Havana Blue (15 page)

“Should we put a search out for her?”

“Yes, dig her out from under the ground or the guy she's with or wherever the fuck,” growled the Count, and he thought of Tamara again. Damn Tamara, he
told himself and remembered that at some stage he should speak to Baby-Face Miki. He could see the pure blue sky from his window and finally told Manolo: “Go on, put a search out for her and see you downstairs. A deputy minister is expecting us to call.”

He lived on Seventh and Thirty-Eighth, in a threestorey building with a redbrick façade and big balconies that looked out on the boulevard. A path of flagstones embedded in the earth crossed the green sward of well-clipped lawn and led to an elegant building that was modern despite being thirty years old, and also somewhat humble in comparison to the surrounding mansions. The Count and Manolo silently climbed up the steps and rang the bell to the flat that occupied an entire second floor: the first high-pitched fanfare from Mendelssohn's
Wedding March
rang out the other side of the door. Manolo laughed and shook his head.

“Do come in, please. I was expecting you,” said their host when he opened the door, and the Count thought: I know him. Alberto Fernández-Lorea was a man nearing fifty, but he still looked in good shape. I bet he doesn't smoke and goes for runs in Martí Park, thought the Count who was trying to remember where he'd seen him before. The deputy minister's athletic body, his lank abundant hair parted down the middle and the build of a man in his prime might have suggested Vargas Llosa's Scribe on the crest of the wave, and that would have been spot on.

The deputy minister invited them to sit down and excused himself for a moment – “I'm sorry, if you don't mind” – and walked over to the unpolished wood partition separating the living room from what was probably the kitchen-diner. It was a very large living room, perhaps disproportionately so, from what the Count could see of the flat, and he recalled how it was
there Rafael Morín had danced and eaten, talked and laughed in what was probably his last public appearance. It was a splendid space, and through the balcony windows you could see the high branches of a leafless Royal Poinciana, and the Count thought how in summer the tree would be a joy to the eyes when orangey flowers bedecked every branch.

Fernández-Lorea came back, and the Count was quite sure his face was more than familiar, but where
have
I seen this guy before? He racked his brains: the extra information might be a bonus.

“Well, please feel free to start,” the deputy minister suggested, and his voice resounded several decibels above what was necessary for such a meeting. He'd settled down in an armchair with plastic piping and rocked gently to and fro. “We're all very worried about the whereabouts of Comrade Rafael Morín.”

The Count contemplated the man's languid eyes and felt he could say nothing: he was thinking about how he should address him. Comrade Deputy Minister sounded hollow, officious and too smarmy; Fernández by itself, simply impersonal; Alberto, beyond the pale, an expression of nonexistent intimacy, and he wanted that exchange which had started so tentatively to be over and done with.

“Comrade Deputy Minister Fernández,” he said finally, and the very sound of those words made it feel like an exercise in self-flagellation, “you know, this is a very unusual case, disappearances as such hardly exist in Cuba so we've been forced to spread our net as wide as possible. For the moment, we've discounted the idea of a kidnapping or any illegal departure from the country . . .”

“No, such things are out of the question as far as Rafael is concerned. I'm sure he's had an accident or
something else untoward has happened,” the deputy minister commented and apologized theatrically for his interjection. “Do please go on.”

“At this stage,” the Count continued and then looked at his colleague, “there are only two possibilities: one that so far seems very unlikely, which is that Rafael has gone into hiding because of something we're unaware of. And the other is that he has been murdered, for something we're also unaware of, but experience tells us it could be anything, the most banal motive. In any case the night before he disappeared he came here with his wife to say farewell to the Old Year and perhaps your party holds the clue that will take us to Rafael. That's why we're here.”

The deputy minister looked towards the partition and shifted a foot rather nervously. The Count then scented the indiscreet aroma of good coffee and thanked him in advance.

“Well, Comrades,” Fernández-Lorea finally asserted, Solomon-like, still rocking away, “the truth is I don't know what help I can be. It's true what you say about nobody ever going missing in Cuba, and yet the slightest thing gets lost. It even adds a little piquancy, don't you agree? Perhaps what you're after is my opinion of Morín, and I can give you that, no problem. I think Rafael is the best young manager on our board, which is responsible for supplying raw materials to industry and negotiating the foreign sales of some of our products. I first met Rafael just under two years ago, when I was moved from foreign affairs to the ministry, and to be quite candid, as soon as I saw him in action I had no doubt that one day he would occupy my post, and I,” he lowered his voice to a tone more in keeping with a meeting of three and began to speak confidentially, “I would be grateful to him for that, because I wasn't
born to do these things. The post I now hold now came by chance rather than choice, I can be quite candid on that front, because I prefer the peace and quiet of an office preparing market studies to the daily whirlwind of a ministry, that gets more difficult to stomach by the day, and the more things happen in the socialist camp the worse it will get, and we don't know how it will all end. Besides, it requires a use of diplomatic procedures that have never been my forte.”

The deputy minister gently rubbed his hands together, and Lieutenant Mario Conde felt embarrassed and almost disappointed, because Alberto Fernández-Lorea sounded genuine, despite his pompous turn of phrase. After all, he thought, there have to be people who don't want to be like Rafael.

“I'm very afraid of failure and doubly so of looking ridiculous,” the man went on after taking another look at the screen, “and I don't know whether I have the ability to cope with the responsibility I have and wouldn't like to finish up a cast-off. On the other hand, that young man's work capacity is extraordinary, and his career is at its best point ever. What do I mean? That Rafael Morín was quite first-rate in what he did and had something I lack: he was ambitious, and I am using that word in its best sense.”

The coffee finally emerged from the kitchen. It arrived in three cups on a glass tray that also carried two glasses of water. Behind it walked a woman. “Good afternoon,” she said just before entering the living room. She too was on her way to fifty and in a hurry to arrive and looked fully the part: wrinkles fanned out aggressively from around her eyes, and her neck drooped flabbily. She was an exhausted woman reflecting none of her husband's warm sporting sheen.

“My wife, Laura,” the deputy minister introduced
her. They greeted her, and he wanted to be more precise: “Mario Conde and . . .”

“Sergeant Manuel Palacios,” Manolo came to his rescue.

The woman offered them their coffee, and only the Count took two sips to clean his palate. It was strong bitter coffee, and the lieutenant repeated his thanks.

“It's a blend of Brazilian which I got as a present and coffee from the corner store. That way it lasts longer, and I think this mixture makes it taste better, don't you? Because at the end of the day a coffee's quality depends not just on its purity, but also on a taste that has been created over the years. A few months ago, in Prague, I was invited to drink Turkish coffee vaunted the best in the world yet I found it difficulty to finish the cup. And as a coffee-drinker I even drink the stuff brewed opposite the Coppelia,” she added as they nodded in agreement.

The Count savoured his coffee and thought Manolo must be feeling what Fernández-Lorea experienced in Prague: he preferred his coffee very sweet and very weak, the Oriente province style his mother still favoured.

“And you said he was ambitious?”

“Yes, and I added that I meant that in the best sense of the word, Lieutenant. At least in my opinion,” he said, taking a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. “Would you like one?”

“Thanks,” said the Count as he accepted a cigarette. So he's a smoker as well, he thought. “And what do you know about Rafael Morín's private life outside of work?”

“Really very little, Lieutenant. I have enough to cope with at work without worrying overly about that
side of things, which I've never considered important, I'm sorry.”

“But you
were
friends,” interjected Manolo, who couldn't stand any more of this, the Count thought, watching him perch like a skinny cat about to attack.

“To an extent we were. We'd meet in lots of places for work reasons and got on well as colleagues. But we'd hardly known each other two years, and it was a workbased relationship, as I explained to the lieutenant.”

“And on the thirty-first?” the sergeant continued. “Did you notice anything strange? Did you know he'd run into a problem with Dapena, the Spanish businessman?”

“I knew about the Dapena incident and thought it long dead and buried. I don't know what you can have heard. And on the thirty-first he was his usual self, talking about work, joking or dancing. It's the second time we've seen the Old Year out here, a group of us get together and get a pig from Pinar del Río, and I roast it on the next-door neighbours' spit. You can imagine, my father was a head chef and something rubbed off. I think I'm an accomplished pig-roaster.”

“So he didn't seem anxious about anything?”

“Not that I could see. He didn't drink much either; he said he was feeling queasy.”

“And he didn't have any problems at the enterprise, something that could force him to go into hiding?”

The deputy minister looked at the Count, perhaps trying to see what lurked behind such a question. His eyes shone more brightly, as if he'd seen a red light flashing. He took his time answering.

“Well, there are many kinds of problem, but for someone like Rafael Morín to decide to go into hiding, there's only one kind. To my knowledge, there's only one kind of problem, but anyway Major Rangel asked
me for permission to investigate the enterprise, and you'll start tomorrow, I believe.” He opened his arms, and Manolo nodded.

“I hope it isn't that sort of problem, because it could be terrible, but the enquiry will have the last word on that count, so don't ask me to put my hands in the fire now. Rafael Morín still continues to be an excellent comrade, and I'll think the contrary only when I'm told, or better, shown the contrary. Let's wait on that.”

“One last question, Comrade,” the Count now interjected to avoid another salvo from Manolo. He sensed the deputy minister's alarm was all too palpable for it to be mere speculation. Perhaps Fernández-Lorea had anticipated something, perhaps even knew something. “We don't wish to take up any more of your time, particularly on a Sunday. What funds were at Rafael Morín's disposal to make purchases abroad? I mean for handing presents around, apart from the ones he took home.”

Fernández-Lorea expressed classic astonishment: he raised his eyebrows and then shifted one foot, as if expecting another round of coffee. However, his voice boomed at thrice the level for a public meeting.

“Funds, Lieutenant, of the kind you describe: none whatsoever. He travelled on expenses as a company director and with money for marketing purposes, depending on the type of deal he went to sign or the new market he was going to explore. Our enterprise had in that sense a degree of leeway, for it was often a matter of buying a very specific product, often manufactured in the US, for example, and it couldn't do that via traditional channels, but through third parties, as we sometimes did in Panama, just to cite one example. And you know, almost everywhere in the world business is done by wining and dining, and you
have to give presents, and the embassy or whatever commercial office is put at our disposal doesn't always have a car available . . . He handled that money, sometimes a substantial amount, and although we are very careful, because the books are checked periodically, statements of account and expenditure on expenses drawn up and two audits a year, the accounts aren't often as exact as we'd like, for many reasons, and that's where trust is the key factor. And he was trustworthy, according to all the reports I got. On the other hand, Lieutenant, many businessmen we work with hand out presents as a matter of course when a good contract is signed. I myself was given a BMW in Bilbao only two months ago, and my Lada was in the repair shop . . . Well, and as the comrades who work at this level are always trustworthy, if it's not too large, if it's something quite personal, the comrade keeps whatever it is.”

“And have there been problems with comrades over this kind of perk?”

“Yes, regrettably, there have.”

The Count sensed Fernández-Lorea was speaking of a subject that grew more distasteful with each word and was about to thank him when Manolo piped up.

“I'm sorry, Comrade Fernández, but I think your information can be a great help to us. For example, who assigned these allowances, marketing expenses and whatever for Rafael Morín?”

Manolo put the question, and the Count didn't know whether to laugh or cry or both at once, but when they got out of there he'd find a mule and give it a good kick: Manolo had hit the right button.

“He generally assigned them himself and was his own boss at the enterprise,” Fernández-Lorea disclosed before getting to his feet.