Havana Best Friends (27 page)

Captain Félix Trujillo entered the DTI building at 8:15. He had a runny nose, watery eyes, and sneezed frequently. As he was approaching the pigeonhole where his messages were, he overheard a colleague telling the news to another cop. He joined them and learned what little was known about the murdered policeman. Then Trujillo turned on his heels and took the stairs two at a time to Pena’s office. The sombre major didn’t even let him open his mouth.

“Have you heard?”

“About the murdered comrade?”

“Yeah.”

“Torriente was telling Pichardo downstairs.”

“Get your ass over to the IML immediately,” Pena barked.

“Right away. But what am I supposed do there?”

“Take a look at the body.”

Trujillo blinked twice, then sneezed. “Fractured neck, right?” he said after blowing his nose.

“Exactly. Discounting accidents, you have any idea how many people in Havana have had their necks broken in the last ten years?”

“No.”

“Two. Pablo Miranda and this comrade. I want you to take a good look at the body, see if anything grabs your attention,
some likeness to Pablo maybe. Talk to the pathologist doing the autopsy, find out if there’s something he’s not sure about and doesn’t want to report officially. Then go to the LCC and check what he had on him: wallet, address book, keys, coins, cigarettes, everything. I want you here at noon, not one minute later. Now, move, goddammit, move.”

“Right away, Comrade Major.”

Trujillo turned, sneezed, then left the cubicle blowing his nose. Pena smiled fleetingly as he followed the captain with his eyes, then shook his head, lifted the phone, and started tapping out a number.

They were on top of the Empire State Building, and her gaze scanned the horizon. Suddenly Carlos pointed to something and she wondered,
How can he see anything? He’s blind!
She took hold of his chin and forced him to look at her. Instead of irises he had two beautiful diamonds, his pupils were tiny emeralds. “Yes, I got this implant at the Bascom Palmer; now I can see perfectly well,” he explained. She clapped her hands in delight.

Marina awoke smiling; funny dream. Her bladder demanded relief. She found it pretty weird to be fully clothed, but hurried to the bathroom with half-closed eyes, unzipped the skirt, pulled down her panties, sat on the toilet bowl. As she peed, everything came back to her. She grinned at the sensation of
feeling
rich. It was a new experience and she tried to explore it. Brushing her teeth a minute later she realized that, somehow, overnight she had acquired a confidence in the future like never before. From now on she wouldn’t have to save for rainy days, scan the papers for clearance sales, struggle with her old jalopy, lament that she
couldn’t spend a short winter vacation in Cancún or Belize. She was a wealthy woman! Dabbing at her cheeks with a towel, she consulted her watch: 8:25. She should change and wake Sean up. Marina replaced the towel on the rack, reached for the door, and flung it open.

Sean was not in bed. This put her on full alert.

She ran to the balcony; he wasn’t there either.

Her eyes scanned the room. The cane was nowhere to be seen and his carry-on had disappeared.

Marina’s knees buckled under her. Slowly she slumped to the carpet, feeling almost like she had the day, a few years back, when a stranger’s elbow accidentally hit her in the solar plexus as she was boarding the C train at Canal St. Station: breathless, stunned, tears streaming down her cheeks. The iceman had stolen her jewels! The devious slimeball had fled, leaving her holding the bag with a false passport under a false name in a Communist country! He had stolen Carlos’s diamonds too! She sobbed and hiccupped and sniffed, feeling sorry for herself, for almost five minutes. Suddenly she froze. Had the bastard taken her passport and plane ticket?

On her hands and knees, Marina reached the duffel bag and frantically rummaged through it looking for her purse. She found it and opened it. Her passport, plus those of Elena and Pablo, were there. The plane tickets too. She also found twenty one-hundred-dollar bills that were not hers. What nerve the cocksucker had! What did she need the money for? The plane ticket was already paid for. The hotel, any emergency that might arise? Son of a fucking bitch!

Marina returned to the bathroom and washed. After a couple of minutes she shuffled back to the room abstractedly dabbing at
her face with the towel, trying to work out what to do next. The only person she knew in Cuba was Elena Miranda. Moreover, Elena was the only one who would believe her story, who could lend a hand. But what could the Cuban teacher do? Nothing.

What she ought to do right now was hurry to the airport, Marina decided. See whether she could intercept the bastard before he boarded a plane, hang on to him as if he were a life jacket. In public he couldn’t harm her, or pretend he didn’t know her. She would approach him and whisper in his ear, “You want me to start screaming my lungs out, scumbag? You want me to tell those cops over there what you are trying to smuggle out in that fucking cane?” Marina could actually see him grin and shake his head. “What took you so long?” he would ask. “I thought it would be best if I came earlier to grease some palms and get us seats on the next plane out.” He would say something like that.

Marina changed into a pair of jeans and a white linen blouse, grabbed the duffel bag and her carry-on, and left the room. In the lobby she felt a pang of hunger and hurried into the dining room.

“I’ll have a glass of orange juice,” she said to a young waitress in Spanish.

“Of course, madam. Will you please choose a table?”

“No table. I’m in a hurry. Just give me a glass of orange juice.”

“But, madam, I can’t serve you standing up.”

“Give me a fucking glass of orange juice.”

The waitress hurried behind the counter and poured from a pitcher. Marina seized the glass and drank the juice in four gulps. From her purse she produced two dollars and handed them to the waitress.

“Thanks. Keep the change.”

As she turned to leave, Marina spotted the Dutchman. He was at a table by a huge window, gazing at the sea, calmly sipping from a cup. She looked around. Could it be that …? She strode past tables where other guests were having breakfast.

“Good morning.” She flashed a smile that tried to be seductive and failed miserably.

“Oh, good morning,” the expert said, rising to his feet. “Would you care to join me?”

“No, thanks. Have you seen my husband?”

Lines appeared on Scherjon’s forehead. “Your husband?”

He’s not in the know
, Marina realized. “Never mind,” she said before turning round and leaving the dining room.

The day-shift desk clerk hurried toward her. “Excuse me, ma’am. Are you leaving?”

“Yes,” she snapped.

“And your room number?”

It dawned on her what the problem was. “Room 321,” she said.

“Just a minute, please,” the guy said, turning on his heels.

Marina followed him back to the desk, and waited impatiently to hand in her card key. Had the sonofabitch left the bill unpaid? It wouldn’t surprise her. The clerk was tapping the keyboard and observing the screen. “Okay,” he said finally with a forced grin. “Have a nice day, ma’am.”

With long strides she reached the hotel entrance. The Hyundai was not in the hotel parking lot either. She signalled the parking valet.

“Get me a taxi.”

The man nodded, turned, lifted an arm. Almost immediately a yellow four-door Peugeot glided slowly on to the driveway. The valet opened the door for her.

“Take me to the airport,” she said to the driver.

“Which terminal?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where are you flying to?”

“Canada.”

“That’s Terminal 3.”

“Get me there as fast as you can. I’ll pay you twice what the meter reads.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the driver said, suppressing the desire to rub his hands together.

It was 7:36 on Sunday morning when Elena Miranda awoke. She stretched and yawned prodigiously. Recalling the events of the previous evening made her laugh for a few moments. It was not the loud, childlike, silly laugh she had let out at the
paladar
. It was a throaty, sexy, knowing laughter seldom enjoyed by others because it only emerged when something really gratifying happened to her, like an exalted orgasm or an unexpected gift. She turned and smiled at the heap of diamonds on her bedside table. Yeah, those little things would change her life.

Elena went to the bathroom and while washing noticed that her left cheek still bore wrinkle marks from the sheet. She stared at the tools and the flashlight, promised herself she would pick them up later and put them away somewhere. Back in her bedroom she made her bed, donned the same cut-offs and orange sweatshirt of the day before, then marched into the kitchen to make some espresso. She sipped from a cup thinking she should go to the store, get her daily ration of eighty grams of white bread, scramble an egg, and eat it with the bread and a second cup
of espresso. A fresh chuckle. Thirty-eight diamonds, but no milk, butter, jam, nothing.

She returned to the bedroom, took her sweatshirt off, put on a bra, then slipped the sweatshirt back on. Elena had been very embarrassed the day she forgot she wasn’t wearing a bra under a white cotton pullover and men had ogled her breasts and nipples as she walked to the pharmacy to buy something. For some obscure reason she didn’t find annoying the admiring glances her thighs, legs, and backside drew.

She picked up her ration card, a five-cent coin, and her keys. In the hallway as she headed for the front door, her buzzer rang. Elena frowned, reached the door, unlatched it.

“Dad!”

He stepped in and they embraced tightly before kissing cheeks. Since Pablo’s death, during each of his forty-eight-hour weekend passes, Manuel Miranda had spent a couple of hours with his daughter, always on Sunday mornings. He didn’t think of it as a paternal duty; he actually wanted to make up for all the lost years, provide what little support and protection he could, make Elena feel he would be there for her no matter what. Due to the previous evening’s excitement, Elena had forgotten he would visit this morning.

Manuel Miranda believed that, so far, his daughter’s life had been less than enjoyable. And he had made important contributions to her unhappiness with his almost permanent absence from home during her childhood, his divorcing her mother, then murdering his second wife and her lover, the subsequent scandal, his prison sentence. The incurable illness and death of her son had been devastating; being in daily contact with very sick children couldn’t be much fun either. As if all this weren’t enough, she had
lost her mother to her aging grandparents hundreds of miles away. The antagonism between her and Pablo was a constant source of friction. And then her brother had been murdered. How she could remain so gracious after so many misfortunes remained a mystery to him. Neither could he understand her unstinting devotion to sick children.

“How are you?” he asked before noticing something new in her eyes.

“Oh, Daddy, in your whole life you haven’t arrived anywhere at a more opportune moment,” said a beaming Elena, holding her father at arm’s length.

“Really?”

“Dad, can you keep a secret?” It was a rhetorical question and she knew it.

Miranda grinned, blinked repeatedly, cocked his head as though he would prefer not to say what he was about to say. “Elena, if I had a penny for every secret I’ve kept, I’d be a millionaire.”

“I know, Dad, I know. But it’s a long story. Let’s go and buy some bread. Then we’ll have breakfast together,” she said, gently pushing him out of the apartment and closing the door after her. She took his arm. “In late May, as I was getting ready for work one morning, a couple of tourists came to our door …”

She was a good storyteller and it took her nearly an hour to finish. They were sitting at the kitchen table, elbows on the table-top, two plates with the remains of scrambled eggs in the sink, empty cups of espresso close at hand. Miranda had seen a lot in his time, but he was astonished and looked it.