Havana Best Friends (36 page)

The headquarters of Panataxi, the biggest Havana cab company, is three blocks away from the DTI, on Santa Ana Street. The two cops shook hands with the shift supervisor a couple of minutes after midnight. It was close to one before the cops learned which three drivers had been assigned the Deauville cab stand the previous afternoon. An all-points bulletin to all cabbies gave their names and addresses, and the three cabs who were nearest went for them. The first sleepy cabbie to arrive recalled the two women; they had been one of Mingolo’s fares. The second driver knew nothing and forced himself to remain calm instead of having a go at the fucking supervisor and the fucking cops for getting him out of bed, which was what he felt like doing. Mingolo was the last to get there. Yes, he remembered the fare. To the Vía Azul bus depot, why? What was the matter? Well, now that the major mentioned it, he didn’t recall hearing the woman with the cane utter a word. Yes, tall, dark-blond hair. They had two carry-ons and a duffel bag. No, they didn’t say what their destination was. From that depot they could go to Viñales, Trinidad, Varadero, or Cayo Coco. There were also a couple of daily departures to Santiago de Cuba, with stops in all provincial capitals.

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?