Escape to Havana

by Nick Wilkshire

  Connors shook his head. “I think their main concern is explaining to their bosses how your place was ransacked while one of their guys was sitting out front with his thumb up his ass.”

  Charlie nodded. “He does watch a lot of TV.”

  “TV or not, he’s still fifty feet from the house, so unless they were smashing plates in here, it’s not really surprising that he didn’t hear anything, and it’s obvious they came in the back.”

  “What did they say about the cops who pulled me over?”

  “They weren’t cops,” Connors said, sipping his Scotch. “They checked and there’s no record of any of their guys pulling over a car with dip plates in Jaimanitas this evening.”

  “I knew it,” Charlie muttered, feeling like a fool. “I never even checked to see if the tail light was out.”

  “Most people wouldn’t. You said the car had a cherry on the roof?”

  “Yeah. One of those removable ones, you know? I least I think so…. It wasn’t there when I drove off.”

  “Well, they were definitely in on it. The way they had you wait around while they pretended to check your plates. They must have been in contact with whoever was in the house, and were giving them the chance to clear out before you got back.” Connors rubbed his chin. “Who knew your schedule for this evening?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Drew and Alena, and a few others at the embassy, I guess. I don’t think I told the housekeeper. She leaves at five anyway.”

  “Who’d you talk to at the Venezuelan embassy?”

  “I met their MCO, a new guy, just got here. There was a Dutch consular officer and his wife. Apart from that, I was mostly with Landon and his Aussie pals.”

  The two sat in silence, taking turns at their drinks.

  “And you say nothing’s missing?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “Well that’s good,” Connors said, as Charlie sat in silence, considering whether to voice the thought that had been preoccupying his rattled mind for the past several hours.

  He took a healthy sip of his drink before asking.

  “Do you think this is related to Amirjit Saini?”

  Connors paused, then shook his head. “I don’t see how. They didn’t seem interested in you, otherwise they would have either grabbed you when they pulled you over, or waited for you to come home and snuck you out the back door the same way they came in.”

  “But what were they looking for?”

  “I don’t know. Do you have anything especially valuable that you keep around here?”

  “I don’t have anything especially valuable, period,” Charlie said with a bitter laugh. “My ex-wife and her lawyer saw to that.”

  Connors smiled. “Well, the Cubans have posted another guard out front, and one for the back, so you can rest easy tonight. We’ll do up a full incident report tomorrow. Are you going to be okay? You could go stay in a hotel if you’d feel better.”

  “No, no. I’ll be fine. Listen, thanks a lot for coming over. Sorry to wreck your night.”

  “No problem,” Connors said, as he got up to leave. “And don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this, one way or another.”

  “Thanks,” Charlie said as he escorted Connors to the front door, noticing the guard in the booth had been replaced. After he had seen Connors out, Charlie went out back by the pool and sat on one of the loungers, trying to make some sense of the whole mess. He was trying to convince himself that his house had been the random target of thieves, albeit extremely well-organized ones, when he heard a rustling in the bushes at the far end of the yard and froze. He jumped out of his chair, his frayed nerves on full alert as a silhouette emerged from the bushes and waved. It was the second guard they had posted to watch his house.

  “Disculpas,” he said, seeing Charlie’s obvious alarm.

  Returning inside, Charlie slid the patio door shut, braced it with a broom handle, and double-checked the lock on the front door before heading upstairs.

  Stepping over the clothes strewn all over his bedroom floor, he decided to leave it all where it lay for now. It was late, and he didn’t have the energy to begin the daunting cleanup. He flopped on his bed and stared at the ceiling for a while, comforting himself with Connors’s opinion that that the break-in had nothing to do with Amirjit Saini. That worked for a couple of minutes, but he soon had to acknowledge another, far more worrying, possibility.

  Chapter 20

  “I just heard,” Landon said, arriving at Charlie’s office door. “Geez, you look like shit,” he added. “You okay?”

  “I’ve been better. I didn’t really sleep that well.” In fact, he had barely slept at all. After spending most of the early morning hours going over ever-worsening scenarios in his head, he had decided to make a start at cleaning up the mess. After an hour’s sleep, he had showered and waited for the housekeeper to show up so he could explain what had happened.

  Landon nodded. “I heard someone posing as a Cuban cop pulled you over?”

  “It was obviously well-organized,” Charlie said, sipping his second coffee of the day and giving Landon an abridged version of the night’s events.

  “What are you even doing here? You should go … well, somewhere other than here.”

  “I’ve got to meet with Gord and fill out an incident report. You know the drill. Plus, he’s supposed to be talking to the cops this morning, to see if they know anything more.”

  “Well, let me know if you’re still around for lunch.”

  “Chicken place?”

  “Sure.”

  Charlie sat at his computer, waiting for it to load up for the day, thinking about the mess he was in. He decided his only hope was to play dumb for Connors and the local cops, and hope to God he never had to convince the owner of the dope that he knew nothing about its whereabouts, much less tell them that he had dissolved it in his pool. When his computer beeped its readiness and brought him back to the real world, Charlie realized beads of sweat had formed at his hairline despite the air-conditioned chill of his office.

  Focusing on his email and scanning the list of messages in his inbox, he zeroed in immediately on one message and clicked it open. It was from Jillian Gray.

  Hi Charlie

  You must have some serious clout down there, because Redden and I got our visas already. Hope you can arrange meetings with the Cubans and the shortlist of developers for next week. I look forward to seeing you again and moving our transaction forward.

  JG.

  Charlie sat staring at the screen, his mind conjuring up his own personal highlight reel of Jillian Gray, starting with the image of her standing in his arms by the Malecón’s seawall, the soft ends of her windswept hair caressing his cheek just before they kissed.

  He sipped his coffee and reread the message, dismissing the opening flattery. Gray knew full well that it had been the ambassador’s call that had expedited the visa process, rather than anything to do with him. He briefly considered whether she was mocking him, but quickly moved on to the last bit, about “progressing our transaction,” which he thought was an interestingly ambiguous choice of words. He had read enough of Gray’s emails to know that her language was usually very precise. So what was she really saying? Whatever its true intent, Gray’s message lifted his spirits. In fact, he might have completely forgotten about the break-in if Gord Connors hadn’t appeared at his door.

  “Hey, Charlie. Glad to see you smiling again.”

  He clicked the message shut and waved Connors in. “You want to do the statement? Come on in.”

  “Actually, I thought we’d go over to the meeting room and do the statement there. The Cubans want to give us an update, too.”

  Charlie tried not to look nervous. He would just as soon avoid the update by the Cuban cops. But that might appear odd, and any appearance of odd behaviour on his
part could be extremely dangerous at this particular point.

  “Great,” he said, getting out of his chair and reaching for his coffee mug. “I’ll need a refill first, though. I really didn’t sleep much last night.”

  After stopping by the break room for a top-up, they walked over to the neighbouring building and settled themselves at the large table in the second-floor boardroom, Connors arranging some forms in front of them, Charlie gripping his coffee mug so hard his knuckles were turning white.

  “So,” Connors began, filling in the top of one of the forms. “We’ll start with the incident report. I’m just going to fill in the standard information and ask you to take me through what happened from the time you left the reception at the Venezuelan embassy to when you called me.” He looked up from the form and added: “You know how this works.”

  “Actually, this is a first for me.”

  “Well, just tell me everything you said last night. Then we’ll have it typed up and you can sign it.”

  Charlie nodded and began the narrative, punctuated by sips of coffee as Connors scribbled. When Charlie got to the part where he was pulled over, Connors interrupted.

  “You say you heard someone telling you to pull over. Did you hear a siren?”

  “No, there was a flashing red light on the roof of the car.”

  “And how long would you say you were stopped by the side of the road?”

  “All told, maybe ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “All right, carry on.”

  Charlie continued with the description of his drive home and arrival at the house, and his discovery of the break-in upon entering.

  “You said you didn’t think anything was taken.”

  “No. Nothing that I noticed.”

  “Okay, I need you to double-check today, if possible. And make sure you go through your shipping inventory. Make a note of anything missing … for insurance purposes.”

  Connors was still scribbling when the phone in the centre of the table rang. He hit the speaker button and the voice of the receptionist filled the room.

  “Gord, there are two police officers here to see you. Shall I have someone escort them up?”

  “I’ll come get them,” he said, hanging up. “Have a stretch, Charlie. I’ll be right back.”

  Charlie decided to heed the advice and got out of his chair as Connors left the room, walking over to the window and looking out at the street below. A young man was polishing the fender of a rust-covered Chevy. He yawned and stretched and was about to return to his seat when he saw Connors’s notes from the previous evening out on the table. Charlie leafed through them — an accurate summary of their discussion the night before, from what he could remember. He noticed another sheet of paper with the previous day’s date in the left-hand margin, under the heading “Cuban Police,” and was drawn to an underlined word: suspicious. He tried to read the rest of the text, but it was barely legible. Did it say “CH’s story” was suspicious? It wasn’t clear, but the mere possibility sent Charlie into a panic. There were other notes immediately below, but as he started to read them, he heard approaching footsteps and had to return to the other side of the table before they reached the door. Just as the men entered the room, Charlie shot a glance over the table to make sure he had not disturbed the papers.

  “Charlie, this is Sergeant Gutierrez and Detective Viernes. They’re both attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

  “Hola,” Charlie said, shaking their hands in turn as everyone took a seat.

  “We are very sorry for what happened,” Gutierrez began, after coffee and water had been offered and refused.

  “Thank you, I appreciate that,” Charlie said, as Gutierrez smiled and his younger partner just looked at him. Something about Detective Viernes made Charlie nervous.

  “And we want to assure you that we will take every measure to find these guilty parties. I have had a full report from my officers who were on the scene last night, and we have some further informations for you.”

  Charlie and Connors nodded, wondering what the new information was.

  “We have confirmed that the persons who stopped your car on the street near your house were not, in fact, members of the Cuban police. We have reason to believe that they were part of an organized gang that targeted your house for the robbery,” Gutierrez continued.

  “Have there been other robberies of this nature?” Charlie asked, noticing that Viernes was still staring at him.

  What the fuck’s he staring at?

  As if to answer, it was Viernes who spoke next.

  “No. This is why we are very interested in this case, Señor Hillier. May I ask, was anything taken?”

  “We don’t think so,” Connors interjected. “But I’ve asked Charlie to make a thorough search of the house today to identify anything that might be missing. We’ll make sure you get a copy of Charlie’s statement, as well, for your file,” he added, pointing to the papers on the table in front of him.

  “Thank you,” Viernes said as a thin smile creased his lips. It was gone by the time he turned to address Charlie again.

  “Do you keep valuables at your house? A safe perhaps?”

  “No to both,” Charlie said. He considered mentioning Jimmy the Leech’s role in his relative poverty, to add some levity to the conversation, but decided against it. This Viernes character didn’t seem like the kind to appreciate humour, even of the self-effacing variety. “I really don’t have much of value,” he continued, comfortable that this much at least was true. Almost depressingly so, he had thought, when he had done a quick inventory this morning. He had a crappy little TV/DVD combo, an even crappier stereo — he was pretty low-tech, even by Cuban standards — some ratty furniture, and some clothes. The only thing he considered remotely valuable was his antique desk, but its true value was mostly sentimental. “And there’s no safe.”

  “Have you noticed anything strange since you moved into the house, Mr. Hillier?” Gutierrez asked as Viernes opened his notebook.

  “No,” Charlie said, shrugging his shoulders. “You mean like …?”

  “Strange visitors, for example,” Viernes said, jumping in. He looked up from his notes and fixed Charlie with a stone-cold stare.

  “No,” Charlie answered quickly. His decision not to mention the two visits by the scantily clad young women had seemed like a sound one when he had made it at about three in the morning. It was only now, under Viernes’s stare, that Charlie was reconsidering his wisdom. He shifted in his seat and felt himself getting warmer as he considered the possibility that his house had been under surveillance all along. It also occurred to him that he had mentioned the visits to Landon. What if he had told Connors?

  “I’m a single guy,” Charlie said, deciding talking was better than sitting there squirming in silence. “New in town, you know? I haven’t had a lot of visitors.”

  “Of course,” Gutierrez said as Viernes scribbled some notes.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Charlie said, looking at Viernes this time. “Do you think this is related to what happened to Amirjit Saini?”

  “The Indian woman? Why would we think that?” Viernes replied.

  “I don’t know. One diplomat gets murdered and another gets his house robbed a week later. You don’t think that’s a strange coincidence?”

  “We don’t know what the motives were for the Saini woman’s death,” Gutierrez said, “but if they had wanted to kill you last night, Señor Hillier—”

  “We wouldn’t be meeting here this morning.” Charlie finished the thought, applying the same logic Connors had the night before.

  Gutierrez nodded his agreement.

  “Is very strange, non,” Viernes said, “that someone would go to such lengths to rob you when you have nothing worth stealing?” A pall seemed to descend over the room following Viernes’s statement, and Charlie de
cided to keep his mouth shut this time.

  “But we will find these thieves, that is for certain,” Gutierrez said, jumping in with an enthusiasm that fit well with his good-cop role.

  Charlie answered the rest of their questions, trying not to let Viernes unsettle him, and fifteen minutes later the meeting was coming to a close.

  “We will maintain the extra guards at your house until this matter is resolved,” Gutierrez said, “And you have our assurance that we will not stop until we have caught these men.”

  “Thank you,” Charlie said, as they all got up and Connors escorted the two cops out of the meeting room.

  “Was it just me, or was that Viernes guy acting strange?” Charlie said as they sat outside the canteen. Connors was sipping an espresso, while Charlie had opted for water.

  “I’ve met him before. He’s always like that. Don’t let him bother you.”

  “He wasn’t bothering me,” Charlie lied. “I just thought he was, I don’t know, weird.” He wondered whether Connors had any idea he was holding out on him as well as the Cubans, and what he would say if he knew. “Maybe I’m just tired,” he added, concealing his discomfort with a sip of water.

  “Why don’t you go home,” Connors suggested. “Get some shut-eye and check your inventory.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie said, “I’ve got to set up some meetings for the property team visit first, but I think I’ll head out after that. I really do need some sleep.”

  “They’re coming back already?”

  “Next week.”

  “That was quick.” Connors seemed surprised.

  “I guess the powers that be are on board to get this deal done as soon as possible.”

  “Well,” Connors said, finishing his coffee and getting up, “I’ll have this typed up for your review, and you can sign it before you go, or take it home with you if you like.”

  “Thanks, Gord. And thanks again for last night. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “No problem.”