“And you believed him?”
“Was there any reason not to, Sergeant?”
“Perhaps, as you knew him well… And didn’t he say where he was heading once he left here?”
“He left at about seven, or just after, because it was already dusk. He said he wanted to see a relative of his, but didn’t mention who. But he did say it was very important to him.”
“He said it was important to him?”
“Yes, I’m sure he did.”
“Did he say he was afraid of returning to Cuba?”
“He said something of the sort. But I tried to reassure him. After all, a thousand others have done what he did… Lately it’s almost become a fashion, hasn’t it? And he had no cases pending or anything similar. As far as I know, he didn’t take anything with him.”
“Not even one of those objects he expropriated in the ’60s and which could fetch as many dollars as that painting?”
“Not as far as I’m aware. But I didn’t check his suitcase at the airport, though chance would have me accompany him that day.”
“And do you remember if anyone in Customs checked it?”
Gomez de la Pena looked at the ceiling before answering.
“Forgive me, Sergeant, but I’m moved by your naivete… As a leader, Miguel Forcade left through the diplomatic channel.”
Manolo elegantly assumed his moving innocence and continued. “So no one checked anything and he could have taken out whatever he wanted.”
“Forgive me, Manolo,” interjected the Count, troubled by his subordinate’s naivete and by his own for thinking a mere copy of a Matisse could be on that privileged wall in that equally privileged residence, permanently enjoyed by a logically privileged civil servant, who in some safe spot in the house must also possess, in his own name, the documents crediting him as the owner of the building. “Tell me, Gerardo, but please tell me the truth: did you give Miguel Forcade the house where he used to live?”
The old dethroned minister restrained his smile, but didn’t banish it from his face entirely: “That’s what you’d expect, I suppose?”
“Yes, in the same way you assigned yourself this house.”
“True enough,” admitted Gomez de la Pena. “Just as it’s true I assigned all the houses abandoned by the
The Count took a deep breath to relieve the tension. He felt a desire to twist the neck of that expert in cynicism who had enjoyed the socio-historico-politicomaterial privilege of giving, granting, conceding, deciding, administering, distributing favours from his position as a trusted leader, and in the name of the whole country. He felt his arrogant confession of the way he wielded power to be an insult: he created networks of compromise and debt, corrupted all the byways where he left his slimy tracks. It was no doubt because of people like Gomez de la Pena that he’d been in the police for more than ten years, deferring his own life, to try to dent their overbearing complacency and, if possible, make them pay for some of the crimes that could never be paid for. But this bastard’s slipping from my grasp, he thought, as he observed the pyjamas that represented the comfortable sentence he was seeing out: a remoteness from power that, nevertheless, didn’t deprive him of a house in the best part of Havana, of the Soviet car he kept in the garage nor even a Matisse worth three and a half million dollars, which he’d legally acquired – and no one would ever know if that was true – for five hundred Cuban pesos, for personal enjoyment and the morbid game he could play with his visitors. If only I could catch you out some way, you son of a bitch, he told himself, trying to smile as he spoke: “If you can bear to be frank yet again, please answer a further question: don’t you think it’s really shameful that you’ve got a painting worth millions hanging on your wall, one you bought using your position, when down in the city there are people who spend their week eating rice and beans after working an eight- or ten-hour day and sometimes without even a wall on which to hang a calendar?”
Yet again Gerardo Gomez de la Pena smoothed the pathetic camouflage over his embarrassing bald pate and looked the detective lieutenant straight in the eye: “Why should I personally feel ashamed, a retired old man who likes to look at that painting? From what I gather, Lieutenant, you don’t know this neighbourhood very well; there are houses just as comfortable as mine, with other equally beautiful paintings and heaps of beautiful African wood and ivory sculptures, acquired by more or less similar means, where Nicaraguan furniture is all the rage, where they call their servants ‘comrade’ and breed exotic dogs that enjoy a better diet than sixty per cent of the world’s population and eighty-five per cent of the nation’s… No, of course I’m not ashamed. Because life is as the old conga ditty says: if you hit the jackpot, go for it… And too bad for the fellow who doesn’t, but that fellow got well and truly fucked, didn’t he?”
Night cloaked the city in two minutes, but the dark sky was still empty, completely indifferent to the flurry of clouds on its predestined path towards the island. His mouth lined by the sour aftertaste left by interviews with characters of that ilk, the Count asked Manolo to drive back to Headquarters so he could fulfil one of the agreements he made: to give the first of his daily reports to Colonel Molina.
“What are you going to say, Conde?”
“That I’m beginning to be grateful to him for giving me this case. Because I’m sure I’ll break one of these bastards’ legs.”
“I hope it’s this fellow’s. Calling me naive…”
“But he really got under your skin.”
Manolo forced a smile and asked his boss for a cigarette. He sustained his habit of smoking a little without ever making prior investments.
“And do you think he’s connected to Forcade’s death?”
“I don’t know, I’m not convinced. What do you think?”
“I’d rather not say as yet, because if Forcade did come to reclaim the painting or anything else of value he might have given Gomez de la Pena, this guy would be capable of anything, wouldn’t he? But what we really need to find out is who the relative was Forcade had to see in order to resolve important business. I mean, if it’s true what de la Pena says and that relative exists…”
Mario Conde lit his own cigarette as the sergeant turned into the parking lot at Headquarters.
“Perhaps Miriam knows…” he said.
Manolo’s violent braking spoke for itself. “Conde, Conde, you want to burn in that fire?”
“What fire are you on about, Manolo? I need to speak to her, right now…”
“I know you only too well,” he muttered, parking the car in its space. “You couldn’t keep your eyes off that blonde.”
“Well, she was worth some attention, wasn’t she?”
Mario Conde wasn’t surprised by the news that Colonel Molina had left at five p.m. The new boss was too much of a novice to know there were no fixed hours and that Major Rangel would be at Headquarters every day, including Sundays and the First of May. But perhaps if they’d have given him the chance, he might have been a good spy…
Back in his cubicle, the Count wrote his report, in which he told the Colonel he’d started the investigation, that he’d called in at Headquarters at half past six and that he’d try to carry out another interview that night. He took a breath, picked up the telephone and dialled the number of Miguel Forcade’s old house.
“Is that you, Miriam?”
To go up or go down: that had always been the question. Because going down and up, going up and down the Rampa was the Count and his friends’ first experience beyond their barrio. Catching the bus in the barrio and going on the long journey to Vedado, with the single purpose of going up and down, or down and up that luminous slope that was born – or died – in the sea, signalled the end of childhood and the onset of adolescence just as their older brothers’ had been marked by the Literacy Campaign and that of their parents’ generation by sexual initiation in the Pajarito or Colon neighbourhoods: it was tantamount to signing a Declaration of Independence, to feeling your own wings had grown, to knowing yourself physically and spiritually adult, although it really was not the case: now or
