Conde stayed silent, waiting for Matilde to reply, and glanced at Yoyi to tell him to keep quiet.
“All right then,” Matilde finally said, putting the last packets in the bag and hanging it over her shoulder: “I’ll be back soon.”
When she left, Conde and Yoyi walked into the middle of the room and saw the smile on Carmen’s face.
“I didn’t say anything to Matilde about the money you gave me yesterday. If I tell her, it’ll disappear like that. You know, there’s never…”
“That money was for you,” replied the Count, giving approval of Carmen’s precaution and raising her hopes of another little sum at the end of today’s conversation.
“What else do you want to know?” the elderly woman asked and Conde congratulated himself on the way he’d played it. “I told you all there is to know yesterday…”
“There are two or three things… Did you know the children of Nemesia, Alcides’s secretary?”
“She had two, boy and girl, but I never saw them. They lived in Alcides’s house and, obviously I never got an invite there.”
“What was Alcides and Nemesia’s relationship like?”
“I told you… She saw to his paperwork and the house, particularly after he was widowed. She was a highly intelligent woman, very cultured, but rather harsh on everybody, except Alcides, naturally…”
“And that’s all?” the Count persisted.
“What else do you know then?” Carmen responded, somewhat taken aback.
“Nothing really,” Conde admitted. “I don’t know anything…”
The elderly woman hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment.
“Lina told me that Alcides was the father of Nemesia’s son. They were very young when it happened. The family decided the best thing was to marry Nemesia Moré off to Alcides’s chauffeur, so he’d have his surname. Then the daughter was born, but Alcides swore she wasn’t his, although Lina didn’t believe him. According to her, she was his spitting image. They paid the chauffeur a hundred pesos a month on top of his wage to keep his mouth shut. The strange thing is that the chauffeur disappeared one fine day, as if the earth had swallowed him up, and nothing was heard of him again…”
Conde weighed up Carmen’s words and glanced at Yoyi.
“What do you reckon happened?”
“I can’t imagine, you know, but it was strange, wasn’t it?”
“People don’t vanish like that, particularly when they have a job that pays double the rate… unless Lansky?…” exclaimed the Count, in a flash of inspiration.
“What about Lansky?”
“When did Lansky and Alcides become friends?”
“When Lansky started to come to Cuba in the early thirties. But they started doing business together later, during the war.”
“What kind of business?”
“Alcides’s family was very influential and he knew everybody. Lansky had money he wanted to invest. That was what it was about. When the world war started, Alcides made a fortune importing lard from the United States. Lansky used his connections over there so that Alcides had a monopoly… Luciano helped them. At the time he controlled the port of New York. Alcides paid Lansky back by introducing him to the people in charge over here. The politicians and so on…”
“And what was the line of business they were pursuing in 1958, when they met in Lina’s flat? If Alcides didn’t have the same clout under Batista and Lansky wasn’t exactly popular in the United States…”
“I wouldn’t know about-”
“Oh, yes, you would… It was fifty years ago, Carmen. They’re all dead and can’t get you now. I’m sure it was something important… They shattered a man’s hand because they thought he was trying to find out what they were up to.”
“The journalist?”
“That’s right. What was it?”
“I don’t know, but they were hatching something.”
“As well as hotels and gambling?”
“Yes, as well.”
“Drugs?”
The elderly woman shook her head vigorously.
“Carmen,” said the Count, playing his last card, “it’s probably why they killed your friend Violeta… They staged the suicide, but that fooled no one. Not even the police… Not even you… But Violeta was your friend and you kept your head down…”
The elderly woman looked down at her withered arm. “Is it her arm or her conscience that’s giving her pain?” wondered Conde. When she looked up her expression had changed.
“No, Alcides wouldn’t have let them. He was a son of a bitch, but he loved Violeta. Nobody killed her because of what she knew…”
“You sure Alcides wasn’t involved in trafficking drugs?”
“Alcides wouldn’t have got into that, and Lansky, who was boss of everything the mafia did here, got a percentage, but wasn’t personally involved. Drugs were Santo Trafficante’s preserve, the son; Lansky was intent on becoming a businessman, and wanted to live without the police on his back, like his friend Luciano, who had a taste of prison, was booted out of the United States and had to leave for Sicily, where his life was worth next to nothing. The Jew cultivated his image in Cuba as if it were sacred and avoided anything that might tarnish it. Besides, with all the plans he had for building hotels and casinos that were going to make millions and millions, all above board, he couldn’t take risks with anything dicey. But he let others get on with it and raked in his commission…”
“So what were they both hatching that was so secret? If all their business was above board…”
“I can’t help you there, though it might have something to do with politics.”
Conde glanced at Yoyi, as if looking for support. Such an idea fell outside all the scenarios they’d dreamt up so far: it lit up the void at the centre of that drama.
“Yes, that’s possible… that’s why they were acting so furtively. But what exactly?”
“They talked a lot about Batista, and never had a kind word for him. They thought he was going to fuck up. Alcides loathed him, and Lansky said he was a shark, a bottomless pit as far as money went, the country was slipping out of his hands and he was going to fuck up their big plans.”
“Right, which is what he did,” the Count thought aloud, adrift in a sea of ideas and possibilities.
“He was intent on winning the war and lost,” commented Yoyi, unable to maintain his enforced silence any longer. “Lansky and Alcides had to leave and lost a fortune… In the end Batista messed it all up for them.”
Conde looked at Yoyi, remembering he was like a tiger out on the street but that he tended to forget he’d been to university and that something must have rubbed off on the way.
“While we’re at it, Carmen,” said Conde, more gently. “Why did you change your name and disappear from the register of addresses?”
The elderly woman looked at the Count and then at Yoyi. She smiled mischievously.
“There are things best left forgotten… Did you realize I met your father?”
Surprised by this change of subject from Carmen, Conde tried to stop her predictable drift.
“My father’s not the subject of this conversation,” he tried to fob her off.
“Don’t worry, there’s nothing to get so upset about… Your father was always going to hear Violeta sing and started to knock it back, until he fell off his chair. I twice saw him being dragged out of the club. He was a coward and never had the courage to approach Violeta. I talked to him two or three times, I felt sorry for him. The poor wretch was like a lovesick puppy… He kept hovering around Violeta until someone told him if he wanted to keep walking on two legs he’d better not show up again when she was singing. I never saw him again after that…”
Conde felt each word score his skin, but decided it wasn’t the moment to let himself be bowled over by discoveries he couldn’t cope with.
“I’m sorry for my father’s sake… But you’ve not told me why you changed your name…”