Two Tiffany lamps lit the room, making Miriam’s grey eyes glint even more. At her side, on the sofa, her inseparable companion Adrian Riverón also listened to the litany of falsehoods listed by the Count, because Miriam insisted he should stay there: Adrian was like a brother to her and she trusted him entirely.
“So you knew nothing of the fake picture either?”
“No, I told you. Nor did I know Miguel wanted to come back to Cuba to get something.”
“This is wonderfuclass="underline" nobody knows anything, but somebody must have had a reason to kill Miguel, don’t you think?”
She nodded and Adrian Riverón started to speak, after coughing twice to clear his throat.
“If you’ll allow me, Lieutenant… As I think I said to you this afternoon: why don’t you take your investigations elsewhere and let Miriam be? You’ve already seen what Miguel was capable of, haven’t you? She had to bury Miguel today, who was her husband, after all. Don’t you think she’s already told you as much as she can?”
The Count smiled. Miriam’s eternal suitor had ridden forth, shield aloft, to save his maiden’s honour. Another naïve soul?
“No, I don’t think she’s told me everything she could and I don’t believe the half of what she has said… But I’d like you to realize I’m not harassing her: I only want her to help me find out who killed the man she buried today, and who was her husband, after all. Does that reassure you?”
“Must I sit here listening to myself being called a liar?” protested Miriam, her eyes and lashes begging her friend to come and rescue her.
Adrian shook his head and coughed, as if accepting the inevitable.
“Look, for her sake, would you like me to tell you some things that might help?”
The Count thought for a moment. He’d have preferred a better focused image of Adrian Riverón in order to anticipate his likely hunting ground but resigned himself to listening to him.
“Of course,” he acquiesced, looked for a cigarette for himself, and offering Adrian another.
“Thanks, but I don’t smoke, remember?” he said with an exaggerated gesture of refusal the Count could not fathom: how come he had such a tar and nicotine cough then? Without more ado he lit his cigarette and concentrated on what Adrian Riverón had to say for himself.
“Look, I know – or rather knew – Miguel Forcade, even before he married Miriam, because I had the misfortune to work with him. And I told her once: only once, but I did tell her: he was not a good man. He was an unscrupulous social climber and when he saw the ladder was rocking he stayed in Spain, for a reason I can’t explain, though it can’t have been an honest one. You’ve seen a fellow who sold fake paintings that weren’t even his… Miguel Forcade left lots of accounts pending in Cuba apart from that one, and that was why he was afraid to go into the street, now he was powerless here. You follow me?”
“I follow you and I’m grateful for your help, because you’re telling me I’m right: I must look everywhere, because any of the people he harmed could be the murderer. And if Miriam wanted to, as she said she did yesterday, it would be best for her to help me a bit more now.”
She hadn’t taken her eyes off Adrian while he stripped Miguel Forcade in public, exposing what seemed to be his real flesh, and now she looked at the policeman, who saw a new glint in her eye. Was she going to cry again? But she didn’t, she only let rip her full fury: “You two are as bad as each other. Feeding on a dead man. All of this disgusts me… When can I leave Cuba, Lieutenant?”
The Count transferred his gaze from Miriam’s eyes to the floor.
“Give me just two days more.”
“But only two. I’ve finished here. I want out and I don’t think I’ll ever tread this soil again… Poor Miguel.”
“One night, some six or seven years ago, Miguel confessed that leaving Cuba was the biggest mistake he ever made. I remember it was the end of December and unbearably cold in Miami, especially for a man who always started to wear an overcoat at the first sign of a north wind. On such a night he’d never have gone out, but the owner of the firm he worked for had organized a party in his new house in Coral Gables, and he’d invited a group of his employees, including Miguel. It was like a New Year’s Eve party the owner gave his closest workers because business had gone so well and, according to Miguel, so we would all die of envy at the sight of the house he’d bought a few months earlier, about which he boasted endlessly.
“You know, dying of envy was a very real possibility: the house was in the most exclusive part of the neighbourhood, in a spot you could only reach along a street where there was a sentry-box and private security guard you had to show the printed, embossed invitation to in order to be let in. Then the side road went through a wood, where there were several houses, including Mr Montiel’s, which was one of those mansions that, if you haven’t seen one, you can’t imagine even in your dreams: according to Miguel the house had cost going on for two million dollars and the decorator had been paid more than a hundred thousand for following the new owner’s every whim. When I went inside and saw that wonder, full of mirrors, lights, marble and carpets, I thought it was the best spent money in the whole world, especially if you have several million to spend and can permit yourself the luxury of a life-size Saint Barbara, complete with sword, crown and horse surrounded by baskets of dark red roses and ruddy apples… The party was in the patio, by the swimming-pool, and although Miguel downed several whiskies and we sat under an awning, as near as we could to the barbecues where the meat was roasting, he kept shivering and I said to him: ‘You know, we can go if you like,’ but he told me no way, we should last at least until midnight, so as not to insult that Cuban magnate who was his boss and who’d made his millions by stamping on whatever heads tried to push in front of him. That was why he smiled at Montiel and congratulated him when the guy came over to ask us what we thought of his hovel, and, beaming, Miguel told him his house was fabulous and Montiel replied: ‘Well, you know, Miguel, not half as pretty as your wife,’ and he burst out laughing and slapped Miguel on the back. Still smiling, Miguel watched as Montiel walked off to joke with other employees and there and then he began to shake more violently and after drinking another glass of whisky he told me: ‘The biggest mistake I ever made was to leave Cuba,’ and I thought he meant because he was cold, but later I realized it was envy.
“We lived in a rented house in South West district that would have satisfied the wildest aspirations of anyone here: it was fine for us, we had a patio with a lawn and barbecue, air-conditioning and a Florida-room, a sun-room that looked over a garden with flowers and trees. We both had a car and at the weekends we’d go to Tampa, Naples, Sarasota, St Petersburg or Key West and could afford the luxury of a Friday night dinner in a restaurant on Calle Ocho or in Coconut Grove or Bayside. But all that was only the first step up a slope that could rise much higher to where Mr Montiel had climbed, with his house in Coral Gables worth more than two million. Besides, Miguel knew time was against such an ascent: he was pushing fifty and, as he said, he had yet to meet a person who’d made it through honest toil… Consequently, Montiel’s house was like the epitome of everything we would never have, unless a miracle occurred. But what most upset Miguel was his employee status: here in Cuba he’d always operated at a high level and could feel the real power his hands wielded. Now, though he had a house and a car and money in the bank, Miguel had no power and that was the most difficult part for a man like him to accept. You understand?