Havana Best Friends (5 page)

“Well, sir, this is very” – Pablo groped f
or generous
unsuccessfully as he thrust the bill into a pants pocket – “very good of you. If I can help … in any other way?”

His eyes on Pablo, head cocked, a budding grin on his lips, the tourist seemed to ponder the offer.

“Maybe you could. This is my first trip here, I don’t know my way around, and I was hoping for a good time, catch my drift?”

Pablo grinned. “You mean fun, girls?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“I think … no, I thought so. But now, it’s morning. In the mornings, beautiful girls sleep. In the evenings, they have fun. We meet in the evening, I take you to the most beautiful girls in Havana.”

A bunch of lies, the big guy figured. “Tell you what. You take me to the most beautiful girls in Havana, I’ll pay you a hundred bucks. You take me to
the
most beautiful girl in Havana, I’ll pay you two hundred. How’s that?”

“That’s excellent, Mr.…?”

“Splittoesser.”

“Pardon?”

“Just call me John.”

“Okay, John. So, where do we meet?”

“Let’s see …” John pretended to reflect. “There’s this bar-restaurant where I had dinner last night, La Zaragua … something.”

“Spanish food? In Old Havana?”

“That’s it.”

“La Zaragozana.”

“You’ve been there?”

“John, I’ve been to all the right places in Havana.”

The tall, overweight man considered this for a moment. “Swell. At eight then?” he said.

“Eight’s fine with me.”

“Can I drop you somewhere?” John asked.

“No, thanks. My office is right across the street.”

“See you then,” John said and extended his right hand. Pablo’s hand got lost in the man’s paw. The Cuban walked on,
occasionally craning his neck, watching the tourist unlock his car. John waved him goodbye; Pablo did the same before crossing Fifth Avenue.
Is this a lucky break or is this a lucky break?
he was thinking.

John Splittoesser spent the afternoon completing the reconnaissance he had started three evenings earlier, driving around Santa Maria del Mar and Guanabo, two adjoining beach resorts twenty-five kilometres to the east of Havana.

After dinner at La Zaragozana, Pablo suggested a leisurely stroll into Old Havana. Leaving the rental in the custody of the restaurant’s parking valet, they walked down Obispo, a street turned pedestrian mall. Passersby stared at the strange pair: some recalled
Twins
, the movie starring Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The temperature had dropped considerably as a consequence of a late-afternoon heavy shower. Lighting from the shop windows of well-stocked, dollars-only stores reflected on the wet asphalt. A Brazilian soap opera and various pop songs blared out from radios, CD players, and television sets in an ear-splitting cacophony.

There were police officers on every corner, most of them alert young men fresh from the countryside, still in awe of city slickers: the pickpockets, whores, pimps, drag queens, male prostitutes, shoplifters, drug pushers, and black marketeers that trained eyes can detect along the Havana tourist trail.

A handful of veteran cops in their thirties, with bored expressions and cynical grins, whispered advice to the rookies. They were cops who’d survived by staying within the limit of permissible
corruption: yes to a three-dollar sandwich, no to a one-dollar bill; yes to a hooker’s free ride, no to a pair of jeans offered by her pimp; yes to a packet of cigarettes, no to a box of fake Cohibas.

Pablo and John turned left onto Havana Street and after three blocks took a right onto the seedier Empedrado Street. Watching them walk side by side, two candidates for the priesthood returning to the San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary were reminded of the David and Goliath story. A dark-skinned black youngster and a white teenager approached the strange pair.

“Mister, mister, cigars, guitars, girls …,” they accosted John in English.

“I’m with him,” Pablo said in Spanish, glaring at them. They weren’t impressed by the news and ignored the short man with the stumpy ponytail. “Girls, beautiful. Cohibas, forty dollars. Fine guitars, eighty dollars.”

“No,” said John.

“Coke? Marijuana?”

“No.”

“I’m taking him to Angelito’s,” said Pablo, again in Spanish, trying to act nonchalant.

That stopped the hustlers cold. They turned their backs and disappeared into a doorway. John stared at the narrowest sidewalk he had seen in his life, not more than twenty inches wide.

“Now, look up, at the … 
balcón?
You say
balcón
in English?”

John frowned in incomprehension.

“The
balcón
of the house on the next corner,” Pablo said, extending his arm and pointing.

Four young women leaned on the railing of a wrought-iron balcony projecting from the top floor of an old, dilapidated two-storey house. Light from a nearby streetlamp made it possible to
see that two of the whores sported shorts, a third had a miniskirt on, the fourth a French-cut bikini bottom. All wore halter tops and from their necks hung chains and medals. Gazing down at the street below, they were sharing a laugh.

“Interested?” Pablo asked.

“Let’s take a closer look.”

As they climbed a marble stairway, Pablo said this was La Casa de Angelito, Angelito’s house, according to his translation. Greeted warmly on the landing by a white, effeminate bodybuilder in green Lycra shorts and a pink tank top, they were showed into a dim living room with four loveseats, a CD player, a minibar, and side tables for drinks and ashtrays. Three French windows opened onto the balcony where the women remained, unaware that potential clients had arrived. The body-sculpting fanatic clapped his hands and ordered, “Girls, saloon.”

One of the hookers upstaged the others completely, John realized. She was one of those precious few women from all walks of life who try to underplay their devastating sex appeal and fail miserably. The blessing or curse of her sexiness – depending on the final outcome – is as indefinable as inexorable, impossible to disguise or accentuate with clothing, jewellery, or perfumes. A gorgeous American actress worth maybe a hundred million who had the seductiveness of a refrigerator sprang to mind. And here in Havana, in a tumbledown whorehouse, he was facing a two-bit hooker capable of driving tycoons and presidents and kings nuts, and him too, truth be told.

No older than twenty, she had a lovely face framed by long chestnut-coloured hair. Something of a child’s sweetness and innocence survived in her dark pupils and gentle smile. Her naked body had to be a sight for sore eyes, he was sure, and he felt
tempted to ask her to undress and pace up and down the living room until he remembered that he had an assignment to carry out.

“Is this the best you can do?” he asked Pablo, apparently unimpressed.

The Cuban was taken aback. “You don’t like?”

“Can we shop around some more?”

Pablo marched John to Marinita, three blocks east, where they had a beer, then to Tongolele, five blocks south. Everywhere the short bald Cuban was greeted with affection. John noticed his guide was somewhat hyped up when they left Tongolele. The next stop was La Reina del Ganado, in San Isidro, translated by Pablo as “The Queen of Cattle.” The tourist learned that the name was derived from a Brazilian soap opera,
El rey del ganado –
“The King of Cattle” – whose main character owned hundreds of thousands of cattle. The brothel proprietress’s herd, comprising some twenty women, was displayed posing naked in a snapshot album. She only showed it to foreigners who were not attracted to any of those immediately available at her house. John peered at each photograph, carefully considered three promising candidates, finished a Cuba Libre, then turned to Pablo.

“Tell you what. This guy at the hotel gave me an address in Guanabo, claims there are fine chicks there. Let’s go get the car and drive over. If I don’t find a broad I really like, we’ll come back to the first place you took me to and I’ll settle for the brunette.”

Pablo didn’t like the idea, but he had decided to humour John all the way. He found it strange that after leaving the tunnel under Havana Bay, John didn’t ask for directions. He must have been to the beach on his own, the Cuban figured. The tourist remained silent, eyes on the road, observing the hundred-kilometre speed limit, air conditioner on, windows closed.

The Cuban didn’t feel like making small talk either. He had been very upbeat all day at the office, overjoyed at the prospect of making in one night what many Cubans don’t earn in a year of hard work. He had even sniffed a line at Tongolele’s and bought four more fixes in premature celebration. But now he was feeling uptight. Pablo admitted to himself that the motherfucker was hard to please; he could kiss one of the two Cs goodbye.

What if the bastard found a woman to his taste in Guanabo? Then he wouldn’t make a penny, since it wouldn’t be as a result of his procuring. He would make a hundred only if they returned to Angelito’s for the brunette the asshole had eyed so hungrily. He had to concoct a story to make him turn back. Maybe if he said that AIDS had struck down hundreds of people in Guanabo? He lit a cigarette and mulled over alternatives for most of the twenty-minute ride.

It was quarter past twelve when John took a left at the crossing of Vía Blanca and 462nd, coasted down to the town’s main thoroughfare, then glided along until he confidently turned off the boulevard and, heading inland, followed a street for three blocks before taking a left, killing the lights, and pulling over.

“This is it?” Pablo asked, struck by the strangeness of his surroundings. To their left, behind a barbed-wire fence, the rear of a huge, one-storey warehouse stretched all the way along the block. On the other side of the street several modest houses had the wooden slats of their front windows wide open, the residents likely in bed, electric fans turning at top speed to keep mosquitoes away and fight the heat, lights off. Somewhere close a dog barked unenthusiastically. Streetlight was provided by a low-wattage bulb on an electricity pole fifty metres away.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

As John was locking the car, Pablo reached the sidewalk and stood by his side.

“Listen, John, I don’t want to worry you,” Pablo began, sounding concerned. “But last year, many people here in Guanabo have …”

Pablo didn’t know what happened to him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a swift, unexpected movement and started turning his head, but an instant after John’s fist smashed into his temple all his systems collapsed and he keeled over.

The tall, overweight man looked around as if he had all the time in the world. The dog kept barking. Lifting the limp body by the armpits, John manoeuvred Pablo into a sitting position and, crouching behind him, grasped the bald man’s chin with his right hand and the back of his head with his left, then in one swift motion he yanked up and around with all his might. Pablo’s cervical vertebrae snapped.

Kneeling by the body, John savagely bit twice into the left side of his victim’s neck. He spat in disgust several times before producing a plain envelope containing four fifty-dollar bills folded in half. With the edge of his fingernails he removed the money and tucked it into a pocket of the dead man’s pants. Finally, he freed Pablo of his cheap watch, his wallet, and his shoes.

Panting, with beads of sweat on his forehead, he stood up, dusted his knees, and scrutinized both ends of the block. The dog kept barking, insistently now, goaded by the scent of death. John unlocked the driver’s door, slid behind the wheel, dropped Pablo’s personal possessions on the passenger seat, and turned the ignition. The car crept away for two blocks, its lights off, before he took a left and returned to the town’s main street. He felt the
repugnance of one who has just squashed a big bug under the sole of his shoe.

After he’d dumped the Cuban’s belongings into a sewer in Old Havana, John thought about going back to Angelito’s and screwing the sexy whore. But after close to a minute grabbing the wheel with both hands and pursing his lips, he shook his head, sighed resignedly, and drove to the Hotel Nacional.

A
s is often the case, the crime scene had been contaminated by the time the Guanabo police, at the crack of dawn, arrived in response to a phone call made nine minutes earlier. Nobody had touched the corpse, but the truck driver who found it on his way to work, and the relatives and neighbours to whom he excitedly announced his discovery, had got near enough to raise doubts on any footprint, fibre, or hair that they might find. Tire prints in the grit alongside the curb had also been trampled.

The Guanabo police are not equipped to deal with a homicide and rarely see one, so they confined their participation to cordoning off the area, questioning people, stationing guards, then radioing the DTI
^*
, the LCC
^**
, and the IML
^†
, all three of which have headquarters in the Cuban capital.

At 7:11 a.m., with dawn becoming early morning and the tide starting to turn, three LCC specialists and Captain Félix Trujillo from the DTI arrived in a Lada station wagon. They listened in silence to the lieutenant who met them. No neighbour had heard or seen anything unusual before or after going to bed, curious onlookers had ruined the corpse’s immediate surroundings, nobody there knew the dead man.