by Jose Latour
“My name is Manuel Miranda.”
“I’m Félix Trujillo. I’m with the DTI.”
They shook hands.
“My daughter tells me you are conducting the investigation, and that you … suspect my son was murdered.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
The general was imperious now, as if ordering a subordinate to explain himself. Trujillo considered the question for a moment. “When was the last time you saw your son?”
Miranda didn’t seem to resent having his question ignored. “I can’t tell you exactly. Prison records will show when. Maybe two, three months ago.”
“He went to visit you?”
“Right.”
“Did he tell you anything I might find relevant to his case?”
The man considered the question for a moment, then shrugged. “He didn’t tell me anything out of the ordinary. But for the second time he presented me with a hundred dollars. The first time I asked him how he made this money. He said part of his pay at the corporation was in dollars.”
“When was the first time he gave you a hundred dollars?”
“Last Christmas.”
“So, Pablo didn’t tell you anything that might suggest he was involved in something illegal or dangerous?”
“He did not.”
“He didn’t mention that he was buying or selling something on the side, mixing with the wrong people, screwing some married broad?”
The instant he said it, Trujillo realized it was the wrong thing to say. Yet, it was a valid assumption. Oh yeah, this prisoner of all people would say it was a more than valid assumption.
Miranda narrowed his eyes. “He never said he was trafficking in anything, if that’s what you mean. He did mention he was screwing some of the best broads in Havana, but the way he talked, it sounded as if he was referring to unattached women who just want to have a good time. You know: the nightclub, the food, the drinks, some money. He never mentioned a specific woman by name. It was just women, in general.”
“So, there was no reason for you to worry about your son, his lifestyle?”
Miranda glanced at the two women, then looked back at the police officer. “Maybe I should have questioned him about the money. But I knew he was working at the corporation, I know foreign partners give the staff bonuses in dollars to make them more motivated. So, I didn’t lose sleep over his giving me money.”
Trujillo offered his packet of Populares to Miranda, who shook his head. The captain lit one. “Now, comrade, I know who you are, the positions you held. A man like you makes many friends, but many enemies too. You think this could be a politically motivated crime? In revenge for some revolutionary duty you performed in the past?”
Miranda lifted his eyes to the ceiling, then shook his head and grinned. “That theory would provide hundreds of suspects. I’ve done many things: killed people in combat, commanded firing squads, sent men to prison, taken hundreds of prisoners, but all that happened so many years ago I doubt anyone would still harbour enough anger to … kill my son, who had nothing to do with any of that.”
It sounded plausible. It would be a first: someone waiting twenty years to even the score. “Excuse me, but I have to bring this up. Perhaps someone related to the man you shot in your home, or to your second wife …”
“I don’t think so. I had every right in the world to act as I did. Nobody avenges traitors.”
Absolutely adamant; case closed; no argument. Well … maybe, the cop speculated. But it was an angle he would have to explore. “When did you begin your sentence?”
“In 1980.”
“So, you are on the pass system.”
“I am.”
“When you go out on a pass, where do you spend your time?”
Miranda stiffened and his glance froze. “You can find out from the prison officials,” he said huffily.
Trujillo took off his cap and scratched his head, then spoke in a low tone. “Your son was murdered, General Miranda. There’s no doubt about it. Somebody broke his neck. I feel sure your daughter has already told you he had cocaine in his possession. In his bedroom we found $2,900 and forty-three pornographic videos. Pablo was obviously involved in something shady or dangerous, or both. My job is to find out what happened to him and I would appreciate it, probably he would appreciate it too, if you make things a little bit easier for me.”
Suddenly, tears slid down the ex-general’s cheeks. No sobs, no sniffling. Trujillo looked away. Love? Guilt? A combination of both? Miranda pulled out a handkerchief. A few moments later he spoke. “I remarried six years ago. I spend most passes at my wife’s house. Sometimes we catch a movie, go out to eat, but generally we stay home. Every five or six months I visit Elena and Pablo on Sunday mornings, at their place.” He sighed. “I reckon I should visit her more often from now on.”
Trujillo approved. “When was your last pass?”
“Last weekend. I leave Tinguaro every Friday afternoon; have to be back on Sunday evening.”
Trujillo put on his cap. “Thank you. Rest assured that if I find out who killed your son, I’ll ask permission from my superior officer to make a full report to you. I need to brush up on my history, but a man I respect and admire respects and admires you a great deal, comrade. And, please, accept my condolences.”
Miranda stared at the police officer. “Thank you, Captain.”
Trujillo said his goodbyes to Elena and Gladys, then left.
Back at the DTI, he spent more than three hours pecking with two fingers at a manual Olivetti, typing up his reports on the Pablo Miranda case and that morning’s robbery. He went to bed at a little after 5:00 a.m.
* Department of Technical Investigations
** Central Laboratory of Criminology
† Institute of Legal Medicine
* Committee for the Defence of the Revolution
3
Silver-tongued Comrade Carmelo Fonseca, the general manager of Turintrade, was in his early fifties. Dressed in a white guayabera, khaki Dockers, and a pair of smart shoes, Comrade Fonseca was masterfully combining grief with satisfaction as he greeted Trujillo. Grief, because the firm had lost its office manager; satisfaction at the pleasure and the privilege of assisting the hard-working, underestimated, anonymous heroes of the PNR.*
Fonseca had an engaging smile, perfect teeth, shiny black hair, with grey threads along the temples, and a firm handshake. An inch under six feet, he was overweight. But it made him look good, Trujillo realized. Like the nice cigar and the catalogues on the table behind his high-backed executive chair, his paunch contributed to the air of a successful businessman.
Anita Owen eased herself out of the general manager’s private office and very gently closed the door, as though she had just left a chapel. Fonseca’s secretary was a stunning blonde in her early thirties blessed with the dreamy green eyes and the full, well-formed lips and long legs most men love. A few minutes earlier, in the anteroom to the general manager’s private office, as they had sat in two armchairs facing her desk, waiting for Fonseca to arrive, Pena had whispered to Trujillo: “Do you have a theory as to why most women in these places are so fucking attractive?”
Trujillo’s response was a wry grin. What Pena meant by “these places” were corporations, joint ventures, and dollars-only stores, shops, and boutiques, the businesses with the country’s most coveted full-time jobs. A job in a hotel, outlet, or the office of one of these companies offered a better standard of living than working in a school, hospital, or government office. While investigating a few robbery cases, Trujillo had visited several to interview various managers and executives. Each time he’d noticed how many highly attractive women there were. It spoke volumes about some executives’ recruiting policies.
“I heard the news yesterday, around noon,” Fonseca was saying. “I sent my secretary to find out why Pablo had missed two days in a row. He lives, lived, two blocks away. Well, of course you know that. Pablo’s sister had just returned from the m
orgue. Anita came back in tears. But no one here knows what happened to him. He had an accident or what?”
“No, comrade, it was not an accident,” Major Pena began. “He was murdered. Somebody broke his neck.”
Fonseca was rendered speechless for a moment. He shook his head in disbelief. “Why?”
“That’s what we are trying to find out,” Pena said.
Fonseca unsuccessfully dragged on his cigar and scowled. “Okay. You just tell me how we can co-operate and we’ll do it. Whatever the cost, no matter how much time it takes, we’ll do it.”
Pena and Trujillo nodded. This was the kind of big-shot jargon they heard whenever a warehouse was robbed, a state-owned car stolen, a cashier held up. The important entrepreneur willing to help police solve a crime, putting his organization at their service. Observance of unwritten rule number two: full cooperation with the police and the State Security.
“Well, first of all we would like to have a word with you. Then we need to talk with everyone on your staff who worked with Pablo.”
“Consider it done.” Fonseca swivelled his chair round energetically and pressed an intercom key. “Anita, call the Ministry of Foreign Trade and cancel the meeting. No phone calls until I finish with the comrades.”
Suppressing smiles, Pena and Trujillo exchanged a glance.
Eight years earlier, when Marco Ferrero, the major stockholder of EuroAmerican Trading, a company based in Turin, Italy, signed the documents that gave birth to its Cuban-Italian joint venture, the Cuban government had appointed Fonseca as its representative. He had no experience whatsoever in trade, didn’t speak a second language, hadn’t a clue what terms like promissory note and letter of credit meant, and was unable to operate a computer, fax, photocopier, or any other piece of office equipment. At the time, Fonseca estimated he had spent less than fifty hours inside offices in his entire lifetime.
However, as political reliability was the primary qualification, Fonseca possessed all the required credentials: a retired army colonel, specialty tanks, he’d served in Angola and Ethiopia and was a militant of the Communist Party. He was extremely obliging when dealing with superiors; stubborn and obstinate when giving orders to subordinates. Fonseca didn’t need to be told where his loyalties lay: he was supposed to report to the Cuban authorities whatever the foreign partner might try to keep secret concerning sales, prices, accounting, profit margins, taxes, new products, and long-term planning. The Cuban staff under him was very helpful in this, his most important revolutionary duty.
Marco Ferrero had honed his negotiating skills in Communist countries, had figured out the system’s weaknesses and the role his Cuban manager was supposed to play. The Italian businessman also relied on the fact that human nature is the same everywhere. So the first thing he did was to present Fonseca with a brand-new Toyota Corolla. His Cuban manager was no longer to ride the jalopy he had been sold seventeen years earlier, while in the army. Buses were out of the question. It was a matter of image, the Italian partner explained.
Gradually, as Fonseca used up his generous allowance for incidental expenses taking clients – executives from seemingly private companies that are actually government-owned – to restaurants, clubs, and bars, as he handed out Christmas gifts, as he got accustomed to the bonuses, the two trips a year to Milan, the posh office, the much younger and tremendously attractive secretary-lover, he discovered a fresh perspective on life, vastly different from the one viewed through the periscope of a Russian tank.
What the Cuban authorities were unaware of, what Marco Ferrero and even Carmelo Fonseca himself hadn’t known, was his knack for making deals and cutting corners. He knew things no university teaches: how to entice, persuade, reward, and punish. He was a quick learner. He was good at categorizing people. And, unacknowledged even by him, he was ambitious. His one serious flaw was having too much self-confidence.
For five years, Fonseca managed to please both Ferrero and his Cuban handlers, and was rewarded with a promotion to general manager. Ferrero visited the island three or four times a year, spent from a week to ten days each time overseeing and giving orders by day, and cultivating and extending his circle of bisexual, gay, and lesbian acquaintances by night. On his return flights to Milan, comfortably sipping champagne in his first-class seat, the Italian congratulated himself for having what Graham Greene had in mind when he came up with the title for his world-famous novel. EuroAmerican Trading had a man in Havana.
“First of all,” Pena said, to break the ice, “did you notice any change in Pablo’s behaviour in the last few weeks? Did he look unnerved, anxious, anything like that?”
Fonseca shook his head slowly and curved his lips downward. “No, Major. Pablo was … the same as always.”
“How was his work ethic?”
Eyes locked on the ceiling, chair slightly reclined, in an effort to impress upon the cops that he was very seriously pondering his response, Fonseca said, “I wouldn’t say he was a workhorse, or entirely devoted to the company, but he performed his duties with diligence and responsibility.”
“You know if he had a relationship with some woman working here?”
A straight-faced Fonseca shook his head vigorously, then checked himself. “Well, as you comrades can understand, one can never be sure about that sort of thing, but as far as I can ascertain, no employee or executive of this firm is sexually involved with another member of staff.”
“What about women in general?” Trujillo asked. “Would you say he was what they call a skirt-chaser?”
“Pablo? Are you joking?” Fonseca had a half-smile of incredulity on his lips. He found it difficult to keep a straight face. “That short, bald, skinny guy? I doubt that many women would feel attracted to him.”
“Maybe he could pay for sex.”
“Well, yes, that’s a possibility.”
“How much did he make here?”
“I’d have to check the records. It was something like 325 or 340 pesos a month.”
“No, no,” Trujillo said knowingly, “that’s what he made at ACOREC. I mean here. How much did he make here?”
Trujillo was referring to one of the Cuban employment agencies that hire out personnel to foreign companies and joint ventures. They all charge in dollars, and pay their Cuban workforce in pesos. Their employees agree to this because foreign managers make under-the-table payoffs in dollars to spur productivity.
“Well, the Italian party has insisted on giving bonuses and incentives to our staff,” Fonseca began. “It’s something all firms do.”
“Something that’s against the law,” Pena said.
“Technically, yes,” Fonseca agreed. “But since –”
“Don’t worry, Comrade Fonseca,” said Pena, smiling away his interruption. “Everybody in Cuba knows how it works. The authorities turn a blind eye, so it’s not our problem. It’s just one of those regulations enacted for appearance’s sake, to please some bigwig, that’s impossible to enforce. We just want to know how much your firm paid Pablo monthly.”
“He picked up around fifty dollars a month,” Fonseca said, dying to relight his cigar but suspecting that cops smoking lousy Populares might envy his excellent Cohiba.
Trujillo turned in his chair to face Pena. “Fifty dollars at the present rate of exchange is 1,050 pesos, plus 325 or 340 from ACOREC, that’s close to 1,400 a month. Not bad for a single man.”
“Not bad,” Pena agreed.
“But it still doesn’t explain how Pablo could have saved $2,900,” Trujillo said as he turned to lock eyes with Fonseca again.
The general manager appeared to be mystified. “Did you say dollars?”
“Exactly. We found the money at his place.”
For a moment Fonseca stared vacantly at the closed door behind the cops. “I must order an audit immediately.”
“Good idea,” Pena said. “But right now we would like to take a look at Pablo’s workspace.”
“Certainly.”
“We would appreciate it i
f you’d come with us.”
“Sure.”
Pablo Miranda had shared his cubicle with the man in charge of procurement, who was out buying office supplies. The only odd thing the cops found were ten new VHS-format video cassettes in the third drawer of a filing cabinet.
“Did Pablo’s work include using video cassettes?” Pena asked.
Fonseca shook his head. “We don’t even have a VCR here,” he said, then relit his cigar with a gold lighter. No throwaway for the comrade, Pena noticed.
“Maybe he bought these for someone else,” Trujillo said. “Any big video fans among your employees, Comrade Fonseca?”
“I’m not aware of any.”
The general manager seemed a little tense, Pena thought. “Well, we’ve taken up a lot of your time, comrade,” he said. “We will just check in with you before leaving, after we’re finished with other people here. Who should we talk to first? His closest friend maybe?”
“That would be Rivero, the guy who sits at that desk there, but he’s out. So, just take your pick. I’ll send Anita to introduce you to the other comrades.”
The rest of the staff had nothing to add. Pablo had been a nice guy, always sharing a joke and a laugh, a very conscientious employee. What had happened to him? After almost two hours questioning the nine members of staff, Pena and Trujillo returned to Fonseca’s office.
“Are you done? Please take a seat,” the general manager said.
“Yeah, we’re done,” Pena said as he slid into an armchair. “Except for the cleaning lady and the gardener. We talked to all the others, including Rivero, who arrived half an hour ago. We want to thank you for your cooperation, Comrade Fonseca.”
“Don’t mention it. It’s my duty. I hope you found a lead, something that will help you solve this case.”
“We may have, yes, we may have,” Pena mumbled with deliberate ambiguity. He knew what was coming. The boss would try to find out what they had discovered. “Please, let us know the result of this audit you’re ordering,” he added.