“Day after tomorrow. At the Jewish cemetery in Guanabacoa.”

“I know it.”

My route back home from the National took me right past the Casa Marina again. And this time I went in.

Chapter 16

16

THE FOLLOWING MORNING WAS BRIGHT but windy, and half the winter sea was crashing down on the Malecón, like a deluge sent by a God saddened at the wickedness of mankind. I woke early, thinking that I would have liked to sleep longer and probably would have done so, except for the fact that the phone was ringing. Suddenly everyone in Havana seemed to want to speak to me.

It was Captain Sánchez.

“How’s the great detective this morning?”

He sounded like he didn’t much like the idea of my playing the sleuth for Lansky. I wasn’t too happy about it myself.

“Still in bed,” I said. “I had a late night.”

“Interviewing suspects?”

I thought of the girls at the Casa Marina and the way Doña Marina, who also ran a chain of lingerie stores across Havana, liked it when you asked her girls lots of questions before deciding which one to take up to the third floor. “You could say that.”

“Think you’re going to find the killer today?”

“Probably not today,” I said. “Wrong kind of weather for it.”

“You’re right,” said Sánchez. “It’s a day for finding bodies, not the people who killed them. Suddenly we’ve got corpses all over Havana. There’s one in the harbor at the petrochemical works in Regla.”

“Am I an undertaker? Why tell me?”

“Because he was driving a car when he went into the water. Not just any car, mind you. This is a big red Cadillac Eldorado. A convertible.”

I closed my eyes for a second. Then I said, “Waxey.”

“We wouldn’t have found him at all but for the fact that a fishing boat dragging its anchor snagged the car’s bumper and pulled it up to the surface. I’m just on my way over to Regla now. I was thinking that maybe you’d like to come along.”

“Why not? It’s been a while since I went fishing.”

“Be outside your apartment building in fifteen minutes. We’ll drive over there together. On the way maybe I can pick up a few tips from you on how to be a detective.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done that.”

“I was joking,” he said stiffly.

“Then you’re off to a great start, Captain. You’ll need a sense of humor if you’re going to be a good detective. That’s my first tip.”