“More of the same, man?” the young man protested.
“
‘Yes, but we’re up shit creek what with not being able to get more of the Ferreros’ books and wasting two days on this wild goose chase. Time is money, remember, and I’ve got business to attend to.”
“But remember we’ve also got a corpse hanging over our heads… And as you know well enough, the police don’t like people like you who make money they don’t have any control over. They’d love to pin this murder on you-”
“A murder I didn’t commit! That’s obvious enough, man! I’m clean and finding the one who did him in is their problem, not mine. They get paid to do that and I fight for my bread on the street. But if you fancy playing the detective and wandering around in pursuit of an old whore and a singer of boleros, that’s your call. I’m opting out of this drama, I swear.”
Conde gazed anew at the yard, at its flowers, tried to hear the mockingbird’s song and waited for the inevitable rebuff.
“Don’t you see, Yoyi? The sooner we find Dionisio Ferrero’s killer, the sooner we get our hands on the rest of the books… and I’m going to offer you a deal. Look: if six books that have already disappeared were probably very valuable, it makes no odds if another five, six, seven go… We’ll buy the six you want…”
“The ones I want?” The expression on Yoyi’s face changed.
“The ones you want,” reiterated the Count.
“Like the
“The ones you want,” repeated the Count.
“Don’t worry, man, I’ll find that black guy. I swear I will,” and Yoyi kissed the cross he’d made with his fingers.
Elsa Contreras Villafana, alias Lotus Flower, alias the Blonde, ceased being of interest to the police in the year 1965, when she underwent revolutionary regeneration from brothel-mongering to heading a shift in a seamstresses’ workshop in El Cerro, and declared her abode to be 195, Apodaca, in Old Havana. Her police file, recovered by the new authorities created in 1959, had recorded its first entry in 1948, when she was put on file for practising prostitution in areas not authorized for such activities. Then, up to 1954, Elsa Contreras Villafana, now known as Lotus Flower to the habitues of the Shanghai Theatre, was arrested twice on counts of causing a public outrage, once for a knife attack and once for possessing drugs – marijuana – and did a short spell inside the women’s prison in Havana. However, from 1954 the woman apparently opted for an honest life, since no fresh criminal acts appeared on her police record. She resurfaced in 1962, when she was again arrested for procuring and pimping in a bar in the port of Nuevitas, in Camaguey, as the result of an uproar prompted by a peculiar attack launched by a local pimp and hard man, who bit off part of a breast that belonged to one of the whores from her knocking-shop. As a result, Elsa was confined to a reeducation centre for eight months, at the end of which she began a new life as a seamstress in a workshop, where a year later she was given the position of head of shift.
“There’s something fishy here,” commented the Count, and Sergeant Atilio Estevanez, under orders from Captain Palacios to supervise the Count’s searches, looked at him intrigued. To persuade his ex-colleague who was reluctant to open up the doors to the police files to him – “You’re no longer police,” Manolo had insisted, “You know the superiors don’t like this kind of thing” – Conde had resorted to his subtlest arts of persuasion and to the obvious fact that finding out extra things about Elsa Contreras would in no way obstruct the official murder investigation. Manolo reluctantly agreed, repeating that he didn’t like what he was doing, and only on condition that Sergeant Estevanez continued to supervise his searches.
The information he then found confirmed the police silence initiated in 1954, indicating that Lotus Flower must have made a qualitative leap around the time enabling her to immunize herself against – at least visible – harassment, that was the fate of defenceless street walkers who were always at the mercy of pimps and police alike. To make that leap, coveted by the hundreds of whores swarming through the streets of fifties Havana, she’d have needed a special boost, more so – according to Silvano Quintero – if the business she would soon head dealt in exclusive escorts and not bog-standard brothels in the barrios of Pajarito and Colon. And that kind of trade, in the Cuba of the time, usually had one visible face, the famous Madame known as Marina, who lorded it over twenty whorehouses, and an owner concealed in the shadows of his new respectability: the Jewish Meyer Lansky.
Driven by a hunch, Conde asked the sergeant to track down the file on Alcides Montes de Oca, and wasn’t too surprised by the negative response he received: nobody with that name appeared on the police books. He wondered if it might be useful to check the Lansky dossier, but decided it would be a wasted effort, because the Jew didn’t appear in Cuba as the legal owner of very many concerns, which he put in the care of his Cuban acolytes or rogues recently imported from the United States, where they were no longer smiled upon.
They telephoned the Office for the Registration of Addresses and requested the names of the occupants of the house at Apodaca 195, and the reply couldn’t have been more final: the building had collapsed during a storm in 1971, and its occupants moved to temporary accommodation. But nobody by the name of Elsa Contreras Villafana figured on the list of those who received compensation as a result of the demolition. His curiosity aroused, Estevanez, called the identification department at the Central Office for Identity Cards and Population Registration, and requested information on the woman. They gave her permanent address as being Apodaca, 195, flat 6, according to data obtained in 1972.
Conde smiled at the shocked expression on the face of Sergeant Estevanez who couldn’t explain how Elsa Contreras had managed to perpetrate such a blatant deception. How could she have fooled the police and Registry for Addresses and Consumers, who constantly collaborated in respect of deaths, house-moves or any other physical shift made by the island’s eleven million Cuban residents easily monitored by the beds they slept in and the food they received? For the Count this gave the mystery a more disturbing dimension: why had she done it?
“We must find out if she is dead first of all,” said the Count. “Have you any men available to check cemetery records?”
“Every single cemetery?” asked the terrified sergeant.
‘At least those in Havana. Two men could sort that in a day.’
“Let me see what I can do,” agreed Estevanez, “but I still don’t see how one thing relates to the other.”
“Nor do I, but there may be a connection with the Catalina who was known as Violeta del Rio, and she’s the person I’m really interested in… And what did you find out about this mysterious black guy?” the Count now enquired. Estevanez shook his head: “I can’t say…”
“Hey, it’s not that important. I only wanted to know whether you’d identified him.”
The sergeant grumbled, too loudly.
“The prints found in the library aren’t on file.”
“And what did the autopsy reveal about Dionisio Ferrero?”
“He was killed around 1 a.m. There are no other signs of violence, nothing on his nails, so he was caught by surprise and killed by a single blow.”
“And what about the books missing from that last bookcase?”
“They walked the same day as they killed Dionisio. The only other thing we know is that Amalia can’t find the knife that Dionisio used in the garden. We think that may be the murder weapon…”
“Too many mysteries all told,” whispered the Count. “It’s like it’s a put-up job.”
“Just what Captain Palacios says. He thinks it was all set up by someone who knows only too well how to make life difficult for detectives.”
Conde smiled, imagining what Manolo might be imagining.
“When you see your captain, remind him on my behalf that what’s most hidden is always visible. And also tell him from me not to be such an asshole. If he starts hiding things from me, you can bet he’s only making it harder for himself to get to the bottom of this heap of shit.”
The Count tired of banging on Juan the African’s door and quickly concluded he’d scarpered from callejon Alambique with net earnings of thirteen hundred pesos and a sarcastic smile of satisfaction on his yellowy teeth. The risks implicit in the situation, that sooner or later the identity of that supposed cousin of his ex would get out, must have persuaded the African that his best option was to extract money from the former policeman – revenge is sweet – placate his creditors and disappear from the barrio or hide in its deepest catacombs.
To help weigh up his options, the Count walked the shaky planks again and reached the bright light and less
