Voodoo Eyes (31 page)

‘Is no’ what they say. They say you kill him.’ Benny was shaking.

‘What?’ Max was confused, somewhere still asleep, still dreaming, his thoughts sluggish, groping for sense.

Benny’s bottom lip trembled.

‘You understand the Spanish?’

‘No,’ said Max. ‘What’s he saying?’

‘He say description – of me and you.’

Now the reporter appeared on screen – a young man in a crisp white shirt and black tie, standing at the end of an alley where, behind him, in the distance, police were working. The camera zoomed in on someone sweeping the contents of the gutter with a dustpan and brush. Nearby lay a lumpy form covered in a white sheet.

‘The cop look for us now, Max. They say they look for – for …’ Benny listened. ‘For white man, tourist, tall, no hair, big body and – oh no! Oh fock!’

A face filled the screen. A black-and-white mugshot – full face and profile. It was Benny, younger – maybe by ten years – smiling slightly at the camera.

‘Is me,’ he said.

‘No shit.’

‘I was arrest when Pilar go.’

‘They know where you live?’

‘No. I no’ live here official. But they know soon.’

Max took out his phone to call Rosa Cruz. He pressed the on button. Nothing happened. He stared at a plain black screen. The phone was dead. He took out the battery, put it back in and tried again. It was still dead.

Despite the noise from the TV, he heard people on the stairs outside, doors opening and slamming, children’s voices. He heard conversations through the walls and ceiling, coming up from the floor. From the street came the sound of cockcrows, traffic and horses’ hooves and laughter.

The man had been alive when they left him. When had he died? Max tried to remember hearing him crack his head. He hadn’t, but small details were lost in the heat of the moment. He tried to recall the man’s face. He got stuck after the colour of the Cuban’s eyes and his moustache.

‘There’s a reasonable explanation to all this,’ said Max. ‘The man attacked you, cut you up with a razor. He was trying to kill you. You can go to the police. Explain. They’ll see your face. They’ll understand.’

‘Max,’ said Benny. ‘This is no’ America. I am homosexual prostitute dress as woman. They maybe know we tell truth, but it no’ matter. I guilty. You –
Americano,
the enemy – you kill
Cubano.
You guilty. We – you and me – we guilty.’

Max thought about just walking out of this nightmare there and then. But Benny knew his name and nationality. The Cuban cops would catch him in no time.

He had to get in touch with Cruz. Explain things to her. Convince her that this was all an accident. He hadn’t meant to kill the guy. It was self-defence. And, besides, how the hell could he find Vanetta Brown locked up in jail?

‘What we do now?’

‘What do you mean
“we”?
I’m getting the fuck outta here.’

‘You go?’

‘Yes, I go. I’m sorry, but I can’t get involved.’

‘What? You
is
involve. Is
you
kill this man! Is you fault!’

‘I was saving your fucken’ life. You’re welcome!’

The TV news was showing an aerial view of the Malecón. A long traffic jam of stationary cars backed up along the seafront lane, baking in the sun. Then it switched to a ground-level shot of a cop standing in the middle of the road directing traffic. Cars were moving slowly around the source of the blockage – a parked ambulance, flanked by four cop cars. A big crowd had gathered on the Malecón wall.

The live pictures cut to a static shot.

Another face appeared on the screen, another still photograph – and
another
face he knew; again, in younger days, when the eyebrows had been black instead of white.

Earl Gwenver.

‘What’s this?’ Max nodded to the TV.

Benny didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The camera zoomed in on a body being stretchered towards the ambulance, leaving a trail of water on the sidewalk. A different reporter – a woman this time – was doing the running commentary. Her tone was more measured, but her words were no easier for Max to understand.

‘What are they saying?’ he asked.

‘This man. Him dead.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday.’ Benny looked worried.

‘Yesterday?’
Max heard the reporter say the word
‘Americano’
. ‘How?’

‘You know him?’ asked Benny.

‘How did he die?’

Max thought of what he’d told Rosa Cruz about hurting Gwenver.

‘They no’ say.’ Benny took a few steps away from him. ‘Max? You kill him … as well?’

‘No.’ Max shook his head. ‘But … I … I … Fuck!’

As Benny listened to the TV, his eyes grew wider.

‘My God!’

‘What is it?’

‘You no’ understand what she say?’ he asked, gesturing at the screen. Max shook his head again.

‘They say they look for – for
Americano
– big, white, no hair. Same. They look for you. They say you kill two peoples.’

Max stared at the TV, trying to think logically, rationally.

‘We can no’ stay here,’ said Benny.

If you run you’re guilty, thought Max. Even if he turned himself in and submitted to the mercies of the Cuban legal process, it could mean months in jail while he cleared his name. And then –
if
they believed him – he’d be deported, his chance of finding Vanetta Brown for ever gone. Once he was on American soil, Wendy Peck’s threat would become a reality. And that was the best-case scenario, based on the assumption that Cuban justice worked like American justice – which, of course, it didn’t.

‘We must leave. Leave Habana. I have friend. He help.’

‘A friend?’ said Max, dazed, half there.

‘Yes. Outside Habana. In Trinidad.’

Max thought of the map in his pocket.
‘Trinidad?’

‘Yes.’

Max stared at Benny. He’d been intending to go there. Had Benny looked through his pockets? Maybe it was just coincidence.

‘Is he a good friend?’

‘Yes,’ said Benny.

‘How good?’

‘The best. He no’ call police. He can get us out of country.’

Max thought about it. He didn’t want to leave Cuba. He couldn’t go home without Vanetta Brown. But he wasn’t going to tell Benny that right now.

‘How are we gonna get to Trinidad?’

‘Car,’ said Benny.

‘You got one?’

‘I get one.’

37

The car was a dusty brown four-door 1957 Chevy Bel Air convertible: long and low, with silver-anodised trim pieces on the fenders, hood and front grille. The interior was mahogany-panelled on the doors and dash, the seats wide black leather, but the wood’s gloss had long gone and the seats were sweat-circle worn and showing stuffing and springbox through split seams.

Benny had stolen it three blocks from the apartment. It was the only parked car around. He simply pulled hard at the door and the lock gave up with a squeal and a pop. After he’d hotwired the car, they took off, Benny at the wheel. Despite their hurry and panic, he’d found time to pack a suitcase and remember his make-up kit.

Max sat in the passenger seat wearing one of Benny’s wigs, most of the hair tucked under his shirt collar. The thing was stiff to near fossilised with hairspray and itched like hell, its synthetic locks mixing with his sweat and tickling his back to irritation.

He felt faintly fucken’ stupid.

But, most of all, he was a compacted mess. His guts were in his mouth, his nerves wound tightrope taught and tripwire sensitive. Every cop he saw made him fraught; and there were plenty around, standing out bold and starched blue against the salt-eroded dirty grey Malecón, eyes roving, looking through every windshield, earpieces crackling, hands brushing hip holsters. His bearings were all messed up. The poles had been inverted, the co-ordinates reset, the trajectories redefined: the cops were after
him.

And he was worried about the car.

The car was a serious goner. The top was up and the windows closed. Inside it was oven hot and raining condensation. There was a small hole in the floor right under Max’s feet, letting in air and fumes. The transmission and suspension were screwed in tandem. Whenever Benny switched gear it took a few long seconds for the car to respond. It would buck violently like an over-oiled coinslot bronco, emitting a stream of sputtering noises that built to a long, loud grunt before the gear changed with a loud clank, making the car shudder so hard that the windows rattled open.

They left the Malecón, passed the lighthouse and took a roundabout. Traffic was slow but fluid. They overtook belching trucks and lumbering horsecarts, and then followed a pink
camello
through a tunnel, which brought them out into the suburbs.

Max turned on the radio and roved the dial. Five: salsa. Seven: Cuban jazz. Nine: a vintage Fidel speech. Eleven: a Cuban soap with canned laughter. Fourteen: a Cuban children’s choir singing revolutionary songs. Sixteen: Cuban rap.

No news.

Benny said absolutely nothing. He was looking straight ahead, his lips clamped tightly shut, his face rigid. He was plain terrified. This was it. The moment he’d feared all his life. The magisterial knock on the door, the dictator state bearing down on him with all its might.

Of course, Max was scared too – like a motherfucker – but he’d been here before and he’d had it worse. For now he still had options, room to manoeuvre, space to think, holes to wriggle through and a wide open road.

He broke down his predicament: he had his passport, his money and his credit cards. He could get out of the country, except he couldn’t go back to America without Vanetta Brown or proof of her death.

Right now, he was no closer to finding Brown than he was yesterday. And he had the Cuban police after him, wanted for one, possibly two murders.

‘How many people in your block have a TV?’ he asked Benny.

‘I no’ know,’ said Ramirez without taking his eyes from the road. He was a different person in men’s clothes. The stitches and stubble around his jaw gave him a dangerous, feral look, and tiredness had robbed his eyes of their previous sparkle. He could have been a former boy-band star who’d fallen on hard times and had to resort to petty crime to make ends meet. ‘No’ many. Television in Cuba is big luxury.’

‘They all got jobs?’

‘Everyone in Cuba have job. Why you ask this question?’

‘Do you talk to your neighbours?’

‘No.’

‘Did any of them know you dressed as Salma?’

‘No. I go out at night. I sleep day.’

‘How long have you been living there?’

‘Why you ask me question like you a cop, Max?’

‘Just answer.’

‘No’ long. Eight, nine week.’

‘That whole time, no one saw you?’

‘No. Building dark. Stair dark. If they see me, they see woman. No man.’

‘OK.’ Max nodded.

The TV reporter at the Gwenver crime scene had said they were looking for a man matching Max’s description, but she hadn’t mentioned his name. The barman at La Urraca had also described him. Then there was the doctor at the hospital. The police would put it together very quickly, if they hadn’t already.

Benny wasn’t officially listed at his address. The car they’d stolen would be reported, but the police wouldn’t connect them to it until they found out where Benny lived.

Which gave them a day’s head start at the most, two if they were lucky and the police slow. He doubted they were.

He told Benny his thoughts. Benny didn’t react. He overtook the
camello,
which had pulled into a stop and was disgorging its battered, wilted passengers. They were heading into country now, wide open fields stretching to the horizon, some ploughed, some planted, some fallow.

Max switched his thoughts to Vanetta Brown. She’d had chemotherapy when she was still living in Havana. Her cancer must have gone into remission because if it hadn’t, Rosa Cruz wouldn’t have sent him after her. Cruz knew she was alive. Brown had fallen out of favour with Castro, fallen in with the Abakuás, and with Haitian criminals.

He had two theories, parallel, but going in opposite directions, one that held up, one that didn’t.

Vanetta, dying of cancer, decided to settle scores. She sent an Abakuá hitman to kill Eldon and Joe. The killer had dug up Abe Watson’s grave and used his gun for the murders. Why? Revenge. Eldon and Abe led the raid that had left her daughter and husband dead. The hitman had then taken Joe out. Why? If Vanetta’s prints hadn’t been on the casings, he could have reasoned that it was to take out the one person who could have linked her to the murders. But that just raised more questions.

So what if Vanetta had nothing to do with the murders, apart from knowing the victims? She’d been set up. The hitman had come from Cuba. Joe Liston had been to Cuba. Joe had known Vanetta. Vanetta had had links with the Abakuás. Maybe Joe had found out something. Maybe he’d seen something. The person or people behind the murders had framed Vanetta as a diversion. They knew her story, and maybe they’d killed Eldon to create an even thicker smokescreen.

Yet his gut didn’t buy it. His gut was telling him she was innocent.

But that was all he really had to go on. Instinct.

There were pieces missing from both theories. If Vanetta was guilty of ordering the hits, what was her motive for killing Joe? If she was being framed, then who by and why her?

The traffic had thinned to single cars and plenty of empty space between. No surprise. Cuba had sixty thousand vehicles for eleven million people, spread over a land mass of more than forty thousand square miles. Cuba didn’t run on oil. It ran on its wits and resourcefulness. And it threw nothing away.

The road ahead was an even black streak cutting through a landscape of lush green grass, orangey-brown soil and tall thin palms. The smooth surface was roadkill-splattered. Turkey vultures – big black beasts with small egg-shaped red heads and sharp white beaks – swooped down low, almost clipping the heads of passers-by with their claws, pausing long enough to tear off a chunk of rotting meat, and then split for the skies before an oncoming vehicle meted out the same fate.