Havana Best Friends (37 page)

Could he be linked to the diamonds? No. There was no way the police could find out about the diamonds. He wouldn’t tell, she was sure of that. What the police would find was the empty space where a soap dish had been. The soap dish broke, that was all. But then, what was the motive? The police would want to know. Why did these men invade your daughter’s house?
I have no idea
, was what he ought to answer. Or maybe … she suppressed a
giggle, then wondered if she was going mad. On second thoughts, it didn’t seem too far-fetched. Her father might speculate it was a crime of passion. Perhaps both men were in love with his daughter: that might be the motive. Would he think of that? It wasn’t impossible, not even improbable. She was a good-looking woman. She knew it and she presumed that most of her friends and neighbours would confirm it.

For an instant Elena found herself recalling how attractive she had found Sean. Embarrassed, she immediately pushed him out of her mind. It was perverted to entertain such thoughts about a man who had died twelve hours earlier. He had tried to put up a fight. To save her? She wasn’t sure.

What about her students? The sweet Danita, an eleven-year-old black quadriplegic with a brilliant mind. That girl reminded her of Stephen Hawking. She was too young to choose a field of study, but whichever she chose, she would make history in it. And so attached to her. Like Felipe, the nine-year-old white boy whose kidneys refused to function, hooked daily to a dialysis machine, waiting for the accidental death of a compatible boy or girl his age. They wouldn’t understand why she had deserted them. How could they?

She had been repeatedly warned, like all special-needs teachers, not to forge too close a bond with her students, but like most of her colleagues she had been unable to heed the warning. She loved them and suffered for them much more than she delighted in their frequent moments of happiness. Now she would disappear from their lives without a word. Well, she would disappear even if she remained in Cuba – into a prison cell. She was not deserting them deliberately. What could she do for them? Should she finally be able to sell her diamonds, she would send them all
sorts of things that would make their lives easier, whatever the cost. Yes, she would do that.

That resolution comforted her and she sighed deeply. Then she stole a glance at her watch: 1:55 a.m. It was going to be a long night.

P
eople observing Sergeant Arenas at work often entertained a sneaking suspicion that this mean-looking, chain-smoking, silent cop might not always be on the right side of the law. Anyone who knew he was a locksmith would wonder why a man with his ability to gain access to all kinds of places, from homes to bank vaults, had resigned himself to suffering the same privations endured by most of his fellow countrymen and resist the temptation to steal from others. Policemen, especially rookies, were doubly suspicious: the guy – they reasoned – is a fucking cop. Before or after doing his task, he watches experts dust for fingerprints, pick up hairs and samples of glass, fibres, paint, and earth, examine the marks left by a tool, lift tire and footwear impressions. He knows exactly what mistakes he shouldn’t commit, for God’s sake!

Nivaldo Arenas had learned the trade from his father, but after joining the police in 1965 he’d taken courses in the trade
in Moscow (a full semester in 1977) and Czechoslovakia (four months in 1986). He filed for retirement in 1992, when two Havana hotels installed the first electronic locks imported to Cuba, arguing that at fifty-one he was too old to start learning about scanners, magnetic strips, and related shit. Police brass realized that electronic locks would remain less than 0.0001 per cent of all locks, and that they couldn’t afford to lose the national expert on traditional locks. The chief of the National Police, a two-star general, sent for Nivaldo and personally assured him that he would never be asked to work electronic locks, then asked him to postpone his retirement for a few years and train some young officers. Flattered, the sergeant had accepted.

Arenas was an introvert and precious few people knew – Major Pena being one of them – how proud he was of the fact that he had never made illegal use of his skills. It made him feel superior. He was positive that 99.99 per cent of law-abiding people abstain from committing criminal acts because they fear penalties, not as a matter of principle. The locksmith considered the Proven Few the most select group of people on Earth. Those who could steal, or kill, or counterfeit, or defraud, or commit any other crime without fearing retribution, and yet didn’t! Those were the really superior people, the keepers of the flame, as extraordinary and inexplicable as beings from another planet. And he was one of them! His all-time hero was Harry Houdini.

Major Pena was recalling all this as he watched the expressions of José Kuan and Zoila Pérez once the sergeant opened the front door of Apartment 1. It took him less than sixty seconds, under the weak light provided by matches struck by Captain Trujillo (the DTI’s supply department had had no flashlight batteries since July). Zoila, in a housecoat and slippers, was leaning
forward to stare at the cylinder. She looked like a spectator trying to work out how a magician had performed a trick. Kuan, wearing a pullover, dark-green slacks, and brown lace-up shoes, appeared equally mystified.

Arenas shut his toolbox, got up from his knees, and gestured that they could go in now. He had just downgraded himself from male lead to extra, but he couldn’t have cared less. From the door frame, Captain Trujillo groped for the light switch, found it, and hit it. Light sprang from a solitary sixty-watt light fixture on the living-room ceiling. Two cockroaches scuttled under the chesterfield.

“Comrade Elena?”

Trujillo stepped inside, Pena right behind him. Zoila and Kuan remained in the entranceway with Arenas, who lit a cigarette.

“Hello? Comrade Elena?”

The cops reached the hallway. Trujillo flicked the light switch.

Pena turned to the door. “Witnesses, come on in. It’s what you’re here for,” he barked, waving them in. “And don’t touch anything,” he added. Lousy public relations, Trujillo thought.

“Go on, go on,” urged Nivaldo, prodding Zoila and Kuan.

It took the cops and their witnesses three minutes – moving gingerly, inspecting closets, checking for a forced entry – to reach the servant’s bedroom at the end of the hall. Trujillo turned on the light, then recoiled violently, hitting Pena on the nose with the back of his head.

“Hey! What’s the matter with you?”

“Take a look.”

Massaging the bridge of his nose, Pena peered into the room. He forgot his pain and turned to the witnesses. Both seemed extremely alarmed.

“Okay, comrades, thank you very much. You may return to your homes.”

“Is anything the matter?” Zoila asked.

“Yes, there is. I got a broken nose. Oh, one final favour, comrade. I need to use your phone.”

“Sure. Is … is Elena … in there?”

“No, she isn’t. Some other people are, though. C’mon, let’s go.”

“But … what happened?”

“You don’t want to know, comrade, you don’t want to know.”

Trujillo and Nivaldo stood guard at the entrance as Kuan returned home and Pena climbed the stairs behind Zoila. At ten past four the major phoned Colonel Adrián Bueno at National Headquarters. Zoila, at his side, was dying to hear what he had to say.

“Comrade Colonel, this is Major Pena from the DTI.”

“Yes, Major?”

“Well, sir, after I talked to you an hour ago …”

Pena filled the colonel in on the latest developments, saving his moment of triumph for the end. But Adrián Bueno was not rising to the bait. The colonel was an experienced cop too and suspected that this damn major whom he had never met wanted him to blow his top over their entering a private home without a search warrant, then prove how right he had been in breaking the rule with some gruesome finding. He’d wait and see, Bueno decided as he scribbled on his notepad.

“… and in the last bedroom … we found two corpses, both white males.”

Zoila jumped on hearing this.

There it is, Bueno thought, smiling. “Good work, Major.
Initiative is what we need. So, I suppose you are now going to call in the LCC and the IML.”

“Yes, comrade,” Pena agreed, vexed that the colonel had not thrown a tantrum. Initiative indeed.

“And now you want me to ask Immigration to detain these three Canadians you mentioned for questioning.”

“Yes, comrade.”

“Okay, tell me their names.”

At 4:45, a sober-looking Eusebio beckoned Marina and Elena. They stood up and crossed to the counter. Both had been staring fixedly in that direction for half an hour, ever since the first passengers had arrived, most of them clutching white fake-leather bags emblazoned with a red “Temptation Tours” logo. After three strides, Elena realized that she was not limping, then overdid it. Behind the counter, a woman in a light-blue jacket and a white scarf stared at them. Early thirties, not a shade over five-foot-three, brunette. Her name tag identified her as Alicia. Marina preferred dealing with men, but she had no choice.

“Good morning, ma’am,” Alicia said in Spanish, then put on a professional smile.

“Good morning. Pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine. My colleague has explained your problem to me.”

“Thank you, Eusebio.”

The attendant nodded.

“I can sell you two tickets,” Alicia went on, “but you can’t sit together.”

“Alicia, we would fly in the baggage compartment if you let us.”

Alicia nodded. “May I see your passports, please?”

Two minutes later, Marina and Elena were even more jittery. Alicia kept leafing through the documents, returning to the first she had inspected, then to the second, back to the first, again to the second. On two occasions she lifted her eyes to Elena’s face to compare her features to the photograph, then peered closely at Marina three times. At last, the attendant seemed satisfied.

“Okay, let me fill out the tickets for you,” she said.

Elena took a deep breath and all of a sudden realized her bladder was about to burst. Marina felt like whooping and clapping but contented herself with a grin. It seemed as if selling tickets at the counter was unusual, for Alicia didn’t use the computer. Instead, she copied their names from the passports, returned them to Marina, then completed the rest of the form in capital letters.

“That will be $436.80,” Alicia said finally. “Cash or credit?”

“Cash.”

Marina handed over five hundred dollars. Eusebio weighed, labelled, and transferred the luggage to the conveyor loop. Alicia stapled the baggage receipts to the plane tickets, then placed them on the counter top with the boarding passes and the change.

“Thanks,” Marina said. She gave Elena her papers but didn’t touch the cash.

“That’s for you, Eusebio,” she said, indicating the money with her chin. “And this is for you, Alicia,” she added, extending a one-hundred-dollar bill to the woman.

“No, thanks,” an unsmiling Alicia said. “I have an eight-year-old girl. I don’t like to profit from human suffering. Keep your money.”

Marina was too surprised to do anything other than stare at
the woman and mumble, “But it would be my pleasure to …”

Elena wanted to grab Marina’s arm, shake her head at her, then blow a kiss to Alicia. But as an English-speaking deaf-mute she couldn’t lip-read in Spanish. Though he looked a little embarrassed, Eusebio seemed ready to pounce on his share.

“Well, take pleasure in some other thing. This is my job,” Alicia said with finality.

“I won’t forget you.”

“Have a nice flight.”

Elena steered Marina to the ladies room. Nothing was said; three other women were using the toilets and sinks. After shelling out forty dollars for the airport tax, they went to the Immigration booths. Having seen the airline attendant inspect their passports so carefully, Marina expected a ten-minute interrogation. A woman in a light-green shirt and an olive-green skirt, the rank of lieutenant on her epaulets, examined her passport, ticket, and boarding pass, glimpsed at her face fleetingly, stamped the passport, waved her in. Less than twenty seconds in all.

“My friend? The next lady?” Marina said to the woman. “She’s deaf and dumb. Just in case you want to ask her something, can I stay here to interpret for you?”

The lieutenant frowned, then nodded. Marina signalled for Elena to come in. The teacher entered the booth. The Immigration official eyed the deaf-mute curiously and wondered why she was so pale. Her gaze moved to Marina for an instant. What had these two come to the beach for? To watch TV in their room? Well, it didn’t matter to her. She examined the passport. It was identical to the thousands of Canadian passports she checked every winter, with the same Cuban stamps. While it was unusual for people who’d landed in Havana to depart from Varadero, it
happened. Next she looked at the woman’s face. Not bad-looking, most likely married. Her mind moved to the uncommunicative bastard she was divorcing. He would consider a beautiful deaf-mute the ideal wife, keeps her mouth shut all the time, can’t yell when he tries to rape her in the middle of the night. Then she wondered how a deaf-mute woman would deal with that kind of man. She stamped the passport. Twenty-five seconds.