Havana Gold by Leonardo Padura Read Free Book Online Page A

recently everyone was saying they were sorry and that the woman’s voice was still as charming and confident as when she’d stated publicly that long hair down to the jaw best suited an angular face. “I’m finishing an article I have to give in tomorrow. Is that time all right?”
    â€œOf course it is. We’ll be there. Goodbye,” he answered, checking his watch and seeing it was barely three-thirty. He hung up and walked back to the car, as Manolo started the engine.
    â€œWell, what did she say?” he asked sticking his head out of his window.
    â€œNot till seven.”
    â€œBlast her,” responded Manolo hitting the steering wheel with both hands. He’d already told the Count he’d
be going out tonight with Adriana his current girlfriend, a mulatto with the firmest butt you ever did touch, tits that got you horny and a face to . . . you know what. Look what she’s done to me, he’d said, opening his arms, blaming his latest sexual conquest for the irretrievable deterioration in his physique.
    â€œCome on, drop me home and pick me up at six-thirty,” suggested Lieutenant Mario Conde, thinking he was not prepared to bus it to Casino Deportivo because Manolo had a desperate need to finger Adriana’s backside.
    The car drove off down the black slope of Red Square towards the grimy 10 October Highway.
    â€œCall your lady-love and tell her you’ll see her at nine. Caridad will be a quicky,” suggested Conde attempting to relieve his colleague’s frustrations.
    â€œI don’t have any option, do I? Why don’t we go to see that Dagmar woman?”
    Conde looked at the notebook where Manolo had jotted down the teacher’s address.
    â€œI’d rather not do anything until we’ve spoken to the girl’s mother. Why don’t you ring Dagmar and see her tomorrow? I need you to look into something else. Go to headquarters and have a word with the Drugs people. Try to speak to Captain Cicerón. I need them to tell me all they know about marijuana in this area and to analyse what turned up in Lissette’s lavatory. There are several very strange things about this case and I’m most
interested in the remnants of marijuana in the lavatory. It was really real amateurish to leave something behind like that.”
    Manolo waited for the lights to change on Acosta and then said: “They didn’t steal anything either.”
    â€œYes, if only a couple of things had gone missing, we could think that was the motive.”
    â€œHey, Conde, are we really going to finish early?”
    The lieutenant smiled.
    â€œYou’re worse than a bedbug with insomnia.”
    â€œConde, your problem is you’ve never seen Adriana.”
    â€œFuck, Manolo, if it’s not Adriana, it’s her sister, you’re always at it.”
    â€œNo, my friend, this time, it’s special. Just imagine if I’m thinking of getting married. You don’t believe me? I swear by my mother . . .”
    The Count smiled because he couldn’t for the life of him recall how often Manolo had made the same pledge. It was astonishing that his mother was still among the living after he’d invoked her so often. He looked out at the Highway, packed with people desperately trying to catch a bus to return home to lives that rarely managed to be normal. After so many years working in the police he’d got used to seeing people as potential suspects whose wretched existences he’d have to scavenge, like a carrion crow, only to uncover tons of heaving hatred, fear, envy and frustration. None of the people he got
to know on any investigation was ever happy, and that absence of happiness, now also impacting on his own life, seemed a sentence that was too long and wearisome for him to bear, and the idea of leaving his job began to shape into a firm decision. After all, he thought, what a joke: me putting order into other people’s lives,