At Havana’s Police Capitol Headquarters
Alfonso Gutierrez sat in the darkening office as twilight had turned to evening, imagining what Detectives Qui Aguilera, Hilito and Latoya must, at this moment, be going through. He felt only a twinge of guilt at having withheld information as to what they’d face out there on the water.
Earlier, after Estrada had described the nature of the problem on his government-contracted boat, Colonel Gutierrez did what he always did in a difficult situation: call General Cavuto Ruiz, Commissioner of Police and Military Matters in Castro’s cabinet.
Gutierrez sat behind his desk, fingering a wrapped cigar here in his second home. He thought about how he perspired just talking to the general, how he held the phone tightly in his grip, knuckles pale against his dark skin whenever he spoke to Cavuto Ruiz.
His mind raced with the strange order coming from some source above Ruiz-high up in the hierarchy of Cuban officialdom, a snake with many heads-an octopus with twice the tentacles- he thought. While Ruiz claimed the order as his own, Alfonso knew better. Someone else had forced the order on the dangerous General Cavuto Ruiz. Colonel Alfonso Gutierrez deplored any light being cast on him or his day-to-day operations, but with such machinations going on over his head, he feared it out of his hands. Still, he must avoid the spotlight.
“Damn it, why was Aguilera placed under my command?” His outbursts were so numerous that his civilian secretary just outside his office merely frowned.
Six major districts lay across the islands, five of which were softer environs than Havana, each a relative paradise according to crime statistics. Why had they not placed Tomaso’s daughter in any one of these safe havens? Why was there a push to make her so visible? Politics, he imagined. Another attempt on Fidel’s part to show the whole damn world how bloody soft he was on women’s rights. The whole thing stank of politics, but now this strange and queer order: assign Aguilera to a triple homicide? What kind of sense did that make? Not only was she a new detective, but she’d never worked a murder case on her own.
With Luis Estrada’s call-an unreliable yet long-time police informant on the docks-what option was left Gutierrez but to call Ruiz? Cuban waters…three dead, likely foreigners. This could become an international incident, something no one wanted. When Ruiz came on the line, Alfonso did all he could to pass the case onto Ruiz’s plate, as Ruiz had direct connections to the secret police. Who better to handle what could prove to be an international brouhaha. But Ruiz had immediately bounced it back to Alfonso. It was as if Ruiz were reading from a script.
“Put the woman detective on it, what’s her name?”
“Hey? The woman?”
“Yes, damn it. Are you deaf?”
“That Aguilera woman? But, General-”
“Didn’t she get her Lieutenant’s status?”
“Her investigator’s badge, yes.”
“Recently?”
“Well, yes, but to throw her into a triple homicide with God only knows what sort of complications? I don’t think this is the wisest-”
“Alfonso, no one’s asked for your fuckin’ opinion. Just do it.”
“I’d have to team her up with Pena, and then perhaps she-”
“No, no Alfonso, no! This is to be a test case for the woman. She does it alone.”
“Alone…by herself? She’s only had minor cases. Never murder. It’ll look as if I want her to fail.”
“Your views about women on the force in any capacity, Alfonso, are well known. This will do nothing to your reputation and may, in the end, prove you right.”
“Do you think so?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Hmmm…then it’s you who expect her to fail?”
“Who can know these things, my friend?”
Then the phone went dead.
Gutierrez understood the mandate- Aguilera is to fail and I must ensure it. He smiled thinly, contemplating success. If it goes well, not only will she fail, but women in the department will be seen as a bad idea. Aguilera would be demoted to some place like Santa Clara, Pinar del Rio, or even the stinking backwater Isla de la Juventud- where she can chase down Cubanos illegally associating with tourists and look good doing it. This last thought had made him laugh, a cruel and ugly sound in the dimly lit office. In fact, he was still chuckling over the entire situation as he took out a Fuentes cigar and lit it, savoring the smell of the rich tobacco.
Once he’d gotten off the phone with Ruiz, Alfonso shouted for Detective Aguilera to come into his office, where he’d given her the order, all the while thinking how delighted she’d be to finally have a major case. And, what a case it would prove to be! He thought how unsuspecting she’d be of all these intrigues from above. “She’ll fail,” he’d said in a self-satisfied tone when she left headquarters. He’d done his part, sending her out to the shrimp boat.
“Still,” he muttered, “it could all blow up in my face when she fails. Fingers may point to me for assigning her this case. A minefield if not properly handled.”
He blew smoke toward the ceiling where the fresh acrid curls added to the dark smudge, residue of countless cigars burned while plotting strategy and anticipating success. He did not taste the cigar; it’d become a prop in his delaying tactic: smoke just one more Fuentes, after running out of excuses to avoid going home to his wife, Angelique, whom he’d long since stopped loving.
A knock came at Gutierrez’s door, and he expected Flora, his timid secretary to be standing there, but it was Detective Jorge Pena instead-his favorite in the department. Pena also disliked the feminizing of the old police station and its ranks, but even more, he disliked Aguilera’s besting him on occasion.
“Hey, boss!” shouted Pena.
“Ahhh, my best man! Come in! A welcome intrusion.”
“Some of us are going to San Souci…drinks, dancing, like that. Join us?”
“Not a bad thought. Maybe.”
“And a visit with Roberta or Teresa?”
They laughed, remembering their last party with these two.
“Yeah, OK…guess I will join you. Can catch up to my wife-the fat cow-no doubt at her father’s. Going on about her latest knitting or quilting project.”
“That’s no way to talk about your wife, Colonel. She’s not fat. Show a little respect.”
“What respect does she or that old man have for me? Even today on her birthday?”
“But…won’t they miss you if it’s her birthday?”
Gutierrez shook his head, stood and paced to the window overlooking the darkest corners and blackest edges of Old Havana. “Ahhh, they won’t miss me so much, and she always has the ready excuse that a big case has fallen into my lap, and this time it’s true.”
“A man in your position, sir, you’ve got to be careful. Appear the family man…the loving husband,” cautioned Pena. “Did you get her a gift?”
Alfonso’s frown deepened, an unconscious response to Pena’s question. “Cono,” he muttered while jotting a note to buy a present. “Yes, it wouldn’t do to anger her father, but…still…it’s a waste of money. She won’t appreciate it, and her father, the bastard, will buy her something I could never match on my miserable salary.”
“Hey, her old man can’t live forever,” Pena reminded him.
“Maybe not…but more likely I’ll go first.”
“Not a chance, boss.”
“Yes, when this merciless ulcer bleeds me dry,” he bitterly replied, patting his cadaverous stomach. “My brother, Diego, now there is a prophet. Right all along.”
“Right, sir?”
“Yes, when he predicted that one day I’d have poisonous thoughts toward Angelique.”
“But you did love her, right?”
“You kidding? She was beautiful before she got old. And damn, the excitement of dating the daughter of the wealthiest man in our district.”
Both men had the same unspoken thought: Only by marrying her had Gutierrez achieved his appointment in Havana.
“So what’s been the result?” asked Alfonso. “Dead-ends; a dead end marriage in a city full of dead ends, and the proud husband in a dead end job. No promotion in years, and now stuck with Aguilera’s brat.” His stomach shuddered, contracted, seized up, and he cringed again, a reminder of the ulcer that just wouldn’t heal. He opened his drawer, pulled out a bottle, and gulped some of the vile liquid the doctors recommended. He puffed a few more times to rid his mouth of its noxious taste before turning again to engineer Quiana’s failure.
He confided his concerns over the matter with Detective Pena, who appeared sympathetic. “Come on, boss. Let’s talk on our way to the cabaret. Earlier we get there, the likelier we’ll run into the women.”
Alfonso gathered up his spotless white coat and wide-brimmed fedora. A pencil-thin man with sharp angles and high cheekbones, he still cut a good figure for a man soon facing fifty. They used his personal car, a 1958 cinnamon-colored Windsor with blindingly shiny chrome, kept in mint condition.
Along the way, Gutierrez unburdened himself, explaining, “About this triple-murder case, Pena. I was ordered to turn the case over to Aguilera, bypassing you. I worry that this’ll come back to haunt the department. She’s hardly ready for a case like this.”
Pena suggested, “Perhaps if old Arturo Benilo were assigned the case as well? Then…then-”
“Then at the very least it’d have the veneer of respectability.”
Pena added, “Despite what anyone thinks of him, the man’s reputation is impervious to assault.”
“True. As the Chief Medical Examiner of Cuba, his name could indeed lend credence to the investigation.”
“Exactly, anyone wanting to attack you, can go see Benilo!”
“Ahhh…you make a lot of sense, Pena. You’re a good man.”
“You can have Aguilera exactly where you want her- far away.”
Gutierrez visibly relaxed behind the wheel. He loved driving this car, and he loved winning. Pena recognized an old and familiar glint in Alfonso’s eye. It was a look that said, ‘I’ve outfoxed my enemy’.