Fifty Grand (7 page)

He doesn’t respond.

A kid comes to the rail. Normally you don’t see beggars in the Vieja because the CDR goons will chase them away with baseball bats. Whores aplenty but not beggars, because pimps have dollars to kick back. The CDR is something between a police auxiliary and a neighborhood watch. Real cops hate them because they’re even more corrupt than they are.
Than we are
, I should say.

The panhandler is a skinny little boy with long black hair. Picked a good spot. Stone’s throw from the plaza, which is packed with Canadians and Europeans. Behind me the cathedral is lit up by spotlights and the relentless music from the street musicians is entertaining those tourists who don’t realize that they’re having their pockets picked.

“You’re too old to have babies. A woman of your advanced years,” Hector says in my earpiece. I’m twenty-seven, Hector, I almost yell with indignation, but that’s what he wants.

“In a minute and ten seconds that’s the best line you can come up with? You should tell Díaz to write you some fresh material, he’s got the filthiest mouth in the station,” I say instead.

“Can you see us?” Díaz asks.

Certainly can. A bright green Yugo near the Ambos Mundos with the windows wound up and the two of them looking as suspicious as hell. If they weren’t cops they were Interior Ministry secret police or something. All the pimps and dealers had cleared out of here twenty minutes ago.

“Yeah, I see you.”

“Watch this.”

I see him wave at me from the front seat of the car, a wave that quickly becomes a sexual pantomime I can’t really follow. Some kind of insult, I’m sure. Díaz was originally from Pinar del Río, and they’re an odd crew over there.

“I feel lucky to have met you, Lieutenant Díaz,” I tell him.

“Oh yeah, why’s that?” he asks, taking the bait.

“To know that such an idiot can rise so high in the cops gives hope for all of us junior detectives.”

“You’re not rising anywhere, Mercado, you’re lucky you’re not handing out parking tickets or sweating with the other girls down in the typing pool,” Hector says quickly.

“The typing pool? That dates you, man. I think the department got rid of the typing pool ten years ago,” I tell him, but actually I take his point. I’m not likely to go anywhere in the PNR. He knows it, I know it, even the kingpins who pay off the rising stars know it. No envelopes filled with dollars left on my doorstep—not because I’m not susceptible to corruption but simply because no one thinks I’m important enough to corrupt.

“At least the typing pool girls knew their place,” Hector mutters.

“Yeah, anywhere but under you,” I tell him.

There’s an annoyed grunt in my earpiece that is Hector trying to conceal his laughter.

The kid’s looking at me with big dark eyes. Not saying anything. It’s a fantastic angle, makes you think that he can’t speak. Mute, cancer, could be anything. I give him a few pesos and tell him to beat it. He takes the money but he only drifts back a couple of meters toward Palma. He looks at me with infinite sadness. Yeah, he’s good. I check that my watch is still on my wrist.

Hector’s mood is better when he comes back on a minute later.

“What’s keeping you? Come on, we have other things to do,” he says.

“Ok. Ok. I was waiting for an opening but if you want I’ll just call him over.”

“Yes, do that. Do it now.”

“You’re looking for an admission?”

“Anything. Anything at all. We’ll have to try this
new directive
for a while before the even newer directive comes in.”

The
new directive
, straight from the president’s office, was an end (or more likely a suspension) of coerced confessions. Now we were supposed to gather evidence and arrest people in the modern manner. With an American election coming up in less than a year, the powers that be wanted us to look like we were a country in transition, ready for a new chance. And that’s why they had me out here tonight, because that was one of the things I’d been pushing since I’d made detective.

“Ok. See what I can do,” I say.

I scan the place and spot him waiting on a
gabacho
table near the fountain. Two Québecois executives who’d probably tip 15 percent. The restaurant is a staple of the Vieja, with spillover from Hemingway groupies at the Ambos. All the trendy people and the youngsters are farther up O’Reilly, but this is an older crowd who appreciate a good cocktail and slightly out-of-date cuisine. Almost all tourists.

“Ok, Hector, I’m going to go for it. I’ll leave this on. If it looks like things are going bad I expect you and Sancho Panza to come charging in,” I say, and before they can give me further instructions or Díaz asks if that was a crack about his weight I remove the earpiece and push the phone away from me.

It’s transmitting and they’re recording, so if he says anything incriminating we should have it on tape. Our boy’s pretty close to me now anyway, fussing over two foreign ladies and pushing the priciest wine on the menu. When he’s done I catch his eye.

He shimmers across and stands next to me.

“Yes, madam?” he says in English.

I’m dressed like a foreigner. A white blouse, a tartan skirt, half pumps, a faux pearl necklace. I’ve even put on lipstick and eye shadow and my short hair is styled with bangs. I’m supposed to look like a Canadian businesswoman, but as soon as he speaks I realize I’m not going to play that game: teasing information out of him, flirting with him, pretending to be drunk . . . Now it all seems so tacky and pointless.

“Yes, madam?” he says again.

Young. Twenty-four, it said on his employment application, but I think he’s a few years younger than that. Thin, handsome, probably using this gig to make connections for the bigger and better.

“Can I get you another mojito,
bella señorita
?” he asks and flashes a charming smile.

“You’re the head waiter?” I ask him.

“Well, for tonight.”

“I’m only asking because I saw you bussing tables earlier.”

He smiles. “When it’s like this we all have to pitch in.”

“Take a seat,” I say.

He smiles again. “I’m afraid that’s not permitted and even if it were, on a night like this, with the place packed to the rafters, it would simply—”

I take out my PNR police ID and place it discreetly on the table. He looks at it, looks at me, and sits. No “What is this?” or “Are you for real?” or a glib joke about the health inspectors finally coming for the cook. No, he just sits, heavily, like his legs have given way. If my thoughts were miked up I’d be saying to Hector, “Man, take a look at his face.” His whole expression had changed as instantaneously as if he’d just been shoulder tapped in improv class. Poker’s not his game, that’s for sure.

“Please, Detective, uhm, Mercado, uhm, can you tell me what this is about? Will this take long? I’m very busy. I have a job to do,” he whispers.

“I’ve come to ask you about the murder of María Angela Domingo,” I tell him.

“Never heard of her.”

“No?”

“No.”

“That was the name they gave her in the morgue. Domingo, because it was a Sunday when the body was found.”

He frowns. His foot begins to tap. There’s even sweat beading on his upper lip. Christ, what’s the matter with you? You wanna get life in prison, Felipe? Calm down. At least make it look like I’m working you a little.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, finally.

“Don’t you?”

“No. I don’t. And I don’t appreciate this. Who put you up to this? I suppose you’re looking to get a few drinks or something. Well, have your drink and leave. We have good relations with the police.” He gets to his feet. “Now, if you don’t mind—”

“Sit where you are.”

He doesn’t move.

“I said sit!”

He almost jumps and then he doesn’t so much sit as collapse. Better be getting this on video, Díaz, we could use some of this stuff with the judge advocate.

“It will only be a matter of time before we match the baby’s DNA to the DNA of your girlfriend and, of course, you,” I tell him.

His mind is racing. He takes a drink of water.

“Do you know the law?” I ask him.

He shakes his head.

“Whoever makes an admission of guilt first can become state’s witness against the other,” I say.

He looks dubious.

“I mean, we don’t know how she died. Not yet. We don’t know the details. Maybe the death was an accident? You’re both young. You don’t know what you’re doing. How could you know how to care for a baby? Come on, Felipe. Come on. We don’t want to take two young lives and ruin them. We don’t want you to go to jail for twenty or thirty years. That’ll cost the country
a fortune. We don’t want that. All we’re interested in is finding out the truth. The truth. That’s all we care about.”

I take a sip of the weak mojito and keep my eye on him.

He’s on the hook, yes, but he’s still some way from the fish fryer.

Time for another gamble.

“We arrested Marta earlier today. We had to take her in first. She didn’t seem surprised. They took her to a different precinct, so I don’t have all the details yet, but I’ll get them eventually. I wonder what she’s saying about you right now?”

His eyes flash and I see that this is the tipping point. If he’s going to blab it’s going to be now.

But I’m wrong, he doesn’t say a word.

Instead he makes a fist and brings it down on the table. My phone bounces and lands on the sidewalk. The beggar kid runs from the shadows, snatches it, and instead of running off into the night, gives it back to me. Yeah. He’s good. That’s how you do it, Felipe. That’s called the soft sell. I slip the kid a dollar bill and check the phone’s still broadcasting. It is.

“What is she saying about you? I mean, who did it? It must have been you. A mother couldn’t do that to her own child.”

“Don’t you believe it,” he says in a whisper so low the phone mike won’t have picked it up.

“What was that? Tell me. Let me help you. What did she make you do?”

He closes his eyes, brings his fists to his temples.

“You’ve got the body?” he asks.

“Yes, of course. Little María Angela.”

“Will they let me see her?”

“Yes, you’ve every right to see her, you’re her father.”

He nods and takes a breath and it all comes tumbling out: “I am. I am her father. Although she pretended it was someone else’s. What happened to that guy? Eh? Don’t believe anything she says. Don’t believe a thing. She’s the one. Her. I didn’t do anything. She’s was the . . . She killed her. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing. When I came over the baby was already dead. All I did was get rid of the body. I didn’t ask her to do it. You gotta believe me. I didn’t ask her. Why would I? We would have managed. I’ve got a good job here. We would have been ok.”

He opens his eyes and stares at me.

“She killed the baby?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“She drowned it . . .
her
, in the bath. That’s why I thought to put the body in La Ceiba. You gotta believe me, I had nothing to do with this. You believe me, don’t you?” he says, his voice breaking. On the verge of crazy.

A couple more pushes. “Was it your idea? She wouldn’t have done it. You must have told her to do it.”

Eyes like catcher’s mitts.

The waterworks.

“No. No. Haven’t you been listening. I told her noth—I didn’t tell her anything. It was her. It was all her. It’s madness.”

“But why did you keep the birth a secret?” I ask gently.

“She wanted me to,” he says between sobs. “She begged me to keep it quiet. And I did. God forgive me.”

“You delivered the baby alive. And then, at some point, you left the apartment. And then what happened? Later on she called you to let you know she had killed the baby?”

“Yes. That’s what happened. I wasn’t there. I had to go to work. She called me. I came home and the baby was dead.”

I nod sympathetically.

“You believe me, don’t you?” he asks and grabs my left hand.

“Yes, I believe you. La Ceiba,” I say, enunciating the words clearly. If I know Hector, he’ll have divers down there with underwater flashlights before I’ve finished this mojito.

I release my hand from Felipe’s strong fingers. I push my chair a little way back from the table. He wilts, puts his head down on the stained mahogany top, and starts crying like a good one. It’s pathetic. What does he want me to do? Pat his back? Give him a hug?

“She killed the baby and you hid the body?” I ask to confirm the testimony.

I push the phone close to him.

“Yes, yes, yes!” he mutters.

That’s good enough for me. I swivel in my seat and signal the guys on the corner. I hold up two fingers and almost immediately two uniforms come out of a car I hadn’t noticed before.

The beggar kid disappears.

Felipe looks up as the cops clamber over the barrier around the patio tables. His eyes are desperate, darting left and right. He grabs the back of a heavy metal chair.