Leonardo Padura - Havana Fever

“Very neat,” said the Count, “and, best of all, neither Yoyi nor I fit that version. We didn’t need to kill anyone or steal books that Dionisio could sell us at a bargain price…”

“And what if Yoyi tried to reach a deal and leave you out? There were books you didn’t want to sell because they were so rare… You told me some manuscripts might be worth a fortune… And the person who entered the house was someone Dionisio was acquainted with. He even knew where to find his knife.”

Conde looked at Manolo’s vague expression, eyeing him as suspiciously as if he held the trump card.

“Yoyi may be many things but he’s not a murderer.”

“How can you be so sure? Yoyi is in business and crazy about money…’

“Yoyi is also my friend,” concluded Conde and Manolo smiled: he knew what such a status meant in the ex-lieutenant’s ethics. “Forget him and look elsewhere.”

“I’m looking everywhere, but it’s like being a magnet: you turn it round, and when you let go, things turn by themselves and join up again…”

‘If you’d listened to me like you used to… Tell me, do you know why Dionisio left the corporation where he was working after he left the army?”

“More or less, though you can’t get a straight answer from anyone. It seems Dionisio was too strict and didn’t like the way he saw things being done there. You can imagine what. It seems he started getting difficult and they made his life impossible. He was the only one who had to leave.”

“I’d imagined something of the sort. He was a man of rock-solid principles. He almost starved to death as a result.”

“Conde, Conde!” Sergeant Estévañez’s summons interrupted the Count’s disquisition. “Oh, Captain, I didn’t know…”

“What’s the matter?” enquired Manolo.

“I found something odd: the case on that woman isn’t open but it’s not closed either…”

“This is looking good. But we’d better leave the toilets,” the Count suggested, “otherwise they’ll start suspecting I’m some policemen’s favourite piece of ass…”

The evening rain cleared away the grey haze that had wreathed the city since midday, as if releasing it from an oppressive burden, capable of driving it back into its weary foundations. The newly washed sky recovered its summery cheerfulness and a cool breeze rustled through the trees, painted by the impressionist light of dusk.

Muscular and spare in spite of his age, the man rocked gently in his wooden chair. He was looking dreamily into the garden, and every twenty-five to thirty seconds lifted his cigar to his lips. His face was momentarily hidden in a cloud of languorous smoke that began the perfumed ascent from his mouth to paradise, where the spirits of well-made and even better smoked havanas lived on eternally.

The Count observed him from his car window and was struck by an unmistakable wave of nostalgia. Seeing him smoking in the peaceful solitude of his porch, relaxed, apparently content, was a spectacle he never dreamt he’d be privileged to enjoy. In the ten years he’d worked to orders from that robust, gifted leader, the then detective lieutenant Mario Conde had felt a special fondness, a rich blend of differences and affinities, grow for the man with the cigar who, quite unselfishly, had given him the benefit of his massive experience in the police, the keys to his uncorruptible ethics and the more elusive benefits of his trust and jealous friendship. Consequently, when an Internal Investigations team had used their unlimited police powers and policies to decree that the man’s abilities were dwindling and decided to remove him from the force via the procedure of early retirement, the Count rushed into the void after him, in an act of blatant solidarity. He handed in his resignation, risked being suspected of acts of corruption, indolence and prevarication that had already cost several detectives their posts and even prison sentences and, by simple hierarchical fiat, had put an end to the mandate of the hitherto spotless Major Antonio Rangel.

“Is the chief you’ve got now better than the Boss?” the Count finally broke the silence, turning towards Manolo, seated behind the wheel.

“He was one in a million. Especially as far as you were concerned.”

“True enough,” replied the Count, opening the car door, ready to go to meet his past yet again.

When Rangel saw them approaching he stood up. At seventy he still retained his impressive chest, flat belly and brawny arms that he proudly nurtured and kept on display.

“I don’t believe it,” he said, smiling, a cigar between his lips.

Conde realized old age and separation from commander status had changed Rangel’s attitudes when he came over preparing to give them a hug. Could that man of iron have gone soft?

“Your cigar smells great. Where did you get it?” enquired the Count.

“When my wife brings out the coffee I’ll give you one… I’ve got two boxes of León Jimenes that have just arrived from Santo Domingo. You know, my friend Fredy Ginebra. And he sent a bottle of Brugal rum that’s…”

“That’s what good friends are for,” commented the Count. ‘What are your daughters are up to?”

A lightning flash of expectation lit up his former chief’s eyes.

“They’re planning to come over on holiday to see the New Year in. The one who married the Austrian is still living in Vienna, and giving Spanish classes. The one who went to Barcelona works for an insurance company… They’re both doing well. But I can’t stop worrying about them and my grand-children…”

“You got over your resentment then?” asked the Count. He remembered the Major’s foul mood provoked by his daughters’ decision to leave Cuba and lead their lives in a different hemisphere.

“I think so. I spend my time reckoning up how long it is since I last saw them… You know what the best of it is? My wife and I live on the money they keep sending us. The pension goes nowhere fast. Can you imagine me living on dollars I receive from my daughters?”

“Your daughters were always kind,” the Count opined, unsure how to leave that minefield. “I’d have married either…”

Antonio Rangel gave him that peculiarly profound stare that still made the Count shake in his shoes.

“It might not have been such a bad idea. I’d have had to put up with you as a son-in-law, I wouldn’t have the dollars that save my bacon now, but you’d have tied one of them to this bitch of a country… Why don’t we change the subject?”

“Of course,” agreed the Count. “Did you see what I brought you?” he said, pointing at Manolo.

“So you’re a captain now,” said Rangel, pointing at Manolo’s stripes and trying to haul himself out of his well of sadness.

“He’s turned out to be a bit of a bastard,” the Count interjected.

“Don’t take any notice, major, this guy’s always coming out with shit,” Manolo protested.

“Don’t worry. I never did take any notice of him. But don’t call me major… So what happened to you?” he asked, pointing at the Count’s face, “you look like you’ve been hit by a train.”

“You could say that.”

“The eyepatch is most becoming. When did you last have a shave?”

“I won’t answer that one. You’re not my boss any more…”

“True enough. Can you tell me what the fuck I owe the pleasure of this visit to?”

While they drank the coffee poured by their ex-chief’s wife and Conde lit a pale, silky smooth León Jimenes, Manolo gave Rangel the police version of the murder of Dionisio Ferrero’s death and the reasons why Mario Conde was involved in the investigation, without letting on that the former policeman was still on the suspects’ hot list.