Havana Best Friends (13 page)

“Please, take a seat.”

“Thank you.”

The captain chose the sofa and flashed his ID. Roselia sat across from him, on the edge of an armchair.

“I’m Captain Félix Trujillo, from the DTI.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Hundred-proof hypocrisy, they both knew.

“The pleasure is all mine. Do you know Pablo Miranda?”

Señora Roselia furrowed her brow, as though trying to remember. She knew the dwarf would get her into trouble someday. He was too fucking irresponsible, careless. She lifted her head with a jerk, pretending that all of a sudden she had recalled who the person was. “Pablito, you mean? A short, bald man?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, I didn’t know his surname. He’s Pablito to me.”

“He a friend of yours?”

Roselia pursed her lips and considered the question. “I … wouldn’t call him a friend, not a friend, no. More like an acquaintance.”

“I see. When was the last time you saw him?”

Roselia tugged the hem of her skirt and again evaded the cop’s eyes. She didn’t like it, didn’t like it at all. Captain, indeed! From films and TV movies she had learned that in capitalist
countries captains were top brass at police precincts, wore golden epaulettes, rode in shiny sedans. The way it was in Cuba, before the revolution. Now, almost all cops over thirty – riding buses in their frayed uniforms – were captains. Hundreds of police captains in Havana; probably thousands all over the country. Anywhere else they would be sergeants. But this could be something serious and it was better to play along with him and keep as close as possible to the truth.

“A week ago, maybe more.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“He came to visit you?”

“Well … yes, in a way. He called, he had these friends, tourists, and he wanted to take them out to dinner. Said he couldn’t afford a restaurant and since I … well, perhaps I’m being immodest, but people say I’m a great cook, so he asked if I could prepare a nice dinner for four. I refused. I said to him, ‘Pablito, you expect me to spend the few dollars my son in Miami sends me buying what’s needed for a nice five-course meal?’ And he said, ‘I’ll refund you down to the last penny. You spend ten dollars, fifteen dollars, I’ll refund you. No more than fifteen dollars, that’s all I got. I can’t take these people to a
paladar
. It would cost me a fortune. Please, Roselia, help me out with this.’ I’m a sucker for helping people out, so I said, ‘Okay, Pablito, I’ll do this for you, but just once, don’t make a habit of it.’ So, I made him a nice meal for four people, he came with his guests and his sister, paid me the fourteen dollars I had spent on the ingredients, and that was the last time I saw him.”

“How generous of you, Comrade Roselia,” Trujillo said. “If you do that for an acquaintance, I can’t imagine what you’d do for
a friend. Now I realize why some people say you are operating a
paladar
from your home.”

“Ah, Captain, some of my neighbours are so unfair,” Roselia moaned, dismayed at human wickedness. “I love to cook, I flatter myself on my cooking. Of life’s pleasures, cooking and living in this nice house are the only ones I’m still capable of enjoying. And, yes, once in a while a few friends bring me what’s needed and I cook for them, free of charge, of course. I never make a profit. Recover the cost, yes; make money out of it, no. But these envious neighbours of mine, they see the cars, the people coming and going, and they conclude ‘Roselia is operating a
paladar.’ ”

“That’s not my problem, Comrade Roselia. I just want to know how you came to be acquainted with Pablo Miranda.”

Roselia stared at the captain, again pretending to search her mind. “Probably it was … six months ago. He must have been invited by a friend of mine. Pablito praised my cooking highly, said it was the best meal of his life. It’s what made me remember him when he called.”

“Who introduced him to you?”

“Frankly, I don’t remember.”

“Comrade Roselia, how many friends do you cook for?”

“Excuse me?”

“Simple question. How many friends and acquaintances do you cook for?”

“Well, I haven’t counted. Let me see …” Lifting her eyes to the ceiling, Roselia pretended to add up her patrons on her fingers. What she was trying to estimate was the fine for operating an illegal
paladar
. That a cop was questioning her seemed unusual too. She had heard that the municipal commerce inspectors were the ones who dealt with illegal businesses. Could this
captain know about her other entrepreneurial endeavours? Was the bastard pretending to go after one thing when in fact he was after another? Maybe if she slipped him a twenty?

“I reckon I have around ten friends I occasionally cook for.”

“And you don’t remember which of them brought Pablo Miranda here?”

“Imagine, Captain! Sometimes a friend brings eight or nine guests. Besides, my memory is not what it used to be. Old age, you know.”

Trujillo hadn’t planned on asking her this, but why not? “Maybe it was Carmelo Fonseca,” he said.

Roselia hesitated for an instant. Should she say yes? “Probably. Well, yes, I seem to recall it was Carmelo. Now that you mention it, I had the impression that Pablito worked for Carmelo.”

“Yes, he does,” Trujillo said. “Okay, comrade, let’s go back to that evening. Did you hear Pablo Miranda say anything that sounded odd to you? Did you notice if he was worried or acted nervous?”

“Nervous? Pablito? No, he was as happy as if it were Christmas. He always is.”

“He always was.”

“What do you mean, Captain?”

“Pablo Miranda is dead, Señora Roselia. He was murdered.”

“Blessed Virgin!” A shiver ran up and down Roselia’s spine. The dwarf? Murdered? And she had thought … “When? Why?” she asked.

“Three days after he dined here. The ‘why’ is what I’m investigating, comrade. Can you help me?”

Roselia shook her head emphatically. “No. How could I? I mean, I didn’t know him at all. He was just an acquaintance.”

“Well, comrade,” Trujillo said, standing up. “Thanks for your time. And I recommend you either apply for a licence to operate a
paladar
or tell your friends you won’t cook for them any more. Around here everybody, and I mean everybody, believes this is a
paladar
and one of these days you might be fined several thousand pesos.”

“Yes, Captain. You are right,” Roselia agreed as she stood up. “I’ll explain things to my friends when they call. Thanks for the warning. Can I offer you something? A soda? Some espresso?”

“No thanks, comrade. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Captain. Drop by whenever you are in the neighbourhood.”

“Sure. Bye.”

Trujillo returned to the DTI, had lunch, checked his messages, then decided to view as many porn videos as he could in the afternoon. He wasn’t looking forward to it. He knew he would be sexually aroused and in the evening his wife would most likely claim she was too tired for lovemaking, which was how she frequently responded nowadays to his ever-decreasing overtures. But he had to search for clues if he wanted to solve the murder.

In the first minute of video number three, as a couple kissed and began to undress while sitting on a sofa, the captain frowned, froze the scene, then rewound, and replayed it. After watching the whole twenty-two minutes, he went back to the initial scene. Finally, unable to suppress his satisfaction, he went to Pena’s office and explained what he’d discovered. His boss went to the projection room and watched the tape’s first minute.

An hour later the major, the captain, and Lieutenant Yunisleidis Aguirre, a buxom twenty-nine-year-old lawyer, reached Señora Roselia’s home. Trujillo rang the doorbell. In her black
faux-leather handbag the policewoman carried video cassette number three, a mini-DV Handycam, and a tape recorder.

“Captain!” There was no smile, no pretence. Fear shone in Roselia’s eyes.

“Good afternoon, comrade. Allow me to introduce Major Pena and Lieutenant Aguirre.”

“Pleased to meet you, Major, Lieutenant. But, Captain, I already told you all I know. And I’m preparing supper.”

“Sorry to interrupt, but we must show you something.”

“Show me?”

“Yes, may we come in? It won’t take long.”

Impressed, and looking it, Pena and Aguirre eased themselves onto the sofa and their eyes roved about the living room. Roselia and Trujillo slid into opposite armchairs. The restaurateur, seized by panic, fidgeted with the rings on her fingers. “Well, what is it you want to show me?”

“Can I use your VCR, comrade?”

Suddenly Roselia grew pale. “My … my VCR?” she stammered.

“That one over there.”

“It’s … broken.”

“We have one in the car that’s in perfect condition. Should we bring it in?”

Roselia sighed deeply. She knew precisely what was about to happen. They had found the porn films; all three where her living room and master bedroom could be easily identified. For three fucking hundred dollars she would go to jail. What was the use in delaying the inevitable? “No, go ahead,” she said.

Lieutenant Aguirre produced the video cassette and fed it
into the VCR. She pressed Play. “Pause,” Trujillo ordered after forty seconds. Roselia was staring at the floor.

“Citizen Roselia Rodriguez,” the captain said. “Watch the screen.”

Roselia registered the
citizen
and knew she was in serious trouble. She flinched and lifted her eyes to the set.

“That living room is
this
living room, Citizen Roselia.”

All she could do was nod.

“In a minute or so the couple kissing there engage in sexual intercourse in a very nice bedroom, probably one in this house. Do you want to watch the whole video?”

Roselia shook her head.

“That video, Citizen Rodríguez, is pornographic material. Now, according to Article 302.1 of the Cuban Penal Code, you can be sentenced to five years in prison for permitting the use of your place of residence for shooting it.”

“Five years?” a wide-eyed Roselia asked.

“No less than two and no more than five, if the tribunal finds you guilty. And with this evidence, citizen, you will be.”

“Oh, Blessed Virgin, protect me!”

“I should warn you that in a little while Lieutenant Aguirre” – he pointed to the policewoman – “will videotape this living room and the bedroom too, so should anyone think of moving the furniture or changing the decor after we leave, it’ll be a waste of time.”

Aguirre produced the Handycam.

Roselia seemed terrified. “I … didn’t know … I … am too old to go to jail.”

“The tribunal may be lenient if you co-operate with the police.”

“The dwarf talked me into it.”

“Who?”

“Pablo Miranda.”

“Just a second. Lieutenant, start rolling.”

The policewoman raised the camera, closed her left eye, focused through the viewfinder, then nodded to Trujillo.

“So, now, Citizen Roselia Rodríguez, who filmed pornographic videos in your house?”

Seventeen days later, at five past ten in the morning, a thinner and unusually subdued Carmelo Fonseca explained to all Turintrade employees that he had been transferred to a new position in a state-owned firm. Then he introduced his replacement, a white-haired, serious-looking black woman who briefly stated that, for the moment, business would be conducted as usual and asked for the full co-operation of her new staff. Fonseca left the office flanked by the same two guys in civilian clothes who had escorted him in and whom no one in the office had seen before. It is standard procedure to keep the staff from knowing that the boss fucked up badly. And the standard procedure has a standard result: a week later the staff knows what the boss did wrong and the whole thing becomes the talk of the town.

One night, Roselia had confessed to the police, a shit-faced Pablo Miranda told her in strictest confidence that Turintrade’s manager was the brains behind the porn scam. The old woman was taken into custody and Pena reported her allegation to the chief of the DTI, who in turn briefed the chief of the National Police. Pena and Trujillo were instructed to keep investigating the
murder of Pablo Miranda and leave the Fonseca affair in more capable hands.

Since Carmelo Fonseca was a former army colonel, the Ministry of the Interior made a report to the Ministry of the Armed Forces. Military Counter-Intelligence appointed a special investigator to head a three-man team. One week after Roselia’s confession, the team sat down with Fonseca for a talk. For one and a half hours he vehemently denied any wrongdoing, but under skillful questioning the ex-colonel began to contradict himself.

The chief interrogator asked him how he had been able to fork out more than $5,000 for the fifteen-year-old VW in perfect condition that he had given his lover, Anita Owen, the attractive secretary. An examination of Turintrade’s accounts had revealed no embezzlement, so where did the money come from,
Citizen
Fonseca? The money had been given to him in cash by Marco Ferrero as bonuses, he declared. Oh really? And how much did these bonuses amount to,
Citizen
Fonseca? The sweating general manager argued that he didn’t keep track.