child’s path written before they came into this world? Patricia was the good one, the intelligent policewoman with a cunning streak, as was right – or as, according to prejudice, she should have been as a result of her Chinese genes. The other was the murderer, the hoodlum, stupid and garrulous to boot … Shit, nobody, not even San Fan Con, believes in that predestination rubbish, he answered himself and, without looking into the old man’s eyes, tried to find an excuse.

  “You didn’t do anything fate wouldn’t have done anyway. If it really was Panchito, we would have eventually found him out, my friend. And remember that he killed a fellow countryman of yours and his reasons for doing so. I feel sorry for his father …”

  Conde gestured to Manolo. They got up and, as the lieutenant walked past the old man, he rested a hand on his shoulder. The chino barely batted an eyelid.

  “Some jobs are like this, my friend. Look after yourself. Do your exercises …”

  “Come back another day,” said Juan Chion before he shut his eyes and took another puff on his reed pipe. “If you see Pat’licita tell her to come quick.” Conde felt that old man’s sorrow touch his own heart: Juan Chion didn’t deserve to suffer from guilt and blame that wasn’t his. Not even if it was marked out by the irrevocable destiny of his tao.

  10

  Manolo signalled to Conde, who finally spotted him: Panchito Chiú came out onto the sidewalk opposite the Lung Con Cun Sol Society, looked both ways and walked towards the corner the lieutenant was patrolling.

  After comparing prints and seeing that Panchito Chiú had been so good as to leave them a little present in the form of several of his all over the rope from which Pedro Cuang was hung, Conde decided he’d make the most discreet arrest possible, accompanied only by Manolo. That’s why they’d been waiting for the past two hours for the guy to leave the building, thus avoiding any feline transmutation or Bruce Lee-style rooftop chase. The wait, and exhaustion, had given Conde a parched throat and an aching back. He observed the young man’s elastic gait – the bastard really did seem a bit of a cat or tiger – and he remembered how Narra had warned him about Panchito’s knife and the fact that he liked to boast about his mastery of the martial arts. Besides, the way he’d silently entered Pedro’s room and struck him without the lieutenant noticing his presence demonstrated the man’s physical prowess. For a moment Conde regretted the habitual sloth that had led him to abandon the gym after only his second self-defence class in order to hide in his office and read a novel which brought joy to his life and reignited his desire to write. The self-recriminations lasted two seconds: Panchito was ten yards away, and Manolo was walking ten yards behind the young man. Conde took out his ID card and shouted: “Halt: police!”