Philip Kerr - If the Dead Rise Not

“Get out,” she snapped. “Get out of here.”

“And maybe your mother already told you about the man he murdered on a passenger ship between New York and Hamburg.”

“I didn’t believe her, and I don’t believe you now.”

“Sure you do. You believe all of it. Because you’re not stupid, Dinah. You’ve always known what kind of a man he was. Maybe you liked that. Maybe it gave you a cheap little thrill to be near someone like that. It can happen like that sometimes. There’s a fascination all of us feel for the kind of people who inhabit the shadows. Maybe that’s it, I don’t know, and I really don’t care. But if you didn’t know Max Reles was a gangster, then you certainly suspected as much. Strongly suspected, because of the company he kept. Meyer and Jake Lansky. Santo Trafficante. Norman Rothman. Vincent Alo. Every one a gangster. With Lansky the most notorious gangster of them all. Just four years ago Lansky was facing a congressional committee investigating organized crime in the United States. So was Max. That’s why they came to Cuba.

“I know of six people that Max has murdered, but I’m certain there are plenty more. People who crossed him. People who owed him money. People who were just inconveniently in his way. He’d have killed me, too, but I had something on him. Something he couldn’t afford to let be known. Max was shot. But his own weapon of choice was an ice pick, with which he stabbed people in the ear. That’s the kind of man he was, Dinah. A rotten, murdering gangster. One of many rotten, murdering gangsters who run the hotels and casinos here in Havana, any one of whom probably had his own very good reasons for wanting Max Reles out of the way.

“So keep your stupid mouth shut about your mother. I’m telling you now that she had nothing to do with it. You keep your mouth shut, or she’ll wind up dead on account of you. You, too, if you happen to get in the way. You don’t tell anyone what you told me. Got that?”

Dinah nodded, sullenly.

I pointed at the glass by her arm. “You drinking that?”

She looked at it and then shook her head. “No. I don’t even like whiskey.”

I reached forward and picked it up. “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead.”

I poured the contents into my mouth and sucked on them for a while before letting the whiskey drip down my throat. “I talk too much,” I said. “But this certainly helps.”

She shook her head. “All right. You’re right. I did suspect what he was like. But I was afraid to leave him. Afraid of what he might do. In the beginning it was just a bit of fun. I was bored here. Max introduced me to people I’d only ever read about. Frank Sinatra. Nat King Cole. Can you imagine it?” She nodded. “You’re right. And what you said. I had it coming.”

“We all make mistakes. God knows, I’ve made a few myself.” There was a pack of cigarettes on top of her clothes in the suitcase. I picked them up. “Do you mind? I’ve given up. But I could use a smoke.”

“Help yourself.”

I lit it quickly and sent some smoke down my hatch to go after the whiskey.

“Where will you go?”

“The States. To Rhode Island and Brown University, like my mother wanted. I suppose.”

“What about the singing?”

“I suppose Max told you that, did he?”

“As a matter of fact, he did. He seemed to think very highly of your talents.”

Dinah smiled sadly. “I can’t sing,” she said. “Although Max seemed to think I could. I don’t know why. I suppose he thought the best of me in all respects, including that one. But I can’t sing, and I can’t act. For a while it was fun pretending that any of that might be possible. But in my heart of hearts I knew it was all pie in the sky.”

A car came up the drive. I looked out of the open window and saw the Pontiac pull up next to the Oldsmobile. The doors opened, and a man and a woman got out. They weren’t dressed for the beach, but that was where they had been, all right, and you didn’t need to be a detective to know it. With Alfredo López, the sand was mostly on his knees and on his elbows; with Noreen it was almost everywhere else. They didn’t see me. They were too busy grinning at each other and dusting themselves off as they sauntered up the steps to the front door. Her smile faltered a little as she caught sight of me in the window. Perhaps she blushed. Maybe.

I went into the hall and met them as they came through the front door. By now the grins on their faces had turned to guilt, but it had nothing to do with the death of Max Reles. Of that much I was certain.

“Bernie,” she said awkwardly. “What a lovely surprise.”

“If you say so.”

Noreen went to the drinks trolley and began fixing herself a large one. López was smoking a cigarette and looking sheepish while pretending to read a magazine from a rack as big as a newspaper kiosk.

“What brings you down here?” she asked.

So far she had done a great job of not meeting my eye. Not that I was trying to put it in her way, exactly. But both of us knew that I knew what she and López had been doing. You could actually smell it on them. Like fried food. I decided to offer a swift explanation and then make myself scarce.

“I came to see if Dinah was all right,” I said.

“Why shouldn’t she be all right? Has something happened?” Noreen was looking at me, her embarrassment now temporarily overcome by concern for her daughter. “Where is she? Is Dinah all right?”

“She’s fine,” I said. “But Max Reles isn’t looking his best right now, on account of how someone pumped seven bullets into him late last night. As a matter of fact, he’s dead.”

Noreen stopped making her drink for a moment. “I see,” she said. “Poor Max.” Then she pulled a face. “Listen to me. What a damn hypocrite I am. As if I’m actually sorry he’s dead. And it’s not like I’m in the least bit surprised, given who and what he was.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry to sound callous. How’s Dinah taken it? Oh, Lord-she wasn’t there, was she, when he…?”

“No, she wasn’t,” I said. “Dinah’s just fine. Already getting over it, wouldn’t you know?”

“Do the police have any idea who killed Max?” asked López.

“Now, that’s a question, isn’t it?” I said. “I formed the impression that this is one crime the police are hoping will solve itself. Either that or someone else will solve it for them.”

López nodded. “Yes, you’re probably right, of course. The Havana militia can hardly start asking too many questions without the risk of upsetting the whole rotten apple cart. In case it turns out that one of Havana’s other gangsters should prove to be responsible for Max’s murder. There’s never been a gangland murder in Cuba. Not of a boss, anyway. The last thing I imagine Batista needs is a gangland war on his doorstep.” He smiled. “Yes, I think I’m pleased to say that the politics of this thing look fiendishly complicated.”

As it turned out, things were a lot more complicated than that.

IGOT BACK AROUND SEVEN and ate the cold dinner that Yara had left for me on a covered plate. While I ate I looked through the evening newspaper. There was a nice picture of the president’s wife, Marta, opening a new school in Boyeros; and something about the forthcoming visit to Havana of the U.S. senator from Florida, George Smathers. But Max Reles didn’t get a mention, not even in the obituaries column. After dinner I fixed myself a drink. There wasn’t much to that. I just poured some vodka from the refrigerator into a clean glass and drank it. I was settling down to take the place of Montaigne’s dead friend. It seemed a pretty good definition of a reader. Then the telephone rang, which reminded me that there are times when a dead friend is your best friend.