Leonardo Padura - Havana Fever

“Did they kick you out of the police?”

“No, I left because I wanted out.”

The African half shut his eyes to process that information.

“I get it: now you work for foreigners and run one of those so-called corporations, right? You getting lots of the green’uns?”

“I don’t run a thing. Can I come in?”

“Swear again you’re not a policeman. Come on, swear on your children, who you’ll find dead when you get home if you’re lying…”

“I swear.”

In his peculiar situation, the Count had decided it was better to tell the African the truth, or at least part of the truth related to his search for the lost past of Violeta del Río, however incredible it might seem to a rational ear. While he told the story, he tried to imagine how his ex-informant could help him, but he’d only just started to say why he was so interested, when the man dashed his hopes of a quick fix by stating he knew the names of every stray dog in the barrio, but had never heard of Elsa Contreras, let alone any Lotus Flower.

“You’re fucked. I can’t help you,” Juan concluded, a happy smile in his bloodshot eyes, no doubt pleased to think that, now he could be no help, the Count would beat a quick retreat back the way he’d come.

“I need to be sure that woman doesn’t live around here. I’ve got to talk to someone who really knows this barrio. Or don’t you want to earn yourself a few pesos? Look, can’t you introduce me as your ex’s cousin who’s going to spend a few days with you… I don’t know, because I’ve just got out of the clink, OK?”

The African laughed, almost roared.

“You gone mad? Conde, everybody here’s just out of the cage. What prison do I say you were in if nobody saw you, whichever one you were in?”

Conde agreed it wasn’t a good idea, and then the African suggested: “I know, we’ll say you’re a cousin of the girl from Guantanamo, but have come from Matanzas… Your business was killing cows and the police were after you and you came here to let things cool down. What do you reckon?”

“I’d buy that.”

“But you can’t stay here. There’s no room…” He opened his arms wide and almost touched the walls of the two and a half by four-yard hole.

“I can leave at night and come back in the morning.”

“And as soon as you find the woman, you disappear…”

“I’ll disappear,” the Count agreed

“If that’s it, then OK. Now down to the serious stuff: how much is the job worth?”

“A thousand pesos,” said the Count, sure such a figure would clinch it.

“I don’t put my life on the line for a thousand.” The African yawned and stroked one of the three scars on his face, that were blacker and shinier than the rest of his skin. “Two thousand, and you pay for food and everything else.”

“OK,” replied the Count without flinching.

“Right then, to get a feel for the place, let’s have a few drinks down the street, then we’ll eat in Veneto’s underground chop shop. He knows about everything that moves around here. I’ll make sure he sits down with us and you find a way to find out about that woman without him realizing you’re really after something else. But be warned: if they smell a rat, we’ll both be done for…”

“It’s not such a big deal,” replied the Count, and the African shrugged his shoulders.

“Give me the money. I need it right now.”

Conde looked at the ex-convict and shook his head.

“I might seem crazy or an asshole, but I’m not…”

“All right, give me half,” the African almost pleaded. “Look, just so you know: people here want my guts. I did a bit of business, it went bad and I owe them. If I can give them something on account, they’ll calm down a bit. If not, I can’t set foot in the street… Those guys don’t believe anything…”

Conde pondered for a moment and realized he didn’t have much choice.

“All right, I’ll give you half. And the rest when the woman puts in an appearance.”

When they went out into the street, the raging midday sun had dispersed the crowds. Music now filled the spot once occupied by people, flooding the space, melodies criss-crossing, competing in volume to blast the minds of anyone who risked entering that atmosphere steeped in sones, boleros, meringues, ballads, mambos, guarachas, hard and soft rock, danzones, bachatas and rumbas. The houses with entrances onto the street, open windows and doors, tried to take in a little of the warm air, while men and women of all ages rocked on their chairs, enjoying the artificial breeze from fans and the deafening music, while, resigned to their lot, they watched dead midday hours pass by.

They walked into a tenement and in the inside yard several men were drinking beer, equally gripped by the music. A mulatta in her forties, with coloured beaded plaits and sheathed in lycra pants straining to contain the excessive poundage of her buttocks, seemed to own the establishment and she stared straight at the African when she saw him come in with a stranger.

“Two lagers and don’t piss around. This guy’s my buddy.”

“I couldn’t care fucking less if he’s your buddy: I just don’t like strangers around here…” the mulatta shouted, looking defiantly at the Count.

“Africa, let’s go fucking elsewhere, she can stick her beers up her ass,” reacted the Count, half-turning round to leave, when a voice from behind stopped him in his tracks.

“Hey, friend, not so fast.” The Count looked round. Michael Jordan was now standing next to the African, or at least his double was: a huge, brawny black guy, with a shaved head, wearing the uniform of the Chicago Bulls. “This woman talks a lot of shit.”

“Why all the secrecy, if the whole barrio knows you sell beer?” asked the Count, accepting the freezing beer on offer from Michael Jordan, whose other hand held one for the African.

“I’ll have that lager please,” Juan demanded, smiling.

“So you’re safe to walk the streets?” enquired Michael Jordan, handing it over.

“Next stop is Veneno’s. I’m getting there.”

“Pleased to hear it,” said Michael Jordan, smiling in turn, “you’re ugly enough when alive, dead you’d scare the living daylights…” and he flashed the whitest of smiles at the Count.

Three beers on, Mario Conde had explained how rustling and slaughtering cattle worked in the increasingly scalped plains of Matanzas and was himself informed about the spots in the barrio where they sold basketball kit, baseball and football shirts, powdered milk, cooking oil and the site of the best supplied stock of electrical goods in the city, all sourced directly from nearby warehouses in the port. By his fifth he had a pretty accurate idea where and when in the barrio you could get marijuana or pills to pop, and discovered it was possible to buy crack and coke, and what the going rates were for: head-downers specializing in fellatio, slags, who came the cheapest but highly unrecommended, the Juanitas-of-all-trades, ready for anything and down-on-their-luck whores, easy goers who could be hunted down, in the late early hours, sometimes at very reasonable price (though always in dollars), if they were desperate after a night of wasted incursions into city hotels and tourist spots… They lived a life that was at once frantic and slow, with time to drift along and time to struggle by, in that ghetto, the streets of which were periodically visited by a couple of police on the beat or a patrol car, as a reminder that the cage doors were always open.

“Let’s eat. I’m ravenous,” suggested the African, and they went back into the noise and the sun.

They crossed filthy streets, each as filthy as the next, until they clambered through a hole in a ramshackle wood and zinc wall that barely hid the ruins of a three-storey building. It now had neither roof nor mezzanine, only a skeletal frame, where small zinc and canvas panels hung, held in place by wire and wooden props, attempting to shelter a few shapeless objects and some huge cardboard boxes.