Havana Fever

Ferrero before you. That much I do know…”

The midday sun seemed about to melt the pavement when Yoyi Pigeon came out of Headquarters. Mario Conde threw his cigarette on the ground and bid farewell to the stone where he’d been sitting for more than two hours, in the shade of the weeping figs planted in the street that ran along one side of the building.

“What a bloody mess we’ve got ourselves into, man… These police are like crabs; they want to crawl into everything. Even the car, your gold chains… And your friend Manolo is the worst: when he gets his teeth in, he won’t let go without a struggle. I thought they were going to keep me inside I swear.”

“What’s new: they don’t have anything and are looking for scraps to help them,” pronounced the Count as they walked up the avenue. “They’re at their most dangerous when they’re flailing around. If they let you go, it means they don’t have a thing to go on.”

“Oh yes they do,” whispered Yoyi and the Count looked at him quizzically. “Dionisio had a piece of paper with my telephone number in one of his pockets. I’d written it down…”

“I don’t get you,” hissed the Count.

“I gave him my telephone number, just in case…”

“Were you going to do business behind my back?”

“No, Conde, I swear I wasn’t… It was just in case.”

“So it was just in case… You’ve fucked up, Yoyi.”

“They say I’ve got to be reachable.”

“Don’t worry about that. So have I.”

“Who might have done it, Conde?”

“So far there are four likely candidates… and you and I are two of them. Amalia and the man who paid them a visit are the others… But it might have been someone else… In any case it was someone Dionisio knew.”

“But why the fuck should we want to kill him? It would only make doing business more difficult… You know that, don’t you?”

“They know that too. They realize we didn’t need to kill Dionisio for a few books we could buy for three or four dollars a time… But we police know odd things happen. For example, a future murderer and would-be corpse agree to do business and-”

“Don’t fuck on about that: all I did was give him my telephone number… But I get you. And look what you just said: we police know…” “Did I say that?”

Yoyi nodded.

“If there was a bit of policeman left in me, they killed it off today.”

“I think they’re really riled because we earn in one day what they get in a month, and we don’t have bosses or union meetings…”

“That’s true. But there are police who like to work properly. Like Manolo…”

“So what about the lame black guy who wanted to buy their books?”

“We’re going to find out who he is,” said the Count. “That’s the only lead we have, because apparently six books were removed from the section we’d not checked out, and that’s probably what Dionisio’s murderer was after… What I can’t get off my fucking brain is that hunch I’ve had from the moment I entered the Ferreros’ library. It’s one hell of a feeling. It’s stuck right there,” and he pointed to the exact spot in his chest where the hunch was burning him, “There was something strange in there and, I don’t know why, but I still think it’s all got to do with Violeta del Rio…”

“That same old tune. What the hell’s the connection between Violeta del Rio and all this?”

“I don’t know, but hunches are like that sometimes you can’t make head nor tail of them, but when you try to dig deeper, all hell breaks loose.”

“I told you you were crazy, man, didn’t I?”

“You tell me three times a day,” the Count calculated and pointed to a stall selling coffee. “Are you going to help me find out who killed Dionisio, and get to the bottom of what was in that library that we didn’t see?”

Yoyi ordered two coffees and stared at the Count, feverishly stroking the bony protuberance on his chest.

“You mean we can play cops and robbers?”

“Stop pissing around, Yoyi. You’re a fucking idiot sometimes. Don’t you get it? You and I have been let out but there’s still a guilty party out there. Don’t you realize the bit of paper with your telephone number puts you in danger?”

“But I didn’t do anything. Do I have to swear that to you?”

“Don’t fucking swear anything: start helping me. You’re going to find out where the tall black guy interested in buying books came from and I’m going to see Silvano. Isn’t your talent getting good deals? Well, the best deal now is to play to our strengths, because we know things they don’t. We two are going to find out what went on last night at the Ferreros’ place. Fucking hell, this coffee tastes of shit…”

24 December

My love:

What else can I wish you, on such a day as this, than for you to be as happy as can be, and to enjoy being with your children, wherever you now live. What else could I desire (it is what I long for most) than for you to share that happiness with me, with all your children, unburdened by secrets that now weigh far too heavily, and with eyes on the future, that no longer stare into the past.

The Christmas and New Year holidays always make me more vulnerable, and this year I’ve felt more fragile than ever. Some thing strange is happening, I don’t know if it is the time of year or a backlog of sorrow, but at night I hear voices that speak of guilt, sin, betrayal, sometimes so vividly that I am forced to switch on my reading lamp and look around me but then I only find the same loneliness.

I think all this began to stir after the visit from that persistent policeman, just over a week ago, do you remember? the one leading the investigation. The damned fellow came to see me to tell me exactly what you think: he is convinced something happened that he cannot get to the bottom of, but he is prepared to swear that she didn’t commit suicide, even when he hasn’t the slightest proof to back his idea. After saying that, he explained that in fact he had come to tell me the case was going to be closed on orders from his superiors, or, in other words, the investigation will not continue, in spite of his doubts. Nonetheless, while he was drinking his cup of coffee, he asked me ever so many questions, almost all the ones he’d asked before, about that woman’s friendships, possible enemies, unfinished business, drug addiction and, naturally, possible suicide motives. I told him yet again what I know, as sincerely as I knew how but not mentioning other matters I still think are unrelated to her death: you know what I’m referring to.

But that man’s suspicions, your doubts and the voices that speak of guilt, are undermining my convictions. Although there is something I am totally clear about (my innocence and, I hardly need to say this, yours as well), I have begun to think about what happened over that period of days, looking for a black spot, a detail that does not fit the usual patterns, to try to find, if one existed, an indication that her death might have been provoked by an individual who desired it.

I have thought, naturally, that someone like her, in spite of the unhappy past as an orphan girl she told you about, as a decent girl desperate to sing and be successful, must have left behind her enemies and hatred. So, the change you brought into her life might have sparked resentment in somebody determined to make her pay for a happiness she thought was undeserved.

What is terrible, given everything you and I know, is how the portrait of this individual keeps evoking my own face. The knowledge I am innocent allows me dismiss that false image, but does not help me find another, if one exists. Could one of her girlfriends have been the guilty one? Perhaps that good-for-nothing who used to visit her and even accompany her on her trips to spoil herself with your money, who even dared to pass herself off as a respectable lady when everyone knew what she did in life… But why should she want to? Was she really her friend? Could envy at your lover’s good fortune be sufficient to push her into preparing that road to death? She had opportunities enough: she went in and out of that woman’s house whenever she wanted, even used to spend afternoons at the flat with your friend Louis. But I don’t think envy is motive enough, because if you work through it in logical fashion, by killing her, she would have killed the goose laying the golden eggs, since when that woman became your wife, as you had decided, the other ne’er-do-well could continue to profit from her old friendship, thanks to which she’d succeed in gaining God knows what benefits, apart from the ones she already enjoyed because you were grateful to her for introducing you to that woman in the first place.