“No, I really don’t.”
“How’s the list going?”
“Going. That’s why I was in the library… You know, Mario, I’m more worried now.”
“OK, Tamara, let me investigate these numbers, and I’ll call by. All right?”
“All right, Mario, I’ll be expecting you.”
“Uh-huh. See you.”
He took the sheet of paper the secretary pointed his way and studied it for a moment. Zaida and Zoila sounded like a melancholy Mexican duo of ranchera singers. He should have asked Tamara about the relationship between Rafael and Zaida but hadn’t dared. He jotted down the names and numbers on his notepad and smiled and asked Maruchi: “Hey, baby, do me a favour and give the people downstairs a call and tell them to look out the addresses for these numbers.”
“Anything for you,” replied the young woman, bowing to the inevitable.
“I so love willing women. When I get paid I’ll buy you… And the chief?”
“Go in, he’s waiting for you, as he usually is…” she told him and pressed the black intercom button.
He tapped the door with his knuckles before going in. Major Antonio Rangel sat behind his desk, officiating at a cigar-lighting ceremony. He was subtly angling the flame from his lighter, turning the cigar, and each movement of his fingers created a tranquil puff of blue smoke that floated before his eyes, embracing him in a compact scented cloud. Smoking was a transcendent part of his life, and people familiar with his fetish for a good Havana never interrupted him in the act of lighting a cigar. Whenever possible, they would give him well known brands as presents on the requisite day: a birthday or wedding anniversary, Father’s Day or New Year’s Day, the birth of a grandson or graduation of a son; and Major Rangel was gathering together a proud collector’s cache from which he could select different brands for particular times of day, buttresses to shore up his state of mind and sizes according to the time at his disposal for a smoke. Only when he’d finished lighting his cigar and contemplated with professional satisfaction the perfect crown glowing at the end of his smoke, would he straighten in his chair and address his latest visitor.
“You wanted to see me. Didn’t you?”
“Yes, I didn’t have much choice in the matter, did I? Take a seat.”
“When you’re as stressed as I am and feel you can’t think straight, the best thing is to light a cigar, not firing it up and wallowing in smoke, but smoking it properly, for each cigar is unique and offers you every ounce of goodness it has. When I’m smoking like this and doing other things, it’s a waste of a six-inch Davidoff 5000 Gran Corona, which deserves to be smoked slowly and thoughtfully or simply when one can sit down to smoke and chat for an hour, which is the ideal lifespan of a cigar. The one I lit this morning was a disaster: first because mornings have never been the best time for a cigar of such quality and second because I didn’t pay it proper attention and mistreated it, and however much I tried later on, I couldn’t make amends, and it was as if I were smoking an amateur roll, it really was. I can’t understand why you prefer to smoke two packets of cigarettes a day rather than one Havana. That transforms you. And I don’t mean it has to be a Davidoff 5000 or another good Corona, a Romeo y Julieta Cedros N° 2, for example, a Montecristo N° 3 or a Rey del Mundo of whatever size but a good dark-skinned cigar that pulls gently and burns evenly: that’s what one calls living, Mario, or the nearest one ever gets. Kipling said a woman is but a woman, but a good puro, as they call them in Europe, is much more. I can tell you the fellow was absolutely right, because I may not know much about women, but I know lots about Havanas. One is a fiesta for the senses, a riot of pleasure, my boy: it revives the sight, awakens taste, rekindles touch and creates the lovely taste that goes so well with an after-dinner cup of coffee. And is even music to the ears. Listen to it moving between my fingers and almost moaning as if prey to desire. Do you hear that? Then come the accompanying pleasures: seeing half an inch of ash mount up or removing the band when you’ve smoked the first third. Isn’t that living? Don’t look at me like that. I’m being perfectly serious, more than you might think. Smoking is a true pleasure, particularly if you know how. What you do is a vice, a cheap experience, and that’s why you get frustrated and despair. Get this straight, Mario: this is a case like any other and you are going to solve it. But don’t let the past prejudice you, right? Look, to help you over the hump, I’m going to make an exception. Well, you know I never give cigars to anyone, but I’m going to give you a Davidoff 5000 as a present. I will now tell Maruchi to bring you a coffee and you’ll light up, the way I told you, and you can tell me what it’s like. You’d have to be a real son of a bitch if this doesn’t bring you back to life. Maruchi.”
“Saturday 30 – 12 – 88
“Armed Robbery. Retail company Guanabacoa district. Guard seriously injured. Culprits arrested. Closed.
“Attempted murder. La Lisa district. Culprit arrested: José Antonio Évora. Victim: culprit’s wife. In a bad state. Statement: admits responsibility. Motive: jealousy. Closed.
“Armed robbery, Parque de los Chivos, La Víbora, October Tenth District. Victims: José María Fleites and Ohilda Rodríguez. Culprit: Arsenio Cicero Sancristóbal. Arrested 1 – 1 – 89. Closed.
“Murder. Victim: Aureliana Martínez Martínez. Resident at 21, N°1056, e/A and B, Vedado, Plaza District. Motive: unknown. Open.
“Disappearance: Disappearance of Wilfredo Cancio Isla. Case open: possibly drug trafficking. Missing man found in a boarded up house. Accused of breaking into the property. Arrested pending investigation possible drug connections.
“Armed robbery…”
He closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips against his eyelids. The conversation with Jorrín had sharpened the hypersensitivity he’d not lost in all those years on the job and which helped him imagine each case individually. And that list of pointless crimes filled three computer printouts, and he reflected how Havana was turning into a big city. He puffed gently on the cigar the Boss had given him. Recently, he reflected, robbery and assault were on an upward curve, the siphoning off of state goods seemed irrepressible, and trafficking in dollars and works of art had become much more than a passing fashion. It’s a good cigar, but none of this relates to Rafael. Tens of daily reports, of cases that were open, closed or still under investigation, astonishing connections linking a basic illegal beer-bar with an illegal betting shop, and the betting shop with counterfeit petrol vouchers, and the counterfeiting with a consignment of marijuana, and the drugs with a real store offering a selection of domestic electrical goods to purchase with dollars that couldn’t be traced. If only this cigar helped me think, because he needed to think, after he’d told the Boss about his dealings with Rafael Morín and Tamara Valdemira, I had a doggish infatuation for that woman, Boss. “But that was twenty years ago, wasn’t it?” the major asked, and he said: “Forget any idea I might take you off the case. I need you on it, Mario. I didn’t call you this morning for fun. You know I don’t like disturbing people just for the sake of it, and I’m not so romantic as to invent tragedies when they don’t exist.
But this tale of the man who disappeared reeks. Don’t let me down now,” he said, adding: “But be careful, Mario, be careful… Remember there’s a loose end somewhere, and who better than you to find it? OK?”
“What have you come up with, Conde?” Sergeant Manuel Palacios asked, and the Count saw fireflies flying in his eyes born from the pressure from his fingertips.