Octavio sat silent for a minute as all this sank in. He seemed shocked at how much I knew. I hoped he was shocked enough that he wouldn’t notice all the gaps in my knowledge, like what exactly they delivered to Colonel Fernández de Tomelloso.
“Who’s Felipe protecting, Octavio? Who are you protecting?”
“I’m not protecting anyone,” he said, his voice cracking. Now that I had had a moment to study him, I noticed the red eyes and the dark circles around them. This man had seen some sleepless nights.
“You need to come clean, Octavio. Maybe you don’t care if Felipe goes to jail for killing Juan. Maybe you have a good reason for not caring. But if he goes to jail, the real killer goes free.”
“But I don’t know who killed him!” he wailed.
Sadly, I believed him.
No, it wouldn’t be that easy, would it?
“Calm down, Octavio. Maybe we can figure it out together. You tell me what you know, all of it, and I’ll put it together with what I know, and maybe we can figure this out.”
Octavio gave a helpless gesture, his eyes fixed on the floor.
“I’ve been racking my mind ever since it happened. I can’t figure it out.”
“Maybe we can together. I’ve gathered a lot of information on this case. I got a lot of pieces. I just need one or two more to see the whole picture.”
“Where do I start?”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” I asked.
He let out a deep sigh, seemed to struggle to find the words, and then let it all out.
“I was a war orphan,” he said. “I barely remember my real parents. My father was an officer in the SS. I had two big sisters too, but we were separated and I don’t know what happened to them. I was sent to live in Spain with a Falange family. I think my sisters were sent away too but I don’t know.”
“Go on,” I said. When I had told him to start at the beginning I hadn’t meant that far back but this guy obviously wanted to unload, and I’d learn more if I didn’t interrupt him.
“My foster parents lost touch with my family in 1945 and couldn’t find out anything about what happened to them. So I was raised in the movement and took on a Spanish name. But I never fit in. I … knew I was different. And I knew the things the priests said about people like me weren’t true. I’m not depraved, I’m not sick, and I’m not mentally deranged.”
“No one is saying you are, Octavio.”
He gave me a hard look. “Yeah they are. Lots of people.”
“Oh, right. Sorry,” I said, feeling like a heel. “I guess living in Tangier I kind of forgot. Go on.”
“If you were like me you wouldn’t forget, not for one second. It took a long time to realize the priests and the party were wrong, and when I figured that out I began to question everything else. Politics. A woman’s place. Workers’ rights. Everything. So once I reached eighteen I decided to find my family. Not my father—I’m sure he’s dead or in a Soviet gulag—but the rest of my family. My Spanish family had been nothing but kind to me but if I told them what I really was they would throw me out on the street. I was hoping that my real family might be more accepting.”
He looked out the window, or at least at the sunlit curtains covering it. All the curtains in the entire house were drawn and it was dim inside. After a moment he went on.
“I couldn’t find them. I still knew my old address in Stuttgart, but when I went there I found a new building. The old one had been blown to pieces in the bombings. Everyone in the neighborhood was new and I couldn’t find anyone who knew anything about my family. I went to the city records office, the refugee office, the Allied occupation office. No one could help me. It was like they vanished, or had been wiped out.”
Octavio, or whatever his real name was, shuddered.
“I didn’t know what to do. I ended up in Munich, thinking maybe they had gone to the nearest big city, but I couldn’t find a trace of them. I did find myself, though.”
“Find yourself?”
Octavio smiled, a distant look coming to his eyes.
“A bar for people like me. I found it by pure luck. A little basement place without a sign. I saw two men going down there as I walked along a back street one night and I just knew. Somehow I just knew. I followed them. The bouncer stopped me, asked me for a password, and I grabbed him. You know, grabbed him!” Octavio laughed. “That turned out to be password enough. Ha! It was a terrible risk, the guy could have torn me apart, but I tell you I just knew.
“I couldn’t believe it when he let me through the door and I saw the place. Men dancing with men, women dancing with women. The bouncer explained how it all worked. If the cops came to the door he’d push a button that rang an electric buzzer. That was our signal to grab a woman to dance with, or if you couldn’t find a woman, go stand alone at the bar. Yes, the police were hunting us, but inside that bar we were free.
“I tell you I wanted to stay in that place for the rest of my life, but my visa eventually expired and I had to go home.
“Home. Bah! Where’s home for me? Germany? Spain? After I got back, my adoptive parents found me a job and on the surface everything went back to normal. But inside I was boiling. I tried to find a bar like the one in Munich, but no luck. I heard rumors, though, rumors of this place, where people like me weren’t hunted. So I saved what I could, sold all my possessions, and moved here.”
“And ended up living with a member of the Falange?” I asked.
Octavio flushed. “I thought I was coming to the Promised Land. But work is scarce here too. Within a month my savings had run out and I was going hungry. My adoptive parents had given me the addresses of some members of the Falange here in Tangier. Of course I hadn’t contacted any of them. But faced with the prospect of going back to Spain or biting the bullet and asking for their help, I took the lesser of two evils.”
“Didn’t turn out to be lesser enough,” I said, lighting a cigarette.
Octavio made a face. “No. Well, they did take me in. For a time, I did odd jobs on the Mountain for the colonel. What a bastard he was. A little man who had seen nothing of the war in Europe and talking all the time about how great Hitler was. Hitler put people like me in the camps right alongside the Jews and Gypsies. I met some of those people at the bar in Munich. Broken. Aged. Haunted. The things they told me made me sick to my stomach. The colonel used to laugh about it. That son of a whore, I used to spit in his soup.”
I smiled. “You’re a good man, Octavio.”
He glared at me.
“You think I don’t know that?” he snapped. “I spent most of my life thinking there was something wrong with me, until I finally realized that it was the world that was wrong.”
“About you people and so much more,” I said, trying to calm him down. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
Octavio rubbed his temples. “Sorry. I know you didn’t. It’s just…”
“It’s all right, Octavio. Let’s focus on the case.”
He nodded. “Right. So I got bits of work here and there from the colonel and other fascists. I hated every minute of it, and constantly searched for other work. I didn’t have any luck. Then I met Felipe at a party at the colonel’s house. We got to talking and he told me how sick he was and offered me a job as a live-in caretaker. He had a spare room here, and he’d give me a small wage as well as room and board. All I had to do was cook for him, do the shopping, take him to the doctor, that sort of thing.”
I tapped out my cigarette ash in the ashtray, noticing that it was emblazoned with the symbol of the Falange—a cluster of arrows bundled together to be unbreakable, along with a yoke. This guy still had that yoke weighing down on him.
“Did he want anything else?”
He frowned at me. “Who told you that?”
“A source. Doesn’t matter. I don’t think you reciprocated.”
“Of course I didn’t. God, what a hypocrite! Always talking that fascist rubbish while staring at me every waking moment and dropp
ing hints. Ugh, like I’d sleep with that old man.”
“Why did you stay with him, then? The money?”
Octavio looked away, embarrassed. “Yeah, the money. I tried to find a job. Just ask anyone. I made a pest of myself at every shop and every business, but people here hire their own. I didn’t want to move from working for one fascist to working for another one, and no one else was interested. So I was stuck. It was either that or go back to Spain.” His anger faded, replaced by a soft smile. “At least I had the evenings free.”
“How did you meet Juan Cardona? It’s not like your social circles mixed.”
His smile broadened, tinged with sadness. “I met him on the beach. I had come out of the water and was toweling myself off when he came by. One look at him and I knew he was like me, like those men going into the German bar. I struck up a conversation, and one thing led to another. He was a bit older than me, but he was so nice I didn’t care. So easy to be with.”
“Did he tell you he was an anarchist?”
“Not that first night. I didn’t talk politics either. The second time we met he told me, and I told him my story. We decided not to let that get between us. He was still political, but I’m sick of politics. I just want to live.”
“How did he end up making the delivery with you up to the colonel’s house on the Mountain?”
“We had been seeing each other for a while and managed to keep it a secret. Colonel Fernández de Tomelloso offered me good money to do the delivery, and asked if I had someone else who knew how to drive a truck. I never learned to drive. Juan was broke, so I offered him the job. He never worked enough. He didn’t take care of himself. So thin.”
“Juan agreed to make a delivery for a fascist?”
Octavio shook his head. “I didn’t tell him, and I told the colonel that Juan was apolitical. The boxes were all sealed, so neither of us saw what was in them. The colonel said it was books for his personal library.”
“So you don’t know what you delivered?”
“They were heavy enough to be books, but I think they were something else,” he gave a little start. “Wait, you don’t know what they were either, do you?”
“Sorry, Octavio. I led you to believe I did because I need to track down who killed your friend.”
Octavio waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Felipe can hang for that for all I care, the old reactionary.”
“I won’t shed a tear for that guy either, but don’t you want to get the real killer?”
“But I don’t know who it was!”
“We’ll figure it out together. So tell me about the delivery.”
“It was simple. We hired a truck, went to a farm owned by another old member of the Falange, loaded the crates, and delivered them up to the Mountain. We got paid well. Juan behaved himself and didn’t talk politics, and Colonel Fernández de Tomelloso, being careful with an outsider, didn’t either. He didn’t even let him in the house. Juan carried the crates to the door, and I carried them into the spare room.”
“So that was it?”
“Yeah. We left and went back to his place. I guess it was stupid, I put us at a big risk, but he had recently accepted himself too and we were both a bit giddy. This was the first real relationship for both of us.”
I stubbed out my cigarette and lit another one. This was something I hadn’t gotten used to—queers talking about relationships like what I had with Melanie. They meant it, though. I’d seen this before and I knew it was real.
I thought back on what people had said about Juan, and what they hadn’t said. No one had mentioned he was queer, meaning he had hidden it pretty well. Last week he was treating people in the Restaurante Durruti. That must have been after he got paid. He was in love and had cash in his pocket. Why wouldn’t he be happy? But then he was glum in the Cafe Manara, and shortly after that he had that screaming fit at the Bar Elisa, where he had a confrontation with Felipe.
Octavio’s little rebellion against his fascist employers had gone wrong. Terribly wrong.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“So how did the Falange find out about Juan being an anarchist?” I asked.
Octavio sighed. Stood up. He went over to the widow and parted the curtains a little to look out.
“They’re watching me, aren’t they? There’s a policeman out there somewhere.”
“Yes.”
“Which one is he?”
“It doesn’t matter, Octavio. I know you didn’t kill him. They’re watching you just as much for your protection as anything else.”
“Felipe kept them from hurting me,” he whispered. “He said I didn’t know Juan’s politics. But he knew I did. He was incensed. You should have heard the things he said to me.”
“Jealousy?” I asked. Felipe could have kicked him out, after all.
“Obsession,” he grumbled.
“So how did they find out Juan was an anarchist?” I asked again.
“Someone called Colonel Fernández de Tomelloso. A Spaniard. He didn’t give his name but he told him Juan was an anarchist.”
“When was this?”
“About a week ago. I don’t know when exactly he got the call, but the colonel told Felipe, who flew into a rage. He couldn’t believe I had betrayed the party and sullied myself by being with a man. Those were the words he used, ‘sullied myself’. When he was wanting to do the same thing the whole time! I left and got a cheap hotel in the medina. I warned Juan to be careful. I felt sure they would go after him, and me. I told Juan it would be safer not to see each other for a while.”
And Juan had sat in the Cafe Manara, glum and preoccupied.
And later snapped. He had passed by Bar Elisa, saw all those fascists inside, recognized Felipe, and started shouting.
I think.
“How did the events at the Bar Elisa play out?”
Octavio shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t know anything about that until the police questioned me.”
That was interesting. I figured Felipe would have told him, or someone. But if Octavio was holed up in a hotel in the medina, maybe he wouldn’t have heard.
“Did you see Juan between him being found out and him being killed?”
“Only once. I hadn’t seen him for a few days and I couldn’t stand it any more. I went to his apartment late at night, so late I woke him up. I stayed until just before sunrise.” His face took on a dreamy look. “Everything was the same. He was worried, yes, but they hadn’t come between us.” His face fell, and tears brimmed in his eyes. “And then they murdered him.”
“Who do you think it was? Which one of the Falange did it? Who is Felipe protecting?”
Then he floored me.
“I don’t think any of them did it.”
“What?”
Not the snappiest comeback of my career, but it was all I could come up with.
“They all thought I had done it. The day of the murder, a member of the Falange stopped me in the street and congratulated me. Said I had redeemed myself. That was the first I heard of it. I started to cry. I tried to put on a brave face, to fool them, but I just couldn’t. The man patted me on the shoulder and said that I had been a fool to trust one of my friends without checking on him, but that I was forgiven. Then I realized they didn’t know what Juan and I really were.
“I worried that it was a trick to get me out of hiding, so I moved to another hotel and hid out for another day. When I came out, I heard that Felipe had confessed to the murder and was in custody.”
“So you moved back here.”
Octavio shrugged. “I don’t have much money.”
And this was a nice apartment, one he’d probably get if Felipe died. My sympathy for this guy began to wane.
“You visited him at the hospital.”
“I figured it was best to keep up the facade. I took a tranquilizer so I could keep a hold of my emotions. When I visited him he was worse than usual, all smiling and looking me with puppy dog eyes. The pathetic old coot. He did think
I had done it, though. Said he was protecting me. That he’d be a martyr for the cause.”
“Anything else?”
He shook his head. “That’s all I know. I have no idea who killed Juan. If I did, I’d kill him myself.”
I stood. “Stay put. Don’t try to move to a hotel or leave the International Zone.”
He sat staring at the floor.
“Where would I go?”
I left, more confused than when I came.
So someone had ratted out Juan Cardona. Why? How had they found out he was making deliveries to the fascists, and why would they want to expose him? None of the anarchists I had spoken to had mentioned this. They all thought the fascists had done it.
So my first hunch was correct. Someone really was trying to stir up trouble in the Spanish community. But who? And why?
As I left the building and emerged onto the baking pavement, I checked my watch. 10:30.
I’d been at his place that long?
Officer Ramhani still nursed a tea at the cafe across the street. I felt tempted to go talk with him, but he was just a lookout and Octavio was probably peeking through the curtains right now, so instead I went to a payphone and called Gerald.
Once I’d told him everything I’d found out, there was a long pause on the line.
“Any chance we could get Octavio to say this in court?” he asked at last.
“None. He can’t stand Felipe and doesn’t give a damn if he lives or dies. I could testify to what Octavio said, but he’ll just deny everything.”
“Well that scuppers it,” he said at last. “I suppose the poor fellow will have to take the fall, as you Americans say. All our enquiries back up what Octavio says. There’s no evidence that any of the fascist community was in on it. Oh, we did find one more bit of evidence, although I don’t see how it can help us now. The coroner investigated that large bruise on Juan Cardona’s side. Two ribs were fractured. Blunt trauma, as we expected. The doctor thinks it was either a flat, heavy object like a mallet, or a fist. If the latter, it must have been quite a fist.”
Three Passports to Trouble Page 14
