Philip Kerr - If the Dead Rise Not

I wasn’t interested in any of that any more than I was interested in the show, or listening to the band. Mostly I just watched the ash on the end of my cigar or the faces of the suckers at the other tables: women with bare shoulders and too much makeup, and men with Vaselined hair, clip-on ties, and Cricketeer suits. A couple of times the showgirls came parading around the tables just so that you could get a closer look at their costumes and wonder how something so small could keep a girl decent. My eyes were still brimful of wonder when, to my surprise, I saw Noreen Eisner coming through the club in my direction. And, sidestepping a girl who was all breasts and feathers, she sat down opposite me.

Noreen was probably the one woman at the Tropicana who wasn’t displaying either some cleavage or the whole toy shop. She wore a two-piece lavender-colored suit with tailored pockets, high shoes, and a couple of strings of pearls. The band was too loud for her to say anything or for me to hear it, and until the number finished, we just sat looking at each other dumbly and tapping our fingers impatiently on the table. It gave me plenty of time to wonder what was so urgent that she had driven all the way from Finca Vigía. I certainly didn’t think her being there was a coincidence. I supposed she had gone to my apartment first, and Yara had told her where I was. Maybe Yara would have let off some steam about how I hadn’t allowed her to come with me to the Tropicana, which meant that Noreen’s arrival wouldn’t have helped persuade her that my visit to the nightclub was for the strictly business reasons I had claimed. There probably would be some kind of scene when I got home.

I hoped Noreen was there to tell me what I wanted to hear. Certainly she looked grave enough. And sober, too. Which made a change. She was carrying a navy blue beaded evening bag with a petit-point floral chintz decoration. Opening the silver metal clasp, she took out a pack of Old Gold and lit one with a pearl gray lacquer cigarette lighter with little rhinestones on it, the only thing about her that was at all in keeping with the Tropicana.

Like most bands in Havana, this one took a while longer than was tolerable. I didn’t own a gun in Cuba, but if I had, I might have enjoyed using a set of maracas or a conga drum for a little target practice-really, any Latin American instrument, as long as it was actually in use at the time. Finally I could stand it no longer. I stood up and, taking Noreen’s hand, led her out.

In the foyer, she said, “This is where you spend your spare time, is it?” Out of habit she spoke German to me. “So much for Montaigne.”

“As a matter of fact, he already wrote an essay about this place and the custom of wearing clothes. Or not wearing them. If we were born with the need for wearing petticoats and trousers, nature, he says, would no doubt have equipped us with a thicker skin to withstand the rigors of the seasons. On the whole, I think he’s pretty good. Gets it right most of the time. About the only thing that man doesn’t explain is why you came all the way over here to see me. I’ve got my own ideas about that.”

“Let’s take a walk in the garden,” she said, quietly.

We went outside. The Tropicana’s garden was a jungle paradise of royal palms and towering mamoncillo trees. According to Caribbean wisdom, girls learn the art of kissing by eating the sweet flesh of the mamoncillo fruit. Somehow I had the feeling that kissing me was the last thing on Noreen’s mind.

In the center of the sweeping driveway was a large marble fountain that had once graced the entrance of the National Hotel. The fountain was a round basin surrounded by eight life-sized naked nymphs. It was rumored that the Tropicana’s owners had paid thirty thousand pesos for the fountain, but it reminded me of one of those Berlin culture schools once run by Adolf Koch at Lake Motzen for overweight German matrons who liked to throw medicine balls at each other in the nude. And, in spite of what Montaigne has to say about the matter, it made me glad that mankind had invented the needle and thread.

“So,” I said, “what did you want to tell me?”

“This isn’t easy for me to say.”

“You’re a writer. You’ll think of something.”

She puffed silently on her cigarette, considered this idea for a moment, and then shrugged, as if she’d thought of a way, after all. Her voice was soft. In the moonlight she looked as lovely as ever. Seeing her, I was filled with a dull ache of longing, as if the scent of the mamoncillo’s greenish-white flowers contained some sort of magical juice that made fools like me fall in love with queens like her.

“Dinah’s gone back to the States,” she said, still not quite coming to the point. “But you knew about that, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “Is this about Dinah?”

“I’m worried about her, Bernie.”

I shook my head. “She’s left the island. She’s going to Brown. I don’t see what you could possibly have to worry about. I mean, isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Oh, sure. No, it’s the way she suddenly changed her mind. About everything.”

“Max Reles was murdered. I think that might have had something to do with her decision.”

“Those gangsters he associated with. You know some of them, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do they have any idea who killed Max yet?”

“None at all.”

“Good.” She threw away her cigarette and quickly lit another. “You’ll probably think me crazy. But you see, it crossed my mind that, perhaps, Dinah might have had something to do with his murder.”

“What makes you say that?”

“For one thing, my gun-the one Ernest gave me-it’s gone. It was a Russian revolver. I had it lying around the house somewhere, and now I can’t find it. Fredo-Alfredo López? My lawyer friend has a friend in the police who told him that Reles had been shot with a Russian revolver. It sort of made me wonder. If Dinah could have done it.”

I was shaking my head. I hardly liked to tell her that Dinah had suspected that her own mother might be the murderer.

“There’s all that, and there’s the fact that she seemed to get over it so quickly. Like she wasn’t in love with him at all. I mean, didn’t it make any of those Mafia guys suspicious that she wasn’t at the funeral? Like she didn’t care?”

“I think people thought she was probably too upset to go.”

“That’s my point, Bernie. She wasn’t. And this is why I’m worried. If the Mafia comes around to the opinion that she did have something to do with Max’s murder, then maybe they’ll do something about it. Maybe they’ll send someone after her.”

“I don’t think it works like that, Noreen. Right now all they’re really concerned about is the possibility that Max Reles was killed by one of their own. You see, if it turns out that one of the other hotel and casino owners was behind the killing, then there could be a gang war. That would be very bad for business. Which is the last thing they want. Besides, it’s me they’ve asked to help find out who killed Max.”

“The mob has asked you to investigate Max’s murder?”

“In my capacity as a former homicide detective.”

Noreen shook her head. “Why you?”

“I guess they think I can be objective, independent. More objective than the Cuban militia. Dinah’s nineteen years old, Noreen. She strikes me as a lot of things. As a selfish little bitch, for one. But she’s not a murderer. Besides, it takes a certain kind of person to climb over a wall eight floors up and shoot a man seven times in cold blood. Wouldn’t you say?”

Noreen nodded and stared off into the distance. She dropped her second cigarette on the ground, half smoked, and then lit a third. Something was still troubling her.