Leonardo Padura - Havana Blue

When the Count entered headquarters he felt nostalgic for the peace and quiet of Sundays. It was barely five past eight. But it was Monday, and every Monday the world seemed to be coming to an end as if headquarters were preparing to evacuate before the outbreak of nuclear war: people couldn’t wait for the lift and rushed up the stairs; there was no space in the parking lot and exchanges of greetings were limited to a quick “All right then?”, “See you” or a garbled “Good day”; and suffering from the aftermath of his headache and dismal night, the Count preferred to respond with a wave of the hand and wait patiently in the queue for the lift. He knew he’d feel much better in half an hour, but the painkillers needed time to impact, although he wasn’t reproaching himself for not taking them the night before. He felt so pure and liberated after talking to Skinny that he forgot he’d never told him what happened with Tamara and also that he should set his alarm clock. Another episode in the nightmare in which Rafael Morín was chasing him to put him behind bars opened his eyes at exactly seven am and he felt like dying at least twice: when he got out of bed and his headache kicked off and when, seated on the pan, he ruminated over the nightmare he’d been suffering all night and the terrible feeling of being chased that still floated in his brain. Then he burst spontaneously into song: “You’re to blame, for all my sadness, for all my heartbreaks…” unable to fathom why he’d chosen that wretched bolero. He must be in love.

The lift stopped on his floor, and the Count looked at the clock on the wall: he was ten minutes late and wasn’t inclined or in the mood to invent some excuse. He opened the door to his cubicle and was blessed by Patricia Wong’s smile.

“Good morning, friends,” he greeted them. Patricia stood up to give him the usual kiss, and Manolo looked at him distantly and didn’t open his mouth. “What a nice smell, China,” he complimented his colleague and stopped for a moment to contemplate, as he always did, that impressive woman who was half-black and half-Chinese. Almost six feet tall and one hundred and eighty pounds distributed carefully with the best of intentions: her breasts small and no doubt very firm, hips like the Pacific Ocean, and buttocks that inevitably provoked a desire to touch or mount them and jump up and down, as if trampolining, to check out whether such a prodigious rump was for real.

“How are you, Mayo?” she asked, and the Count smiled for the first time that day on hearing that “Mayo” which was for Patricia Wong’s exclusive use. Besides, she helped his headaches with her little jars of Chinese pomade and fed his most hidden, never acknowledged superstitions: she was like a good luck charm. On three occasions Lieutenant Patricia Wong, the detective in the Fraud Squad, had presented him on a plate the solution to three cases that seemed about to evaporate in the innocence of the world.

“Still waiting for your father to invite me to eat another plate of bittersweet duck.”

“If you’d seen what he cooked yesterday,” she began as she struggled to fit her hips between the sides of the armchair. Then she crossed her long-distance runner’s legs, and the Count saw Manolo’s eyes were about to flee behind his nostrils. “He prepared quails stuffed with vegetables and cooked them in basil juice…”

“Hey, wait a minute, give us the full story! What did he stuff them with?”

“First, he crushed the basil leaves in a little coconut oil and boiled them. Then added the quail which was already bread-crumbed, basted in pork-fat and stuffed with almonds, sesame and five kinds of uncooked herbs: Chinese bean, spring onion, cabbage, parsley and a little something else, and finished it off with a sprinkling of cinnamon and nutmeg.”

“And was it ready to eat?” asked the Count, his morning enthusiasm peaking.

“But it must have tasted foul, I bet?” interjected Manolo, and the Count gave him a withering look. He wanted to say something cutting but first tried to imagine the impossible mixture of those strong, primary flavours that could only be blended by a man with old Juan Wong’s culture, and decided Manolo might be right, but he didn’t give up.

“Ignore the boy, China, his lack of culture will be the death of him. But you stopped inviting me long ago.”

“And you never ring me, Mayo. You even sent Manolo to bring me in on this job.”

“Forget it, forget it, it won’t happen again.” He stared at the sergeant, who’d just lit a cigarette at that hour of the morning. “And what’s up with this guy?”

Manolo clicked his tongue, meaning, “Leave me alone”, but he needed to talk.

“Oh, only a terrible row with Vilma last night. Do you know what she said? She reckons I invented an excuse about work in order to go out and lay someone else.” And he looked at Patricia. “And it’s all his fault.”

“Manolo, give me a break, please?” the Count pleaded, looking at the dossier open on the table. “You’re in a really bad state if you’re telling people I force you to do things… Did you explain to Patricia what we’re after?”

Manolo nodded reluctantly.

“Yes, he told me, Mayo,” Patricia intervened. “You know, I don’t hold much hope we’ll dig anything important out of the paperwork. If Rafael Morín is in some scam and as efficient as they say, he’ll have hidden his clothes before taking a dip. We can but try, I suppose.”

“You’ve got a team together?”

“Yes, two specialists. And you two as well?”

The Count looked at Patricia and then at Manolo. He realized his headache had disappeared but tapped his forehead and said:

“Look, China, just take Manolo along. I’ve got a number of things to see to here… I’ve got to read the reports which have come in…”

“There are none,” the sergeant informed him.

“You looked at everything?”

“Nothing from the coastguards or the provinces, the Zoilita business will gradually sort itself, and we’ve arranged to see Maciques at the enterprise.”

“All right, that’s fine,” the Count tried to wriggle out. He’d not seen eye to eye with statistics for some time and took pains to avoid that kind of routine research. “I won’t be much use to you there, will I? And I want to see the Boss. I’ll come and see you around ten o’clock, all right?”

“All right, all right,” parroted Manolo, shrugging his shoulders. Patricia smiled, and her slanted eyes vanished into her face. Could she see anything when she laughed?

“See you soon,” said Patricia, grabbing Manolo by the arm and dragging him out of the cubicle.

“Hey, China, wait a minute,” the Count asked, and he whispered in her ear. “What did the quail taste like yesterday?”

“What the kid said,” she whispered back. “Foul. But Dad scoffed the lot.”

“Just as well.” And he smiled at Manolo as he waved goodbye.

“Business deals involving lots of money are like jealous women: you can give them no reason to complain,” said René Maciques, and the Count looked at Manolo; the lesson was for free and he’d got it quite wrong. René Maciques was barely forty and not the fifty he’d imagined; and was no librarian but a television presenter persuasively using his voice and hands and constantly trying to tidy his bushy eyebrows with index finger and thumb. He was wearing a guayabera that seemed enamelled, it was so white, with a white embroidered pattern down the sides that was even brighter, and he flashed a glib gleaming smile. Three gold pens poked out from one pocket, and the Count thought only an asshole would try to show off his status with a display of pens. “If one is involved in that kind of business, one has to look trustworthy, appear relaxed as if the deal were already signed and exude quiet conviction. As I said, like a jealous woman: because at the same time, one must hint, quite matter-of-factly, that signing is no life or death matter, that one is aware of more attractive options, although one knows this couldn’t be bettered. Big business is a jungle where every animal is dangerous and one needs more than a rifle over one’s shoulder.” And the Count thought, the king of the metaphor, this one! “And I know no comrade more adept than Rafael at doing deals. I had the opportunity to work a lot with him here in Cuba and in negotiations abroad, on really challenging contracts, and he behaved like an artist, sold at the top and always bought at below market price; and buyers and sellers were very satisfied, although they knew in the end that Rafael had hoodwinked them. And best of all: he never lost a customer.”