Havana Black: A Lieutenant Mario Conde Mystery by Leonardo Padura

Author:Leonardo Padura [Padura, Leonardo]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781904738152
Amazon: B00BRAW8WU
Barnesnoble: B00BRAW8WU
Goodreads: 679747
Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press
Published: 1998-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

The feeling of febrile possession expressed by that song communicated, more than any other poem, more than many other words he sought and feverishly rehearsed, his longing for permanence: he always wanted his women to carry the trace of his love eternally, like a pleasurable taste on the lips. Unfortunately, it was usually soon forgotten, while the Count suffered and abandoned his boleros until another bacterial process of chronic, fatal infatuation began.

That afternoon, treacherously, the policeman felt a desire to sing a bolero, even though he knew any possibility of falling in love was remote. Miriam could never have been the woman to provoke the sensation of helplessness that love inspired in him, though he wouldn’t have hesitated a second before bedding her anywhere the blonde showed the slightest sign of letting him or wanting it. He liked her thighs, liked her guile and latent fears, but above all he liked her eyes, the eyes of a predatory animal conjured up by another old bolero – “. . . that’s why on beaches/they say there are sirens/with grey eyes/deep as the ocean” – in a situation where, if he remembered it clearly, line by line, note by note, he, the Count, could never have sung it: because he was not and would not be in love with Miguel Forcade’s widow, fluttering her eyelashes as she spoke, in apparent disenchantment: “I never imagined Miguel could have done such things. Did he really sell a fake picture?” she asked, fanning herself with her hand, as if the intense heat had caught her by surprise.

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 wonderful: 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.

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