"Do you know how long it's been since I ate one?"
Janek shook his head.
"Twelve years. I remember the occasion very well." Luis set down his fork. "I had just gotten out of the army. My father arranged a celebration at Las Americas at Veradero Beach. It was a wonderful evening. Near the end, when we were almost finished, a convoy of vehicles pulled up and a very special person walked in. It was Fidel.
The only time I had seen him that close. Of course I was thrilled. My father got up and approached his bodyguards. They let him through.
Then I saw him whisper into Fidel's ear. A few moments later he brought the president to our table. I stood and Fidel looked me in the eye.
Then, very emotionally, he embraced me. ' is for young people like you that we made the revolution,' he said. As his arms grasped me and his beard grazed my cheek, I felt as if some of his strength, his incredible power, was flowing directly from him to me. It was a fine moment-standing there before my family, on the brink of manhood, embraced by our leader, this man who had single-handedly recreated Cuba, delivering us from oppression and corruption. Even now, twelve years later, if I close my eyes I can feel the pressure of his hands."
Luis paused. He removed his glasses. His large, brown liquid eyes seemed even sadder than before.
"But you see, and I must say this very carefully, Frank when I open my eyes I can no longer feel that strength. When I open my eyes now I see the truth, which is that that man, who has done so many remarkable things for our country and whose every word so moved me when I was young, has held on to power far too long. The regimes in Eastern Europe have fallen like matchsticks, but he tells us we must die before we allow the slightest change in ours. If there is no fuel for our tractors, so be it, he tells us-we shall plow our fields with oxen. And if there is no food for us to eat, so be it, he tells us-we shall suffer hunger for the glory of our revolution."
Luis shook his head.
"The world has passed him by, but he does not know it because he believes he is like a god. I think he is mentally disturbed, Frank, and that he is turning this poor, tired country into an asylum to harbor his madness… and the madness of his failed dreams." It was an eloquent, anguished, heartfelt speech. Janek was moved b it, and, he could see, Luis felt better for y having made it. Janek also knew that by sharing his perception of Fidel, Luis had given him a gift. He has given me his trust.
After lunch they drove quietly to a large, drab, gray building-headquarters of the Havana Police. It was an ominous, labyrinthine place of echoing footsteps-long corridors lined by bureaus with frosted-glass doors. Yet the faces of the people who roamed its halls reminded Janek of the faces in the halls of any precinct house in New York-anguished victims, frightened witnesses, worried d relatives, bantering cops. The buzz was the same and the smell was similar: stale coffee, stale cigarette smoke, the bad air that is generated wherever there is a gathering of people concerned with crime and punishment. It was, he recognized, the universal smell of law enforcement, no different in Havana than in New York.
They passed through an archway beneath the word HOMICIDIO inscribed in ornate letters-as if homicide were an elegant thing. Past this point the noise dropped off. Luis explained that in Cuba murder was not a common event. Most homicides were committed within families and required little investigation. But still the word had a certain mystique.
"People always feel a chill when they walk in here," he said.
He led Janek to an empty, dusty room with a high ceiling, unwashed windows and mold-stained walls. Here an ancient black Royal typewriter sat upon a bare wooden table. He brought Janek a chair, then left him alone. Janek sat down, pondered for a while, then began to pound out a summary of his interview.
As he typed, the room echoed with shifts and returns, an old squad-room sound he hadn't heard since the introduction of computers. But no matter how hard he hammered the keys, his words were barely imprinted on the paper. When he examined the ribbon he understood why-it was so old, so used, that in many places it was torn all the way through.
When the affidavit and translation were done, Luis dropped Janek in front of his hotel. He would take the documents to Tania for approval, take her before a Cuban judge for the swearing-to ceremony, then return.
Back in his room, Janek took off his clothes and again inspected his body in the mirror. Although there were still a few sore spots, the blue marks had nearly faded.
He lay down on the bed. He didn't want to think about his experience with the Seguridad. He needed to think about Mendoza. is it possible, he asked himself, that Timmy faked the Metaxas letter and pressured Pefla to commit perjury? The thought was so chilling, he put it out of his mind. Then he fell asleep.
At nine that night Luis was back, treasures in hand. The executed documents, sworn to by Tania in the presence of official witnesses, bore a variety of flamboyant signatures, indented seals and one big red wax seal securing a piece of multicolored ribbon to the paper.
"These are beauties!" Janek said. He embraced Luis. "Thank you.
You've really saved my ass!"
Since neither one was hungry, they decided to take a walk. Luis led the way from the boisterous atmosphere of La Rampa to a well-kept area of suburban blocks nearby. Here old-fashioned lamps lit silent shady streets and the air was perfumed with the aroma of night-blooming shrubs.
They talked about police work-what they liked about it and what they didn't, the boredom and the pleasures of it, the exhilaration that always came when an investigation began to break open a case. They talked about detectives who solved crimes by the numbers, and others, like themselves, who worked more by hunch and touch.
"I usually go in the way you go into a labyrinth," Janek said, "trying to feel my way around. Sometimes I'm clumsy. I run into the walls. Other times I get completely lost.
In the end, if I manage to get to the center of the thin it's because on some level or other I felt it. Know what I mean?"
Luis nodded. "A sixth sense about people, what they are like, what they are likely to do."
"Right," Janek said. "So, let's talk about that. What did you feel about Tania?"
"My professional opinion?"
Janek shook his head. "Your gut reaction." Luis paused. "I felt she was a very strong woman."
"But maybe not so strong as she wanted you to believe."
"Perhaps not."
"So, what do your instincts tell you about her, Luis? Did she lie to me?
Did she tell me everything?"
Luis thought again before he answered. A parrot, his cage secured to the railing of a porch, screeched shrilly as they passed.
"She is safe here, the case is old, so she has nothing to gain by lying.
Still, she is human. She could be holding something back or leaving something out."
"Why?"
"Perhaps to make herself look better in our eyes."
"Or in her own. That's something I've learned about stories, Luis.
People have to live with themselves, so they interpret what they've done in ways that make them feel good."
Luis nodded.
"Thing is," Janek continued, "if Tania set up the final date with Metaxas, she'd have to bear some responsibility for what he did. She doesn't want to bear any responsibility for it. That may be why she ran-"
"Do you think she lied about that?" A dog howled in the distance.
"I'm not sure it makes much difference. She says she screamed a lot when she saw Mrs. Mendoza hanging in the studio. That's something we didn't know. We didn't know she'd gone over there that night. But I'm certain she's telling the truth."
"How can you be?"
"A neighbor called our emergency number, nine-one-one, to report screams just after seven o'clock. That's when Tania says she arrived to clean the place up. All these years we've assumed that the neighbor heard death's screams, something we couldn't reconcile with the fact that our people found her gagged."
Luis spread his arms. "Well, there you are-Tania was truthful. "
"About that, yeah. But I still have a problem with Metaxas. He was slow-witted, known for being sweet and well mannered, except of course when in the ring. Suppose Tania did set up the date with Metaxas, like he wrote in his note. Does that mean the note couldn't have been faked or forged?" Janek shook his head. "There're too many other things that don't fit-like why would Mendoza risk a face-to-face meeting with a hired killer and why would sweet Gus use a woman's body as a punching bag? If he was capable of that, why would he feel remorse about it afterwards? There are four things that tie Metaxas to the murder: his suicide; his note; the five-thousand-dollar money order to his mother;
Peiia's testimony. All four could have been manipulated. It would have been difficult, but it could have been done. What Tania has to say has little bearing on that… if she lied a little or left a few things out. But suppose Tania told us a very big lie." He glanced at Luis.