Fifty Grand (8 page)

Shit.

Quick flash of a possible future: table overturned, chair on my head, dislocated eye socket, smashed teeth, blood in my mouth, fumbling for the gun in my purse, second swing of the chair, roll to the side, revolver in my hand, trigger, two bullets in his gut.

Sort of thing you never get over.

“Don’t even think about it,” I tell him severely.

He lets go of the chair.

“Please,” he says and tries to grab my hand but I slide away and he clutches air.

Finally one of the uniforms puts a hand on his shoulder. He flinches.

“You know where I was when she called me?” he asks me.

“Where?”

“The cathedral.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Yes. Yes. It’s the truth. I was there,” he says, pointing up the street.

“Praying for forgiveness?”

“No, no. No. No. You’ve got it all wrong. The baby was still alive when I left. She did it. She killed it. Drowned it.”

The uniforms look at me as if to ask “Is this one a runner?” I shrug my shoulders. Their problem now.

“Come on,” one of them says and cuffs himself to Felipe. With surprising efficiency an old Mexican
julia
appears from the plaza—brakes screeching, lights flashing, but, because it’s the Vieja, siren off.

“You believe me, don’t you?” Felipe asks, his eyes wide, tears dripping off his face like a leaky tap.

“I believe you,” I reassure him.

He walks meekly to the
julia
and gets in the back.

The doors close and just like that he’s gone, whisked off into the night as if he’s part of a magician’s trick. I look around the restaurant but the place is so busy no one except the Québecois has noticed any of this. The two widows at the next table are still studying the menu and everyone else is getting quietly hammered on daiquiris.

Only the gamin seems to care. I feel his glare from the semidarkness. His unasked question needs no answer but I give it to him anyway. Gratis. “He killed his girlfriend’s baby. A little girl. Ok?”

The boy looks skeptical. My cell phone vibrates. I stick in the earpiece.

“Hell of a job, hell of job,” Hector says.

“Thank you.”

“Where did you come up with that stuff? ‘María Angela.’ Fantastic. That’s exactly what they would call her, will call her when they find the body. You took a risk, though, no?”

“What risk?”

“You didn’t know it was a girl. What if it had been a baby boy?”

“They wouldn’t have killed it if it had been a baby boy. They would have sold it.”

Hector sighs. “Yes, you’re probably right.”

“I’ve given you enough to go on, right?”

“More than enough. Wow. The things that come from nothing. All we had was a tip from the old lady that she was pregnant and wasn’t pregnant anymore. We didn’t have proof of anything.”

“Well, now you got two losers whose lives are ruined.”

“Always the downside, Mercado. Don’t look at it like that. You did good. You really did good. You broke it open. In about two fucking minutes.”

“Like to take the credit, Hector, but it really wasn’t me. He wanted to talk. He was itching for it. I believe him about the cathedral, by the way, but he probably went there afterward. To ask forgiveness from Our Lady.”

Hector doesn’t want to think about that. “No. You really scored for us. Come on. Put down that glass and let me buy you a real drink. We’ll go to that place on Higüera. Let’s go celebrate.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m meeting my brother.”

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you want to meet here?”

“I knew I was going to be here.”

“What if Felipe had gone crazy and strangled you or something?” Díaz chips in.

“He wasn’t strangling anybody. He was glad. Relieved.”

“Well. We’re all pleased. You should come . . .” Hector says, then his voice drops a register. “You should come, Mercado, we’re, uh, we’re meeting our friends from the embassy, uhm, I’d like to introduce you.”

“You should definitely come,” Díaz seconds.

Our friends from the embassy
.

Which embassy? The Venezuelan? The Chinese? The Vietnamese? They all have what works in a plutocracy. Money. And Hector wants to introduce me to some of the players. Never done that before. It’s what all ambitious cops want. The way in. The party, the drinks, the jokes, the dollars, an end to the sweatbox on O’Reilly, bigger cases, DGI contacts, maybe even a car.

Our friends from the embassy
.

“Sorry, Hector, rain check, I can’t do it tonight.”

“Tell her, Díaz,” Hector says.

“She doesn’t want to go,” Díaz replies.

“Can’t do it, I’m meeting my brother, he’s flying in from America.”

A long pause before Hector decides it’s not worth it. “Ok, well, if you change your mind you’ll know where we’ll be.”

“I will, thanks, guys. And Díaz, please don’t let him tell any jokes—you two on a bender with embassy people has ‘international incident’ written all over it.”

I hear them chuckle and they flash the lights on the Yugo and wave as they drive past. No obscene gestures this time.

I finish the mojito and look about for a waiter. I suppose I should tell the manager that I’ve just arrested their—

A pair of hands covers my eyes.

Too clean and presumptuous to be the boy beggar.

“Ricky.”

He laughs and kisses me on the cheek. He puts a chic black bicycle messenger bag on the table and sits in Felipe’s seat.

“I thought they’d never go. Fucking cops,” he says.

“Hey—”

“Present company excepted. Jesus, we’re the youngest people here. Why did you want to meet in this cemetery?” he asks.

“I like it here.”

He shakes his head, takes off his raincoat, and as an antitheft device wraps the strap of his messenger bag under his chair.

“How was your flight?” I ask.

“It was fine. I came direct.”

“Really? Didn’t know you could come direct.”

“Yeah, you can. Two flights a week from Miami to Havana. Shit, I really could do with a . . . Have you seen a . . . Jesus. Pretty slow service in here, no?”

“I just arrested the head waiter.”

“You’re joking.”

“No.”

“Did he grab your ass or something?”

“No.”

“What did—oh, wait, here’s one finally . . .”

A harassed-looking kid shows up, seemingly dragooned from the kitchen.

Ricky orders half a dozen things off the tapas menu and a martini. He looks good. He’s fit and handsome, with a mop of black hair that hangs over his left eyebrow in a fey, Englishy sort of way. He’s almost too handsome, with none of Dad’s flat, jovial peasant charm or Mother’s fleshy good looks. He’s angular and trim. His teeth are American white and his smile broad. The only thing we share are the dark green eyes from Mom’s side of the family.

The eyes twinkle in the moonlight as he sips the martini.

“Yech,”
he says. “Local gin.”

When we were younger, people used to say we resembled each other, but not anymore. He’s grown prettier and I’ve grown duller. Although perhaps tonight because he’s just gotten off a flight and I’ve put on eye makeup and my best clothes we are like siblings once again.

“The mojitos are ok,” I tell him.

“A mojito?” he says as if I’ve just suggested human flesh.

It makes me laugh and he laughs. Because of his good looks and the fact that he works for the
Cuba Times
and the YCP magazine, everyone assumes that he’s gay. For years he wheeled a few girls around and tried to beard them but when he saw that it wasn’t going to hurt his career he quietly let the girls go. He’s not “out” like some of the famous Havana queens, but I’ve met his sometime boyfriend, a captain in the MININT—the Ministry of the Interior—and almost everyone knows. One time a low-level
chivato
(a paid informer) tried to blackmail him about his cosmopolitan tendencies, but the
chivato
ended up losing his job and being moved to Manzanillo.

He swallows the last of his martini, orders a Cuba Libre, and eats most of the food before he even thinks about having a conversation. Ricky’s one of those men who can eat anything without it ever showing. If he weren’t my brother I’d probably hate him. No, if he weren’t my brother we would never have met in the first place. His circles are kilometers above mine.

“I’m surprised they can still pull it together,” he says, munching on something that yesterday was swimming happily in the Florida Strait. “I would never have eaten here in a million years but it’s not bad.”

I let him nibble at two more side dishes before I press him.

“So what did you find out?” I ask with a trace of impatience.

“In a minute. Let’s do you first. You arrested a waiter?”

Typical Ricky, always looking for a story.

“Yeah. One of the head waiters.”

“The head waiter? What did he do?”

“He was a murderer.”

“You don’t say. Who did he kill?” he asks, affecting casualness.

“Killed a lot of people. Real nutcase. Poisoned them.”

Ricky looks at his empty plate of tapas.

“Poisoned them? Are you serious?”

“Yeah, a dozen victims at least.”

Ricky pales, but then I wink at him and he laughs.

“You’re wasted in the goon squad,” he says.

“I like the goon squad.”

“That’s why you’re so weird, big sister.”

“So. Tell me. What did you find out?”

He reaches into the messenger bag and hands me a folder full of typed sheets, drawings, and photographs.

“You wrote a report? Where did you get the time?”

“It was easier to write it out on the computer. I can type at a hundred words a minute, you know.”

I look through his notes. They’re clear and well organized and give me everything I need to get started.

“What’s your conclusion?” I ask.

“Hey, do you like my bag? I got this in Manhattan, it’s the latest thing,” he says, trying to be frivolous.

“You’re not going to distract me. What did you find out, Ricky?”

He shakes his head. “My conclusion, dear sister, is that your suspicions are
probably
correct,” he says with deliberate caution.

“I’m right?”

“I think so.”

We both consider this for a moment.

“You went to the garage?”

“Yes, I went to the garage.”

“What did you learn there?” I ask.

“It’s all in the notes.”

“What did you learn, Ricky?”

“There were two accidents that day. That means two suspects: one of them’s an old lady, one’s a Hollywood type.”

“A Hollywood type? What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Didn’t I tell you? Fairview is full of Hollywood types. Tom Cruise moved there, and around his sun lesser planets revolve. It’s where the elite go to ski now that Aspen and Vail are full of the hoi polloi. I met some of them. I got invited to a party.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. I met a charming young man with whom I had a meeting of minds.”

“I hope you were careful.”

“I’m always careful, darling.”

“How did you get all this stuff through airport security?” I ask.

Cuba was one of the few countries in the world that put you through a metal detector and scanner and searched you after you got
off
the plane. It was so that they could seize any contraband such as banned books, newspapers, magazines. The agents must have read Ricky’s typewritten notes and asked him questions about it.

Ricky sighs as if this is a stupid question. “They’re not very bright. I did a cover page about the conference, made it really boring. I knew they’d only glance at the first few lines, which were full of praise for the brothers.”

“Smart,” I say and examine the photographs. A motel, a mountain, a lonely mountain road. A Range Rover with a dent on the left front.

“This is amazing. This is more than I’d hoped for. You did really well, Ricky,” I tell him with genuine affection.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he says and lights a postmeal cigarette. American one.

“Tell me about the Range Rover in the photograph.”

“Oh, that’s a man called Esteban, a bear, straight, second-gen Mex, he did not bring his car into the garage for repair but he seems to have damaged it at around the same time. Apparently he hit a deer. It’s only a small dent, but I knew you’d be intrigued.”

“Why isn’t he one of your suspects?”

“I don’t know if anyone would have the
cojones
to kill a man and drive around with his blood and DNA on his car for half a year.”