The Beggar's Opera (25 page)

“Here,” the woman said and pointed to a wrought-iron bench surrounded by palm trees and flowering bushes. “It is usually private here. I sometimes bring my clients here. Sometimes they only wish to talk, too.”

She took her sunglasses off and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving a trail of mascara across her lovely face. “The man in the bar just now. You knew he was my client?”

“Yes, I gathered as much.”

“It’s a shame,” Maria said. “I hate to lose a paying customer.” She wiped her eyes again. “Are you sure it was Arturo who died?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“He was beaten. Sexually assaulted. They found his body in the ocean.”

“Oh my God,” Maria cried out. “That poor child.” She bent her head down and wept. After a few minutes, Maria lifted her head and searched Jones’s eyes. “When was he killed? On Christmas Eve?”

“How did you know?”

Once again, the woman sobbed quietly. Then she put her pink sunglasses on and Jones could see the effort it took for her to compose herself.

“Tell me about the boy. How do you know him?”

“How can I be sure you are not working with the Cuban police?”

“They arrested Mike Ellis. They think he was connected to this.”

“Was he?”

“No.”

“Why should I believe you when you say that?”

“Because he says he was with you. If he was, he couldn’t have done this.”

The woman nodded. “Can I trust you?” she asked uncertainly.

“You have to.”

Maria considered this for a moment. “Alright. I will tell you everything I know.”

“Let me write this down, okay? Maria, what’s your last name?” She pulled out her notebook and pencil.

“My real name is known only to me and my mother. By now, she has likely forgotten it as well. But I go by the name Maria Vasquez. Before I answer your questions, I need to know this: did he suffer, little Arturo?”

“No. I don’t think so. He died quickly. Around midnight, the pathologist said.”

“Thank God for that. He should have gone straight home. He was supposed to go straight home.”

“You knew this boy well enough to care about him. Who was he?”

“A boy I tried to protect. A good boy. One who deserved better.”

Maria put her head down and wept again, her shoulders shaking. “Why did they arrest him?” she asked. “Señor Ellis was with
me
on Christmas Eve. Arturo was alive after I left the hotel. Señor Ellis had passed out when I left. He could not have done this terrible thing.”

“Someone planted evidence in his room. I need to find out who. And I need you to tell the police that you were with Mike that night so that I can get him out of jail before someone kills him. You’re his only chance.”

“You understand that if I admit to that, I can be locked away for being a prostitute? I could spend years in jail.”

“Do
you
understand that he could be executed by a firing squad for murder? I need to know exactly when you were in his room. What time did you leave?”

The woman sighed and slowly bobbed her head in assent. “I was not there for long. From around eleven to eleven-thirty, perhaps a little earlier. Just long enough to put him to bed. He fell asleep almost immediately. He could not have moved for hours, I am sure.”

Maria wiped her eyes. “I still can’t believe Arturo is dead. He was a delightful boy, full of fun. A real boy, you know? Full of mischief. One who liked to play.”

“How did you know him?”

Maria hesitated. Jones sensed she was holding something back.

“I saw him on the Plaza de Armas one day, being harassed by the police. I felt sorry for him. I told the police officer I was his mother. A lie, but it kept him from harm. He was such a good,
happy little boy. After that, I gave him food sometimes, when he was hungry. And I knew he was getting into trouble, serious trouble, with the boys he was begging with.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“About a week ago, Arturo told me a man named Nasim was giving the boys money to take their pictures. There was always another man with him, a Cuban. Arturo didn’t know his name. Señor Ellis met him. The foreigner, that is. Nasim. Nasim was at the bar on Christmas Eve at the same time we were. Until Señor Ellis told him to go away.”

“The man with the straw hat? The British guy? That was Nasim?” Another word completed in the crossword puzzle.

“Yes, how did you know? He used to take the boys to an abandoned building on Campanario. He asked them to pose for pictures, but I could tell from the way Arturo talked about it that the poses were sexual. Arturo would not tell me much more than that. He was very ashamed. I was certain he was being abused.”

“What did you do?”

“I could not stop them from going. They are so desperate, these children. They will do anything to support their families. Nasim had told them to come back to the same building on Christmas Eve for more money, and candy, too. The other boys wanted Arturo to go. But I could see the risks. I had to stop those men. And so I went to the building on Campanario with Arturo. Only Nasim was there. I told him to leave the boys alone, that I was reporting him to the police. And I did. I thought Arturo would be safe.”

“You called the police?”

“Yes. I did not give my name, but I told the officer what I knew. I even gave him the address of the building. But no one arrested him. I realized that as soon as I saw him in the bar.”

“Why did Nasim come to El Bar that night?”

“To threaten me. He knew I had reported him to the police. He was very angry. He said I was nothing but a stupid
puta
and that he had a powerful friend who would hurt me if I opened my mouth again. He drew his finger like this.” She mimicked slitting her throat. “He told me to keep my nose out of things that did not involve me. It frightened me, that Nasim knew I made the call.”

“You were afraid that someone in the police department had tipped him off.”

“How else could he know? The fact that he was out on the street and not in jail meant I was in great danger.”

“In danger of what?” asked Jones.

“Of disappearing, Señora. It happens here. More often than you would think.”

“Why didn’t you say anything to Mike about this?”

“What could I say? We were going to spend the night together, so I knew I would be safe for at least that night. I assumed Nasim would leave Arturo alone if he thought my client was a policeman from another country.”

“Mike was your client?”

“Yes, of course. We had agreed to meet there, at the bar. At seven. We made arrangements over the internet.”

“Mike says he never saw you before that night.”

“Not in person, but he emailed me in the afternoon.”

“He used his name?” Jones asked.

“No. Of course not. Men never give me their real names online. And I never, ever, give them mine.”

Jones thought back to her interview with Mike. Then she shook her head. “This doesn’t make any sense, Maria. Mike was with his wife pretty much all afternoon right up to dinnertime on Christmas Eve. And there is no email access from his hotel: the server’s been down for days. I don’t see how it could have been Mike who contacted you. It had to be someone else. ”

“But he sat on the third stool. That is where I always meet my clients. The third bar stool, at El Bar, at exactly seven o’clock.”

“When were these arrangements made?”

“Late that afternoon. Maybe five-thirty or so. Why?”

“Then it couldn’t have been Mike. There were witnesses who saw him on the Malecón around then. With his wife.”

Jones hesitated, not wanting to scare Maria unnecessarily. On the other hand, the boy had been murdered. The woman had reason to be frightened.

“I think you were set up. I think the person who contacted you is involved in all of this somehow. In Arturo’s death.”

“Why would you think that?” Maria asked, shocked.

“Because if Mike wasn’t the person who contacted you, no one else showed up at El Bar that night at seven except Nasim. Was he ever a client of yours?”

“No, of course not.” Maria bristled. “I am very particular.”

“Well, you tell me how he knew exactly where to find you, and when. I don’t believe that was an accident.”

“I had not considered this before. So you think he found me on the internet, and how do you say, ‘lured’ me to El Bar? My God, I could be dead. That must be it.” Maria wiped her eyes again. “It is ironic, you know. If I tell the police, they will care more about the fact that I had an internet transaction than about the sex. I could go to jail just for going online. Five years for unauthorized internet transactions.”

This country
was
insane. “Why El Bar?” asked Jones. “Why not some other bar?”

“The bartender, Fidel, protects me. I am not supposed to be inside the bar. He takes a small commission for turning his attention the other way. He warns me if he sees the police.”

“How did you connect with this man over the internet in the first place?”

“I have a webpage.”

“I thought Cubans didn’t have access to the internet.”

“It is not easy, Señora. But nothing is impossible. See?” Maria brought a cellphone out of her tote. “I am not supposed to have this, either. But I do. I must be very careful not to be accused of prostitution. I could be jailed for years. And so, like the other girls, I use computers to find my clients.”

“Your clients, are they always foreign tourists?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “They come here from all over the world. Even some Americans still visit Havana, although it is illegal. But we must be careful; we can all be jailed. So it is best to go somewhere where others will lie for us, like El Bar.”

“Tell me about the man you were supposed to meet. What else can you remember about him?”

“Not very much. He wrote his emails in English. There was some urgency, as I remember. He wanted to meet me that afternoon.”

“What can you remember from the bar? Can you remember anything else about Nasim?”

Maria took a moment to think. “Not really, no. Only that after Nasim showed up, Señor Ellis became very drunk. So quickly that I was worried about him. I thought I should get him back to his hotel. I had to almost carry him there.”

“Did Miguel Artez see you come into the hotel?”

“The doorman? Yes, of course. Miguel knows all the girls. He takes money to let us in when we have a customer. He even helped Señor Ellis to the elevator. By then, Señor Ellis could hardly stand up.”

“He lied to the police. He said Mike was alone, that you were never there.”

“Of course he did. That doesn’t surprise me at all. Miguel is not stupid. He is not going to go to jail to protect someone like
me. He would never admit he allowed a Cuban woman into his hotel with a drunk
turista
. He would be fired first, then arrested.”

“There was no security guard there that night?”

“On Christmas Eve? All the hotels have a reduced staff. Everyone wants to be at mass or at home with their families.”

“Did you and Mike have sex?” Thinking of the sheets, the hard evidence the police might want before they’d believe Maria Vasquez’s story.

“Nothing happened, Señora. He passed out and I left. I was very worried about Arturo because of Nasim’s threats.”

“Did you take money from Mike’s hotel safe?” Jones asked. Then she realized where Mike’s wallet had gone.

FIFTY - THREE

The Canadian lawyer was unhappy with the turn of events. So was Detective Sanchez. And so, it seemed, was the Minister of the Interior.

The medical report, Ramirez assured the politician, didn’t mean that Ellis was innocent. It simply meant that someone else was in the hotel room that night, left his seed on Ellis’s sheets, his underwear in Ellis’s drawer.

“We will find him, Minister, trust me. The killer has to be someone that Señor Ellis knows. The new evidence eliminates a woman.”

“Then it must be a man.”

Ah, yes, Ramirez thought. The minister’s famed powers of deduction. “Most likely another foreigner. I’ve never, in my entire career, heard of a child killed in a sex crime by a Cuban.”

“A homosexual?”

Ramirez shook his head. “Unlikely. The man, or men, who drugged this boy and then disposed of him so casually brutally violated this child for their own selfish needs. This is a different kind of man than those who take pleasure in the company of consenting adults.”

Yes, there were men who preferred to have sex with men in Cuba, but they were gay men, not pedophiles. Lonely men, forced to hide their true nature. Despised by policemen not just in Cuba, but as he had seen, in Russia, too. A threat to
machismo
, Latin and Slavic, it seemed.

The only thing Ramirez had noticed about homosexuals over the years was that they were prone to dramatic displays of violence in their domestic disputes. Like the man he had in custody now, who had stabbed his lover forty-three times with a piece of glass because he wrongly suspected him of having an affair. Jealousies, it seemed, ran deep in the gay community. The men could be just as vicious as any woman.

Here, the police harassed them and sometimes beat them. Ramirez came down hard on men in his department who behaved with such cruelty. He had demoted one of his detectives who acted that way and put him back on the street to lean on lampposts.

We are all Cubans, thought Ramirez. We are lucky enough to have a common enemy in the Americans; it keeps our minds off our difficulties. We must not turn on each because of something we cannot control, like who we love.

“This is exactly what we were afraid of,” said the minister. “This boy’s murderer came to Cuba precisely because there are children like this to exploit. Even small sums of money will entice hungry children to do things they would never consider doing if their stomachs were full. The Americans and their embargo, this is all their fault.” He shook his head. “You have Detective Sanchez following the Canadian lawyer now?”

“If her client knows who raped that boy, then she does, too. And if she doesn’t, she’ll find out soon enough. It’s just a matter of time before she contacts the suspect or he finds her.”