“A nice apartment,” the lieutenant commented and on the pretext he was looking for an ashtray his eyes took more liberties as he peered around.
“You gradually collect things,” she smiled nervously, “and try to make a pleasant place to live in. The problem is that my son and his friends always turn things upside-down.”
“You’ve a son?”
“Yes, he’s twelve.”
“Twelve or two?” asked the Count, really confused.
“Twelve, twelve,” she repeated. “He just went out with some friends from the block. Just imagine, it’s this cold and they want to eat ice-cream at the Coppelia.”
“Well, the Chinese say, or at least some do, like one I know who’s the father of a colleague, that it’s good for you to eat ice-cream when it’s cold.” He smiled, and Manolo continued to act silent. If only he always acted like that.
“Would you like a coffee?” asked Zaida. She was cold or perhaps afraid and didn’t know whether to fold her arms or struggle against her short skirt.
“No thanks, Zaida. We don’t want to take up too much of your time. You were expecting visitors, weren’t you? We just want you to tell us a bit about your boss, what you know about him. Anything that might help us find him.”
“I don’t know, it’s seems incredible, impossible Rafael’s gone missing. I hope not, but I feel something terrible may… No, I don’t even want to think about it. He’s not gone into hiding, has he? Why should he? You know. It makes no sense. It’s all very peculiar. I’ve been thinking about it these three days and just can’t understand. I’ll shut the balcony windows. Suddenly it’s turned cold, and this house is like an icebox. The sea’s right outside and I’ve got a bit of a headache, too much sleep I reckon… But I think I know Rafael well, right, I’ve worked for him for nine years, that’s a fact, I started in the main stores at the ministry, he employed me as a typist and helped me loads. I had no experience and that was when the boy’s father went off with the Mariel lot, when I found out he was already there. He was crazy to go like that. He ended up in Miami. He left with another guy, prepared everything behind my back, told me nothing, didn’t even say goodbye to his son, well, it was terrible, I don’t have to tell you, and, as I could type a bit, and had finished secondary school but had a small kid, and then problems with my family, I don’t know, my mother was still angry with me because I’d got pregnant before getting married, and a gentleman who lives near here, on the committee, told me there was a job at his work, in the stores, they needed a typist and that it wasn’t difficult, just payrolls and payslips and such like. Sorry I’m always rambling on. Well, the truth is I got started and, as things improved with my mum, I enrolled on a secretarial course at night school and Rafael helped me a lot. He gave me every Saturday off so I could take care of my problems and be with my son, because what with work and school all blessed day, for two years, and when I passed my exams, I got the post of secretary, it was already vacant but he’d kept it for me, because, anyway, I’d been doing the job for some time. Rafael. Just imagine, I’ve always seen him as a good friend and I don’t know how my little story can help you, but he’s a good friend, that’s for sure, and I couldn’t wish for a better, more human, more responsible boss, he looks after everyone, then and now in the enterprise, because, of course, the problem is he asked me to go and work for him in the enterprise where things are much more complicated. He needed people he could trust and it’s a tremendous responsibility, almost everything’s dollars and deals with foreign firms, you know… A tremendous responsibility, but he had to have everything shipshape, as they say, and it was never any different, like now, and you know, best of all, as far as I can remember, he’s never had problems with any of his workers, if you want, you can ask García, from the union and he’ll tell you. No, and that’s why I can’t understand what’s happened now, nothing’s any different, we’ve had lots of work connected to the ’89 development plan, and as we often finished late he’d get a driver to bring me home or drive me home himself. I can hardly believe Rafael isn’t around someplace, I still can’t… something’s happened to him, right? But, you know, just to show you, when Alfredito was six, Alfredito, my kid, got one hell of a temperature and I thought he was going to die, and Rafael acted better than if he’d been the kid’s father, got him meat, got him a car to go to the hospital and gave me a full wage, well, that’s beside the point, what is to the point is the way he behaved and I’m no exception. I always saw him behave like that with everyone, just you ask García, the union steward. The poor… Phone? Did he phone me on the first? No, the last time I saw him was on the thirtieth, because he didn’t work on the thirty-first, he drove me back here and came up for a coffee and said he was very tired, exhausted was what he said, because we chatted for a while and he gave me a present… nothing really, a New Year’s Eve gift, you know, we’d been working together for so long, side by side. He’s more than my boss, you know, closeness brings on love, right? And he looked so tired. What on earth do you think can have happened?”
“No, don’t tell me what you’re thinking, wait before you tell me,” he begged Manolo as they walked out of the building. A fine monotonous drizzle was still falling, and darkness had descended on the city. “Let’s go to Seventy and Seventeenth and see what surprises Zoila has in store.”
“You don’t want anything to prejudice you?” queried Manolo as he slotted the aerial back in place.
“Hey, man, just give me a break. Leave the aerial in peace, we’ll be getting out in a minute.”
Manolo carried on as if he’d heard nothing, and while the Count got in the car he put the aerial back. He knew the lieutenant was beginning to get on edge and that it was best to ignore him. You don’t want to know what I’m thinking? Well, I won’t tell you and stick that… But I am thinking lots of things, he said loudly as the car sped up Línea towards the tunnel, and the Count scrawled some notes on his battered writing pad. He started playing with the catch on his pen again and without so much as a by your leave switched off the car radio Manolo had turned on. Nonetheless, Sergeant Manolo confessed he preferred working with his half-neurotic lieutenant and had reached that conclusion when he was a greenhorn cop assigned to a team investigating the theft of various pictures from the National Museum and the forensic worker in the group had said: “Look, the guy who just arrived is the Count. He’s in charge of this operation. Don’t be put off by anything he says, because he’s crazy, but he’s a good guy and I think he’s the best detective we’ve got” as Manolo saw for himself on several occasions.
“And might I know your thoughts on the matter?” asked the sergeant, staring at the road ahead.
“No.”
“You in crisis, my friend?”
“Yeah, sure. On the verge of a nervous breakdown. Well, I know Rafael Morín and can smell where this is coming from, but there are lots of loose ends and I don’t want to prejudge anything.”