Leonardo Padura - Havana Fever

When he entered the oppressive cubicle, Sergeant Estévañez pointed him to a chair, behind a small formica table. Conde looked at his place, opposite where he sat when he was the interrogator, and at the mirror across the room. He imagined Manolo must have put off his conversation with Yoyi in order to sit, perhaps next to a big boss, behind that glass panel that separated the interrogation room from the room for officers and witnesses, drawing an iron line between the powerful and those stripped of all power.

“I’m sorry,” said Sergeant Estévañez, as if that were really possible, “but we have… just a few questions, more routine than anything else… Captain Palacios told me to say you’re making a statement rather than being questioned… You say that last night you were by yourself at home? Did anyone see you or ring you?…”

At that last word the sergeant was shocked to see Conde stand up, as if jet-propelled, knock his chair over, and walk towards the mirror, which he banged twice with the palm of his hand.

“Manolo, come in here.”

Conde returned to his place but, before he got there, the door opened and his former colleague came in.

“Couldn’t they talk to me elsewhere? Does it have to be in this interrogation room, like some fucking murderer?” his voice was angry and staccato. “Is he taking a statement? Don’t try to mess me around…”

“Listen, Conde, it’s different now from when we…”

“Different, my ass, my friend, my ass,” a wave of indignation restored his lost energy, sent feelings of harassment packing, and he flopped down.

“Go out for a moment, Atilio,” Manolo instructed Estévanez, then added, glancing at the mirror. “Leave me alone and switch the equipment off, right?”

Manolo waited a few seconds and rested one buttock on the edge of the table, as he used to in the old days.

“Calm down, for fuck’s sake…”

“No, I won’t. I’ve spent too much time in a state of calm. Now I’m going to defend myself.”

Manolo sighed, clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“Will you let me say how much I regret this?”

‘No,” the Count answered, not looking at him. “You must be kidding.”

“It’s a formality, Conde. We have to find things out… Do you think I ever thought you?… Don’t you realize I’ve got bosses who wouldn’t believe their own mothers?”

“I’ve never felt so humiliated…”

“I can imagine.”

“No, you can’t, you can’t. And if you can, it’s worse, because you know what you’ve done to me.”

“That’s why I’m saying I’m sorry, for hell’s sake,” Manolo lamented.

“You’ve burnt your bridges, you’ve really fucked it up…”

“Hell, Conde, it’s not that bad. Don’t start playing the victim… Does all this mean you’re not going to help me?” there was a familiar imploring tone to the captain’s voice.

“Don’t imagine I will for one minute,” replied the Count, driven by indignation, and making the most of the advantage he’d just established. “I’m going to fuck you up good and proper… because I’m going to find out who killed Dionisio Ferrero before you do. And I’m going to show all the hotshots like you and your current bosses who’s the best detective in town.”

Manolo smiled, slightly relieved. The Count was fighting back, as was to be expected.

“All right, OK. Is that what you want? We’ll see who gets there first… But I warn you: it will be a pleasure rubbing this who’s best shit in your face. Because now we’re playing hardball, I’ll remind you of something: when we worked together, on the pretext that you were my boss and my friend, you always gave me the shit: you took over our cases, and got me to check the files, like an asshole, because you didn’t think I-”

“That’s a lie,” the Count protested.

“It’s true, and you know it. But we’ll soon see who’s really who when it comes to being a detective.”

“Are you being serious?”

“What do you think? I’ll tell you one thing: I’m a policeman and I’m going to do my job, whichever heads have to fall. I don’t like bastards doing things and getting away with it… Remember that?

… So if your partner Yoyi is involved in this…”

Conde lit a cigarette and looked at Manolo. He had a sudden thought: that they might work together again, but he gave the idea short shrift.

“You still think it’s about stealing a few books?”

“I don’t know,” Manolo admitted. “I’m going to have to investigate. I’m going to find out who killed Dionisio Ferrero before you. That much I do know…”

The midday sun seemed about to melt the pavement when Yoyi Pigeon came out of Headquarters. Mario Conde threw his cigarette on the ground and bid farewell to the stone where he’d been sitting for more than two hours, in the shade of the weeping figs planted in the street that ran along one side of the building.

“What a bloody mess we’ve got ourselves into, man… These police are like crabs; they want to crawl into everything. Even the car, your gold chains… And your friend Manolo is the worst: when he gets his teeth in, he won’t let go without a struggle. I thought they were going to keep me inside I swear.”

“What’s new: they don’t have anything and are looking for scraps to help them,” pronounced the Count as they walked up the avenue. “They’re at their most dangerous when they’re flailing around. If they let you go, it means they don’t have a thing to go on.”

“Oh yes they do,” whispered Yoyi and the Count looked at him quizzically. “Dionisio had a piece of paper with my telephone number in one of his pockets. I’d written it down…”

“I don’t get you,” hissed the Count.

“I gave him my telephone number, just in case…”

“Were you going to do business behind my back?”

“No, Conde, I swear I wasn’t… It was just in case.”

“So it was just in case… You’ve fucked up, Yoyi.”

“They say I’ve got to be reachable.”

“Don’t worry about that. So have I.”

“Who might have done it, Conde?”

“So far there are four likely candidates… and you and I are two of them. Amalia and the man who paid them a visit are the others… But it might have been someone else… In any case it was someone Dionisio knew.”

“But why the fuck should we want to kill him? It would only make doing business more difficult… You know that, don’t you?”

“They know that too. They realize we didn’t need to kill Dionisio for a few books we could buy for three or four dollars a time… But we police know odd things happen. For example, a future murderer and would-be corpse agree to do business and-”

“Don’t fuck on about that: all I did was give him my telephone number… But I get you. And look what you just said: we police know…” “Did I say that?”

Yoyi nodded.

“If there was a bit of policeman left in me, they killed it off today.”

“I think they’re really riled because we earn in one day what they get in a month, and we don’t have bosses or union meetings…”

“That’s true. But there are police who like to work properly. Like Manolo…”

“So what about the lame black guy who wanted to buy their books?”

“We’re going to find out who he is,” said the Count. “That’s the only lead we have, because apparently six books were removed from the section we’d not checked out, and that’s probably what Dionisio’s murderer was after… What I can’t get off my fucking brain is that hunch I’ve had from the moment I entered the Ferreros’ library. It’s one hell of a feeling. It’s stuck right there,” and he pointed to the exact spot in his chest where the hunch was burning him, “There was something strange in there and, I don’t know why, but I still think it’s all got to do with Violeta del Río…”