“Well, fuck me, just as well, it looks like rain. Come on, you up there, the one who doesn’t want to be the great policeman. Tell me, where are we at now?”
“Well, Conde…”
“We now know the medallion is Alexis’s and that opens up two possibilities: he put it there or someone did who must be the murderer. Well, who could have put it there?”
“It wasn’t Maria Antonia, because she wouldn’t have rung, or Matilde, because she was the only one who knew the difference between the two.”
“Faustino?”
“No, Conde, for fuck’s sake. He’s his father. They had their problems, but you’re prejudiced against the guy. Hey, give me a cigarette.”
“Then we must assume the murderer is a stranger who entered the house to put the medallion there.”
“Well, that must be it, I guess. The day of the wake and burial the house was left empty.”
“Don’t be crazy, Manolo. What would be the point?”
“To put us off track. What about that cigarette?”
“Here you are… But the murderer didn’t know the medallions were different, or even that there were two of them, right?”
“No, I suspect he didn’t. But if it wasn’t Alexis who put it there, it must have been an acquaintance of his.”
“And where does that leave your theory that the murderer didn’t throw the corpse into the river because nobody would ever connect him with Alexis?”
“Sure, it doesn’t square… But what if Alexis, who certainly knew they were different, told Salvador, or another of his lovers?.. . Just as well it’s raining, perhaps it will cool down… Over the last few days several people have visited the house: the gardener, yesterday; the gas fitter, on Thursday; Matilde’s doctor, three times after Alexis died; five, seven, eight people from Matilde and Faustino’s families before and after the funeral; Alexis’s two poofy friends, Jorge Arcos and Abilio Arango, right…? Some thirteen people all told.”
“Too many. But a good crew, don’t you reckon!”
“Yes, though the doctor had more opportunities than the others, don’t you think?”
“Of course, one day he stayed with Matilde until she fell asleep. But why did Salvador K. go into hiding?”
“Yes, he’s the jackpot winner so far, don’t you think?”
“Conde, the fitter guy was new. Could it have been Salvador?”
“Don’t be crazy, Manolo, don’t get too far-fetched. Just imagine all the coincidences necessary for Salvador to hear the oven needs fixing, to decide to substitute for the fitter, put the medallion in place, and fix the cooker while he’s about it!”
“Conde, you’ve seen greater coincidences… Anyway, if he’s scarpered, it’s because he’s got dirt on his hands.”
“Sure enough. And we’ve got the page of the Bible Alexis annotated and hid in the Pinera book… ‘God the Father, why do you force him to suffer so much?’… What does that mean?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“Don’t be crazy, Manolo, it’s easy: Alexis is suffering and feels solidarity with a fellow sufferer, right?”
“Yes, very touching, but just tell me one thing: why did he put the page in that book?”
“Because he’d already decided to dress up in Electra’s gear… He wanted to set up his own tragedy… That sounds queer enough, doesn’t it?”
“If you who know about these things say so… And what about the coins? Have you forgotten them?”
“Of course not, but I’ve not got the slightest fucking clue about them. What say you, Mr Genius?”
“I told you: they were paying him something back.”
“But what was it all about… Fuck, was it blackmail?”
“How the hell do I know? While you’re at it, what do you reckon about Maria Antonia?”
“Tona, black and swift… I don’t know what to think: that black woman knows much more than she gives away. Why do you think she called the Marquess and set up this complication over the medallion?”
“So we’d find out.”
“OK. Then it’s because she knows something…”
“Shall we bring her in?”
“Don’t be crazy, Manolo, your idea is to solve everything by putting the screws on people. If it were that easy, she’d have called us. I think it’s going to rain all afternoon, don’t you?”
“Yes, look at the sky over your place… Well, what are we going to do till Salvador appears and tells us he left home because he couldn’t stand his wife any more?”
“What are we going to do? Well think on it, what else can we do? Think like the couple of thinkers we are… Now drop me off at home, sharpish!”
He wanted to believe the rain cleaning his windowpanes also cleaned his mind and helped him think. That’s why he was thinking, with the blurred, slippery image from his dream at the forefront of his mind, trying to get mentally exercised so he could pull away the mask behind which the truth was hiding. It was always truth. Irksome truth always hidden or transfigured: sometimes behind words, at others behind attitudes and sometimes even behind an entire life simulated and redesigned merely to hide or transfigure the truth. But he now knew it was there and he only needed an idea, a light like a spotlight able to illuminate his mind and get at the fucking truth. Truth is, he told himself, as he thought more and more, I’d like to see Polly Sparrow-bun again, God, how horrible, he remembered, and though he felt a desire to masturbate he rigorously denied himself that individualist, self-sufficient solution, now that little butt was real and tangible, not tonight, but on Sunday, she’d agreed, because on Saturday I’m going to the ballet, you know, and if it cleared up he’d take the opportunity to go to Eligio Riego’s poetry reading, and could perhaps talk to the reader, and he also thought it was a long, long time since he’d seen Skinny and that he must tell him about his first-rate encounter with the mad item who’d extracted all the semen stored in his body, as she said: “God, how horrible!” as if it were all a big mistake. What would Dulcita be like after living so long in Miami? Perhaps she’d put on weight and look like a housewife, or wear those shiny clothes all Miami people wore, or perhaps she wouldn’t, and she’d still have those beautiful legs whose distant reaches he’d tried to observe – he knew she had the tightest of butts, Skinny had told him – when his friend wasn’t looking. If she was still pretty, perfect and nice, was it right she should see poor Carlos like that? If only everything could be like it was then and Skinny were thin again! If God existed, where the hell had he been the day Skinny was wounded, why Skinny?… Who was it? Salvador? The doctor? Faustino? The kitchen fitter? Or perhaps one of the other ten people in the house that day? And why do I never think the Marquess might be implicated? A debt collector hired by the dramatist? Don’t get fanciful, Conde, he told himself. I could almost see him, for fuck’s sake, but he was all right there, after eating two fried fish and a piece of bread and downing more coffee, not thinking how if he didn’t buy some more he wouldn’t have any left on Monday, because everything improved with the cool brought on by rain that didn’t look as if it would stop. What would Fatman Contreras be thinking as he watched the rain? Poor Fatman, if I could consult him, he’d surely say he could help. That bastard was a good policeman. Now without Fatman and old Captain Jorrin, whose death the Count still lamented, a policeman’s job would be more difficult. Who could he consult when he had doubts? And where had they hidden Maruchi? What can have happened afterwards between the Marquess and the Other Boy with the unmentionable name, deported to Havana for being such a queer? He needed the Marquess to tell him the end of that adventure in which each chapter became more personal and less transvestite. Would he tell me who the Other Boy was and if he’d really peeped the day he peed in his house? What he really needed to know, he thought as he watched the water running down the panes of glass, drank a drop more coffee, lit another cigarette and looked at his watch concluding he had plenty of time to go and ingest a few of Eligio Riego’s poems that night, what he really needed to know was the end of the story of Alexis Arayan, so masked and dead in the dirty grass of the Havana Woods, pursuing a death he didn’t dare prosecute with his own hands, faking divine retribution, crossing his own Calvary without fame or heaven, a sacrifice made to measure for his sinful homosexuality, wrapped tragically in the clothing of a Havanan Electra. What a good fucker you are, darling…! Was it true? Nobody had ever said that before, at least not like that. And how much truth was there in what the Marquess said? In this world only Skinny told the truth, and even he didn’t always tell his friend the truth. Would Faustino Arayan tell the truth? And black Maria Antonia? And could it be true that he, Mario Conde, was befriending pansied, theatrical Alberto Marques? The truth might be the bus driver with a bus-driver’s face he’d seen that morning, hitting the steering wheel with his ring, deciding whether or not to open the door to that girl begging, leaping up and down in front of the bus. What might happen later between those two people who were strangers and perhaps would never have met if the red light hadn’t stopped the bus at that exact moment? Was it a chance coincidence? The rain was still falling, streaming softly down the panes like ideas through the Count’s mind, as he looked at his hands and thought, after so much thinking, that the only truth was there and in the river sweeping everything along.