Leonardo Padura: Havana Gold

Poor Lázaro, he’ll go to the bonfire like an Indian, without blue smoke or dawn lights, already sentenced to the first space in the seventh circle of hell, to burn eternally with those who’ve wrought violence on their neighbour.

He walked into the boss’s secretary’s office and was surprised by Maruchi’s smile. She waved at him, wait, wait, stop, and tiptoed from behind her desk over to the Count.

“What’s got into you, my girl?”

“Keep your voice down, young man,” she insisted, her hands urging him to lower the volume, as she whispered. “Hey, he’s in there with Cicerón and Fatman Contreras and he asked me to take them coffee. Do you know what they were talking about when I went in?”

“About a corpse.”

“About you, young man.”

“About a corpse,” confirmed the lieutenant.

“Don’t be silly. He was telling Fatman and Cicerón you’d put them both on the trail of two big cases. That you’d uncovered. What do you reckon?”

“The Count tried to smile but failed.

“Very nice.”

“Ugh, don’t be so boring…” she said assuming her normal tone of voice.

“Tell him I’m here, go on.”

The head of office returned to her desk and pressed her red intercom button. A tinny voice asked “Yes?” and she announced his presence: “Major, Lieutenant Conde is here.”

“Tell him to come in,” the metallic voice replied.

“Maruchi, thanks for the headlines,” said the Count and he stroked the secretary’s hair. She smiled, a flattered smile that surprised the Count. Could this darling really fancy him? He went over to the glass door and rapped it with his knuckles.

“Go on, come in,” shouted the Major, and the Count opened the door.

Wearing his uniform and official decorations, the Boss was standing behind his desk as if commiserating over another deceased – “me,” thought the lieutenant, with the two mourners opposite: Captains Contreras and Cicerón.

“You’re in good company,” he quipped to relieve the tension, and saw Fatman Contreras smile as he stood up, his veins swelling as he suddenly hauled up his three hundred pounds of flesh and bone.

“How are you, Conde?” And he held out his hand. Shit you, thought the lieutenant, dropping his poor hand on Contreras’s, whose smile broadened when he unleashed all his pressure on the Count’s defenceless fingers.

“Fine, Captain.”

“All right, sit yourselves down,” the Boss ordered. “Well now, Conde, where are you at with your case?”

The Count sat in the sofa that was to the Major’s right. He put the envelope he’d brought down by his side and tapped it before replying.

“It’s all here. I brought the tapes in case you want to hear them. And tomorrow the public prosecutor will receive our report.”

“That’s all fine and dandy, but what did you turn up?”

“Lázaro San Juan, just as we thought. The party took place, with two other friends, they drank rum, smoked marijuana and she rowed with Lázaro when he asked her for the physics and maths exams. The problem was that Lázaro sold the exam answers for five pesos a time. It was a good deal, because there were the answers to as many as ten questions and he had a select, faithful clientele.”

“Don’t be sarcastic,” the Major interjected.

“I’m not being sarcastic.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I swear I’m not, Boss.”

“I told you never to swear anything in front of me.”

“Well, I won’t.”

“Well, are you going to continue with your report or not?”

“I’ll continue,” sighed the Count, delaying before lighting up another cigarette. “She kicked them out of the house, that was her drunken state talking, it seems, but Lázaro went back after his friends caught their bus. She opened up for him, they made up, had sex and he lit another joint he’d brought along. They smoked it between them, always from his hand, that’s why there were no traces on her fingers. And then he asked her for the exams again. The bastard had got the habit. She dug her heels in and tried to kick him out again and he says she struck him in the face and he lost his temper and went for her, started hitting her and before he realized it had strangled her. He says he doesn’t know how he could. Sometimes these things happen, being high on loads of dope doesn’t help… now he’s crying. It was an effort, but he’s crying. I’m sorry for the kid, he made his confession without looking at us. He asked me to let him stand by the window and talked the whole time staring into the street. It’s not going to be easy for him. It’s all here,” he repeated tapping the envelope again, which sounded like a warning drumbeat in the silence.

“A pretty tale, is it not?” asked the Boss getting to his feet. “A boy at Pre-Uni and his teacher as protagonists and a headmaster, a dealer in stolen motorbikes and dope peddler in supporting roles; a bit of everything: sex, violence, drugs, crime, alcohol, fraud, currency swindles, black-marketing, sexual favours and just deserts,” he said and suddenly switched his tone. “It makes you want to vomit. Tomorrow I’ll have your report sent everywhere, Conde, everywhere…”

And he went back to his seat and the battered cigar he’d been fighting all afternoon. It was a sad, dark cheroot, all dark ash and acrid aroma. He took two drags, as if taking a necessary but foul medicine, and said:

“Contreras and Cicerón have been telling me about the case’s other ramifications. That Pupy sang so much they almost had to kick him to shut him up. We got further up the pole thanks to him, to three functionaries working in foreign embassies, two fellows from Cubalse, the wholesale people, three from INTERTUR, two taxi drivers and a load of pimps.”

“Eight for starters,” smiled Contreras.

“And the marijuana racket is a fuse that keeps burning and we’ll watch where it takes us. The peasant from Escambray seems straight out of some film scenario: they supplied him with drugs to sell as his own to various dealers like Lando. We’ve caught three more. And we’ll get the man in Trinidad who supplied the peasant and we’ll go on until the bomb explodes, because we’ve got to find out where that marijuana came from and how it got into Cuba, because this time I don’t swallow the story about how they found it washed up on the seashore. Until the bomb explodes…”

“And the shit hits the fan,” whispered the Count very quietly.

“What was that?” asked the Major.

“Nothing, Boss.”

“But what did you say that I didn’t catch?”

“That the shit will hit the fan. And not only in La Víbora Pre-Uni.”

“Shit will hit the fan, right,” agreed the Major as he tried in vain to get a drag out of his blackened cigar. “And it’s coming my way already,” he said, looking appalled and showing the ersatz cigar to them all. He stood up, walked over to the window and threw the cigar into the street, as if he hated it. Which, of course, he did. When the Major turned his back to the group, Cicerón looked at the Count and smiled: raised his right arm and gave a V for Victory sign.

The Major went back to his desk and leaned his knuckles on the wood. The Count prepared himself for his harangue.

“Although it goes against the grain, Conde, I have to congratulate you. You were the person who unravelled the piece-of-shit stories we got from Pupy and Lando and you solved the Pre-Uni business. The currency swindle and purchases from diplomatic shops will bring in other people and the Central American marijuana will take us into the stratosphere, I’m quite sure, because this is no low-level operation. So I congratulate you on all these fronts, but tomorrow after you’ve delivered your report, I want you to go home, make yourself comfortable, in pyjamas and all, and don’t you show your face back here until the disciplinary committee calls you in.”