Opening Scenes – Mystery

     Police Lieutenant Enrique Cienfuegos tapped his foot on the terra cotta tile beneath his patio table when Havana’s Radio Rebelde broke into an up-tempo version of El Manicero.  The small jazz group he sat in with on weekends had played the same tune the night before at a local club, and he still had the beat running through his head.

     With one hand he balanced the morning edition of Granma open in front of him and with the other he reached for a sip of cafecito.  A light breeze rattled the newspaper, folding the top page over and covering the story he was reading.  He looked up at the high, feathery clouds.  There would be rain in the afternoon.  Not unusual for the fall, but neither the newspaper, nor Cuban state radio would mention rain in the forecast.  No one wanted to dampen the spirits of the tourists who were beginning to arrive in numbers in Puerto Morales, and on the more popular Varadero beaches just down the coast.

Passed the bougainvilleas that grew wild in the courtyard, Enrique heard a muffled string of epithets coming from under the hood of the black and white Lada that served as the station’s patrol car.  Private Domingo was fervently pleading with most of the known Catholic saints to help him coerce the aging Russian automobile into running again.

“Double!”  A black and white domino banged down on the metal table next to him.  Sergeant Orlando and three of the men were on their second game of the morning, and Enrique overlooked the fact that they were gambling.  No one could afford to bet more than a few centavos anyway.

Out of the corner of his eye, he checked the men’s complexions.  Several of them had reported in sick just a day after they started a series of flu vaccinations.  The shots were ordered by the Ministry of Health in Havana, but Enrique hated needles.  He made sure he was out of the office when the health service doctor paid them a visit, just in case something like this happened.  The men who were still healthy would take up their duties after they finished their morning coffee.

Thankfully, nothing else was happening to disrupt a calm morning.  The sun had just started to peek over the red tiled roofs of the cinder block and brown stucco buildings making up the Puerto Morales police station.  Overhead, the tops of the royal palms leaned and swayed gracefully with the promise of weather.  Maybe it wouldn’t be such a hot one today.

“What’s in the paper, Quique?” Orlando asked.

     “You should address me as ‘Lieutenant’ in front of the men, Sergeant.”  He gave Orlando a mock-smile, to show he was at least half-kidding.  He wanted to maintain a certain level of discipline, if he could get it without making too many demands.

“Oooh,” the other men whistled in unison.  “Que malo.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Orlando said.  AI meant to say, “What’s in the paper today, Lieutenant Quique?’”  The men laughed.

“That’s better.”  Enrique didn’t bother to hide his grin.  He had gotten his point across and he didn’t mind it when the men used his nickname, if it didn’t happen too often.  He carefully folded the newspaper over and set it on the table.

“The news today on the Island of Cuba is inspiring, as usual.  Sugar production is up sixteen percent over last year, and crimes of theft, which officially don’t exist, are down four and one-half percent.”

He chose not to mention that the source of the information for the newspaper story was the Cuban Ministry of the Interior.  As far as he knew, none of the men at his station was aware that his father was the minister, and he preferred it that way.

“If sugar production is up again,” Corporal Mollete said, “why can’t we get any in Puerto Morales?”

“Dollars,” said Corporal Guajiro.  “Dollars.  All Cuban sugar is being shipped overseas to the Germans and the Canadians, in exchange for what they call ‘hard currency.’  Not the miserable peso.

“And what do we do with this so-called hard currency?” One of the men asked.

“I know what we do with it.”  The sergeant spoke as earnestly as if he had just come from a party meeting in Havana.  AI have it on good authority that Fidel rolls each one of those dollar bills up real tight.” He pantomimed with his hands.  “Then he uses them, one at a time, to light his cigars.”