Murder in Havana (20 page)

“What does your company do?”

“Research. Medical. Cancer research mostly. We are developing powerful new drugs to cure cancer. What a terrible thing cancer is,
ya
?”

“I wouldn’t want to have it.”

He laughed. “You speak plainly, like all Americans. I would not want to have it, either. Are you hungry? The food here is not so bad. Not like at home what my wife makes, but not so bad.”

“I am hungry,” Pauling said.

“They have many restaurants in the hotel, but I have my favorite. More European food than Cuban. I do not like Cuban food. Do you?”

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”

“And I have never gotten used to it. Two years here and I am not used to it.” In a moment, he ordered another round. Pauling paid and they carried the drinks to the restaurant, where they were seated at a corner table partly hidden by potted palms from the rest of the room. Outside the window was a sprawling terrace edged by almond trees. The hotel’s small private beach was in the distance.

Pauling led back into the conversation they’d been having at the bar.

“I have this family member back home in the States, Mr. Grünewald. She—”

“Kurt. It is Kurt.”

“Right, Kurt, and I’m Max.”

“It sounds like a good German name.”

“Well, there’s a little German somewhere in my background. Anyway, my aunt has cancer and she’s always searching for a cure, anything, herbs, witch doctors, anything.”

“In hope of a miracle.”

“Right. She was telling me before I left for Cuba that
they’re doing incredible research into cancer right here. Is that true?”

Grünewald nodded. The waiter came to the table and the German ordered another drink. He was quite drunk by now.

“Is that true?” Pauling repeated. “What?”

“Cancer research in Cuba. I understand it’s very advanced.”

Dimly recognizing the state he’d reached, Grünewald drew a series of deep breaths and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. His grin was wide and sappy. “Too much of the rum,” he said. “Perhaps we should order dinner. Chicken. The chicken is good. The steaks are not good.”

During dinner, Grünewald seemed to sober up somewhat. Pauling avoided revisiting the subject until the dessert the German had ordered,
tatianoff
, chocolate cake smothered with cream, arrived. Grünewald ate with the same gusto as he drank.

“Oh, yes, we were talking about medical research,” Pauling said.

“Yes, we were. It is hard to believe, isn’t it, that in such a backward country they could do such sophisticated work? Very advanced. Yes, very advanced indeed.”

“Who owns the research, the government?”

“
Ya
. It owns everything here. It is a Communist country after all.”

“I wonder if they’d be interested in having a private investor.”

Grünewald’s forkful of cake and cream stopped halfway to his mouth. “Private investor?” he said.

“Yes,” Pauling said. “That’s what I do back in the States. I’m a venture capitalist. I came to Cuba looking for investment possibilities for some of my clients.”

“It is the government that owns everything,” he said, completing the fork’s journey.

“I know, I know, but I’ve heard that Castro is in the process of privatizing some things here in Cuba. Have you ever thought of trying to buy into the research, grab a piece of the pie?” Pauling displayed his widest smile.

“No, I—that is an interesting idea, Max, but—well, I mean, it has been considered by my company but … How much would your clients be willing to pay for such a thing?”

“Plenty. Millions. You know, Kurt, running into you might have been the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time. You must know the right people in the government to approach about something like this.”

“Yes, of course.” The waiter brought another rum, a beer for Pauling, the previous one largely untouched. “I am well connected here in Havana with very high-ups in the government. It is my job to make those contacts on behalf of my company. But I am not sure that—”

“That you can trust me?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant.”

“I wouldn’t blame you, Kurt. We’ve just met. And I’m just throwing out an idea. Probably a silly one at that.”

Grünewald turned from Pauling and stared into his empty dessert plate. “Not so silly,” he said in a low voice.

“Huh?”

“Not so silly,” he said, again looking at Pauling. “But too late.”

“How so?”

“Nothing,” he replied, waving away the comment.

“I’m surprised your company hasn’t been after it.”

“My company is—well, no one knows what will happen. We never know, do we, what will happen in our lives?”

The rum had now reached whatever area of the brain
that turns happy drunks into morose ones. Grünewald looked sad.

Pauling glanced at his watch. “Are we going to the Tropicana?”

“Ah, yes, of course. I get into a conversation and forget about time.”

As Pauling waited for the check—Grünewald never made a move toward his wallet—Pauling asked, “How many people work for you here in Cuba?”

“Just one, my secretary. A Cuban woman. Very intelligent.”

“That’s it, huh, just her?”

“And the new one.”

“A new employee?” Pauling said, placing American dollars on the check. “What does she do?”

“He—”
Grünewald mumbled what Pauling assumed were German four-letter words. “They sent me an assistant from Heidelberg. He flew back with me the last time I was there, not so long ago.
Blöder Trottel!
”

Pauling forced a laugh. “What’s that mean?” he asked.

“Useless imbecile. They send him to work for me but he talks only to those back in Germany. He does nothing, is almost never there. When he is, he sits in a small extra room and broods.”

“Sounds like a charming young fella. Is he young?”

“
Ya
. Young, dumb. He wears a silly haircut, like a blond bush on the top, nothing on the sides.”

Pauling had been right. Blondie was German.

“Does he have a job title?” Pauling asked as they moved to leave the hotel and in a moment climbed into a taxi.

“Vice president, huh?” Grünewald said after instructing the driver where to take them. “Vice president of stupidity. I don’t even want to think about him. We go to the Tropicana, have a few more drinks, and enjoy the
beautiful Cuban women on the stage. I will say that Cuban women are beautiful, better than the food. A shame I am a happily married man. Otherwise …”

Pauling had been alert while in the disco and restaurant for anyone demonstrating undue interest in them. He saw no one. But that didn’t mean his meeting with Grünewald had gone unnoticed.

A middle-aged Cuban man who’d dined alone at the opposite side of the restaurant left immediately after their departure and hailed another taxi: “Follow that one,” the passenger told the driver.

And across the street from the hotel, in an outdoor café, Erich Weinert rose from the small table and walked in the opposite direction than the taxis had taken. “Keep an eye on him” he’d been told by Dr. Miller when Miller had hired him to accompany the overweight Grünewald to Havana. “He drinks too much, talks too much. Do what you must to keep him from blabbering to the wrong people.”

Fifteen minutes later he let himself into Kurt Grünewald’s apartment with a duplicate key made shortly after arriving in Havana. He poured himself a glass of Habana Club from the stock in the small kitchen, turned off the lights, pulled a chair up to an open living room window, and waited.

Gene Nichols, CIA operative assigned to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, took the call at home.

“Pauling went to the Hotel Comodoro,” he was told. “He had drinks and dinner there with the German, Kurt Grünewald.”

“Any idea what they talked about?” Nichols asked.

“The waiter—he is one of us—told me that they said something about cancer research, he thinks, in Cuba.”

“Specifics?”

“None. Grünewald also spoke of the beautiful Cuban women at the Tropicana.”

“What was their mood?”

“Grünewald was drunk. They went from the hotel to the Tropicana. The German fell asleep at the table.”

“Who paid?”

“The American, Pauling.”

“Where did they go after that?”

“A taxi to Grünewald’s apartment building. It is only a few streets from his office. Pauling helped him to the front door, got back in the taxi, and left Grünewald standing alone. He fumbled for his key and dropped it a few times.”

“Then?”

“I followed Pauling. He returned to his hotel.”

“And?”

“He went to his room. I waited an hour. No further sign of him. I went back to the Comodoro and spoke with the waiter.”

“Thank you for the information.”

“Of course.”

Pauling had returned to his room to sleep. But once there he knew that alcohol would cause sleep to elude him and didn’t even try. He considered phoning Celia but thought better of it. She was not the sort of woman who would take kindly to a 3
A.M.
call to say hello.

He replayed the evening as he paced the room, stopping occasionally to peer out the window at the street scene below.
Don’t they ever stop the music in Havana?

He had, in fact, enjoyed the show at the Tropicana. Grünewald was right; the women, their dark bodies and minuscule costumes, were indeed shapely and lovely. Grünewald was in no shape to appreciate anything and distinctly unlovely. He’d nodded off during the orchestra’s overture, his head resting on the table between his glass and a bottle of rum he’d ordered. They’d had to wade through dozens of
jinteras
on their way into the massive outdoor theater that seated fifteen hundred people. One young woman was especially aggressive, white-blond hair, dusky skin, fresh-faced with large, round blue eyes and a melting smile. She said she was a dance student who aspired to join the show at the Tropicana but didn’t have the admission charge. Would they take her in with them? Grünewald happily agreed, saying she reminded him of his dear, sweet youngest daughter back in Heidelberg. But Pauling dismissed her with finality, rudely perhaps, but necessary. He didn’t need a fifteen-year-old Cuban hooker growing old prematurely becoming part of his time with Grünewald.

Grünewald!

The German hadn’t confirmed absolutely that his company was involved in buying into Cuba’s cancer research, but his few comments convinced Pauling. But was the German company doing it as a front for Price McCullough’s BTK Industries, as Vic Gosling claimed, or for itself? There was nothing untoward if Strauss-Lochner was operating on its own, for its own gain. But if McCullough’s company was using it to get around U.S. embargo restrictions.… Well, that’s what he was there to find out.

He felt sorry for the German.
He is obviously a fairly decent man, nearing the end of his career, whose drinking undoubtedly didn’t go without notice back at headquarters in Germany. Was that why they’d sent the dumb-looking punk to Havana, to keep tabs on him?

Or on me?

What was Blondie all about?

Obviously, Grünewald isn’t the one who sicced him on me
, Pauling reasoned.
It had to have been his superiors back in Heidelberg. But how did the Heidelberg crowd even know I was in Havana? Since it was obvious that they did, they must also know why I’m here
.

Who could have told them?

Celia? Gosling? Gosling’s client at Signal Labs? Jessica?…
Pauling was annoyed at the number of people who were aware of where he was, and what he was doing.
Tell one person, you tell the world
.

He thought of Grünewald at home, uneasily sleeping off his drunkenness. His apartment had been only a few blocks from Strauss-Lochner’s offices on Quinta Avenida. The office would be unoccupied. The Cuban secretary was probably home in bed with her hubby. As for the blond thug, it was unlikely that he slept in the office.

Pauling had taken note of a back entrance to his hotel, and there was a staircase at the rear. He checked the
pockets of his vest. He had everything he needed—the Glock, a Swiss Army knife with enough folding appendages to open a fort, a small flashlight, money, and some business cards he’d been given identifying him as a pilot for Cali Forwarding.

Pauling opened the door and stepped into the hallway. He was alone. He made his way to the rear stairs and tried the door. It was unlocked. He went slowly down the four flights, pausing at each landing to detect sounds from the other side of the doors. Nothing.

The door at the lobby level opened into a utility room in which kitchen supplies were stored. A rat scurried beneath shelving. The small space was thick with the odor of spices.

The rear exit was across a short hall from the storeroom. It led to a narrow street only slightly wider than an alley. Like every street in the city, there were people, listening to music from boom boxes, necking, tossing dice against a cement wall, and whooping it up when someone won the throw. Pauling nodded at those who noticed him and walked to a busy intersection where the usual assortment of geriatric American cars waited for paying passengers. He climbed into one and gave the driver the address.