by Jose Latour
Marina started. “No, listen to me. Sean said this container is made of lead, so X-rays can’t show what’s in it.”
Miranda assented, reflecting. “Bright guy. Thought of everything. Well, not exactly, but almost. Okay, Elena, grab a few things, pack, and go. Now. Don’t wait one more minute. Pack, now.”
“Your father is right, Elena. Let’s do it.”
“What will you do, Dad?”
Again, Miranda fixed his eyes on the floor for a few seconds. “I’ll leave with you. We all laugh, we’re happy, not a care in the world, say goodbye on the next corner, I kiss your cheek, shake hands with Marina. You go your way, hail a cab on Fifth Avenue, I go mine. Nobody knows what happened here, there were no shots, no screams. Several days will go by before … you know, the stench.”
“Oh, my God.” Both women chorused.
“By then you’ll be safe, thousands of miles away. The police will probably come to see me and tell me that two dead men were found here and you have disappeared. I’ll pretend to be worried, ask for a full investigation. When we left here today you were in perfect health, happy, unconcerned, on your way to spend a few days on the beach with a friend. That’ll be my story.”
Elena thought about it for a moment. “But the autopsies, Dad. Can’t they determine the exact day and time when they died?”
“The day, for sure; the time, I don’t think so. Not after several days.”
“What about fingerprints?” Marina asked.
“Right. I’ll wipe the hammer clean and … never mind. Go and pack, Elena. Now, move, move.”
“But, Dad.”
“It’s an order. Move.”
Miranda went back to the servant’s bedroom as Marina helped Elena pack. The odour of recent death he knew so well. Mindful not to tread in the pool of blood, he wiped the hammer clean and closed Sean’s right hand around its handle. He took his time inspecting the room, reflecting. There might be some hairs of his on the floor, but he had no time to search for them. His fingerprints in the kitchen, the living room, were okay. He would admit to being here today.
Miranda hurried to the living room. The lead receptacle remained on the chesterfield. He seized it and retraced his steps into Elena’s bedroom. Marina and Elena froze, watching him. Without a word he started dropping her diamonds into the container.
“Keep packing.”
That got them moving again. He finished storing the diamonds and was heading for the living room when he stopped in his tracks in the doorway.
“Elena, that suitcase is fifty years old,” he observed.
“That’s what I told her,” Marina said.
“It’s the only one I have, Dad.”
“No, I was just wondering whether … Keep packing, I’ll be back.”
In the living room, Miranda compressed most of the cotton wool back into the receptacle, crammed it tightly with his finger, stuffed what remained into his pocket, then capped it with the plastic stopper and slid it into the cane. After screwing the handle, he shook the cane by his ear. No rattle. Fine. He returned to his daughter’s bedroom. Diagonally, the cane fitted into Elena’s suitcase.
“Neighbours would find it odd to see either of you leaving the building with the cane, limping,” he said. “Now, this museum piece is perfect for storing the cane, but if you enter the airport with it, everybody will stare at you.” And turning to Marina: “Once you find a room somewhere, take Elena to a store and buy her one like yours.”
“No problem.” Marina said.
“Then, you leave for the airport with the cane in plain view. Tourists, strangers, nobody will notice.”
“I hope so,” Elena said.
“One last thing, Elena. The container is made of lead, and lead weighs a lot. That cane is too heavy for you, but you’ve got to handle it as if it is weightless. People see you puffing and pulling to move it, they’ll become suspicious. So you’ve got to pretend, know what I mean? Walk effortlessly, a smile on your face.”
“I’ll try. Thanks, I hadn’t thought of that.”
It was 12:19 when the two women returned to the living room. Elena had applied a little makeup and looked much better, albeit not her usual self, Miranda noticed. She had wanted to wear her best outfit, a brown pantsuit with a cream-coloured, long-sleeved blouse, but Marina advised against it. In the summer, people flying economy wear comfortable clothing, especially tourists returning from tropical islands: jeans, shorts, sweatshirts, sandals, that kind of thing. Elena finally changed into her only pair of jeans, a white sleeveless blouse, and well-worn black pumps. From her shoulder hung a nondescript black leather handbag. Marina had also freshened up, making herself more presentable.
“You girls look terrific,” Miranda said.
“Oh, Dad.”
“Stop it! Not one more tear.”
Marina grabbed her carry-on and the duffel bag.
“Give me your handbag,” the man demanded of his daughter.
“Why?”
“Give it to me.”
Miranda removed all Cuban identifications from Elena’s old leather wallet and stuffed them into his pockets. “From now on you are this Canadian woman, Christine something. I’ll dump this in a sewer. Now, let’s go.”
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Can I give you a hug?” she implored.
“Sure, but no crying.”
“I promise.”
She rested the suitcase on the floor, then held him tightly. He feared new tears and broke away.
“How can I let you know where I am, how I’m doing?” said Elena, struggling to keep her emotions in check.
Miranda pondered this for a moment, nibbling on his lower lip. “You know my home address. After three months, that’s November, send me a phone number, not your phone number, somebody else’s, in an envelope with no sender’s address.” He paused and thought some more. “If I get it, and well … if things turn out the way we hope, I’ll try to call you on the last Sunday of December, from a pay phone, between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. First you say Marina offered you a safe way to leave Cuba and you took it. You didn’t tell me because you assumed I wouldn’t approve. You are well, you’ll write soon. Then I’ll give you the news that two dead bodies were found in your apartment. You can’t believe it: ‘How come?’ ‘Who were they?’ – that kind of shit.”
“Jesus,” Marina said.
“What?”
“You’re quite a number, sir.” Another iceman, she was thinking.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“What about Mom?”
“Don’t even think about it. She’ll have to live with your disappearance until you write to her, and don’t write until after we talk on the phone. And remember, you learned through me that two dead men were found here. You know only what I’ll tell you.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s get moving,” Miranda said, seizing his daughter’s suitcase.
They left the apartment building shortly before 12:30. Even Marina, adept at pretence, failed to appear as confident as she intended while murmuring to Elena: “Don’t worry, dear, everything is going to be okay. What you should be thinking right now is where we should be headed. It shouldn’t be one of the best hotels, but not a fleapit either. Just a three-star where we can get a room, then go shopping for your carry-on.”
Elena nodded repeatedly as she glanced sadly at the Parque de la Quinta. Was she seeing it for the last time? Was she leaving behind her whole life, her world? She realized that only a tragedy of the magnitude she had witnessed, with its disastrous consequences, would make her run away. This was where she belonged, where her roots were!
An old lady who lived in the house with the red-tile roof next to the apartment building, returning from the market with a plastic bag full of potatoes, beamed and nodded to Elena. She smiled back. That old lady had lived there for as long as she could remember, probably seen her grow up, for God’s sake! That crinkled, kind face was part of her world, as w
ere her pupils, neighbours, memories, hopes, and now this was a world she was trying to escape from, forever. Suddenly, what she had taken for granted all her life looked indispensable, so dear!
They covered the distance to the corner of 26th and Third A in less than thirty seconds, time enough to start sweating under the blazing sun. With a big grin, Miranda handed the suitcase to his daughter. “Smile,” he ordered.
She tried to force a smile. He kissed her cheek, then extended his hand to Marina. “Take care of my girl, Marina.”
“I will,” she said, feeling the enormity of the moment.
Miranda turned and shuffled away, to catch a bus on Third Avenue. Elena kept looking at him, hoping he would turn and wave a last goodbye.
“Let’s get moving, Elena.”
“Just a moment.”
“Remember, people watching, we don’t want to give the wrong impression. Let’s go.”
As she walked away, Elena turned one last time. Her father was nowhere to be seen. “From now on you’re a deaf-mute,” Marina was saying. “Don’t speak in the presence of anyone, not the taxi driver, not the hotel clerk, not a living soul, understand?”
“Yeah.”
“Now, tell me the name of a hotel where we might get a room.”
“The Sevilla, on Prado.”
“Okay.”
His knees buckled under him, as though suddenly weary of having carried him for so many years, and Manuel Miranda sank down on to the empty bus-stop bench. He had never felt this drained before and he wondered why. Two hours had gone by and he could still feel the impact of the hammer’s recoil in his hand as it hit the man’s head. He had taken lives on numerous occasions – in combat, three times commanding firing squads, once settling accounts with an adulterous wife and her lover – and his knees had never given way. Remorse? Bullshit. He hadn’t experienced an instant of remorse in his life, least of all now, after saving his daughter’s life.
Miranda wondered whether it could be panic. He should explore that. He had never been afraid to die, not even after having acquired a taste for all the good things in life he would miss if he died: adventures in faraway places, respect, authority, power, recognition, and sex, the ultimate thrill. He was certain that a quick way out, like the death sentence, would be better than suffering from terminal cancer and languishing in a bed for months. He was not in fear of divine intervention either. He didn’t believe in God, the Devil, or any of that crap. No, it wasn’t panic.
What then? Age? His four old gunshot wounds? Possibly. There’s a first for everything, including knees. Over the years he had gradually witnessed how other, more virile parts of his body declined.
Could it be love? Love for the best that had come out of him, the finest woman he had known in his life, better than his mother, her mother, his aunts, cousins, nieces, exceedingly superior to the kindest and most beautiful among the rather long list of women he had been involved with?
He was beginning to understand why his knees had given way. From love for his daughter and the dread that he would never see her again. That could be it. And he remembered all the time lost, the years of wars, states of alert, mobilizations, training camps, prison. The thousands of hours of staff meetings, Party cell meetings, meetings at the Ministry of the Armed Forces, plenary meetings of the Central Committee. The time spent with women on beaches, yachts, in mountain resorts and bedrooms. Miranda shook his head. No, that was okay. And to top it all, his prison sentence. The antithesis of a good father, that’s what he was. Shit. He was feeling remorse! Yes, people do change with age.
He should hope never to see her again. It would mean she had got away, sold the diamonds, become a rich woman, left behind her sad, traumatic past. A new worry crept in. She was not prepared for the world she would face abroad. And she would show it. People would take advantage of her. Maybe Marina would teach her the ropes, help her out. Well, it was out of his hands now. A bus came into view a few blocks away. He stood. Knees firm. Good luck, Elena, was the mental message he sent to his daughter while dusting off the seat of his pants.
7
It was a quarter to one when Trujillo left Pena’s office after reporting that he had failed to make even a tenuous connection between the murdered cop and Pablo Miranda. They were entirely different in features, height, weight, and backgrounds. Evelio Díaz wasn’t carrying dollars or cocaine fixes; his watch hadn’t been stolen. There were no bite marks on his body. According to other young officers from his unit, the rookie was calm and relaxed, happily married, monogamous, studious. The only similarity was the way both had died.
On his way to the mess hall, Trujillo yanked out his messages from his pigeonhole. He was standing in line, three guys away from where the clean aluminium trays were stacked, when he read, “Zoila Pérez, CDR 45, Zone 6, Playa, phone 24–5576, called at 20:55. Miranda murder case.” The piece of paper made him stop dead in his tracks. Staring at the floor he tried to remember the face of the woman, but to no avail. It was too strange a coincidence, he reflected. There had to be some connection. Trujillo turned on his heels, left the mess hall, and strode to his desk in the huge squad room. He flipped the pages of his daybook back to June. There it was: Zoila Pérez, President, CDR 45, Phone 24–5576. He approached the desk where two direct lines were supposed to serve thirty detectives. It was a Sunday, lunch hour, and both were free. He dialled the number.
“Hello?” a man’s voice answered.
“May I speak to Comrade Zoila Pérez, please?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Captain Félix Trujillo.”
“Just a minute.”
Trujillo ran the tip of his tongue over his lips and rested his left buttock on a corner of the desk. His daybook was open, a ballpoint resting on the day’s page. When Zoila said hello the first time he was sneezing, covering the mouthpiece with his hand.
“Hello?” the woman said again.
“Oh, excuse me, comrade. I have a cold. Just a moment.”
She heard him blow his nose into a handkerchief.
“I’m returning your call.”
“You should take care.”
“Yeah, well, you know how it is. A note here says you called concerning the Pablo Miranda case.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Could you fill me in on what’s new?”
Zoila Pérez repeated what she had reported to the duty officer the night before: foreigners visiting Elena, a rental parked on the street, the pounding on the wall. The only fresh information she supplied was the rental’s plate number, which the captain jotted down before asking pretty much the same questions the duty officer had asked: had Zoila seen or heard something that made her suspect Elena was in danger? Did it appear she’d been coerced into letting these foreigners into her apartment? What had the pounding on the wall sounded like?
“Have you seen Elena today?” Trujillo asked once Zoila had filled him in.
“Well, yes. This morning, around nine, I saw her coming into the building arm in arm with a much older man she was animatedly chatting with.”
“The tourist?”
“No. The tourist is younger, and taller.”
“Had you seen this man before?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe, but I don’t think so. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”
“Elena seemed okay? Her normal self?”
“Oh, yes.”
“The rental still there?”
“No.”
“Okay, comrade, thanks. Are you going to spend the rest of the day at home?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“I might drop by later on.”
“Feel free to come.”
The captain took the stairs to the second floor, but his superior officer was nowhere to be seen. He found the major eating lunch in the mess hall. Trujillo sat on the same granite bench and suppressed a sneeze before telling Pena what he had just learned.
“Maybe this couple are the same people who took Pablo and Elena to the palada
r,” Trujillo speculated at the end of his summing up.
Pena followed the logic of this. “Then again, they might not be. But suppose they are. So what? They left Cuba three days before Pablo was murdered.”
“I know. But it’s so … strange a coincidence. They leave and three days later Pablo is murdered; they reappear and one of our men is murdered in the same way. Don’t you think we should check them out?”
“It’s a long shot, but we might as well. Let’s start with the rental. I’ll call the company, find out to whom it was rented, then maybe ask radio cars to search for it. Will you go and see Elena Miranda?”
As he was about to answer, Trujillo had a sudden coughing fit. Officers sitting close by stared. Pena handed him his glass of water; the captain sipped.
“That’s a nasty cold you’ve got.”
Trujillo nodded.
“What are you taking for it?”
Trujillo shook his head.
“Nothing?”
The captain sipped some more water before answering. “I went to the pharmacy yesterday evening, on the way home. There’s nothing available, not even Aspirin. My mother brewed me some herbal tea.”
“Did you see the doctor?”
“Ours, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Go see him. He’s got some caplets that work wonders, donated by a Swedish solidarity group.”
“I will.”
“Have you had lunch?”
“No.”
“Go get a tray and join me.”
Halfway through his plate of rice, black beans, boiled potatoes, and green salad, Trujillo said he would visit Elena, explain that a policeman had been murdered just like her brother, then ask whether she had heard from the Canadians. Pena opposed this approach, saying it was too crude. The major was in favour of telling her about the new murder, then waiting for her reaction. If she mentioned the Canadians, fine; if she didn’t, it would be odd. Next Pena asked for and copied Zoila’s phone number and the rental’s plates on his packet of Populares. Following a lousy espresso, they left the mess hall, smoking.